Sorry, the days are gone for short cars and why you are seeing most systems in Europe going to 35-45-60 meter cars these days. You increase ridership space per car at no cost of adding another driver. Labour is the high cost of running a system at about 80% of operation cost, if not more.
It might be time for any follow-on order to think about adding in smodules for some routes. Some extant ones don't have long-enough platforms for further lengthening, but the fleet would still be 'standardized' in terms of parts and modules. The longer the entire length, with caveats, (mostly traffic signalling) the more conducive it is keep a route moving on a controlled headway.
Look at systems in the US todays that are running 2-3 car train at about 2-300' long.
Many of them though run on their own RoW. AFAIK, only Melbourne and Toronto have the vast majority of their trackage on-street. Toronto has unique dilemmas that make bidding difficult, let alone operating. Double-ended versions of the Flexity should also been considered again along with adding in more modules.
If they put out a new tender tomorrow, there is no way that we would get new cars in time. They don't explicitly say so, but they strongly hint that the prudent choice would be to take the option order for 60 cars from Bombardier now, and immediately start the process for tendering another order for 100 (or more) cars for delivery in 5 or 6 years time.
It really doesn't bode well, no matter what happens.
Let's see what Premier Ford has to say about Streetcars, starting tomorrow.
Yeah...at this point, anything could happen. What he's stated and what happens bear no relationship to each other.
The logic is that we're the shareholders, not the customers. The CEO is supposed to protect and maximize our interests, similar to your cooperative. That's the theory.
One of the best examples of this is London's Crossrail run as a corporation with the Greater London Authority (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_London_Authority ) and the National Government as the only shareholders:
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_migrate_files_destination/CrossRail-Evidence.pdf
Metrolinx has partially done this with Crosstown, but whether Ford's team 'get-it' or not remains to be seen. Accountability is sorely lacking with most anything ML is involved in.
It's difficult not to imagine him flashing that conniving, used-car salesman grin and breaking into red faced, maniacal laughter when approached by the city on behalf of the TTC to order another 60 streetcars.
I think the city is on its own with that one, unless Justin comes to the rescue again.
For the Feds to be involved with any announced program (and there's Constitutional issues with this too) the Province must be a partner too, or at the very least, an agent on behalf of the municipality. As with a lot to do with the Ford Nation-ality, it remains to be seen what must be rewritten to get around his roadblocks....correction, transitblocks. Cars will be ultimate in Dougie's world.
