[jmi22]

The Jane bus/corridor is the lead candidate for LRT conversion, followed by the other busiest bus routes (Wilson, Lawrence West, etc).

Checked the news lately buddy?

 

[officedweller]

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

This is what Portland is doing for Autumn leaf muck in the tracks:

TriMet on Instagram: "It’s time to clean up the fall leaves around the system 🧹Our new “Cameleon” machines help us clear fall foliage, ice, snow and debris that can accumulate and disrupt service. The machines are called Cameleons due to their versa

15K likes, 104 comments - trimet on December 4, 2024: "It’s time to clean up the fall leaves around the system 🧹Our new “Cameleon” machines help us clear fall foliage, ice, snow and debris that can accumulate and disrupt service. The machines are called Cameleons due to their versatility and...

www.instagram.com

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

What I don't understand is, ignoring TSP, why is it so much slower than the bus. The bus has to wait at all the lights too. You'd expect it to be a bit slower all things being equal because unlike a bus a train stops at every stop

Even the whole wheel bearing fear. Ottawa runs the same trains much faster through far more curves they aren't being this excessively cautious

Ottawa also runs theirs on twice the Line 6 nominal voltage (1 500 V DC for Ottawa vs 750 V DC for Line 6) which not only allows the trains to be paired together but also have a much more aggressive acceleration curve.

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

You're jumping to conclusions afaik. Very few, if any, are advocating for a 10+ km subway on Finch West. We're incredulous at the wasted money for next to 0 ROI in terms of social benefit per $ spent. The 36 buses are jam packed while few ride the LRT. The waste from the overbuiltness of the line: the cavernously deep descent from the new Finch West LRT entrance etc... The money blown here could've been saved up for higher ROI projects like more subways closer to downtown. Finch West doesn't have the ridership to warrant an LRT in Toronto's austerity context, despite dozens of people regurgitating the same talking points they heard from the internet. There are other, more deserving corridors that should've gotten transit improvements before a single dime was spent on Finch West a full 20 km away from Downtown as the crow flies. Not to mention the tons of CO2 emissions that went into building this white elephant that will likely never be recouped for hundreds of years, even if the 36 were replaced entirely.

Fall 2023 bus corridor weekday ridership:
1. — 39 Finch East + 939 Finch Express, 46,000
2. — 29 Dufferin + 929 Dufferin Express, 42,100
3. — 52 Lawrence West + 952 Lawrence West Express, 40,000
4. — 35 Jane + 935 Jane Express, 38,800
5. — 25 Don Mills + 925 Don Mills Express, 38,000
6. — 96 Wilson + 996 Wilson Express, 36,000
7. — 54 Lawrence East + 954 Lawrence East Express, 35,600
8. — 36 Finch West, 35,500

Notice anything here? Basically all the other bus corridors have higher population densities.

Lawrence won't get higher order transit because it's too close to Line 5 Eglinton. Wilson/York Mills won't get one because it's too close to the planned Line 4 extensions. Don Mills is getting the Ontario Line, and Finch East has the potential to get a Line 6 extension east. Jane is getting RapidTO lanes as is Dufferin. Most of Dufferin's ridership is south of Bloor, and most of the Jane ridership is between Finch and Eglinton. Finch West From Keele to Hwy 27 was much busier than that Fall 2023 number once all the construction finished before the launch of Line 6.

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

Am I misunderstanding your post? The guy in the Instagram you posted is critiquing the Valley West line, not praising it, and he brings up a good point.

Billions spent on a transit line, and they have to resort to bringing out guys with brooms to clear the tracks. More excessive labour and "man hours" to keep the line running in the winter. Not to mention they probably have to shut the line down temporarily to allow these guys to do this work.

EDIT: For all we know those workers may have been out there for 30 minutes while the tram waited to move. The Instagram was edited to make it look like it was a quick job.

Does the high floor LRTs in Edmonton have this issue or just the Valley West line?

Happens with a lot of embedded track switches Ice chunks get trapped between the switch blades and impede their ability to move fully by the looks of it they didn't install an electric switch heater there since a lot of those crossovers are so infrequently used so that just makes the problem worse. It Happens on the high floor system in Calgary too but only with the infrequently used embedded double crossovers in the downtown segment the frequently used splits and merges for the Red and Blue line are in an open pit with gas switch heaters.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Ottawa also runs theirs on twice the Line 6 nominal voltage (1 500 V DC for Ottawa vs 750 V DC for Line 6) which not only allows the trains to be paired together but also have a much more aggressive acceleration curve.

