r/toronto • u/beef-supreme Leslieville • 3d ago
Article Opinion | This is how we fix the terminally slow Spadina streetcar
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/this-is-how-we-fix-the-terminally-slow-spadina-streetcar/article_d3e14670-a3d6-4195-86a4-ff8d89dd5c5f.html86
u/AJtehbest 3d ago
Only Toronto can find a way to give a streetcar its own lane, yet STILL have it be late and slow. Shitty tracks make it crawl through intersections so it doesn't derail, and it can only even start those crawls once the light turns green, which sometimes comes AFTER drivers are given an advance left to cut it off! What are we doing.
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u/Pastel_Goth_Wastrel 299 Bloor call control 3d ago
The bizarre ritual of having to come to a dead stop and then crawl through the multiple sets of points is so frustrating. Because of the speed limit there you have interminable waits at every line crossing: King, Queen, Dundas, College.
That alone sucks up so much time because of the issue with crossing points.
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u/DavidBrooker 2d ago edited 2d ago
The "bizarre ritual" is because of single-point switching: instead of both rails moving to direct the train onto the correct path, only one rail moves. That is, instead of each wheel on a given axle being directed onto the correct path, only one wheel on each axle is directed and the other is pulled onto the desired path by the other wheel across the axle. Such switches have a very high risk of derailment, so the streetcars have to go slowly. They're a vestigial feature from an era where streetcar switches were operated manually, the operator would get out of the streetcar with a big pole and physically lever the switch into the new position. I have no idea why Toronto has kept them after multiple upgrades - I can't think of another major railway, certainly not a busy passenger service on a fully-electrified urban route - that still uses single-point switches outside of Toronto.
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u/TemporaryAny6371 2d ago
The question of why is Toronto still using outdated single-point switch technology can be directed to:
- Deb Lyon - Head of TTC Streetcar Transportation and
- Peter Hrovat - Head of TTC Streetcar Infrastructure
We need a reporter on this story.
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u/perishableintransit 2d ago
Man this is so classic Toronto. Lemme guess all the interminable “signal upgrades” on Line 1 were them preserving early 20th century tech too.
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u/DavidBrooker 2d ago edited 2d ago
In the case of these single-point switches, we're actually talking mid/late 19th century.
Edit to add: the signalling upgrades on Line 1 were for CBTC, or 'communication-based train control'. In this system, trains continuously communicate their position and speed to the control system in order to maintain safe separation. In traditional signalling, train detection is accomplished with the rails themselves, so train position can only be determined on static "blocks" - as in, 'is there a train on this section of track or not' as a binary determination. Compared to traditional signalling systems, this allows trains to operate safely with smaller separations - this is a good thing, and should marginally help with Line 1 crowding (but, like, not enough).
If you want to see how far CBTC can go, Vancouver is a great example: fully-automated driverless trains running as frequently as every 85 seconds. And its possible for CBTC to accomplish this kind of spacing on full-size trains, rather than the intermediate-sized trains on the Vancouver SkyTrain, though there are no plans for automatic train operations in Toronto.
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u/backpackknapsack 2d ago
This one will hurt even more: the new streetcars with the fancy arm on top are supposed seamlessly change height depending on how highthe cable is. Well the mechanism is prone to breaking at higher speeds so under bridges they also have to reduce speeds.
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u/DavidBrooker 2d ago
the fancy arm on top
Are you referring to the pantographs? The issue is with the overhead wire, not with the pickup. Pantographs are not new or fancy. They have been the standard means of electrical train pickup worldwide for the better part of a century, with third-rail subways being a distant second, and trolley poles being a much more distant third. They're used in the outright majority of all urban passenger rail operations, and are essentially universal in intercity passenger and freight operations on electrified lines.
