[drum118]

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

Based on my experience, depending how fast the 109 can get you to/from Sq One to/from Islington depends on the 427 at all hours of the day. If traffic is moving, you can save about 6 minutes over the 3 route. If it crawling, the 3 is the faster route. At the same time, 3 goes into the terminal while 109 stops west of the terminal and you have to walk back to the lights and wait for them coming from Islington. You add that extra time to the fast trip time, its almost the same time as the 3. Going east is a different story, as you can catch the 109 at the terminal.

With construction taking place on Bloor for the new Six Point Interchange, all routes will loose time for the next 2 years. There are a few spots were the 3 can have traffic issues, but overall, don't loose much time. One thing, the 3 drivers like to make time is on Mississauga Valley Blvd thats a 40 km zone, yet been on far too many buses where drivers are doing 10-30 km over the limit even in the 2 schools zone. Ridership is a rollercoaster for the route at all hours to the point you make a few stops to the point its every stop, which slow service down including riders themselves.

Where the 109 does save rider time are the ones going to/from the Meadowville area either to/from Sq One or Islington.

Starting next year, 109 will be running on 10 minute headway which is far better than 3 that runs 10 at peak, 16-18 off peak as well 18 on Sat. Sunday its the pits with 22-23 headway and 30 on special holidays.

 

[drum118]

Relocation of the Bus Loop and Passenger Platform at TTC Kennedy Station
Starting as early as December 13, the existing Kennedy Station Bus Loop will temporarily be moved to facilitate construction of the new bus loop and passenger platform. TTC passengers can continue to access Kennedy Station via all existing entrances but will be required to board buses from a new temporary platform on the south side of the terminal. For more information, please read the notice on the website.

 

[aquateam]

Here is the ridership at each station, from the Transit City EA:

Lets weight the cost of grade separation, with the ridership at each stop and potential time savings: This is cost per minute saved per passenger.

The cost effectiveness of grade separation of intersections gets progressively worse as we travel west on on LRT. Jane Street grade separation performs best, at a cost of $618 per second per passenger to $929 per second per passenger. Martin Grove performs worst at $3,225 per second per passenger to $4,829 per second per passenger.

City Council is going to have to decide if they're willing to spend so much money, for a relatively small impact on travel times. Personally, I don't believe I'm willing to continue supporting any of these grade separations. $106 Million to save 30 seconds is a very steep price - and that's for the best performing of all the grade separations.

100% grade separation, whether that be elevated or tunnelled, would also provide terrible value for money, considering that would save only 2.5 minutes on the trip time.

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.

I'm not sure how you got 11%, it would be 20/120 = 16.7%. How often the train comes doesn't impact the probability of the light being red when it arrives if the light is on a cycle.

But this is all a moot point: we are not going to try to back-calculate the travel time savings of grade separations across the line on the back of a napkin when there are already travel time simulations done by actual professionals.

Here is Metrolinx's report:

This is for at-grade LRT:

These are the stops assumed:

This is for grade separated:

Notice the stop spacing, which is a thousand times saner than anything produced by the city planning department:

So the difference is 14 minutes vs 22 minutes across the western section for full vs none grade separation (i.e. 8 minutes time savings total, not 2.5 minutes.) But if the ridership is as bad as the TC report suggests then this would still not be good value for money.

 

[BurlOak]

So the difference is 14 minutes vs 22 minutes across the western section for full vs none grade separation (i.e. 8 minutes time savings total, not 2.5 minutes.) But if the ridership is as bad as the TC report suggests then this would still not be good value for money.

Although if you look at the Business Case and Benefit-Cost ratio, the grade-separated is the best, and the only option with B/C greater than 1.0.

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2016/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-94621.pdf

 

[Hopkins123]

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.

What the *bleep*?

Just 15 minutes? Way to trivialize the plight of long-distance commuters. By comparison, the trip from Jane Stn to Kipling Stn on the Bloor-Danforth is just 7 a mere minutes. Even the existing 32 bus service clocks in faster than 15 minutes. We're not spending billions of dollars to make the situation of getting across the Eglinton corridor even worse.

