[crs1026]

If City Planning had explicitly said that saving transit riders 2.5 mins would cost $1.3 Billion, it's unlikely Council would be debating grade separation today. Why they didn't explicitly say that, rather than choosing to dance around it with opaque cost/benefit metrics, is beyond understanding for me. Their report makes it seem as if City Planning is trying to hide something, when in fact the data from the EA strongly supports their recommendation.

The latest memo to Council claims that City Planning has performed new additional traffic studies. I wonder why that data has not been released. It would be further compelling if the new data supported the old. Of course, if the new data indicated something else, we would have a data duel, but the EA data is somewhat stale at this point. Anyways, not releasing data is always a red flag IMHO.

- Paul

 

[BurlOak]

Quit frankly, grade separation for high speed trains is a must, but for local transit it not. The cost to save 2-3 minutes of real travel time not factoring in the extra time to get to/from these grade separation stations out weight the cost of having a station at grade. Then there is the extra cost to maintain these stations vs the grade stations. How often do you see notices of elevators or escalators out of service and what is the cost to fix them?? Any able body can use the stairs, but we are in an aging cycle, as well providing service to the accessibility community. These must be factor in when doing comparison.

Point of example, Victoria Park Eastbound elevator is out of service at this time. This means with luck, the accessibility rider only has to go to Warden to do a cross platform change to catch a westbound train to go back to Victoria to get off where they wanted to do in the first place. How much extra time does that add to a rider travel time?? An accessibility rider come in many forms, not just scooter. If Warden wasn't a centre platform with no elevator, the rider would have to go to Kennedy to do the back tracking. If both elevators were out at Victoria, the rider would have to take the Eglinton bus to Victoria and do a bus change to get to where they were going in the first place.

Oncer again, we must please the car drivers, along with the industries that put these things on the road daily so they can make a buck.

This is the main debate.

Those in Scarborough and Etobicoke want to reduce the travel time for long distances.

• A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 50 minutes (and a 99% reliable travel time due to complete grade-separation) is huge and will positively affect ridership. A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 60 minutes (with 75% reliable travel time due to at-grade operation) will not affect ridership.
• A 10 minute local trip reducing to 8 or increasing to 12 is not that big of a deal. Buses have higher frequency than LRT, so maybe they are best for local. Grade-separated may mean a longer walk since all mid-block stations are eliminated, so maybe takes a bit longer. Less frequent local buses along with grade-separated is likely the best, as elderly may have trouble even getting to LRT in-median stations.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

This is the main debate.

Those in Scarborough and Etobicoke want to reduce the travel time for long distances.

• A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 50 minutes (and a 99% reliable travel time due to complete grade-separation) is huge and will positively affect ridership. A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 60 minutes (with 75% reliable travel time due to at-grade operation) will not affect ridership.
• A 10 minute local trip reducing to 8 or increasing to 12 is not that big of a deal. Buses have higher frequency than LRT, so maybe they are best for local. Grade-separated may mean a longer walk since all mid-block stations are eliminated, so maybe takes a bit longer. Less frequent local buses along with grade-separated is likely the best, as elderly may have trouble even getting to LRT in-median stations.

The trip from Martin Grove to Jane will take just 15 minutes. There is very little opportunity for significant time savings in absolute terms with the Crosstown West. This project has far more in common with your second bullet point than your first.

And of course, only a small minoritiy of riders will be making the trip from Martin Grove to all the way to Jane in the first place.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

My problem with those numbers is
a) the fudge I described earlier, where the red light delays were understated by reducing the assumed time required for pedestrian crossings across Eglinton

Can you elaborate on this? I took a look at Martin Grove, and they calculated a 31 second walk time for north-south pedestrian crossings. This seems exceedingly reasonable to me, even for elderly pedestrians.

 

[drum118]

This is the main debate.

Those in Scarborough and Etobicoke want to reduce the travel time for long distances.

• A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 50 minutes (and a 99% reliable travel time due to complete grade-separation) is huge and will positively affect ridership. A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 60 minutes (with 75% reliable travel time due to at-grade operation) will not affect ridership.
• A 10 minute local trip reducing to 8 or increasing to 12 is not that big of a deal. Buses have higher frequency than LRT, so maybe they are best for local. Grade-separated may mean a longer walk since all mid-block stations are eliminated, so maybe takes a bit longer. Less frequent local buses along with grade-separated is likely the best, as elderly may have trouble even getting to LRT in-median stations.

Again, how many riders are doing the long haul ride compare to riders doing the short turn over all rider???

