Why do Cleveland L.R.Vs have steps?

electricron wrote:Those with high platforms will stick to high floor vehicles because it will cost more money to rebuild their high platforms to low platforms. Buying a new low or high floor vehicle will costs basically the same. There's no savings to be gained by changing platform heights when you can continue to buy new vehicles to match what you already have.

Are you talking about initial or ongoing costs here? If the cost of changing over is not ongoing, then it's pretty insignificant compared compared to the difference it makes in the long term.

If your system is entirely on reserved track with no stops in narrow streets (where high platforms would be unsuitable), or anywhere else where the high platforms would be too obtrusive, inconvenient or both, there is no ongoing advantage to using low floor vehicles.

electricron wrote:You might think Pittsburgh was wise to change platform heights, I believe they wasted money doing so. Never-the-less, the local transit agency made their own decision over what works best for them, not some advocate thinking their way and only their way is best.

I have never been there. I'm not particularly either way about changing platform height, but it does seem that they still have stops without high level platforms.

electricron wrote:Let Cleveland decide what works best for them now and in the future. If they want heavy rail with high platforms and light rail with low platforms, it''s their choice to make.

Their choice but their loss. But then again, it's their choice if they extend their system into the street environment.

electricron wrote:Just like El Paso, who will be returning 6 PCC streetcars into service soon. The streetcars will have high floors, but they are building 29 stations with low platforms. They plan to accommodate wheelchairs with lifts installed on their 6 vehicles at the back door. Obviously they think running and maintaining 6 lifts will be cheaper than building 29 high platforms. But that's the choice they made.

(1)Is this a heritage system?
(2)Are there stops in locations where high platforms won't fit or are less desirable, such as in city streets, especially narrower ones?

Myrtone wrote:(1)Is this a heritage system?
(2)Are there stops in locations where high platforms won't fit or are less desirable, such as in city streets, especially narrower ones?

Brand new line, brand new platforms, stations and platforms in sidewalks along city streets, platforms desired height being 6 inches above top of rail, newly refurbished PCC streetcars.

That does sound like a heritage line. Completely new track with old, but refurbished, rolling stock is basically what a heritage line seems to be. Legacy systems are surviving systems that pre-date the modern light rail era.

As for platforms in sidewalks along city streets, this is exactly the sort of problem that low floor vehicles were designed to solve. How to provide level boarding from stops as close to building as is necessarily the case on narrow city streets, without creating issues with entrances of existing buildings. Systems with considerable on-street running in such city streets often have quite frequent stops, often stopping, say, every second intersection.

Myrtone wrote:That does sound like a heritage line. Completely new track with old, but refurbished, rolling stock is basically what a heritage line seems to be. Legacy systems are surviving systems that pre-date the modern light rail era.

A true legacy line is what Cleveland has, built in 1913 with railcars built in 1981 predating ADA.
Why are you not surprised to see El Paso have low platforms with high floor vehicles, but not Cleveland that El Paso is trying so hard to copy?

The El Paso line appears to be a heritage line, it seems to be using refurbished vehicles for a heritage service, for tourism and historic purposes. Aren't they trying to copy that previous cross border line?
Yes, Cleveland is a true legacy line, but the remaining portion is entirely on reserve, with no stops in the street environment. There are no issues with building entrances, nor with preserving rail traffic heritage.

Portland on the original 1986 MAX system with the Type 1 Bombardier cars had steps and were high floor; for ADA access, there was fold out bridge ramps at all stations. As my wheelchair bound acquaintances said, they were awful and glad that low floor cars were bought for the 1998 Westside line...

But isn't MAX a street running light rail, with some street stops?

"If you got questions, I got answers. I'm Carl, the floorwalker. I keep order in this place."
- Cool Hand Luke

Drag from right to left, to see the LR tracks and the boarding point. As of 2015, still low platform.

And that's a mid street stop. Platforms as high as the floor of San Francisco L.R.Vs would not work there.

Myrtone wrote:But isn't MAX a street running light rail, with some street stops?

Not exactly, it runs at street level in the dense urban areas but it has its own full stops with island platforms.

TRAX in Salt Lake City is also low-level boarding. They built mini-highs for one door, and equipped that door on each car with a folding bridge. Later they added low-floor cars.

The cost of high platforms is much higher than Mr. Mytone thinks. A low platform is basically a sidewalk: solid concrete on crushed rock. Put it in the middle of a street or next to a parking lot and you can have many access points with only a cheap curb-cut ramp a few inches high. You can put a platform next to the tracks and have buses, cabs, kiss-and-ride etc stop on the other side of the same platform. You can have crosswalks run right across the station on one level. It's easy to clear off the snow. Crossing the tracks is similarly easy: just put in a grade crossing, maybe with a short ramp. A high platform is a structure, with a foundation and columns or bearing walls and some kind of beams holding up a floor. Access means long ramps or ramps-and-stairs. Crossing the tracks is complicated. It takes more space, more planning, more materials. Adding shelters, enclosures, new lights, etc., has more complicated structural implications than with a low slab platform. And trash and rats and whatnot may get underneath.

OK, some lowish platforms (as for UTA Frontrunner trains and ADA Superliner platforms, with level boarding for the lower level of heavy rail 2-level cars, may actually be structures more complicated than slabs, but still a lot less material than full high platforms.

