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Toronto's streetcars are not an LRT system plain and simple. This is an article about light rail. It has been removed. 64.229.247.225 ( talk) 01:09, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
"Light Rail is a mode of transit service (also called streetcar, tramway, or trolley) operating passenger rail cars singly (or in short, usually two-car or three-car, trains) on fixed rails in right-of-way that is often separated from other traffic for part or much of the way..."Note the "(also called streetcar, tramway, or trolley)" part. This definition clearly includes "streetcar" systems including Toronto's. And, indeed, Toronto is included in APTA's Ridership rankings for light rail systems, which is why it is included here. In other words, sources support the inclusion of Toronto here.
Toronto's system is a streetcar. It does not have stations, it does not have the speed/capacity of an LRT, it is the exact definition of a streetcar, it is a bus on rails. In no way should it be included in a list of LRT's. Toronto's new Eglington line is an LRT and should be included once complete. 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 02:58, 17 May 2017 (UTC) I would also suggest that it is being included as more of a boast or bragging right. Toronto and Torontonians are the worlds most insecure and it's visible throughout Toronto related articles. "We're the best, the most". It's become an epidemic and it's really sad. Again I'm suggesting that the inclusion of a non-LRT system is simple self-promotion. 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 03:06, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
It has been almost one month with no reply to several reputable references provided disproving the streetcar theory. Can I assume that your wacky theory of inclusion has successfully been disproven and the content you added can be reverted? 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 04:53, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
The APTA definition is clearly a "broad" definition inasmuch as it treats streetcar as a synonym for light rail and admits no separate definition. 64.229.245.159; your mode of engagement on this talk page is unhelpful and disruptive. No one disagrees that you can define "streetcar" differently from "light rail." What everyone's saying is that the APTA doesn't make that distinction, and that the APTA definition is in use here. The discussion that needs to be had, perhaps after a suitable interval, is whether there's a better approach to defining light rail. Mackensen (talk) 00:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Toronto's streetcar system is basically a heritage streetcar system which has been upgraded by using modern rail vehicles. This is evidenced by its nonstandard track gauge, which is slightly wider than normal to allow horse-drawn carts to be pulled along on the inside flanges of the rails, thereby avoiding having to plow through the mud on 19th century Toronto's dirt streets. Toronto paved its streets long ago, and horse-drawn carts haven't used the streetcar tracks for over 100 years, but the nonstandard track gauge still remains. If they pay enough money they can buy modern LRV's modified to run on their nonstandard tracks, but the smart thing would have been to re-gauge the tracks to standard gauge a century ago. If they had done it then, and widened the turn radiuses as well, they could have saved themselves a lot of money. Instead, when they built the Toronto subway system, they used the same non-standard gauge because they thought they might run their nonstandard streetcars on the subway tracks. Of course, they never did. It's just all bad planning, refusing to change when the world changes. They can't adapted themselves to the modern LRT concept, which is to run longer trains at higher speeds, on elevated tracks or in tunnels when necessary, but mostly at grade in a separate ROW, and only use them in streetcar mode in the downtown core when appropriate. LRV's can be used in a wide variety of modes, but Toronto is stuck with streetcar mode on its system. I think it's really just a streetcar system updated with modern LRT technology, kind of like putting lipstick on a pig. RockyMtnGuy ( talk) 18:28, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Please read this APTA document which talks about the differences between streetcars and light rail transit. 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 12:15, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Because of the inherent flexibility of the light rail/streetcar mode, it is possible to operate over extremely demanding alignments in terms of curvature and gradient. However, minimizing the use of such extremes brings numerous benefits in terms of passenger comfort, higher operating speeds, lower operating costs and the ability to purchase “standard” vehicles from multiple suppliers.
