[MrGoose]

Surely with the wider trains, and lack of catenary, you have to fill the tunnels a bit more Line 1 and 2 trains.

So many other misleading comments - but this one really jumped out.

Also, why not just make one big post, rather than 3 consecutive posts about this project?

The more I look, the more problems I find.

Idk what they did, but from what I can find on the internet, the tunnel diameter of the crosstown tunnels is 6.5m. The tunnel diameter of the Spadina extension was 6m. So whatever they did to the tunnel, they could have fit a full subway in it. I.e. theres either empty space or they filled it in with concrete.

https://www.stantec.com/en/projects/canada-projects/t/toronto-york-spadina-subway-extension

Look at this video of the test drive

Theres at least a foot of concrete on either side of the tram just filled in

 

[crs1026]

We should shut the line down and replace it with a real fucking subway.

We paid for a subway, had the delays of a subway and got a fucking tram that doesn't even get priority over left turning cars.

I don’t know what you are on about. The center (underground) and west (elevated/underground) sections will work just fine.

If passenger volumes prove to be higher than planned, they can order more trams. The train length/vehicle choice may be shortsighted, but the line at opening will not be delivering at its maximum capacity. It can be scaled upwards considerably. If it maxes out in 2040…. that can be solved then..

I am somewhat hopeful that the minimal traffic priority will indeed prove to be an embarrassment, because that can be changed. It might actually be the case study we need to break the bureaucratic mindset. I am sure that once the line opens, there will be people standing up and publicly demanding this. Right now, the issue is not well understood by the public - but if riders begin complaining in numbers about slow service, it will be different.

Sometimes things have to get awful before they can get better, and this may be one of those times. But don’t throw out the proverbial baby - the line will be a great step forward even with that challenge..

- Paul

 

[T3G]

When you're in a streetcar that has to stop at every red light on top of having to stop at stations that are placed way too close together, the car becomes far more competitive and useful at all times outside of rush hour.

Assertion that the stops are placed too close together. Looking at Google Maps measurements, the only stops I see that are not reasonably spaced out are Kennedy - Ionview and Warden - Hakimi Lebovic. All of the other inter-stop segments average half a kilometre between stops (the average stop spacing on the Danforth line), with some extremes such as Victoria Park - Sloane and Sloane - Wynford being almost 1 km apart. Just how far apart do you expect the stops to be?

Moreover, your point could very well apply to all forms of suburban transit outside rush hour. As of right now (12:32 PM as I type this post), if I was starting from Kennedy and Eglinton and needed to get to Kipling Station, it would take me 51 minutes via line 2 or 46 minutes by car. Add in any potential disruptions, crowding, or getting off at the wrong end of the platform, and that time adds up. Then there are the personal, subjective feelings (which form the crux of most arguments about transit being competitive vs the car), such as colourful characters enriching the ride on the subway, or personal fears about COVID, or any number of other reasons. The further you're travelling, especially in less dense suburban areas, the less competitive transit becomes. That doesn't mean transit is worthless, but it means that there's always going to be something that prevents someone from taking transit. Rather than setting money on fire by building subways everywhere, we should seek to optimize transit to serve the people who will use it and be realistic that a goal of transit usage of 100% is not going to get us anywhere.

Because that's fundamentally diametrically opposed. People who are travelling crosstown want to travel long distances, and thus extra stations and constant red lights hurt that goal. You can either have a more long distance express service with longer stop spacing, or a more local service with shorter stop spacing, you can't please everyone.

See my point above about extra stations. Furthermore, what you just described could easily be argued about a subway line, too. When I have to use line 2 for crosstown trips, I find it to be highly agitating to have to slow down and stop for passengers at holes in the wall like Chester, Greenwood, Donlands. So I guess to make it more competitive, we should nix all of these local stops of no consequence, so crosstown commuters don't have to suffer adding a few extra minutes to their commute. What about line 1 and the closely spaced together downtown stations? Do you know how much time long distance commuters would save if we closed one of Queen/King or St. Andrew/Osgoode? As you yourself said in your post, you can't please everyone, and making transit less useful for people at stops along the line so that crosstown travellers don't have to suffer a few extra minutes on their commute hardly seems fair.

