Looking down at Queens Quay and Bay (sorry about the strong reflection)

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hawc said:
They do? So then why is it impossible to get two green lights in a row anywhere downtown? Some roads seem intentionally timed to go Red, Red, Red, even if you're the first off the light at the last red. The only road that's noticeably calibrated for cars is Richmond.
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As someone who worked on various light synchronization projects around the city, synchronizing two-way streets will likely never give you a continuous green. Sometimes you can have an overall better level of service at an intersection or street by having shorter greens in all directions, or a combination of things. Most of the streets run at a pretty high volume, though, so all you need is one overly cautious driver, or accident or TTC driver taking a coffee break in the middle of a route and that can throw the whole flow way down the street.
 
BMO said:
As someone who worked on various light synchronization projects around the city, synchronizing two-way streets will likely never give you a continuous green. Sometimes you can have an overall better level of service at an intersection or street by having shorter greens in all directions, or a combination of things. Most of the streets run at a pretty high volume, though, so all you need is one overly cautious driver, or accident or TTC driver taking a coffee break in the middle of a route and that can throw the whole flow way down the street.
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Exactly, it's mostly pointless to even try co-ordination downtown, outside of the handful of streets where it is widely implemented (Richmond, Adelaide, Lakeshore, and to some extent University). Given the amount of unpredictability in downtown streets with parked cars, bicycles, pedestrians, lane closures, streetcar stops and most importantly transit priority, the co-ordination would backfire a good proportion of the time anyway. And it would almost certainly screw up surface transit even more, which is a big deal considering that the new streetcars will be the limiting factor in a street's travel speed.

It's better to look at the intersections individually or in small groups and optimize them in terms of capacity and progression. The fundamental basis of co-ordination is that the intersections' cycle lengths need to be the same or harmonic. But larger/busier intersections tend to operate more efficiently with longer cycle lengths, and smaller intersections tend to operate more efficiently with shorter ones. Forcing all the intersections to share a cycle length inherently results in less efficient intersections.

What I meant was that when the city does co-ordinate traffic lights, it is always for cars.
 
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Tuscani01 said:
Apparently not. Still taking 30+ minutes from Dan Leckie to Union according to people on the CityPlace Facebook page.
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It does not take 30+ minutes, or at least no where close to that last night. Things were quicker, although still not at speed that it should be.

There were also several crews at a number of intersections last night playing with the control boxes.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
smallspy said:
It does not take 30+ minutes, or at least no where close to that last night. Things were quicker, although still not at speed that it should be.

There were also several crews at a number of intersections last night playing with the control boxes.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
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I've seen many people say 30 minutes. You have to include the wait for a streetcar, which according to a friend was a whole 18 minutes.
 
Tuscani01 said:
I've seen many people say 30 minutes. You have to include the wait for a streetcar, which according to a friend was a whole 18 minutes.
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So 12 minutes.

If it's an 18-minute wait for a streetcar, why would you even leave your house? And if you did, why would you wait for a streetcar? It's only a 20-minute walk to Union from there.
 
nfitz said:
So 12 minutes.

If it's an 18-minute wait for a streetcar, why would you even leave your house? And if you did, why would you wait for a streetcar? It's only a 20-minute walk to Union from there.
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I think the issue is that people are not expecting the long delays. The bus was always there and pretty quick. People were told the 509 would be an improvement, and instead, are being surprised by ridiculous commute times to Union, as well as streetcars that arrive already full at Bathurst Street heading West.

It's a sudden change, so you can't expect everyone to instantly adjust. No one expected it to be this bad.
 
reaperexpress said:
Exactly, it's mostly pointless to even try co-ordination downtown, outside of the handful of streets where it is widely implemented (Richmond, Adelaide, Lakeshore, and to some extent University). Given the amount of unpredictability in downtown streets with parked cars, bicycles, pedestrians, lane closures, streetcar stops and most importantly transit priority, the co-ordination would backfire a good proportion of the time anyway. And it would almost certainly screw up surface transit even more, which is a big deal considering that the new streetcars will be the limiting factor in a street's travel speed.

It's better to look at the intersections individually or in small groups and optimize them in terms of capacity and progression. The fundamental basis of co-ordination is that the intersections' cycle lengths need to be the same or harmonic. But larger/busier intersections tend to operate more efficiently with longer cycle lengths, and smaller intersections tend to operate more efficiently with shorter ones. Forcing all the intersections to share a cycle length inherently results in less efficient intersections.

What I meant was that when the city does co-ordinate traffic lights, it is always for cars.
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Also just wanted to chime in that there are a hundred or so major intersections in Toronto that are called SCOOT intersections which run on their own centrally controlled system that adjusts based on traffic volume (i.e. depending on how many people are lining up one direction + turning , etc it can adjust the cycle length on the fly) So most synchronization for all the other lights is kind of constrained by these intersections when you look at an entire street as a whole. In fact some of these intersections are actual especially calibrated for transit priority (thinking of Bloor and Islington). More intersections fro the SCOOT system are coming on every year, but it's still a pretty manual way that the vast majority of lights are synchronized in Toronto and aren't being centrally controlled and monitored and adjusted every day. The city does monitor over time if traffic levels have been changing and will perform minor calibrations but you could theoretically have an out-dated signal timing sheet for a light in 2014 that was made in 2006, etc

Just thought you guys might like to know so it puts the whole argument about synchronized lights into perspective.
 
Tuscani01 said:
I think the issue is that people are not expecting the long delays. The bus was always there and pretty quick.
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Looking right now, streetcars east at Dan Leckie in 30 seconds, 4 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 7 minutes.

Personally, the one time I took the bus, they came every 5 minutes or so in rush hour, and kept going past without stopping, because they were so full. I never had that problem trying to head west from Queens Quay/Bay with streetcars previously.

I'd expect some teething problems - but I can't see how this can be worse than the buses, given how slowly they seemed to move down Bay Street in rush hour.

Tuscani01 said:
People were told the 509 would be an improvement, and instead, are being surprised by ridiculous commute times to Union, as well as streetcars that arrive already full at Bathurst Street heading West.
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Full streetcars heading WEST at Bathurst? Was something going on at the Ex?
 
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