[AlvinofDiaspar]

Until six months after the reno is complete, several of the fins will be removed for water leak remediation in random locations around the station and it'll look that way for at least two-three years until they get replaced and different fins get taken out leaving a gap-tooth ceiling. That's the normal Toronto subway aesthetic.

That's going to be the case no matter what type of ceiling treatment is used. The problem is the organization, not having ceiling slats.

AoD

 

[superelevation]

Not a huge fan of the curvy ceiling slats - it felt unoriginal and gratuitous (frankly it looks like knockoff Calatrava). DO like the attempt to opening up the ceiling to reduce increase the feel of the ceiling height though.

All that white will be a challenge to keeping clean - anything less than perfect will look shabby.



Even the province didn't go this route with their own builds - with good reasons.

AoD

Given we pay multiples for subway compared to places like Spain I am not so convinced, especially since we are spending 10s of billions on subway. Just getting to a more reasonable design standard or interpretation of requirements could literally save billions of dollars.

The best argument is Bloor/Yonge is a terrible place to run an experiment where failure impacts service. The first PSD installation should be something like Highway 407 station as bypassing it impacts few customers.

Yeah, but PSDs are not some new technology and this is an indoor station - it's a VERY weak argument

 

[cplchanb]

Given we pay multiples for subway compared to places like Spain I am not so convinced, especially since we are spending 10s of billions on subway. Just getting to a more reasonable design standard or interpretation of requirements could literally save billions of dollars.



Yeah, but PSDs are not some new technology and this is an indoor station - it's a VERY weak argument

Well as for everything tech here in toronto we are decades behind Europe or Asia.

 

[rbt]

Yeah, but PSDs are not some new technology and this is an indoor station - it's a VERY weak argument

They're new to TTC staff, Toronto Fire, Toronto Police, EMS, and anybody else with people who would need to be trained on how to deal with the doors during non-standard operations (during fire, when doors fail open, when doors fail closed, when someone does get onto the tracks, pulling unruly individuals off the train by opening a single door, etc.). LRT isn't new either but staff training still results in some hard-learned lessons (see Ottawa).

And that's assuming you trust vendor published specifications for acceptable temperatures, pressures, and cycles.

Heck, buses have had doors since the shortly-after the bus was invented but those were the #1 failing component during the E-Bus trials.

There is lots of time to put together an experimental installation in a low-usage station first. Write your councillor.

 

[sche]

They're new to TTC staff, Toronto Fire, Toronto Police, EMS, and anybody else with people who would need to be trained on how to deal with the doors during non-standard operations (during fire, when doors fail open, when doors fail closed, when someone does get onto the tracks, pulling unruly individuals off the train by opening a single door, etc.). LRT isn't new either but staff training still results in some hard-learned lessons (see Ottawa).

And that's assuming you trust vendor published specifications for acceptable temperatures, pressures, and cycles.

Heck, buses have had doors since the shortly-after the bus was invented but those were the #1 failing component during the E-Bus trials.

There is lots of time to put together an experimental installation in a low-usage station first. Write your councillor.

PSDs are not an "experiment". This mentality (excessive aversion to risk, unwillingness/inability to learn from places that are better) is the same mentality that gives us excessive slow orders on the subway and streetcar network, ridiculous levels of schedule padding, archaic scheduling practices, and subways that cost 5-10x what they should cost.

Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Singapore, literally all of East Asia, Sydney, Santiago, REM, heck even UPX - none of these places had to do run some kind of experiment with PSDs before mass deployment (and no, it's not because they are all new builds - a bunch of these are retrofits too). If TTC/MX/whatever tries to justify expensive and slow processes that are deemed unnecessary everywhere else, this can only point to incompetence, malice, and/or ignorance.

 

[nfitz]

TTC has no experience with them. If they do a pilot at one or two locations, it will result in a better tender, better specifications and better final result.

There's nothing magical about PSDs that makes it exempt from standard practice for pretty much any item outside an organization's experience.