Prague has a population that is 3x smaller, and an urban area that is 6x smaller. In fact, if we just include the central Eglinton Crosstown and Eglinton West Line lengths at ~28km, it looks like this on a map of Prague:

Three issues with this argument.

1. The urban area of Prague is no more relevant to the discussion than the urban area of Toronto is. The Eglinton Crosstown is not going to be used, in any large capacity, by commuters from Hamilton, or Peel, or Halton, or York, or Durham - it is not GO Transit - so their existence is completely irrelevant to the equation. It is being used predominantly by passengers within Toronto.

2. Just because Prague isn't as big as Toronto doesn't mean that lessons can't be learned from their transit. Any idea to the contrary is typical Torontonian exceptionalism. And if Prague is not to your liking, perhaps Belgrade, Bucharest, or Vienna would be. And FYI, as a point of comparison, Prague's longest tram line, the 10, is 22.29 km long and a single direction trip on it takes 68 minutes. And they have stupid car drivers and careless J-walkers, too.

3. Most European cities, including Prague, are not laid out in a grid layout, so the distance end to end isn't much of a gotcha. Their streets, and therefore their transit routes, are winding. Moscow is one of the largest, if not the largest cities in Europe by area (2561 sq km) but when measured east-west is only 39 km across.

It also means it's wide enough to have an elevated guideway like Vancouver and not cause any problems with shadowing like you see in cities like NYC.

No, but the costs of building and maintaining such a thing are still much higher than regular median based rights-of-way, a point I have brought up repeatedly and which you continuously fail to address.

If it was built grade separated, it shouldn't be an LRT end of story, Ottawa shouldn't be an example to follow.

End of story? So, what, just like that you can shut down an argument because of your own personal feelings toward LRT? Why exactly shouldn't anything grade separated be an LRT? So that we can have more lines like the underused Line 4 criss crossing the city?

 

[MrGoose]

I don’t know what you are on about. The center (underground) and west (elevated/underground) sections will work just fine.

If passenger volumes prove to be higher than planned, they can order more trams. The train length/vehicle choice may be shortsighted, but the line at opening will not be delivering at its maximum capacity. It can be scaled upwards considerably. If it maxes out in 2040…. that can be solved then..

I am somewhat hopeful that the minimal traffic priority will indeed prove to be an embarrassment, because that can be changed. It might actually be the case study we need to break the bureaucratic mindset. I am sure that once the line opens, there will be people standing up and publicly demanding this. Right now, the issue is not well understood by the public - but if riders begin complaining in numbers about slow service, it will be different.

Sometimes things have to get awful before they can get better, and this may be one of those times. But don’t throw out the proverbial baby - the line will be a great step forward even with that challenge..

- Paul

The tunnels are subway width, we just filled them in with concrete. Since most of the cost of this line is from the stations, then if doubled the station spacing, we could have had the same line, but it would have been a real subway.

We gimped future capacity by choosing the fundamentally wrong technology for this line.

 

[T3G]

WHY ARE THERE 3 STATIONS BETWEEN EGLINTON AND EGLINTON WEST? THE TRAM IS 100M LONG, THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE STATIONS EVERY 700 M.

There does if we want the line to actually be of some value to the community that it serves, rather than being a useless showcase quasi-express line that we can use to feel good about how world class we are.

 

[nfitz]

Idk what they did, but from what I can find on the internet, the tunnel diameter of the crosstown tunnels is 6.5m. The tunnel diameter of the Spadina extension was 6m. So whatever they did to the tunnel, they could have fit a full subway in it

We discussed this ad-nauseum earlier in the thread - we all know it's wider. The reason is primarily the catenary. Though the amount of material excavated is till less than the newsingle-bore Line 2 extension.

If you are going to bludgeon us with lots of multiple repetitive posts, perhaps you can read the thread first.

Theres at least a foot of concrete on either side of the tram just filled in

The emergency walkway. Also discussed earlier.

The tunnels are subway width, we just filled them in with concrete

You need to listen to what people are saying with you. Respond if you disagree, but don't just continue repeating the same misleading comments.

There does if we want the line to actually be of some value to the community that it serves, rather than being a useless showcase quasi-express line that we can use to feel good about how world class we are.

It does make one wonder which part of the city MrGoose lives in, and which part of the TTC they use.

