evandyk
Senior Member
The Spadina streetcar averages between 8-12 km/hr. So slightly faster than walking, but not much.
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- Thread starter wolfewood
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
It's definitely too slow - but that is much slower than I've ever seen it. I can't think of an occasion I've headed northbound from there, and thought I could catch up to the streetcar at the next stop, from the southeast corner of Queen and Spadina. And on other routes, there's many a stop I've succeeded to do something like that. Even two stops between Gerrard and Dundas on Broadview, during busy periods (admittedly running).
Should be about 15 minutes on the streetcar, versus 30 minutes walking (probably closer to 25 minutes for a fast jay-walking walker).
Looking at last Fridays data at https://www.transsee.ca/operatechart?a=ttc&r=510&date=2025-05-30&starttime=13:00&endtime=17:00&ok=OK, I see some 20-minute runs following a gap. But also some 20 minute runs. Though with the bunch that departed Queen at around 3 pm, I could imagine there's be loading delays at Spadina station. Hopefully the construction there to expand the platform will alleviate this. What time were you there?
That work at Spadina is probably the biggest fix, but some cheaper fixes such as removing a couple of stops (Wilcox and Sussex!), improving signal priority (especially after a gap), and make it possible to loop northbound vehicles at Spadina Crescent would help.
Few are going to be walking faster than 4-km/hr! Closer to 3 km/hr for many. And personally, especially on Spadina, I always find I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for a crossing signal. And at a lot of the lights. So closer to 3 km/hr.
I'd say 8-12 km/hr is more than "slightly".
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evandyk
Senior Member
Northbound, if a car is stopped at Sussex and a car is stopped at Harbord, there is probably not more than 60 metres separating them.
It's even worse southbound on the 504/505 on Gerrard where there are stops at Langley, Simpson and Gerrard. If you're waiting at Gerrard, it takes a couple of minutes for the streetcar to cover less than 200 metres of ground thanks to the stops.
It's even worse southbound on the 504/505 on Gerrard where there are stops at Langley, Simpson and Gerrard. If you're waiting at Gerrard, it takes a couple of minutes for the streetcar to cover less than 200 metres of ground thanks to the stops.
nfitz
Superstar
The problem is that it's over 300 metres to the next stop (terminus) north of Spadina (and over 500 metres to the Line 1 platforms at Spadina station). But as I noted above - I agree that Sussex should go.
504 is worse than that, if you account for the streetcars being 30-metres long. The Jack Layton stop (aka Simpson) is about 87 metres north of the Gerrard stop and 40 metres north of the north side of Jack Layton! So only 55 metres from the back of the streetcar at Gerrard to the Jack Layton stop, and about 3 metres from the back of the streetcar to the south-side Jack Layton sidewalk. With a bit of traffic, the 504/505 southbound sticks out into Jack Layton Way when stopped at Gerrard!
When I used to commute in the morning, there wasn't really a lot of people using Jack Layton. Except for those that walked the 30 seconds north of the Gerrard stop so they could be sure of getting a seat. Which was the reason the car had to stop the majority of the time.
max
Active Member
Haha, that was always my trick catching a Westbound streetcar after getting off the Yonge line, just walk to Victoria and grab a seat. Stop removals a few years back mean it doesn't work anymore
evandyk
Senior Member
I was noticing it this morning when I was catching a streetcar at Gerrard. There was a fairly full 504 with a bunch of people getting on, including someone whose smell was strong when standing outside. Instead of getting on, I waited for a completely empty 508 which was stopped at Jack Layton, literally 50 metres back.
Steve Munro
New Member
A few points worth noting here. If there were excessive delays that removing stops at Sussex and Willcocks would solve, you would see a lot of horizontal lines at those locations, but they aren't there. The big problems come with lack of true priority at the major intersections compounded by the glacial pace streetcars move through special work. Delays at Bremner and at Lake Shore are quite obvious in the chart. I was on a 510 Wednesday at about 10pm, and it ambled all the way from King to Bloor. No congestion, signal delays because it kept falling out of the green wave, and a big gap forming in front of the car. Crowded car because it created its own gap adding to stop service time.
bearcat
Active Member
How would priority ideally be set up at major intersection given that they also have streetcars running perpendicular to Spadina that should not get delayed? I assume there is a solution but it's not immediately obvious.
nfitz
Superstar
More often or not at Dundas and College there's no perpendicular streetcar waiting.
