Grand River Transit

[timc]

My hope is that when they get the crossing arms and signals activated, GRT will work out an arrangement where GRT buses will no longer have to stop at designated railway crossings.  Buses don't have to stop at some railway crossings in Ottawa, for instance.

Are there plans to put crossing arms and signals on King Street uptown? Or are you just talking about the more general situation?

[Markster]

Are there plans to put crossing arms and signals on King Street uptown? Or are you just talking about the more general situation?

More general.
But you make a good point. It seems plausible that we could get crossing arms for the King St crossing of the freight line. We'll get signals for sure.

[Rick O'Shay]

MTO law is that all buses (school, transit) must do a door open stop at all unguarded tracks (unguarded means no lights and arms just crossbucks like in uptown). Transit buses don't have to stop at guarded tracks (lights and or arms). GRTs policy is we stop at all live tracks. I was told we have this policy cause we were doing school runs years ago. We no long do as many school runs anymore but we still do a few of them. I asked the safety supervisor if this will continue after the LRT goes live and he said that has not yet been decided. But likely we will stopping at least because of the few school runs we still do.

[Coke6pk]

MTO law is that all buses (school, transit) must do a door open stop at all unguarded tracks (unguarded means no lights and arms just crossbucks like in uptown).  Transit buses don't have to stop at guarded tracks (lights and or arms).  GRTs policy is we stop at all live tracks. I was told we have this policy cause we were doing school runs years ago.   We no long do as many school runs anymore but we still do a few of them.  I asked the safety supervisor if this will continue after the LRT goes live and he said that has not yet been decided.  But likely we will stopping at least because of the few school runs we still do.

So what about intersections where the LRT tracks go from the right side of the road into the centre (ie. NB King @ Allen).  On a green light, will the bus still need to stop at the track?  Similar crossings (Charles/Benton, King St @ Rail line/Alleyway, Courtland/Borden) will have similar issues.... seems to be a bigger safety risk to arbitrarily stop mid intersection to stop at tracks that in actuality may have an LRT stopped by the lights....

Coke

[timc]

Does LRT fall under the same rules? An LRT crossing is not a railway crossing per se. So I think a bus driver would stop at a spur line crossing, but not a plain LRT crossing.

[Canard]

What happens if a bus in Toronto drives on the streetcar tracks? Does it just get stuck forever?

[Rick O'Shay]

I guess it will depend on whether or not lights will count as a guarded or unguarded. The interpretation of the law will likely be given to us soon and what our actions will be. At least I hope so. On I will be regarding them all as unguarded till I hear different from the people who decide these things. (my boss)

[KevinL]

There's been another small change to the automated announcements - when coming into the terminus of a route, it's not announced as 'next stop' anymore. Instead, it's 'welcome to' - as in, 'welcome to Charles Street Terminal', 'welcome to The Boardwalk', 'welcome to Forest Glen Terminal'.

[Pheidippides]

...and sometimes the 'next stop' gets dropped for regular stops too and just announces the intersection 'Frederick at King' (but this seems a bit random to me as it doesn't drop it all the time).

[chutten]

...and sometimes the 'next stop' gets dropped for regular stops too and just announces the intersection 'Frederick at King' (but this seems a bit random to me as it doesn't drop it all the time).

I hear "Water King" (or is it "next stop: Water King"?) for the Water at King stop on the 20. Maybe I should tweet it at @GRT_ROW

[Elmira Guy]

Trying to determine the best stop to get from Victoria and Margaret to Weber and Lincoln tomorrow afternoon.
Obviously the #8 is the one to use, but when I plug the data into GRT Trip Planner, it says to cross over Victoria to stop 2690 on Margaret. Thing is, the #8 route map shows that stop to be #2655. But... when I put that stop # into the Easy GO app, it doesn't find that stop. Nor does it show stop #2656 on Margaret between Victoria and Breithaupt. So according to the combined app and site, I need to either walk down Margaret to Queen, or up Margaret past Wellington.

Confused and mildly vexed.

[curious_look]

Trying to determine the best stop to get from Victoria and Margaret to Weber and Lincoln tomorrow afternoon.
Obviously the #8 is the one to use, but when I plug the data into GRT Trip Planner, it says to cross over Victoria to stop 2690 on Margaret. Thing is, the #8 route map shows that stop to be #2655. But... when I put that stop # into the Easy GO app, it doesn't find that stop. Nor does it show stop #2656 on Margaret between Victoria and Breithaupt. So according to the combined app and site, I need to either walk down Margaret to Queen, or up Margaret past Wellington.

Confused and mildly vexed.

2690 is the correct stop: on Margaret on the Queen Side of Victoria. It is set further back from the intersection then you would expect.

The other stop is probably left over from the last detour when the 8 was stopping in front of Mei King.

[Elmira Guy]

Thanks. Is that closer than the Margaret at Wellington stop?

[panamaniac]

I don't know that I'd cite Ottawa as a model to follow in that regard ...

[curious_look]

Thanks. Is that closer than the Margaret at Wellington stop?

Yes, definitely!