 

[MrGoose]

Assertion that the stops are placed too close together. Looking at Google Maps measurements, the only stops I see that are not reasonably spaced out are Kennedy - Ionview and Warden - Hakimi Lebovic. All of the other inter-stop segments average half a kilometre between stops (the average stop spacing on the Danforth line), with some extremes such as Victoria Park - Sloane and Sloane - Wynford being almost 1 km apart. Just how far apart do you expect the stops to be?

Moreover, your point could very well apply to all forms of suburban transit outside rush hour. As of right now (12:32 PM as I type this post), if I was starting from Kennedy and Eglinton and needed to get to Kipling Station, it would take me 51 minutes via line 2 or 46 minutes by car. Add in any potential disruptions, crowding, or getting off at the wrong end of the platform, and that time adds up. Then there are the personal, subjective feelings (which form the crux of most arguments about transit being competitive vs the car), such as colourful characters enriching the ride on the subway, or personal fears about COVID, or any number of other reasons. The further you're travelling, especially in less dense suburban areas, the less competitive transit becomes. That doesn't mean transit is worthless, but it means that there's always going to be something that prevents someone from taking transit. Rather than setting money on fire by building subways everywhere, we should seek to optimize transit to serve the people who will use it and be realistic that a goal of transit usage of 100% is not going to get us anywhere.

Eglinton would have been the perfect corridor for a subway. And we spent subway money 600M$ per KM on this line. The Ontario line is 700M$ per KM.

We "set money on fire" and didn't even get subway level capacity or speeds.

See my point above about extra stations. Furthermore, what you just described could easily be argued about a subway line, too. When I have to use line 2 for crosstown trips, I find it to be highly agitating to have to slow down and stop for passengers at holes in the wall like Chester, Greenwood, Donlands. So I guess to make it more competitive, we should nix all of these local stops of no consequence, so crosstown commuters don't have to suffer adding a few extra minutes to their commute. What about line 1 and the closely spaced together downtown stations? Do you know how much time long distance commuters would save if we closed one of Queen/King or St. Andrew/Osgoode? As you yourself said in your post, you can't please everyone, and making transit less useful for people at stops along the line so that crosstown travellers don't have to suffer a few extra minutes on their commute hardly seems fair.

Yes. If a station is low ridership and adds time to everyone elses commute, then closing it down has the greatest benefit.

Time is money and we're saving much more time if the line goes faster.

End of story? So, what, just like that you can shut down an argument because of your own personal feelings toward LRT? Why exactly shouldn't anything grade separated be an LRT? So that we can have more lines like the underused Line 4 criss crossing the city?

Grade separation costs lots of money. We need to get a good return on our transit investment. Ergo. Grade separated transit lines need to be high capacity and high speed. Otherwise, we might as well paint in bus lanes.
So grade separated lines should be metros

 

[MrGoose]

There does if we want the line to actually be of some value to the community that it serves, rather than being a useless showcase quasi-express line that we can use to feel good about how world class we are.

Station spacing in lower density areas needs to be 2km. Otherwise we have overlapping walk/bikesheds and are duplicating effort. Also we have busses that feed our subway lines. So there is no need to have very expensive stations so close together where the ridership does not merit such investment.

 

[MrGoose]

We discussed this ad-nauseum earlier in the thread - we all know it's wider. The reason is primarily the catenary. Though the amount of material excavated is till less than the newsingle-bore Line 2 extension.

If you are going to bludgeon us with lots of multiple repetitive posts, perhaps you can read the thread first.

The emergency walkway. Also discussed earlier.

You need to listen to what people are saying with you. Respond if you disagree, but don't just continue repeating the same misleading comments.

Somehow we manage to have emergency walkways and power lines in a 6m wide tunnel for our existing / new subways but can't fit them in on the crosstown?

Not to mention that higher capacity subways in other countries run in narrower tunnels than the crosstown.

 

[T3G]

Station spacing in lower density areas needs to be 2km. Otherwise we have overlapping walk/bikesheds and are duplicating effort. Also we have busses that feed our subway lines. So there is no need to have very expensive stations so close together where the ridership does not merit such investment.

Yes. If a station is low ridership and adds time to everyone elses commute, then closing it down has the greatest benefit.

