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Miscellaneous TTC Discussion & Questions


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10 hours ago, TTC7447 said:

I had no concerns, but just wanted to follow up on others' concerns about their reliability on the highway.  The concern was dismissed by another user before movements occurred, so I was wondering if someone so invested in the matter was keeping track.  No biggie if not, I was just curious.

The Hybrids have been doing fine so far on the highway. A little slow but they get the job done. We had a few buses with issues that would only show up on the highway but they have now been repaired. 

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Victoria Park Stn before renovations.

Does anyone remember the covered parking directly beneath the old bus terminal and what its use was? I saw some old pics of this area with cars parked inside from Transit Toronto but there is already a surface parking lot directly south of it.

How did cars entered this old covered parking lot? Google streetview 2007 (still shows the old terminal) doesn't show an actual entrance to this covered parking lot.

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18 minutes ago, Cityflyer said:

Victoria Park Stn before renovations.

Does anyone remember the covered parking directly beneath the old bus terminal and what its use was? I saw some old pics of this area with cars parked inside from Transit Toronto but there is already a surface parking lot directly south of it.

How did cars entered this old covered parking lot? Google streetview 2007 (still shows the old terminal) doesn't show an actual entrance to this covered parking lot.

Judging from This image, there appears to be an access point for the covered lot (under the silver car that's up in the bus loop.)

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The bus stop at Celeste Drive / Kingston Rd states following May 9th the stop will be moved 55 meters south. 55 Meters south would be inside of Guildwood GO Station. Is this a mistake in wording or will they be servicing inside Guildwood GO Station now?

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1 hour ago, Ultimate said:

The bus stop at Celeste Drive / Kingston Rd states following May 9th the stop will be moved 55 meters south. 55 Meters south would be inside of Guildwood GO Station. Is this a mistake in wording or will they be servicing inside Guildwood GO Station now?

I'm pretty sure it means they are moving it to the farside of the intersection. It can be confusing cause Kingston Rd runs diagonally. Better wording would have been southwest. I was wondering when this would happen. I noticed a few months ago after the RapidTO lanes were installed that they put in large 60-80ft  bus stop pads on the farside of a number of stops along the lanes.

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The worker probably meant to use imperial measurements instead of metric (ft vs m). That department also seems to have directional issues. When construction was going on at the westbound stop at Eglinton Ave W & Ronald Ave, the temporary stop was located 3 pole east. But on the bottom of the post that states where the stop is relocated, it was written as 3 poles west... smh

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On 4/23/2021 at 10:40 PM, Ultimate said:

The bus stop at Celeste Drive / Kingston Rd states following May 9th the stop will be moved 55 meters south. 55 Meters south would be inside of Guildwood GO Station. Is this a mistake in wording or will they be servicing inside Guildwood GO Station now?

Another stop at SouthWest Eglinton and Midland will be moving some meters to the east following the date as well. They say it's to improve the RapidTO service, but I'm not sure how it would.

It would be really nice to see service right next to the Guildwood GO station, but it would probably never happen due to the tight intersection. Does the proposed Egli East LRT have an undergrounds/enclosed weather tunnel for commuters to use between the two?

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2 hours ago, MRD10 said:

It would be really nice to see service right next to the Guildwood GO station, but it would probably never happen due to the tight intersection. Does the proposed Egli East LRT have an undergrounds/enclosed weather tunnel for commuters to use between the two?

I think that would really slow down the service, I live just up the road past the train bridge, and really have not see many people coming from the go station and get on buses. They mostly walk to the homes nearby.

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On 4/25/2021 at 6:25 PM, MRD10 said:

Another stop at SouthWest Eglinton and Midland will be moving some meters to the east following the date as well. They say it's to improve the RapidTO service, but I'm not sure how it would.

Farside stops speed up service as it reduces the dwell time at the stop. The bus can take off as soon as they finish servicing the stop. They don't have to wait for the traffic signal to change as they would if they were servicing a nearside stop like they are now. In addition, with transit priority signaling they can hold green lights to make it across the intersection. These two things combined allow service to run faster. Most surface transit with dedicated lanes use this layout for most of their stops (all the TTC streetcar ROWs, VIVA Rapidways, etc).

