Navigation
User login
Why there must be a tunnel.
The OC Transpo web site says that 300,000 people use the buses
every day. Not all of these people go downtown. Say that
100,000 go downtown every morning, and 100,000 leave every
afternoon. 50,000 arrive from the West and Southwest, 50,000
from the East and Southeast. Not all of these use Slater Street
or Albert Street. Let 40,000 arrive at each one of these streets
between 6:55 and 9:00 in the morning, 1,600 people every 5
minutes.
The above contains a lot of speculation, or guess work. There
must be better figures somewhere.
In any event, we wish to double these figures, so that
approximately 3,200 people arrive on Slater Street every 5
minutes, and another 3,200 arrive on Albert Street.
If a surface light rail system is to be used on these streets,
then the number of buses using these streets must be reduced.
They will be replaced by the train.
No more than 1,600 can use the remaining buses. This is all the buses can handle now, and there will be fewer buses.
I do not think that the trains can run much closer than every 5
minutes. If they can run at such an interval, then at least
1,600 must get on, or get off, each train between say Bronson and
the MacKenzie King bridge. What will be the capacity of each
train? Can each one carry 1,600 passengers?
If the proposed train is to be three cars long, with two doors in
each car, then a lot of people are going to have to use these six
doors in a very timely fashion. The entrance floor will not be
even as is the case with a regular train against a platform of
appropriate height. People will have to step up, and those
disembarking will have to step down.
If train stops were to be at Bronson, Lyon/Kent, Bank/O'Connor,
Metcalfe/Elgin and the MacKenzie King bridge, (5 stops) then 300
people are going to have to get on board at each stop. Or 50 at
each door of the train.
How are these people to pay for their ride? This must have been
studied already and a satisfactory solution found. I have not
seen or heard of the method decided upon so far. I cannot
imagine a ticket inspector at every door, with each train having
a crew of seven employees. Maybe the honour system will be used.
So we have a train stopped between Bank and O'Connor and the
doors have just closed. It has to start up, cross an
intersection, traverse a city block, cross another intersection,
pull up to a stop between Metcalfe and Elgin, the doors must
open, 300 people get on or off, and the doors must close, all in
five minutes. I don't think that it can be done.
Whether people like a tunnel or not, there is not really an
alternative IMHO. It has to be the only way that such numbers of
people can be accommodated, and that is using today's figures.
What will it be like 20 years from now? We must build in some
room for expansion.
fare-free zone
You ask how will people pay for the fare.
One simple solution is that they don't --- we have a fare-free zone from Bayview to Hurdman.
Or, it could be smaller. You had better have paid the fare when you get on a connecting bus.
(the majority of people taking express buses have passes)
The other answer is that you have to pay a fare to get onto the platform.
This is how the BRT system in Sao Paulo works (which is on the street, with raised platforms
that meet the bus), and is clearly how all subway systems work.
I don't know why you claim that the entrance floor won't be even.
We would adjust the height of the sidewalks/platforms to match that of the trains.
One of the reasons to remove all the buses from the route that the trains use is to
avoid having platforms of different heights, etc.
--
Volunteer researcher, Friends of the O-train.
from what I gather, the
from what I gather, the Friends of the O-Train plan calls for; 3 minute frequency (not 5). 13,000 riders/hour (capacity). All buses removed from The ELRT route, so you can sync the lights with the train and get extra capacity. I also think their train has much more door space then you envision, I think they want 40 to 50% of the right side of the train to be door space, to make getting on and off much faster.
assumptions about downtown ridership, and vehicle capacity
Based upon optimistic loading rates for all buses that enter/depart downtown, we
must accomodate approximately 10,000 passengers/hour during peak. (Many buses are
not loaded to capacity, and the number may in fact be as low today as 8,000 passengers/hour). If you sit down and figure things out, this means that OC-Transpo is not deliverying 100,000 people in the morning presently. Significantly less. And the passengers do not enter downtown from an even east/west split. Some 60-70% come from the
east, which has much higher transit usage, and unfortunately, many fewer local jobs.
The 300,000 passengers/day number appears to really be 300,000 trips/day.
The Siemens eLRT vehicle chosen accomodates 200 passengers/vehicle.
We assumed 10 2-vehicle trains, since the city had an order in for 22 vehicles, and you
need a spare set to accomodate breakdowns/repairs/maintenance.
Each train takes 15 minutes to cross downtown, or 30 minutes to make entire loop.
(This is a pessimistic number based upon dwell times for buses when there is no congestion. The time may actually be closer to 12 minutes for faster loading trains)
So, each train makes 2 loops per hour, so if you stand any any point, you see 20 trains pass you each hour.
