Dan416
Senior Member
Well I definitely think the streetcar network has far too many stops, especially compared to many European cities.
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- Thread starter Amare
- Start date
DSCToronto
Superstar
I think people look on this topic differently as they age and if the stop is near where they live!
T3G
Senior Member
I definitely agree that stops need to be culled, but at a lot of intersections there's traffic lights that accompany the stops. If you cull the stops, but keep the lights, what have you really achieved?
Look at Spadina, for example - Richmond is such a useless stop it doesn't even exist in both directions, but if you remove it, you will still have traffic lights at Richmond.
Jonny5
Senior Member
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
They can look at it however they want, but at the end of the day, it can't be everything to everyone.
AoD
DSCToronto
Superstar
Of course but the TTC does need to serve everyone and this means some people will find there are too few stops and some that there are not enough..
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I beg differ on that - and I think that the TTC need to stop being everything and start optimizing, because at this rate it'd be the choice of transportation for everyone except those with other options.
AoD
DSCToronto
Superstar
I was not suggesting that the TTC can satisfy everyone, only that people have different expectations and varying needs and limitations.. Some can walk further than others, some need low floor boarding, some need overnight service. Of course everyone cannot get all the things they want but we all need to remember that our needs and expectations are not shared by everyone.
Northern Light
Superstar
There are stops where the lights exist, largely to serve the stop, and the lights could be removed. If a desire was strong enough (and evidence supported) a mid-block pedestrian crossing, the lights could be made pedestrian-only, activated only on request and subject to transit-priority override.
I'm thinking of Nassau, and Willcocks in particular and maybe Sullivan. I agree Richmond would retain lights.
Northern Light
Superstar
Both of these sentiments can be true.
For instance, its possible to retain extra stops where significant hills are involved that are an added barrier to getting to/from a stop; or where density warrants, or simply a stop with high enough volume.
Equally, even allowing for the above, there is significant room for optimization.
Lets add though, that if one is willing to run service frequently enough that vehicles are less full, then they will make fewer stops and have shorter dwell times.
If you all-door load buses the same is true.
Restricting left-turns in front of streetcars at both regulated and unregulated intersections can make a big difference.
As it can for buses.
Let me illustrate with a route I used today, the 506. Remember that buses are theoretically based around a 300m between stops standard now, and that the flexities are considerably longer and do all-door board...
Distance between Marjorie (east end of Gerrard Square) and Jones - 153m that's 5 vehicle lengths.
Then Jones to Leslie - 214m
Then Leslie to Alton - 187m
Alton to Greenwood - 213m
*****
Lets try this instead:
Pape to Jones -- 397m
Jones to Alton - 400m
Alton to Greenwood -213M
*****
Nothing exceeds 400m (370 when adjusted for vehicle length and all-door boarding) yet you get 3 stops, instead of 5.
One needn't be punishing to riders to do better than the status quo.
Jonny5
Senior Member
Yes, but this all does have to account for the distance between stops isn't the actual walking distance riders will take, especially in the west side of downtown where there's a rectangular north-south street-grid, but people travelling east-west already have to walk quite a distance simply to get to their current local stop, so if you take that stop away and say it's only another 200 metres from one stop to the other is not accounting that they already had to walk 400 metres to the existing stop.
All this is to agree with what you also said that we can't have some blanket minimum distance between stops. There must be local nuances, and there's not much appetite to accept that or do that work. People want it simplified too far now.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
I recall that neither was supposed to exist, but Richmond was added after Olivia Chow said the garment workers in the area needed it. Yes, reallly.
DirectionNorth
Senior Member
I agree we're not the slowest, but if we compare ourselves to the developed world's worst transit systems, and refuse to learn from cities with functional transit, eventually we will end up with the worst transit system too. Comparing ourselves to the mis-operating practices of American cities is just patting ourselves on the back for being not the worst - we are not so special that we cannot adopt best practices from non-American countries.
Wikipedia states line length, which double counts interlined sections (imagine if we counted the track on Queen's Quay between Spadina and Union twice, because the 509 and 510 both run on it, or Queen Street between Kingston Road and King because the 501/503 run there). The actual length is ~45 km, maybe a few extra km accounting for recent extensions - so the stop spacing is actually 250-300 metres, which is not that big a difference.
(Helsinki is mixed running. So are Vienna, Munich, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Oslo, Warsaw, etc., all cities with higher operating speeds)
I don't buy that, but if you do, then remove those stops.
There are many systems we can learn from, which employ many tactics to speed up transit. Circulation management (think the King Street pilot on a large scale), stop consolidation, no special trackwork rules or "stop check go" or slow orders, fewer traffic lights, street space allocation, and so on. Heck, Melbourne - another English-speaking city with its legacy trams and similar network (grids) - runs 16 km/h with an average stop spacing of 290 metres. If nothing else, the city should want to learn from other cities, because faster streetcars reduces costs.
PL1
Senior Member
Indeed, it's the apparent inability of the TTC and City to learn from other places that's most frustrating. Strive to be the best, not the most mediocre
Dan416
Senior Member
I'd much rather they focus on improving streetcar operations than building LRTs that won't end up faster than the currently existing buses (I'm thinking of the Eglinton East LRT here).
I think it's nuts that we have what could be high functioning rail-based network, but it's hampered by so many factors. Whenever I'm in Warsaw, I find it fun to ride the trams. People complain about removing stops, but I would say their stops are much further apart than the TTC's and they have just as much elderly there as here, if not more. And they manage just fine.
I think there needs to be a coordinated effort to bring our streetcar system up-to-par with the best tram systems in the world. Make it a project like a subway project with dedicated funding.
All those switches we constantly keep hearing about getting blamed? Replace all of them. How much can it possibly cost? A few million? Still much cheaper than a subway. To be clear, I have zero clue how much it would cost.
They had to upgrade the wires when the new streetcars came with pantographs, and that's mostly done now. It wasn't done all at once, so how long would it take to upgrade these switches? Are they doing it whenever they do track replacements? If not, why not?
I think it's nuts that we have what could be high functioning rail-based network, but it's hampered by so many factors. Whenever I'm in Warsaw, I find it fun to ride the trams. People complain about removing stops, but I would say their stops are much further apart than the TTC's and they have just as much elderly there as here, if not more. And they manage just fine.
I think there needs to be a coordinated effort to bring our streetcar system up-to-par with the best tram systems in the world. Make it a project like a subway project with dedicated funding.
All those switches we constantly keep hearing about getting blamed? Replace all of them. How much can it possibly cost? A few million? Still much cheaper than a subway. To be clear, I have zero clue how much it would cost.
They had to upgrade the wires when the new streetcars came with pantographs, and that's mostly done now. It wasn't done all at once, so how long would it take to upgrade these switches? Are they doing it whenever they do track replacements? If not, why not?