[EastYorkTTCFan]

Considering someone got ran over by one of the new streetcars earlier this week jaywalking over the Spadina line, I wouldn't dismiss the concern either.

Yes but they won't be needing to cross the track in the underground stations like they do with streetcars, it could happen on the outside stops because well people are stupid and don't always look as they run across the streetcar tracks.

 

[nfitz]

Yes but they won't be needing to cross the track in the underground stations like they do with streetcars, it could happen on the outside stops because well people are stupid and don't always look as they run across the streetcar tracks.

They don't put platform door because of accidental deaths, more so because of suicides.

Which I'm sure will be just as effective in the Eglinton tunnel as it is in the other tunnels. Who knows, might be worse, given the lack of the visual separation - I don't know triggers these things.

 

[BurlOak]

The don't put platform door because of accidental deaths, more so because of suicides.

Which I'm sure will be just as effective in the Eglinton tunnel as it is in the other tunnels. Who knows, might be worse, given the lack of the visual separation - I don't know triggers these things.

What were the recent stats on TTC delays. I recall, ~25 suicides and ~90 passengers on tracks.
I can easily see the passengers on track level going up since its a simple step to get to track level.

 

[nfitz]

What were the recent stats on TTC delays. I recall, ~25 suicides and ~90 passengers on tracks.
I can easily see the passengers on track level going up since its a simple step to get to track level.

Quite possibly. Look at the problem we have with the similar station at Queens Quay. It's the cars that keep committing suicide there.

BKVE 792

 

[TheTigerMaster]

They don't put platform door because of accidental deaths, more so because of suicides.

Which I'm sure will be just as effective in the Eglinton tunnel as it is in the other tunnels. Who knows, might be worse, given the lack of the visual separation - I don't know triggers these things.

ATC will have obstacle detection at track level, right? It's only a matter of time before some drunken idiot stands on the tracks thinking it's a platform.

 

[Palma]

Yes but they won't be needing to cross the track in the underground stations like they do with streetcars, it could happen on the outside stops because well people are stupid and don't always look as they run across the streetcar tracks.

and how is it that the streetcar driver did not see the person crossing from a distance?

 

[nfitz]

ATC will have obstacle detection at track level, right? It's only a matter of time before some drunken idiot stands on the tracks thinking it's a platform.

Or a child running around. On the current island streetcar platforms (that I use anyway with kids), it's difficult enough to coral them into the shelter area. Depending how roadlike track bed looks, things might happen. Think of all the stupid things you did when you were 12.

and how is it that the streetcar driver did not see the person crossing from a distance?

The accident on Spadina? On another forum a reliable poster said that the person had just gotten off a northbound streetcar, walk behind the back (on the pedestrian crossing at the north side of Sullivan, and as they stepped from behind the northbound car, got taken out by the southbound car that they didn't know was there.

So it wasn't from a distance, the southbound driver would have had very little, if any, time to stop. If they had any speed, by the time their foot hit the brake, it was too likely too late.

I guess don't cross on red applies over the streetcar tracks as well.

 

[steveintoronto]

Initial trainset configuration will be four-car sets, since that is all that is necessary to meet anticipated 2031 demand. This will be expandable to six-car, or perhaps even eight-car sets, as demand increases over time.

Line 1 is limited to 7 trains, and RL is designed for 8. On another note if I recall correctly, when Yonge line opened it ran with two cars off-peak, not even four.

Mmmm....Thought I'd let the dust settle on that line of reasoning.

Congratulations folks. You've just proven the case for LRT in tunnel. The argument against it was that it couldn't handle the load.

Due to the tunnel bore, platforms and power supply being common to both, (LRVs can be dual current/voltage mode, already produced by all the major suppliers), and the tunnel to the Don Valley included in Phase One, it's a simple matter to run RER in the tunnel, given the platforms are long enough, when the load demand appears.

Forward compatible, with opportunity for run-through. What a concept, just like they do in real "World Class Cities"...for "Toronto's most expensive subway to date".

In fact, in many European, some Asian and Australian cities, they run dual-mode LRVs along heavy rail tracks. Mixed with RERs. That would be a bit difficult for Torontonians to consider, however, let alone LRVs running up and down the Don Valley on the tracks when RER aren't. (Temporal separation)

One detail that would be problematic is the curve radii, they'd have to be softened to permit the ostensibly longer length EMU coaches, albeit those specs are not yet set for the GO EMUs or the final alignment for the tunnel. LRVs would be as the Crosstown type, single-ended pairs coupled, with possibility of a trailer, powered or not, sandwiched between.

