[officedweller]

Just a note that guideways at the side of the roadway are much better asthetically and easier to integrate into the uban landscape than those down a median.
Guideways down the median of a roadway must be twice as tall to allow for mezzanines under the guideway at stations to provide access to the street's sidwalks.
Stations at the side of the road do not need a mezzanine, so the stations and the guideway can be shorter and easier to fit into the built environment.
The Richmond stations along No. 3 Rd. on the Canada Line are all side-of-the-street stations.

 

[kettal]

Do you have any other examples of street-side elevateds? Personally I didn't like the Skytrain in richmond, but No. 3 Rd never really had anything good going for it.

I'm much more accepting of elevateds going through hydro corridors or something like that, rather than one following a street and casting a permanent shadow on the street.

 

[golodhendil]

^ Singapore (though most of its elevated sections don't go through particularly urban areas), certain lines of Tokyo, the Lechmere Viaduct in Boston.

Examples where what he said is not true, however, include Taipei, where the stations have extensions that straddle the whole street from one side to the other, and access can be made directly from the sidewalk, so there's no need for an extra mezzanine level. Of course, North Americans (Torontonians) would probably frown at such obscene coverage of their view of the sky. And of course, if the road is wide enough, the el can run down a median strip, and access can be from ground level so there's also no need for an extra mezzanine level.

Contrary to what he says, however, I do tend to think that taller guideways are actually better aesthetically and easier to integrate into the urban fabric, mostly because it doesn't "overpower" the street level as much when it's actually higher up, and it actually lets more light onto the street.

 

[saiho]

Do you have any other examples of street-side elevateds? Personally I didn't like the Skytrain in richmond, but No. 3 Rd never really had anything good going for it.

nothing good going for it? Its like the largest concentration of Asian malls in North America. if that is not anything good going for it i don't know what is.
hong kong's MTR kwun tong line an example in china they tend to pick building Els in medians of expressways don't know if that counts.

 

[golodhendil]

hong kong's MTR kwun tong line an example in china they tend to pick building Els in medians of expressways don't know if that counts.

The majority of Kwun Tong line is street-median. The short section that is street-sided is actually another good counter-example to officedweller's point - they built two levels of mezzanine (ground, second floor) so that the tracks are just as high as they would have been if there were street-median.

 

[officedweller]

My point is that a side of street station enables a shorter more pedestrian friendly built form.
It is neither here nor there that someone else decided to build a side of street station with a mezzanine - that's their decision to do so (it doesn't mean a smaller scale side-of-street station is impossible).
The areas where a massive mezzanine station may be inappropriate are in existing urban fabrics or areas where the future built form is not monolithic in scale. i.e. if the station willl be surrounded by existing or future residential and retail buildings.
In the case of stations straddling a street - it would be very rare to have a station without a mezzanine. If that station has a centre platform - it would need a mezzanine. If that station has two outside platforms, it technically does not need a mezzanine, but cross platform movements would be impossible (the passenger would have to exit the station, cross the street at grade and go back up the other side).

Schematic cross sectional profiles of various station types are shown here;

http://books.google.ca/books?id=zFb...age&q=rapid transit mezzanine station&f=false

Here are some pics from Tafryn Palecloud's Canada Line blog of the No. 3 Rd. guideway - low profile compared to Skytrain guideways where stations have mezzanines:

http://canadalinephotos.blogspot.co...dated-max=2009-04-05T00:31:00Z&max-results=20

The elevation of the guideway is similar to the podiums of adjacent buildings so it melds with the built form nearby.

Here's Holdom Station (side of street) on the Millennium Line (it is the station right after Brentwood Station)

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sour...oid=I2XTJ8GMjmumU8BhZayipA&cbp=12,241.18,,0,5

Compare to the guideway at Brentwood Station (much taller section of guideway on the same line)

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sour...d=0_AiQhvOCdGOOk_XVWY5iA&cbp=12,84.07,,0,5.34

Also Metrotwon Station in Burnaby (albeit with the older style thinner twinned single guideways):

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sour...oid=yLiPxnUoDqcstkfMejrH_g&cbp=12,154.16,,0,5

The scale is quite a bit different between the two built forms.

Here's a couple more pics of the guideway near Brentwood Station by Metro-One on the SSP forum.
In terms of height, the traffic signals may be a useful reference, although I don't know if they are of similar height.

See also Honolulu's designs for fairly open-air mezzanine stations in a roadway median.
I think that Toronto stations would be more closed in due to the winter climate.

http://www.honolulutransit.org/pdfs/stations wkshp waipahu iii final.pdf

 

[LAz]

Glad you're looking into Vuchic's stuff. The guy's a genious.

He however seems to support the metro over the lrt, very very much so. Hence, he is probably frowned at by the jerks who planned tramsit city.

 

[kEiThZ]

I don't know too many Scarberians that think the SRT is pretty at all. The stations maybe. Glass can make anything utilitarian good-looking. But the guideway itself? I don't think so. There's no landscaping underneath other than gravel. It's always trash strewn.

The only good thing about it is that it's not in the middle of the street and nobody really has to live near it or regularly cross it. So hardly anybody notices it.

