KCMO Downtown Streetcar

[KCPowercat]

I'd assume some of these problems would have been taken into account before they opened. Hopefully, this is all just some opening bugs to still get worked out. But the streetcar is starting to look like a bit of joke. Wait times, delays, performance... it could be faster, cheaper, and perhaps safer just to drive.

I'll give much more time before I pass judgement though. It's not like Kansas Citians are used to having a streetcar. Take some getting used to. I want this thing to be a success so badly.

Huh? A driver runs a red light and you label the streetcar a bit of a joke?

[AllThingsKC]

No, no, no. I'm taking about the electrical and track problems that caused the streetcar to shut down this week. I thought things like that would have been tested better prior to opening.

The car accident tonight won't be the last one involved with the streetcar. Suburban drivers are everywhere.

[grovester]

The electrical was due to construction not related to the streetcar.

The switch was likely due to weather. Can't make extreme weather appear magically during testing.

[KCPowercat]

No, no, no. I'm taking about the electrical and track problems that caused the streetcar to shut down this week. I thought things like that would have been tested better prior to opening.

The car accident tonight won't be the last one involved with the streetcar. Suburban drivers are everywhere.

It is fine...seriously.

[mistervinix]

It will be reports of crime that will make the biggest impact on suburbanites riding it. I know someone who several years ago said they would never ride the streetcar, as "riding public transportation in KC is a fantastic way to get shot." They were referring to the incidents on buses (driver assaults, etc.).

And I have to wonder, if some heavy rain can throw a switch, how is this going to function in the winter with ice and snow?

Maybe these are typical startup problems. I want to see this extended to UMKC ASAP.

[kboish]

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/ar ... 92617.html

This video shows it is clearly the auto's fault.


Lots of rain yesterday- no track switch problems.

[flyingember]

So is traffic light priority out of the question? As mentioned earlier, traffic priority would have a double benefit - moving more people per hour as well as faster end to end runs. Another streetcar would only add more capacity and still take very long getting end to end.

If my calculations are right, if traffic priority can improve end-end time by about 5 minutes or so, it can move just as many people per hour as adding another car. If improving by more than 5 minutes, could move more people per hour than another car depending on situation.

I would hope there is a CBA being performed to determine which makes more sense - adding another car or adding traffic light priority. From what I can tell, traffic priority should have more serious consideration than another car because of the double benefit. But I don't have all the variables/metrics available to factor.

How long does it take to get end to end during busiest times with high traffic?

with 15-20 minutes end to end and 18 minutes between train a 10% gain on 1.5-2 minutes vs a 4-5 minute gain on next train wait. I would rather have the extra train if it's affordable. a person's total travel time would go down without speeding up actual travel time by reducing wait on the front end

You don't always want signal priority anyways. Why should just the train get priority to cross 12th if there's a row of 2 busses and 5 cars waiting to cross Main? Should we change the setup around the city market so pedestrians crossing the street have to wait on the train?

We don't need signal priority, we need to enable operation red light across all of downtown and control the entire downtown traffic system better.

Many of the issues aren't caused by signal length or lack of priority but because the signal never should have changed regardless of there being a train waiting or not. I sat at a light downtown recently that changed right as I got to it and it took 80% of the time for another car to even get to the intersection for the direction it changed to. Why it changed escapes me.

Things like getting a green and then a red the next block down cause slowdowns. Building in slight real time changing delay through the signals so the next light down can get more cars through could be smart. You want the opposite of priority in that case. There's no point in changing 14th and 13th quickly to have to wait behind cars at 12th. Imagine if the train pulls up to the 14th St stop and the light waits until it can change 12th, 13th and 14th. Instead of going slowly for two blocks more people can get on at 14th and the total time to 12th didn't change.

