The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Nouvellecosse]

I'm hoping that Smartcard technology will make transit zones a thing of the past. I mean, they just don't make sense to me because it's making assumptions about people's usage that aren't always accurate, and basically penalizing people when they aren't.

For instance, if you just go 1 or 2 km across a zone boundary, you pay more than if you go 10km within a single zone. But if you were using distance-based smart cards, you could have the first say, 5 or 10 stops included for flat charge, then each additional stop be an extra $0.25 or something. That way your cost is related to the actual trip length rather than where you happen to be going.

[Doady]

Zones in a zone system can be smaller. It's not a big deal. Pay-by-distance can be thought of as very small zones.

You can reduce the hardness of zone boundaries even further by having stations on zones boundaries, so they are each part of multiple zones. Maybe an entire line can be on a zone boundary.

Entire 905 as one zone would definitely be too large. And that is essentially already the setup today.

I had these ideas of zones on my fantasy map. I wish I can remember where I uploaded it so I could show you.

I also think with smaller zones, it would be good to have the second zone free, or at least minimal cost. People shouldn't feel trapped in one zone.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Doady

Zones in a zone system can be smaller. It's not a big deal. Pay-by-distance can be thought of as very small zones.

You can reduce the hardness of zone boundaries even further by having stations on zones boundaries, so they are each part of multiple zones. Maybe an entire line can be on a zone boundary.

Entire 905 as one zone would definitely be too large. And that is essentially already the setup today.

I had these ideas of zones on my fantasy map. I wish I can remember where I uploaded it so I could show you.

I also think with smaller zones, it would be good to have the second zone free, or at least minimal cost. People shouldn't feel trapped in one zone.

That is partly what I am saying. Lets make transit fare $3 for nice easy numbers. Anywhere inside that fare zone, you pay $3 for one way trip. Lets say that each municipal region (York, Simcoe, etc) is each $1. So, lets say you commute from Barrie to somewhere in Toronto every day, both ways. Per trip, it is $4. Per day, it is $8.

They could do a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly discount based on ridership.

This saves the headaches of figuring out each fare.

That same example, would see the reality of $2.90 TTC, $3 for Barrie and $14.05 for GO, for a total of $19.95.

Now, granted they could still have the fare that high, but the point i, there is no guess work in the figuring out the fare.

Vancouver does something similar to this.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have not questioned the problem with the original plan downtown, but as you are well aware, the rest of the plan was also scrapped as well with a very poor substitute replacing it.

There is no question that the downtown tunnel was needed, but we are choosing to not leverage that very expensive infrastructure to better serve the city as a whole. As long as we do not connect the Trillium Line to downtown, it will remain mainly a student train and it will be underutilised. You cannot expect to replace express buses, with a bus, train, train situation and in some hours, a bus, train, train, train situation in order to go downtown. This will never be popular.

So between keeping the old proposal as is with trains running on overcrowded downtown streets, or cancelling out right, what would you choose?

The City did try to kill the downtown portion and keep the Bayview-Barrhaven line, but Baird refused to hand over the cash. Granted the City didn't seem to disappointed and no effort was made to negotiate with the feds...

In any case, the short trains, lack of grade separation and cheap stations would have made it impossible to interline with a tunnel built for 130 meter rapid transit trains.

I do agree with you that the Trillium should be converted and interline with the Confederation for direct downtown service. I also agree that people coming in and out of the airport will likely rent a car or use a taxi as opposed to transferring on multiple trains.

Originally Posted by GlassCity

There have been a lot of responses to my interlining comment, so I'll just leave this link to a blog post by Jarrett Walker, a prominent transit planner, about the benefits of transferring:

http://humantransit.org/2009/04/why-transferring-is-good-for-you-and-good-for-your-city.html

The article is about direct to downtown service, not interlining. If it is possible to easily interline multiple suburban lines, that don't require high capacities, with one common downtown tunnel, then its worth it.

Many cities in the world do this successfully.

Fact is, a suburban community might only need 8,000 phpd while downtown needs 24,000 phpd. It's a waste of resources to run all trains to the end of the line in suburban areas. Interlining ensures all parts of the city receive the service they need, not the one they want.

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

One of the biggest things we're overlooking with the whole interlining debate is the effect on stations themselves. Interlining considerably increases congestion on station platforms, because with multiple trains running on the same track, people have to wait for their specific train. Whereas, if there's no interlining, the entire platform empties with each train.