If you guys don't believe me, head to the Y at STC and have a look at how it is out there.

That's not to say elevated ROWs can't be done right. They can. But if anybody thinks citing the SRT guideway as a model will help their case, they are sorely mistaken. It's not as good looking as people think.

 

[sixrings]

Personally I have no problem with elevated stations if its significantly cheaper. But I am sure because we live in a culture which is um LAZY (I am not talking about elderly or actual handicap ppl, I am talking about the below 30 year olds that run to the end of the platform at downsview to catch the elevator because God forbid they walk up the stairs. Again something that they dont have in New York but that we would need in toronto) we will need to install outdoor escalators or elevators. Neither can be cheap to maintain and we live in a winter climate. LRT in the middle of the street in a lot of ways is cheaper. No need to have staff at each station. No need for escalators or elevators.

 

[ssiguy2]

Just looking back at this thread.
Now that even Eglinton is even up in the air and the technology becoming one of the more contenious issues in the mayoral race has SkyTrain or Monorail ever been brought up again?
It's too bad that Torontonians couldn't have use of a MK11 car for a day as I think their views of SkyTrain would change immensely.
It would be great to be able to keep costs down as tender could be put out with the same per km price as Vancouver's. It's new Evergreen line which is to be 11km starting construction in 2011 will be built for $1.4 billion including 75 metre stations and all trains. That's only $130 million per km and is MUCH faster, far higher frequencies, several times the capacity, safer, and much cheaper operational costs due to automation.
Toronto uses a very poor 1976 design to compare to 2010 SkyTrain technology.
The reason why Toronto has had so many problems with it's line and Vancouver so few with her's is strickly due to the government and the unions. Queen's Park refused to spend just $1 million on the whole line for the heaters to take the snow off. The unions demand of a "driver" meant all the trains had to be retrofitted for the drivers and it lead to a breakdown of the braking systems because they were applying them too hard which also helped erode the rail tracks. I think if TTC riders came to Vancouver and say how her SkyTrain system works they would be creaming their pants in envy.
Toronto will never go for monorail but with all the different ideas out there I'm surprised SkyTrain hasn't been given another look

 

[Calrissian]

Just looking back at this thread.
Now that even Eglinton is even up in the air and the technology becoming one of the more contenious issues in the mayoral race has SkyTrain or Monorail ever been brought up again?

Must've missed the announcement from Metrolinx/Province/CIty/TTC stating that this line was no longer going ahead as designed & funded.

 

[GraphicMatt]

The TTC needs fewer types of vehicles to operate and maintain, not more. SkyTrain and Elevated LRT would be virtually identical as far as riders are concerned.

 

[nfitz]

The TTC needs fewer types of vehicles to operate and maintain, not more.

We'll be down to just bus and subway if we get Ford.

 

[Calrissian]

We'll be down to just bus and subway if we get Ford.

Assuming he can execute on his ideas.. which he can't, both by his own poor skill set and by popular consensus.

 

[Electrify]

Just looking back at this thread.
Now that even Eglinton is even up in the air and the technology becoming one of the more contenious issues in the mayoral race has SkyTrain or Monorail ever been brought up again?
It's too bad that Torontonians couldn't have use of a MK11 car for a day as I think their views of SkyTrain would change immensely.
It would be great to be able to keep costs down as tender could be put out with the same per km price as Vancouver's. It's new Evergreen line which is to be 11km starting construction in 2011 will be built for $1.4 billion including 75 metre stations and all trains. That's only $130 million per km and is MUCH faster, far higher frequencies, several times the capacity, safer, and much cheaper operational costs due to automation.
Toronto uses a very poor 1976 design to compare to 2010 SkyTrain technology.
The reason why Toronto has had so many problems with it's line and Vancouver so few with her's is strickly due to the government and the unions. Queen's Park refused to spend just $1 million on the whole line for the heaters to take the snow off. The unions demand of a "driver" meant all the trains had to be retrofitted for the drivers and it lead to a breakdown of the braking systems because they were applying them too hard which also helped erode the rail tracks. I think if TTC riders came to Vancouver and say how her SkyTrain system works they would be creaming their pants in envy.
Toronto will never go for monorail but with all the different ideas out there I'm surprised SkyTrain hasn't been given another look

I think if the midtown portion of Eglinton was to be on the surface, then I could see monorail being an option worth considering. For those who see it as simply a Disney/Simpson thing, look at it like this: You get all the benefits of an elevated metro (capacity, cost), with the smallest footprint possible. This is assuming the cost of surface/underground is lower than going elevated the entire route.

On topic, the ends of this line are simply picture perfect for surface LRT. On the west, Eglinton runs through a hydro corridor with ample space on either side of the road. On the east side, it is a wide 8 lane arterial (3 lanes each direction, plus two left turn lanes/median) with box store parking lots on both sides. Running a LRT in its own lane through here should be no problems.

As for speeds, there are many examples of surface/median light rail reaching high speeds. Here is a thread I started showing several examples of this: http://urbantoronto.ca/showthread.php?12557-Videos-of-Light-Rail-RAPID-Transit . With that said, Transit City is being planned out more like a European tramway with several local stops, therefore it is unlikely it will ever approach the speeds in those videos.