Think about if sensors detect a backup at 5th/Grand to Delaware and it controls train speed through signal control. More delay at each stop so a few people don't miss that train rather than just sitting halfway between two stops further down. Some people experience a little more delay getting to that point but the system as a whole works better.

remember, it's a traffic system with pedestrians, cars, busses and a train. the entire network has to be taken into account or just changing signals could do nothing to help

[earthling]

Would be good to get real data to calculate because I'm still calculating signal priority is better way to go if only having one choice say due to budget. Yes, it's from perspective of streetcar, not factoring wait for cross traffic. But it doesn't need to have traffic priority down entire stretch for each run, just perhaps enough to shave 5 minutes or so (IE, don't prioritize 12th St or Truman Rd or others during rush hour). If you have 3 cars shaving 5+ minutes, you get more capacity per hour, less wait time between trains and the end-end time is less. If 4 trains w/out priority, you get more capacity per hour, less wait time between trains but still longer end-end runs. And is highly likely long term maintenance on an extra streetcar (heavy machinery with moving parts) is much higher than maintaining signal systems (relatively cheap electronics for most part), which exist anyway just need an upgrade.

How long does it take to get from Union Station to River Market during heaviest rider traffic and car traffic? Seems to be closer to 25 minutes.

Anyway, I would hope an analysis is done for both options and not just make an assumption another car is the best way to go. If both can happen then great.

More sophisticated traffic control would be a great Smart City project. Like check if only a few cars/buses on cross streets waiting, then train gets priority. If a backlog of cars, cross street has priority. Could get very sophisticated like if cross street bus is behind schedule but streetcar isn't, cross street gets priority.

[flyingember]

Cross traffic and turns are the major factor for implementing signal priority. It sounds like you're saying to ignore cross traffic and speed the train through. The problem with this is cross traffic matters because it's where traffic has to go to to get out of the way of the train. If you don't look at cross traffic how do you know if there's enough room on 10th St to hold right turning traffic that would otherwise block the train? That's why the big picture is the only picture to look at.

Regardless,

I'll use your 25 minutes each way. With three trains that's a 16 minute wait for a train over a 50 minute loop.
To add a train to 4 all the time peak that's a train every 12.5 minutes. That's 4.5 minutes gained.

A long light cycle citywide is 100 seconds. So the train gets 45 seconds to get through the light to not run a yellow. The train can cross from station to station in 30-45 seconds without traffic. Logically it will hit the light at red, at green, halfway through red or halfway through green each 25% of the time. So we can change the light 25% of the time it gets there at yellow.
Let's remove cars and assume there's no wait from them anywhere to change startup times.

25 minutes in terms of blocks traveled from 3rd/Grand is 25 blocks. That's 1 minute per block. That seems about right with lights and stops.

4.5 minutes gained is cutting 5.5 seconds off each block. That mean the train needs to get an improvement of 10 seconds per light for every light to have an impact.
Giving the train 30 more seconds per light isn't realistic when the entire cycle isn't more than 45-50. That far away let it turn and wait it out. So let's say it can hold lights for 10 seconds and it does on all of the 25% of the time it could do so.

38 lights * 0.25 * 10 = 95
That's a savings of 95 seconds per round trip. Nowhere near the improvement from buying a train.

Another 95 seconds could be gained by turning it green early.

We're up to 3 minutes. And traffic has to be perfect for that gain.

So tweaking traffic flow will have at the highest amount 50-60% the impact of buying a train.
Vs controlling spacing buying a train, while expensive, will have a much bigger impact.

And it has an impact beyond time in that the system can run another train at peak use when no matter the wait the system will be maxed out.

[earthling]

I would agree that if 5 minutes or more savings cannot be accomplished each direction, then traffic priority may not be worth it. I was making the assumption of at least 5 min gain with a different method. Then was calculating based on how many people moved per hour in a round trip at peak times (meaning mostly fully loaded with 150 people).

The streetcar people and traffic engineers would have the real data though, and what I've been saying is that I would hope they do due diligence with both options rather just assume another train is way to go. Under the possible scenario of 5 or more minutes gain and considering long term maintenance costs of another train vs traffic controllers, it's not something to ignore. And what I'm hearing from some here is they shouldn't even look at it.

