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turbanplanner said:
Was this derailment today?

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It was yesterday, although it wasn't a derailment.

A train got stuck on an insulator. And when the trailing train tried to push it off, it ran into an issue with the switches not being able to be set properly.

They eventually got things sorted out, although it took a couple of hours.

Dan
 
I really want the LRT to improve long-term, but its hard to feel hopeful. I think part of the problem is the overall design of the line which falls on metrolinx.
What was sold to the local community was fast and reliable transit that would encourage redevelopment/housing projects.
The LRT takes longer than the bus, and wait time are not any better than the bus. So far there has been no new construction on housing and very few proposals.
I also remember some locals asking for tracks to be laid in grass so it would look aesthetically pleasing, but told no since concrete would allow emergency vehicles to use tracks. I've never seen emergency vehicles use the tracks to bypass traffic.
Every promise made by metrolinx has not happen, not even a little.
 
FW36 said:
I also remember some locals asking for tracks to be laid in grass so it would look aesthetically pleasing, but told no since concrete would allow emergency vehicles to use tracks. I've never seen emergency vehicles use the tracks to bypass traffic.
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If that was their excuse than why did hey allow it on eglinton?! (albeit on a very short segment)
 
The costs are high because we have lost the ability to do things in house in North America. There is a continual push to outsource risk and expertise. If the TTC or Metrolinx don't know how much it would cost to have their own people do it then all estimates seem "reasonable". In addition because everything is outsourced the legal and procurement costs are higher. Often work is outsourced to third, fourth, and fifth parties all profiting from a companies risk aversion and inability to do their own work. If you do it yourself you only pay for the salaries and materials... the biggest risk becomes scope creep but that is essentially in your control to manage. Some scope creep, like a need to have faster travel, is good.
 
EnviroTO said:
The costs are high because we have lost the ability to do things in house in North America. There is a continual push to outsource risk and expertise. If the TTC or Metrolinx don't know how much it would cost to have their own people do it then all estimates seem "reasonable". In addition because everything is outsourced the legal and procurement costs are higher. Often work is outsourced to third, fourth, and fifth parties all profiting from a companies risk aversion and inability to do their own work. If you do it yourself you only pay for the salaries and materials... the biggest risk becomes scope creep but that is essentially in your control to manage. Some scope creep, like a need to have faster travel, is good.
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Outside of North America, they do it "inhouse". Keeping the costs down, keeping the expertise, and keeping the knowledge resources available. Here, we have to reinvent everything from scratch.
 
Monarch Butterfly said:
Outside of North America, they do it "inhouse". Keeping the costs down, keeping the expertise, and keeping the knowledge resources available. Here, we have to reinvent everything from scratch.
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Well in order to retain those expertise, they need to have enough tasks to keep them around, make the feel like it’s the best place to stay and continue and pay them enough so they don’t move on. On top of that, they must manage them well. North TTC and ML don’t seem to be able to do that, especially not having enough operating expenses to even support such an initiative. Then you gotta have a good boss unlike Mr. Meanie that made everyone leave. Yeah. I don’t see happening here.
 
Allandale25 said:
Can we please put this discourse to rest already?
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Never.

Article was a big eye roller. No one ever claimed that building subways would be cheap and easy. They're worth the extra cost once up and running.

John Michael McGrath should go to Montreal and ride the REM, and then come back to Toronto and ride the Finch West LRT. The deficiencies of Line 6 will become so painfully obvious.
 
Bojaxs said:
John Michael McGrath should go to Montreal and ride the REM, and then come back to Toronto and ride the Finch West LRT. The deficiencies of Line 6 will become so painfully obvious.
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And then what? He'll feel bad about it?

He'll tear the tracks out with his bare hands?
 
Allandale25 said:
More commentary here, this time from TVO's John Michael McGrath:

ANALYSIS: Let’s pump the brakes on talk of ‘subways, subways, subways’ in Toronto​

Now that the Finch West LRT is open, various people have decided to relitigate the decision to build light rail. Can we please put this discourse to rest already?
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I'm going to link this highly upvoted comment from @Northern Light in response to your partisan comment:

Northern Light said:
Its not a great piece by John Michael.

He completely ignores the question of what people want (speed as example); and how you do or don't get there.

His entire thesis amounts to Finch was never going to be a subway and LRT is better than a bus.

Except, in this case, as operated, it is not.

Facts matter.

He's right to pillory the way in which transit was handled by various pols, both municipal and provincial.

He'd be on solid ground if he said its possible to do LRT better. (it is)

But he just gives the Miller era plan, such as it was (lines on a map) a free pass, ignoring that it didn't set any real technical standards to achieve that align with public expectations.

It reads a bit as though one were saying..... we proposed and 1/2 built this terrible public housing with prison-like architecture, terrible layout and unit sizes and poor neighbourhood plan, because we can't give everyone a Bridle Path address; as if there isn't something between those two points.

Finch wasn't going to be a subway (agreed), equally we can't do subways to everywhere. But we have to ask why are we building this transit? To which the answer ought to be, some variation of to better connect people to the places they need and want to go, faster, more frequently ,with greater comfort and ease.

Any number of choices of rolling stock , power , platform heights etc. may help achieve these goals at various price points. We certainly need to be judicious w/the dollars in question. But in saying as much, that means not spending money on projects that don't serve ALL of the above goals.
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well I recently got a new job in the Jane & Finch area & see the lrt being used daily. Looks good to me while driving neway, the stops are much better than the crosstown surface section. Hopefully the line gets better over time with TSP
 
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