[Marcanadian]

There's been some talk about the operating cost issue in the comments section of one of Steve Munro's articles, which basically clears it up:

Norman Wilson: Chong also asserted that operating costs for LRTs are much higher than those for subways. He claimed he based that on figures from APTA, and you can find them right there on APTA’s web site. I spent half an hour over lunch, and other time at odd moments during the meeting Wednesday, looking around http://www.apta.com, and couldn’t find any such figures; the nearest I came were the many different statistics in their annual Fact Book, from which one might synthesize some such numbers if one tried really hard and made some assumptions.

I’d like to know the basis for that assertion, if only because I don’t see how such a general assertion could stand: surely operating costs vary widely in different cities and lines and operating conditions. Any idea where Chong’s numbers really come from?

Steve: I am going to do a write up on Chong’s report, just to drive a well-deserved stake through its heart, in the next few days. I believe that he used average per passenger (or per passenger mile) operating costs for LRT and subway systems in the USA. This is totally misleading because, by definition, the subway systems exist only in very dense corridors (many over a century old) where the higher absolute cost of running a subway is spread over far more passengers and miles.

Also, some of this depends on how major capital maintenance projects are booked. For example, the TTC has been repairing the tunnels north from Eglinton to Sheppard for several years, but this is a “capital” project and does not show up on the “operating” budget. That’s only one example of how reported “costs” of subways can be lowballed.

http://stevemunro.ca/?p=6126#comments

So that basically puts it to bed, and confirms other posters' assertions.

 

[rbt]

It's not trivial. Because so many people take the bus TO the subway, it is basically impossible to calculate a fare recovery ratio for the subway or any one part of the network.

Well, they calculate it for every bus route and every streetcar route.

They know total funds in and what everything but subway costs. We, on this forum, continually take $TOTAL and subtract ${SUM ALL ROUTES}. TTC doesn't do that and publish the number.

Makes me think that it doesn't actually add up that way.

 

[CapitalSeven]

My reasoning is that once Sheppard is complete, people will complain that the stop spacing is too close together, especially when compared to other LRT and BRT projects in the GTA and Southern Ontario. Therefore when constructing Finch and Eglinton surface, they will remove the stops at side streets.

The fervent believe that there are too many transit stops is largely limited to internet forums like this. "People" asked for more while Finch was being planned, and two or three more were added.

 

[CapitalSeven]

My reasoning is that once Sheppard is complete, people will complain that the stop spacing is too close together, especially when compared to other LRT and BRT projects in the GTA and Southern Ontario. Therefore when constructing Finch and Eglinton surface, they will remove the stops at side streets.

The fervent belief that there are too many transit stops in the plans is largely limited to internet forums like this. "People" asked for more while Finch was being planned, and two or three more were added.

 

[Electrify]

The fervent believe that there are too many transit stops is largely limited to internet forums like this. "People" asked for more while Finch was being planned, and two or three more were added.

People want a stop at their front door and could care less about the other stops... at least until they ride the thing and it ends up being slower than they expected it to be. Let's also not forget that according to the mayor, people also wanted subways. Moral of the story: What people want needs to be weighed against good planning policy.

On another topic, Ford said yesterday that people don't want LRTs because we don't have them in Toronto. How he expected this to help his cause I have no idea, but it does give me an idea. For one weekend, turn St. Clair into an LRT. Have them skip every other stop or so, couple two or three trams together, turn on signal priority, provide free rides to simulate rapid boarding, etc. Afterwards conduct surveys to see what people thought of the experience as a guide to see what people though, and how it could be improved.

 

[Thoughtless Miscreant]

I don't know if people here have read the book Human Transit but the author actually cited 400m as a good stop spacing to use if you want to provide one frequent hybrid service on a route instead of overlapping local and rapid services.

I think people here oversell the negative effects of close spacing. Stop spacing on the subways downtown isn't that much further than the proposed spacing on Sheppard East, but you don't hear people complaining that Bathurst is too close to Christie or whatever.

