Canadian Transit Thread II

[J.OT13]

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[J.OT13]

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[Coldrsx]

Valley Line West flying in Downtown.

[Coldrsx]

Whoa.
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ETS to become long-term operator for Valley Line LRT
June 9, 2026

The City of Edmonton has selected Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) as the long-term operator of the Valley Line LRT, including the Valley Line Southeast, which is currently operated by TransEd Partners.

After careful analysis of the service requirements of Edmonton's expanding LRT system, the City will bring Valley Line operations in-house. This transition will give the City improved flexibility in service delivery and provide greater long-term value for Edmontonians. The City and TransEd will immediately begin a one- to two-year process to transition Valley Line Southeast operations to ETS. With Valley Line West construction scheduled for completion in 2028, this approach provides adequate time to transfer Valley Line Southeast operations to ETS while supporting the integration of the new infrastructure currently under construction.

“This decision is the outcome of a complex and diligent business case analysis to determine the most effective and financially responsible operating model for the entire 27-kilometre Valley Line. This is a business decision in the interests of taxpayers and transit riders—not a reflection on TransEd who has been a strong, collaborative partner throughout,” said Eddie Robar, Edmonton City Manager. “ETS is well-positioned to adopt the Valley Line operations, and I’m confident we will do an excellent job supporting the commissioning of Valley Line West.”

“I want to assure staff of both TransEd and ETS that we are taking a very thoughtful approach to this transition. We value the skilled workers who operate and maintain LRT service in our network,” said Carrie Hotton-MacDonald, Branch Manager, ETS. “At this time, there will be no changes to the operations or maintenance of the Valley Line Southeast LRT.”

In 2016, TransEd was selected through a competitive procurement process to design, build, operate and maintain the Valley Line Southeast. The line opened to passenger service on November 4, 2023. Target construction completion for the Valley Line West is anticipated in 2028, followed by an extensive testing and commissioning phase before the line can open to the public.

City Manager Eddie Robar, along with members of Administration, will be available to answer questions from the media today at 12:15 p.m. in the first-floor media room at City Hall.
Media contact:
Rowan Anderson
Senior Communications Advisor
Infrastructure Services
780-690-1605

[J.OT13]

Calgary shooting itself in the foot.

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Progress on Quebec City Tram.

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[J.OT13]

Ottawa Line 1 and Line 2 around LeBreton Flats and Little Italy.

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[ssiguy]

The Green Line's first section to open by 2031 but it won't connect to downtown or the Blue & Red lines???..........bizarre.

[J.OT13]

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[J.OT13]

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[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by someone123

The choice makes sense historically but the city has grown a lot since then. I think the modern explanation has more to do with a lack of investment in transit infrastructure, despite healthy ridership, that has afflicted Canada since the 80s or so. The SkyTrain is like this too to some degree with some hub stations being modest. Montreal's subway is less like this, e.g., Lionel-Groulx.

In the US you see much more modest ridership with more capital investment and in comparatively wealthy parts of Europe (which for AB would be someplace like Switzerland or Norway) you see high ridership and superior capital investment.

It always amazes me how much money American cities put into their systems, especially when most of those systems have embarrassing low ridership compared to Canada's cities.

Originally Posted by someone123

In the US you see much more modest ridership with more capital investment and in comparatively wealthy parts of Europe (which for AB would be someplace like Switzerland or Norway) you see high ridership and superior capital investment.

I don't think singling Alberta is comparison is a good example. It's hard to compare Alberta to a places in Europe, transit is in a completely different league in Europe. You could look at Alberta and make comparisons to cities like Hamilton, QC and Winnipeg, and compare how much was spent on transit infrastructure from when the various cities were growing between 500 and 1 million. You can also make a comparison of how much how much Alberta cities put into their transit infrastructure when the cities were slightly less than 500k compared to say Halifax or London. One needs to look at the overall long term spending (which comes and goes in spurts) over the years, and the spending hasn't stopped. Edmonton is currently extending the Valley line, and Calgary is currently building the Green Line. No one can accuse Alberta cities of not spending money on transit infrastructure.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

I don't think singling Alberta is comparison is a good example. It's hard to compare Alberta to a places in Europe, transit is in a completely different league in Europe. You could look at Alberta and make comparisons to cities like Hamilton, QC and Winnipeg, and compare how much was spent on transit infrastructure from when the various cities were growing between 500 and 1 million. You can also make a comparison of how much how much Alberta cities put into their transit infrastructure when the cities were slightly less than 500k compared to say Halifax or London. One needs to look at the overall long term spending (which comes and goes in spurts) over the years, and the spending hasn't stopped. Edmonton is currently extending the Valley line, and Calgary is currently building the Green Line. No one can accuse Alberta cities of not spending money on transit infrastructure.

