Shift: London's Rapid Transit Initiative

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

It's King to the fairgrounds to Dundas to Highbury. I don't think Dundas will have any trouble handling it.

In terms of usefulness, routing the BRT on Oxford vs King/Dundas is the absolutely best choice. It's more central, one road and the main E/W crosstown route in the city. Every major intersection on Oxford has connections to other bus routes.

I believe King/Dundas was chosen over Oxford for several reasons:
1- Widening Oxford requires a ton of expropriation in some areas
2- King and Dundas were both due for sewer/other infrastructure expansion and replacement work to support denser development
3- Old East Village Business Improvement area lobbied the city to build it here to try and improve the local economy.
4- Politically challenging routing on Oxford as it's the main route through town for cars/trucks. The construction time, along with possible car capacity reductions, wouldn't fly. You'd need 2 lanes each way for cars for sure, and proper turn lanes.

The routing for Oxford died when the North leg / CP rail underpass/tunnel and underground Oxford station were all cancelled. This was going to be the crown jewel of the system, and now there won't be anything built here at all.

I drove by King yesterday and it looks so weird to see it two way for buses... I imagine a lot of confused drivers on this stretch, potentially some wrong way drivers or parkers in the bus lanes. I guess we'll see how incompetent London drivers are lol.

I've always envisioned a busway built along the river, but since its in a floodplain it wouldn't be usable when the Thames floods its banks.

[Underground100]

Originally Posted by tyeman200

Honestly that annoys me a lot.

Dundas Street is far worse, and to me makes absolutely no sense for BRT, unless you want to ride with the methheads.

So this city went and took a great idea, and basically scrapped 75% of it for a 1/4 assed plan.

Cannot believe the city didn’t go with the most important metric of rapid transit, how many people do methamphetamine.

[tyeman200]

Originally Posted by Underground100

Cannot believe the city didn’t go with the most important metric of rapid transit, how many people do methamphetamine.

Well I mean look at Dundas.. half the buildings are empty, or abandoned, or both.. its an eyesore street for sure. It's gotten a little better, but not by much. Plus all the unique people who you see on the street.

[jammer139]

The Ottawa LRT case study is being written on how not to do rapid transit projects.




https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...back-1.7020695

[haljackey]

Originally Posted by jammer139

The Ottawa LRT case study is being written on how not to do rapid transit projects.




https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...back-1.7020695

Big public infrastructure projects are difficult to estimate, and politicians often come up with a number much lower than actual costs to look good. When delays and cost overruns come, the media and opposition parties jump all over it.

We need to stop being so pessimistic and have the vision to invest in our community. Sure it's going to cost a lot, and there will be years of construction headaches as well as all sorts of delays/blockers, but when it's finally done people almost always say they were worth it.

London had a real shot of making something transformative. Sure even the original full LRT plan wasn't anything close to something like the Big Dig in Boston, but it could have really changed our town. I guess we'll get a small sample of what that change would have looked like when the approved routes start operating.

[jammer139]

BRT over budget.



https://london.ctvnews.ca/taxpayers-...ject-1.6684605

[jammer139]

additional info on the BRT budget problems


https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...-by-50-to-454m

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by jammer139

additional info on the BRT budget problems


https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/...-by-50-to-454m

not good at all, but to put things into perspective, one single underpass of Adelaide Street under the railway tracks has ballooned to nearly $30 million $90 million.


Budget buster: Adelaide Street Rail Underpass price tag jumps $29.3-million


Sticker shock: Cost of Adelaide Street underpass balloons by 50%

The total cost of the project would be $87.6 million, a 50 per cent increase over the initial project budget of $58.3 million set in 2018.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

not good at all, but to put things into perspective, one single underpass of Adelaide Street under the railway tracks has ballooned to nearly $30 million $90 million.


Budget buster: Adelaide Street Rail Underpass price tag jumps $29.3-million


Sticker shock: Cost of Adelaide Street underpass balloons by 50%

To regular folks, these increases would appear difficult to understand. The industry in this part of the world has been dealing with this phenomenon for nearly 10 years however. The cost of municipal civil engineering work has typically gone up 3 to 5 times the cost of it was to do the same sort of work 10 years ago and can be volatile. Specialty work can be dramatically more that even that. It's an industry-wide issue, with many causes for it. Also important to keep in mind that the vast majority of this work is performed for the municipality by the private sector - and by the low bidder at that. No one else who is qualified to perform the work will do it for a lower price. There are often few options for the buyer of those services (the municipality): pay the increased price, scope back the work, or cancel the work.

