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MrsNesbitt said:
Whenever I ride on one of those I cringe at how poorly planned out it is. The air conditioner units without the handle bars are a low ceiling for me (and I'm only an average-tall guy), but the ones with handle bars are so short I have to crane my neck.
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I guess they don't want to use the vertical bars that go from the roof to the floor, but those would help a lot. There are still big areas of the vehicle where you can't hold on to anything. And when it's crowded, every space has someone standing in it.
 
ehlow said:
I guess they don't want to use the vertical bars that go from the roof to the floor, but those would help a lot. There are still big areas of the vehicle where you can't hold on to anything. And when it's crowded, every space has someone standing in it.
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They can't use floor-mounted stanchions there - when they remove the HVAC units, they need to undo the connections from underneath. Those "oven racks" that they are retrofitting can be swung out of the way after undoing 4 bolts.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
If anyone is still keeping track there are now 60 trainsets in service. The 5971-76 set just came into service in the past week or so. Twenty more still to go. Between the strike and other issues, only 12 sets went into service in 2014.
 
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Floor-mounted half-height stanchions are sometimes used on other systems - I assume this was considered but dismissed for technical reasons.

innotrans20104620100921.jpg

CityVAL Prototype vehicle for Rennes

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Alstom CITADIS for Ottawa
 
They're also hideous so I'm glad for their absence. And it's nice to be able to see down the entire length of the train.
 
Duck said:
Floor-mounted half-height stanchions are sometimes used on other systems - I assume this was considered but dismissed for technical reasons.
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smably said:
Yes, that is why they were rejected for Toronto. I'm surprised that they are to be used in Ottawa, as I thought they were not compatible with AODA.
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There are two reasons why they are not used in Toronto, and neither is legislative.

The first is, as I wrote, the ones at the ends of the cars would interfere with the access door to the roof-mounted A/C equipment.

The second is that during the Russell Hill accident the emergency services found it difficult to get their equipment around the floor-mounted stanchions inside the cars. So one of the results of the inquest into the accident was a request that they not be included on future car orders, and that they were removed from the H5 cars.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
So one of the results of the inquest into the accident was a request that they not be included on future car orders, and that they were removed from the H5 cars.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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Which they did from about 10 cars, and left the rest. Interestingly the M, H-1 and H-2 cars didn't have the centre stanchions originally, but were retrofitted with them in the mid 1970s.
 
smallspy said:
The second is that during the Russell Hill accident the emergency services found it difficult to get their equipment around the floor-mounted stanchions inside the cars. So one of the results of the inquest into the accident was a request that they not be included on future car orders, and that they were removed from the H5 cars.
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I didn't know about this. At one time the TTC mentioned the lack of centre stanchions as an accessibility feature, so I assumed that that was the main reason for their omission.
 
smably said:
Yes, that is why they were rejected for Toronto. I'm surprised that they are to be used in Ottawa, as I thought they were not compatible with AODA.
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The funny thing is AODA doesn't apply to OC Transpo. From the City of Ottawa's website:

"Transit Services, such as OC Transpo, Para Transpo and Light Rail Services, are federally regulated and therefore the AODA (a provincial statute) is not applicable. However, the City’s Transit Services Department and Rail Implementation Office are committed to meeting the spirit and intent of the AODA."

I walked through the demo train in Ottawa today and wondered about fitting a wheelchair past the centre stanchion. The way the cars are laid out, the wheel chair position is only ever on one side of the doors, so the stanchion is offset away from the wheelchair area. It looks tight, but there's as much room between the stanchion in the middle and the one on the corner as there is between the front wheels of a bus. Transit users who have mobility devices should be accustomed it the fit.
 
That's what I was kind of thinking about a floor-mounted stanchion under the HVAC unit - there would only be 2 per car (one at each end, directly under the HVAC) so people with disabilities can still get in/around just fine through any of the doors on each vehicle. They can't move between cars on any other train so I don't see what the big deal here would be. (or is that incredibly offensive/insensitive of me?)

It would be low enough that you can get the cover off easily without impedance; or you make it so the stanchion itself is easily removable with a tool for maintenance... 2 minute job kinda thing.
 
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