cplchanb
Senior Member
At this rate you might as well convert it to a BRT... infrastructure is already there
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- Thread starter Monarch Butterfly
- Start date
Bordercollie
Senior Member
No foresight. Not really commited to the success of the project being successful. Designed by people who don't use transit
hw621
Senior Member
Admiral Beez
Superstar
How hard can this be even with the setup we have. Put a damn plow on the front of a LRT or service car. Here’s Zurich, for example.
And assign teams at every necessary switch to ensure they’re operational. Like it’s done everywhere else it snows.
Category:Point heating – Wikimedia Commons
afransen
Senior Member
Sunday should be interesting.
Burnt creek
Active Member
2026 is the 50th anniversary of the Montreal Olympics. A project in which expenditures in capital cost & operating expense are estimated to have been in the range of 1.6 Billion CAD; that is in 1970's dollars. So in today's dollars that is obviously much higher than the public expenditures in FW LRT. Over the years, I have read a lot great stuff on the Montreal Olympics (most of the good material is in French). And, If we had a Hollywood in Canada, there would be movies done on this because the whole story of the Montreal Olympics had everything in terms of drama and gripping stories. It had an eccentric/oblivious mayor, wide spread corruption, unions that were run by thugs with links to organized crime, extortion through worker strikes, politics and the touch and go race to the finished line which nearly resulted in completed cancelation of the 76 Olympics. There were first hand stories of workers checking in with a handful of punch cards then leaving the worksite only to return at the end of the shift to punch out all those punch cards. There were stories of equipment arriving on site & incurring very high daily costs but sat idle for many month until they could be used.
Obviously the FWLRT project had no such stories that we are aware off. But if you look at the long term value delivered by the two projects, then the comparisons get interesting. The last dollar of debt from the Montreal Olympics was paid off in 2006 and the $1.6 Bill are long ago sunk costs but there is still infrastructure from the Montreal Olympics that is present today and it is still delivering value to the community & City. You cannot use ROI to compare these kind of projects because you need to be able to monetize the total return and you cant do that with with a public good because we are talkin about intangible assets mostly. But Centre Claude Robillard is still around, as is the Olympic village (now Residential apartments), the Velodrome (now Biodome), Olympic pool...etc. You can't deny value here even if you can't monetize it and these assets have been delivering ongoing value for over 20 yrs after the last cent of debt was paid off
But if the FWLRT delivered the same long term value, then what is it? i cant figure it out because the current asset delivers less value than the pre-existing asset. In other words, I do not see a legacy from this project. Whereas you can for the 76 Olympics. So its an interesting debate, what is the bigger boondoggle?
Obviously the FWLRT project had no such stories that we are aware off. But if you look at the long term value delivered by the two projects, then the comparisons get interesting. The last dollar of debt from the Montreal Olympics was paid off in 2006 and the $1.6 Bill are long ago sunk costs but there is still infrastructure from the Montreal Olympics that is present today and it is still delivering value to the community & City. You cannot use ROI to compare these kind of projects because you need to be able to monetize the total return and you cant do that with with a public good because we are talkin about intangible assets mostly. But Centre Claude Robillard is still around, as is the Olympic village (now Residential apartments), the Velodrome (now Biodome), Olympic pool...etc. You can't deny value here even if you can't monetize it and these assets have been delivering ongoing value for over 20 yrs after the last cent of debt was paid off
But if the FWLRT delivered the same long term value, then what is it? i cant figure it out because the current asset delivers less value than the pre-existing asset. In other words, I do not see a legacy from this project. Whereas you can for the 76 Olympics. So its an interesting debate, what is the bigger boondoggle?
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Burnt creek
Active Member
Forgot to mention. I think it might have taken less time to build all the infrastructure for the Montreal Olympics (including the Big O) than it took to complete the FWLRT (i.e.: Streetcar)
Jm gravel
New Member
At least Line 5 isn’t open yet…so won’t have to deal with Sunday’s snow….
urbanclient
Active Member
I'd rather rip the band-aid off sooner than later. They can iterate, even shut down the line for further changes if they need to after initial opening.
This Canadian procrastination culture of performative perfectionism masquerading as quality control needs to stop. These projects are never perfect, no matter how long the delays.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Yes, low floor vehicles typically have lower capacity than high floor that have the same footprint (because if the wheels can't go under the floor they take space in the compartment). No, high floor platforms are not cheaper because making them high requires more than a concrete pad (a) there needs to be engineering to ensure the platform doesn't collapse, (b) it takes more material to build high platforms, and (c) stairs and ramps to get up and down from the platform need to be built. The ramp would probably be as long as the platform you think would be saved.
lastcommodore
New Member
On the topic of ramps and boarding height, (Preface I am not exactly an expert on these things)
Line 6 Finch West already has a variety of ramps for its stops because LRVs cannot be level-boarded from curb height. The ramps range from about 7m to 20m (wow! at Duncanwoods) based on aerial. Based on my VERY ROUGH assessment, i'd wager the stops have about 13m on average, and none of the shorter ramps seem to have been due to any restraints that would have made it problematic if the ramp was longer.
