[OT] Public Transit

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 03:57:09PM -0400, Colin McGregor wrote:
> Well, almost. As you can read in the following history of the
> Bloor-Danforth line the Bloor Viaduct was built with an underground
> streetcar line in mind:
> 
> -  transit.toronto.on.ca/subway/5104.shtml
> 
> The provisioning for a streetcar line under the Bloor Viaduct helped a
> LOT, but the TTC did have to deal with sharp turns just west of the
> viaduct (turns that would not have been an issue for a streetcar to
> manage, but were for a subway)...

Well slight hassle, but they managed.

> A bit of the history of the current CLRV (Canadian Light Rail
> Vehicle), and how Toronto streets have a Swiss designed street car:
> 
> - transit.toronto.on.ca/streetcar/4503.shtml
> 
> Going forward, the next generation of TTC streetcars will be based off
> the Bombardier FLEXITY streetcars:
> 
> - www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/products-services/rail-vehicles/light-rail-vehicles?docID=0901260d8000a536

They look quite nice.

> So, the TTC is going for a more-or-less off the shelf design. If you
> look at the various cities you will see that some cities have tweaked
> the design one way or another, I kind of like the ship style motif
> FLEXITY streetcars that were done for Marseille, France:
> 
> - www.bombardier.com/files/en/supporting_docs/image_and_media/products/BT-FLEXITY_Outlook_Marseille.jpg
> 
> >> Mediocrity: The Scarborough LRT
> 
> The TTC wanted to run streetcars where the Scarborough LRT runs (a
> technology the TTC was/is comfortable with), but due to political
> pressure they went with the current system, details to be seen here:
> 
> - transit.toronto.on.ca/subway/5107.shtml

Well at least vancouver seems happy with their system.  Of course they
run the newer cars and are actually expanding the system.

> What I think will go down as Brilliance: Design of the Sheppard line.
> The trains that run on the Yonge-University-Spadina and the
> Bloor-Danforth line are all 6 train cars long. On the Sheppard line
> trains are 4 cars long (not enough demand at present to justify longer
> trains). But if you pay attention to each of the stations on the
> Sheppard line, you will see they have made it easy to convert stations
> to 6 car operation (knock down a piece of wall and do some tile
> work...).

Yeah I noticed that the first time I was ever on the sheppard line.
Sensible way to do it.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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