[urbanclient]

The high floor vehicles in Europe are very old equipment that are now been replace by low floor. Some high floor trams have had an centre section added to them, but all high floor vehicles have steeps to the low platform.

the inflection point where the majority of tram lines became low floor was very recent for Europe. [...] high floor is the legacy default. [...] I say all this still recognizing that the general trend is a move towards low trams mostly fuelled by compliance with accessibility standards. This is for new lines and retrofitting old ones.

Please read carefully before replying. Inflection point means that there is a long term trend towards low floor, given that all tram lines in the past were high floor. Low floors did not exist before the first partial low floor tram entered service in 1984 in Geneva (correct me if I am wrong on the date and location). Not to mention everything else I said.

https://www.uitp.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2025/04/Statistics_Brief_-LTR-update.pdf
https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/light-rail/light-rail-sees-strong-growth-in-europe-uitp-says/

As one who has ridden 26 systems in Europe, they were all low floor systems with a fair number still having high floor trams that are slowly been replace by low floor trams since they are 50-90 years old. I may have miss a few lines that maybe high floor line since I never had the time to ride every line in the cities network. Phoenix and Minneapolis are the only US system I been on the use high floor LRV's that have platforms for them.

We cannot go off personal anecdotes and vibes if we want to make strong, reasoned conclusions. Based on your personal experience of 26 systems, you thought high floors were nearly non-existent in Europe. That is just not true. Those stats count partial ≥30% as low floor as well. The 100% low floor that Metrolinx and many people on Urban Toronto love so much are a statistically smaller percentage even in Europe.

They're not changing all high floors on the planet to all 100% low floor, even if that is the current trend. Many stadtbahn lines will likely always be high floor. TTC streetcars, Lines 5, 6, 10 + Ottawa Lines 1&3 are 100% low floor.

nfitz asked how high-floor would make these trams faster.

urbanclient is saying that all else equal, low-floor vehicles are less capable in terms of acceleration and turning.

I have seen plenty of evidence that low-floor trams are inherently less capable at acceleration and turning than high-floor due to smaller wheels and fixed or less-than-capable pivoting bogies. I have not heard any counter to this.

I concur.

 

[Bojaxs]

Ok great. So low floors work elsewhere. Make them work here. Thanks.

Why? Why should we spend any more time, effort, and money trying to get low floors to work?

Instead, why not just use proven tech that we already know works? High floor LRTs work in Canada ( Calgary, Edmonton). Build them!

I don't care what Europe does. Look at what city councilors with Europhile tendencies have achieved with Ottawa's Line 1.

 

[urbanclient]

Look at what city councilors with Europhile tendencies have achieved with Ottawa's Line 1.

That's the funny thing, the authorities in Ontario just copy+paste the superficial features of low floor trams in Europe, but beef it up with overbuilding like platforms and stations that don't even block the wind, beef up the consortium's Christmas bonuses too.

So none of the cost-savings, all of the inherent weaknesses.

Nowhere in Europe or the rest of the World for that matter, do you see 97 metre long, low floor consists. Let alone on a fully grade-separated line that operates as a metro / subway.
It'll go down in history as one of the most braindead transit decisions in human history. Ottawa literally runs the longest low floor tram consists on the planet, on what is a metro in everything but name.

While we're at it, can a low floor idealist breakdown why exactly Hurontario should have low floor vehicles in hindsight, given that it has wider stop spacing than Line 2 Bloor?

 

[urbanclient]

But if low floors become the standard and you put in high floors which are on the way out you risk having bespoke technology on your next order.

Do the bare minimum, ask google 'are high floor trams still being manufactured' or heck 'are high floor trams on the way out'. So threads don't get derailed when people have to correct unknowledgeable people making prejudiced assumptions without even trying to inform themselves first. Search engines and LLMs exist for a reason. I know you intend to argue in good faith, but if you don't do your due diligence it wastes others' time and spreads misinformation to those less informed.

They're not changing all high floors on the planet to all 100% low floor, even if that is the current trend. Many stadtbahn lines will likely always be high floor.

In this case, maybe try to understand the reasoning behind low floors being introduced in the first place. And why that reasoning does not affect many high floor use cases. Hint: level boarding.

one has to account how long it takes to go up and down the stairs to enter stations

Yes, and that's why I like at-grade trams for short trips. Some metro stations abroad can be buried very deep. But the whole spiel about going up stairs to enter a Skytrain station that you keep mentioning is just as applicable to going up stairs to leave TTC subway stations... It's a complete non-issue. Skytrain stations have elevators.... Most elevated metros have escalators, and virtually all, if not all have elevators....

The Skytrain is virtually always on-time, and if it's late, the automated programming can run the train faster to eliminate the delay. This does not happen on manual Line 2, 4 or 6, or Line 1 with ATC. Only fully automated systems can reasonably have a 'catch-up mode'. Not to mention 70% of the TTC operating budget is labour. The long-term savings for automation are immense, for both labour and maintenance. @sixrings check your messages so we don't derail this thread any further.

Lastly:

It’s much quicker to walk out to the middle of a road.

It really depends, a light cycle could be as long as 2 minutes (some of us have timed it for Line 6) to wait to cross to a median stop. For the larger intersections on Hurontario, it could be just as long of a wait, if not longer. Of course noone is stopping you from jaywalking.

 

[Bojaxs]

My view is I want as much bang for the buck.

So build a BRT! Cheaper than an LRT.

 

[afransen]

That's incorrect.

Low floor vehicles have faster boarding and alighting times, as the passengers don't need to climb stairs into the vehicle, which takes more time than walking on flat ground.

