Quote:
Originally Posted by phone
Its farcical on short term planning, but if the long term goal is to establish some form of street-level LRT in Saskatoon, this goes a long way to getting a bit of hard infrastructure in place, local citizens accustomed to transit lanes, and establish easy to remember "Red/Green/Blue" lines with legible conventional streetname-based "Stations" (even if only in the most farcical sense of the word), then this accomplishes that goal. Louise Station. Avenue W Station. Nelson Station. I think that these local morphemes will enter the vocab in the 2030s first by developers and realtors and then the public at large. Think about Ontario developers coming in and thinking how to market their new midrise -- "2 blocks from Arlington Station" is something that would probably come to mind in a Bay Street brainstorming session. And I bet you it will all come in time.
Based on the renderings, the platform fixtures look functional without being square boxes. The round design means that snow wont pile easily, and the materials look easy to maintain. I am also heartened by the municipal funding of transit police.
We have a stable local government, a provincial government that is increasingly concerned about its urban reputation, and a Federal government that's basically treating Saskatoon like the most interesting lady at the dance. All three levels of government are basically in sync right now, and the city is growing fast, so why wouldn't Saskatoon strike while the iron is hot and get *something* out there, even if its "farcical" compared to real BRT (how did it turn out when Winnipeg bit off that cigar?). Preston Avenue, 8th Street, 22nd, all these streets have such wide ROWs that running Canadian-built trains down a greenway or something shouldn't be much of a problem to adapt to in 10-20 years, if the stars continue to align (or realign).
Saskatoon is getting much improved public transit. Yes, the BRT label gives people easy bait to scoff at, but I really think that the right thought has been put into this, and the Link system (lets start just calling it Link instead of BRT), has the bones to prove a durable system. The goal is to lay a foundation, and this does it. We're already seeing rapid investment along corridors even in Woodlawn... anyone drive up Idylwyld North lately? There's multiple multi-units going up, and Quebec Ave feels more filled-in (if not built out) than ever. Concept renderings are up for some kind of multi-family on a big Remax sign for three lots in Minto Place. Going all "Not Just Bikes" over it accomplishes nothing and is counterproductive. I kind of hate how his poo-poo attitude has kind of poisoned the well when talking about North American cities, as if nothing could ever be good enough to compare to Western Europe (those circles don't seem to pay much mind to the advanced cities of East Asia or the Global South), and is therefore deserving of ridicule. Saskatoon has fared a lot better than most of its North American counterparts, so let's take improvements for what they are and continue to improve on them as the city grows and levels of government cooperate.
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Good post, and good points.
For what it's worth, my idea of "farcical" isn't BRT/Link itself but the implementation of it won't move the needle on mobility the way it is advertised. To be a better option than the existing system it actually needs to be grade-separated to make origin -> destination reliable and faster. Sharing the streets with existing traffic simply renders it an expensive non-upgrade.
For example, I live just south of 8th street between Clarence & Cumberland (Haultain) and as of right now, the existing system provides busses at 15-minute intervals with 10 minutes during rush hour, essentially similar to the Link proposal. However, there is a station literally 30 seconds from my house but under the Link proposal they are removing all these stops in favour of the ~1km gaps between BRT stations. So now I have to walk 4 extra minutes to the new stop(s) to take the bus. Am I going to be making up 4+ minutes of my time heading down to Broadway, or Downtown? Even with signal priority it won't make up the difference. So now I'm walking an extra 500m and 4 extra minutes just to lose time on my commute vs the current system as-is.
This stretch of 8th St already has existing available space for bus-only laneways in the middle of 8th but it wasn't planned that way for some reason. From Lorne all the way to Cumberland there is a ~16-18ft median and an entire lane width of street parking (why?) on the south section of 8th that should be repurposed without sacrificing any existing car capacity.
As for the stations, they are nice and a huge upgrade but they are putting the cart before the horse. If the system itself is not faster and reliable then nobody is going to car what the stations are. They could be a simple sign post as many are now and people wouldn't care too much (in the short term at least) as long the busses are much faster and unimpeded. With the existing budget you either sacrifice expensive fancy stations in favour of grade-separation or you can have a 'local-route' system with fancy stations. Frankly, I'd rather Saskatoon Transit move back to the express system in the short-medium term until a proper system can be implemented.
Sorry, I don't mean to be a hater or anything but there is a lot more to transit planning (aka transit engineering) that seems to be heavily overlooked in favour of marketing and selling the idea of rapid transit.
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