That's actually a good point that I hadn't thought of, pokey acceleration isn't one of the flaws that people complain about here

 

[smallspy]

Am I misunderstanding your post? The guy in the Instagram you posted is critiquing the Valley West line, not praising it, and he brings up a good point.

Billions spent on a transit line, and they have to resort to bringing out guys with brooms to clear the tracks. More excessive labour and "man hours" to keep the line running in the winter. Not to mention they probably have to shut the line down temporarily to allow these guys to do this work.

EDIT: For all we know those workers may have been out there for 30 minutes while the tram waited to move. The Instagram was edited to make it look like it was a quick job.

Does the high floor LRTs in Edmonton have this issue or just the Valley West line?

All railways need inspection, and the more frequently used it is the more frequent the inspections must be. These guys appear to be inspecting and cleaning out a heavily used set of switches.

Even the major railways, which do absolutely everything in their power to avoid paying for anything, have guys going out and inspecting - and sweeping - out switches on a regular basis. The more important the switch, the more often it gets checked.. Switch heaters can help, but there is nothing that can beat a guy or two with axes and brooms for cleaning out chunks of ice from switch points.

Ottawa also runs theirs on twice the Line 6 nominal voltage (1 500 V DC for Ottawa vs 750 V DC for Line 6) which not only allows the trains to be paired together but also have a much more aggressive acceleration curve.

While that is true in theory, in practice it is not. The streetcars in Toronto run at 600V dc, and even with a higher percentage of driven axles (100% versus 60% for the cars in Ottawa) they are very capable of spinning the wheels on acceleration.

What a higher line voltage does get you is fewer substations / longer distances between system feeds - and thus, in some ways lower costs.

Happens with a lot of embedded track switches Ice chunks get trapped between the switch blades and impede their ability to move fully by the looks of it they didn't install an electric switch heater there since a lot of those crossovers are so infrequently used so that just makes the problem worse. It Happens on the high floor system in Calgary too but only with the infrequently used embedded double crossovers in the downtown segment the frequently used splits and merges for the Red and Blue line are in an open pit with gas switch heaters.

It's not just embedded track that this happens at. And in fact in some respects, embedded track is actually less susceptible to large chunks of ice fouling the switches when compared to exposed track.

Dan

 

[urbanclient]

Lawrence won't get higher order transit because it's too close to Line 5 Eglinton...

What about the ROI issue, spend more to get basically nothing for Line 6. Again, I repeat myself, I am not advocating for LRT on Lawrence etc... I specifically said "transit improvements" not "higher order transit", that could be bus lanes, outfitting transit priority for the buses, shortening headways, more articulated buses etc...

For Line 6:"Province relieving gridlock and connecting more than 51,000 daily riders to more convenient transit"

The 36 bus averaged 54,870 riders per day in Fall 2019. They're bragging about worse projected ridership than 2019 after upgrading to LRT... The GTA's population has grown up to 20% since 2019. The implication is Line 6 will not capture any latent transit demand.
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006817/ontario-opening-new-finch-west-lrt

 

[KhalilHeron]

What about the ROI issue, spend more to get basically nothing for Line 6. Again, I repeat myself, I am not advocating for LRT on Lawrence etc... I specifically said "transit improvements" not "higher order transit", that could be bus lanes, outfitting transit priority for the buses, shortening headways, more articulated buses etc...

For Line 6:"Province relieving gridlock and connecting more than 51,000 daily riders to more convenient transit"

The 36 bus averaged 54,870 riders per day in Fall 2019. They're bragging about worse projected ridership than 2019 after upgrading to LRT... The GTA's population has grown up to 20% since 2019. The implication is Line 6 will not capture any latent transit demand.
https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1006817/ontario-opening-new-finch-west-lrt

Isn't line 6 shorter than the 36 in 2019? A sizeable portion of the riders would be east of keele

 

[ShonTron]

I went out earlier this week to ride the LRT again. Though the eastbound trip took 49 minutes, the westbound trip took 15 minutes linger than that - 1 hour, 4 minutes.

It isn't just the slow speeds, it's the inconsistency that's awful.

Still waiting for the Finch West LRT

There’s not one easy fix for the Finch West LRT. Not only does it need transit signal priority, but it needs tighter schedules and better operations to live up to early promises.

seanmarshall.ca

 

[urbanclient]

Isn't line 6 shorter than the 36 in 2019? A sizeable portion of the riders would be east of keele

Yeah, but 51,000 per day is still a pipe dream and a weak one at that. I still stand by my case that Finch West did not deserve an LRT so early. Comparable cities do not build LRTs that far from downtown. There is a reason why T9 mostly replaced a 183 bus* that hit 56,000 riders per day**; and now T9 has a weekday ridership of 100,000. If the latent transit demand were the same for both cases, Line 6 should be able to easily hit similar numbers to T9. But it won't because Finch West is a low density area whose ridership is mostly driven by Humber College. Seeing as international student numbers are dropping, I don't see Line 6 coming close to the projected 51,000.

