khris
Senior Member
People are worried? If they are, they need to find better things to worry about.
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- Thread starter Ansem
- Start date
People are worried? If they are, they need to find better things to worry about.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
In London they call the HRT system, officially, the underground and, unofficially, the tube despite most of the system neither running underground nor in a "tube." Come to think of it they call their mini-metro system "light rail" even though it is more like the SRT than some kind of tram. Same goes for a lot of cities, like NYC & Tokyo, where the "subways" are, sometimes overwhelmingly, not underground. The point being that anybody that takes this nomenclature so literally is at least half stupid. Dictionary aside there is a clearly colloquial usage of "subway" which implies a 100% grade separated ROW, scheduled operations with multi-car trains, electrification and high capacity/speed. The most important part being 100%, or at least 90+%, grade separation. Running underground is not really the main point.
Amphibius said:
Really? Wow. What about a trolley bus going through and underpass? That is a piece of urban transit going under ground while powered by electricity.kettal said:
unimaginative2
Senior Member
In the Toronto context
Ansem
Banned
golodhendil
Active Member
I was going to drop this when scarb says we should discuss this in the Toronto context, and I agree with his point that the actual implementation is more important than the name (similar to what I said in the LRT vs tram "debate"). But when people starts making worldwide generalizations it's hard not to respond. So does this "colloquial usage" of subway trumps the 100 year tradition of calling any underground railway (or systems with substantial underground portions) a subway, whether it be HRT, LRT or tram, steam, diesel or electrified? Should our "colloquial" usage force a change in history books or the equally colloquial, comtemporaneous usage of "subway"/U-bahn in the context of things like the London Kingsway tramway subway, the Boston Green Line Central Subway, the SF Muni subway, the Philadelphia trolley subway, the Newark City Subway (btw, Amphibius gave some misinformation earlier; for much of its history the Newark LRT is called "the subway"), the Vienna U-Bahn, the Frankfurt U-Bahn, and the U-Stadtbahn of Hannover, Stuttgart, Köln etc?
I don't think many people are trying to use the fact that the central portion of Eglinton is technically a subway to justify the failings of its above ground portions (they are justifying it with plenty of other excuses). As people have made it this is a debate of definitions (not always the most useful thing to debate but it is being debated now nonetheless), and it's not a matter of pedantry, but the claims (justified or not) that people make about how others generally use certain terms.
Luckily, this usage of the word "subway" has not (yet) caught on in colloquial language, but BRT advocates are working hard at it.
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Amphibius
Banned
The rapidly-devaluing dollar is partly responsible. Goods from other countries cost a lot more now than they did a year ago too. We rely on the world marketplace to set prices for raw materials such as steel and concrete: therefore, the cost of projects that use these materials is rising. The effect is further amplified in projects that purchase raw materials as they are needed, rather than buying them early and storing them.
Eglinton Avenue could be blocked off during peak periods so that the trains have the full uninterupted length from Martin Grove to Weston and from Leslie to Kennedy Stn to work with. That eliminates 1/2 of the cross streets (or z-intersections) of the mixed-use section. That only leaves a few midblocks like Lloyd Manor and the major arterials like Scarlett, Islington, Victoria Park, and Warden among others with an accompanying N/S bus route. Obviously these streets cannot be temporarily blocked off during rush hour so the schedule should be synchronized so that for every green light on flower, one train in EACH direction passes. Assuming that the cross street light goes red 15 seconds before the trains cross (so that left turns and red light runners have time to get out of the way) and turn green immediately after, with the trains getting 45 seconds to cross, the cross street gets as much as 60 seconds to be green (which is reasonable for Islington, VP, and Warden).
I think examples like these would work fine along Eglinton and other TC prioritized corridors with the spare width to accomodate them, if an elevated guideway across Richview/Golden Mile isn't financially possible:
Amphibius
Banned
Did I really? According to Wikipedia: "The longer and older of the two segments is known as the Newark City Subway. Despite its name, the line is a "subway-surface" light rail line which runs underground downtown and above-ground in outlying areas."
The irony of this entire debate though is that all of the new Transit City Lines will most likely prominently feature on the blackfaced Subway/RT colour-coded maps regardless of whether they're actual subways as defined by Toronto's local understanding of what that term means. For good measure, add on the 510 and 512 while we're at it.
