The Spadina streetcar is one of the biggest opportunities for better transit in North America. Here's how we can make it much faster and more frequent.
What are your thoughts on transit signal priority and its value to the Spadina car? I didn't see it mentioned in your article, and it's something that could be turned on right away without capital cost if there was only the political will.
Signal priority would be helpful, but its also less of a panacea than I think it sometimes gets sold as. Theres also the issue of optimizing the interaction with all of the east west routes.
Why not improve boarding and alighting on the FlySpadina (and all streetcars in general) by removing the need to to tap your Presto card when boarding completely - instead passengers tapping on a reader at the actual stations themselves before they board?
I mentioned that in the post. It would work on Spadina but, Toronto has hundreds of streetcar stops and I think even removing the overly tightly spaced ones it doesn't make sense to place readers at all.
Slightly off-topic, but related... I've always thought that if Line 1 were being built now, the downtown stations would all be built with grade separations to take the crosstown streetcars right into their respective stations (similar to St. Clair W) before continuing their routes.
What are your thoughts on transit signal priority and its value to the Spadina car? I didn't see it mentioned in your article, and it's something that could be turned on right away without capital cost if there was only the political will.
Signal priority would be helpful, but its also less of a panacea than I think it sometimes gets sold as. Theres also the issue of optimizing the interaction with all of the east west routes.
Why not improve boarding and alighting on the FlySpadina (and all streetcars in general) by removing the need to to tap your Presto card when boarding completely - instead passengers tapping on a reader at the actual stations themselves before they board?
I mentioned that in the post. It would work on Spadina but, Toronto has hundreds of streetcar stops and I think even removing the overly tightly spaced ones it doesn't make sense to place readers at all.
Slightly off-topic, but related... I've always thought that if Line 1 were being built now, the downtown stations would all be built with grade separations to take the crosstown streetcars right into their respective stations (similar to St. Clair W) before continuing their routes.
I've definitely thought about this, I think it would be similar in some ways - but without the loops!
Yes construct a tunnel for both the Train and Bikes