 

[k10ery]

People want a stop at their front door and could care less about the other stops... at least until they ride the thing and it ends up being slower than they expected it to be. Let's also not forget that according to the mayor, people also wanted subways. Moral of the story: What people want needs to be weighed against good planning policy.

On another topic, Ford said yesterday that people don't want LRTs because we don't have them in Toronto. How he expected this to help his cause I have no idea, but it does give me an idea. For one weekend, turn St. Clair into an LRT. Have them skip every other stop or so, couple two or three trams together, turn on signal priority, provide free rides to simulate rapid boarding, etc. Afterwards conduct surveys to see what people thought of the experience as a guide to see what people though, and how it could be improved.

Great idea. Even better, do it as a pilot so that the TTC can learn how to do signal priority and headway management with the new system.

 

[Electrify]

I don't know if people here have read the book Human Transit but the author actually cited 400m as a good stop spacing to use if you want to provide one frequent hybrid service on a route instead of overlapping local and rapid services.

I think people here oversell the negative effects of close spacing. Stop spacing on the subways downtown isn't that much further than the proposed spacing on Sheppard East, but you don't hear people complaining that Bathurst is too close to Christie or whatever.

Plan on picking it up after I'm done my semester. Don't know about the book, but on his blog he argues for 400m for local service and 1000m for rapid transit.

www.humantransit.org/2010/11/san-francisco-a-rational-stop-spacing-plan.html

 

[Thoughtless Miscreant]

Yeah as far as I could tell he revised that down a bit. In the book he suggests 800m being a more appropriate spacing for rapid service.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Meanwhile, in the office of one of Rob Ford's backers...

[video=youtube;7BrsbAVNrIU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BrsbAVNrIU[/video]

 

[Electrify]

Yeah as far as I could tell he revised that down a bit. In the book he suggests 800m being a more appropriate spacing for rapid service.

I think it is all dependent on the street grid. In many US cities, street grids are based around a mile pattern. So major arteries are a mile apart, and collector roads are about half a mile (800m) in. In Toronto, our grid is based around arteries being 2km apart (Scarborough uses a rectangular pattern of sideroads being 2km apart with.concessions being 1 mile apart). This means a rapid transit line stopping at artery and collector roads would stop every 1000m.

 

[Solid Snake]

I think it is all dependent on the street grid. In many US cities, street grids are based around a mile pattern. So major arteries are a mile apart, and collector roads are about half a mile (800m) in. In Toronto, our grid is based around arteries being 2km apart (Scarborough uses a rectangular pattern of sideroads being 2km apart with.concessions being 1 mile apart). This means a rapid transit line stopping at artery and collector roads would stop every 1000m.

Wouldn't that be preferable for both Eglinton east and Sheppard east with paralleled bus operating for local stops?
I know when Giambrone was TTC Chair, he didn't want to even here it.

I think we should move on and propose ideas to make it faster and more efficient

 

[Thoughtless Miscreant]

Wouldn't that be preferable for both Eglinton east and Sheppard east with paralleled bus operating for local stops?
I know when Giambrone was TTC Chair, he didn't want to even here it.

I think we should move on and propose ideas to make it faster and more efficient

Not necessarily. If you're running one service instead of two than you can do it a lot more frequently for the same amount of money. The whole rationale behind the LRT stop spacing was to be between the typical Toronto local spacing and typical Toronto rapid transit spacing, so that one service could be effective for local trips and long haul trips.

 

[Solid Snake]

Not necessarily. If you're running one service instead of two than you can do it a lot more frequently for the same amount of money. The whole rationale behind the LRT stop spacing was to be between the typical Toronto local spacing and typical Toronto rapid transit spacing, so that one service could be effective for local trips and long haul trips.

so Morningside to Don Mills being 40 mins is better service?

 

[nfitz]

so Morningside to Don Mills being 40 mins is better service?

Why would you think the new LRT line would only be 18 km/hr? (it's only 12 km from Don Mills station to Morningside). 30 minutes is more reasonable on LRT.