[scarberiankhatru]

So yeah, the savings in Madrid are considerably more than 1%, but I don't have the exact figures in front of me. They also do some other things that save money, like single tunnels with two tracks as opposed to double tunnels here in Toronto.

Just to add a bit to this: calculating cost per km of various subway lines is an occasional forum pastime but it's rarely done in a realistic or useful way. Some people tend to take, for example, the existing Sheppard line, and just multiply it for length and add inflation. Sheppard's cost per km would have been lowered by perhaps tens of millions of dollars had it continued east even a few km because the cost of two terminal stations, the absurdly deep Bayview station, the tricky interchange between the Yonge line and Yonge Street, the bridge/tunnel over the Don, keeping the intersection of Sheppard & Yonge open for the duration of construction, etc., all would have been absorbed by more km.

There is no standard cost per km so long as every line is different...one might be exclusively tunnelled while another might be cut'n'covered or run in trenches or at the surface, one line might require many huge bus terminals, while another may require very few, etc., etc. It's like saying "roads" cost $50 million per km, even though one road might be 2 lanes and through an empty field (really costing $20M/km) while the next road might be 6 lanes and through rocky terrain laced with creeks (really costing $200M/km).

 

[rbt]

So yeah, the savings in Madrid are considerably more than 1%, but I don't have the exact figures in front of me. They also do some other things that save money, like single tunnels with two tracks as opposed to double tunnels here in Toronto.

We have an example of continuous construction savings here. When the last round of streetcar track rebuilds began they were sloppy, quite slow, and expensive. Now, several years later it is about 1/2 the original cost per km and is at a higher quality level due to enhancements along the way like improving wrappings for vibration.

Anyway, for Madrid, one of the big cost savings is they essentially ignore underground streams and build watertight tunnel everywhere. This saves a ton of engineering and route planning time. Could seriously backfire in 30 years when the tunnels start to get leaky. Lots of 40 year old tunnel sections in Toronto are horribly leaky today and were also designed to be watertight at the time. Some stations actually have streams running directly above them.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Some stations actually have streams running directly above them.

cool! which ones?

 

[adma]

Oh hahaha I see what you did there. Morono instead of Munro because he's a moron, am I right?

I suppose if you're willing to dip to schoolyard insults, I can call you a big fat poop head, then? Whether you agree with him or not, he's done a hell of a lot more for transit in this city than you or I ever have, and that's worthy of a lot more respect than calling him "Morono" like it's some sort of epic insult.

"Morono"? Would he be advocating a streetcar line all the way up to 35/115?

 

[ShonTron]

"Morono"? Would he be advocating a streetcar line all the way up to 35/115?

Why not? They can use the old Canadian Northern alignment right into town.

 

[unimaginative2]

Uh uh. Absolutely not. All LRT must be built in road rights-of-way.

 

[dowlingm]

Uh uh. Absolutely not. All LRT must be built in road rights-of-way.

You should tell the people who run the massively successful LUAS LRT in Dublin that. Most of line B (Citadis 40m trams at 4 min peak headway) is on the old Harcourt Street Railway line.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

...or Edmonton and Calgary, where large sections of their LRTs run in existing or former rail corridors.

though i think unimaginative was being sarcastic.

 

[unimaginative2]

No, but that's Steve Munro's policy, and it's the Giambrone TTC's policy, too.

 

[RedRocket191]

Compare Toronto to Dublin and you'll notice that Toronto is a grid-oriented city and Dublin isn't. The travel patterns and the development patters in Toronto have followed the grid so it makes sense to build lines along the grids.

 

[unimaginative2]

I agree, but there's a huge cost in travel time if you're stopping at every traffic light. The transit priority systems that the TTC has installed simply don't work. They're not the kind of organization that would look at anybody else's approach to transit priority, either.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

Not to mention the stubborn folks at Toronto Transportation that refuse to budge when the TTC wants to put transit first in the signal phasing/priority order.

 

[RedRocket191]

Problem:

Works & Transportation Department doesn't want to activate signal priority on Spadina

Solution:

Mayors office and council pass resolution demanding that it be turned on.

It's not red rocket science. If the mayor and council are truly in charge of the city, then why blame the director of Works & Transportation?

Also, I don't disagree with anyone who says railway corridors should be used. They don't work for local service, but do work well for heavy rail, REX and tram-trains.

 

[Voltz]

The ttc has been looking at other transit systems, particularly in europe, where many light rail systems dont even need to stop at lights. Plus the light spacing on many of the transit city routes is much longer than spadina and other downtown streets.

They also plan to operate lrt lines more like a subway than a streetcar line, with gps tracking, in cab signals, headway control. Not like the doomsday senario of the mostly underground eglinton line operating slower than the queen streetcar, as someone posted above

But, concidering that this is the ttc where talking about, I would not be suprised if they somehow manage to screw it up

 

[dowlingm]

Solution:Mayors office and council pass resolution demanding that it be turned on.

Yeah right. Instead they'll ask for a report which will come back stuffed with 100 CYA reasons and that will be the end of it.