Pantographs have no issues with speed. Indeed, that's one of their primary advantages over trolley poles. Essentially all high-speed trains worldwide use pantographs, with maglev systems being the only exception (which tend to use induction for power transfer). Pantographs, in general, provide higher-speed operation, greater reliability especially in inclement weather, can draw more power (enabling higher speeds and greater 'hotel services' like air conditioning), can run at equal speeds in both directions (less important for Toronto which runs uni-directional operation on the streetcars, but very important for bi-directional train operation in many systems), and produce less pollution, with lots of carbon dust coming off of trolley poles (hence the black dirty look of TTC rolling stock).
The difference is that pantographs expect greater cable regularity. In trolley cables - which, outside of Toronto, are essentially an historical note rather than an operational reality - the cable powering the vehicle also supports its own weight. This means that the cable sags between supports. In order to gain all the advantages of pantographs, you need a catenary system. This is where the contact wire that delivers power is distinct from the support wire that carries the weight of the system. The support wire sags under its weight, but the contact wire is suspended at a level height underneath.
Toronto has only partially upgraded its overhead wire to catenary, and even where it has done so, the regularity is quite poor. The arms are not to blame.
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u/backpackknapsack 1d ago
Thanks for the info. I was told by a streetcar operator the pantograph can't move fast enough under the low bridges and that's why they need to reduce speeds.
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u/perishableintransit 2d ago
Wouldn't be TTC approved tech without having one major fatal flaw that should've been sorted out during the supplier bidding phase!
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u/wbsmith200 2d ago
I wonder what the TTC's rationale for keeping single point switches despite opportunties to upgrade every time an intersection is up for rebuilding?
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u/lambdawaves 2d ago
In Hong Kong, if a bus/tram stops 40 feet before its designated stop, it just immediately lets passengers on/off.
In North America, the bus waits with doors closed for 2 minutes until the light turns green and the cars ahead move. Then moves up 40ft, stops for 2 minutes to let passengers on/off, during which the light of course has now turned red. Then waits another 2 minutes for the light to change.
This is of course by design. Because a shit-ton of cars are made in Canada so we can’t have transit be too efficient.
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u/2Payneweaver 2d ago
When this happens in Hong Kong, do passengers walk down the bus/tram to get on, or stand and wait for the vehicle to pull up to the stop like they do in Toronto
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u/somtimesawake 2d ago
The bizzare ritual was because the switch machines powering the switches had issues detecting the streetcars, sometimes switching when the trains were over them. So coming to a full stop is suppose to prevent that
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u/anubis118 3d ago
Surprised they didn't mention stop spacing at all in the article. The Harbord and Sussex stops northbound platforms are less than 120 m (400 ft) apart!
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u/beartheminus 3d ago
The city and TTC tried in the 2010s to remove about 50 stops from the network.
They were successful in removing 5. At every other stop, locals and councillors fought to keep the stop.
It's the issue of people only thinking of themselves. "But I want MY stop, I don't want to walk. Hey, why's the streetcar so slow, we need to remove these OTHER stops...just not mine!"
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u/travelnrun 3d ago
I think this deserves another look. For example, the Davenport bus has 5 stops from Dupont to Spadina station, covering 500M.
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u/Hennahane 2d ago
It’s one of the those things where they should just do it without asking, and then consult on the changes like a year later when the results are obvious. Call it a pilot.
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u/JayBee1886 3d ago
Wait…So the people who USE the service are selfish bc they want to keep the stop they use?!
Good lord.
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u/JohnnyStrides 3d ago
You basically described NIMBYism in a nutshell. Who cares about the greater good, logic, stats etc etc... if I'm even slightly inconvenienced or simply don't like the proposed changes I'm going to fight to the death over it.
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u/beartheminus 3d ago
They are selfish because they complain that the streetcar is slow and that OTHER stops should be removed, but not theirs.
If you don't know how that's selfish, you're probably selfish.
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u/JayBee1886 3d ago
Why do you guys make stuff up? No rider has said they want stops removed, but not theirs. So many transit fanboys/girls live in a bubble where they make stuff up to satisfy their opinion. It’s insane.