I see this has been discussed before. Reading through these comments I can see that some links to articles explaining the difference between light rail and streetcars were provided and were either overlooked or ignored. Saboteurest ( talk) 15:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
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This article is trash and plagued with inconsistencies and factual errors. It needs a major overhaul or rewrite. Much of the info belongs in the Tram article. Saboteurest ( talk) 20:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Many editors feel that streetcars/trams should be included in this article despite being different systems. Therefor this article should be merged with Streetcars in North America if they are in fact the same as is being claimed. The alternative being taking the streetcar/tram information from this article and moving it to the Streetcars in North America article. Saboteurest ( talk) 21:15, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
If IPs or newly registered users suddenly appear to make edits to the article or talk page similar to those of Saboteurest, please consider listing the IPs or users at User:UrbanNerd. Speaking of IPs, 64.229.247.225 and 64.229.245.159 both sure quack.
Also strange to note that Saboteurest cautions about vote-counting then votes in favour own proposal. Hwy43 ( talk) 04:12, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Although technically they could better be described as suburban/commuter service operated on main railway with lightweight, FRA non-compliant DMU trains, some systems (
Ottawa O-Train,
Oceanside Sprinter and
NJ River Line) have been listed for ages under the “diesel light rail” label basically because - I'm freely resuming - APTA said so. However, this is no longer completely true: we should better say because APTA's ridership reports said so, since in other APTA sources - e.g. its other main statistics publication, the annual Fact Book - they are classified Hybrid Rail (YR), a transit mode which definition is ... a mode of transit operated on the routes of intercity railroads and has operating characteristics of commuter rail. This service typically operates diesel multiple-unit vehicles with characteristics of light rail vehicles. Hybrid rail vehicles are operated with temporal separation from railroad traffic.
[1] and which is aggregated along with Commuter Rail (CR) - and Alaska Railroad (AR) - in the Regional Rail group; conversely, Light Rail (LR) and Streetcar Rail (SR) modes sit in the Surface Rail group.
It's clearly explained by APTA itself, in their 2015 Fact Book Appendix A: Beginning in 2011 the NTD allowed differentiated reporting of three categories of bus service: "bus" (which is all bus service that is not commuter bus or bus rapid transit), "commuter bus," and "bus rapid transit." The NTD also allowed the differentiation of commuter rail as two modes: "commuter rail" and "hybrid rail". The Fact Book continues a summary value for these two modes beginning in 2011 called "regional railroad." A third new requirement allowed the differentiation of light rail as two modes: "light rail" and "streetcar." The Fact Book continues a summary value for these two modes called "surface rail." A further complication, that some systems now reported as hybrid hail were previously reported commuter rail and others now reported as hybrid rail were reported as light rail, is not adjusted for in previous years' Fact Book data. All three of these modal differentiations were voluntary for 2011 and 2012 NTD reporting but are required beginning with reporting of 2013 NTD data.
[2]
Between 2011 and 2013, FTA's National Transit Database changed the classification of transit modes, and APTA, which uses NTD data and mirrors its taxonomy, followed but, for some unclear reason, didn't conformed the ridership reports to this new classification, still putting the aforementioned systems among LRTs in these reports. The reason, however, it's probably the same why they put also some streetcars system (opened before 2011) among LRTs, whereas systems opened after 2013 that FTA and other APTA publications do/would classify either as streetcars (Tucson, Cincinnati, Kansas City, etc.) or hybrid rail (
eBART) aren't even included.
[3] It's noteworthy that the previous collocation among light rail (Ottawa O-Train and Oceanside Sprinter) or commuter rail (
Austin Capital MetroRail and
Denton A-Train) of systems now sorted as hybrid rail - in absence of both a specific transit mode and a mandatory policy from NDT - was up to the operators/authorities' own will.