21 hours ago, MK78 said:

I think that would really slow down the service, I live just up the road past the train bridge, and really have not see many people coming from the go station and get on buses. They mostly walk to the homes nearby.

A lot of drivers like other GO stations. In all the times I've used Guildwood GO over the years I've only seen a handful of people transfer between it and the buses on Kingston Rd.

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14 hours ago, wil9402 said:

Farside stops speed up service as it reduces the dwell time at the stop. The bus can take off as soon as they finish servicing the stop. They don't have to wait for the traffic signal to change as they would if they were servicing a nearside stop like they are now. In addition, with transit priority signaling they can hold green lights to make it across the intersection. These two things combined allow service to run faster. Most surface transit with dedicated lanes use this layout for most of their stops (all the TTC streetcar ROWs, VIVA Rapidways, etc).

That only works, however, in concert with functional signal priority.

 

If there is no signal priority, than there no difference in having near-side or far-side stops. The location of the stop doesn't change the likelihood of a vehicle coming to an intersection and having to stop due to the signals.

 

Dan

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1 hour ago, smallspy said:

That only works, however, in concert with functional signal priority.

 

If there is no signal priority, than there no difference in having near-side or far-side stops. The location of the stop doesn't change the likelihood of a vehicle coming to an intersection and having to stop due to the signals.

 

Dan

TTC buses don't get signal priority to keep the light green. It's so much fun hitting a red after red after red. At some intersections we'll get an advanced left though.

They even screw a lot of our tranist lights. For example,  transit light coming out of Don Mills station is supposed to be 7 seconds long but in reality that light is 3 to 4 seconds long. ?‍♂️

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13 minutes ago, Someguy3071 said:

TTC buses don't get signal priority to keep the light green. It's so much fun hitting a red after red after red. At some intersections we'll get an advanced left though.

They even screw a lot of our tranist lights. For example,  transit light coming out of Don Mills station is supposed to be 7 seconds long but in reality that light is 3 to 4 seconds long. ?‍♂️

They do.

or, at least they did. I don’t think the current Novax transponders are maintained anymore.
https://www.novax.com/metrotag-overview

The technology on them is about the same vintage as CIS. The floor of Malvern’s wash racks had induction loops installed to check them nightly, but the concrete was recently replaced, and I don’t think the loops were re installed.

I can’t speak for the engineering department, but I reckon they’re in the process of selecting something more current to go with.

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Whatever they do have in these buses seems to only work for left turn signals at some intersections. 

I remember those lights at the Malvern wash rack.

I think the bigger issue is that the city can't seem to program most lights properly. Why am I getting the same red lights night after night with no pedestrian traffic or cars coming out of side streets? 

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3 hours ago, smallspy said:

That only works, however, in concert with functional signal priority.

 

If there is no signal priority, than there no difference in having near-side or far-side stops. The location of the stop doesn't change the likelihood of a vehicle coming to an intersection and having to stop due to the signals.

 

Dan

 

That's simplistic.

At a nearside stop, if the bus has to stop, there is a chance that it's close enough to service the stop. When the light changes, it can go. With farside, the chance of catching a red is the same, but then you have another halt to service the far-side stop.

 

Nearside stops, you may arrive on a green and then have to wait for the red because you were servicing the stop. The question then is, if you're servicing a near-side stop, what is the chance of missing a green that the far-side stop would let you go through? That gets complicated depending on how busy the stop is. With an extended green, I think the odds favour the near-side stop being faster, because the green may hold while you're servicing the stop, and then you can go right away.

Farside stops, you are guaranteed two stops whenever you hit the red light.

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9 hours ago, smallspy said:

That only works, however, in concert with functional signal priority.

 

If there is no signal priority, than there no difference in having near-side or far-side stops. The location of the stop doesn't change the likelihood of a vehicle coming to an intersection and having to stop due to the signals.

 

Dan

You're correct. I should have emphasized this point more in my post. Hopefully this will be the case for the RapidTO lanes, but I have my doubts. 

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20 hours ago, Ed T. said:

That's simplistic.

