[Admiral Beez]

Yesterday I was riding the motorcycle eastbound along Eglinton. At Leslie St., a southbound car turned left into the Crosstown tracks, coming to a stop before the road surface fell away to bare tracks. The car then reversed out of the tracks and carried on east on Eglinton. I was immediately reminded of both: Queens Quay where car drivers were turning left onto the ROW or going down the tunnel to Union Station; and of Murphy’s Law, where if we enable the wrong choice it will be taken by some car drivers.

 

[Coolibop]

Yesterday I was riding the motorcycle eastbound along Eglinton. At Leslie St., a southbound car turned left into the Crosstown tracks, coming to a stop before the road surface fell away to bare tracks. The car then reversed out of the tracks and carried on east on Eglinton. I was immediately reminded of both: Queens Quay where car drivers were turning left onto the ROW or going down the tunnel to Union Station; and of Murphy’s Law, where if we enable the wrong choice it will be taken by some car drivers.

I wonder why they don't paint the turn path guides (lines) across the track bed?

 

[Admiral Beez]

I wonder why they don't paint the turn path guides (lines) across the track bed?
View attachment 559984

Maybe they will when they finish and open the Crosstown in 2025. But paint didn't stop drivers entered the Queen Quay tunnel. Instead we needed hardened barriers.

 

[dowlingm]

I wonder why they don't paint the turn path guides (lines) across the track bed?

Sunnybrook Park station should never have happened. The track should have had a short tunnel under the intersection and the CP bridge. This would also have mitigated the amount of up down up down between Brentcliffe Portal and Don Mills Portal, eliminated wait times for signals at Leslie, and would have allowed for a longer bus/HOV approach to Leslie on Eglinton westbound rather than the short queue jump after the bridge. The CP bridge is a real pinch point now westbound as there are long peak time signal times to bring traffic down Leslie onto Eglinton. I have to bring my kid to Don Mills MS some mornings and sometimes on the way back I will go around via Overlea because the Eglinton backup is so acute.

 

[Leo_Chan]

mitigated the amount of up down up down between Brentcliffe Portal and Don Mills Portal

Was the reason for the portal east of Laird rather than only having a Don Mills East portal to prevent tunnelling under the Don River to keep costs down? Assuming no Sunnybrook Park stop nor station would exist of course.

 

[dowlingm]

Was the reason for the portal east of Laird rather than only having a Don Mills East portal to prevent tunnelling under the Don River to keep costs down? Assuming no Sunnybrook Park stop nor station would exist of course.

Yes. I think there was a possibility at one point of the line running on the south side of the street from Brentcliffe to Don Mills West portal, which would have eliminated the conflict at Leslie but retained the CP bridge pinch point, but I don’t recall why that was excluded from consideration - maybe structural considerations for the two bridges in between?

 

[nfitz]

... but I don’t recall why that was excluded from consideration - maybe structural considerations for the two bridges in between?

They started a process in 2012 about revising the EA, but the plan 1included eliminating the station at Leslie - which caused a community uproar. However no one was willing to pay the extra $100+ million station at Leslie.

Metrolinx felt it would be more expedient to not delay the line further, and cancelled the EA amendment in February 2013. Recall by this point the western portal near Keele was complete, and the TBMs were delivered in February 2013.

Originally Ferrand was to be eliminated as well, but that was reinstated earlier without any cost.

Eglinton-Crosstown LRT: Leasiders fight to put Leslie stop back on the map

Eliminating an east-end stop is shaping up as the first major set-to in eight years of light rail construction.

www.thestar.com

 

[Rainforest]

From another thread ..

No, not if I say so; if all the traffic impact studies submitted with the associated development along the Golden Mile say so, which they do, and those have been published here, along with the Golden Mile Transportation Masterplan.

Red is over capacity, in the preferred build-out scenario:
(two variations)

View attachment 561219

View attachment 561220

Source: https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/97a2-CityPlanning_GoldenMile_TMPDraft_Part3.pdf


Further, from the above:

View attachment 561221

* before you say...... but we can have shorter headways.............. Nope, we can't, because the service has to interleave w/the short-turning service.

Ah, but you say, we can run ALL the service out to Kennedy. Nope, can't do that either as this would reduce the headway in the central section of the line.

****

Same thing I have had to say to a lot of posters today. I don't guess much. Its not a hunch, its not an intuition. I do my homework. If I'm guessing, I'll say so.

The problem is greater than I thought. However, can think of a few ways to meet the demand, short of stopping the LRT service for several years in order to build a new tunnel.

1. The report mentions that "the current plan for 2-car trainsets on 5-min headways may not be sufficient", and "it may be necessary to plan for 3-min headways and/or 3-car trainsets".

Which means, 3-car trainsets might be sufficient to handle the demand, without changing the headways.

All underground ECLRT stations are built to be easily convertible for 3-car trains. For the surface section, there may be some challenges, particularly fitting the platforms for 3-car trains. But if there is a pressing need, then it should be doable, for a small cost and relatively quickly.

2. The 4 major N-S bus routes through the area are shown to be near or above capacity north of Eglinton, but below 85% south of Eglinton. Looks like an opportunity to run more buses during the peak, between Eglinton and the closest Line 2 station, to divert some of the demand there.

3. The Eglinton bus. Could run a short-turn peak-period branch #34 between the Science Centre and Kennedy, stopping more frequently than the LRT, and thus diverting some of the riders. Obviously, the bus capacity is a fraction of LRT's. But if the LRT on its own is only 10% above capacity, not 50% above, then the bus can help bring the demand just below the limit.

 

[Steve X]

From another thread ..



The problem is greater than I thought. However, can think of a few ways to meet the demand, short of stopping the LRT service for several years in order to build a new tunnel.