So, 20 trains * 2 vehicles * 200 passengers/unit = 8000 passengers/hour.
We started our calculation with 20 trains, because the city originally ordered 22 units, and changing the order can be costly and cause delays. (There can be a 2-3 year lead time to get additional vehicles).
We then did our calculations and pricing for 3 vehicle trains, which gives one:
So, 20 trains * 3 vehicles * 200 passengers/unit = 12,000 passengers/hour,
which is greater than the 10,000 passengers/hour that the buses can presently deliver.
This accomodates all current users, and provides for a 20% headroom for immidiate growth.
(We are comparing apples to apples here. A fully loaded bus to a fully loaded train.)
Most of the traffic lights are on 90 second cycles (except Elgin, which could be adjusted).
So a train every 3 minutes fits nicely into that pattern, and we can add additional trains up to 40 trains in this system, for a capacity of 24,000 passengers/hour.
If one were to ahead with our plan right now using the same supplier, it is likely
that we might still be able to get 22 vehicles delivered on time, and we might
have to wait an additional year for the additional vehicles, but we'd have to order the vehicles now.
If we could see the July2006 contract, we would know the details on how much
each vehicle costs, and what the lead times for ordering really are.
However, we might not want to purchase vehicles from a supplier who is suing us,
and since the earliest one might be able to ratify a contract for eLRT construction might be
early 2008, we would likely be dealing with some other supplier and/or with different terms.
It is likely that we might have to lease some vehicles for a short period until our order
comes in.
Note that to feed that many people into the train system, we would have to make significant investments at the ends of the eLRT, extending it further east/west and/or purchasing significant numbers of additional buses.
The only capacity reason to build a tunnel is if you want to run trains more often than one every 90 seconds (and don't want to shorten the light cycles), or if you want to run 4-vehicle trains (two blocks are too short for 4-vehicle trains).
The above math applies to a tunnel capacity as well. Note that if you want to accomodate
longer trains and/or higher frequency trains, then the transfer stations must be sized accordingly, or the eLRT system must extend out further, sooner so that there can be
more transfer stations.
I think that the city would have to expand to at least 3-4 million, with all job growth in the downtown to get that kind of demand. A lot of the downtown buildings would have to be demolished and replaced with buildings twice as high to create that kind of demand.
(Alternatively, if we banned all private vehicles downtown. But, if we did that, we could
also have whatever light cycles we wanted, since there would be no cross-traffic)
There are also many sustainable reasons why it doesn't make sense to have so much density in one place, but instead to have more enclaves of higher density.
A tunnel would be neat, as would a Toronto-style PATH system. FOTO has done some
analysis as to what a tunnel would cost, and the amount is not ridiculous for a train tunnel.
(The $1B price talked about historically was for a *BUS* tunnel). However, if we built
a tunnel, that would be all we could build.
So, we can't afford it today, and we don't need it today. We might need it tomorrow,
however, and therefore it is definitely worth figuring out:
--
Volunteer researcher, Friends of the O-train.
Downtown Ridership and Vehicle Capacity.
March 6, 2007 - 12:39pm
assumptions about downtown ridership, and vehicle
capacity.
>Based upon optimistic loading rates for all buses that
>enter/depart downtown, we must accommodate
>approximately 10,000 passengers/hour during peak. If
>you sit down and figure things out, this means that
>OC-Transpo is not delivering 100,000 people in the
>morning presently. Significantly less. And the
>passengers do not enter downtown from an even
>east/west split. Some 60-70% come from the east, which
>has much higher transit usage, and unfortunately, many
>fewer local jobs.
As I said, basing my assumptions on 100,000 trips/day,
I could well be wrong in how many people arrive and
leave via Slater and Albert each day.
Because approx. 17% of people apparently use public
transit now, and because it is hoped that this figure
can be raised to 34%, then however many people are
involved today, this figure must be doubled if we are
to get our money's worth out of any improvements.
Accurate figures of present day usage must be available
by now. How could anyone be prepared to spend close on
one billion dollars and not have these figures readily
available? If by some major oversight they are not
available, then these figures should be obtained as
soon as possible. City Hall staff in the Traffic Dept.
should be able to advise on how to do this. Or better
yet, OC Transpo.
>The 300,000 passengers/day number appears to really be
>300,000 trips/day.
A little pedantic, but that's OK.
>The Siemens eLRT vehicle chosen accommodates 200
>passengers/vehicle. We assumed 10 2-vehicle trains,
>since the city had an order in for 22 vehicles, and
>you need a spare set to accommodate breakdowns,
>repairs and maintenance.
>Each train takes 15 minutes to cross downtown, or 30
>minutes to make entire loop.
