Well, no doubt at all about steel wheels on steel rails, but in urban situations what one needs is grade separation, banishing at a stroke the hotdog vendors &c. I suspect evryone knows this and the fondness for streetcars is mere nostalgia.

I am a great fan of the Vancouver SkyTrain, a technology, I might add, developed by UTDC, an Ontario Crown Corporation.

Having arrived in Vancouver directly from Tokyo, I thought it quite pathetic, and indeed so it is as a network. However as a technology I soon realised that, in fact, it was pretty good indeed, despite execrable design work, corrected, I am happy to say, in the MkII, to some extent at least.

One can talk endlessly about the efficiency of LIM drives &c, but what really makes Skytrain usefull is a constant 1 - 2 minute headway on the main line. They have buggered this up on the Millennium Line, and the RAV Line is incompatable, but that's politics and stupidity, not technology.

Here in Shenzhen we have a nice new metro (also by Bombardier) but unfortunately thus far the trains have a headway of 15 - 20 minutes, and it closes around 22h30. For those reasons I almost never use it.

So, steel wheels on steel rails, or crazed pnuematic systems as in Montreal - which, to be fair, is the best system I've ever used - what really matters is not the technology but the concept of the route structure and the operational parameters of the system. I give Skytrain top marks on the latter, not so bad on the former, but utterly incomprehensible when it comes to incompatible technology on the RAV line.

Idiots....
dba

Hi Bob,

At least you have streetcars in Toronto..
few other cities have them... they provide
all-day and all-night service..you are lucky
to have them...

The inconveniences of having them all run
on the same street are still outweighed by
the fact that large numbers of people in Toronto have alternative transportation to
cars; we still don't have that here in L.A.;
yes, there are buses, but they run infrequently and inefficiently..

Appreciate the "Red Rocket" ! :)

I've been saying the same thing about rail relieving traffic for years. To get into Toronto is a dangerous, grueling excercise in futility. People are commuting from as far as Ingersoll (possibly even farther)and the pollution created, public funds expended, and hazards created by this mass daily exodus is choking our province. Employees who work long days then leap behind the wheel, often alone and in an S.U.V and battle the traffic, are overtired and aggressive and represent a real danger to themselves and others around them. Where even half of these commuters able to depend on inexpensive and convenient public transit (i.e GO) the savings in road maintenance and healthcare would be enormous, not to mention the reduction in emmisions from fewer cars parked in the daily congestion. The best investment in infrastructure I can think of would be to increase rail efficiency and dole out tax incentives to encourage people who "must" commute, to do it in as efficient way as possible.

The second issue surrounding transit is the truck madness created by the "just in time" manufacturing process. Increasing numbers of trucks delivering small, often daily loads to save warehousing costs are a menace to the environment and the safety of our highways. This is a perfect example of corporations right to profits receiving precedence over Ontarians right to healthy, happy lifestyles.

I think rail can offer a means to acheive our Kyoto responsibilities while making our province a healthier and more stress free place.

Hi Bob

The situation you describe in Toronto is the same in every big city around the world and only very few are doing something of value about it. Here in Edmonton, for example, we are still going to invest billions on wider roads and wider everything that has not worked anywhere else. Our engineers are still banging their heads against the wall on this and have learned next to nothing from even other Canadian cities, as if somehow because we are Albertans it will work for us. In the meantime investment on the LRT is only when there is nothing else to invest the money on. They should be closing lanes and letting buses run on these lanes at higher speeds and more frequently to move people.
I believe the greatest problem is that more and more, influenced by politics, we are trading the advantages of common goods to individual needs. The public standards of living are deteriorating to the benefit of more individual needs. Too bad for all of us is all I can say.

Many cities have "bus priority" lanes and lights in areas where traffic is prone to congestion. During rush-hour, the right hand lane is for buses only (the only exception is when you are using the lane to turn right), and the traffic lights allow them to "go first" when changing.

Maybe Toronto should employ something similar, and start handing out obscene fines for violators. This way the trollies will get through traffic faster, thus encouraging people to use them instead. (which will happen as soon as people see the trollies speeding past them during gridlock).

All these gimmicks are very utopian in theory, but until a subway system that links Metro with all the surrounding regions is built congestion will get worse and worse.

Bus lanes and streetcar right-of-ways only exacerbate an already bad situation, the drivers coming in from the suburbs do not have the option of taking a streetcar, they have to drive as transit is inadequate in these regions.

So all these bus lanes and streetcar right-of-ways just make the situation worse b/c now you have less space for the same amount of cars. This results in more congestion, more pollution, more road rage, more traffic law violations, people cutting through neighbourhoods etc. etc. etc.

Don't believe it, just go to Spadina and see what chaos the right-of-way has caused there. But I guess the downtown condo dwellers are happy cause the streetcar primarily caters to their needs at the expense of the rest of us.

(A bit late for commenting, but anyway.)

Yup it's nuts. But then, I find Toronto as a city is a bit nuts. Too darn big. Too darn crowded. They should carve Toronto up into about 6 or 8 pieces and spread them out around the province.

But people and businesses keep moving there. Which leads to crowding and need for commuting. It's an irritating cycle.

At one point, wasn't the province trying to help this by moving some of it's organizations out of Toronto? My F-I-Law used to work for the Ministry of Agriculture, which was forever planning to relocate to Guelph. Never happened.

Take the CBC for instance... Does it really al need to be there in downtown Toronto? Really? Why doesn't the CBC move out of downtown and instead locate in Peterborough, or Owen Sound, or Orangeville?

Cheaper real estate. Cheaper housing for people. Less commuting distance. Lower cost of living. Less density.