[Westey]

I've heard the duck under major intersections idea many times. If your stations are far apart, there are only stations at major intersections. So essentially you are building a line with subway stations and at-grade running, a roller coaster that maximizes costs by quintupling the cost of the stations and then energy and maintenance costs by having trains slam on the brakes to stop and stations at the bottom of a ramp, then straining the motors to climb a hill after stops. Going over major intersections is more logical, but not pretty. So eventually Why not just build a subway is the result.

Or stay elevated.

 

[Westey]

You raise a good point about having some trains running full route length while the underground sections doing a short-turn. The problem, is that such a system would significantly raise operational costs. When a system is automated, it doesn't cost a cent more to run a train every 2 minutes than every 10 except for electricity. By separating the 2 lines, the underground portion could be automated IF it has exclusive ROW on the tracks. You can't have an automated train run on the same tracks as a manually controlled one. This means that labour costs for the increased service would rise significantly. Considering how the TTC are terminally bitching about how little money it has, it should be automating lines where possible.

I suspect that the would have to a way of bypassing the at-grade portion and connecting the two ends. I don't know if this follows Lawrence and eventually joins Line B-D (Line 2). or does it go down to St. Clair and hit Warden on the B-D and Scarborough GO and Kennedy. or just follow Eglinton. In any situation, they would have to break into the tunnel near Laird and branch off with a line that soon becomes elevated the rest of the way until it joins the EELRT which started at Kennedy as elevated.
Unbelievable best-case scenario is EELRT built in 10 years. Realistic best-case-scenario it's built in 15 years.
Realistic is 20 to 25 years.
I see this being done in the 40 to 50-year time frame, by which time there may be a few ways around Eglinton (Crosstown GO, Ontario Line to Finch, Sheppard subway to Scarborough) so they can shut the line where the major construction is occurring (Laird). And by that time, most who lived through the construction will no longer be there.

 

[lastcommodore]

And you seem to be grasping for straws here. "It's not always slower than buses, sometimes it's a tad bit faster, that makes the Billions squandered totally worth it". And I've taken the FWLRT six times this month, four times in rush hour, not once has it been below 50 minutes, which is close to your bus time in rush hour. Not much better.

Sometimes i feel like a broken record (Not directed to anyone in particular), so I apologize to anyone who feels i've said this too many times but i really want to hammer in the point about 6 FW speeds... In short, it is currently bad but currently savable.

The current speeds of 6 FW are ~12.5 to 14kmh depending on the runtime (50 to 44 min). I must once again compare this to the Paris T9 which being almost entirely identical (if not less ideal given multiple bends) in rolling stock, length, stop spacing, etc. achieves 19kmh. 6FW, if ran at 19kmh avg, can make that distance in 32m, or faster than the bus that it replaced even during off-peak hours. This speed discrepancy is very clearly a problem of TTC operating procedure and TSP.

Is the line slower than the bus now? During rush hour, no. During off-peak, yes. Is it capable of being faster than the off-peak bus? Yes, without spending a dime more.

Cost, maintenance, and design are separate issues. But I have to state, "Just build it differently" is entirely useless if the operations will kneecap it as well... If a person is being an annoying sunday driver in an old toyota corolla, giving him a muscle car won't make him go much faster.

 

[hw621]

Transmania did a video on the line. The ride was 40 minutes and it seems that the LRV rarely waited at red lights.

 

[APTA-2048]

Transmania did a video on the line. The ride was 40 minutes and it seems that the LRV rarely waited at red lights.

There is a transit signal priority trial at select intersections as of today. A friend did the trip in 39 minutes.

 

[hw621]

There is a transit signal priority trial a select intersections as of today. A friend did the trip in 39 minutes.

The same video covered both Line 6 and Line 5. TBH Line 6 seems to run faster than Line 5 on the surface portion...

 

[APTA-2048]

The same video covered both Line 6 and Line 5. TBH Line 6 seems to run faster than Line 5 on the surface portion...

As far as I know, nothing has been set up on Eglinton yet.

 

[thenorth]

Transmania did a video on the line. The ride was 40 minutes and it seems that the LRV rarely waited at red lights.