>(This is a pessimistic number based upon dwell times
>for buses when there is no congestion. The time may
>actually be closer to 12 minutes for faster loading
>trains)
I believe that these numbers are extremely optimistic.
As I stated earlier, I doubt that a five minute
interval can be maintained. You are also assuming that
there will be no other buses on Salter or Albert.
Where will they go?
We need to know how many buses use these two streets
now. Then we also need to know how many of these buses
come downtown via a transitway, and how many come by
other routes - Carling, Wellington, Montreal Road, etc.
Take away the transitway buses and then double the
number of other buses to find out how many will be
using Slater and Albert (or some other streets unknown)
once the new system is in place.
If buses have to use Slater and Albert, as I believe
they will, then space must be kept on the streets for
people to get on and off these buses. These people
will surely be in the way of the train.
The problem of where these other buses will go seems to
be the very first problem that must be solved.
>So, each train makes 2 loops per hour, so if you stand
>at any point, you see 20 trains pass you each hour.
As I said before, I don't think so.
>We then did our calculations and pricing for 3 vehicle
>trains, which gives one:
>So, 20 trains * 3 vehicles * 200 passengers/unit =
>12,000 passengers/hour, which is greater than the
>10,000 passengers/hour that the buses can presently
>deliver.
If the buses can presently deliver 10,000 passengers
per hour, then the new system, buses plus train, must
deliver double that amount, or 20,000 passengers per
hour.
I will not comment on timings of traffic lights, etc.
It appears that I am so far out of whack with some of
these proposals that anything I say would be pointless.
>The only capacity reason to build a tunnel is if you
>want to run trains more often than one every 90
>seconds or if you want to run 4-vehicle trains (two
>blocks are too short for 4-vehicle trains).
I doubt that any system of trains is going to run on a
90 second interval. The fastest on the London
UnderGround is 2 minutes and 30 seconds I think. I was
hoping for a 3 minute interval, maybe 3 minutes and 20
seconds away off in the future. This is why I question
a 3 minute interval on the surface.
>I think that the city would have to expand to at least
>3-4 million, with all job growth in the downtown to
>get that kind of demand. A lot of the downtown
>buildings would have to be demolished and replaced
>with buildings twice as high to create that kind of
>demand.
The people we want to accommodate now are already
working downtown. The problem is that 83% of them are
getting there by car. We have to get them into public
transit.
>A tunnel would be neat, as would a Toronto-style PATH
>system. FOTO has done some analysis as to what a
>tunnel would cost, and the amount is not ridiculous
>for a train tunnel. (The $1B price talked about
>historically was for a *BUS* tunnel). However, if we
>built a tunnel, that would be all we could build.
Connect it efficiently to the existing transitways, and
this is all that needs to be built. A north/south or
east/west line would not be required. Some of the
transitways would need to be extended, but that must
follow later.
>So, we can't afford it today, and we don't need it
>today. We might need it tomorrow, however, and
>therefore it is definitely worth figuring out:
We will definitely need it tomorrow, so why throw all
our money away now on a temporary solution?
>how much it would cost.
>where would it go (under what streets), and consider
>protecting that space.
>how would we build it
Let me know when you need this info. I have it all
figured out! :-)
Tudor Jones.
Fare Free Zone.
Thank you for your response. Herewith my comments:-
>You ask how will people pay for the fare.
>One simple solution is that they don't --- we have a
>fare-free zone from Bayview to Hurdman.
I was reading about the Croydon Tram (an O'Train type
street car), a recent facility situated a bit south of
London, England. They use Oyster Cards, swiping the
card across a machine located at each tram stop. The
card is debited, so the fare is paid.
>The other answer is that you have to pay a fare to get
>onto the platform.
I know nothing of this. How can platforms be built
along an existing sidewalk? Is this the proposal?
Has this been discussed with the street maintenance
people at City Hall?
>One of the reasons to remove all the buses from the
>route that the trains use is to avoid having platforms
>of different heights, etc.
There will still be a lot of buses to be accommodated
down town. If they cannot use Slater and Albert, where
are they going to load and unload? Queen and
Wellington Streets are two way and not very wide.
Sparks Street is of no use to anyone.
I think buses will still be on Slater and Albert, and
raised platforms will not be tolerated by our
maintenance people.
Platforms
I could be wrong but my impression was that the Siemens electric trains were to be low floor and did not require raised platforms on Albert and Slater Street.
Fare prepayment to enter the LRT platform will work when LRT runs on a separate right of way including a tunnel. I can't see that working on Albert and Slater Street where there is limited sidewalk space and the possibility of a fare free zone downtown. In Calgary, there is a warning message when you are leaving the fare free zone that you must have proof that your fare is paid.