Trillium Line Upgrades & Extension (Stage 2) [Greenboro to Airport/Limebank] | U/C

[ponyboycurtis]

This isn't directly tied into Line 2 but I feel like it is as it will be my route once the train goes live.

Now that the pathway from Juno bridge is no longer detoured, when I walked up this morning I noticed a few things.

The set of 4 garbage/recycling cans (all one unit with clear fronts) don't seem to be maintained? all 4 things are just filled with trash and spilling out the doors. A giant pile of human shit in front of the bench next to it. The giant tempered glass window next to the gates of the station entrance has been smashed.

After pestering Mr. Brockington to repair the strip lights on the underside of the railings of Juno bridge (at one point in 2021? only 19 or the 132 segments were working) at the beginning of last summer they were replaced. Well guess what, I noticed the other day.. an entire half of the northern side of the railing was off entirely and all the other segments had random diodes blank. So out of perhaps 50 dots per segment maybe a dozen or so were off. This was throughout the length of the bridge. Good to know they order the same Temu/Ebay junk I have stuck to the back of my monitor. Except.. the stuff on the back of my monitor works. Mr. Brockington told me... The lights we initially installed weren't meant for this climate. Like.. what? They are LED strip lights. My lord..

Once again.. not directly related to Line 2 but nonetheless... this is my "environment" leading up to the train that I am very much looking forward to using. It's frustrating to say the least.

I just want nice things for us all.

[DTcrawler]

Of all the blows to morale delivered to us by transit officials recently, the decision to abandon the pocket track plan for Line 4 is still lingering with me and I'm having a really hard time getting over it. Despite the fact that two transfers to the airport was always going to be less than ideal, I was optimistic about how seamless the transfer at South Keys was drawn up to be.

Line 4 train arrives at South Keys and drops off passengers before pulling into the pocket track. Line 2 NB and SB trains immediately arrive, allowing passengers coming from the airport to continue their journeys toward downtown or RSS with almost no wait. Then, the Line 4 train pulls out of the pocket track and takes passengers who came from downtown or RSS to the airport. Damn, what a clever plan that was achieved simply by building a pocket track.

And now... pure trash. Waiting 7 minutes in an open air station on a platform that's going to get blasted by rain and snow (the roof is too high and narrow to provide any sort of meaningful shelter) before catching a slow Line 2 train that's going to trundle along, occasionally coming to a dead stop at a siding, before dropping you off at Bayview. And the cherry on top is that another kick in the d*** awaits at Bayview, where you could now potentially face a 10 min wait for Line 1 at 2:30pm on a Friday afternoon.

Just shameful. What are the chances the move to "Plan B" for the South Keys transfer is just temporary to get the line open before some fine tuning to operations allows for the original plan to be reinstated?

[lrt's friend]

No hope of changes. The movement of trains onto the pocket track was too time consuming and didn't fit into the 24 minute round trip to the airport. Just like the last upgrade, this was not well planned. Of course, if we reduce frequency to 15 minutes, it might work, but does this screw up line 2 further?

[DTcrawler]

After the botched 2015 upgrades that failed to deliver on promises and now this, I'm pretty confident that the engineers and planners we hire to develop these projects are bush league. To plan something and then only realize upon near-completion that it's unfeasible is just incomprehensible in a developed country.

That being said, I find it hard to believe they completely neglected to account for the time it takes for Line 4 trains to enter/exit the pocket track when planning the Line 4 round trip estimate. So, what is causing the pocket track maneuver to take longer than the simulations had planned for? Is it switch reliability? Operating speeds of the LINTs? Length of the pocket track?

At the very least our local media should be pushing for specifics on why this plan has been suspended. But considering I haven't read a single article that even mentions this issue (they're too busy asking about an opening date because reporting on delays generates clicks), I don't have much faith we'll get answers. Waiting to see what my councillor or the mayor's office is going to say, if anything.

[lrt's friend]

I drove by Limebank Station on Saturday and I was surprised to see that the number of bus bays and shelters was comparable to Hurdman. Big plans for bus transfers in the future? More hourly bus routes?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

After the botched 2015 upgrades that failed to deliver on promises and now this, I'm pretty confident that the engineers and planners we hire to develop these projects are bush league. To plan something and then only realize upon near-completion that it's unfeasible is just incomprehensible in a developed country.