Better to push for full grade separation, which at $1.3 billion isn't a bad overcome for all parties involved.

 

[Avenue]

Exactly. Also, why would anyone travel here locally? Who on the earth would travel from Widdicombe to Royal York, let alone these riders being the majority. Eglinton West along this stretch is mainly blank (with low density residential to the north or south). People either want to get to their schools or employment areas, which are for the most part either in Mississauga or along Yonge street...

 

[BurlOak]

Exactly. Also, why would anyone travel here locally? Who on the earth would travel from Widdicombe to Royal York, let alone these riders being the majority. Eglinton West along this stretch is mainly blank (with low density residential to the north or south). People either want to get to their schools or employment areas, which are for the most part either in Mississauga or along Yonge street...

But isn't City Planning saying that this stretch is within 5 years of looking just like Queen Street?

 

[TheTigerMaster]

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.

What the *bleep*?

Just 15 minutes? Way to trivialize the plight of long-distance commuters. By comparison, the trip from Jane Stn to Kipling Stn on the Bloor-Danforth is just 7 a mere minutes. Even the existing 32 bus service clocks in faster than 15 minutes. We're not spending billions of dollars to make the situation of getting across the Eglinton corridor even worse.

Better to push for full grade separation, which at $1.3 billion isn't a bad overcome for all parties involved.

My bad, I had a typo. I meant to say Renforth in my original comment, but mentioned Martin Grove by accident. The travel time between Jane and Martin Grove on Eglinton Line is 10.5 minutes. The travel time between Jane and Renforth is 15 minutes.

But isn't City Planning saying that this stretch is within 5 years of looking just like Queen Street?

No. Nobody at City Planning has claimed that.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I'm not sure how you got 11%, it would be 20/120 = 17.8%. How often the train comes doesn't impact the probability of the light being red when it arrives if the light is on a cycle.

But this is all a moot point: we are not going to try to back-calculate the travel time savings of grade separations across the line on the back of a napkin when there are already travel time simulations done by actual professionals.

Here is Metrolinx's report:

This is for at-grade LRT:
View attachment 129669
These are the stops assumed:
View attachment 129670

This is for grade separated:
View attachment 129667

Notice the stop spacing, which is a thousand times saner than anything produced by the city planning department:
View attachment 129668

So the difference is 14 minutes vs 22 minutes across the western section for full vs none grade separation (i.e. 8 minutes time savings total, not 2.5 minutes.) But if the ridership is as bad as the TC report suggests then this would still not be good value for money.

When reading the Business Case Analysis carefully, you'd see that they assume the speeds of the trains. Metrolinx didn't do any kind of quantitative study to determine how quickly the trains would be moving; that was undertaken in the Environmental Assessment. If what I recall from the Metrolinx BCA's is correct, they assumed all the Transit City LRTs would have 22 km/h running speeds, regardless of their location.

I'm not sure how you got 11%, it would be 20/120 = 17.8%. How often the train comes doesn't impact the probability of the light being red when it arrives if the light is on a cycle.

Yes, I believe you're right about that. But regardless, 17% still isn't a huge probability, especially when you consider that's the probability the tram of hitting a red at the worst-perfoming modified left turn proposed for the line.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

But this is all a moot point: we are not going to try to back-calculate the travel time savings of grade separations across the line on the back of a napkin when there are already travel time simulations done by actual professionals.

Here is Metrolinx's report:

This is for at-grade LRT:
View attachment 129669
These are the stops assumed:
View attachment 129670

This is for grade separated:
View attachment 129667

Notice the stop spacing, which is a thousand times saner than anything produced by the city planning department:
View attachment 129668

So the difference is 14 minutes vs 22 minutes across the western section for full vs none grade separation (i.e. 8 minutes time savings total, not 2.5 minutes.) But if the ridership is as bad as the TC report suggests then this would still not be good value for money.

