[CapitalSeven]

While it does seem wonky, one factor regarding the speed is that with a car leaving every minute or so, no one is waiting several minutes for a bus. On the other hand, as it would call in at a New GO station, could it cope with the offload from a rush hour train?

Edit: If you do the math, about a car a minute. Oshawa doesn't seem to be expecting more than 1600 pphpd for any of its options. Not sure how the capital outlay is justified.

 

[Northern Light]

While it does seem wonky, one factor regarding the speed is that with a car leaving every minute or so, no one is waiting several minutes for a bus. On the other hand, as it would call in at a New GO station, could it cope with the offload from a rush hour train?

Edit: If you do the math, about a car a minute. Oshawa doesn't seem to be expecting more than 1600 pphpd for any of its options. Not sure how the capital outlay is justified.

1,600 per hour, if served by 'normal' articulated buses, which can hold about a hundred people, would require 16 such buses per hour, meaning one departing every 3'45.

That's do-able and cheaper.

However, it has limited ability to grow beyond that.

There are double-artic buses that can hold over 200, but using a regular road, there are issues with block length and making sure a bus stopped at one light isn't blocking the previous intersection

LRT would run into the same issue if using M-U trains, or extended length vehicles.

****

I think the artic with transit-priority and amenitized stops would be the logical route for now......and if you get enough uptake, you consider next level options.

 

[nfitz]

How is this saving time for existing transit riders?

There's something really fishy going on here. Follow the money.

While it does seem wonky, one factor regarding the speed is that with a car leaving every minute or so, no one is waiting several minutes for a bus.

True, but at the same time, as there seems to be a technical limit of about 4 km or so for cable cars (based on what everyone else has done), you'd still have to change cars (gondolas) twice to get to the northern end of the line (three changes then including that at the GO station).

Now I think about it, we do have that 3-station cable car line in Mississauga of 1.5 km. They figured they can extend it another station to about 2 km, but extending it another 3.5 km (about 5.5 km total) wasn't going to fly (excuse the pun), and they'd have to change to a conventional technology using powered vehicles.

 

[FutureDurham]

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[KawarthaTransiteer]

According to the Committee of the Whole meeting last week, the region is seriously looking at using an aerial cable car for the Simcoe Street Rapid Transit project. I certainly am not including everything (please add on with anything I missed), so I recommend going through both the presentation and the Commissioner's report regarding the project.

Skimming through the presentation, some of the reasons for a cable car given are as follows (I'm nitpicking these points, by the way):

• less impacts to properties and less land acquisition
• less parking spaces removed
• shorter construction time
• higher ridership due to higher frequency and reliability
• lower operations and maintenance costs
• higher economic benefits and growth

Specifically for the ridership, the forecasted annual ridership for a BRT is 8.9 million, while the number is 9.7 million for the cable car.

Here's the table in the report on the economic benefits of both a BRT and a cable car:

And here's the preliminary design for the station at Lakeridge Health given in the presentation:

And also the property impact comparison between a BRT and a cable car (including the amount of parking spaces removed):

If I'm being honest, this (gadgetbahn) proposal is so laughable and unserious.

 

[duffo]

So many questions..

• Why is the BAU O&M cost for the Gondola scenario more expensive than the one for BRT, making the corresponding O&M savings higher?
• Why does the Gondola induce $210M in health benefits due to walking while BRT only induces $60M? The station spacing is the same in both options.. is 1/3rd of the total monetized benefit derived from the fact that riders will need to climb stairs?
• Why is the Gondola environmental benefit $9M compared to BRT's $2M, when DRT will likely operate a fully electric fleet by the time this line is actually in operation?
• Why does the Gondola option property impacts show un-impeded lanes traveling right through support beams, implying no property impacts?
• Why does the BRT option property impacts include a WB left turn lane into a building (there is no road south of the intersection)?

 

[innsertnamehere]

So many questions..

• Why is the BAU O&M cost for the Gondola scenario more expensive than the one for BRT, making the corresponding O&M savings higher?
• Why does the Gondola induce $210M in health benefits due to walking while BRT only induces $60M? The station spacing is the same in both options.. is 1/3rd of the total monetized benefit derived from the fact that riders will need to climb stairs?
• Why is the Gondola environmental benefit $9M compared to BRT's $2M, when DRT will likely operate a fully electric fleet by the time this line is actually in operation?
• Why does the Gondola option property impacts show un-impeded lanes traveling right through support beams, implying no property impacts?
• Why does the BRT option property impacts include a WB left turn lane into a building (there is no road south of the intersection)?

I can try to answer some of those:

1. O&M Is lower as there are lower staffing requirements for Gondola's without needing bus drivers.
2. People are presumably more willing to walk for rapid transit, I'm guessing? That one is a bit puzzling to me, I have to say. Further stop-spacing as well, maybe, meaning further walking distances (but distances people are still willing to make as the service they are walking to is much faster).
3. Environmental benefits include much more than just GHG emissions. Reduced impacts on trees, natural heritage, etc. - even if it is GHGs, a gondola is a much less complex device and much more efficient electrically than buses running on Li-Ion batteries regardless.
4. The drawings look very high level, I'm sure support columns would be designed to accommodate the desired road cross section.
5. Primarily to serve as a U-turn for properties on the south west side of the street. A BRT eliminates the ability to turn left onto those driveways, so vehicles need to be able to do a U-turn for access when travelling northbound on Simcoe St.