Now, low floor vehicles do have a disadvantage with internal circulation, sure - but that only affects boarding and alighting if the passenger loads are particularly heavy at each stop.

Dan

That's only true in the absence of proper stations with level boarding. High floor vehicles can have improved interior circulation, as well as the possibility of more and wider door openings.

 

[afransen]

I must admit level boarding is very nice versus the up and down boarding of low floors. But there had to be a reason. Whether we like the answer someone had to have thought and weighed the pros and cons for more than five minutes and came up with what they thought was best. Not what they thought was perfect. Nothing is perfect. That doesn’t make me a defender or a fanboy. That’s just an expectation I have for experts versus a random note on a napkin that we used to call smart track.

I think we started from the position that Bombardier makes low floor LRVs in Ontario and we want jobs there, so build the line using low floor LRVs. I think you give far too much credit to the conception of recent transit projects in Ontario to make appropriate and well considered engineering decisions.

Low floor vehicles are of course highly appropriate for streetcar operations, where there is not space for dedicated stops and there are too many stops to build costly level boarding stations at each one.

 

[afransen]

I believe in the Toronto case it was about accessibility. They don’t want to run a parallel service and if they could they would eliminate wheel trans. It takes a significant amount of the budget. Having a low floor lrt with relatively frequent stop spacing meets those goals. Also if they build either up or down they have to not only have escalators but they need elevators. The maintenance can’t be cheap and I’m sure that is also playing a part in these decisions.

The stop spacing could be identical on Hurontario with high floor LRVs. All you need is a slightly higher platform and a slightly longer ramp.

 

[APTA-2048]

I think we started from the position that Bombardier makes low floor LRVs in Ontario and we want jobs there, so build the line using low floor LRVs. I think you give far too much credit to the conception of recent transit projects in Ontario to make appropriate and well considered engineering decisions.

Low floor vehicles are of course highly appropriate for streetcar operations, where there is not space for dedicated stops and there are too many stops to build costly level boarding stations at each one.

This line uses low floor Citadis LRVs because that is what Metrolinx bought in case the low floor Flexities would not be delivered in time for the Eglinton line opening. With all LRVs delivered for Eglinton, Metrolinx has Citadis LRVs they paid for that need to be used somewhere.

 

[Voltz]

This line uses low floor Citadis LRVs because that is what Metrolinx bought in case the low floor Flexities would not be delivered in time for the Eglinton line opening. With all LRVs delivered for Eglinton, Metrolinx has Citadis LRVs they paid for that need to be used somewhere.

It was also that they reduced the order of Flexities to just what was needed for Eglinton, they wanted to cancel the order entirely but Bombardier fought them on it. The previous number was for 182 I think, enough for the four funded Toronto LRT’s, two of which didn’t survive the subways obsession.

I think it was more done because Metrolinx panicked over a perceived need to be seen to do something about the problems with the TTC order, and they saw an opportunity to reduce the order as two lines had sonce been cancelled. This came at a substantial cost premium and even if there were no further delays to the LRTs construction schedule it wouldn’t have been necessary.

 

[urbanclient]

Before I get strawmanned again, there are relatively fast low floor trams in Europe, but those tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Yes Line 6 is super slow even by not-so-fast low floor standards (Paris T9), but the whole point several of us have tried to make is that even if fully optimized Line 6 Finch West, and Line 10 Hurontario can probably hit ~20 km/h and ~25 km/h respectively, but will never be as fast as say the Utrecht Sneltram (27-28 km/h). Never be as efficient as Utrecht or a high floor tram or metro, all other factors being the same.

There are issues inherent with the design of the Hurontario tram ROW, as well as the low floor trams themselves that affect its acceleration, average speeds, dwell times, and operating economics.

Utrecht originally ran high floors, and the highly grade separated and often wider ROWs relative to Finch and Hurontario reflect Utrecht's original design philosophy that prioritized speed. It's not feasible to hit the same average speeds with Hurontario.

X is fast (faster than Finch and Hurontario), and is a tram--->Finch and Hurontario are also trams---->Finch and Hurontario can be just as fast as X... is a common logical fallacy on these LRT threads. It's called a false equivalence.

People are not rigorously looking into what makes faster trams faster, and what makes slower trams slower. Just a lot of vibes and assumptions. The same flawed assumptions that led to videos from the makers of Transit City assuming trams would be flying down the middle of streets like Eglinton Avenue at 80 km/h:

131K views · 1.1K reactions | Toronto Transit Commission's proposed light rail commuter trains in 2009 | Old Toronto Series

Toronto Transit Commission's proposed light rail commuter trains in 2009

www.facebook.com

^That is how the original 33km 43 stop Eglinton Crosstown was supposed to average 28 km/h despite being mostly at-grade, and having shorter stop spacing than Line 1 and Line 2, but hitting the same speeds.
https://web.archive.org/web/2021020.../Transit_City/Eglinton_LRT_route_diagram1.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20191107103209/http://www.thecrosstown.ca/fr/node/739

Disclaimer: not saying that Line 6 should be high floor. It's Hurontario that clearly should've been high floor and/or grade separated to a higher degree IMO. Look how much time they wasted building bespoke viaducts for the highway crossings and the city centre loop. Wasted time digging up the street to relocate utilities. The project grew from $5.75 billion to $6 billion from March 2025 to September 2025 alone (Metrolinx Quarterly Report), and likely won't be open until 2029 as even Mayor Parrish has said. We can only speculate as to how much the cost will increase to by opening.

 

[ShonTron]

I think this thread (and some members) can benefit from a short lockdown.

I’ll take the opportunity to prune the last few pages of posts too.

 

[ShonTron]

Unlocked. Keep it civil and on topic.