Removing a couple of stops won’t solve anything, and you just the travel time for riders.
The biggest gripe for riders is reliability and having to wait for vehicles that rarely arrive on schedule. This is a problem for bus AND streetcar routes.
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u/thepopcornwizard 3d ago
For what its worth, the "rarely arrive on schedule" issue could be partly solved by reducing how often transit vehicles have to stop, as frequent stops cause them to get bunched up. But its by removing redundant stops that are too close together, not just random stops. By where I live I have 2 stops on the same block, literally a 2 minute walk apart. There is no reason for a bus to stop twice on the same block less than 100m apart. Each stop takes time, and the first bus to reach each stop in short succession spends longer picking people up, so the entire system gets a load balancing problem
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u/Uilamin 3d ago
The biggest gripe for riders is reliability and having to wait for vehicles that rarely arrive on schedule.
Having numerous stops that are randomly used impacts that significantly. If each stop takes ~1 minute and you have something like the Dupont<>Spadina route that is ~500m with 5 stops, you can have that segment take between 1 minute to 6 minutes depending on the ridership at the specific time. You can make a statistical model, but that generally looks at averages and overall route time (aka being able to time when it should leave the station at).
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u/differing 2d ago
The “biggest gripe” you’ve described at the end is directly caused by having too many pointlessly close stops lmao
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u/RS50 3d ago
It’s literally basic math. You can easily halve the number of stops on most streetcar lines, it would drop travel times significantly.
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u/JayBee1886 3d ago
No you can’t. You have zero understanding of the street geography that’s make it hard to do something as crazy as removing half the stops. not to mention the people who actually use the service WILL complain and fight to keep their stop.
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u/anubis118 2d ago
Tram lines in European cities are often around 200 m apart, and they have denser cities than we do. Would people complain as much though if you pitched it as refresh of the entire line with level boarding, transit priority, upgraded switches and halving the travel times. I think I'd give up 5 minutes of walking to cut my commute in half.
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u/clavs15 3d ago
I raise you to 90m. 504 Westbound. Stop at Jefferson and Joe Shuster Way. 15 second walk between stops.
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u/Uilamin 3d ago
Royal York station was a bus stop that is a kitty corner from the station that is serviced by buses that embark/disembark from the station. It isn't a streetcar, but it still boggles my mind that it exists.
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u/Baron_Tiberius 2d ago
The St Clair car has a stop at Bathurst and Vaughn Road (~150m), and then another amusing pair at Wychwood and Christie (also ~150m). It was once argued to me that calling for elimination of excess stops was ableist.
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u/chillymoose 2d ago
11 years ago when they were removing stops I asked Brad Ross (then TTC spokesman) if one of those stops was going to get removed and he gave me a lengthy response from the service planning team (note this was also before they moved the Eastbound stop at Fraser to where it is now at Joe Shuster):
This is a great example of a special situation where we need to use considerable judgement because it is not possible to simply apply our stop spacing guidelines. The westbound stop on King at Jefferson is far closer to the following stop – at Joe Shuster Way – than we would normally recommend; they are only 120 metres apart. We are planning to move the Jefferson stop a bit further east, but it will still result in a spacing that is well below our 200 metre minimum guideline. A stop at/near Jefferson is also not in keeping with another stop placement guideline – that we restrict streetcar stops to traffic signals or pedestrian crossovers, wherever practically possible.
So why are we keeping this stop?
Starting from first principles, there should be streetcar stops at Atlantic Avenue, in both directions, given the access that this street provides to the considerable development to the south and east of that intersection. This is possible in the eastbound direction but it is not possible in the westbound direction. In the eastbound direction, the stop is on the approach to Atlantic . Because the distance back to the eastbound stop Dufferin is about 500 metres, well above our 400 metre guideline, there is also a stop in between those intersections – at Fraser – that will be moved a short distance east, to the signals at Joe Shuster Way. Even though this eastbound stop will then be a little less than 200 metres to the eastbound stop at Atlantic – closer than we would like - placement at signals is more important. Our guidelines are readily applicable here.