One of the key reasons Ottawa abandoned interlining was because they found out through studies that interlining would require much larger underground stations, which would make the stations significantly more expensive to build and would require them to be much deeper underground, creating a substantial time penalty for riders... which at rush hour would be enough to completely negate any benefit from eliminating the transfer penalty.

If that's the City's excuse, they are bigger liars than I thought.

1. Interlining does not increase the congestion of the system. The same people who would take a direct train to downtown from the Trillium will have to instead transfer to the Confederation Line (assuming ridership will not be lower because of this short-sighted decision), so you'll have to run the same amount of trains between Bayview and Hurdman in any case.

2. The City is building stations to accommodate 30, 130 meter trains per hour per direction and the ultimate ridership of 24,000 it will bring. If you interline, the tunnel will need to be built for the exact same volume.

3. The depth of the tunnel has nothing to do with capacity or volume.

4. No matter if you interline or not, the tunnel will be used by the same amount of people (again, assuming transfers will not deter ridership) and a second tunnel will have to be built at just about the same time in either scenario.

5. The only "negative" impact of interlining is the splitting of the lines and service. Fact is, that is the efficient way to run a system. Capacity needs to increase towards the high density downtown and decrease towards the low density suburbs. Urban planning 101.

The real reasons why the city dropped the idea of interlining was to a. delay the conversion of Trillium, b. save money on designing Bayview with interlining in mind and c. save money on expropriation of land needed for an eventual right turn of Trillium.

Anyway, congratulations Montréal, you get it!

[1overcosc]

One of the things that is proving a thorn in the side of GTA fare integration efforts is that the TTC makes a huge amount of money (in the tens of millions per year) off the fact that riders from other agencies have to pay full fare to ride the TTC. By contrast most 905 agencies have agreements for free transfers between their areas. In addition, the TTC is adamant on retaining a single fare for all trips within Toronto's borders.

One solution could be fare zones with a rule that the first zone change is free. Then, the city proper of Toronto could be divided into two zones, one covering downtown/inner city Toronto and another covering the 416 suburbs (Scarborough, North York, etc.). That way, travel entirely within Toronto is still one fare. Travel between the 416 suburbs and the inner 905 suburbs would become one fare. TTC keeps the extra fare from people headed downtown. While it will lose fares from 905ers travelling to the inner suburbs, it will probably attract new riders in the inner suburbs (many Scarborough residents commute to Markham, for example) who are more likely to transit once it doesn't them $6 each way, so it could very well be revenue neutral for the TTC.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

1. Interlining does not increase the congestion of the system. The same people who would take a direct train to downtown from the Trillium will have to instead transfer to the Confederation Line (assuming ridership will not be lower because of this short-sighted decision), so you'll have to run the same amount of trains between Bayview and Hurdman in any case. Only difference is, you'll get a higher frequency and capacity where you don't need it outside the core.

2. The City is building stations to accommodate 30-40 130 meter trains per hour per direction and the ultimate ridership it will bring. If you interline, the tunnel will need to be built for the exact same volume.

3. The depth of the tunnel has nothing to do with capacity or volume.

4. No matter if you interline or not, the tunnel will be used by the same amount of people (again, assuming transfers will not deter ridership) and a second tunnel will have to be built at just about the same time in either scenario.

5. The only "negative" impact of interlining is the splitting of the lines and service. Fact is, that is the efficient way to run a system. Capacity needs to increase towards the high density downtown and decrease towards the low density suburbs. Urban planning 101.

I don't think I explained the point well enough. Let me expound.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

1. Interlining does not increase the congestion of the system. The same people who would take a direct train to downtown from the Trillium will have to instead transfer to the Confederation Line (assuming ridership will not be lower because of this short-sighted decision), so you'll have to run the same amount of trains between Bayview and Hurdman in any case. Only difference is, you'll get a higher frequency and capacity where you don't need it outside the core.

This is true for the tracks, but not for the platforms.

Say you have 15,000 pphd demand. Let's compare these scenarios:
-Scenario 1) 4 lines running every 8 minutes, for a total of one train every 2 minutes
-Scenario 2) One train running every 2 minutes, no interlining.

With that demand, 250 passengers will be entering the platforms every minute.

Under scenario 2, every single passenger entering the platform will get on the first train that comes because there's only one train. With 2 minutes between trains, the number of people on the platforms will top out at 500 people, right before each train comes.

