CBD & South East Light Rail

[burrumbus]

My definition of load and go is tram arrives,Pax load onto feeder buses and buses leave immediately.

[Swift]

I think expansion south will start in earnest once everyone sees how well (not!!) changing modes will work.

[burrumbus]

I hope you are wrong on changing modes, Swift,but TFNSW/STA are not progressive organizations.If it is done well it will provide a vast improvement to the current bus network.If done poorly it will just drive people into their cars and produce vastly more congestion.And as you say the calls for expansion south of the trams will skyrocket.Reducing the end to end journey times by bus and tram is the key.

[Linto63]

Of course the most sensible solution would have been to extend the Eastern Suburbs Railway from Bondi Junction. No longer an option though with some shortsightedness seeing the reserved corridor to Randwick flogged off, IIRC by the Carr government.

[Frosty]

We all now that the bus & LR transfers will be hopeless particularly at the Kingsford end. But hopefully they don't stuff the Randwick end where it's simply a short shuttle to Coogee & slightly longer trip down to Maroubra Beach. On a recent trip to the Gold Coast they do quite well.

If they wanted to work as well they could redo significant parts of the Eastern Subs network. Like routes that will terminate at Kensington they could replace the 303 peak hour short workings from Zetland to the City. Maybe have more east-west routes.

[tonyp]

Just to disrupt the prevailing narrative that traffic priorities are the cause of poor run times:

I don't think anybody has ever said that they're likely to be the only cause. Lethargic running is the over-riding problem in new tram systems in NSW - exemplified by micromanaged speed limits as you illustrate.

[tonyp]

We all now that the bus & LR transfers will be hopeless particularly at the Kingsford end. But hopefully they don't stuff the Randwick end where it's simply a short shuttle to Coogee & slightly longer trip down to Maroubra Beach. On a recent trip to the Gold Coast they do quite well.

When I say that the journey time should be less than 25 minutes, that observation is based on, not only what a tram in other non-NSW systems will achieve over that distance, but also on a major justification for the line being that it will offer better value than the bus system. The bottom line there is that, should you just miss a tram at the outer terminus and have to wait 8 minutes for the next one, then the overall journey time to the city should still be less (including that 8 minute wait) than if you'd stayed on a bus for the whole journey.

Edit: reduced journey time is a KPI apparently:

https://www.domain.com.au/news/driving- ... -autopromo

[Swift]

Big deal. you would expect that reaction, and I bet property prices will correct themselves within two weeks of the line opening. It will be a glorifed travelator.

[Passenger 57]

What sort of service frequencies could be offered on the ES side of line if the line was partitioned at Central? Add loop terminii if desired. Where are you measuring journey times to tony? How does the tram look if only the times up to Central and Bathurst St are compared?

[boronia]

There would be a big time loss just getting from Chalmers St into George St, esp if there is no priority.

[Frosty]

There would be significant time loss at many intersections if there's no priority thinking of Anzac Pde Nineways, Allison Rd, South Dowling St, Cleveland St/Lang Rd & through the City. If this doesn't work I bet people will lobby to have to run parallel along Anzac Parade along the current route into the City.

[Swift]

The shared zone along George plaza will be the pits. Old ladies with quads will round up the LR trains!

[lunchbox]

Interesting off-centre track drain, Eddy Avenue....

[boronia]

New road deviation from Anzac Pde left into Alison Rd came into use over the weekend.

[Ikarbus]

New road deviation from Anzac Pde left into Alison Rd came into use over the weekend.

This to allow construction of track through the Anzac/Alison intersection. It will be done in multiple stages, this is one of the most difficult intersections to get through.

Also, first LRV movement slated for the evening of 22nd Feb out of RSY.

[tonyp]

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/longer-trips- ... fyKtjXEvwA

Longer trips for light rail passengers without green-light priority

Matt O'Sullivan

Trams on Sydney’s new $2.1 billion light rail line will need greater priority over motorists at traffic lights in the inner city if passengers are to avoid longer delays to their trips, an internal report shows.

The confidential report commissioned by Transport for NSW estimates passengers will spend between seven and nine minutes waiting on the 67-metre trams at red lights along the line between the CBD and the city's south-east during the morning and evening peaks.

"The traffic signal delay results indicate that the locations of highest delays are reasonably consistent for both the AM and PM peak periods with the majority of delays encountered by light rail occurring in the southern CBD and Surry Hills," the report said.

The time that trams spend waiting at intersections for red lights to change will be one of the major causes of delays to trips.

The report by GTA Consultants in late 2016 – obtained under Freedom of Information laws by a community group – identified intersections such as Devonshire and Crown streets in Surry Hills, Devonshire and Chalmers streets near Central Station, and Alison and Darley roads at Randwick as places where delays will occur.

It said the results highlighted the need for further refinements to signals along the rail line to reduce delays, and target intersections such as Devonshire-Chalmers streets.

Planning documents estimate end-to-end journeys between Circular Quay and the city's south-east will take 34 to 38 minutes, which Transport for NSW still considers "indicative".