All of this doesn't even take into account the possibility of unpredictable discoveries on the site once execution of the work in the field commences.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by Snark

To regular folks, these increases would appear difficult to understand. The industry in this part of the world has been dealing with this phenomenon for nearly 10 years however. The cost of municipal civil engineering work has typically gone up 3 to 5 times the cost of it was to do the same sort of work 10 years ago and can be volatile. Specialty work can be dramatically more that even that. It's an industry-wide issue, with many causes for it. Also important to keep in mind that the vast majority of this work is performed for the municipality by the private sector - and by the low bidder at that. No one else who is qualified to perform the work will do it for a lower price. There are often few options for the buyer of those services (the municipality): pay the increased price, scope back the work, or cancel the work.

All of this doesn't even take into account the possibility of unpredictable discoveries on the site once execution of the work in the field commences.

Unpredictability in subsurface conditions can be a big part of changes in cost. Projects will always do geotechnical or environmental investigations beforehand, but these investigations are always somewhat limited in scope and in many cases, there are a lot of surprises once digging actually starts. In London specifically, there is a huge variation in soil types, ranging all the way from dense glacial till to unconsolidated fluvial or organic deposits. All are mixed together due to the Thames, the current and historical runs of the river and its many tributaries, as well as glaciation. You pretty much have every soil type mixed together here which makes things hard when you’re trying to characterize soil before any work starts.

In my experience, variation in soils can be significant here in London even over short distances on the same site. Subsurface soil conditions also have huge implications for groundwater, which also can significantly impact a design for a building or infrastructure if the information identified in the environmental/geotechnical/hydrogeological investigation doesn’t identify something. At the end of the day, you can only do so much when it comes to investigating subsurface conditions, and in a city like London, there just happens to be a greater likelihood that your subsurface geology might have some quirks to it.

[MolsonExport]

Isn't most of London underlaid with clay? Certainly the areas around my last two houses were.

[bolognium]

LFPress comments section again a livefeed of The Dunning–Kruger effect in action. A bunch of uniformed idiots shouting their backwards-ass opinions at each other in an echo chamber.

I've asked this before, but do you guys think the comments there represent Londoners in general? Or does it skew towards a select demographic of stupid Londoners?

Needed a shot and a cigarette after reading some of the hot garbage in there. Makes me genuinely upset that people so dumb have any voice at all in this city.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by bolognium

LFPress comments section again a livefeed of The Dunning–Kruger effect in action. A bunch of uniformed idiots shouting their backwards-ass opinions at each other in an echo chamber.

I've asked this before, but do you guys think the comments there represent Londoners in general? Or does it skew towards a select demographic of stupid Londoners?

Needed a shot and a cigarette after reading some of the hot garbage in there. Makes me genuinely upset that people so dumb have any voice at all in this city.

I'm going to go out on a thin limb here and ask whether someone used "boondoggle" in their commentary. Because people seem to love to say boondoggle. When I've read comments about other transit projects across the land, it seems like the same folks who have a beef with transit post the same things (under local names, mind you).

Few also seem to question construction cost increases that are beyond project control, especially in comparison to cost creep for roads. Quite right that there are a number of factors at work -- materials, specialized expertise, the actual conditions of the right of way, "surprise" findings especially in older cities, etc. -- which make these big undertakings risky and reduce cost certainty.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Isn't most of London underlaid with clay? Certainly the areas around my last two houses were.

Northwest London and a large part of the southern half of London are clay till. However, almost the entirety of northeast London and everything near the Thames or a creek tributary consists of glaciofluvial and more contemporary fluvial deposits, in addition to concentrated sand and silt pockets all across the city, which are a lot more unpredictable for construction.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by ericmacm

Northwest London and a large part of the southern half of London are clay till. However, almost the entirety of northeast London and everything near the Thames or a creek tributary consists of glaciofluvial and more contemporary fluvial deposits, in addition to concentrated sand and silt pockets all across the city, which are a lot more unpredictable for construction.

Interesting, thanks for these tidbits. Both my homes were/are in NW London (Hyde Park), so that explains it.

[ericmacm]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Interesting, thanks for these tidbits. Both my homes were/are in NW London (Hyde Park), so that explains it.

No problem. I have been doing a lot of environmental work in the area over the past 3 years so I’ve gotten to know our local surficial geology decently well. There are a lot of places that have it a lot easier than us geologically speaking.

[Snark]

Originally Posted by bolognium

LFPress comments section again a livefeed of The Dunning–Kruger effect in action. A bunch of uniformed idiots shouting their backwards-ass opinions at each other in an echo chamber.

I've asked this before, but do you guys think the comments there represent Londoners in general? Or does it skew towards a select demographic of stupid Londoners?

Needed a shot and a cigarette after reading some of the hot garbage in there. Makes me genuinely upset that people so dumb have any voice at all in this city.