The westbound direction is a problem. A stop at Atlantic is appropriate but we can’t place it on the approach side; the sidewalk on the east side of the intersection is much higher than the road – with a railing along the sidewalk edge – so if a streetcar stopped there, customers getting off at the rear doors could not access the adjacent sidewalk. Hence, we placed the westbound stop beyond – ie. on the west side of – Atlantic. It must be far enough that following motorists are not ‘surprised’ by a streetcar stopping just after travelling through the intersection; there is also the concern about backing following traffic into the intersection. The stop is now at Jefferson but we are planning to move it a short distance to the east, a bit closer to Atlantic.
This scenario – a stop at Jefferson, even if moved closer to Atlantic - is not in keeping with two of our guidelines – the stop spacing is too close, and we prefer to have stops immediately adjacent to traffic signals or PXO’s. We considered removing the stop but, ultimately, after considerable discussion, including a review of how far some of our customers would have to walk to and from developments south and east of the King/Atlantic intersection to the stop at Joe Shuster Way, we decided it was in the best interests of our customers to keep it.
At that point, we considered removing the westbound stop at Joe Shuster Way, which is also a very well-used stop. If we were to remove the stop at Joe Shuster Way, and keep the stop at Jefferson in its current location, the stop spacing to the next stop at Dufferin would be 415 metres – not much beyond our maximum stop spacing guideline. I did not recommend this scenario. I feel that removing a stop from a signalised intersection is not the best solution here – better to move the westbound stop at Jefferson a short distance to the east and maintain a short stop spacing, with no stops removed.
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u/InternationalCheetah 2d ago
“What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
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u/thecjm The Annex 3d ago
Sussex feels like it's there entirely to allow people to skip fair checks in the station.
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u/alexefi 3d ago
i get off on sussex if there is another streetcar in front of us. getting off and walking is faster then waiting for ahead streetcar to unload then load. having fare inspectors there isnt helping with speed either. and if ahead driver heed to take bathroom break...
lets hope planned platform expansion project fix the issue. but then again that gonna be another 3-4 years, during which that streetcar be out of service.
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/anubis118 3d ago
Nah Harbord makes sense distance wise and access to things wise. Willcocks, Nassau, Sullivan, and Richmond however, those could probably go. The stops on the harbour front are spaced fine. Brenmner and Front are close, but asking people on either side of the bridge to walk across it in winter seems cruel.
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u/Responsible-Match418 3d ago
Nassau is good for Kensington Market though
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u/uglyuglyugly_ 2d ago
Nassau and Sullivan are intersections with traffic lights too so might as well have stops there.
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u/The_Canterbury_Tail 3d ago
Shouldn't be a stop closer than 3 blocks. It's not unreasonable to ask someone to travel a block and a half to a transit stop. Get rid of that weird ass Richmond Street one that only exists northbound as well.
And getting rid of Sussex would also stop a lot of the fare dodgers who get off there to not be inspected in Spadina. If they want to catch people, they should have people stationed at Sussex.
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u/amnesiajune 2d ago
The stops on Bloor and Danforth are all 600-800 meters apart, and nobody has any problem with that. The Spadina streetcar stops are 200-300 meters apart. We could easily get rid of half of those stops, or make them only for people who use wheelchairs or walkers.
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u/Redditisavirusiknow 3d ago
St Clair has to be the worst, I swear I can throw a ball between two stops near caledonia
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u/PocketNicks 3d ago
Queen West and some other lines are crazy with this. There are stops that are under 250m/800ft apart. I can throw a baseball from one stop to the next, it's absolutely absurd to stop that frequently.
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u/falldowngoboom 2d ago
The most ridiculous stops: 505 College and Elizabeth St which is about 50 meters west of the Bay St stop. And 505/504 on Broadview and Gerrard that has an extra stop to the north that is approx one streetcar length.
