Hamilton's B-Line LRT construction

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by Pulkvedis Pods

I don't read bold faced type. That would be missing out on something too important.

Sure. And just to be snide, beyond cynical - gauging the pace at which the project is inching forward, sideways or backwards, most of us will be in retirement homes, so who will care about the designation on the title...

I somewhat agree with you on that one. It's going agonizingly slow. Hopefully 2024 gives us more to talk about. I believe the next LRT sub committee meeting is early December, so hopefully we see the design drawings then.

[akiraredacted]

Should be December 11th at 9:30 am

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

I somewhat agree with you on that one. It's going agonizingly slow. Hopefully 2024 gives us more to talk about. I believe the next LRT sub committee meeting is early December, so hopefully we see the design drawings then.

Not sure if I posted here, but I think I posted on UT. Design drawings are coming Q1 2024 from last update from staff. Makes sense considering the timing of WSP and AECOM. Seems they're doing most of the detailed design work "in house" and the tender will be just for construction, not for design.

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

Not sure if I posted here, but I think I posted on UT. Design drawings are coming Q1 2024 from last update from staff. Makes sense considering the timing of WSP and AECOM. Seems they're doing most of the detailed design work "in house" and the tender will be just for construction, not for design.

yeah that's how Metrolinx does these LRT projects. They do 15% drawings either in house, or with a subcontractor. Then it goes out for tender, and WSP/AECOM/SNC pick it up and take it to 100% and eventually construction.

Metrolinx needs to get the drawings to 15% so the bidders can understand what it is that they are bidding on. I suspect the drawings are mostly done at this point, likely just going through some final adjustments at this point.

[LikeHamilton]

While Confederation Line struggles, Waterloo Region's LRT sets passenger record

Why is Waterloo Region setting new passenger records for its transit, while the O-Train continues to struggle?

Blair Crawford Nov 07, 2023 Ottawa Citizen

While OC Transpo and its Confederation Line limps along carrying just 70 per cent of its pre-pandemic passengers, Kitchener-Waterloo’s transit system–with its own new LRT–is setting ridership records.

Grand River Transit, the operator of Kitchener-Waterloo’s four-year-old LRT, called the Ion, reported 2.9 million passenger trips in September on its buses and train, an all-time high. Grand River Transit ridership is up by 44 per cent from a year ago and up 33 per cent from what it was in 2019.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...terloo-regions-lrt-sets-passenger-record

[TheHonestMaple]

My guess? A large amount of government workers in Ottawa who still haven't returned full time back to the office.

[TheRitsman]

People like transit that is reliable too, Ottawa's LRT has been far from reliable. It will grow in ridership once it has a few years under it's belt. The other problem it has is that it's nowhere near anything. Many stations were built far from residential and commercial areas, and the TOD has been slow.

I'd be curious to see what some transit advocates think though. I'll ask a couple.

Edit: ya essentially lack of back to office workers. Much of Ottawa is government and Tech. Tech is basically full hybrid or WFH. I thought most government was back in office because my branch of the feds are back in office.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

People like transit that is reliable too, Ottawa's LRT has been far from reliable. It will grow in ridership once it has a few years under it's belt. The other problem it has is that it's nowhere near anything. Many stations were built far from residential and commercial areas, and the TOD has been slow.

I'd be curious to see what some transit advocates think though. I'll ask a couple.

Edit: ya essentially lack of back to office workers. Much of Ottawa is government and Tech. Tech is basically full hybrid or WFH. I thought most government was back in office because my branch of the feds are back in office.

I'd be curious to know how many of KW's riders are students too.

Plus Ottawa's seems less "urban" and more like a regional transit system like GO.

Government office workers (of which I am one, in Toronto for the Ontario Public Service) have been very reluctant to give up their working-from-home arrangements. I don't know about other levels of government or corporations, but the system that's been put in place for the OPS has worked very well, at least for me. Operational staff have had little choice, but those of us in policy offices who largely rely on email and Teams meetings and other communication apps really don't need to be in the office. At the same time though, I feel like "well, I have a JOB... WFH has been and continues to be a privilege, and most managers are quite flexible with the ask about days in office, so what's to complain about? People working in other sectors don't have that luxury!

[Beedok]

Ottawa’s old BRT system was also a success because buses went on and off it, so it didn’t matter that the transitways mostly weren’t anywhere convenient, the bus would use it to avoid traffic over long distances and then swing out for you to have a 5-10 minute ride to actually get home. The new system forces a transfer for almost all riders, since the train just runs along the transitway, and, like, that’s fine for your ride in where you transfer onto the train that shows up every 3-5 minutes, but on the way out? Where you have to transfer back onto your bus that’s every 15-20 minutes and the bus stops are now ultra-basic shelters without the heating the older transitway bus stops had for when you had to transfer?
Way less pleasant.

And that’s when the train is actually running. Seems like it’s down for at least 1 month of the year every year…

[Innsertnamehere]

Ottawa's LRT issue is that the west end of the line ends like 3 stops west of downtown too.