I'm not sure it's actually true that transit is in such a different league in Europe than Alberta. Regional and intercity, sure. But when you look at urban systems in cities in the same size class as Calgary and Edmonton (between 1 and 2 million) they seem fairly equal. Some places in Europe seem to have stronger rail systems and some not. Like Porto for instance. Greater Calgary is about 80% the size of Porto and its LRT is about 85% as long. Cities in that size range in France seem to do a bit better with places like Toulouse having a metro system. Those in the UK seem to be fairly equal with Liverpool who has a frequent commuter rail rather than LRT that's longer but less frequent. And Glasgow has a single small metro line that's about 10km, augmented by commuter rail that's longer but much less frequent.

I can't compare any of the bus services though.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Surrealplaces

I don't think singling Alberta is comparison is a good example. It's hard to compare Alberta to a places in Europe, transit is in a completely different league in Europe. You could look at Alberta and make comparisons to cities like Hamilton, QC and Winnipeg, and compare how much was spent on transit infrastructure from when the various cities were growing between 500 and 1 million. You can also make a comparison of how much how much Alberta cities put into their transit infrastructure when the cities were slightly less than 500k compared to say Halifax or London. One needs to look at the overall long term spending (which comes and goes in spurts) over the years, and the spending hasn't stopped. Edmonton is currently extending the Valley line, and Calgary is currently building the Green Line. No one can accuse Alberta cities of not spending money on transit infrastructure.

I don't think I singled out Alberta:

Originally Posted by someone123

I think the modern explanation has more to do with a lack of investment in transit infrastructure, despite healthy ridership, that has afflicted Canada since the 80s or so. The SkyTrain is like this too to some degree with some hub stations being modest.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm not sure it's actually true that transit is in such a different league in Europe than Alberta. Regional and intercity, sure. But when you look at urban systems in cities in the same size class as Calgary and Edmonton (between 1 and 2 million) they seem fairly equal. Some places in Europe seem to have stronger rail systems and some not. Like Porto for instance. Greater Calgary is about 80% the size of Porto and its LRT is about 85% as long.

Well, you're comparing Alberta to a somewhat poor European country with about 1/2 the GDP per capita. A more apples-to-apples comparison would be somewhere like Copenhagen. Though even then I doubt Calgary is on par with Porto for transit. Porto does have an underground metro portion and an extensive tram system on top of the metro, plus commuter rail.

I'm always a bit mystified about the defensiveness around Canada's infrastructure deficits on this forum which is in large part about urbanism. It is very evident if you travel to non-third-world cities in the US, Europe, or Asia.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

Well, you're comparing Alberta to a somewhat poor European country with about 1/2 the GDP per capita. A more apples-to-apples comparison would be somewhere like Copenhagen. Though even then I doubt Calgary is on par with Porto for transit. Porto does have an underground metro portion and an extensive tram system on top of the metro, plus commuter rail.

Yes, but it's also a much older region with the benefit of much greater density which simultaneously acts as an obstacle car usage and a benefit to transit. And that seems to make a bigger difference with transit as long as you're still talking about a developed ECD region. Portugal has a nearly identical GDP percapita as Japan for instance and it doesn't seem to have any issues developing urban rail transit.

Originally Posted by someone123

I'm always a bit mystified about the defensiveness around Canada's infrastructure deficits on this forum which is in large part about urbanism. It is very evident if you travel to non-third-world cities in the US, Europe, or Asia.

It's wariness of overused narratives and stereotypes rather than defensiveness. The whole trope of Europe being a magical fairyland in every aspect of urbanism while NA is assumed dire tends to be spread significantly more than any sort of critical examination of such claims because they've become a sort of "truthism." And it's that automatic acceptance and lack of scrutiny that makes those notions seem invisible while any attempt to challenge such assumptions to ensure things stay grounded in facts stands out as something odd or even defensive.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It's wariness of overused narratives and stereotypes rather than defensiveness. The whole trope of Europe being a magical fairyland in every aspect of urbanism while NA is assumed dire tends to be spread significantly more than any sort of critical examination of such claims because they've become a sort of "truthism." And it's that automatic acceptance and lack of scrutiny that makes those notions seem invisible while any attempt to challenge such assumptions to ensure things stay grounded in facts stands out as something odd or even defensive.

This seems abstract and far afield from my points. For the most part I post about places I've been to. I took transit in Calgary a few weeks ago for example (I go semi-regularly), and it's natural for me to compare that to other places I've been to. While it's true that European cities are different there's a lot Canadian cities can learn from them.

If you get into the details of Calgary transit development and politics like the Green Line, which was at one point to include an underground downtown portion, it's clear that the province has under-invested for a long time. The delays and drama happened in large part because Albertans elected a populist right-wing provincial government and the planning of the project started under the opposition leader. It's not true that Calgary's LRT system is as good as it can/should be and doing any better is impossible.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

This seems abstract and far afield from my points. For the most part I post about places I've been to. I took transit in Calgary a few weeks ago for example (I go semi-regularly), and it's natural for me to compare that to other places I've been to. While it's true that European cities are different there's a lot Canadian cities can learn from them.