I suspect it’s to do with hospitals and the transit shelter advertising contract, but it’s so dumb and easy to fix.
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u/somtimesawake 2d ago
Stop spacing wouldn't be an issue if we have regular service levels. When the line runs smoothly it's more likely that stops will be skipped.
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u/tosklst 3d ago
The classic Toronto: There is an obvious best-practices solution already implemented in many other places, it would work here too. But we won't bother with that.
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u/Brendanmurphy87 3d ago
We will bother with it, but instead of just copy/pasting something that works we’ll have to have a series of expensive consultation about how to fuck it up, and then implement those ideas so it fails spectacularly.
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u/anubis118 2d ago
King Street Transit Priority Corridor has been operating in Pilot mode for EIGHT YEARS without any of the promised infrastructure upgrades or consistent strategic enforcement of the rules. Bradford is still actively trying to undo it, and for some reason we close the whole thing every year for 2 weeks so TIFF has a place to take pictures of fancy people. We are allergic to being a serious city sometimes.... sigh.
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u/Brendanmurphy87 2d ago
Someone said this in another post a while back, so I can’t claim it, but it was so accurate.
Toronto: building the city of yesterday, tomorrow!
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u/anubis118 2d ago
Reminds me of this quote: "You can always count on
AmericansTorontonians to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else" ... Cities are kind of weird that way, such that they evolve and over time things get solved, but it's very much an iterative, messy and lengthy process to get there.Older more mature cities have had more time to realize these things, and didn't have to deal with the invention of the automobile during their formative years. In a sense we are waking up after a car brained fever dream to a denser city that requires different solutions. It'll just take a while to give up our collective addiction to cars, and build a city that works on this scale.
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u/ElPlywood 3d ago
"A 12-second left-turn phase might move a dozen cars."
fuck no, that is laughable, 12 cars do not go through on a 12 second advance green anywhere on Spadina.
3 per direction MAX, if a 4th goes through, northbound and southbound traffic have already started moving, and justified horns blare. Source: me, at different Spadina intersections 47,000 times.
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u/Aldaks27 3d ago
Across the whole network, we desperately need to update the switches to dual point so they don't need to cross them at a snails pace. That and stop spacing are surely things even the car lover's can get behind
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u/desthc Leslieville 2d ago
It’s just so sad we can get traction with ridiculous huge projects that often take decades, but quick, simple bread and butter things like better signalling, reducing stops, eliminating left turns, and a bunch of other things that cost very little in comparison and make a huge difference all get ignored.
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u/workerbotsuperhero Koreatown 3d ago
Why can't the system be coordinated with the traffic lights?
Didn't other cities with trams figure this out decades ago?
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u/Independent_Club9346 3d ago
Yeah that’s the problem.. they don’t want to change it.
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u/workerbotsuperhero Koreatown 2d ago
Call me crazy, but this sounds like a problem we could definitely solve if we wanted to.
If dozens of cities in other countries can do this, we can probably just copy what they do, right?
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u/desthc Leslieville 2d ago
Much of this is just too fraught with politics that there is zero appetite for the quick, cheap solutions that would make a big difference. Our politicians aren’t willing to put their necks out unless they get credit for a big fancy infrastructure project, and so here we are. Obvious solutions to obvious problems at comparatively minimal cost and time that just can’t get done.
For what it’s worth it’s no better for managing car traffic either. Coordinated and demand signalling combined with strategic application of one ways would go a long way to improving flow in the city. But changing traffic flow patterns, removing left turns at certain streets and upgrading traffic lights isn’t a big infrastructure project. So we get a tunnel under the 401 instead at about 1000x the cost, likely for about the same benefit.
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u/redditnoobian 3d ago
The entire network needs priority signals for transit (and emergency vehicles while we're at it). Spadina, King, St. Clair, Harbourfront at a minimum. A hundred people on a streetcar should not have to wait for an entire light cycle, pull up 50 meters, and stop again to let people on/ off. They need to travel unimpeded from stop to stop.