There is a transit signal priority trial at select intersections as of today. A friend did the trip in 39 minutes.

Is this the video in question (I recommend watching at 2x to 4x speed)?

I counted it stopping at 10 red lights.

That said, west of Mivlan Rumike Station, I counted only one red light (at Albion Road). The remaining nine red light stops were all east of Mivan Rumike.

So I would hypothesize that signal priority was only active on the western half of the line, at least in that video.

 

[thenorth]

Is this the video in question?

I counted it stopping at 10 red lights.

That said, west of Mivlan Rumike Station, I counted only one red light (at Albion Road). The remaining nine red light stops were all east of Mivan Rumike.

So I would hypothesize that signal priority was only active on the western half of the line, at least in that video.

Assuming my hypothesis is correct, getting down to 34 minute (which was what MX expected during planning), or even 30 min end-to-end runtimes seems entirely plausible. West of Mivlan Rumike it was a very smooth and quick ride.

 

[thenorth]

Another thing to keep an eye on is whether or not the trains are still crawling through intersections, or operating slowly mid block. Any word on improvements there?

 

[hw621]

Yes

Is this the video in question (I recommend watching at 2x to 4x speed)?

I counted it stopping at 10 red lights.

That said, west of Mivlan Rumike Station, I counted only one red light (at Albion Road). The remaining nine red light stops were all east of Mivan Rumike.

So I would hypothesize that signal priority was only active on the western half of the line, at least in that video.

This is the one. I just watched the first 15 to 20 minutes. That's why I didn't see many Rd lights. Besides red lights, it seems that the train (street car) was also faster than Line 5.

 

[thenorth]

Transmania did a video on the line. The ride was 40 minutes and it seems that the LRV rarely waited at red lights.

There is a transit signal priority trial at select intersections as of today. A friend did the trip in 39 minutes.

Is this the video in question (I recommend watching at 2x to 4x speed)?

I counted it stopping at 10 red lights.

That said, west of Mivlan Rumike Station, I counted only one red light (at Albion Road). The remaining nine red light stops were all east of Mivan Rumike.

So I would hypothesize that signal priority was only active on the western half of the line, at least in that video.

Assuming my hypothesis is correct, getting down to 34 minute (which was what MX expected during planning), or even 30 min end-to-end runtimes seems entirely plausible. West of Mivlan Rumike it was a very smooth and quick ride.

Yes

This is the one. I just watched the first 15 to 20 minutes. That's why I didn't see many Rd lights. Besides red lights, it seems that the train (street car) was also faster than Line 5.

Here’s some quick maths on the average speed of the train, on the portion that presumably has signal priority implemented (Westmore to Milvan):

The train departed Westmore Station at 11:38 AM

The train arrived at Milvan Rumike at 11:52 AM

That’s 12 minutes to travel 4.7 km

Average Speed: 23.5 km/h

Now, if we extrapolate those speeds across the portion that presumably doesn’t have signal priority implemented (Milvan Rumike to Finch West), it will take 14 minutes to travel the 5.5 km.

So, between Westmore to Finch West, total travel time on the signal priority enabled line would be 26 minutes.

Note that this analysis intentionally excluded the excruciatingly slow curve between Humber College and Westmore. That portion of the trip took 3 minutes to complete (11:34 to 11:37). So if we include that portion in the above analysis, the extrapolated trip time for the fully signal priority enabled line will be 29 minutes.

 

[canucks2030]

Transmania did a video on the line. The ride was 40 minutes and it seems that the LRV rarely waited at red lights.

Are we sure the video was not edited? Many have points out in the video comments some edits impacting time and I think this also. But great news if the line making improvements. For 10KM should be under 30 minutes but considering everything, any time saving a “win”.

 

[thenorth]

Are we sure the video was not edited? Many have points out in the video comments some edits impacting time and I think this also. But great news if the line making improvements. For 10KM should be under 30 minutes but considering everything, any time saving a “win”.

Yes, the video edited out some of the stops. But I got the timings based on the time shown on the clocks in the train and on the station platform.

 

[APTA-2048]

Some more details: transit priority (green light before turning vehicles) is set up at Milady, Pearldale, and Duncanwoods.