RTA's Breda LRVs were built in 1980-82, and an article from 2005 in the Plain Dealer (via Wikipedia) says that the rebuilt cars were to last for another 15 years. All Aboard Ohio in October 2015 challenges that 2020-22 end-of-service date, noting that the LRV fleet is down from 48 to only 24 operable cars and the Red Line only has two-thirds of their 60 car Tokyu-built fleet available. The RTA doesn't currently have money to replace either fleet, and is threatening a full shutdown of the Blue and Green Line system unless they get a replacement fleet within the next five years.

That's why the Cleveland RTA fleet still has steps.

(PS: In 1953, Shaker Heights Rapid Transit purchased a number of Twin City Rapid Transit's six year old PCC cars. Sixty-five years later, I'd love for RTA to make the same deal with Metro Transit for their fleet of 24 Type 1 Bombardier Flexity Swifts.)

Arborwayfan wrote: A low platform is basically a sidewalk: solid concrete on crushed rock. Put it in the middle of a street or next to a parking lot and you can have many access points with only a cheap curb-cut ramp a few inches high. You can put a platform next to the tracks and have buses, cabs, kiss-and-ride etc stop on the other side of the same platform. You can have crosswalks run right across the station on one level. It's easy to clear off the snow. Crossing the tracks is similarly easy: just put in a grade crossing, maybe with a short ramp. A high platform is a structure, with a foundation and columns or bearing walls and some kind of beams holding up a floor. Access means long ramps or ramps-and-stairs. Crossing the tracks is complicated. It takes more space, more planning, more materials. Adding shelters, enclosures, new lights, etc., has more complicated structural implications than with a low slab platform. And trash and rats and whatnot may get underneath.

But there are light rail systems that are reserved based, with no sections in any narrower city streets. Cleveland appears to be one of them, and these systems do not share paths with any manually steered vehicles including buses and taxis. While crossing the tracks with low platform, putting in an at grade crossing might be bit easier, but a grade separated crossing is often preferable over busier lines, and anywhere else with a lot of foot traffic.
So as long as high platforms are possible in all locations (no mid-street or kerbside stops anywhere on the network), they building low floor vehicles (less capacity relative to length and width, fixed bogies or part high floor, etc) instead of building high platforms, and for no long term gain (costs and inconveniences that aren't ongoing don't count), would simply be like cutting off someone's toes instead of getting a larger shoe.

Myrtone wrote:So as long as high platforms are possible in all locations (no mid-street or kerbside stops anywhere on the network), they building low floor vehicles (less capacity relative to length and width, fixed bogies or part high floor, etc) instead of building high platforms, and for no long term gain (costs and inconveniences that aren't ongoing don't count), would simply be like cutting off someone's toes instead of getting a larger shoe.

Wow! Construction costs to build high platforms don't count because they aren't ongoing expense? You must be kidding. Capital costs of construction is an ongoing expense paying off the bonds sold to raise that money to pay the contractors to build the high platforms. An ongoing expense that could last 20 to 30 years. What financial world do you live in?

Seating and train capacities are no different on a level floor whether its high or low vs a split floor train. Need some examples? Here's a few:
Level Floor (High Floor)
LA Nippon Sharyo P865 87 ft (26.52 m), 76 seats
LA Siemens P2000 89.5 ft (27.28 m), 76 seats
LA AnsaldoBreda P2550 90 ft (27.4 m), 71 seats
LA Kinki Sharyo P3010 (Difficult finding its length), 68 seats

Mix Floors (High 30% and Low 70%)
Seattle Link Kinki Sharyo 95 ft (29.0 m), 74 seats
Minneapolis Flexity Swift Type 1 94 ft (28.65 m), 66 seats
Houston Siemens S70 96 ft (29 m), 72 seats
San Diego and Salt Lake Siemens S70 81 ft (24.7 m), 68 seats

I do not necessarily see a drop in seating capacity, take a second look at the 68 seats of the low floor Salt Lake Siemens S70s and high floor LA Kinki Sharyo light rail vehicles, having the exact same seating capacity!

electricron wrote:Wow! Construction costs to build high platforms don't count because they aren't ongoing expense? You must be kidding. Capital costs of construction is an ongoing expense paying off the bonds sold to raise that money to pay the contractors to build the high platforms. An ongoing expense that could last 20 to 30 years. What financial world do you live in?

So, the expense last longer than the construction, but it is still paid off within the lifetime of the rolling stock, and higher platforms allow all subsequent generations of rolling stock to be high floor too, thus avoid the tradeoffs mentioned below!

electricron wrote:I do not necessarily see a drop in seating capacity, take a second look at the 68 seats of the low floor Salt Lake Siemens S70s and high floor LA Kinki Sharyo light rail vehicles, having the exact same seating capacity!

Consider the amount of floor space, not just seating capacity, in case of low floor vehicles, wheel-box intrusions do eat into the floor space. Even on part high floor vehicles, this can be seen where the articulations are. The issue is the capacity relative to length, not absolute capacity. While the S70s may have the same number of seats as the high floor LA fleet, is the latter slightly shorter than 81 ft. This is one of the unavoidable trade-offs with low floor vehicles. Reduced capacity relative to train length is one. Some have part high floor, while most other have reduced bogie movement. Building high platforms, if they are possible in all locations, avoids the trade-offs in designing each new generation of rolling stock.