[All] Athens LRT - Challenges and lessons on what not to do...

Tue Oct 30 09:39:57 EDT 2012

Thanks Eleanor!

Indeed, there are no fences or barriers or anything to prevent one from walking across the tracks in most cities.  You'll see in my Athens photos some people cutting across the tracks and scurrying to catch a train.  Of course this is not encouraged - just like jaywalking in any urban setting.  People are always encouraged to cross at proper intersections and crossings - however just like any part of King Street currently there is no barrier to prevent you from darting out into oncoming traffic or crossing wherever you desire.

In many places such as Strasbourg the LRT's are the only vehicles allowed on closed streets, pedestrian areas, and even town squares.  The trains seem to intermingle well with the people and most have a bell or way of making noise to get people to move out of the way.  The challenge is of course ensuring safe, a liveable core and balancing the need for speed with a bike and pedestrian friendly community.  You can see the photos below of people and LRT's co-existing quite happily.

Should an LRT breakdown there are a few options - first in most places there are double tracks with crossover switches at regular intervals so if something should block one track, trains can be rerouted for a distance on the parallel track.  This does require some signalling and switch work at the central control station (one wouldn't want a head on collision with an oncoming LRT) but is certainly easy to do.  The other thing that could happen is the next LRT could push the disabled LRT down the tracks to a point where it would no longer be in the way.  This too requires a bit of co-ordination but is relatively easy.  

In fact, some communities regularly couple LRT trains together to make much longer trains capable of carrying far more people at once on heavy routes or during peak times.  You can see this in the Istanbul photos below.

I hope this helps.  Let me know any other ideas or questions.

Cheers,
Kevin.

-------------------------------

People and LRT's in the pedestrian only streets of Strasbourg, France.

Another LRT moving through the core of Strasbourg - note the number of bikes in the town square!

People crossing the tracks to reach the LRT station in Strasbourg.

The cross over tracks to switch sides and go around a train if needed in Strasbourg.  Note the grass the LRTs run on in this part of the city - it is wonderful!

Two LRT's coupled together in Istanbul, Turkey.  This volume of passengers this main line carries each day is incredible - easily tens of thousands of people daily.

Knox Presbyterian Church in Uptown Waterloo has no worries about the LRT when one sees how close LRTs travel to the 1,600 year old Aya Sofia Church/Mosque in Instanbul with no issues.  Built in 500 AD the spectacular building towers above the LRTs going through the old city.

One can see here how the nose cone lifts up to couple two LRTs together again in Istanbul, Turkey.

