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Grand River Transit
(01-23-2017, 10:16 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: It is kind of ironic that the northbound 7 through uptown has to stop at the freight tracks and look both ways to make sure the one 10kph freight train on that line isn't coming at some other time than 3am, but in order to do so has to stop with its back end sitting on the Ion tracks which will come every few minutes, 18 hours a day, at a much higher speed and it doesn't even stop and look both ways at the Ion tracks.

I find it odd that the #21 to Elmira stops at the same spur line three times, including on the road just outside of Elmira which is a fairly busy road. Given that the view down the tracks is unobstructed in both directions for a couple of km's to the northeast and several km's to the southwest, I am of the mind that stopping a vehicle that has no restraints for the passengers on a busy road with traffic moving 60-80+ km's an hour creates a more likely possibility for a dangerous situation than is the likelihood of a collision with a train that runs (almost walks given it's slow speed) on those tracks twice a day.

And before anyone goes off about rail safety, I understand the merits and logic of the law, but that doesn't mean that logic applies equally in every situation. In this case, I think it's silly.
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Quote:And before anyone goes off about rail safety,

I made the mistake of advocating reasonableness and contextual awareness about rail safety on Twitter once. There are randoms who are very passionate out there.
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(01-24-2017, 09:03 AM)Markster Wrote:
Quote:And before anyone goes off about rail safety,

I made the mistake of advocating reasonableness and contextual awareness about rail safety on Twitter once. There are randoms who are very passionate out there.

You made the mistake of advocating a subtle point on Twitter.  Enough said.
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(01-23-2017, 10:24 PM)Markster Wrote: My hope is that when they get the crossing arms and signals activated, GRT will work out an arrangement where GRT buses will no longer have to stop at designated railway crossings.  Buses don't have to stop at some railway crossings in Ottawa, for instance.

Are there plans to put crossing arms and signals on King Street uptown? Or are you just talking about the more general situation?
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(01-24-2017, 12:34 PM)timc Wrote: Are there plans to put crossing arms and signals on King Street uptown? Or are you just talking about the more general situation?

More general.
But you make a good point. It seems plausible that we could get crossing arms for the King St crossing of the freight line. We'll get signals for sure.
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MTO law is that all buses (school, transit) must do a door open stop at all unguarded tracks (unguarded means no lights and arms just crossbucks like in uptown). Transit buses don't have to stop at guarded tracks (lights and or arms). GRTs policy is we stop at all live tracks. I was told we have this policy cause we were doing school runs years ago. We no long do as many school runs anymore but we still do a few of them. I asked the safety supervisor if this will continue after the LRT goes live and he said that has not yet been decided. But likely we will stopping at least because of the few school runs we still do.
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(01-25-2017, 02:45 PM)Rick O Wrote: MTO law is that all buses (school, transit) must do a door open stop at all unguarded tracks (unguarded means no lights and arms just crossbucks like in uptown).  Transit buses don't have to stop at guarded tracks (lights and or arms).  GRTs policy is we stop at all live tracks. I was told we have this policy cause we were doing school runs years ago.   We no long do as many school runs anymore but we still do a few of them.  I asked the safety supervisor if this will continue after the LRT goes live and he said that has not yet been decided.  But likely we will stopping at least because of the few school runs we still do.

So what about intersections where the LRT tracks go from the right side of the road into the centre (ie. NB King @ Allen).  On a green light, will the bus still need to stop at the track?  Similar crossings (Charles/Benton, King St @ Rail line/Alleyway, Courtland/Borden) will have similar issues.... seems to be a bigger safety risk to arbitrarily stop mid intersection to stop at tracks that in actuality may have an LRT stopped by the lights....

Coke
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Does LRT fall under the same rules? An LRT crossing is not a railway crossing per se. So I think a bus driver would stop at a spur line crossing, but not a plain LRT crossing.
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What happens if a bus in Toronto drives on the streetcar tracks? Does it just get stuck forever? Big Grin
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I guess it will depend on whether or not lights will count as a guarded or unguarded. The interpretation of the law will likely be given to us soon and what our actions will be. At least I hope so. On I will be regarding them all as unguarded till I hear different from the people who decide these things. (my boss)
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There's been another small change to the automated announcements - when coming into the terminus of a route, it's not announced as 'next stop' anymore. Instead, it's 'welcome to' - as in, 'welcome to Charles Street Terminal', 'welcome to The Boardwalk', 'welcome to Forest Glen Terminal'.
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...and sometimes the 'next stop' gets dropped for regular stops too and just announces the intersection 'Frederick at King' (but this seems a bit random to me as it doesn't drop it all the time).
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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(02-05-2017, 11:10 AM)Pheidippides Wrote: ...and sometimes the 'next stop' gets dropped for regular stops too and just announces the intersection 'Frederick at King' (but this seems a bit random to me as it doesn't drop it all the time).

I hear "Water King" (or is it "next stop: Water King"?) for the Water at King stop on the 20. Maybe I should tweet it at @GRT_ROW
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Trying to determine the best stop to get from Victoria and Margaret to Weber and Lincoln tomorrow afternoon.
Obviously the #8 is the one to use, but when I plug the data into GRT Trip Planner, it says to cross over Victoria to stop 2690 on Margaret. Thing is, the #8 route map shows that stop to be #2655. But... when I put that stop # into the Easy GO app, it doesn't find that stop. Nor does it show stop #2656 on Margaret between Victoria and Breithaupt. So according to the combined app and site, I need to either walk down Margaret to Queen, or up Margaret past Wellington.

Confused and mildly vexed.
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(02-06-2017, 10:35 PM)Elmira Guy Wrote: Trying to determine the best stop to get from Victoria and Margaret to Weber and Lincoln tomorrow afternoon.
Obviously the #8 is the one to use, but when I plug the data into GRT Trip Planner, it says to cross over Victoria to stop 2690 on Margaret. Thing is, the #8 route map shows that stop to be #2655. But... when I put that stop # into the Easy GO app, it doesn't find that stop. Nor does it show stop #2656 on Margaret between Victoria and Breithaupt. So according to the combined app and site, I need to either walk down Margaret to Queen, or up Margaret past Wellington.

Confused and mildly vexed.

2690 is the correct stop: on Margaret on the Queen Side of Victoria. It is set further back from the intersection then you would expect.

The other stop is probably left over from the last detour when the 8 was stopping in front of Mei King.
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