[Steve X]

Seems ironic that KW is opening first with Bombardier equipment, after Metrolinx paid huge penalties to cancel 102 of the Bombardier cars, and instead get 61 (longer) much more expensive Alstom cars. And it's the very same Alstom cars that are holding up Ottawa.

I hope ML realized what a silly mistake they have done that not only delayed Finch West to 2023 but there might not be any trains to run.

 

[drum118]

RTG promises to hand over LRT to city in August

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Seems ironic that KW is opening first with Bombardier equipment, after Metrolinx paid huge penalties to cancel 102 of the Bombardier cars, and instead get 61 (longer) much more expensive Alstom cars. And it's the very same Alstom cars that are holding up Ottawa.

Depends on how you look at it. It's 5 dates but if they actually meet it, the total delay will have been 15 months, which is less than Ion's delay or the TTC streetcars. Still not the best marketing message though for Alstom trying to break into the North American LRV market.

 

[drum118]

Wondering who is going to pickup these cost??

LRT delay costs city $34.4M — and counting

 

[Streety McCarface]

Not just the stations, the fact that its fully 100% grade separated from the road gives it a step above most LRTs. Its basically a "metro" with LRT trains.

Still has me questioning why they didn't just go with high floor trains.

 

[OCCheetos]

Still has me questioning why they didn't just go with high floor trains.

The plan was originally always to use LRT, mostly a remenant of the original plan that had trains running at-grade downtown.

As late as 2013 (after Stage 1 was approved), the city was still considering using Carling as the alignment of the Western extension of the line with trains running at-grade. That was proved to be infeasible in the long run and too expensive to grade separate along Carling and they managed to work out a deal with the NCC to align the extension along the river.

By the end of 2013 the TMP was completed and showed nothing but grade separation on the Confederation line, so in hindsight it seems weird to use LRVs on a light metro line, but it's a result of the process it went through.

In the future, if the secondary Carling LRT is ever built, they'll have the flexibility to share a fleet in it with the Confederation Line which will make for some nice savings.

 

[Neutrino]

From Tuesday:

 

[CapitalSeven]

It's not the LRT-ness of the Ottawa line that is odd, it's the low-floorness. A high-floor system would have been more efficient.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

It's not the LRT-ness of the Ottawa line that is odd, it's the low-floorness. A high-floor system would have been more efficient.

It would here been, but that's hindsight. As mentioned above at grade running was still being considered in future phases at the time the vehicle choice had to be made. Now it's not, so we ended up with a low floor metro.

Nobody builds a high floor at grade LRT anymore

 

[Streety McCarface]

It would here been, but that's hindsight. As mentioned above at grade running was still being considered in future phases at the time the vehicle choice had to be made. Now it's not, so we ended up with a low floor metro.

Nobody builds a high floor at grade LRT anymore

Maybe so, but high floor systems are expanded all the time.

The biggest thing that annoys me about the iON, aside from the train running much slower than it should (signals) is the fact that dwell times on the Flexity Freedom are abysmal. They might be a bit better on the Citadis, but that doesn't excuse the fact that low floor systems are almost certainly going to have insanely high dwell times. It might be fine in Waterloo or Hamilton, but on the Crosstown or Ottawa's LRT, it's a huge sacrifice for commuters. It's not uncommon to see a train at a station here wait more than 30-60 seconds to let people on and off. Sure, trains are fairly full, but they're designed to carry lots of people and to move them on and off the vehicles as quickly as possible, that is supposed to be a factor that differentiates rapid transit from the bus or the streetcar. Those 30 extra seconds per station can add up to 10 additional minutes at least of wasted commute time on the Crosstown, or at least 7 minutes on the Confederation line.

At least with high floor light rail, you can design a vehicle to have seating arrangements that provide extra standing room, allowing people to get on and off the vehicle much more efficiently.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Maybe so, but high floor systems are expanded all the time.

The biggest thing that annoys me about the iON, aside from the train running much slower than it should (signals) is the fact that dwell times on the Flexity Freedom are abysmal. They might be a bit better on the Citadis, but that doesn't excuse the fact that low floor systems are almost certainly going to have insanely high dwell times. It might be fine in Waterloo or Hamilton, but on the Crosstown or Ottawa's LRT, it's a huge sacrifice for commuters. It's not uncommon to see a train at a station here wait more than 30-60 seconds to let people on and off. Sure, trains are fairly full, but they're designed to carry lots of people and to move them on and off the vehicles as quickly as possible, that is supposed to be a factor that differentiates rapid transit from the bus or the streetcar. Those 30 extra seconds per station can add up to 10 additional minutes at least of wasted commute time on the Crosstown, or at least 7 minutes on the Confederation line.

At least with high floor light rail, you can design a vehicle to have seating arrangements that provide extra standing room, allowing people to get on and off the vehicle much more efficiently.

I don't think the dwell times on the citadis will be comparable, and it's more to door arrangement than due to low floor.