Even then, they could always put the through phase before the turn phase - would that even impact traffic congestion?
Ideally you'd have a very sophisticated system that is much better at knowing which cars need the most priority (knowing if they are late or early, gaps, etc.), and how long priority is, and if the car would be ready for priority on the routes that have the stop before the intersection. I frequently see at stops where there is priority that the vehicle still doesn't get through, because it's still servicing the stop.
Restricting/reducing left turns would help to. Why is there even a left-turn lane, northbound at King? You can't drive westbound from King - but you can turn left from Spadina?
smallspy
Senior Member
The priority doesn't need to be substantial - just enough to hold a green for a set time (perhaps up to 15 seconds) to allow an approaching car through the intersection.
That, and for the TTC to do away with it's silly and arbitrary operating rules. Requiring a car to operate through an intersection at 10km/h does absolutely nothing to increase safety.
Dan
Steve Munro
New Member
The east-west crossing routes are relatively infrequent, but they have nearside stops and so their interaction with the signals is completely different. What is needed is the "sense" in signal controllers that there is an approaching streetcar *and* space on the farside platform so that streetcars were not cut off by a signal change as they approached. For east west cars (and for TSP at most nearside transit stops), something to recognize that a vehicle is close to leaving is needed, but I'm not sure this can be automated. An operator signal that says "I want to go now" would be useful, but I am sure that the AI boffins will spend years and a lot of money to come up with something not as effective. Re the idea of giving priority when a vehicle is "late", that is a red herring that shows up in a lot of "TSP" proposals on the basis that most of the time it won't be needed and the motorists won't be disturbed. Transit should *always* get priority so that trips can be as fast as possible.
nfitz
Superstar
Yes, that does sound like perfect being the enemy of good. Or more likely TPS trying to put difficult hurdles to 86 the entire project.
I suppose if you do give a vehicle priority that didn't need it, it could always increase it's dwell at the next stop, to return to schedule (a concept that TTC operators seem very poorly -trained on).
bearcat
Active Member
What needs to be done to get rid of the the 10 km/h limit? Both based on actual logic and evidence AND based on the reality of the TTC?
Northern Light
Superstar
I wouldn't dare disagree with you on the substantive statement....... however...........
There is little question that additional stops add travel time, even if they don't add delays. Acceleration/deceleration, dwell time etc. (clearly shifting riders to the nearest stops adds dwell time, so its not a wholesale reduction of the existing dwell).
I know you lean a bit more towards more frequent stops, for accessibility, and I'm not unsympathetic to that argument, but I would offer that the Willcocks-Habord-Sussex set of stops is 3 stops within 424M. To me, and I think to many, that does read as excessive. We could certainly debate whether to remove one, or two...........or whether to slightly shift platforms.....but I certainly think its fair to consider removing at least one of this sequence and to assume it would at least have marginal benefit on travel time.
****
I have also argued for reconsidering Sullivan, which taken together with Queen and Dundas is 3 stops in 485m or 4 in 615m in the northbound direction if adding in Richmond.
Removing these stops may not reduce or eliminate gaps, which can be considered a separate, and pressing issue.
But that doesn't mean it would lack value from an operational point of view, with travel time reduction and more positive rider experience.
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reaperexpress
Senior Member
Indeed the near side stops completely wreck the ability to provide effective priority, since the dwell times and queue lengths are unpredictable. To determine whether or not to start extending the green at the end of the normal phase (by up to 30 seconds), the signal needs to correctly guess whether the streetcar will be finished loading within 30 seconds of the normal end of green. If the streetcar dwells longer than expected, the signal could hold for the full 30 seconds and still the streetcar isn't done loading. In which case the TSP intervention has actually increased delay by up to 30 seconds since the next green will start later than it otherwise would have. Conversely, if dwell is shorter than expected, the signal might not hold the green thinking that the streetcar wouldn't be done loading in time, when in fact it could have actually benefited from a green extension.
The vast majority of signals on streetcar routes do have TSP, so they do know when a streetcar is approaching. To prevent streetcars from getting priority when a far-side stop is occupied, some intersections only grant priority to streetcars with a headway greater than 90 seconds.
Some TSP systems are connected to the door close button, which gives the signal about 5 seconds of advance notice before the vehicle leaves the stop.