At a nearside stop, if the bus has to stop, there is a chance that it's close enough to service the stop. When the light changes, it can go. With farside, the chance of catching a red is the same, but then you have another halt to service the far-side stop.

It's a basic rule, yes. But it also happens to work for the vast majority of the time - which is why it's a rule.

 

You've actually touched on one of the biggest concerns about far-side stops - the double stop. Not because it costs them time (averaged over a whole route, and over the course of a service day, it doesn't), but because people get frustrated by the fact that they are so close to where they need to be, and can see it even, but still can't access it yet.

 

20 hours ago, Ed T. said:

Nearside stops, you may arrive on a green and then have to wait for the red because you were servicing the stop. The question then is, if you're servicing a near-side stop, what is the chance of missing a green that the far-side stop would let you go through? That gets complicated depending on how busy the stop is. With an extended green, I think the odds favour the near-side stop being faster, because the green may hold while you're servicing the stop, and then you can go right away.

Farside stops, you are guaranteed two stops whenever you hit the red light.

Again, assuming all else being equal - and without transit priority - averaged over the course of the whole route, there is no difference in time to either methodology. The likelihood of a bus approaching a single red light regardless of the stop location is always the same.

 

Dan

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6 hours ago, smallspy said:

Again, assuming all else being equal - and without transit priority - averaged over the course of the whole route, there is no difference in time to either methodology. The likelihood of a bus approaching a single red light regardless of the stop location is always the same.

 

Dan

Your last sentence is exactly true. Whether the bus does its passenger business nearside or farside, it is essentially random whether it will have a green light or a red light when it wants to proceed through the intersection. That makes no zero level difference for near-side or far side stops.*

But, the advantage of the nearside stop, is that if it is stopped by the red light, it can take care of the passengers at the same time. The far-side stop doesn't allow that. One way to think of it, if you're stopped for a red (random for either stop location), the nearside stop gets a "free" passenger drop-off/pick-up time. Therefore, while the "waiting for a green light" will on average be the same, "time spent servicing the stop instead of moving"  will be less for the nearside stop. Because if the light is red, it can't be moving anyway.

* There are possible higher-level effects:

  1. A bus approaching a far-side stop will be moving at speed, so it might make it across the intersection at the end of a green, where a bus ready to go from the near-side stop may not be able to start up and get across in time, and therefore wait the full red cycle
  2. A bus approaching a far-side stop could potentially bypass a slow line of cars in the right lane, for instance waiting for a right turn at a busy intersection. I am not sure if the TTC allows buses to use the left lane to go around cars at an intersection. Even express buses pretty much stick to the curb lane in my experience.

Oh yeah, agreed that far-side stops are bad for passengers impatient to get off.

Near-side stops are bad for passengers who are running for the bus/streetcar.

I found the transfer between southbound Spadina (farside) and westbound Queen (nearside) particularly annoying. The Spadina car most likely stopped and had to wait for a green signal at Queen. Then it would crawl across the specialwork and you finally could get off. But you couldn't cross to the SE corner until the light was green for E/W. And then to get to the WB Queen platform, you had to wait for the N/S signal. By this time, surely the Queen car you wanted had come and gone....

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There would be a hassle to get from the left lane back to the right lane right after the intersection if the bus went that way. Plus all the padded time on express routes are designed so they don't rush the light. 

Nearside stops are the worst when buses can't get to the right turning/bus bay lane to unload on a red. They would be forced to load on a green so they miss yet another cycle. A farside stop would have avoided it and save a whole minute. If 10 stops were like this, there goes a good 10-15 min on a trip. Transit priority might or might not help depending on loading time.

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1 hour ago, Doppelkupplung said:

I remember reading about the discussion about how to acquire 60 additional streetcars beyond the original 204 delivered and revenue service. Trying to put a deposit down to secure the volume discount from the original order versus a separate order and paying a higher premium for additional equipment. 

Discount was only available until the 60th car was delivered before the terms were changed due to conflicts in delivery schedules and production. 

Hopefully they avoid the issues they made with the first batch. Having to ensure enough equipment to service future demand. 

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