You will find maybe 10-15% of riders doing the long haul and that doesn't justify spending big bucks to please a few riders. Case in point, I normally travel Islington to St George or Yonge, but yesterday I did Kipling to Kennedy which is about a 45 minute ride and any 5 minute saving would mean nothing to me.

The goal is to service the local riders who will be the main riders and faster service will mean nothing to them, but only to a small number in for the long haul.

Watching the 505 and 504 while waiting for a Flexity to show up at Broadview, time between cars was all over the place with some real long gaps to ones within a minute or 2.

When I went to catch a 514 at Cherry Loop, 2 departed within 2 minutes of each other with over a 20 minute gap for the next one to the point I would been better off walking to where I wanted to go next than waited for that next car.

Regardless if you have grade separation or not, as well traffic lights, they play a minor role in how lines work, it is the riders themselves, but most of all its the driver. Not every driver drives the same way to the point you have a lot of Sunday drivers who will have cars bunch up in one area and nothing in other areas for sometime.

Some elderly as well young riders for various reasons will take a longer time not only getting to a median stop, but crossing the street itself. Same will happen for grade separation stations as well and therefore it can't be used to say one system is better than another because they are elderly.

Having a vehicle doing a trip in 50 minutes in place of 60 allows to have either better headway or less vehicles on the line and that becomes a cost saving to a point.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

The crux of the issue here is that the ridership of Crosstown West is way too small for grade-separation to be a cost-effective use of our tax dollars.

Extending the Mississauga Transitway to Mt. Dennis would be more effective, more rapid, more reliable, more frequent service for less money.

 

[Voltz]

a) the fudge I described earlier, where the red light delays were understated by reducing the assumed time required for pedestrian crossings across Eglinton

As I said before they would likely be using two stage pedestrian crossings, this would reduce the amount of time Eglinton traffic will need to face a red light at interesections.

b) the additional probability of red light delays at the intermediate intersections, which is caused by the use of these intermediaute intersections as u-turn points for autos turning left. These delays were not quantified but the volume of left turning cars is shown to be considerable so one assumes that large amounts of the traffic cycle will conflict with LRT operation

It can't be hard to minimise the effect of the U-turn points, only allowing U-turns when traffic at the main intersection has a red light would be easy and effective, and there will be no pedestrian crossings at the U-turns so there will be no minimum green times.

If you guesstimate what those added delays would add, the cost per minute of travel will change - not necessarily by an order of magnitude, but somewhat. In my view the numbers have been skewed to support a pre-determined recommendation, which is dirty pool.

You mean if you just make numbers up.

The other concerns are
- there is little or no hope of transit priority signalling addressing any of this

Based on what?

 

[Avenue]

Based on what?[/QUOTE

Based on everything else Toronto has done in terms prioritizing transit. Also, there's zero meaningful information disclosed to the public about how transit priority in Crosstown LRT will work, this far into the project. Nobody is buying it.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

b) the additional probability of red light delays at the intermediate intersections, which is caused by the use of these intermediaute intersections as u-turn points for autos turning left. These delays were not quantified but the volume of left turning cars is shown to be considerable so one assumes that large amounts of the traffic cycle will conflict with LRT operation

While the delays at due to modified left turns (via u-turns approx. 200 metres downstream) were not qualitified, the EA authors did analyze its performance, and were quite equivocal that they did not expect this to have a significant negative affect on transit operations. We see this reflected in their expectation that the trams will run at 30 kph between Jane and Renforth.

They also mention that this strategy had been implemented successfully in several other cities.

The data we’re interested in is the NBL and SBL. The worst here is NBL at Jane, with 225 cars per hour. This is about 3.75 cars per minute.

U-turn phase lengths aren’t specified, however it seems reasonable to me that with a cycle length of 120 seconds, we could get 8 cars to make a u-turn with a 15-20 second u-turn phase.

Consider that a train would be coming once every 3 to 4 minutes. With a 20 second u-turn phase every 120 seconds, the probability of the train having coming up against a red light at any individual u-turning intersection is just 11% (I hope I’m remembering my probability correctly). And this is the worse case scenario, where there is no transit signal priority, where all u-turning intersections have traffic volume to justify 20 second u-turn phases, and where it is assumed a u-turn phase will be actuated 100% of the time. And even when the train does come up to a red light, it’s stopped for at most 20 seconds - not a huge delay.

It’s rough math, but it gives us an idea of how these u-turn lanes will affect operations. I agree with the EA authors that this will not have a significant negative impact on operations.