1. The report mentions that "the current plan for 2-car trainsets on 5-min headways may not be sufficient", and "it may be necessary to plan for 3-min headways and/or 3-car trainsets".

Which means, 3-car trainsets might be sufficient to handle the demand, without changing the headways.

All underground ECLRT stations are built to be easily convertible for 3-car trains. For the surface section, there may be some challenges, particularly fitting the platforms for 3-car trains. But if there is a pressing need, then it should be doable, for a small cost and relatively quickly.

2. The 4 major N-S bus routes through the area are shown to be near or above capacity north of Eglinton, but below 85% south of Eglinton. Looks like an opportunity to run more buses during the peak, between Eglinton and the closest Line 2 station, to divert some of the demand there.

3. The Eglinton bus. Could run a short-turn peak-period branch #34 between the Science Centre and Kennedy, stopping more frequently than the LRT, and thus diverting some of the riders. Obviously, the bus capacity is a fraction of LRT's. But if the LRT on its own is only 10% above capacity, not 50% above, then the bus can help bring the demand just below the limit.

Wait, who said the current platforms don't fit 3-car trains? All platforms (surface and underground) are around 95 metres long and there will be a 1/3 unused. It's not even walled off unlike Line 4. Hope people don't stand in the wrong place.

I highly doubt people will prefer to transfer to Line 5 over Line 2 unless buses terminated at Eglinton. Unless line 5 has significant travel time savings. They won't likely get a seat in rush hour if they transfer from Line 5 to the bus. So downtown to Scarborough trips will default on Line 2.

As traffic worsens from intensification, you'll have to pay people to take the local bus to get stuck in traffic.

Once they extend Sheppard deep into Scarborough, I don't think Eglinton will suffer that much. I think forecasting is too optimistic as subway ridership is nowhere near pre-covid.

 

[Rainforest]

Wait, who said the current platforms don't fit 3-car trains? All platforms (surface and underground) are around 95 metres long and there will be a 1/3 unused. It's not even walled off unlike Line 4. Hope people don't stand in the wrong place.

If so, even better I wasn't sure.

I highly doubt people will prefer to transfer to Line 5 over Line 2 unless buses terminated at Eglinton. Unless line 5 has significant travel time savings. They won't likely get a seat in rush hour if they transfer from Line 5 to the bus. So downtown to Scarborough trips will default on Line 2.

That's from the document posted by Northern Light. The map shows higher demand north of Eglinton than south of it. I guess, a fair number of people would switch from the northern buses to Line 5 in order to reach some place midtown.

As traffic worsens from intensification, you'll have to pay people to take the local bus to get stuck in traffic.

Not necessarily. If you only need to travel 1-2 km (from where you live to subway), and your walk to a bus stop is much shorter than a walk to LRT stop, then the total travel time might be about same.

Once they extend Sheppard deep into Scarborough, I don't think Eglinton will suffer that much. I think forecasting is too optimistic as subway ridership is nowhere near pre-covid.

Possibly. All earlier forecasts had much lower demand for ECLRT, no more than 7,000 pphpd. Maybe, the latest forecast takes into account a newer plan for much greater density in Golden Mine, that didn't exist when the earlier predictions were made. We will see.

 

[smallspy]

From another thread ..



The problem is greater than I thought. However, can think of a few ways to meet the demand, short of stopping the LRT service for several years in order to build a new tunnel.

Why would you need to stop it? There's no reason why the line could not continue to run with only a couple of minor stoppages to handle the cutting in of temporary reroutes to handle localized construction.

Of course, this is also a whole lot of putting the cart before the horse. It will be many, many years before ridership on that section gets high enough to warrant tunnelling.

1. The report mentions that "the current plan for 2-car trainsets on 5-min headways may not be sufficient", and "it may be necessary to plan for 3-min headways and/or 3-car trainsets".

This has always been the plan, well before this came about.

Which means, 3-car trainsets might be sufficient to handle the demand, without changing the headways.

Yes. See above.

All underground ECLRT stations are built to be easily convertible for 3-car trains. For the surface section, there may be some challenges, particularly fitting the platforms for 3-car trains. But if there is a pressing need, then it should be doable, for a small cost and relatively quickly.

All stations and platforms have been built to operate 3-car trains from day one should the need arise. No additional work - save for perhaps training - would be necessary.

2. The 4 major N-S bus routes through the area are shown to be near or above capacity north of Eglinton, but below 85% south of Eglinton. Looks like an opportunity to run more buses during the peak, between Eglinton and the closest Line 2 station, to divert some of the demand there.

There are many ways to do this, and yes short-turning select vehicles is one way.

3. The Eglinton bus. Could run a short-turn peak-period branch #34 between the Science Centre and Kennedy, stopping more frequently than the LRT, and thus diverting some of the riders. Obviously, the bus capacity is a fraction of LRT's. But if the LRT on its own is only 10% above capacity, not 50% above, then the bus can help bring the demand just below the limit.

This is already happening to a degree, but the reality is that a bus would have to run at an incredibly high frequency to reach even a fraction of the LRT's capacity. Counting on a paralleling bus service is not really feasible.

Dan

 

[Allandale25]

May 2024 Crosstown testing.

 

[goodcitywhenfinished]

 

[Bojaxs]

May 2024 Crosstown testing.

Is that about as fast as they'll go once the line opens? Or is that just testing speed? A lot of the cars looked like they were passing the trains.

Will the trains travel faster when underground?

 

[reinventingthewheel]

May 2024 Crosstown testing.

This video looks exciting and promising when watched at 2x speed. I really liked the part where the single rich person in a Lamborghini had turning priority over the LRV.