But with scenario 1, passengers won't get on the first train that comes, they have to stick around and wait for their train out of 4. Some people will live on the trunk that is serviced by all branches; those people can take whichever. But say half of all riders have to wait for their specific train out of 4.

In the first two minutes 500 passengers will enter the platform. When Train #1 comes at the 2 minute mark, 62.5% of all riders will get on that train (half of all riders who can board whichever, and the one-quarter share of the remaining half), leaving 187 remaining on the platform.

Then, in the next 2 minutes, another 500 show up, so we now have 687 people waiting. Another 62.5% get on Train #2 at this point, so we go down to 258 people waiting.

In the next 2 minutes, another 500 show up, so we now have 758 people waiting. Another 62.5% get on Train #3 at this point, so we go down to 284 people waiting.

In the final 2 minutes before Train #4 arrives, another 500 show up, so we now have 784 people waiting.

As you can see, under Scenario 1, the most number of people the platform will have on it at one time is 500. Under Scenario 2, it's 784 people. So under the interlining scenario, the platforms are going to get more crowded.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

2. The City is building stations to accommodate 30-40 130 meter trains per hour per direction and the ultimate ridership it will bring. If you interline, the tunnel will need to be built for the exact same volume.

Because of the scenario I described above, if you interline, the stations platforms will have to be wider to accommodate the higher load of passengers on the platform. This increases costs.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

3. The depth of the tunnel has nothing to do with capacity or volume.

Yes it does. With wider platforms, an interlined system needs to have bigger stations.. each station has to occupy a bigger hole in the ground. This creates more conflicts with utilities and parking garages and building basements and all the other stuff you find in downtowns, so the stations have to be deeper. But if you have a non-interlined system the stations don't have to be as big so they fit into a tinier space, allowing them to be closer to the surface.

Interlining in a Downtown Ottawa tunnel would have required large stations at a depth of about 40-45 metres... the current tunnel is only about 15-20 metres deep. That makes a huge difference in the time it takes to get to and from street level and also makes integration with the urban fabric much more challenging.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

5. The only "negative" impact of interlining is the splitting of the lines and service. Fact is, that is the efficient way to run a system. Capacity needs to increase towards the high density downtown and decrease towards the low density suburbs. Urban planning 101.

This isn't a huge deal because once a train is running, it doesn't cost much to keep it running. Subways/metros are expensive to build but cheap to operate. Even if a downtown-bound train ends up being empty as it progresses into the suburbs on the other side of the line, it's not like it being empty is a huge problem.

[J.OT13]

I understand your point, there will be more people waiting around for their train with an interlined system, but would still be a significant improvement over the current bus system where hundreds of people are waiting on a sidewalk for one of a few dozen buses.

What we could ultimately do to minimize the impact is have the Bayshore Line extend to whatever will go at the Corel Centre (nothing to Kanata North, ever), the Algonquin Line swing south to Riverside South and the Trillium to the Airport. Three lines. That's it.

To poke a hole in your numbers, lines would not be split equally. High ridership lines like Bayshore would be more frequent (say 5 minutes) while the airport line could probably run every 15 minutes (bringing the capacity up to 3,200 from the current 1,500). People can plan ahead to go down to the station to catch their train as they do with the current bus system, except that trains will actually arrive on time.

Watch the idiots at City Hall who came up with the BS argument end up with three lines through the tunnel anyway (Corel Centre, Kanata North and Algonquin).

Even with the current two line system we are currently building (Bayshore/Algonquin), at the maximum capacity, we could see up to 800+ people on the platform waiting for a train.

[lrt's friend]

First of all, interlining is already part of the plan and I will argue that the Trillium Line offers more important transit destinations (Carleton University, South Keys, Little Italy and the Airport) than the proposed Baseline branch. This was simply a cost cutting measure and because the city has delayed upgrading the Trillium Line indefinitely in order to fund the Confederation Line to Trim Road. Surely, they are designing sufficient platform space for the already proposed interlining.

The argument that interlining makes the best use of expensive rail vehicles is very true. Running all trains to the end of the line, results in more trains in operation than would otherwise be necessary, more electricity usage and paying more operators. It is efficient for the Canada Line in Vancouver to be branched, one branch to the airport and one to Richmond. There is absolutely no valid reason to run every Confederation Line train to Trim Road nor every train west of Bayview. Of course, the current Trillium Line has failed to attract significant numbers of downtown bound passengers. The recent upgrade to the Trillium Line was an absolute failure in terms that it didn't provide the expected level of service and it has still failed to attract downtown bound passengers. How you change this, when service levels are already maxed out suggests that future extensions will have limited success.