All this given, I see the case for removing these systems from this list and from other related wiki articles and templates, adding or emending a specific paragraph or note which explain this classification issues, and for editing each system's articles accordingly (specifically, I'd replace the “type” in infoboxes with commuter rail (hybrid rail). The only exception should be NJ River Rail that, due to its full-tramway operations in Camden, can be seen as a the only US tram-train (properly, a train-tram, more akin to the “ Zwickau model” than to the “ Karlsruhe model”). [4] Yak79 2.0 ( talk) 22:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
References
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Light rail in North America article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives:
Index,
1,
2Auto-archiving period: 365 days
![]() |
![]() | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | Politics of light rail in North America was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 16 June 2015 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Light rail in North America. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here. |
Index
|
||
This page has archives. Sections older than 365 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present. |
![]() | This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
Toronto's streetcars are not an LRT system plain and simple. This is an article about light rail. It has been removed. 64.229.247.225 ( talk) 01:09, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
"Light Rail is a mode of transit service (also called streetcar, tramway, or trolley) operating passenger rail cars singly (or in short, usually two-car or three-car, trains) on fixed rails in right-of-way that is often separated from other traffic for part or much of the way..."Note the "(also called streetcar, tramway, or trolley)" part. This definition clearly includes "streetcar" systems including Toronto's. And, indeed, Toronto is included in APTA's Ridership rankings for light rail systems, which is why it is included here. In other words, sources support the inclusion of Toronto here.
Toronto's system is a streetcar. It does not have stations, it does not have the speed/capacity of an LRT, it is the exact definition of a streetcar, it is a bus on rails. In no way should it be included in a list of LRT's. Toronto's new Eglington line is an LRT and should be included once complete. 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 02:58, 17 May 2017 (UTC) I would also suggest that it is being included as more of a boast or bragging right. Toronto and Torontonians are the worlds most insecure and it's visible throughout Toronto related articles. "We're the best, the most". It's become an epidemic and it's really sad. Again I'm suggesting that the inclusion of a non-LRT system is simple self-promotion. 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 03:06, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
It has been almost one month with no reply to several reputable references provided disproving the streetcar theory. Can I assume that your wacky theory of inclusion has successfully been disproven and the content you added can be reverted? 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 04:53, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
The APTA definition is clearly a "broad" definition inasmuch as it treats streetcar as a synonym for light rail and admits no separate definition. 64.229.245.159; your mode of engagement on this talk page is unhelpful and disruptive. No one disagrees that you can define "streetcar" differently from "light rail." What everyone's saying is that the APTA doesn't make that distinction, and that the APTA definition is in use here. The discussion that needs to be had, perhaps after a suitable interval, is whether there's a better approach to defining light rail. Mackensen (talk) 00:42, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Toronto's streetcar system is basically a heritage streetcar system which has been upgraded by using modern rail vehicles. This is evidenced by its nonstandard track gauge, which is slightly wider than normal to allow horse-drawn carts to be pulled along on the inside flanges of the rails, thereby avoiding having to plow through the mud on 19th century Toronto's dirt streets. Toronto paved its streets long ago, and horse-drawn carts haven't used the streetcar tracks for over 100 years, but the nonstandard track gauge still remains. If they pay enough money they can buy modern LRV's modified to run on their nonstandard tracks, but the smart thing would have been to re-gauge the tracks to standard gauge a century ago. If they had done it then, and widened the turn radiuses as well, they could have saved themselves a lot of money. Instead, when they built the Toronto subway system, they used the same non-standard gauge because they thought they might run their nonstandard streetcars on the subway tracks. Of course, they never did. It's just all bad planning, refusing to change when the world changes. They can't adapted themselves to the modern LRT concept, which is to run longer trains at higher speeds, on elevated tracks or in tunnels when necessary, but mostly at grade in a separate ROW, and only use them in streetcar mode in the downtown core when appropriate. LRV's can be used in a wide variety of modes, but Toronto is stuck with streetcar mode on its system. I think it's really just a streetcar system updated with modern LRT technology, kind of like putting lipstick on a pig. RockyMtnGuy ( talk) 18:28, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Please read this APTA document which talks about the differences between streetcars and light rail transit. 64.229.245.159 ( talk) 12:15, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Because of the inherent flexibility of the light rail/streetcar mode, it is possible to operate over extremely demanding alignments in terms of curvature and gradient. However, minimizing the use of such extremes brings numerous benefits in terms of passenger comfort, higher operating speeds, lower operating costs and the ability to purchase “standard” vehicles from multiple suppliers.