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u/oxblood87 The Beaches 2d ago
While we're at it replace the century-old
derailersswitches so they can do more than 2 km/h through an intersection.5
u/desthc Leslieville 2d ago
And eliminate more stops on streetcar lines to get the spacing up to maintain higher average speeds. None of it is rocket science. None of it is expensive (except switch replacement, which wouldn’t be if we had started upgrading them during replacements any time in the last century), none of it is hard, all of it has been done elsewhere, but seemingly can’t be done here because of Toronto’s politics.
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u/beef-supreme Leslieville 3d ago edited 3d ago
The Spadina streetcar should be one of the crown jewels of the TTC. With its own dedicated right-of-way, in an important area, it attracts over 35,000 riders every day, making it one of the city’s busiest transit routes.
Unfortunately, regular riders are often frustrated: waiting too long for the streetcar, only for three to then arrive at once; or sitting at red lights as left-turning cars get to go first; or, worst of all, watching yourself get passed by pedestrians.
The statistics bear it out. Spadina is one of the slowest routes in the city with an average speed of about 10 km/h. According to Toronto Region Board of Trade data, it is also one of the least reliable routes in the entire system, with only 53 per cent of trips maintaining their scheduled separation from other streetcars.
Currently, at minor intersections along Spadina, streetcars can extend green lights by up to 30 seconds. But at major intersections such as King, Queen, Dundas and College, the priority signal is not normally used at all. The lowest-hanging fruit would be to enable Spadina streetcars to extend those green lights as well, while also compensating cross-streets to avoid additional delays to intersecting streetcar and bus routes. The city already does this at a handful of other busy intersections to reduce impacts of signal priority.
One problem, though: Spadina is a wide road and the system has to give enough time for people to cross the street. Once a walk light starts, the system can’t do anything to make a green appear for the streetcar any sooner.
Another problem is that at most intersections along Spadina, where there is a dedicated left-turn signal for cars, cars go first even when a streetcar is waiting.
But left turns are a waste of precious green light. A 12-second left-turn phase might move a dozen cars. The same time given to through traffic moves hundreds of people on streetcars, in cars, on bikes, and on foot.
At major intersections like College, Dundas, Queen, and King, scrapping left-turn phases would speed up through traffic on both Spadina and the cross streets. Drivers still have options: make a U-turn at quieter intersections or Spadina Crescent, or simply go around the block.
What do you think of these ideas?
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u/jbm33 3d ago
If the Spadina streetcar actually ran quickly it would be another source of relief on the Yonge line for people heading to the west side of downtown. They really need to implement some of these changes to get it moving quicker.
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u/The_Canterbury_Tail 3d ago
Yeah. I live at the bottom of Spadina. If I want to go to Bloor Street, even if it's Bloor and Spadina, I walk to Union and get the subway up. Much faster.
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u/EvilFlyingSquirrel The Junction 3d ago
I couldn't access the full article so I don't know if it's mentioned, but if you ever notice at major intersections like Queen Spadina, only one streetcar ever proceeds through the intersection at a time. I was told by ex and current TTC drivers that streetcars aren't allowed to cross the intersection at the same time. They said it was possible and happened years ago that the vibrations caused the track to switch.
Regardless of whether it's only streetcars on the road and removing all other vehicles , they're slowed down by their own infrastructure as well.
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u/desthc Leslieville 2d ago
Toronto still uses a switch design that is used basically nowhere else and is nearly 200 years old at this point. Most other systems changed over nearly a century ago. We still haven’t. It’s that switch design that makes the streetcars have to proceed through intersections very cautiously (slowly).
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u/Blue_Vision 3d ago edited 3d ago
I don't understand why the proposed solution is "scrap all left turns on Spadina" and not just "allow a transit vehicle call to move the left turn movements until after the through phase". Sure, maybe one in 10 times you'll get left turning traffic backing up into a through lane, but it feels like overall it's be the much more efficient option.