When reading the Business Case Analysis carefully, you'd see that they assume the speeds of the trains. Metrolinx didn't do any kind of quantitative study to determine how quickly the trains would be moving; that was undertaken in the Environmental Assessment. If what I recall from the Metrolinx BCA's is correct, they assumed all the Transit City LRTs would have 22 km/h running speeds, regardless of their location.

Again, I emphasize the the data in the BCA aren't travel time simulations, they're travel time assumptions. The simulations are in the EA

Here's where they explicitly mention that the speeds of the trains are assumed. If I recall correctly, in a lot of analysis the TC LRT lines were assumed to be running at 22 km/h, because TTC and Metrolinx extrapolated the Sheppard East LRT running speed to the entire network, which is obviously imprecise. The details in the Environmental Assessment are more accurate, as the performance is extensively modelled, and not merely assumed. Don't read too much into the BCA for technical details on the operations of a particular proposal. The BCA is intended to provide a general overview of the potential benefits of a proposal, and not to define technical details on how the project is to be implemented.

 

[crs1026]

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.

The study is clear on that point. The left turn volume exceeds the length of the left turn/U turn lane at several locations at peak. If you enhance the green light duration for the LRT, letting the left turns back up waiting for their light, they pile up into one of the through lanes of traffic and that gets blocked. Left turn volume is a significant issue for this study. Sure, we could say, let's give LRT priority and let drivers suck it up. That's not an optimal solution.

Also, the study hints to what is actually happening up there today: infiltration into side streets. Such as, few taxis or airport limo drivers will attempt north on Kipling to west on Eglinton any more. They take Longfield west from Kipling at the Kingsway light, and turn left on Eglinton from Lloyd Manor. This is one of the things that has the residents up in arms.... much more traffic on the side streets. People are finding new routings through the area. If that infiltration is desirable, great....but.... is it?

Based on what?

Based on
1) the volume of cross-Eglinton auto traffic and the projections for wait time for automobiles in the north-south direction. Hold up that traffic with traffic priority delaying the light cycle, and you get longer vehicular queues going north-south.
and
2) More importantly, the modellers didn't bother to propose traffic priority or show how it might change things. That implies, adding traffic priority screws up their model. Or, they just don't see that as a solution. Or, it's not in their kitbag of mitigations.
My point was mostly to defuse the LRT advocates who respond to velocity concerns on a knee jerk basis with "but traffic priority will solve that". Traffic priority isn't a silver bullet at the best of times, and in relation to Eglinton West it's just not that helpful.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

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.

Again, the issue may be the queuing of the left/U turns. One could probably program the traffic lights such that the u-turn reds and the main intersection cross-traffic red all happen simultaneously. That would certainly minimise any increased probability of an LRT hitting a red light as they pass through the three lights associated with one intersection. But - if the U-turn lane fills up with waiting vehicles?

It's a separate issue, perhaps, from the direct velocity vs cost question, but we need an LRT solution that isn't a direct takeaway from auto flow.

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

The study is clear on that point. The left turn volume exceeds the length of the left turn/U turn lane at several locations at peak. If you enhance the green light duration for the LRT, letting the left turns back up waiting for their light, they pile up into one of the through lanes of traffic and that gets blocked. Left turn volume is a significant issue for this study. Sure, we could say, let's give LRT priority and let drivers suck it up. That's not an optimal solution.

But this is all a moot point: we are not going to try to back-calculate the travel time savings of grade separations across the line on the back of a napkin when there are already travel time simulations done by actual professionals.

I've gone ahead and pulled the volume data for each of the six signalized intersections (including modified left turns) for the AM peak hour. The EA recommended design is in orange. The V/C Ratios in the table are volume/capacity ratios. V/C > 1.00 indicates an overcapacity intersection or movement.