A Flexity has two single doors and two double doors (in North America, other configurations similar to the citadis exist in Europe)

The citadis has 7 doors per vehicle, all of which are double doors. Most modules have the doors in pairs, speeding entry and exit, and that area has only longitudinal seating. It means the dwell times should be fairly comparable to a high floor Siemens S200 LRV. It won't be as far as a Toronto rocket though, due to the doors themselves being plug doors, which are much slower to open and close

 

[CapitalSeven]

It would here been, but that's hindsight. As mentioned above at grade running was still being considered in future phases at the time the vehicle choice had to be made. Now it's not, so we ended up with a low floor metro.

Nobody builds a high floor at grade LRT anymore

Still doing it in LA and few other places. Works fine. I recently road the Hong Kong system, and the wide-open cars work much better in that environment than low floor would.

 

[nfitz]

... dwell times on the Flexity Freedom are abysmal. They might be a bit better on the Citadis, but that doesn't excuse the fact that low floor systems are almost certainly going to have insanely high dwell times.

I'm not seeing that dwell times would be slow because it's low-floor. Surely the Flexity Freedom dwell times are similar to the Flexity Outlook dwell times, with similar (aren't they the same design?) doors, and an even more spacious floor plan around the doors? The Flexity Outook LRVs certainly seem to have better dwell times than the high-floor CLRVs and ALRVs, on the same routes, with the need for passengers to get well inside the doors before the doors close.

 

[Streety McCarface]

I'm not seeing that dwell times would be slow because it's low-floor. Surely the Flexity Freedom dwell times are similar to the Flexity Outlook dwell times, with similar (aren't they the same design?) doors, and an even more spacious floor plan around the doors? The Flexity Outook LRVs certainly seem to have better dwell times than the high-floor CLRVs and ALRVs, on the same routes, with the need for passengers to get well inside the doors before the doors close.

It's slower because of 2 main reasons:
1. The layout of a low floor vehicle, particularly a flexity, is quite bad. There are numerous narrow walkways that prevent people from getting by. As you mentioned, the areas around the doors are more spacious. This is actually worse for the overall train design. Sure, it gives small distance commuters the opportunity to hop on and then off, but it also encourages crowding in these areas. As crowding increases in these areas, new passengers on the train are less likely to move towards the seated areas or the articulated sections. With so many people crowded in one small area, the train feels more crowded than it appears, meaning it takes more time for people to reach the doors, alight, then allow more people to board.

2. The door system. I understand the need for accessibility and safety, but having the driver/automated voice announce: "Please Stand Clear of the Doors", followed by the door tone, then the doors closing (4-5 seconds on a flexity vs the 1 second on a CLRV), then a tone at the very end to indicate the closing of the doors is a bit of overkill. If they need to say "please stand clear of the doors" do it after the door closing tone when the doors are closing themselves (like the TRs). On a CLRV, it takes 1-2 seconds for someone to climb up the stairs, followed by the doors closing, meaning the minimum dwell is between 3-5 seconds (depending on how fast someone boards a train) . On the flexity, the doors take at least 4-5 seconds to open, less than a second for someone to get on the train, but at least 10 seconds for the doors to close (on the freedom, the outlook is a bit better since it doesn't have the "please stand clear of the doors").

 

[nfitz]

1. The layout of a low floor vehicle, particularly a flexity, is quite bad. There are numerous narrow walkways that prevent people from getting by. As you mentioned, the areas around the doors are more spacious. This is actually worse for the overall train design. Sure, it gives small distance commuters the opportunity to hop on and then off, but it also encourages crowding in these areas. As crowding increases in these areas, new passengers on the train are less likely to move towards the seated areas or the articulated sections. With so many people crowded in one small area, the train feels more crowded than it appears, meaning it takes more time for people to reach the doors, alight, then allow more people to board.

I don't see that increasing dwell times. If someone is in the middle between doors in one of the two narrower areas, they have moved from their long before the vehicle stops. Even crush-loaded, I haven't seen lengthy, 3 people get off the streetcar, and wait for those getting off to slowly climb out, and then reboard, with the long wait for the new arrivals to get off the steps before the door closes.

This should be even a less of a problem on the Line 5, where even the peak demand approaching Eglinton West is only about 2/3 of peak capacity - so we shouldn't normally be seeing crush-capacity situations you see on streetcar lines, or on Line 1 and Line 2. Worst case scenario is that rarely there'll perhaps a slight delay at Cedarvale and Eglinton - but we see that all the time now on Line 1 and Line 2 interchange stations, despite being high-floor with more doors.

I can't fathom on how this is a problem in Waterloo - ridership doesn't seem that high even now with free fares. Shouldn't be very common at all once regular service starts. Though I haven't seen it yet ... perhaps I'll take transit up there for a meeting soon and check it out.

2. The door system. I understand the need for accessibility and safety, but having the driver/automated voice announce: "Please Stand Clear of the Doors", followed by the door tone, then the doors closing (4-5 seconds on a flexity vs the 1 second on a CLRV), then a tone at the very end to indicate the closing of the doors is a bit of overkill.

That sounds very extensive compared to even the TTC Flexities ... looking at some videos, it's about 2 seconds to close the door on a TTC Flexity. I don't think it's 1 second on a CLRV ... and you can't even close them immediately then, as people have to move away from the doors first.

I think you are exaggerating the problem. The only vehicles I really see a delay on, are the back doors of buses. Now that's slow.