Time is money and we're saving much more time if the line goes faster.

Yes, and you know what? We would also save money if, instead of trains with features such as seats and lights, we just crowded everyone into unlit cattle cars.

Transit is supposed to be for all demographics of people, and I'm fairly certain that those with mobility challenges will not think highly of you removing their local station so that your train can run a bit faster. And you know what? If I had to walk 2 km in -30C temperatures because you decided my local station was superflous to some subjective notion about what our transit system should be like, I wouldn't think much of you, either.

 

[nfitz]

[

WHY ARE THERE 3 STATIONS BETWEEN EGLINTON AND EGLINTON WEST? THE TRAM IS 100M LONG, THERE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE STATIONS EVERY 700 M.

Terrible fucking economics.

No where near as bad as digging the Line 2 extension deep underground, or not putting the Eglinton West extension at surface. Even elevating Eglinton West rather than tunnelling would have better economics.

Station spacing in lower density areas needs to be 2km.

Eglinton between Mount Pleasant and Eglinton West isn't even a lower-density area now - let alone in a couple of decades - you've seen all the new projects being built.

Somehow we manage to have emergency walkways and power lines in a 6m wide tunnel for our existing / new subways but can't fit them in on the crosstown?

There are both emergency walkways and power lines on Line 5 - I don't no what you are referring to.

Not to mention that higher capacity subways in other countries run in narrower tunnels than the crosstown.

Built to current Ontario building code? Also - a red herring given capacity is primarily a function of platform length, not train width (or height).

Also, again. Please don't post 3 comments in a row - just write one.

 

[MrGoose]

Yes, and you know what? We would also save money if, instead of trains with features such as seats and lights, we just crowded everyone into unlit cattle cars.

Transit is supposed to be for all demographics of people, and I'm fairly certain that those with mobility challenges will not think highly of you removing their local station so that your train can run a bit faster. And you know what? If I had to walk 2 km in -30C temperatures because you decided my local station was superflous to some subjective notion about what our transit system should be like, I wouldn't think much of you, either.

Me and everyone else on the train who has an extra 5min tacked onto their commute per direction every day b/c the train stopped at 3 stations with sub 10k per day ridership.

Thats 500k person minutes a day? 3 million person hours a year? At minimum wages those low ridership stations are costing 42 million dollars a year.

With that kind of logic, why dont we have stations every block along the YU line? Gotta make sure the line runs to everyones house directly we're not removing anyones "local station"

You fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of public transit. Its to get people around quickly, safely, reliably within the constraints of the urban environment. If the train is slow, then people will just drive causing traffic and contributing to the ongoing climate crisis.

 

[T3G]

With that kind of logic, why dont we have stations every block along the YU line? Gotta make sure the line runs to everyones house directly we're not removing anyones "local station"

Let's shelve the hyperbole. We don't need to have a station at everyone's house. What we need is for the system to be accessible and usable to everyone, even for those for whom walking 2 km to their nearest station would be a problem.

Half a kilometre between stops seems more than a reasonable compromise between speed and usability. Anything beyond that and you run the risk of alienating those with mobility challenges from using the system. Why should they, or anyone, suffer because you want to shave 5 minutes off your commute? Leave 5 minutes earlier. And I'm sure your local station is never on the chopping block in these hypothetical scenarios, right?

You fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of public transit. Its to get people around quickly, safely, reliably within the constraints of the urban environment.

You missed an important part. It's to get everyone around quickly, safely, and reliably. Not just those who can walk or bike long distances to their nearest station. Transit has to balance the needs of many.

If the train is slow, then people will just drive causing traffic and contributing to the ongoing climate crisis.

And those who have difficulty getting to their local stations, what if they choose to drive, or get a family member to drive? The beauty of public transit is that it democratizes personal travel; you can get around even if you're handicapped, or injured, or ineligible to get a driver's license. They can get around without having to rely on anyone else. Some people will eat the cost and scale the distance on foot anyway (something we should not celebrate, because in doing so we would be creating more suffering because of our selfishness), but those who have the option to would drive or have friends or relations driving them, therefore not making the problem any better.

Also I think the idea that people choose to drive because there are too many stops is a red herring. People choose to drive because transit is stuck in traffic, or the line management is poor, or the vehicles are in poor condition. No one, ever, has abandoned transit because they had to wait slightly too long while someone at a station other than their own boarded. Come on now.