Edmonton and Calgary do it. Gosh...could we learn anything from them? Doubtful, language difficulties and the like...

Let the Province fund the line, let the Province run it, let the Province deal with the Feds to see if Infrastructure Ontario and the Infrastructure Bank could partner, as Crosstown now is, on a shared private investment/governments invested basis. And consider the eventual western connection to meet present GO lines to do run-through from the Georgetown Corridor to the Don Valley line at least to Steeles. (CN owns RoW north from there)

Just like the big kids do.

 

[Euphoria]

Are you saying that essentially the DRL should become an east-west connector between the Stouffville, Richmond Hill, and Barrie/Georgetown train lines? And are you saying that the DRL trains should be able to essentially enter these rail corridors and use the existing railway tracks or that the DRL subway/LRT should just interline or travel within the same GO corridors, but not on the existing tracks? I see tremendous versatility and cost savings in using existing north-south rail corridors, not to mention that if this was done in the first phase of DRL construction, we'd essentially have a giant J line up and running from Steeles and Kennedy (Milliken Station) to Mount Dennis and Pearson Airport very quickly, even in the first phase.

Extensions beyond Dufferin/Queen and the Queen/Broadview Unilever site to the east and west along Queen could happen later on, but essentially the infrastructure is already there to run north-south along existing rail corridors, so why not simply have the DRL trains enter them? This will be easy at the Unilever site, where there's plenty of room to build an interface between the DRL and the Stouffville Rail Corridor, but what would that interface look like at the Georgetown/Barrie rail corridor at Queen and Dufferin? That's a more complex project. Also, there is no current plan for a DRL station where the Richmond Hill rail corridor would cross the DRL, unless the planned King-Sumach station is shifted east. I think it should be shifted and I think having the DRL be inter-operable with RER lines on existing rail corridors is brilliant and the way to go. It means, however, that Metrolinx and the province (essentially GO leadership) has a greater role to play here. That was the point of creating Metrolinx.

The biggest bang for the buck comes from building the DRL as part of the larger RER network. Really, all we'd be giving up in the first phase of DRL construction is a Queen-Carlaw station (we could still tunnel from Gerard to Pape Station), but we'd be gaining three north-south routes with DRL station stops at all the existing and planned GO stations on these existing north-south routes. The money that would've been used to tunnel under Carlaw/Pape could be used to tunnel the DRL west beyond Osgoode Station to Queen and Dufferin/Gladstone, allowing for the addition of multiple stations between University Ave. and Dufferin along the Queen alignment. Brilliant.

 

[TransitBart]

The accident on Spadina? On another forum a reliable poster said that the person had just gotten off a northbound streetcar, walk behind the back (on the pedestrian crossing at the north side of Sullivan, and as they stepped from behind the northbound car, got taken out by the southbound car that they didn't know was there.

So it wasn't from a distance, the southbound driver would have had very little, if any, time to stop. If they had any speed, by the time their foot hit the brake, it was too likely too late.

I guess don't cross on red applies over the streetcar tracks as well.

If I could take the collective mental energy of the top dozen posters here and turn it into money and or holes in the ground, the line would be built. Now back to the point.

People on tracks or not.

A streetcar is on a street. People are everywhere on streets. That is our 'acclimatization', custom, 'formation' - French, or 'education' - Spanish. Our norm.

An LRT is not a big streetcar. It's like a subway. People are not supposed to be on the tracks. EVER. You follow the platform to the ramp end and then cross the street or to the other platform if you have gone too far or made a mistake and need to go back in the other direction. What you don't do, not in Europe, not on the 510 which is the closest thing we have to something in Europe, or on the coming Crosstown, is jump off the platform, walk behind the vehicle that you disembarked from and walk into the path of an oncoming vehicle. (Aside - centre platforms on the Crosstown obviate this issue. So there, they are safer in one respect.)

I am empathetic to your arguments, all of you. But there is no cure for stupidity and the solution is a longer term 'training' of minds to treat the 510 platforms more like subway platforms. People do not belong on the tracks of the separate right of way and there is not enough money in the world to save everyone from stupidity. People don't cross subway tracks because of the height and they don't cross GO tracks because of the chain link fence running between the tracks in side-platform confiuration. A simple guardrail running the length of the platform between the tracks at each stop on the 510 will solve this problem.

As will people taking their safety and responsibility seriously. At the entrance to the CN yards in Winnipeg, there is a sign - it says clearly - "YOUR SAFETY IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY." This applies here.