That being said, I find it hard to believe they completely neglected to account for the time it takes for Line 4 trains to enter/exit the pocket track when planning the Line 4 round trip estimate. So, what is causing the pocket track maneuver to take longer than the simulations had planned for? Is it switch reliability? Operating speeds of the LINTs? Length of the pocket track?

At the very least our local media should be pushing for specifics on why this plan has been suspended. But considering I haven't read a single article that even mentions this issue (they're too busy asking about an opening date because reporting on delays generates clicks), I don't have much faith we'll get answers. Waiting to see what my councillor or the mayor's office is going to say, if anything.

Maybe lessons from the Confederation Line on realistic speeds for tight curves.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Maybe lessons from the Confederation Line on realistic speeds for tight curves.

Could be, but these are heavy rail trains (vs. LRV’s on Line 1) which were already in use before the closure and operated without many issues.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I drove by Limebank Station on Saturday and I was surprised to see that the number of bus bays and shelters was comparable to Hurdman. Big plans for bus transfers in the future? More hourly bus routes?

Each platform will only be served by one or two routes.

Given the lack of layup spots at Limebank, I would bet that buses will simply lay up at the platforms instead similar to what's done at TTC stations.

It is also built to serve a large future neighbourhood, so I don't think this can be that surprising.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Could be, but these are heavy rail trains (vs. LRV’s on Line 1) which were already in use before the closure and operated without many issues.

The airport track is new, and seems to be much tighter curves and steeper inclines than would exist for a normal heavy rail route.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Each platform will only be served by one or two routes.

Given the lack of layup spots at Limebank, I would bet that buses will simply lay up at the platforms instead similar to what's done at TTC stations.

It is also built to serve a large future neighbourhood, so I don't think this can be that surprising.

Of course you are right. In many respects, the bus loop is much better designed than Hurdman. I know we need to plan for the long term. It is just weird seeing so many bus shelters when so few bus routes will serve the location for the forseeable future.

[lrt's friend]

Walkway south from South Keys to Hunt Club closed today for construction work. Still no work being done at entrance to the station where the fare gates are located. Trains running at 11 to 13 minute frequency on both lines, so quite consistent. Transfers between line 2 and 4 consistently between 6 and 9 minutes in all directions. The biggest issue is that line 2 trains do not consistently meet at South Keys. Typically, northbound at South Keys while southbound at Greenboro. This causes about a 90 second delay for northbound trains. I suspect that this is not resolvable and the 90 second delay will be an ongoing feature (flaw)

[daud]

so...whats the latest estimate on opening of the trillium line?

Is it late september or October? 10 weeks after mid july?

I still see all kinds of construction pilons at Limebank and I cannot for the life of me understand why they can't seem to finish this simple set of roads.

Trains seem to run very regularly, which I suppose is encouraging.

[lrt's friend]

We have all heard it from the city. Can we afford to open Phase 2? Is this kind of statement going to affect the reopening of Line 2? I have no idea.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Still no work being done at entrance to the station where the fare gates are located.

What kind of work are you expecting? There's nothing to do except cleanup and to unwrap the faregates again. I suppose they should test them one more time before opening the station, but they were working before they wrapped them.

[lrt's friend]

Isn't this an indicator that service will begin soon? The fare gates need to be ready for live testing which will include people testing of the stations.

[urbanforest]

Stopped by Corso Italia today. The station looks nice. The hideous and bizarre chain-link-frankenstein railing for the ramp beside the bike parking is confounding.

[DTcrawler]

Lol I am absolutely mesmerized by that fence. They have to be trolling somehow, but why? Surely the clamped-on and chainlink portions are temporary? Right??

[urbanforest]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Lol I am absolutely mesmerized by that fence. They have to be trolling somehow, but why? Surely the clamped-on and chainlink portions are temporary? Right??

It's got to be some kind of joke because there's no reason why it would have ever been done like that, even as a temporary measure.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by urbanforest

It's got to be some kind of joke because there's no reason why it would have ever been done like that, even as a temporary measure.

The only explanation I could think of, other than pure trolling, is that a deficiency was noted in the minimum height of the railing so the contractors, out of contempt, addressed it as such (so essentially still trolling).

[LRTeverywhere]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

The only explanation I could think of, other than pure trolling, is that a deficiency was noted in the minimum height of the railing so the contractors, out of contempt, addressed it as such (so essentially still trolling).

Definetly a deficiency, the same situation happened with the Rideau bridge, likely didnt get caught until occupancy inspections judging by the timing that it appeared