Phase 2 of the LRT will help a lot as the coverage of the LRT will be a lot more extensive.

[StuffedPouch]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Ottawa’s old BRT system was also a success because buses went on and off it,

The issue with the original Transitway was they never built the downtown tunnel, so you had all these buses funnelling onto two painted bus lanes. When I lived there, it was faster to walk from Mackenzie to Bay or Lebreton during rush hour because you’ll end up walking past a dozen of whatever 9X bus you needed. It was only when they started talking about building the bus tunnel, that LRT came up.

I agree that losing the single seat ride is unfortunate, but downtown Ottawa didn’t have the capacity for more buses to get shoved in.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by StuffedPouch

The issue with the original Transitway was they never built the downtown tunnel, so you had all these buses funnelling onto two painted bus lanes. When I lived there, it was faster to walk from Mackenzie to Bay or Lebreton during rush hour because you’ll end up walking past a dozen of whatever 9X bus you needed. It was only when they started talking about building the bus tunnel, that LRT came up.

I agree that losing the single seat ride is unfortunate, but downtown Ottawa didn’t have the capacity for more buses to get shoved in.

They could have bought themselves a bunch more capacity by turning one of the downtown streets into a bus only one and making it two way. Use that to buy some time and then build a shorter and more urban rail rapid transit elsewhere instead of cannibalising already existing infrastructure and forcing linear transfers on people.
Or just electrified the bus network and then built a bus tunnel, since the main tunnel expense gap between rail and buses was ventilation based.
Basically anything other than what they did. Which keeps breaking and is now frequently running only a single train in the stations, so they feel massively overbuilt.

[Innsertnamehere]

Ottawan's just like to complain because they got used to the 1-seat bus ride.

The LRT will be better over time and will eventually prove itself, especially once phase 2 is done and people aren't transferring at Tunneys Pasture to go 3-4 stops into downtown.

The stupid part of the Ottawa LRT is that it's functionally a metro yet they went with LRT vehicles for whatever reason. That will likely end up biting Ottawa in the a** in a few decades.

[ccheck7]

Metrolinx has changed the LRT route to reflect the two-way conversion of Main Street by shifting it onto Dundurn and over the Main Street Bridge, with connection to the facility via Frid.

They note this will enable full reconstruction of the Main St. Bridge over the 403 and the CP tracks, enable widening of the 403 in the future, and full reconstruction of Frid Street.

https://www.metrolinx.com/en/news/important-steps-taken-towards-progressing-the-hamilton-lrt

[Innsertnamehere]

This confuses me. It drops the reconstruction of the Longwood bridge as a "savings" - but it's at end of life and needs to be reconstructed anyway.

Then it adds the reconstruction of the Main St bridge instead, which looks like it's in generally fine condition.

Then it mentions that it will enable "highway widening" - but the Main St bridge looks like it could accommodate an extra lane on the 403 already, while the Longwood bridge most certainly couldn't accommodate it..

Add on top of that that this introduces two separate complex turn movements for the LRT and 2+ additional signalized intersections it has to go through.. This is definitely going to add travel time.

Seems like an odd decision to me.

[ccheck7]

Agreed. The primary benefit from this approach seems to be it forces the MTO to play ball on ramp realignment and reconfiguration of Main to support Two-Way conversion over their ROW.

[Innsertnamehere]

It reeks to me of Metrolinx trying to save some money on not building the flyover and the City trying to force the 2-way conversion of Main St across the 403 on MTO.

I'll wait to see details of exactly how traffic configurations, etc. will work - but I'm not overly optimistic this change will be a positive one. The big benefit of the flyover previously proposed meant that the LRT would be fairly quick between McMaster and Downtown - it's highest ridership component. This will slow that trip down considerably.

[TheHonestMaple]

Yeah this is bad news. Ride the ION in Waterloo and you'll immediately understand why this is a mistake.

[ScreamingViking]

I can understand the cost-cutting. But yeah, the Longwood bridge still needs to be replaced, and the city won't be able to cover that itself. Maybe it'll be part of a separate announcement for 403 work? ...next election of course

And Dundurn really needs a rebuild along that block. So while that's a good thing, there's a net savings to consider that includes the road work, not just the flyover elimination, short-term Longwood savings, and Main 403 bridge improvements (I think both the Main and King bridges and ramps were renewed about 10 years ago?).

I imagine the corners at King and Main could be made less tight by purchasing parts of the Value Buds and Fortinos plaza lots. There are many automobile movements on that part of Dundurn though, so the effects on traffic flow will be big.

While this likely does slow travel time, it is a bit more accessible to the Kirkendall neighbourhoods south of Main and the northern end of the "Innovation District" (at the cost of lower accessibility for Strathcona residents)

[TheHonestMaple]

It's not really the turn radius that will slow things down (although yes it will), it's more the traffic lights. ION LRT in KW has traffic light priority, but watch the ride videos. It is painfully slow through the downtown because of the turns and pedestrian crosswalks. i actually don't know how people justify taking the ION LRT for short trips through the downtowns. It is almost certainly faster just walking.