thenewguy
New Member
Walkley Station on Line 2. Pictures taken on July 9.
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- Thread starter hoggytime
- Start date
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Well, it's official, or semi-official: The plan for efficient airport rail travel is a failure and plan B will be put into effect, at least to begin with.
The New Ways to Bus subsite has an online travel planner and schedule page. If you wade through the schedules for routes 2 and 4, you'll deduce that the operations plan using the pocket track at South Keys (I put in a copy on page one of this thread) has been quietly abandoned. This would have seen the line 4 train dropping passengers from the airport just before the line 2 passing meet, and then picking up new ones for the airport a couple of minutes later.
Instead, the new schedules show that the line 4 train will simply pull into South Keys for a three-minute turnaround about half way through the 12 minute cycle. The transit time will be seven minutes instead of the two or so that were promised, and the train will take nine minutes to slowly trundle the 2.5 miles to the airport. The two directions will meet at Uplands, with a similar three-minute turnaround at the airport.
The original operational plan was not some notion; it was built into the contract documents, but apparently having built the pocket track at considerable expense, the operator has given up and will leave it unused. No doubt if pressed on this, OC Transpo will present this as an improvement (more reliable, simpler) and fail to acknowledge that travel will now be five minutes slower. Indeed, the travel planner shows a trip to Parliament station will be much slower than the current system (see below).
While this is not quite on par with the inept expansion debacle of 2014, it appears to be another example of OC Transpo promising something and delivering much, much less while wasting millions.
The New Ways to Bus subsite has an online travel planner and schedule page. If you wade through the schedules for routes 2 and 4, you'll deduce that the operations plan using the pocket track at South Keys (I put in a copy on page one of this thread) has been quietly abandoned. This would have seen the line 4 train dropping passengers from the airport just before the line 2 passing meet, and then picking up new ones for the airport a couple of minutes later.
Instead, the new schedules show that the line 4 train will simply pull into South Keys for a three-minute turnaround about half way through the 12 minute cycle. The transit time will be seven minutes instead of the two or so that were promised, and the train will take nine minutes to slowly trundle the 2.5 miles to the airport. The two directions will meet at Uplands, with a similar three-minute turnaround at the airport.
The original operational plan was not some notion; it was built into the contract documents, but apparently having built the pocket track at considerable expense, the operator has given up and will leave it unused. No doubt if pressed on this, OC Transpo will present this as an improvement (more reliable, simpler) and fail to acknowledge that travel will now be five minutes slower. Indeed, the travel planner shows a trip to Parliament station will be much slower than the current system (see below).
While this is not quite on par with the inept expansion debacle of 2014, it appears to be another example of OC Transpo promising something and delivering much, much less while wasting millions.
zzptichka
New Member
Those incompetent idiots who came up with that design screwed it up after all. Sigh.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
I watched the presentation and Q&A sessions with council and media. They did a thorough job of explaining the testing process, which is just just getting rolling. More or less, it’s an eight to ten week process that, more or less, got started 08 July. Theoretically, then service could start at Labour Day, but I doubt that it will. A few months ago the GM was still suggesting it could start at the end of June. Obviously nothing has gone as well as she hoped. This time, to avoid the pressure that led to line 1 having a bumpy launch, reliability is the only criterion. There are no dates or deadlines on offer, but they say are clear it will be this year. I personally think RA now doesn’t care when it opens, and won’t offer any further guesses because she doesn’t like being proved wrong.
Reliability of switches seems to be the biggest issue to be resolved. I think this may be the main reason they have given up on the original airport transfer scheme, as it eliminates a couple of hundreds of moves through switches every day. In response to a question, Michael Morgan, Director of Rail Construction briefly and partially explained the change to the Airport operation. He confirmed the original scheme using the pocket track, then said that Operations recommended at revised plan where the train moved directly to the Southbound platform position. This he referred to as a huge savings in terms of improved and ensured reliability, and a “great find” and “absolutely a fantastic outcome.” He clarified when asked that it would not result in a shorter trip, just a more reliable one.