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On 2012-10-29, at 3:50 PM, Eleanor Grant <eleanor7000 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great pictures, Kevin.
> 
> I have 2 questions:
> 
> - When there's no train coming, can ppl walk across the street?
> 
> - When a train breaks down, is the whole system prevented from operating because the track is blocked?  Are we planning for some sidings along the route, for removing the occasional disabled train?
> 
> Eleanor
> On 29 Oct 2012 13:04, "Kevin Thomason" <kevinthomason at mac.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> My last few e-mails have profiled some very successful LRT systems around the world.  This time I would like to profile the Athens, Greece LRT system built for the 2004 Summer Olympics that has been problematic.  There are several things that we can learn for our Waterloo Region LRT system from the challenges they have encountered - though there are also a few things that they have done well too.  
> 
> Starting with the positive - Grass and Greenspace - About 70% of the Athens LRT system runs on a wonderful grass surface.  It creates a beautiful green belt through many parts of this otherwise dry, crowded, ancient stone and concrete city.  Despite the dry climate and the intense heat, the grass grows well without much maintenance, and significantly dampens the sounds and vibrations of the LRT trains.  Most stations (even those in the middle of narrow streets) have some trees and greenery integrated into them and a few stations are gorgeous with huge flowering shrubs, lush green grass, and significant trees all planted as part of the LRT project.
> 
> The Beach - the Athens LRT is unique as it is one of the few LRT's one can ride from the downtown core and National Parliament right to the beach and seaside.  In fact, there are 17 LRT stations right on the beach and waterfront making it quite common on nice days to have some of the passengers in business attire with briefcases and other passengers in bathing suits with beach umbrella's and water toys.  The Athens LRT can get alarmingly crowded on summer evenings when thousands of people are heading home from the beach at sunset.  It is a very efficient way to move these large crowds of people (particularly when there is little available parking along the seashore).
> 
> However, moving on to some of the negative aspects of the Athens LRT:
> 
> Construction - we can learn in Waterloo Region from the construction of their system.  I was lucky enough to be in Athens in July 2004, the week that their LRT system opened just hours before the start of the Olympic games.  Needless to say that despite using some innovative ideas such as pre-fabricated sections of track to quickly cross highways and minimize construction interruptions, the work on the system was too rushed in the lead-up to the games, too many corners were cut, and the system has been functioning poorly and failing prematurely as a result.
> 
> A Very Rough Ride - The Athens LRT is by far the roughest riding LRT system I have ever been on.  The eight years since the Olympics has not been kind to Greece nor their LRT infrastructure.  This past summer the maximum speed the LRT trains could achieve was less than 60km/hr and any speed over 30km/hr saw the trains lurching, rattling and shaking quite disturbingly.  I'm not sure if the problem is in the tracks, the suspension, or the truck carriages of the LRT trains but something is definitely wrong and everyone has to hang on tight as the Greek LRT's bounce and toss everyone around despite going fairly slowly compared to other LRT systems that are truly rapid.  We need to ensure that we have better engineering and a fast, high quality ride.
> 
> A Very Noisy Ride - Unlike the extremely silent LRT systems in Strasbourg, Istanbul, Vienna, etc. the Athens LRT is extremely noisy with loud track squeals on bends, lots of thumping and rumbling noise.  Thank goodness for the grass track sections where it runs smoother and much quieter than on the very rough and noisy concrete and gravel sections.
> 
> Poorly Maintained - It was astounding for a system that is only 8 years old to see how battered, scratched, dented and beat up it has become.  There is no way that they are going to get 20 or 30 years out of trains that are already falling apart.  It was incredibly sad to see the contrast between the gleaming new system I rode in 2004 and the damaged system it has so quickly become.  Twice in July LRT's I was riding in broke down and the driver had to take panels in various parts of the train apart to reset electronic systems to get us going again.
> 
> Lines to Nowhere - While some portions of the Athens LRT system are quite heavily used with good passenger loads, other parts go to distant abandoned Olympic sites that are now empty wastelands of shuttered buildings.  Some stations sit empty with no prospect of much ridership to those areas.  Thankfully, the Athens LRT uses a stop request system where one has to push a red button that sounds a bell (similar to most Canadian urban buses) to request to stop at the next stop.  This works extremely well as if no one requests a stop and there is no one on the LRT platform the LRT will not stop at that station and will continue on passing through empty stations until someone requests a stop.  
> 
> This can make it quite fast to get through some of these seldom used parts of the Athens LRT network though it must make scheduling the LRT's a challenge as it would be hard to predict how many times each train is going to stop on any particular route.
> 
> I have noticed on the Toronto Metrolinx Bombardier Flexity Freedom 2 mockup they now have (and we should borrow for special events) that it is equipped with stop request buttons so I would presume that if Toronto will be implementing a stop request system that is being considered here in Waterloo for our LRT too.  It could be a good feature to not always have to stop at every station if nobody is there, nobody is getting off and nobody is boarding.  We want our system to move people as quickly and efficiently as possible.
> 
> I have attached some photos below of the Athens LRT system.  As more and more decisions are being made regarding our LRT implementation, we need to ensure that we are learning as much as possible from the success and challenges in other cities so we can truly have one of the best LRT systems in the world.
> 
> Please let me know any questions or ideas.
> 
> Cheers,
> Kevin. 
> 
> -------------------------------------
> 
> 
> <DSC_1671.jpeg>
> An Athens LRT running on a grass section in a residential part of Athens.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1720.jpeg>
> A typical Athens LRT train and station.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1567.jpeg>
> The interior of the Athens LRT.  Note the dual video monitors along the roof of the train - great screens of information for next stations, route information, community messages, etc.  Please note that most European LRT trains are narrower than ours will be here in North America.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1571.jpeg>
> The three lines of the Athens LRT (Blue, Green and Red).
> 
> 
> <DSC_1598.jpeg>
> The view of an upcoming station area from the front of an LRT.  Note the grass on the tracks and the trees on the platform.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1602.jpeg>
> A blurry photo from the rough ride but the green swath of the tracks on grass across the city certainly stands out and is far nicer than a sea of concrete would be.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1616.jpeg>
> A view south of the Sygmenta station.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1613.jpeg>
> Another LRT Platform station.  You can see they use the honour payment system (like our GO Trains) with no gates or barriers to accessing the station areas and trains.
> 
> 
> 
> <DSC_1676.jpeg>
> A lush green station area.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1651.jpeg>
> An LRT station in the suburbs.  Note the machines for validating your ticket.  In this area the tracks run on a gravel base.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1657.jpeg>
> Note the stark difference in landscape between the gravel base here in and industrial part of Athens and the grass sections in the other photos.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1669.jpeg>
> In some places there is so much greenery, trees, grass and shrubs they can almost get in the way such as this bougainvillea.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1673.jpeg>
> The greenery helps to shade the stations and keep them cool in the oppressive Athens heat.  The system does have good electronic signage (providing you can read Greek) as visible in the top right side of this photo.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1581.jpeg>
> The red "Stop Request" button that one must push to get the driver to stop the train at the next LRT station.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1655.jpeg>
> A ticketing machine available in several languages.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1653.jpeg>
> The information boards at each station that show the station area, the entire network, timetables, announcements, etc.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1688.jpeg>
> The excellent computer screens throughout the LRT train that provide instructions, maps, shows when stops have been requested, etc.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1696.jpeg>
> The LRT tracks adding a nice green grassy area along the coastal road and waterfront.
> 
> <DSC_1723.jpeg>
> The LRT with one of the many beaches visible through the window.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1770.jpeg>
> A station in a gravel section near the former Olympic stadium.  The stop request system allows the LRTs to zoom through this area if there are no passengers getting on or off.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1695.jpeg>
> Even at its worst when trampled, dried to a crisp and brown the grass LRT sections are still likely better than concrete and are quieter than the hard surfaced sections.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1718.jpeg>
> One can see the scratches, dents, dings and abuse the trains have taken in just a few years.  Decals are peeling and the system is in very poor repair.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1670.jpeg>
> While scratched up the panels appear to be tough thankfully.
> 
> 
> <DSCF9195.jpeg>
> A peeling LRT waiting at the downtown Sygmenta Square.
> 
> 
> <DSC_1599.jpeg>
> A final photo of one of the suburban stations with grass, trees, shade and people awaiting the LRT.
> 
> ---------------------------------------
> 
> Kevin Thomason
> 
> 1115 Cedar Grove Road
> Waterloo, Ontario Canada  N2J 3Z4
> 
> Phone: (519) 888-0519
> Mobile Phone: (519) 240-1648
> Twitter: @kthomason
> E-mail: kevinthomason at mac.com
> 
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