[ARG1]

Go ahead and watch it. Miller didn't say much of anything objectionable. The only one who got egg on his face was John L., when he said that regime changes in Toronto city council have been a big problem, but changes in the Ontario government have never really impacted planning. He got challenged by everyone on that. Of course, this being a Canadian panel show and not American, everyone kept things cordial and friendly.

Watched it, there's a lot that is objectionable.

1. David Miller spent a lot of time talking about how Transit City was based off "real data" and wasn't based off political boundaries. Yes, because somehow real data led to the conclusion that the best way to turn Toronto into a car-free city, is to replace busses with higher capacity busses that are barely faster, and somehow "real data" led them to unilaterally use LRTs even on corridors where they later found out it was infeasible to do so.
2. As an aside, a lot of their arguments seem to actively contradict each other. They claim that the goal of Transit City was to remove the need to use the car to get around, yet they also talk a lot about how their "data" told them to focus on equity and poorer neighbourhoods, you know, the group of people that are less likely to be driving anyway.
3. Keesmaat said that their data focused approach got them to determine that the highest priority project in Toronto should be the DRL. Ok fine... problem is the DRL was not part of Transit City at all. Not only that, but Transit City's plans for the Don Mills LRT from '07-'09 actively contradict this by basically precluding the DRL both by tunneling under Pape (preventing future expansion) and by planning a phase 2 that went into Downtown on the surface. Plus there are those aforementioned tweets by Miller where he claims the OL should've been an LRT, which very much contradicts this idea of the DRL being a high priority corridor that needs to be used to relieve interchanges (nobody would use a DRL Light Rail as a relief line).
4. I can't agree with Miller that the TTC and the city has to be in charge of Transit Planning. Having such a narrow-viewed approach to transit when Toronto is simply one small piece of a larger puzzle makes no sense. We can outright see this with projects like Transit City and even SmartTrack that were very much planned in isolation, and didn't consider the existence of things like GO.
5. "Scarborough doesn't have the LRT lines it needs." God please no, can we finally kill Eglinton East in a pit of fire? Please?
6. The host comparing the Ontario Line with the Eglinton West subway is insane. The Eglinton West line was just a pit in the ground of a half finished TBM launch shaft. The Ontario Line today is WELL BEYOND that, never mind what it will look like in 3 years time. Lorinc is right here (I do get his point that the province has an objectionable history with flip flopping on transit projects with every new government, but that specific comparison irks me).
7. Keesmaat mentioned that the extension to Vaughan was closed on weekends due to low ridership. I'm sorry what? I'm genuinely trying to find an article that mentions this, when has this ever happened? I ride the subway from Vaughan a lot during weekends, sure its not crush loaded traffic but it has plenty of passengers by the time you reach Sheppard West.
8. While I agree that P3s have a lot of problems, it very much feels like Miller is deflecting by blaming Eglinton and Ottawa's problems on them (no chance in hell he would ever admit that Eglinton might be a fundamentally flawed idea). If anything, the partner in the case of Ottawa was pretty much yelling at City Council to not build the line as an LRT, and the city just kept overruling them. Ottawa absolutely would not be in a better place if Confed was build more conventionally, the city is very much liable for many of the issues that came to that project. I think something similar can be said about Eglinton - whilst maybe a more conventional procurement system may have led to instances where there is better communications between teams (so you don't have the issue where the signalling system and the vehicle manufacturing is done by 2 completely different groups that don't communicate with each other), I don't buy that a traditional procurement would've been THAT much better. Heck, we see very similar construction issues all of NA - most of which don't do things like P3s (see: LA).

 

[Cambry Ardship]

I was surprised how big they were in person.

 

[jordanmkasla2009]

View attachment 656740
I was surprised how big they were in person.

They are quite large. Even better when 3 are coupled together.

What time was this taken?

 

[fanoftoronto]

They are quite large. Even better when 3 are coupled together.

What time was this taken?

For the next batch of rolling stock the TTC really should look at dedicated trainsets instead of the coupled units like right now. I see a lot of pitfalls in the current model. Assuming 3-car trains would be required 20-30 years from now when new rolling stock is being procured, here are the changes I think would be beneficial:

• The connection point between 2 Flexity cars wastes a lot of space, much more than say subway cars. We should be looking at gangways to increase capacity in these cars without needing extra platform length
• The middle car does not need to have a cabin - similar to the TR trains further increasing the capacity
• Increase the width as much as the tunnels and guideways would allow. We should be trying to increase from 2.65m up to 2.9m. 2.65m is the standard LRV width but with the fully extended Line 5, our order quantity might be high enough for a custom solution

 

[Cambry Ardship]

I

They are quite large. Even better when 3 are coupled together.

What time was this taken?

About 9 pm last night, by Leslie.