 

[Jonny5]

PSDs are not an "experiment". This mentality (excessive aversion to risk, unwillingness/inability to learn from places that are better) is the same mentality that gives us excessive slow orders on the subway and streetcar network, ridiculous levels of schedule padding, archaic scheduling practices, and subways that cost 5-10x what they should cost.

That's an interesting statement as "excessive aversion to risk" seems to be the only explanation for the hyper-obsession over immediate high-cost retrofitting of the existing network to have PSDs.

 

[Northern Light]

That's an interesting statement as "excessive aversion to risk" seems to be the only explanation for the hyper-obsession over immediate high-cost retrofitting of the existing network to have PSDs.

Disagree.

PEDs are not merely about preventing one homicide/pushing incident every few years, nor the 12-30 suicides each year; or even, beyond the tragedy those are, the attendant delays to riders when they happen.

They are about preventing any intrusion at track level (people jumping down to grab the phone they dropped) (or running into the tunnels to evade police); and they are also about preventing litter on the track level which is a leading cause of smoke/fire when said litter makes contact w/the third rail.

Collectively we're talking about dozens of delays each year, quite possibly over 100 which collectively represent hundreds of hours of delays for passengers, and overtime and other bills for TTC.

If the investment saves more than dozen lives in a typical year, and reduces the number of delays a typical passenger will encounter by 1-2 per month that's a plenty good justification for this idea, to me.

 

[TossYourJacket]

Yeah, but PSDs are not some new technology and this is an indoor station - its a VERY weak argument

But this is Toronto and we are apparently completely incapable of looking at other cities and learning from them. Everything has to be a "made in Toronto solution" that requires near-endless wasting of money and 17 different studies.

 

[rbt]

PSDs are not an "experiment". This mentality (excessive aversion to risk, unwillingness/inability to learn from places that are better) is the same mentality that gives us excessive slow orders on the subway and streetcar network, ridiculous levels of schedule padding, archaic scheduling practices, and subways that cost 5-10x what they should cost.

Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Singapore, literally all of East Asia, Sydney, Santiago, REM, heck even UPX - none of these places had to do run some kind of experiment with PSDs before mass deployment ...

Seriously? You're providing examples that back my statement that transit companies treat any change with caution. Paris modified Line 1 starting 2010 (along-side automation), but prototypes were installed on a small section of Line 13 (Saint-Lazare and Invalides stations) to monitor performance in 2006. They did a 2 station experiment for 3 years before installing on more critical sections of the system.

UPX and REM are both new builds. New builds nearly always run full service for several months before going live; that is the staff training phase.

I'm not saying Bloor/Yonge shouldn't be converted. I'm saying you need to get it funded at least 5 years prior to Bloor construction completion or they won't be in it.

 

[superelevation]

Seriously? You're providing examples that back my statement that transit companies treat any change with caution. Paris modified Line 1 starting 2010 (along-side automation), but prototypes were installed on a small section of Line 13 (Saint-Lazare and Invalides stations) to monitor performance in 2006. They did a 2 station experiment for 3 years before installing on more critical sections of the system.

UPX and REM are both new builds. New builds nearly always run full service for several months before going live; that is the staff training phase.

I'm not saying Bloor/Yonge shouldn't be converted. I'm saying you need to get it funded at least 5 years prior to Bloor construction completion or they won't be in it.

You're both right but the utlimate point here might be that Paris (and many other cities actually) have retrofitted PSDs and managed to train their respective staff etc. mostly without issue over 10 years ago. Toronto can do the same.

 

[SashaLemon]

Disagree.

PEDs are not merely about preventing one homicide/pushing incident every few years, nor the 12-30 suicides each year; or even, beyond the tragedy those are, the attendant delays to riders when they happen.

They are about preventing any intrusion at track level (people jumping down to grab the phone they dropped) (or running into the tunnels to evade police); and they are also about preventing litter on the track level which is a leading cause of smoke/fire when said litter makes contact w/the third rail.

Collectively we're talking about dozens of delays each year, quite possibly over 100 which collectively represent hundreds of hours of delays for passengers, and overtime and other bills for TTC.