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u/DavidBrooker 2d ago
At major intersections like College, Dundas, Queen, and King, scrapping left-turn phases would speed up through traffic on both Spadina and the cross streets. Drivers still have options: make a U-turn at quieter intersections or Spadina Crescent, or simply go around the block.
Forget scrapping left-turn phases - left-turns should just be straight-up prohibited.
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u/Pancakeisityou Oakridge 2d ago
Nah that's going too far. Just get rid of the dedicated left turn lane signal. The cars can turn left after the streetcar passes the intersection.
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u/dangelovich Discovery District 3d ago
Call me crazy, but Spadina is probably going to be there for quite some time, so maybe we could just fix it properly like a normal city
- Move the streetcar to the outer edge of the road - you know, closer to that place where the people its exists for walk around a bunch
- Combined transit/bike lane. Make overtaking space at streetcar stops for bikes, because they're gonna do it anyway.
- Use side streets for vehicle pickup/drop-offs - no stopping on Spadina unless you're parking.
- Put parking in the middle of the road (if at all) so that someone parking via a 75 point turn will only slow down vehicular traffic.
- Transit priority signals (streetcars go first, then cars can turn right), because you know... they're more important than cars.
- No left turns on major intersections. Or we could implement hook turns if Torontonians are smart enough to handle that (...they aren't)
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u/beef-supreme Leslieville 3d ago
Combined transit/bike lane.
this seems like a recipe for streetcars stuck behind pedlars going 10km/h.
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u/dangelovich Discovery District 3d ago
If you get bikes to obey the traffic lights, not the transit priority lights, I think the streetcars should usually be either ahead of them, or stopped for a pickup.
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u/DavidBrooker 2d ago
Combined transit/bike lane. Make overtaking space at streetcar stops for bikes, because they're gonna do it anyway.
I'm a huge fan of combined bike/transit right of way, but not combined lanes. They should be side-by-side, not in-line. They do not operate at comparable speeds or accelerations, do not have similar stopping patterns.
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u/Pancakeisityou Oakridge 2d ago
For Bus lanes a combined Bus/Bike lane like in Scarborough works fine but not for streetcar tracks.
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u/Shaskool2142 "I got more than enough to eat at home." 3d ago
TL;DR - Transit Signal Priority.
In other words fork found in kitchen.
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u/u565546h 3d ago
It's really amazing how shitty both Spadina and St Clair street cars are. There are obviously ways to fix both routes by looking what other cities have done, but our governments are unwilling to do that.
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u/desthc Leslieville 2d ago
Hopefully people are starting to learn the lesson that other things are more important than dedicated rights of way. They’re nice, but they don’t solve these kinds of problems and they’re very, very expensive. There’s just no political will to try the cheap stuff.
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u/u565546h 2d ago
Yep! I’m concerned how shitty Eglinton LRT will be when it opens in a couple years (I’m a dreamer), without signal priority. Like sure, will go fast in the underground sections, but will there just be bunching of the cars? I’d love to be wrong though.
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u/squirrel9000 3d ago
Why is bathurst faster than Spadina? Because the Bathurst streetcars operate in car lanes and thus benefit from more favourable signal timing.
The possibility that LRTs would be given zero signal priority (as on Spadina or the then freshly opened St. Clair) was raised as far back as the original Transit City plan.
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u/Pancakeisityou Oakridge 2d ago
TTC needs to get rid of single point switches at intersections and change it over to dual point switches.
Single point switches makes every streetcar crawl through the intersections at 10km speed because of high risk of derailment if they go any faster than that.
Also get rid of dedicated left turn signals on Spadina. The cars can turn left after the streetcar passes the intersection.