[lrt's friend]

So between keeping the old proposal as is with trains running on overcrowded downtown streets, or cancelling out right, what would you choose?

The City did try to kill the downtown portion and keep the Bayview-Barrhaven line, but Baird refused to hand over the cash. Granted the City didn't seem to disappointed and no effort was made to negotiate with the feds...

In any case, the short trains, lack of grade separation and cheap stations would have made it impossible to interline with a tunnel built for 130 meter rapid transit trains.

I do agree with you that the Trillium should be converted and interline with the Confederation for direct downtown service. I also agree that people coming in and out of the airport will likely rent a car or use a taxi as opposed to transferring on multiple trains.

I think we are mostly in agreement.

What is so disappointing is the mess that the city has made of the Trillium Line. The hodge-podge split up of the line into multiple parts. That the planned extensions do not actually reach the population that it is designed to serve. That the trains chosen cannot actually run on the corridor that the city acquired for that purpose. That they are planning to run more trains on the line than are physically possible creating those awkward added transfers at South Keys. And just trying to run a trunk rapid transit line with only one set of tracks.

The original problems were oversold. It assumed that the trains would not replace any of the bus congestion downtown. In fact, 30% of the buses would have been removed from downtown. The current plan will remove just over 50% of the buses.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge that a downtown tunnel was needed but the city paid a huge financial penalty for cancelling the original project and it also resulted in Phase 1 being underfunded by the higher levels of government. That was the political penalty that the city will never recover. But that is spilt milk. Nothing can change this.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I think we are mostly in agreement.

What is so disappointing is the mess that the city has made of the Trillium Line. The hodge-podge split up of the line into multiple parts. That the planned extensions do not actually reach the population that it is designed to serve. That the trains chosen cannot actually run on the corridor that the city acquired for that purpose. That they are planning to run more trains on the line than are physically possible creating those awkward added transfers at South Keys. And just trying to run a trunk rapid transit line with only one set of tracks.

The original problems were oversold. It assumed that the trains would not replace any of the bus congestion downtown. In fact, 30% of the buses would have been removed from downtown. The current plan will remove just over 50% of the buses.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge that a downtown tunnel was needed.

Funny enough, I actually think the 2006 N-S LRT plan was a great plan, downtown streetcar included... just not the way they proposed with buses and LRTs sharing the same overcrowded downtown platforms. They should have either waited until the tunnel was finished (thus converting the Albert/Slater lanes from bus lanes to tram lanes), or revived Sparks Street as an LRT corridor. Then later on, extend it east down Rideau St/Montreal Rd.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

First of all, interlining is already part of the plan and I will argue that the Trillium Line offers more important transit destinations (Carleton University, South Keys, Little Italy and the Airport) than the proposed Baseline branch. This was simply a cost cutting measure and because the city has delayed upgrading the Trillium Line indefinitely in order to fund the Confederation Line to Trim Road. Surely, they are designing sufficient platform space for the already proposed interlining.

I don't think they are. When the plan was overhauled into its final version in 2011 the downtown stations got a lot smaller and shallower.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Funny enough, I actually think the 2006 N-S LRT plan was a great plan, downtown streetcar included... just not the way they proposed with buses and LRTs sharing the same overcrowded downtown platforms. They should have either waited until the tunnel was finished (thus converting the Albert/Slater lanes from bus lanes to tram lanes), or revived Sparks Street as an LRT corridor. Then later on, extend it east down Rideau St/Montreal Rd.

Go back a few pages and look at everyone's arguments against at grade LRT. The investment of a billion dollars for trams on Rideau-Montreal would barely increase the capacity of the corridor compared to a million dollars to paint bus lanes.

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I don't think they are. When the plan was overhauled into its final version in 2011 the downtown stations got a lot smaller and shallower.

Yes, the platforms were reduced from 180 meters, to 150 meters to the current 120 meters, reducing the capacity from 32,000/27,000/24,000. Naturally, the width of the platforms, stairs, escalators and concourses were also reduced. But that doesn't have an impact on the argument of interlining 2 or 3 lines.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Beedok

GO is heavier than the Toronto subway right?

No, it has a lower capacity than the subway. Even with RER the subway will still be "heavier".

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm hoping that Smartcard technology will make transit zones a thing of the past. I mean, they just don't make sense to me because it's making assumptions about people's usage that aren't always accurate, and basically penalizing people when they aren't.