It certainly is part Dunning–Kruger. Some people will have had some sort of limited exposure to one sort of complex process or another, and now think they are qualified to not only have an opinion, but a strong one on the matter. There is more than that though: in my experience, there has always been a segment of society out there that is by nature cantankerous. In my professional life, I’ve been called out as corrupt, on the take, incompetent, uncaring, etc. by people who would admit that they really don’t know how my business is performed – they just know that they don’t like what I’m doing, and what it is that I’m doing is driven by either stupid or nefarious reasons(or both). Because they are incapable of critiquing my actions from a professional perspective, it turns very personal quickly and I’m instead critiqued by them from a morality or general intelligence perspective. In the days prior to mass social media on the internet, such folks would watch the late night news on television and when an item came up that they were angered by they would throw something at the TV, angrily turn off the TV, and stagger off to bed grumbling.

Now we have social media (including comments sections in the Freep). Such folks now have an outlet for their anger that they could only dream of in years past – and have taken to it en mass. Their ignorant, misplaced, and unwarranted rage now has a voice.

Now, add to that traditional group a whole new group even larger than the original: people who feel disenfranchised by the rate and type of change in the world. Economic change is happening at lightning speed and whole segments of the population are being left behind with little hope of catching up. Traditional social values in some cases are being in turned on their head, disturbing many who cannot understand or empathize. A lot of people are simply unequipped to deal with this: half of the population has less than an average IQ, and half of the population have less than average emotional tolerance. They are being left behind economically and/or socially and don’t have the mental wherewithal to find success in this modern world. As a result, they are angry. Very angry. It’s all that they have remaining. So, much like the first group, it gets very personal once again because they do not (or cannot) comprehend and adapt to the complexity of how the real world operates. So… the mayor is personally responsible for the drug addict/homeless issue because he wants to exasperate the drug crisis – not stop it. The Prime Minister is personally the cause of interest rates going up because he wants to hurt people. City staff are personally the cause for a big expensive project going over budget because they are stupid and arrogant….

Then, there is the third group: they just like to stir up the rage because they simply enjoy watching the world burn.

So, in closing, first group will always exist. The real concern is the second group. It is growing in size. How much of the population of Londoners do they represent? Hard to say of course, but social media and the internet gives them a loud and disproportionately loud voice in society making them seem larger than they likely are – but much like a virus it can and does spread and infect others. It is the poison that social media often is. That’s the real danger: that spreading virus leading to the increasing diminishing of rationally and civility in society. It’s the glue that holds us together.

PS - sorry for the long post. Couldn't put my personal experiences on the issue into a few sentences.

[MolsonExport]

Good post. There's lots in there that I agree with.

[bolognium]

No, that was a great post. Thank you! And I'd just like to say that I'm happy you've found your way back here on a semi-regular basis. I've always enjoyed your contributions here!

I think another aspect that irks me is that the LFPress seems to be catering to these demographics and tailoring their articles and headlines to stoke the fire. Regarding the LFPress BRT article, it is portrayed as a BRT issue, and a BRT cost overrun. Finally two-thirds of the way into the article there is a short paragraph where they briefly mention "Still, there is more to the BRT system than buses, she said. The project will see streetscapes updated and infrastructure beneath roads, from water and sewer to utilities including cable and gas, to name a few, improved." but most of the article focuses on the already controversial BRT itself, and political quotes and opinions associated with it.

The end result is a bunch of people that don't use transit and have no intention of ever using it feeling like their tax dollars are being wasted on buses alone. Completely ignorant or disregarding of all of the necessary and complex infrastructure work being preformed along these routes. It feels like the LFPress has realized this uniformed and vocal demographic provides high engagement with their articles, so they are intentionally tailoring their articles to rile them up.

Whenever a project is transit related, or cycling and active transportation related we see so much hatred and anger expressed. But it's interesting to see the stark contrast with projects that are mostly automobile-centric like the Adelaide underpass Molson mentioned. That project has also gone over budget by the same 50%, but the push-back and negative opinions have been minimal in comparison.

It just reeks of self-centred entitlement. "My tax dollars need to be spent on projects that benefit me! Screw the poors and the students! The buses suck here! I don't take the bus! Bike lanes are a waste of my money! No one even rides bikes in Canada!"

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by ericmacm

Northwest London and a large part of the southern half of London are clay till. However, almost the entirety of northeast London and everything near the Thames or a creek tributary consists of glaciofluvial and more contemporary fluvial deposits, in addition to concentrated sand and silt pockets all across the city, which are a lot more unpredictable for construction.

As I understand it, a large part of South London is ground moraine, which is a mix of clay and sand - as well as terminal moraine, which is more stony (and is where the old Byron gravel pits were dug).