 

[lemongrab]

Can anyone explain why the project higher ridership over BRT (beyond the slightly higher tourism uplift)? It makes no sense to me on a few fronts:

1. Since BRT takes other lanes away it would make other modes less competitive, whereas driving will remain the faster option for much longer compared to ACCT. So why are more people riding transit in the latter scenario?

2. It's optimistic to think you will fill every seat on every cabin even when demand exceeds capacity. Assuming busiest stations are in the middle, you'll need to partially load and/or skip cars to ensure some capacity is available for the next station. Getting near optimal efficiency will require more staff at each station, which seems to undermine the whole idea here. OTOH you're more likely to squeeze a few extra bodies onto a bus than the listed max at times.

3. Peak supply is permanently capped with ACCT. You can always run more busses; and if you reach 1-2 minute headways then its time for LRT

 

[innsertnamehere]

Can anyone explain why the project higher ridership over BRT (beyond the slightly higher tourism uplift)? It makes no sense to me on a few fronts:

1. Since BRT takes other lanes away it would make other modes less competitive, whereas driving will remain the faster option for much longer compared to ACCT. So why are more people riding transit in the latter scenario?

2. It's optimistic to think you will fill every seat on every cabin even when demand exceeds capacity. Assuming busiest stations are in the middle, you'll need to partially load and/or skip cars to ensure some capacity is available for the next station. Getting near optimal efficiency will require more staff at each station, which seems to undermine the whole idea here. OTOH you're more likely to squeeze a few extra bodies onto a bus than the listed max at times.

3. Peak supply is permanently capped with ACCT. You can always run more busses; and if you reach 1-2 minute headways then its time for LRT

1. Because the ACCT is much faster than a bus. Making driving slower tends not to convert people at a particularly fast rate as drivers have alternate routes to minimize travel time impacts. Besides, I'd rather make everyone's ride faster than everyone's slower. ACCT attracts more as it can get you from UOIT to Oshawa GO in fewer minutes than the BRT, that's it. ACCT lets people drive AND take transit.

2. the gondola's work no different than a bus in this manner.. if one gondola is full, you got to wait for the next one just like a train or bus. Not sure why a gondola triggers a unique need here. A full gondola arriving at a station behaves exactly the same as a full bus.

3. Is the peak capacity of ACCT anticipated to be reached within the lifetime of the infrastructure? Given the context here, I doubt it. It's the same kind of "issue" raised with the Ontario Line. Scale the infrastructure to the demand. You don't need some massive piece of infrastructure on Simcoe St simply because it's a small city of 300k which is just never going to need 10,000+pphd capacities.

There are a lot of potential issues with a Gondola - constructability, maintenance, reliability, urban aesthetics, affordability.. better to focus on those.

 

[lemongrab]

Full disclosure, I've never even been to Durham and only learned of this project the other day. I'm actually a big proponent that ACCT can be a viable element to a transit system, which is what piqued my interest. But this didn't pass the initial smell test, and there seems to be some dodgy logic in the reports I've glanced through.

But I see now that this isn't ACCT vs BRT, it's ACCT vs bus lanes (with a few sections resembling true BRT). So in that case I can see the scales tilting a bit, but a lot of things still seem very questionable.

1. Because the ACCT is much faster than a bus. Making driving slower tends not to convert people at a particularly fast rate as drivers have alternate routes to minimize travel time impacts. Besides, I'd rather make everyone's ride faster than everyone's slower. ACCT attracts more as it can get you from UOIT to Oshawa GO in fewer minutes than the BRT, that's it. ACCT lets people drive AND take transit.

They peg the perceived time savings as the same for each option, but that is against the current situation

And a bit on how they arrived at that figure:

There's a lot to unpack and speculate on there, but I struggle to see ACCT = faster = more ridership (especially when the bus lanes option is slightly longer with a bigger catchment population)

2. the gondola's work no different than a bus in this manner.. if one gondola is full, you got to wait for the next one just like a train or bus. Not sure why a gondola triggers a unique need here. A full gondola arriving at a station behaves exactly the same as a full bus.

3. Is the peak capacity of ACCT anticipated to be reached within the lifetime of the infrastructure? Given the context here, I doubt it. It's the same kind of "issue" raised with the Ontario Line. Scale the infrastructure to the demand. You don't need some massive piece of infrastructure on Simcoe St simply because it's a small city of 300k which is just never going to need 10,000+pphd capacities.

This poses a big question on how they arrived at their operational costing...because it sure seems like they simply matched the bus option to ACCT's capacity, instead of forecast demand...

Which shouldn't be the case, at least not for the whole lifecycle of the project. But if there is danger of flirting with that capacity limit, then you probably want to hedge to the option with a next step of mode progression instead of the one that eventually ends up as a liability (unclear if the analysis goes that far).

But the thinking seems to be that the city should only worry about OPEX since they won't pay much CAPEX. And I kind of admire that bravado and would love to see them pull it off!

 

[turbanplanner]

In case anyone is confused ACCT stands for Aerial Cable Car Transit