PAT route changes in March (Philadelphia, Pittsburgh: construction, cost, authority)

[Blackbeauty212]

First I'm NO DUDE ok - Thanks

What evidence...you showed a heavy rail train make a semi curve on dedicated Rail at 40 MPH....You shown no proof....We're talking about Light rail on a tighter curve sharing roadbed with buses at High Speeds (50+ MPH) not the same thing

I'm sorry I meant Millvale street bridge that runs from West Penn over toward Baum. there's a curve on the busway right underneath there.

there must be 2 East Busway's then....because anyway that takes it regularly know that the Crossover and Negley Station are sharper Curves in the roadway than even the Bloomfield bridge....

Stop lights - See the south busway and ask why those buses need to stop for LRT's.....under you plan is like building RR Crossings without Gates coming down when trains approach...YOU'RE GOING TO KILL PEOPLE!

You're the one that needs to give it more thought! DUDE! you haven't a clue what you're talking about and that's evident, with you last statement about why stop lights are needed at all, PAT didnt install them on the South Busway just to **** YOU OFF! they're for safety and coordination so T-CARS and Buses dont go colliding into one another.

[Drover]

[ctoocheck]

LRVs and buses share the same right of way in tons of places allll over the world. I don't know why the lights are on the S Busway, but I'm sure it wouldn't be chaos to have buses and the T near each other.

[Drover]

There are lights at the south busway entrance because it's bona fide intersection. There would be lights there with or without trains.

[Blackbeauty212]

The Oakland, E Liberty, and Wilkinsburg Ramps are not "intersections"???? Buses get on and off the busway the same as on the South Busway....also at the end of the South Busway is a true Intersection with regular traffic on Glenbury street...Yet their are no traffic lights there because Light Rail doesnt share the ROW, the LRV's are on their own ROW.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

The Oakland, E Liberty, and Wilkinsburg Ramps are not "intersections"???? Buses get on and off the busway the same as on the South Busway....also at the end of the South Busway is a true Intersection with regular traffic on Glenbury street...Yet their are no traffic lights there because Light Rail doesnt share the ROW, the LRV's are on their own ROW.

*Sigh*

OK, first of all, there are already stoplights at the East Liberty and Oakland busway entrances, and no, the Wilkinsburg ramp is not a bona-fide intersection -- it originates in a parking lot. Second, do you think maybe the reason why there's a stoplight at the north entrance of the south busway and not the south entrance might have something to do with the massive difference in traffic volume on Glenbury Street versus Carson Street? Third, there are points throughout the South Hills where dedicated T ROWs converge with regular traffic without stoplights (Warrington and Haberman, Broadway and Fallowfield, Broadway and Neeld).

From the points raised above, we can synthesize the following: where the traffic volume merits stoplights to control access where transit rights-of-way (be it train or bus) and regular traffic streams converge, they're already there; and where the volume of traffic does not merit stoplights, there aren't any and don't need to be any unless traffic patterns change.

Even if stoplights suddenly did become necessary where there currently aren't any, you still haven't explained why they couldn't they be timed to give the right of way to T trains coming off the busway. That would eliminate congestion issues at the busway exits, thus problem solved.

[Blackbeauty212]

JESUS CHRIST!!!!

OK I'm done, this is impossible!

[greg42]

Originally Posted by Blackbeauty212

OK I'm done, this is impossible!

That's what I would say. I don't see anything but unsubstantiated assertions in your posts about the speeds. It's all well and good to suggest it's not a good idea to have LRV and bus share those roadways. There are many possible reasons, but you haven't demonstrated that speed around the curves is one of them. "Anyone riding" is not a reasonable judgment. There are real technical measurements for what each vehicle is capable of, and that is the only way you could really judge the possible speed in those curves.

Everyplace I've seen LRV and bus on shared roadway (including actual streets in Pittsburgh where it's also shared with normal drivers instead of just buses who would be used to the setup) the LRV is subject to the same traffic rules and signs/signals. Whatever traffic light setup you're talking about applies equally. There must be something missing from the description if there's a special reason that the LRV would necessitate extra traffic lights.

I would bet that the LRVs don't accelerate as fast as buses. That would have been a better argument from a speed perspective. Or just stick to the standard one about them being not as flexible.

[Drover]

^^ I wouldn't be surprised if the LRVs could accelerate even faster than buses. For one, each two-car unit has 2 motors. For another, there's no "torque curve" like in an internal combustion engine -- you get full torque from 0RPM right on up to "redline" (or whatever the electric-motor equivalent is). No pauses to shift gears either. It really rests on how much juice gets to those motors.

The train in the video upthread? It accelerates from a dead stop up to 55mph (it's actually capable of 70 but the CTA caps speeds at 55), cruises at 55 for about 30 seconds, and comes back down to a complete stop, all within the space of half a mile.

[BrianTH]

So I looked up the T's vehicles on the CAF website, and their service acceleration was rated at 1 m/s2. PAT operates a lot of different buses, but I found a source which stated the typical range for diesel buses was 0.7-0.9 m/s2.