What Morgan did not mention is that travel times will increase by about 6.5 minutes for everyone transferring between lines 2 and 4, or that about 300 metres of track, three switches and the embankment under them, which were designed, bought, built, tested, and paid for ($300,000 at a guess??) will now sit unused. It’s clear that “every change is a huge improvement” speak is alive and well at City Hall, even with Watson gone. As with the opening date, OC Transpo is not concerned about efficient travel times for users; it’s OK that travel to the core will take 20 minutes longer than now, because it will be a reliable 20 minutes.
The media seemed mostly concerned with asking again and again for dates even after it was clear that none would be forthcoming. CBC was made aware of the airport issue but only cares about dates, which I suppose does reflect public opinion, given the project is more than 100% over schedule and its managers still won’t guess when it might open.
Reliability of switches seems to be the biggest issue to be resolved. I think this may be the main reason they have given up on the original airport transfer scheme, as it eliminates a couple of hundreds of moves through switches every day. In response to a question, Michael Morgan, Director of Rail Construction briefly and partially explained the change to the Airport operation. He confirmed the original scheme using the pocket track, then said that Operations recommended at revised plan where the train moved directly to the Southbound platform position. This he referred to as a huge savings in terms of improved and ensured reliability, and a “great find” and “absolutely a fantastic outcome.” He clarified when asked that it would not result in a shorter trip, just a more reliable one.
What Morgan did not mention is that travel times will increase by about 6.5 minutes for everyone transferring between lines 2 and 4, or that about 300 metres of track, three switches and the embankment under them, which were designed, bought, built, tested, and paid for ($300,000 at a guess??) will now sit unused. It’s clear that “every change is a huge improvement” speak is alive and well at City Hall, even with Watson gone. As with the opening date, OC Transpo is not concerned about efficient travel times for users; it’s OK that travel to the core will take 20 minutes longer than now, because it will be a reliable 20 minutes.
The media seemed mostly concerned with asking again and again for dates even after it was clear that none would be forthcoming. CBC was made aware of the airport issue but only cares about dates, which I suppose does reflect public opinion, given the project is more than 100% over schedule and its managers still won’t guess when it might open.
We're getting closer. Fairly safe to say it will open this year.
originalmuffins
Active Member
This is actually awful. Why wouldn't they just keep Line 4 trains running all the way? Why just stop at South Keys? Keep it running every 15 minutes and then you'll have Line 2 and 4 at South keys running every 7.5 minutes. They should have double tracked this from the get go...
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
It's logistically impossible. The size and location of the twin track sections allow for no more than 1 train every 12 minutes. 7.5 minutes would require double tracking the sections where Dow's Lake, Walkley, and Mooney's Bay are.
lrt's friend
Active Member
Why doesn't someone send this to their city councillor and ask for explanation why our several hundred million dollar investment has produced this bad result?
lrt's friend
Active Member
I am starting to question a 2024 opening. They have been unable to get operations of Line 2 and 4 perfected. Again today, there continue to be problems. Even without Airport trains running today, north and south bound trains are not lining up properly at South Keys. Northbound trains arrive at South Keys while southbound are arriving at Greenboro. By the time the southbound train reaches double tracks, the north bound train has been delayed by a couple of minutes beyond normal wait times. Even if we accept this kind of delay, they could not consistently maintain the 12 minute schedule.
The question is whether they would attempt a winter launch.
lrt's friend
Active Member
With proposed bus schedules revealing very few departures after 10 p.m. south of South Keys, why would we send a train south of South Keys after 10 p.m. sometimes with no connecting buses? It seems to me, that it would be more efficient to send those very few buses to South Keys (as today) rather than send every train to Limebank. We would be better off just to short-turn trains at South Keys.
lrt's friend
Active Member
Has it occurred to anybody, that our civic politicians failed to ask the most important question before spending billions on recent rapid transit projects. Does it actually get our customers to their destinations faster? If not, why are we spending this money?
There was a lot of controversy regarding UPX in Toronto, regarding the initial fare plan, however, it got customers to their downtown destination much faster. Think about it. 25 minutes all the way from Pearson, and we get 52 minutes from an airport much closer to downtown. Whose stupid idea was this?
There was a lot of controversy regarding UPX in Toronto, regarding the initial fare plan, however, it got customers to their downtown destination much faster. Think about it. 25 minutes all the way from Pearson, and we get 52 minutes from an airport much closer to downtown. Whose stupid idea was this?