 

[MrGoose]

There are both emergency walkways and power lines on Line 5 - I don't no what you are referring to.

Within the same geometry of a 6m diameter tunnel, we can fit a full sized TTC consist and the 3rd rail and the emergency walkway. So lets compare the capacity of the Flexity Freedom vs a Toronto Rocket

A Flexity Freedom can fit 135 people in a 20m 3 module car or 250 people in a 30m 5 module car. A Toronto rocket car can fit 260 people in a 22m long car b/c it is wider and doesn't need to accomodate wheel wells like the low floor Flexity Freedom.

So with a 120m long platform, we can have a 6 car Toronto rocket consist that will fit 1400 people or we can have 1000 people in 4x5 module Flexity freedom consist.

Even with the 100m platforms of the crosstown, we could fit 1040 with a 4 car Toronto Rocket or 750 people in a 3x5 module Flexity Freedom.

So for roughly the same cost, just by switching the technology from a low floor LRT to a high floor subway, we've either increased the capacity of the line by 40% or we're saving money by constructing smaller platforms.

Especially since these were grade separated stations so it doesn't actually matter if the train is low floor or not.

 

[ARG1]

Assertion that the stops are placed too close together. Looking at Google Maps measurements, the only stops I see that are not reasonably spaced out are Kennedy - Ionview and Warden - Hakimi Lebovic. All of the other inter-stop segments average half a kilometre between stops (the average stop spacing on the Danforth line), with some extremes such as Victoria Park - Sloane and Sloane - Wynford being almost 1 km apart. Just how far apart do you expect the stops to be?

The Bloor-Danforth Line should not be used as an example of good subway stop spacing, it's way too short. You want a good example of stop spacing done right? Look at Viva Blue in York Region, 1km stop spacing.

Moreover, your point could very well apply to all forms of suburban transit outside rush hour. As of right now (12:32 PM as I type this post), if I was starting from Kennedy and Eglinton and needed to get to Kipling Station, it would take me 51 minutes via line 2 or 46 minutes by car. Add in any potential disruptions, crowding, or getting off at the wrong end of the platform, and that time adds up. Then there are the personal, subjective feelings (which form the crux of most arguments about transit being competitive vs the car), such as colourful characters enriching the ride on the subway, or personal fears about COVID, or any number of other reasons. The further you're travelling, especially in less dense suburban areas, the less competitive transit becomes. That doesn't mean transit is worthless, but it means that there's always going to be something that prevents someone from taking transit. Rather than setting money on fire by building subways everywhere, we should seek to optimize transit to serve the people who will use it and be realistic that a goal of transit usage of 100% is not going to get us anywhere.

The assertion here is that you're starting at Kennedy and Eglinton, when in practice not many people will be starting there. You have to first get to Kennedy and Eglinton, and then take transit to where you need to go. Then after you reach Kipling, you're going to have to make a last mile connection there. Second, as I stated above the Bloor-Danforth line has frankly suboptimal stop spacing, and had it been build better could've been way faster. Finally, I actually love that you bring up Line 2's travel time because it allows me to make a side by side comparison. Line 6 is expected to have an end to end travel time of 35 mins, a little under that of Line 2, yet the line will be 10.6km instead of Line 2's 26.6km, slightly slower whilst being less than half of the length.

See my point above about extra stations. Furthermore, what you just described could easily be argued about a subway line, too. When I have to use line 2 for crosstown trips, I find it to be highly agitating to have to slow down and stop for passengers at holes in the wall like Chester, Greenwood, Donlands. So I guess to make it more competitive, we should nix all of these local stops of no consequence, so crosstown commuters don't have to suffer adding a few extra minutes to their commute.

It would be worth it I think. In an ideal world we would have a 4 track subway like New York, but the best option for now might be to say reactivate the midtown corridor and run that as an express route. It's unfortunately too late to change the design of Line 2 now.

Three issues with this argument.

1. The urban area of Prague is no more relevant to the discussion than the urban area of Toronto is. The Eglinton Crosstown is not going to be used, in any large capacity, by commuters from Hamilton, or Peel, or Halton, or York, or Durham - it is not GO Transit - so their existence is completely irrelevant to the equation. It is being used predominantly by passengers within Toronto.