For instance, if you just go 1 or 2 km across a zone boundary, you pay more than if you go 10km within a single zone. But if you were using distance-based smart cards, you could have the first say, 5 or 10 stops included for flat charge, then each additional stop be an extra $0.25 or something. That way your cost is related to the actual trip length rather than where you happen to be going.

Sometimes distance makes sense, other times it does not. Let's say a system is constrained after a certain point, or the vast majority of users cross a certain place in the system. The train is already moving the entire length of the line to move most users across this constraint. Moving a user 1 km over the constraint costs nearly the same as moving a user 20 km and the constraint. If someone is getting oon at the terminal station and travelling 10 km but getting off before the train is busy they impose almost no cost to the system. But someone getting on at the station where it becomes busy then getting off soon after is displacing another user. So in certain cases you need vastly different fare components to make sure your system isn't inundated with cheap short trips that some people envision for urban core consumers.

An ideal fare model in my mind would be this: availability fee (a calculated value for the network existing and having enough frequency to be useful, paid by all users) + distance (to account for the very small difference in costs to carry people longer distances) + marginal value of constrained travel ( a value for continueing past the station where the line gets busy enough to require longer dwell times, travelling past the convergence point on an inter line, travelling through infrastructure that would be really expensive to increase capacity on later, like a bridge or tunnel)

[Nouvellecosse]

But in my suggested fare model, if you had a flat rate for the first set of stops, then you'd be paying a minimum amount for a short distance anyway, which makes sense since there is some overhead of transit service that's independent of distance traveled. Building, maintaining, and staffing the stations for instance would be a constant since if you get on at one station and exit through one 2 km away or 20km away you're still using the same number of stations.

But in terms of constraints, the most common one is congestion from the system passing through busier areas. Yes, people riding short distances in those zones may put more "strain" on that part of the system, but since there's so many more people paying for use of that part of the system and sharing the cost, it would balance out. Sometimes a busy section should actually be cheaper rather than more expensive since that section is being paid for by so many more people than a quiet section..

[swimmer_spe]

If that is the case, for the city of Toronto, make each former Borough into a fare zone.

Then, instead of a regional zone, make it a municipality zone. So, Brampton and Mississauga would be separate fare zones even though they are in the same region (Peel).

[MalcolmTucker]

You're looking at the cost of supplying the service, which is one way. I think for designing a system though you need to look at the external costs created when a constraint causes someone not to use the system. Charging less for short hops is less useful if you have to wait for full trains to pass you by. But if someone is willing to pay the marginal constraint cost, which would displace someone below that cost that is travelling further, you have an efficient distribution.

Not that the system I want would work great outside of peaks. Outside of peaks the only cost is availability and frequency.

[WhipperSnapper]

True that a busy section of a route will require more vehicles that will run for the rest of the route empty or be short turned which is not appreciated by passengers.

[p_xavier]

The tunnel in Ottawa was planned on one basis only, optimize the usage. This gave the criss-cross alignement, the most expensive one. The mayor asked afterwards to do a small realignment to reduce cost a bit. Thus Ottawa paid probably 100M$ more to have a few hundreds additionnal users. This is usually the standard way of doing things in Canada and it must stop. The fact that the Confederation Line is not automated is another illogism to save $20M for an overpass at the time (which will still be built in the Phase 2).

The REM in Montreal was optimized from the get go as to maximize users and lower costs, both in construction and operating. This is the way to go for future transit projects. The heresy of transit planning in Toronto should be stopped.

[flipv]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

The tunnel in Ottawa was planned on one basis only, optimize the usage. This gave the criss-cross alignement, the most expensive one. The mayor asked afterwards to do a small realignment to reduce cost a bit. Thus Ottawa paid probably 100M$ more to have a few hundreds additionnal users. This is usually the standard way of doing things in Canada and it must stop. The fact that the Confederation Line is not automated is another illogism to save $20M for an overpass at the time (which will still be built in the Phase 2).

The REM in Montreal was optimized from the get go as to maximize users and lower costs, both in construction and operating. This is the way to go for future transit projects. The heresy of transit planning in Toronto should be stopped.

LOL

If REM is built by the agreed timelines, I will eat my socks. This is Montreal we are talking about - the city of corrupt construction companies and crumbling infrastructure. Ya, I totally see a massive transit project being built in 5 years... Sure, kinda like those Dorval interchanges under construction for a decade now?