 

[crs1026]

For the next batch of rolling stock the TTC really should look at dedicated trainsets instead of the coupled units like right now. I see a lot of pitfalls in the current model. Assuming 3-car trains would be required 20-30 years from now when new rolling stock is being procured, here are the changes I think would be beneficial:

• The connection point between 2 Flexity cars wastes a lot of space, much more than say subway cars. We should be looking at gangways to increase capacity in these cars without needing extra platform length
• The middle car does not need to have a cabin - similar to the TR trains further increasing the capacity
• Increase the width as much as the tunnels and guideways would allow. We should be trying to increase from 2.65m up to 2.9m. 2.65m is the standard LRV width but with the fully extended Line 5, our order quantity might be high enough for a custom solution

Agree with all of this, but with the caveat that we need to squeeze thirty or so years of revenue service out of the existing fleet before we go to Plan B.

The jury is out on how quickly this line will reach capacity. My money is on, it will take a decade or more before loads even start to look painful.

I'm not sure that a coulda, shoulda discussion about the design is worth the bandwidth right now. A better discussion would be to look at how the line can be improved from as-built. (hint: full transit priority signalling at intersections, and improved headway control to improve over traditional TTC streetcar line management). Let's push this design until the trams wear out.

- Paul

 

[smallspy]

Since it bears repeating......

A two-car coupled train every 8 minutes will be sufficient to handle the loads that were carried on the buses during the morning rush hour prior to COVID or even prior to when construction started.

The service on day 1 will be more frequent than that at rush hour.

Dan

 

[crs1026]

Since it bears repeating......

A two-car coupled train every 8 minutes will be sufficient to handle the loads that were carried on the buses during the morning rush hour prior to COVID or even prior to when construction started.

The service on day 1 will be more frequent than that at rush hour.

Dan

Agree, but the premise of this line included building a transit oriented corridor that added density, and hence ridership, beyond what a bus based service could offer.

Certainly, two car trains on Day 1 will be ample. The debate is whether there will still be room for all of us on 3-car trains - when we bring our walkers for some future opening day anniversary reunion.

Personally I'm not worried.

- Paul

 

[nfitz]

Agree, but the premise of this line included building a transit oriented corridor that added density, and hence ridership, beyond what a bus based service could offer.

Certainly, two car trains on Day 1 will be ample. The debate is whether there will still be room for all of us on 3-car trains - when we bring our walkers for some future opening day anniversary reunion.

Personally I'm not worried.

- Paul

And that's what the additional available capacity allow. If they can run every 8 minutes now, they can drop to every 12 minutes by running 3-car trains. The amount of available capacity is huge. No one familiar with this project would ever think that capacity is going to be an issue, at least for many decades.

 

[afransen]

Since it bears repeating......

A two-car coupled train every 8 minutes will be sufficient to handle the loads that were carried on the buses during the morning rush hour prior to COVID or even prior to when construction started.

The service on day 1 will be more frequent than that at rush hour.

Dan

Isn't the intent of this line to intercept E-W trips that were going down to Line 2?

 

[nfitz]

Isn't the intent of this line to intercept E-W trips that were going down to Line 2?

No.

 

[Aplus23]

No.

So what's the intent of the line ? Ppl will be using it to go crosstown or locally E-W

 

[nfitz]

pl will be using it to go crosstown or locally E-W

Yes.

The point of this Transt City line is that this increases the current capacity, and most importantly allows commuters to be protected from the increasingly slow bus times that are forecast.

 

[smallspy]

Agree, but the premise of this line included building a transit oriented corridor that added density, and hence ridership, beyond what a bus based service could offer.

Absolutely. Which is why the service will be more frequent than it specifically needs to be on day 1.

Certainly, two car trains on Day 1 will be ample. The debate is whether there will still be room for all of us on 3-car trains - when we bring our walkers for some future opening day anniversary reunion.

Until such as time as both you and I are worm food? Yes. There is a huge amount of capacity built into the line that will be available when the time comes, and only people who are living in some sort of fantasy world where SimCity rules apply to the construction of the built form of Toronto think otherwise.

Personally I'm not worried.

- Paul

Nor am I.

Dan

 

[Steve Munro]

Just so everyone knows what AM peak service levels were back in January 2020 pre-pandemic:

34 Eglinton East : every 4 minutes (15/h) to Don Mills, every 6 (10/h) to Kennedy Station
54 Lawrence East: every 4'30" (13.3/h) to Leslie
51 Leslie: Every 20' (3/h) to Leslie
56 Leaside: Every 10' (6/h) to Laird

So 37/h as far as Laird, 31/h to Leslie, 15/h to Don Mills, 10/h to Kennedy Stn. Multiply by 50 to get roughly equivalent capacity.

32 Eglinton West: Every 3'30" (17/h) from Yonge to Keele, every 7' west of Keele/Trethewey. Separate 11'30" 32D service from Eg West to Jane/Emmett.

January 2025 Winter Schedules:

34 Eglinton East: 6' to Don Mills, 9' to Kennedy
54 Lawrence East: 5' to Leslie
51 Leslie: 24' to Leslie
56 Leaside: 15' to Laird

32 Eglinton West: 4' to Keele, 8' w to Renforth. 32D service every 16'

Don't believe the TTC myths about 90% recovery of service levels.