If you get into the details of Calgary transit development and politics like the Green Line, which was at one point to include an underground downtown portion, it's clear that the province has under-invested for a long time. The delays and drama happened in large part because Albertans elected a populist right-wing provincial government and the planning of the project started under the opposition leader. It's not true that Calgary's LRT system is as good as it can/should be and doing any better is impossible.

It was abstract and tangential because your statement I was responding to was abstract and tangential. Comparing transit in Alberta to countries in Europe is already very broad since there's a lot of different places and a lot of different factors beyond the physical infrastructure that affects transit user experience. But then you expanded it from that more substantive topic to the sweeping general claim about people on SSP being defensive about the topic. That presumably includes includes a lot of other people, but who and when? And what did they say specifically that you disagreed with? Very abstract. The attempt to connect me to these other "defensive people" you disagreed with must have some purpose or you wouldn't have included it. Which implies that you were painting my comment as bandwagon jumping onto some wider trend. Therefore, I'm wrong by association with the problematic trend.

It reminds me of the common rhetorical technique where a person says something like, "Other people did/said something similar and they were wrong, therefore you are also wrong." Which isn't valid without establishing what made the other people wrong and how is also applies in this case. Let's say a person often faces unfair criticism of their work and then someone makes a fair critique. So the person responds to the fair criticism by saying, "I don't understand why people around here constantly feel a need to pick on my work for some reason." I'm sure you can see the problem there.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Yeah, but European cities are far smaller area wise, so those comparable metros in I'm cover more ground generally. Most Canadian (and American) systems just stretch out as far into the suburbs as possible instead of offering a good, dense system in the core.

Yes that's definitely an important factor when trying to compare them since systems that are equal in length don't always serve the same proportion of equally populated metro areas. But that also makes the infrastructure investment angle tricky since a place that's more spread out ends up needing a lot more investment to accomplish the same thing. So a lower density place not having as much transit coverage doesn't necessarily mean it invests less in the infrastructure. That might be the case, or it might have invested as much or more and the money just didn't go as far. Which isn't specific to transit but the majority of physical infrastructure.

And another aspect when talking about recent investment (lets say the last few decades) is that some cities - especially older cities - have legacy infrastructure that they benefit from. A sort of inheritance from prior generations sometimes over a century ago that only really has maintenance cost rather than requiring capital expenditure. For instance, the Toronto streetcar network is majority legacy yet that isn't going to be apparent to a lot of visitors since the streetcars all look shiny and modern. Someone really familiar with that type of infrastructure can tell that it probably isn't a new system based on the alignments being largely in mixed traffic, but there are always exceptions to these things so there's no guarantee without actually looking it up. In other words, you'd need to actually know how much was invested and in what range of time rather than just using the infrastructure as a visitor.

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm not sure it's actually true that transit is in such a different league in Europe than Alberta. Regional and intercity, sure. But when you look at urban systems in cities in the same size class as Calgary and Edmonton (between 1 and 2 million) they seem fairly equal. Some places in Europe seem to have stronger rail systems and some not. Like Porto for instance. Greater Calgary is about 80% the size of Porto and its LRT is about 85% as long. Cities in that size range in France seem to do a bit better with places like Toulouse having a metro system. Those in the UK seem to be fairly equal with Liverpool who has a frequent commuter rail rather than LRT that's longer but less frequent. And Glasgow has a single small metro line that's about 10km, augmented by commuter rail that's longer but much less frequent.

I can't compare any of the bus services though.

I agree. For the most part if you were to compare Calgary to cities of 1.8 million in Europe, Calgary wouldn't be that far off the mark, and really because cities in Canada have grown in population far faster than the equivalent sized Euro cities, the comparisons should be more to cities that are roughly 20-30% smaller in population. It takes time for infrastructure to catch up. Every large Canadian city has had large transit infrastructure projects.
On top of that there's the most important factor. Those Euro cities were all built before the age of cars, and they've had no choice but to spend on transit.

It would be interesting to see how much equivalent sized European cities have spent on transit infrastructure over the past 40 years compared to the Canadian counterparts.

[Chocolite]

I'm not sure why we are discussing rapid transit.

Firstly, this is a skyline thread.

Secondly, comparing transit spending and transit systems of Canadian cities to European cities is pointless. The cities of the two continents have completely different circumstances.
If we're going to make comparisons, we need to compare Canadian cities to cities in the US (similar history timeline, cultures and densities, etc..) and we already know that Canadian cities easily beat out American cities.

[Docere]

^ Because Edmonton has three underground LRT stations.