[Paleo]

400 per train is crush load. A "train" is about the same length as a pair of our subway cars. At 120s and standard loading capacity the maximum capacity is 10,000 ppdph. 12,000 with 50m trains at standard capacity. 15,000 would be with 50m trains at crush loads.

The system does not have "half the capacity" at "a quarter of the cost" compared to our subways like you have claimed in the other thread.

Okay, let's just get some basic facts down. First, the Canada Line right now has a vehicle capacity of 400 passengers per train and a headway of 180 seconds for a peak capacity of 8000 pph/pd. The project is designed to "comfortably" carry about 6,800 pph/pd. With 10m station extensions and 120s headways the system has a capacity of 15,000 pph/pd.

Comparing this to the Eglinton Crosstown is difficult in that the surface segments of the line have much lower capacity than subsurface. Working off of what the TTC claims for the Crosstown LRT though, capacity is somewhere between 5,400 or 6,800 "people per hour" (half that for per direction). Nowhere in any of the TTC's materials do I see any intention of them breaking the line into surface/subsurface so as to run longer trains in the tunnel and nowhere do they propose trains longer than 2 LRVs.

So, yes, the Canada Line presently has a higher capacity than the Crosstown LRT and with minor upgrades has a undeniable capacity advantage.

 

[Second_in_pie]

Yes, it could, but then you have full subway costs. Maybe we want full subway on Eglinton and you can probably make an argument for it, but it is misleading to use LRT-grade prices while claiming subway style capacity. At least with the Canada Line the requisite upgrades to achieve 15k pph/pd (i.e. adding more rolling stock, building stations out 10m) are fairly minor and shouldn't have a major impact on costs. TTC projections seem to show Eglinton demand maxing out at something like 6,000 pph, which is way below subway demand and frankly on the low end of medium capacity systems. Maybe a faster system could spike that to 10k pph (i am just guessing), but I don't think an ART scale system would have capacity issues within our lifetime.

First of all, I ask again why use ART when we can use subway? Is building ART less expensive than building Subway? They both require the same ROW.

Second, I put your weakest point in bold. In fact, as a little project I went over to Eglinton and counted things up myself. Now, I didn't go to every single one, but my calculations put just the apartments between Martin Grove and Kipling at a population of about 6000. Dearly forgive me if my math's off, but put on top of that the people living in houses within reasonable walking distance, as well as the ridership of Martin Grove and Kipling, a third of your ridership might well be in that 1/30th of the line! And that's not even other bus lines that could come and feed just this portion of the line, development that could be built over a trenched Richview ROW, and the other 30 kilometers of the line!

 

[Whoaccio]

First of all, I ask again why use ART when we can use subway? Is building ART less expensive than building Subway? They both require the same ROW.

They do and they don't. ART-like trains tend to be lighter and more able to handle tight curves, allowing them to be designed with shorter, less sweeping routes. I think more importantly though, they tend to use smaller trains, which require smaller stations (->lower costs). They are better suited to operating in viaduct, which gives the options for lower costs.

Second, I put your weakest point in bold. In fact, as a little project I went over to Eglinton and counted things up myself. Now, I didn't go to every single one, but my calculations put just the apartments between Martin Grove and Kipling at a population of about 6000. Dearly forgive me if my math's off, but put on top of that the people living in houses within reasonable walking distance, as well as the ridership of Martin Grove and Kipling, a third of your ridership might well be in that 1/30th of the line! .../QUOTE]

I just used TTC figures, I assume they have a technical appendix somewhere discussing their methodology but I don't know it off hand. The demand can be location sensitive I think. If 6,000 people go west bound from Kennedy and get off at Yonge at the same time as 6,000 people go east bound from Jane and get off at Yonge, the demand is still 6,000 people/hour at any given point (other than Yonge) even though total ridership figures would suggest 12k people used it that hour. I think TTC figures use a more complex version of that basic idea to reflect that Eglinton is really two different lines that have a common terminus at Yonge.

 

[nfitz]

First of all, I ask again why use ART when we can use subway? Is building ART less expensive than building Subway? They both require the same ROW.

Ignoring construction costs - one reason is that the ART trains are faster. Even on the current SRT line, if you look at the TTC Service Summary the SRT averages 34.9 km/hr (36.6 km/hr in the AM peak - presumably because of shorter dwell times at the termini).

You'd think that the current subways would have faster times, because they don't spend so much of their time at one end of the line or the other, however the BD line averages 32.3 km/hr off-peak and the Yonge-Spadina line averages 32.4 km/hr off-peak (AM peak is 30.9 to 31.2). The most comparable line is the Sheppard subway (similiar number of stations and length to SRT) and it is 29.8 km/hr.

One the signalling upgrade is done, and all the vehicles are replaced, the YUS is supposed to speed up a bid - but the SRT upgrade should also see some improvements. Given how slow the SRT feels as it enters Kennedy, or STC and particularily McCowan ... one can imagine that a long-straight alignment can give quite good speeds; reports indicate that the average speed on new sections of the Vancouver skytrain is 45 km/hr - though it would be interesting to see what time an entire line takes.

 

[Ansem]

although I prefer the subway, I have nothing against ART but LRT on Eglinton is an insult to every Torontonian.

 

[nfitz]

LRT can be just as effective as ART. It's the grade separation that's the issue ... not the technology.

Given that ART doesn't operate in snowy conditions, one could have a lot against it!

 

[Ansem]

then the perfect scenario is of course subway

but...

The perfect compromise would be

1/3 of the line underground with long plateforms
2/3 of the line elevated like the canada line
Using LRT technology which can go as fast as the Srt and with long plateforms can be flexible according to the demand...

This would be acceptable to me.

I don't know but I have faith in Metrolinx on this one, remember when they publically disagree with the TTC on the line? They don't seem to like the TTC project...

 

[nfitz]

Ansem - I 100% agree with you. Though I doubt it will happen. One advantage of the current plan, is they can always slowly upgrade it in the future.

 

[CodeMonkey]

The only problem i had with the LRTs is that it feels like we're being push into a system that promises it will fix all our transit problems

Just think about this, how many low-floor LRTs operate in out climate? Buffalo & Calgary using high riding floors and other places like Portland uses low level floors that don't have to worrie about snow fall as we do, so how do we even know that we aren't buying into another dud like we did with the ICTS/ART system?

 

[nfitz]

Some cities that are already using the same streetcar we are getting; such as Geneva, Switzerland; Innsbruck and Vienna, Austria, and ŁÃ³dź, Poland; do get significant snowfalls. I'm not sure how they perform in the snow ... but you'd think that if they were terrible, someone here would have been highlighting it.

 

[Dan416]

Some cities that are already using the same streetcar we are getting; such as Geneva, Switzerland; Innsbruck and Vienna, Austria, and ŁÃ³dź, Poland; do get significant snowfalls. I'm not sure how they perform in the snow ... but you'd think that if they were terrible, someone here would have been highlighting it.

Wow you wrote ŁÃ³dź correctly. Copy and paste I take it?

 

[nfitz]

Copy and paste I take it?

Guilty as charged. Don't ask me to pronounce it!

 

[Filip]

Last I remember it's pronounced hooch or something similar.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

woods?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Lodz.ogg

 

[Dan416]

Last I remember it's pronounced hooch or something similar.

Ł = English w

ó = oo

dź = j

So basically wooj