Toronto LRT Information Blog

Vic Roads has produced the following video about sharing the roads with trams in Melbourne. This sort of video could be very useful here in Toronto, though the Province of Ontario could learn a few things from the State of Victoria where it comes to rules for traffic with streetcars and LRVs.

The video outlines the fines for not obeying the rules, and near the end it has a demonstration on how hook turns are performed.

Special thanks to Joshua Odell for bringing this to my attention.

I have been on the fence about concrete medians. Cited as being necessary for emergency vehicle use as well as possible replacement bus service, I more or less accepted them even though they typically drive the cost per kilometre of light rail construction from about $30 million to $50 million. My main issue was that the TTC was not considering the use of side-of-the-road running where it was practical, such as Brentcliffe to Don Mills and the Richview Expressway lands on Eglinton.

Now, I have seen an alternative that turns this around…

This is in Essen and it strikes me that it would be less expensive than total concrete encasement, both for initial construction as well as later maintenance. If anyone has cost details on this, let me know.

I have commented on the demeaning use of the word “streetcar” when describing LRT plans such as Transit City. Toronto knows streetcars, and Toronto knows the TTC’s lacklustre ability to operate streetcars, so anyone who wants to put down any LRT plan merely only has to use the dreaded S-word.

There is another word that, until this past week, held a lower level of status with me than even the dreaded S-word. That word is trolley. To me, this word conjures up the image of a tourist attraction, possibly using open cars that one would expect to find in a museum.

The past week has me re-assessing that word. I was in San Diego last week and that city has an LRT system that is called the Trolley. Of the 86 km of that city’s LRT system, only about 2.5 km is on street with nothing separating it from other traffic.

To be certain, this system is truly a RAPID transit system, in some ways even putting our own subway system to shame, as far as moving people quickly. There are many examples in the outer ends of this system where stations are two to three kilometres apart! Granted, the geography makes these longer distances more practical than what we would find in the GTHA, but this system really demonstrates how LRT technology can provide the speed without the cost of a full metro system. As for future capacity, much of the system operates with two or three car trains, but all stations are capable of handling four car trains. In addition to that, even at rush hours the system operates with 7-8 minute head-ways, leaving plenty of room for more added capacity. For details and photos of San Diego, take a look at the San Diego page on this site.

The display panels from the Martin Grove to Pearson Airport public consultation held on September 2 are now available along with an updated FAQ. There are five proposed routes, four involving an alignment west of the 427 and one east.

The route east of the 427 provides the most direct and fastest route, likely cutting a one-way trip to the airport by about four minutes. It is also the most expensive route that involves a tunnel below the 401.

The routes west of the 427 have two southern variants, one heading north at Renforth Drive and the other heading north at Commerce Boulevard, and two northern variants, one using Silver Dart Drive and the other using Carlingview Drive. The actual alignment into the airport itself is still to be determined.

The options using Commerce Boulevard would be most useful as this is where the Mississauga Transitway will have a major terminal. The one really bizarre thing about the proposals is that the LRT would be in a median on the road while the Transitway terminal will be next to the road and grade separated. This has the potential to be an extremely useful connection point with connecting services into Mississauga and to the Kipling Subway station, but why on earth should people have to go up a level of stairs and cross a road to an LRT platform on a median?

The whole point of the Commerce Boulevard alignments, which are rather out-of-the-way, is to provide a useful connection. Why mess it up with an awkward connection?

If there is not going to be a useful benefit, why bother with any of the western alignments? Otherwise, forget the Renforth Drive alignments as they don’t make the connection, and its bridge across the 401 is longer and more expensive. Use the Commerce Boulevard alignments, provided the LRT moves to the north side of Eglinton (perhaps at Renforth) and follows the Transitway alignment to Commerce. From there, it can curve underground and come up to the surface in the median of Commerce, or perhaps just south of the 401.

I haven’t decided whether the western options should use Silver Dart Drive or Carlingview Drive. Steve Munro pointed out an odd irony in his review of these proposals. He notes that in the past the idea of electrifying the Dufferin bus route was shot down because the overhead wires on Wilson beyond the end of a runway at Downsview was a show stopper. Now, two of the route choices involve using Silver Dart Drive, which is right at the end of runways 6L and 6R.

One last note: the plans at this point only suggest that this line will only server Terminal 1. While I believe that LRT service should also involve Terminal 3, I would suggest that when the plans for a western extension of the Finch LRT have it coming into the airport, that its alignment might be better to serve Terminal 3 on the way to Terminal 1. Hopefully, the design of the Eglinton-Crosstown alignment into Terminal 1 will take this into account. I suspect that LRT operations could become the preferred way to transfer between the two terminals. A good example of using LRT for intra-terminal movement can be seen in both Minneapolis and St. Louis. LRT fare is free between the airport terminals.

I’m a little tardy at bringing this up, as it comes from a story dating back to March 2008.

In Pittsburgh, the Port Authority of Alleghney County is currently constructing a 1.2 mile extension of their LRT system (”The T”) to the north shore of the Allegheny River. This extension will add two stations north of a 2200 foot long under-river tunnel. Naturally, tunnelling is very expensive option, but given the surrounding environment, is the only viable option.

The project will be useful beyond its use as a shuttle for Pirates and Steelers fans as quite a few nightlife opportunities will be served by this. In the long term, this small extension can open up further extensions to the north of downtown Pittsburgh that would not otherwise be possible. The entire LRT system currently serves only areas south of downtown.

With the construction starting last year on the tunnel the Port Authority’s newsletter had an article on the project that included an image of what could be described as a mascot.

While this may have an element of appeal for some of the public, at least before it is seen as hackneyed by most, I certainly would not want to see any funding that could otherwise go towards transit improvements be spent on having a mascot designed. We all know far too much gets wasted already.

With that in mind, I propose that there be an unofficial mascot for projects. With the Spadina/Vaughan Subway extension most unfortunately underway, along with the Sheppard East LRT just starting, the VIVA rapidways about to start, and the Finch and Eglinton-Crosstown LRT projects not too far from starting, how about coming up with some ideas for mascots on these projects? If can come up with something and scan it into electronic format (if no actually created that way), send it here and I’ll post what I receive for all to see. The only remuneration will be credit (or blame) for what you draw!