I see this has been discussed before. Reading through these comments I can see that some links to articles explaining the difference between light rail and streetcars were provided and were either overlooked or ignored. Saboteurest ( talk) 15:28, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 14 external links on Light rail in North America. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 04:29, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
This article is trash and plagued with inconsistencies and factual errors. It needs a major overhaul or rewrite. Much of the info belongs in the Tram article. Saboteurest ( talk) 20:13, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
Many editors feel that streetcars/trams should be included in this article despite being different systems. Therefor this article should be merged with Streetcars in North America if they are in fact the same as is being claimed. The alternative being taking the streetcar/tram information from this article and moving it to the Streetcars in North America article. Saboteurest ( talk) 21:15, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
If IPs or newly registered users suddenly appear to make edits to the article or talk page similar to those of Saboteurest, please consider listing the IPs or users at User:UrbanNerd. Speaking of IPs, 64.229.247.225 and 64.229.245.159 both sure quack.
Also strange to note that Saboteurest cautions about vote-counting then votes in favour own proposal. Hwy43 ( talk) 04:12, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Although technically they could better be described as suburban/commuter service operated on main railway with lightweight, FRA non-compliant DMU trains, some systems (
Ottawa O-Train,
Oceanside Sprinter and
NJ River Line) have been listed for ages under the “diesel light rail” label basically because - I'm freely resuming - APTA said so. However, this is no longer completely true: we should better say because APTA's ridership reports said so, since in other APTA sources - e.g. its other main statistics publication, the annual Fact Book - they are classified Hybrid Rail (YR), a transit mode which definition is ... a mode of transit operated on the routes of intercity railroads and has operating characteristics of commuter rail. This service typically operates diesel multiple-unit vehicles with characteristics of light rail vehicles. Hybrid rail vehicles are operated with temporal separation from railroad traffic.
[1] and which is aggregated along with Commuter Rail (CR) - and Alaska Railroad (AR) - in the Regional Rail group; conversely, Light Rail (LR) and Streetcar Rail (SR) modes sit in the Surface Rail group.
It's clearly explained by APTA itself, in their 2015 Fact Book Appendix A: Beginning in 2011 the NTD allowed differentiated reporting of three categories of bus service: "bus" (which is all bus service that is not commuter bus or bus rapid transit), "commuter bus," and "bus rapid transit." The NTD also allowed the differentiation of commuter rail as two modes: "commuter rail" and "hybrid rail". The Fact Book continues a summary value for these two modes beginning in 2011 called "regional railroad." A third new requirement allowed the differentiation of light rail as two modes: "light rail" and "streetcar." The Fact Book continues a summary value for these two modes called "surface rail." A further complication, that some systems now reported as hybrid hail were previously reported commuter rail and others now reported as hybrid rail were reported as light rail, is not adjusted for in previous years' Fact Book data. All three of these modal differentiations were voluntary for 2011 and 2012 NTD reporting but are required beginning with reporting of 2013 NTD data.
[2]
Between 2011 and 2013, FTA's National Transit Database changed the classification of transit modes, and APTA, which uses NTD data and mirrors its taxonomy, followed but, for some unclear reason, didn't conformed the ridership reports to this new classification, still putting the aforementioned systems among LRTs in these reports. The reason, however, it's probably the same why they put also some streetcars system (opened before 2011) among LRTs, whereas systems opened after 2013 that FTA and other APTA publications do/would classify either as streetcars (Tucson, Cincinnati, Kansas City, etc.) or hybrid rail (
eBART) aren't even included.
[3] It's noteworthy that the previous collocation among light rail (Ottawa O-Train and Oceanside Sprinter) or commuter rail (
Austin Capital MetroRail and
Denton A-Train) of systems now sorted as hybrid rail - in absence of both a specific transit mode and a mandatory policy from NDT - was up to the operators/authorities' own will.
All this given, I see the case for removing these systems from this list and from other related wiki articles and templates, adding or emending a specific paragraph or note which explain this classification issues, and for editing each system's articles accordingly (specifically, I'd replace the “type” in infoboxes with commuter rail (hybrid rail). The only exception should be NJ River Rail that, due to its full-tramway operations in Camden, can be seen as a the only US tram-train (properly, a train-tram, more akin to the “ Zwickau model” than to the “ Karlsruhe model”). [4] Yak79 2.0 ( talk) 22:15, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
References