Plus, a more advanced traffic control/priority project could make for a kickass Smart City project. Dave said ordering another train could take up to 2 years to deliver.

[phuqueue]

No, no, no. I'm taking about the electrical and track problems that caused the streetcar to shut down this week. I thought things like that would have been tested better prior to opening.

The car accident tonight won't be the last one involved with the streetcar. Suburban drivers are everywhere.

Run all the tests you want, you'll never account for everything and there will always be problems once it goes into service. For the cost of like six streetcars NYC extended the 7 train a single stop (it was originally supposed to be two stops but one was scrapped over an additional cost of about two and a half streetcars), which opened a couple years behind schedule and was immediately beset by signal problems, leaking and water damage, broken escalators, flooded bathrooms, and oh yeah it's actually still not finished yet so it's not completely open. Haven't ridden the streetcar yet but by comparison I'd call it a runaway success.

[pash]

.

[TheBigChuckbowski]

This conversation is odd to me because it's ignoring a few things. 1. We can buy a new vehicle AND have signal priority. 2. Even if it is one or the other (which it's not), the financials are being completely ignored. A new streetcar would be $4 million. Signal priority is already paid for and installed and would be essentially free at this point.

[chingon]

It is fine...seriously.

Oracle of the Half-Full Glass says:

It's probably, from a expansion-minded political stand point, better that these inevitable problems, i.e., mechanical F/U, car wreck, weather related shut-down happen sooner rather than later. Much like ridership, there is an element of these stories that is newsworthy for the novelty alone. Getting them out of our system now, as opposed to like, 2 weeks before the expansion election, is ultimately good. Swallow a little shit, people. It ain't perfect. Let them have their day in the sun of minor mishaps. In a couple of months we'll be talking about new developments cropping up, hopefully some jobs, and unexpectedly high ridership. Then these hiccups will seem like exactly what they are.

[earthling]

Good points. Would like to see traffic engineers do the analysis than just assume another car is only choice.

BTW at Tom's Town now, pinky blitz drink is yum.

[pash]

.

[earthling]

I've been positioning it as if an either or, which one to do next. If both can be funded soon then moot discussion. Is signal priority free? Dave is mysteriously quiet on topic.

Back to my gimlet, though not as good as pinky blitz.

[flyingember]

I have a question about another aspect of buying a fifth streetcar: if we have another vehicle around, would it be possible to construct, test, and then open an expansion of the line to the Plaza from north to south in stages? That is, could construction proceed block by block from north to south, with testing of the northern blocks starting as soon as they're complete, with the spare vehicles we already have?

If so, having another vehicle around could mean that the expanded line could open in stages, with the northernmost segments opening perhaps months before the whole line would otherwise be completed and tested using vehicles ordered at the time expansion gets the go ahead (and delivered God-knows-when). ...

It looks like Portland's first expansion was 0.6 miles long.

Could work on gaining smaller grants every couple of years and build in stages. Could add a mile rather rather quickly this way by not needing a large funding source all at once.

My favorite idea is still take the increased taxes and use this to fund a segment up to 27th St in the next year or two. Dedicated track using tie/ballast would make doing an X-style universal crossover much cheaper than the same in street. Get a small one stop expansion done and take that off the list.

[shinatoo]

It was packed today. Nobody's going to ride this thing, it's too crowded.

[shinatoo]

So the unexpected thing for me was how much more narrow the street car is than the light rail systems Iv'e ridden in other cities. I guess I assumed that since it was the same gauge as traditional rail it would be the same width as, say, the light rail in St. Louis. Seams like a pretty ignorant assumption now that I think about it.

Am I wrong? Is it narrower? Are the rails the same gauge as a light rail track?

No way it would be suitable for commuter rail. I don't even know that a person with less than normal fitness could stand-up all the way from the Plaza to River market.

That said, i'm thrilled it's been so popular. But I am a bit concerned that some people will write it off since they couldn't get on it. I told several people that were frustrated by waiting, about the Main Street Max. They seamed unaware that there are alternatives. Maybe some informative signage to that effect might help?