If the investment saves more than dozen lives in a typical year, and reduces the number of delays a typical passenger will encounter by 1-2 per month that's a plenty good justification for this idea, to me.

Trains can also enter stations at full speed without worrying about blow-back, or having to stop sooner incase there is something on he track.

 

[sche]

Seriously? You're providing examples that back my statement that transit companies treat any change with caution. Paris modified Line 1 starting 2010 (along-side automation), but prototypes were installed on a small section of Line 13 (Saint-Lazare and Invalides stations) to monitor performance in 2006. They did a 2 station experiment for 3 years before installing on more critical sections of the system.

UPX and REM are both new builds. New builds nearly always run full service for several months before going live; that is the staff training phase.

I'm not saying Bloor/Yonge shouldn't be converted. I'm saying you need to get it funded at least 5 years prior to Bloor construction completion or they won't be in it.

Unlike installing PSDs on an automated line in Toronto in the 2020s, Paris in 2006 was actually doing something new and therefore actually had something to test. PSD retrofits were still fairly new back then, and doing it on a system as old as the Paris Metro had not been done before (because of this Paris needed PSDs to work with curved platforms and such). The 2006 PSDs themselves were also prototypes. They were also doing this on Line 13 with non-automated trains at the time (PSDs are more commonly used in combination with automation).

The central part of Line 13 is also the most overcrowded part of the entire Paris Metro, an absolutely critical part of the system, not some low ridership Highway 407-type station like you suggest. Saint-Lazare is the busiest station on Line 13, with connections to the third busiest mainline rail station in the country and numerous other Metro lines as well as RER E and RER A. The Saint-Lazare complex is probably either the most important or the second most important hub (after Chatelet Les Halles) on the entire Paris public transport network. Invalides not as important as Saint-Lazare, but it's still very busy and is the second largest transfer hub on Line 13 with connections to line 8 and RER C.

The experiment was also not 3 years, it was for less than a year to test out the PSDs, then they were removed before they were deployed on all central stations of Line 13 in 2009-2012.

Maybe I was exaggerating a bit by suggesting no testing at all is the best approach, but testing a very mature technology at a low ridership station is definitely not necessary. Outfitting an entire station with PSDs as an experiment for staff training is also definitely not needed - heck, put like 1 PSD at Lower Bay if you must, but you definitely don't need to outfit an entire station with PSDs.

 

[rbt]

Unlike installing PSDs on an automated line in Toronto in the 2020s, Paris in 2006 was actually doing something new ...

I don't make TTC policy. I do agree they're highly risk-averse: there are many reasons but the main one is funding (they don't have enough money to be able to make mistakes). A discussion about it probably isn't right for this thread about Bloor-Yonge Capacity.

I do want PSDs at Bloor/Yonge and other busy stations. Achieving those requires people to write their current and future councillor to get such a project funded (it is NOT a funded feature today), including a trial period because TTC is the way that it is as that's simply who we're working with, whether they should be that way or not. There's an election coming and potential new councillors are often quite good at listening before they're elected.

Do not wait until 2030 to ask for PSDs at Bloor/Yonge. It will not be a 6 month project for TTC even if other agencies might do it in 6 months.


Changing TTC policy to move-fast and break-things is a much much much larger political project than getting PSDs at Bloor/Yonge at a slow schedule.

 

[DSC]

As I have said here before (or, at least, thought of saying!) PEDs are certainly VERY desirable at busy stations like Bloor-Yonge or stations with very narrow platforms. They may also be good in every station, eventually. It is quite possible to install them station-by-station so that we can learn from experience of problems and solutions. (Though I am sure that if some stations got hem and some did not there would be the usual accusations of discrimination!) The doors do not need to be the same at every station, some may be best 'full-height' (which is probably the gold standard), others may only require waist-height doors - which would also reduce the problems of ventilation in older stations - full-height doors would require major ventilation changes in many stations. In short, if one wants to lobby for PEDs then lobby for a gradual approach that can be varied as station architecture and crowding and experience dictate.