Platform edge doors are expensive and I would not install them either due to the cost except at BLOOR/YONGE, ST GEORGE, and UNION. They would be a great addition in those locations. But we've painted ourselves into the 'no acceptable network alternative while construction is on-going' corner on that one. The concerns are far from uniquely financial.

**gets off soapbox**

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I don't think walking on tracks is going to be a problem. In years of using underground streetcar stations, such as St Clair West, Spadina and Queens Quay, I can't recall a single instance of seeing people on the track. I'm sure it does happen, but not common enough to worry about.

 

[steveintoronto]

The biggest bang for the buck comes from building the DRL as part of the larger RER network. Really, all we'd be giving up in the first phase of DRL construction is a Queen-Carlaw station, but we'd be gaining three north-south routes with DRL station stops at all the existing and planned GO stations on these existing north-south routes. The money that would've been used to tunnel under Carlaw/Pape could be used to tunnel the DRL west beyond Osgoode Station to Queen and Dufferin/Gladstone, allowing for the addition of multiple stations between University Ave. and Dufferin along the Queen alignment. Brilliant.

I have to make clear that I'm far from the first to propose *aspects* of this. Schabas and others have pointed this out a few years back:
http://www.neptis.org/publications/go-transit-and-promise-regional-express-rail

The discussion is coming full circle again, as James in TorStar is pointing out, and here's the source of some of his reference:

Bent Flyvbjerg

Professor, Research Director, Dr. Techn., Dr. Scient., and Ph.D.

Notice: On April 1, 2009, Bent Flyvbjerg moved to University of Oxford. Flyvbjerg's Aalborg website is up to date until the time of his move. After this date, please see his site at Oxford:
www.sbs.oxford.edu/bentflyvbjerg





When Planners Lie with Numbers

The text below is an excerpt from the article "How (In)accurate Are Demand Forecasts in Public Works Projects? The Case of Transportation," by Bent Flyvbjerg, Mette Skamris Holm, and Søren Buhl, published in Journal of the American Planning Association, vol. 71, no. 2, Spring 2005. For notes and references, please see the article.

In the present section we consider the situation where planners and other influential actors do not find it important to get forecasts right and where planners, therefore, do not help to clarify and mitigate risk but, instead, generate and exacerbate it. Here planners are part of the problem, not the solution. This situation may need some explication, because it possibly sounds to many like an unlikely state of affairs. After all, it may be agreed that planners ought to be interested in being accurate and unbiased in forecasting. It is even stated as an explicit requirement in the AICP (American Institute of Certified Planners) Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct that "A planner must strive to provide full, clear and accurate information on planning issues to citizens and governmental decision-makers" (American Planning Association 1991, A.3), and we certainly agree with the Code. The British RTPI has laid down similar obligations for its members (Royal Town Planning Institute 2001).

However, the literature is replete with things planners and planning "must" strive to do, but which they don't. Planning must be open and communicative, but often it is closed. Planning must be participatory and democratic, but often it is an instrument to dominate and control. Planning must be about rationality, but often it is about power (Flyvbjerg 1998, Watson 2003). This is the "dark side" of planning and planners identified by Flyvbjerg (1996) and Yiftachel (1998), which is remarkably underexplored by planning researchers and theorists.[...]

http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/liewithnumbers.php
http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/liewithnumbers.php
As with SSE, the logic is an afterthought to the 'political inertia'...I must run, but will itemize and reference/link much more later.

The bottom line is this: For the few pennies more to do this *completely forward compatible* (a larger bore size and station box size) is fractional, almost inconsequentially, especially with the savings of doing this LRV initially, that it would be *criminal* not to invest "Toronto's most expensive subway ever" as such.

Back later...

 

[M II A II R II K]

With ATC the next rolling stock could be made to be the same length as the platforms on Lines 1 & 2. By having 2 short carriages attached at each end. Could add another 10% capacity

 

[nfitz]

I don't think walking on tracks is going to be a problem. In years of using underground streetcar stations, such as St Clair West, Spadina and Queens Quay, I can't recall a single instance of seeing people on the track. I'm sure it does happen, but not common enough to worry about.

Spadina is only single track - no where to go (unless you've parked you car in the tunnel somewhere). Don't get up to St. Clair West often ... but Queens Quay - I see people on the tracks all the time. Is it even possible to get to the northbound platform without going on the tracks?

 

[M II A II R II K]

To have a simple name in the beginning it could be called the East Downtown line until it becomes more representative