So if we really want to brag that we're number one, we'll soon can say that we have an additonal 120 kms of rapid transit on our system, and let other cities try to contest our claim.
doady
Senior Member
For the Eglinton LRT to be part of the subway/RT system, the entire line must use the same fare system as the subway/RT network, which means all boarding platforms must be a fare-paid zone. Otherwise, it would be inconsistent with rest of the network.
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golodhendil
Active Member
That's right. It's a "subway", but it's run with light rail stock (here's a picture of good ol' PCCs running in the "subway" and proudly displaying the "City Subway" name:
A "subway-surface" rail line still has a subway portion as its name implies (like the German U-Stadtbahn), so I'm not sure what point the "despite its name" serves. (despite being called a subway, it is a subway!)
I thought they have already been doing this on their TC maps?
But if the TC lines are to be POP, are the platforms still "fare-paid zone"? (this is actually kind of the crux of the fare/transfer discussion in the Sheppard thread earlier)
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toraerach
Active Member
If you're counting the SRT as part of the subway network, you should also count it's possible extension when tallying things up.
unimaginative2
Senior Member
First of all, our dollar is not rapidly-devaluing. In fact, it is far higher today against the U.S. dollar (the currency in which most imported goods are priced) than it was during the construction of the Sheppard subway. Steel and other raw material prices have certainly risen--though that has nothing to do with currency fluctuations and the increases have recently receded--but the Yonge subway extension is budgeting $670 million for "Engineering and other costs." That's two thirds of the entire cost to build the Sheppard subway, a project of comparable magnitude and probably greater engineering challenge (the Sheppard-Yonge interchange).
Look, I'm being a little coy here. That figure is frankly a scandal of immense proportions.
It doesn't really make that much sense to block off cross streets only during peak periods, as it's a travel time and not a congestion issue. Travel time is just as important off-peak as in peak periods.
It's the relationship between the light rail vehicles and the cars on the surrounding road that is critical, and it's difficult to see how that works in the pictures you posted. The key here is to ensure that an LRV never has to stop at a red light unless absolutely necessary, and then it should only have to stop for a few seconds. The current TTC approach of letting streetcars stop at every light, even on routes with so-called signal priority, is just not good enough.
It's the 21st century and we have extraordinary technology in the world. We can pinpoint the location of anything, anywhere on the surface of the planet. We have computer processing power that can simulate the mechanics of a nuclear explosion down to the atomic level. There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn't be able to devise a technology that monitors the location of LRVs and ensures that they never (or at least almost never) have to face a red light.
Absolutely no city in the world would consider a transit system that stops at red lights to be rapid transit.
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Is this not a thread about how Montreal will have the biggest Subway system in Canada, most of these posts here are all about Toronto and its future proposed LRT lines. Its nice to hear about all these proposed LRT lines, but since lately this city is declaring war on the car they should throw a couple of new Subway/People Mover lines into the mix to make it interesting. I say build a new Subway line across the city either on King or Queen street, extend the Bloor street Subway from Kipling west into Mississauga, build an APM (Bombardier Innovia) from the High Park/Bloor subway/bus station south through High Park down to Sunnyside Park and east across Lakeshore Blvd to service Exibition Park/Ontario Place. This 10km line with 8-10 stations, 64APMs could sevice all three entertainment venues.
Toronto as the largest and the most densely populated city in Canada should be more dynamic with its transit system, they also need to find funding to build more subway lines.
Toronto as the largest and the most densely populated city in Canada should be more dynamic with its transit system, they also need to find funding to build more subway lines.
GTS
Active Member
Yes I agree the title of this thread is a bit of a misnomer. We are talking a lot of Toronto's Transit City plans instead of the great plans Montreal is putting on the table. The Eglinton Crosstown line is getting a lot of attention here but it already has it's own threads. Not only that we are getting bogged down by semantics- in Vancouver the Skytrain is still called a Skytrain even though downtown in the West End and in New Westminster it is underground like a subway.
khris
Senior Member
The reason people are talking about Toronto is because when they hear about other city's having something "bigger", people get all freaked out and feel the need to puff out their chests. It's just another size contest, and again, why people are worrying about it is beyond me...