Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[SOSS]

Originally Posted by Procrastinational

That's where I figure it should come up as well. Would be very neat riding elevated transit through relatively untouched forest in a larger city, and would make for some neat views where there are gaps in the trees. Not sure how many other cities have anything comparable.

Sadly, we have no untouched forest in Metro Vancouver.

[Procrastinational]

Originally Posted by SOSS

Sadly, we have no untouched forest in Metro Vancouver.

Untouched was a bad word choice. I don't mean old growth.
What I meant was that parts of the forest within the University Lands are relatively mature second growth strands. It's probably about the best you are going to do within the metro area of a decent sized city (although in Vancouver's case, Stanley Park is an even better example).
I doubt there are any comparable strands of forest in Seattle or Portland.
Either way, a skytrain ride through the forest would be kind of neat.

[dleung]

Originally Posted by Jebby

Sounds more like fiscal mismanagement/disregard than high standards.

They went 5 stations beyond York U. $700 million came from the federal government.

[trofirhen]

Southern Ontario is where the people live; that's where the votes are; that's where the money goes. (It stinks, yes)

[SOSS]

Originally Posted by Procrastinational

Either way, a skytrain ride through the forest would be kind of neat.

I totally agree.

[tybuilding]

Originally Posted by SOSS

I totally agree.

Its already a bit of a ride alongside forest along Central Park. Can't have the trees too close as branches would fall off into the guideway in windstorms.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Procrastinational

Either way, a skytrain ride through the forest would be kind of neat.

Green Timbers in Surrey is pretty well preserved. It would be an amazing experience to be on Skytrain through the forest between King George and 152nd Street, up in the canopy as opposed to being on the ground.

[Kwik-E-Mart]

Originally Posted by dleung

They went 5 stations beyond York U. $700 million came from the federal government.

Hmm... I only counted three stations after York. (route diagram courtesy of the City of Toronto)



Although the subway should only extend to Jane and Steeles imo (where there's ample of land for a park-and-ride and a Hwy 407 GO BRT station), here is a fact for those who did not spend some time in Hogtown: 1/3 of all TTC buses serve York University alone.

That's not to mention the other conventional/VIVA/Zum/GO Transit buses from adjacent regions/cities that also terminate at the gargantuan campus.

And the buses are always packed with people during school hours, at the same scale as UBC.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by tybuilding

Can't have the trees too close as branches would fall off into the guideway in windstorms.

The route between Nanaimo and Joyce becomes littered with tree branches when it snows. There used to be more trees along the route but a storm many years back blew the trees onto the tracks and now the evergreens are starting to grow the stumps over.


Image courtesy of me

[Large Cat]

Originally Posted by MIPS

The route between Nanaimo and Joyce becomes littered with tree branches when it snows. There used to be more trees along the route but a storm many years back blew the trees onto the tracks and now the evergreens are starting to grow the stumps over.


Image courtesy of me

Do you know how big the branches have to be for them to shut down that part of the track? I'm wondering how much the wheels can crunch through safely.....

[VarBreStr18]

Can somebody please tell me what is
BRT, LRT. RRT ?
My terminology only include bus, skytrain.

[Vancity]

Originally Posted by VarBreStr18

Can somebody please tell me what is
BRT, LRT. RRT ?
My terminology only include bus, skytrain.

I believe they are BRT = Bus Rapid Transit; LRT = Light Rail Transit; RRT = Rapid Rail Transit

If I'm wrong, feel free to correct.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by VarBreStr18

Can somebody please tell me what is
BRT, LRT. RRT ?
My terminology only include bus, skytrain.

I'd look it up on wikipedia, that's a much bigger question than you might think. I'll still cover the basics, cause I'm looking for reasons to procrastinate.

BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit. The idea is to make rapid transit using buses, not trains. What this usually means is at the very least is bus lanes, all door boarding and increased distance between stops. There's a lot of variance in this. Some can be much fancier, like Ottawa's with full stations:


http://albertinn.com/blog/tag/downtown-ottawa-accommodation/

LRT stands for Light Rail Transit. What this technically means is any rapid transit system using smaller trains (like the Expo and Millennium Lines.) What it largely means colloquially and in the context of this thread is trains running at ground level in their own lanes, along streets and having to go through intersections and go at speed limit.


http://www.citylab.com/commute/2012/08/can-light-rail-carry-citys-transit-system/2786/

RRT stands for Rail Rapid Transit. It refers to bigger trains, like on the Canada Line, that are fully grade separated through either tunnels or overhead viaducts. This allows them to avoid intersections and therefore go as fast as they can, as well as avoiding delays from things like red lights to traffic accidents blocking rails. For the purpose of this discussion, SkyTrain, all three lines, is RRT.


http://buzzer.translink.ca/2011/03/fun-with-language-how-to-say-skytrain-in-cantonese/

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Large Cat

Do you know how big the branches have to be for them to shut down that part of the track? I'm wondering how much the wheels can crunch through safely.....