Completely untrue, especially in the context of Peel, Durham, and York. GO is an extremely radial service, perfect for if you're going to downtown Toronto, but not everyone wants to go to Downtown Toronto. Say you're going to Midtown Toronto and you live in Vaughan. A completely expected trip could be to take the Barrie Line down to Caledonia, then transfer to Line 5 and head east. If you live in Mississauga and you want to head to Midtown or North York, we have MiTransitway -> Line 5 -> Line 1. This is the value of a crosstown route, there are actually many trips and journeys across the region that can be opened up, especially a corridor like Eglinton that connects so many different destinations and interchanges with so many other lines, and we blew it on an extremely fancy streetcar.

2. Just because Prague isn't as big as Toronto doesn't mean that lessons can't be learned from their transit. Any idea to the contrary is typical Torontonian exceptionalism. And if Prague is not to your liking, perhaps Belgrade, Bucharest, or Vienna would be. And FYI, as a point of comparison, Prague's longest tram line, the 10, is 22.29 km long and a single direction trip on it takes 68 minutes. And they have stupid car drivers and careless J-walkers, too.

There are 2 major differences between all of these cities and Toronto. First is land use, Toronto is far more sprawly and filled with car oriented suburbs. Second and most importantly, all these cities are building a massive amount of metros, the tram network in these cities effectively function as connecting tissues. The best use cases for on street trams are generally for A) As a feeder route to a larger rapid transit service, or B) As a local route in a downtown core. If we take a look at some old Transit City plans, we can actually see strong examples of these. The Finch West LRT, even though I blasted it's speed earlier, is a line that really doesn't punch above it's weight. It's a relatively short line that serves a specific area of Toronto. It connects to Line 1 in the east, and in the future will connect to the Kitchener Line in the West, as well as possibly the Bolton Line in the middle. It's not extremely long, so it's not really expected for people to travel end to end on it, it's a purely local service. Or how about the Scarborough Malvern LRT? Serves Central Scarborough with the idea being that it will connect people locals to subway and regional rail lines. The Eglinton Line is a massive straight line that costs almost as much a subway already, and is in a prime position for a longer distance crosstown route. Any european planner would look at it and tell you that it should probably be a subway line.

3. Most European cities, including Prague, are not laid out in a grid layout, so the distance end to end isn't much of a gotcha. Their streets, and therefore their transit routes, are winding. Moscow is one of the largest, if not the largest cities in Europe by area (2561 sq km) but when measured east-west is only 39 km across.

And Moscow is like the capital of building subways outside of China. In fact, Moscow is like a perfect case study for how to choose whether something should be a streetcar or a subway.

No, but the costs of building and maintaining such a thing are still much higher than regular median based rights-of-way, a point I have brought up repeatedly and which you continuously fail to address.

Because it doesn't really matter. We are already spending so much money on the tunneled section, the amount of money you'd spend on an elevated guideway in the middle of a stroad will be peanuts. Plus by building it as a metro, there are a ton of cost savings that you can find. Full automation means you spend far less on drivers. High Floor vehicles are generally quite a bit cheaper to maintain than Low Floor vehicles. If you fully automate a line, you can run at significantly higher frequencies which mean that all of these underground stations we built could be significantly smaller whilst offering a similar capacity if capacity really isn't an issue. As a reminder, the Canada Line in Vancouver that runs 40m trains has a higher ultimate capacity than the Eglinton Line at 3 car trains with 90m platforms.

End of story? So, what, just like that you can shut down an argument because of your own personal feelings toward LRT? Why exactly shouldn't anything grade separated be an LRT? So that we can have more lines like the underused Line 4 criss crossing the city?

The whole point of LRT is that it's flexible in where it can run, it can be on street or whatever. This is especially true for Low Floor vehicles. If we have a fully grade separated LRT, there are quite literally no benefits to using LRT technology, and you're stuck hurting with the downsides. Less capacity per m^2, and if you're using low floor vehicles you're now hit with longer dwell times, worse accessibility, and more expensive maintenance.

Also "that you can shut down an argument because of your own personal feelings toward LRT? " is a strawman. Nobody asked you to use your psychic powers to guess my motivations.