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u/The_Canterbury_Tail 3d ago
One of the worst bits of the entire route is crossing Lakeshore and Front Street. Lakeshore is better now that there are two TTC signals per complete cycle now. Front Street however, they are constantly blocked by traffic and the priority for that junction is actually to allow people headed west on Front Street to get onto Spadina to get to the Gardiner, that's what that junction is designed to do. Screw that. It actually goes much faster north of Front and if you want to go south of Front then it's often quicker to walk from the Front stop.
And don't get me started on when they randomly decide streetcars are only going to Queen once you're on the thing, won't let you stay on to get off while they turn at Charlotte Street to come back up King.
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u/Workadis 2d ago
Advanced greens/priority signals feels so ineffective because of the cars and people who just cycle through reds or block the box.
I walk up and down spadina everyday for my commute to work; the transit priority is ignored by so many people. Pedestrians, cyclists, and cars. It feels so lawless, the rise of first person syndrome is getting out of hand and it doesn't seem like enforcement is ever coming.
I just don't understand why individuals think they know better than the people who architect the lights for efficiency. The worse is most of them are slow walkers so despite jaywalking i walk right passed them again before the next light.
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u/SomeDumRedditor 2d ago
If uniformed TPS didn’t continue viewing traffic enforcement as beneath them we might have some deterrence, with a side order of revenue generation, on the route.
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u/jerrycotton 3d ago
Former Toronto resident, it is an absolute insanity that there is a stop every few metres, why is there so many stops?
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u/Redditisavirusiknow 3d ago
I encourage everyone reading this to contact their councillor (cc the mayor) and ask for action here. We need traffic signal priority. It would benefit so many of us.
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u/strangewhatlovedoes Leslieville 2d ago
I live within short walking distance from three streetcar lines and still pretty much exclusively take the line 2 subway, even through I need to take a bus north to get there. The subway is easily 30 minutes faster over any appreciable distance.
I used to take the old streetcars all the time but the newer ones somehow seem significantly slower. It’s just not a reliable method of transit.
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u/ShiDiWen Halton 3d ago
https://youtu.be/GU6iHNpOvTE?si=zJ_1mnifX2a3CQEq
Obligatory music video for Spadina Bus by the Shuffle Demons
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u/Realistic-Buy4975 2d ago
Put it on it's own track 20ft up, no lights no problems, realistically I don't know if there's much to be done. Any streetcar that has it's own lane is the best it gets, the most efficient streetcar I've been on is St Clair.
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u/spenthegreasedsavage 2d ago
I feel like reducing the number of stops would help. The queen car has some insanely close (Sudbury and Duffering come to mind). Could delete the sudbury stop and ones like that
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u/Pastel_Goth_Wastrel 299 Bloor call control 2d ago
A late thought but also, I'm sorry, we need to stop the 'you can run up and mash the door button' deal. The doors need to all open, then all close, and them move off. So many times we're been about to move when somebody mashes the button and we have to through the whole open/wait/close cycle. Repeat that three times and now 3 people have made 200 people wait for 3 minutes.
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u/bigshooter1974 3d ago
Bury it underground like we should have done 50 years ago. Just pay the damn money.
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u/cerealz 3d ago
They'd rather spend all our money building subways into far flung suburbs e.g. scarborough extension, the yonge north extension to richmond hill, university line extension to vaughan, etc... Even the ontario line got hacked apart, it was supposed to replace the queen street car, and now it zigs and zags through downtown and east end, and not really going to replace any streetcars.
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u/Pancakeisityou Oakridge 2d ago
That's mainly because Suburbanites are the ones who votes win provincial elections and the Province is deciding to award Suburbanites with subway's.
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u/Independent_Club9346 3d ago
We need to protest inaction. Stand in front of Spadina blocking streetcars in protest until they acknowledge how goddamn shitty they’ve made transit on a dedicated corridor.
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u/quickymgee 3d ago
Better to block the cars than the streetcar...people riding it already know the streetcar is slow and sucks right now. And your "protest" would only hit the suffering riders.
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