 

[Avenue]

The cost to save 2-3 minutes of real travel time not factoring in the extra time to get to/from these grade separation stations out weight the cost of having a station at grade

I thought the time savings estimations already factored in the extra time to get to/from these grade separation stations because the savings can't possibly be that small otherwise. I mean the difference between grade separated and not separated at an intersection as low as 15 seconds? Sounds very unrealistic by itself.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I thought the time savings estimations already factored in the extra time to get to/from these grade separation stations because the savings can't possibly be that small otherwise. I mean the difference between grade separated and not separated at an intersection as low as 15 seconds? Sounds very unrealistic by itself.

Time savings estimations created by whom? If you’re talking about the ones I wrote last night, those came from the ECLRT EA by reading the average delay due to red lights expected at each individual intersection, and assuming this delay would vanish with grade separation (because there would be no traffic lights).

The 2-3 minute in time savings is only in-vehicle time savings. It does not include the extra time to get to/from the grade separated stations.

 

[crs1026]

Can you elaborate on this? I took a look at Martin Grove, and they calculated a 31 second walk time for north-south pedestrian crossings. This seems exceedingly reasonable to me, even for elderly pedestrians.

My concern was - somewhere in the report (and I have tried to find the exact reference, but can't put my finger on it) the modelling was altered to use a number other than what the City actually uses. That 31 second number may be reasonable in theory, but if the City reverts to its "real" number in actual practice, and that number is longer, then the actual experience will be different than the model.

To be clear - personally I'm not advocating for grade separation at *every* intersection, hence not arguing for a $1B added spend. But I do believe it is prudent at some. Martin Grove and Kipling are known and notorious traffic choke points today. If you look at the Graphic Summary of Traffic Conditions (Appendix II of the Traffic Report in the EA) this is clearly identified. The more granular data shows this also. The 'future' picture clearly shows this worsening.

If we back off the proposal to a couple of intersections, we reduce the spend but we also reduce the seconds of delay saved. I don't know if that makes the business case better or worse. Perhaps it's no different. However - we do know that Martin Grove especially is already a very big problem zone, and the data shows LRT exacerbating that. Kipling is similar. Some avoidance of risk just seems wise.

- Paul

 

[sixrings]

Time savings estimations created by whom? If you’re talking about the ones I wrote last night, those came from the ECLRT EA by reading the average delay due to red lights expected at each individual intersection, and assuming this delay would vanish with grade separation (because there would be no traffic lights).

The 2-3 minute in time savings is only in-vehicle time savings. It does not include the extra time to get to/from the grade separated stations.

Tiger I am sure you can tell I agree with you but I do think the general public only thinks about the time actually on the transit system. in other words they are less frustrated by stairs or elevators as long as when they are on the system it appears to be moving faster. Perhaps part of that is because once you are squished into a tight spot you want that experience to be as short as possible. versus being on platforms or walking up and down stairs isnt as claustrophobic. It is a huge expense for such a luxury. I also think part of this is motivated by people which i know whom will take go trains, or subways but will not take buses. We all know these people exist because kiss and ride areas are always full. Perhaps people don't care so much about the transfer times and everything else if they expect to use the service in this way. I am going to be in the minority but I would much prefer the extra billion dollars which it will take to grade separate this to go to finch lrt expansion or eglinton east which looks like it might not have much funding left.

 

[crs1026]

This is the main debate.

Those in Scarborough and Etobicoke want to reduce the travel time for long distances.

• A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 50 minutes (and a 99% reliable travel time due to complete grade-separation) is huge and will positively affect ridership. A 70 minute long distance trip reduced to 60 minutes (with 75% reliable travel time due to at-grade operation) will not affect ridership.
• A 10 minute local trip reducing to 8 or increasing to 12 is not that big of a deal. Buses have higher frequency than LRT, so maybe they are best for local. Grade-separated may mean a longer walk since all mid-block stations are eliminated, so maybe takes a bit longer. Less frequent local buses along with grade-separated is likely the best, as elderly may have trouble even getting to LRT in-median stations.

A case in point: Yesterday I had to go to Square One. I walked to Islington/Bloor and caught the #3 bus along Bloor. (On that trip, one has a choice of routes, the 3 was the first one that came along) It felt like a typical slow, lazy bus ride. With minimal traffic congestion at mid-day, the driver had to dawdle at one point to avoid getting ahead of schedule. Coming home, I took the #109 to check out the Renforth transitway. The bus flew along the transitway and down the 427. It was a very different experience. Objectively, the 109 route is much less direct. I don't know if the 109 actually saved me any time over the #3. But the 109 was full, and 95% of riders made the full trip from MCC to Subway. It sure felt like higher order transit. I'm not sure one can analyse the transitway on dollars per second alone. But getting that busload off of the arterial roads across Mississauga and into Etobicoke makes a lot of sense.

PS - To abuse the Duke, It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that zoom.

- Paul

 

[raptor]