Comments

1. Jse says:

   June 20, 2012 at 4:35 pm

   Transit Priority is problematic with the Spadina, Queen’s Quay and St. Clair lines beascue of the street width, close signal spacing and short headways. Short blocks and closes signal Spacing, especially on St. Clair with Oakwood, Alberta and Winona means that cycle times need to be short to keep cars being stopped in one intersection by a red light at the next. Wide streets require long crossing ties so that pedestrians don’t get caught in the middle of the road. This does not leave much flexibility for transit priority That being true there can still be room for improvement by change the traffic light cycles to minimize transit time rather than auto time. I think that this has been done to some extent on St. Clair and Spadina. Every time I drive those streets, once a week on Thursdays, the light cycles seem to be different, especially St. Clair.All intersections where street cars can make a left or right turn should have the ability to give the street car a turn signal. This should be at the start or end of the green phase depending on which is needed by the LRV. The newer cars with all door boarding and low floors should make the service run faster, especially on the right of way lines.It is impossible to keep transit vehicles on an even headway when the headway is not a multiple of the cycle time though it should be possible to do better than 11 and 1 then 11 and 1. The problem on Spadina worse south of King beascue the road is so wide and there is no “Island of Refuge” in the middle except at Bremner so pedestrians can be forced to take it in 2 steps as occurs on University Ave. Spadina and Front is especially bad beascue the predominate p.m. movement is west to south which results in a long left turn phase for Front street which has to followed by a long pedestrian phase for pedestrians on the south side to cross Spadina. Queens Quay is disaster of planning from the word go but hopefully things will improve when the street is rebuilt. I have seen times when the signals appear to change for the street cars just before they arrive and stay green long enough for 2 cars to go through, then there are the other days when a cross street light stays green forever and there are no cars or pedestrians crossing. Perhaps these lights should only turn green when a vehicle is detected at the intersection or a pedestrian pushes the button. The length of the green could be shortened to what is needed rather than 30 seconds when there is only 1 car present. In the summer months there is a lot more people and cars in the area and traffic would be a problem but it would help the rest of the time.Transit Priority Signalling is not going to be able to:1)turn a light green as an LRV approaches without endangering pedestrians.2)keep a signal green at a major intersection for much longer without throwing the entire network into confusion. It is a vast grid of streets and not just one road that is affected.Traffic signals can:1)provide turn phases for streetcars and buses.2)have their timing adjusted to maximize the flow of transit instead of autos. Especially if those routes get low floor LRV’s with all door loadings.