The trip times will have implications for the number of passengers that can be carried each day along the line, and how many extra trams can be added over the coming years to meet growing demand from people travelling to and from destinations such as the University of NSW's campus at Kensington.

The time estimates in the report are based on the duration of red lights and do not take account of additional delays caused by trams reducing speed as they approach intersections.

Construction of the new 12-kilometre line from the CBD to Randwick and Kensington has been dogged by repeated delays and cost blowouts, and forced the closure or relocation of some small businesses along the route.

The consultants' report on the line estimated the longest signal delays – more than nine minutes – for trams travelling from Kingsford to the CBD during the morning and evening peaks. The delays at traffic lights to and from Randwick were about eight minutes.

Action for Public Transport secretary Jim Donovan said tram trips would be slower and less comfortable for passengers unless planning started now to ensure priority was granted to light rail.

"The new CBD and south-east light rail is being promoted as 'reliable' but it won't be reliable without signal priority, and it certainly won't be attractive compared to existing bus travel times," he said.

"Transport for NSW should announce what priority, if any, will apply to the new trams at traffic signals."

Transport for NSW said detailed designs for intersections, and plans for traffic signals and speed zones were still being finalised.

"We need to balance the needs of the new light rail with existing road users, and ongoing traffic modelling will ensure that we get that balance right, taking into consideration the current network demands," the lead transport agency said. "The report released is based on a model developed in 2013, as such it does not reflect the current network and traffic volume."

The slowest stretch for trams on the existing 12.8-km inner west light rail line is between Central Station and Darling Drive in the CBD's south because of the need to pass multiple sets of lights such as those at the intersection of George and Hay streets.

While offering faster trips for light rail passengers, prioritising trams at intersections would likely result in longer travel times for motorists passing through intersections.

The GTA Consultants' report said road traffic in the CBD ‘‘appears to operate satisfactorily’’ during the morning peak but the evening peak was the critical period ‘‘where managing congestion would be a greater challenge’’.

Problem areas during the evening peak are the intersections of Cleveland and Elizabeth streets, Eddy Avenue and Elizabeth and Foveaux streets.

Based on typical equivalent precendents around the world (including Gold Coast), the journey end to end down either branch should take no more than 25 minutes. They have to stare down RMS on this.

[Fleet Lists]

And from the Daily Terror

[moa999]

I'd think the biggest issue in the CBD is the number of intersections still to go

[Frosty]

Having went for a walk along George St I’m surprised how little progress is made. Good luck if they expect the Light Rail to open before March election next year. There are still some intersections out of the CBD that need to be done like South Dowling St. Maybe they might just open in stages like Randwick & Kingsford to Central then Central to Circular Quay.

[boronia]

New road deviation from Anzac Pde left into Alison Rd came into use over the weekend.

This to allow construction of track through the Anzac/Alison intersection. It will be done in multiple stages, this is one of the most difficult intersections to get through.

Also, first LRV movement slated for the evening of 22nd Feb out of RSY.

Judging by the current condition of the tacks from the depot, across Alison Rd and onto the main line, it seems highly unlikely that trams will get across there tomorrow.

[Swift]

The only work I actually see these so called workers doing is telling people in their cars what to do in the wee hours.
I never actually see any substantial work being carried out whenever I have been past the LR worksite.
This seems to be the benchmark for inefficiency, the likes of which we haven't seen since the halcyon days odd the BLF. This whole extravagance is scandalous and will be over popular once it ever opens, just as with GCLR and IWLR, without scope to increase capacity. Absolutely scandalous, but normal in NSW, the centre if excellence of mediocrity the world looks to.

[Transtopic]

They might do what Neville Wran did when he rushed out the XPT on a whirlwind State tour before the election (I can't remember the year) even though they didn't even have a complete trainset at the time. The Labor Government also pushed for a new section of the F3 Sydney to Newcastle Freeway bypassing Wyong to be completed earlier than planned before the then election which subsequently required expensive remedial work for years later because of major cracking in the concrete pavement.

[grog]

I don’t see that there is an incentive to get it running before the election. If most of the work is done and the streets look tidier, but the service hasn’t started it means that they won’t have had to deal with a controversial bus network redesign yet. The traffic levels also seem to be fine at the moment so completing it won’t make things worse.

Best case politically is probably having the CBD finished and all nice and shiny without the disruption of running.

[Swift]

Grog is onto something. I think they are indeed better off leaving people anticipating this wonderful upcoming light rail than exposing them to what $2 billion or trillion had landed them with!!
In the end, it will amount to a reprieve at best because they will see the results eventually and their next election chances will be jeopardized by three different transport modes that are a mess.

[tonyp]

I think there would be a good chance of having the Randwick/Kingsford to Chalmers St (where they can reverse) section operational in time. This is where it performs its major role. There are other ways of getting up the CBD at present.

The whole project has been cringeworthy. I've had trouble seeing through my permanent facepalm for the past five years or more. I wonder if Guinness Book of Records has a section for the most bumbling transit agency in the world? What did we do to deserve it?