*that now runs a shortened route connecting to T9, like the plans for Line 6 and the 36
**similar to the 55,000 of the 36

Therein lies the problem though, as you stated Finch West was converted to LRT because it was the easiest of the routes to fix, all the other ones have some kind of issue holding them back.

We should not pick what places we prioritize by how easy it is to fix, but rather the greatest benefits to the greatest amount of people. Pardon my hyperbole: by that logic, should Metrolinx be prioritizing dedicated bus lanes in Newmarket? Prioritizing transit where there are more people living is not a groundbreaking concept. How can the same contingent of Urban Toronto members be defending LRT in low density suburbs and high density arterial thoroughfares (Hurontario and Eglinton) at the same time? LRTs are best suited for middle density that is not high enough to necessitate a subway.

 

[ownthesky]

Most bus stops can be cleared by a sidewalk plow, and and one city worker. Usually relatively quick.

You didn't answer the question. Does the high floor LRT lines in Edmonton have the same issue with snow & ice as the Valley West line experiences? I couldn't care less how silly you think my question is.

Does the Valley Line have issues? This looks like a routine switch clearing operation to me.

I think the CTrain is actually the better comparison - they've been running an at-grade downtown section for 40 years now, so if snow and ice clearing was some major burden, we'd have heard about it.

 

[TRONto]

Yeah, but 51,000 per day is still a pipe dream and a weak one at that. I still stand by my case that Finch West did not deserve an LRT so early. Comparable cities do not build LRTs that far from downtown. There is a reason why T9 mostly replaced a 183 bus* that hit 56,000 riders per day**; and now T9 has a weekday ridership of 100,000. If the latent transit demand were the same for both cases, Line 6 should be able to easily hit similar numbers to T9. But it won't because Finch West is a low density area whose ridership is mostly driven by Humber College. Seeing as international student numbers are dropping, I don't see Line 6 coming close to the projected 51,000.

*that now runs a shortened route connecting to T9, like the plans for Line 6 and the 36
**similar to the 55,000 of the 36

We should not pick what places we prioritize by how easy it is to fix, but rather the greatest benefits to the greatest amount of people. Pardon my hyperbole: by that logic, should Metrolinx be prioritizing dedicated bus lanes in Newmarket? Prioritizing transit where there are more people living is not a groundbreaking concept. How can the same contingent of Urban Toronto members be defending LRT in low density suburbs and high density arterial thoroughfares (Hurontario and Eglinton) at the same time? LRTs are best suited for middle density that is not high enough to necessitate a subway.

What we should do in the future is different than what should have been done in the past. The transit city concept was created because it was believed at that time there was no money for subways (Eglinton getting filled in). A concept that was created about 2 decades ago.

I don't think this is an either/or situation. A well setup LRT is probably the best option (not what we got). I think a Skytrain setup would be overkill (but prefered to what we ended up getting). Note that there also was a bus version of TransitCity and between the 2 most of the busier city routes were covered.

 

[Steve X]

What we should do in the future is different than what should have been done in the past. The transit city concept was created because it was believed at that time there was no money for subways (Eglinton getting filled in). A concept that was created about 2 decades ago.

I don't think this is an either/or situation. A well setup LRT is probably the best option (not what we got). I think a Skytrain setup would be overkill (but prefered to what we ended up getting). Note that there also was a bus version of TransitCity and between the 2 most of the busier city routes were covered.

Yeah Finch West never warrant a subway. It was either this LRT which TO can’t even implement or curb side bus lanes. They wanted developers to build in the area so they went with LRT.

 

[Bordercollie]

Am I misunderstanding your post? The guy in the Instagram you posted is critiquing the Valley West line, not praising it, and he brings up a good point.

Billions spent on a transit line, and they have to resort to bringing out guys with brooms to clear the tracks. More excessive labour and "man hours" to keep the line running in the winter. Not to mention they probably have to shut the line down temporarily to allow these guys to do this work.

EDIT: For all we know those workers may have been out there for 30 minutes while the tram waited to move. The Instagram was edited to make it look like it was a quick job.

Does the high floor LRTs in Edmonton have this issue or just the Valley West line?

At least they are out there doing it. Unless you plan on installing switch heaters