Depends where the branch falls.
There is only 1 cm of clearance between the "reaction rail" (the wide steel piece used for inducing the magnetic field) and the linear motors on the vehicles. That's why snow can clog things up.
The train wheels can probably crunch through small branches.

[Metro-One]

What we are arguing about here is actually "metro" vs. "non-metro."

Skytrain is a metro system (a fully grade separated urban transit rail system).

The LRT being proposed for Surrey is not a metro system, because it runs at grade with other traffic / pedestrians.

[VarBreStr18]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I'd look it up on wikipedia, that's a much bigger question than you might think. I'll still cover the basics, cause I'm looking for reasons to procrastinate.

BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit. The idea is to make rapid transit using buses, not trains. What this usually means is at the very least is bus lanes, all door boarding and increased distance between stops. There's a lot of variance in this. Some can be much fancier, like Ottawa's with full stations:


http://albertinn.com/blog/tag/downtown-ottawa-accommodation/

LRT stands for Light Rail Transit. What this technically means is any rapid transit system using smaller trains (like the Expo and Millennium Lines.) What it largely means colloquially and in the context of this thread is trains running at ground level in their own lanes, along streets and having to go through intersections and go at speed limit.


http://www.citylab.com/commute/2012/08/can-light-rail-carry-citys-transit-system/2786/

RRT stands for Rail Rapid Transit. It refers to bigger trains, like on the Canada Line, that are fully grade separated through either tunnels or overhead viaducts. This allows them to avoid intersections and therefore go as fast as they can, as well as avoiding delays from things like red lights to traffic accidents blocking rails. For the purpose of this discussion, SkyTrain, all three lines, is RRT.


http://buzzer.translink.ca/2011/03/fun-with-language-how-to-say-skytrain-in-cantonese/

Aah thank you!!!
NOw I know what to vote for in the survey.

[SOSS]

All terms are correctly listed. Within the context of this thread and within Vancouver, one could say:

BRT = frequent buses with limited stops. They should be in dedicated lanes but are not locally.

LRT are light rail trains (as apposed to heavy rail like West Coast Express) that are operated by people (Portland, Calgary, Edmonton and Surrey's current preferred technology). LRT does not necessarily mean at grade or not. There can be pedestrian and vehicle conflict points but not necessarily.

RRT is automated light rail trains like Skytrain and Canada Line that run in dedicated tracks that do not conflict with pedestrians or vehicles.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by SOSS

BRT = frequent buses with limited stops. They should be in dedicated lanes but are not locally.

There is no BRT in Vancouver. What we have are some limited stop services. Since they operate in mixed traffic, they're really no different than any other standard bus except that they don't service as many bus stops, which saves a bit of route time.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by Large Cat

Do you know how big the branches have to be for them to shut down that part of the track? I'm wondering how much the wheels can crunch through safely.....

I'm going to take an educated guess and say 3/4" diameter branches are the absolute limit. We know that 1 1/4" hollow sign posts and 1/4" solid steel rebar are simply too much for the train to overcome as learned from previous accidents. I've seen the shredded remains of a porta-potty on the tracks once (I really wish I got a photo of THAT mess ) and I guess it didn't stop an oncoming train.

For a brief while, SkyTrains had cow catchers fitted to prevent objects on the track form damaging the underside of the train, the LIM's, or derailing the train. I don't know why they removed them as they would of prevented several more recent breakdown with debris on the tracks and the one instance of a SkyTrain derailing.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by SOSS

All terms are correctly listed. Within the context of this thread and within Vancouver, one could say:

BRT = frequent buses with limited stops. They should be in dedicated lanes but are not locally.

LRT are light rail trains (as apposed to heavy rail like West Coast Express) that are operated by people (Portland, Calgary, Edmonton and Surrey's current preferred technology). LRT does not necessarily mean at grade or not. There can be pedestrian and vehicle conflict points but not necessarily.

RRT is automated light rail trains like Skytrain and Canada Line that run in dedicated tracks that do not conflict with pedestrians or vehicles.

More like, within the context of Translink's documents.

Only Toronto and Vancouver use this terminology, as these are the only two places in the world that have "Skytrain" as vernacular for an elevated subway/metro. We don't have monorails, and people outside of Canada tend to refer to elevated guideways as Monorails, even if they aren't.

Using Bombardier's terminology we see something else:
http://www.cifi.it/UplDocumenti/torino12/08%201%20Claudio%20Tavella%20BOMBARDIER.pdf


Note that everything on that list has been refereed to as Light Rail at some point. Note that the Innovia Metro (Skytrain) and Flexity LRT do not even overlap.