I'm not seeing the problem you're describing. In the case of Jane, Islington, Scarlett and Royal York, the volume/capacity ratio of the intersection actually decreased with the introduction of the LRT. For Martin Grove and Kipling, the V/C ratio increases marginally, by 0.07 and 0.03 respectively

Looking specifically at left turns, you said the left turn volume exceeds capacity at several locations. Yet, looking at the volume/capacity ratios for each of the twenty-four possible left turns along the Crosstown West route, none of them have a V/C greater than 1.00. In fact, with the exception of Westbound Eglinton to Northbound Martin grove, none of the selected left-turn designs in the EA are expected to be running anywhere near capacity. And for that particular westbound to northbound movement at Martin Grove, the LRT increases the V/C by just 0.01.

In the case of Jane, Scarlett, Royal York, Islington, Kipling, and 3/4 of the left-turn movements at Martin Grove, the V/C ratios for left turns substantially decreases (this is a good thing).

Nowhere here do I see the traffic nightmare you’re describing.

Martin Grove:

Kipling:

Islington

Royal York:

Scarlett:

Jane:

 

[crs1026]

I've gone ahead and pulled the volume data for each of the six signalized intersections (including modified left turns) for the AM peak hour. The EA recommended design is in orange. The V/C Ratios in the table are volume/capacity ratios. V/C > 1.00 indicates an overcapacity intersection or movement.

I'm not seeing the problem you're describing. In the case of Jane, Islington, Scarlett and Royal York, the volume/capacity ratio of the intersection actually decreased with the introduction of the LRT. For Martin Grove and Kipling, the V/C ratio increases marginally, by 0.07 and 0.03 respectively

Thanks for putting those charts in one place - that report demands a lot of bouncing around to digest.

I was looking at the projected queues (Section 1, Appendix 2 - graphical representation) . You can see that at the intermediate intersections (where U turns will be permitted) there is projected to be a problem with queue length. I may have confused myself a little by reacting to data showing queues for left turns at intersections where the end recommendation is no left turn. But if the projected left turn volume was projected to be problemmatic, and the left turn is just moved further down the road to a new U turn lane, is that queue any smaller?

I take your point about the v/c ratio charts. One issue may be that these appear have been normalised to the new vehicular capacity of each intersection, which may be lower than today. The study theorises that after LRT arrives, some proportion of existing traffic will gravitate to other routes. A different reduction is applied to different intersections. (This is described in Item 3 of each of Section 1, Appendixes III-VIII) I don't know if all traffic studies apply that premise. Taking them at face value, those v/c ratios are helpful to analyse the different scenarios or options within an intersection, but I'm not sure that they are apples to apples across the intersections. Or that they describe what will happen if traffic doesn't decline as projected.

Lastly, note that the EA document (Section 2, Item 3.4.2 recommended solving Martin Grove with a partial "diamond" plan that built two new connector roads, substituting right turns for left turns. The Exhibit 3-11 is drawn from that recommendation, but there is no mention of that idea in the latest review. That being the case, the data in the EA is not representative of traffic issues there. The 'Traditional' number may be the more representative statistic.

- Paul

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I was looking at the projected queues (Section 1, Appendix 2 - graphical representation) . You can see that at the intermediate intersections (where U turns will be permitted) there is projected to be a problem with queue length. I may have confused myself a little by reacting to data showing queues for left turns at intersections where the end recommendation is no left turn. But if the projected left turn volume was projected to be problemmatic, and the left turn is just moved further down the road to a new U turn lane, is that queue any smaller?

Looking at the data you're referencing, there are a handful of turning movements where it's expected that the turn queue will occasionally spill out of the turning lanes during peak hours. This doesn't particularly concern me. Driving around Toronto, you'll see this happening frequently on our major thoroughfares. The lane spillage on Eglinton Avenue West with the LRT doesn't strike me as being unusually problematic. This is the cost of living in a city with 3 Million people.

That said, depending on the cost, I do believe the Martin Grove intersection can be improved. The eastbound to northbound turning lanes are at capacity, and this situation might be improved with a flyover to allow vehicles to do that particular movement without being impeded by traffic signals. However, it must be emphasized that with or without the LRT, this particular movement would be at a V/C of about 1.00; this isn't a problem triggered by the presence of the LRT.