Toronto transit projects

[ijmorlan]

My understanding is that the Mark 3 trains would not fit through the tunnel between Ellesmere and Midland.

...if they buy off-the-shelf MK III vehicles, and don't enlarge the tunnel.

So, you can either:

-Enlarge the tunnel for $100 million.  Whoop-de-do.
-Get Bombardier to make shorter trains.  Spend a bit on some engineering and boom, it's done.  Every train is built from scratch.  Nothing is truly "off the shelf".  Toronto already bought custom streetcars.  Every Streetcar and Subway vehicle they buy is custom because of their stupid non-standard track gauge!

Also, the hope is/was to extend the line to Malvern, and to run an integrated network with LRT lines on Sheppard, Eglinton, and Morningside/Kingston. As such, continuing to maintain one relatively short line as ICTS doesn’t really make sense.

Yes, I get that.  But extending the existing technology using an elevated guideway would have meant no lanes of traffic are disrupted and would have been much safer than at-grade Light Rail.  Not to mention the service speed would be much quicker, operating overhead instead of in traffic.

So what you are saying is that if we did a bunch more work (either fix the tunnel, or get Bombardier to make more-customized cars), we can keep the ICTS system. But what is so great about the ICTS system over an equivalent LRT?

An elevated guideway could be used for LRT if desired, just as a tunnel is being used for a long stretch of the Eglinton LRT. Similarly, LRT can operate with fully automatic control, just like the SRT can (but doesn’t, although that’s another story…). To be honest, I’m not at all clear what benefits ICTS is supposed to have over LRT in any situation — anything ICTS can do, LRT can do just as well, as far as I can tell. But LRT is more flexible — it can easily run at grade or even in mixed traffic if needed. So the only reason I can see to work with ICTS is if one already has a substantial ICTS system. That’s why I consider it reasonable for Vancouver to keep, maintain, and extend its ICTS network. Do you know of anything ICTS can do that LRT cannot?