For reference, at maximum permissible ramp grade of 1:12, the ramp to the TOR boarding of 355mm for LRVs is 4m, and at the lowest end at 1:20, 7m. Anything below 1:20 doesn't need a landing, so that's why the longer ramps don't have them.
If 6 was built at high floor standards a la subway with a TOR of 1105, you could either do a 1:12 ramp at 13.3m + one intermediate landing or a 1:21 ramp at 23m. So, more realistically if you did 1:12 + a landing, you'd hit about 15m overall.
I don't think this is a significant problem. I don't think there are any stops on 6FW that are technically restricted from being extended another 8 metres at the most, and some exceed this length already.
TL;DR 6FW already has ramps from 7 to 20m, a high floor vehicle (1105mm above TOR) would need minimum ~15m ramp, they would both have level boarding and accessibility, and there's not really any technical limitations at any stops that I know of that would prevent it from working.
sidenote/edit can we please stop penny-pinching about perhaps the cheapest part of this line- the length of the platforms- when literally every other part of this line has been overbuilt
urbanclient
Active Member
Are you equating the cost increase from a 5 metre to 10 metre ramp (see Line 6 vs. LA Metro rail screenshots from earlier) of roughly the same slope and a higher platform with the cost increase from a 70 to 90 metre long platform? For an underground station, a 20 metre longer station box costs significantly more than raising the platform from 47 to 56 cm higher from ~33 cm up to 80 and 89 cm (Flexity Freedom vs. Vancouver Skytrain vs. Calgary CTrain Siemens S200). You're comparing second-order vertical costs of platform height and ramps to first-order horizontal costs of station box excavation, fit-out etc... Ramp lengths are a rounding error in the wider context of things.
Someone else please chime in. The cost for underground stations is overwhelmingly driven by how long and wide the station box is (structure, waterproofing, ventilation, fire safety systems, finishes etc.), not the height of the platform, and it's not even close. For elevated viaduct stations the gap narrows, but platform length is still the main cost driver such that shorter platforms are still cheaper. Even then, elevated stations were out of the question for Finch West and Eglinton.
If I am understanding you wrong, and you mean for at-grade only: at-grade stops narrow the gap further because major fixed costs are gone, but platform length still scales linearly with cost, while platform height still has a weaker cost effect. I would go as far as to say for the relatively short platforms of ~50 metres for Finch West, at-grade low platforms are very likely cheaper. Even then, Finch West's underground and trenched terminus stations were something like 40% of the costs. Again, making shorter platforms a huge cost savings, but still unclear if low or high platforms would've been cheaper for the overall line. Moving away from just costs, whether low or high platforms would've been more suitable is another question. I do think low platforms were more suite for Line 6 in its current 10 km, frequent stopping form.
But note for all cases (at-grade, underground, elevated) the entire volume of a platform is usually not solid concrete. A lot of the inside can be fill or empty space. Beyond materials you also have to account for the cost of taking up more of the ROW, construction staging, and the fact that a longer stop/station length can disrupt utilities over a larger area.
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EnviroTO
Senior Member
Underground stations are made more expensive when you dig out more and build bigger. Length of train plays a factor, platform height does not.
High-floor stations are made more expensive by building more platform or structures to support the station. It will never be as expensive as the underground station, and if it is simply a raised platform (no structures) then that would be pretty cheap
At grade low-floor stops are even cheaper... it can be as little as a sidewalk and a sign.
High-floor stations are made more expensive by building more platform or structures to support the station. It will never be as expensive as the underground station, and if it is simply a raised platform (no structures) then that would be pretty cheap
At grade low-floor stops are even cheaper... it can be as little as a sidewalk and a sign.
nfitz
Superstar
But only the 38th anniversary of the completion of construction of the Olympic Stadium.
An odd claim. Perhaps you are thinking of a different LRT line? The contract for Finch West was awarded in 2018, and it opened in 2025 - about 3 years (and Covid) late. The Montreal stadium was scheduled to be completed in 1972 (how I don't know, given the games were only awarded in 1970), but construction lasted until 1987, with the retractable roof not being commissioned until 1988.
Hopefully the Finch West LRT lasts longer than the retractable roof for the Olympic stadium - which was decommissioned in 1992, and removed in 1998.
Westey
New Member
If you count the big-O roof then count the LRT connection to YYZ.