But "I want to go now" is not useful information for the signal, because it can't just suddenly turn green. You first need to cycle though the Flashing Don't Walk (FDW), amber and all-red times for any phases that have Walk. At a typical downtown intersection that takes about 20 seconds (e.g. 12-14s FDW, 3s Amber, 3s AllRed), and at wide intersections like on St Clair or Spadina, that could easily be over 30 seconds. If the green extension needs to be served with a Walk signal (which is the case at most TSP signals), the streetcar needs to request priority before the start of FDW. If the FDW is 12 seconds and you want up to 30 seconds of extension, the signal needs an accurate ETA 42 seconds in advance. The optimal moment to request TSP varies at every intersection depending on the FDW, amber and all-red durations, so there's no way an operator would manually submit TSP requests at the correct moment.
Machine learning could be a useful tool to provide a customised dwell time estimate for each streetcar based on observations of previous streetcars combined with variables such as the streetcar's headway, time of day and signal state. With hundreds of signals with TSP, most of which have near-side stops in multiple directions, it is logistically impossible to manually create a custom formula for each stop to accurately estimate dwell times.
If you want transit trips to be as fast as possible, you SHOULD disable priority for streetcars that have a below-average headway. Because speeding those streetcars up makes service less even, and therefore creates longer gaps before the streetcars that actually dictate the speed of the streetcar line, which are the ones following a large gap. The longer the gap in front of a streetcar, the more people will be waiting at the stop, which increases the dwell time, causing the gap ahead of the streetcar to grow even larger. Eventually that streetcar will be painfully crowded and painfully slow, holding up all the other streetcars behind it.
Varying the level of priority based on the streetcar's headway actively compensates for the miscellaneous delays that inevitably occur on-street, reducing the chance of starting the feedback loop that will inevitably lead to bunching if not promptly compensated for. When you are trying to run a reliable transit service, the majority of the vehicles on the line should be operating slower than their fastest possible average speed, since the schedule inherently needs to be designed for a higher-than-average travel time to make it possible to run evenly-spaced service. On a bus route or dedicated streetar ROW this is fairly trivial since an early streetcar/bus can just pause at a stop to wait for the schedule (or average headway) to catch up. But a mixed-traffic streetcar is occupying the left traffic lane, so if it sits for extra time, it will be blocking traffic. So streetcar operators have relatively little ability to slow down to space out service, especially when the TSP is unconditional. Operators who are running early will often try to stop at green lights if they think they're turning yellow soon, but if TSP is still trying to prioritize them, it will max out the green extension trying to get them through even though the operator has no intention of proceeding. Then it may shorten the other phases to their minimum to get back go the streetcar's phase as soon as possible. That creates the maximum possible delay for other users (especially pedestrians), far more than a streetcar that gets a green and actually drives through it. That type of severe disruption is why the City wants to reduce the level of priority that streetcars receive.
And all of that is just about the speed of the vehicles. A passenger's wait time is typically perceived as about 2x as onerous as an equivalent amount of time in a vehicle, so running evenly-spaced service is incredibly important. Deliberately slowing down streetcars with below-average headways shortens customer journeys by reducing wait times.
Changing the phase order would make absolutely zero difference to streetcar delay. If the light starts 15 seconds earlier and ends 15 seconds earlier you have exactly the same green time and exactly the same delay.
To eliminate the delays that streetcars currently experience due to left turns across dedicated streetcar ROWs, the system needs to be allowed to insert an additional green light on-demand, if there is a streetcar approaching or waiting when the left turn phase would normally start. All of the signals with TSP are already capable of doing this, the TTC just needs the City to give them permission to activate that feature. The main limitation is that these additional phases reduce the overall capacity of the intersection for other road users. So if we only use phase insertion for streetcars with above-average headways, it would be much more practical to get that feature approved, than if half the inserted phases are effectively wasted since the streetcar had time to kill anyway.
There is one intersection that does already use phase insertion: southbound at Spadina & Lakeshore. Normally the north-south green comes first (with streetcars), then the southbound left turn. And if a streetcar shows up during that left turn phase, it will provide a second north-south green. But unfortunately that's the only TSP action permitted at the intersection, so streetcars showing up during other parts of the cycle may need to wait an extremely long time for a green light - streetcars are not allowed to truncate the extremely long green for Lakeshore or insert a short streetcar phase in the middle of it.
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