Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by niwell

Yes, sorry I should have added that it's a relatively new and growing problem, which extends to infrastructure beyond transit (though probably not to the same extent). The Yonge-University extension to Vaughan was about $370M per km IIRC. Which adjusted for inflation is still far less than newer construction.

A big part of it is shifts in accounting practices, but there is a lot of underlying construction inflation as well.

If you watch construction of the Ontario Line Metrolinx is literally checking every single option box it seems too though - much higher design standards, overbuilding infrastructure, overly complex and specialized construction equipment being used.. It's no wonder it costs so much.

One type of construction that actually hasn't inflated quite as much is highways, ironically. The Bradford Bypass contract issued this year was apparently around $550 million or about $100 million per kilometre, including the full flyover interchange with the 400.

That really isn't that much compared to transit costs, and hasn't inflated as much over the last 20 years either. The 407 East extension contract for the first phase, issued in 2012, cost about $40 million/km ($1 billion for ~27km of highway), but generally with less overall complexity. MTO is building the Highway 3 expansion in St Thomas (10km) for $12 million a kilometre! Now that does re-use a lot of existing grading and structures, but shows how highways can still actually be quite affordable.

Ironically the province just spends absolute pennies on them.. MTO gets like $500 million a year, if that, in actual expansion spending compared to Metrolinx which gets a firehose of like $6-7 billion annually, and just blows it on crap. The GO expansion program has sucked up close to $20 billion at this point with almost nothing to show for it. It's absolutely insane and it blows me away that it gets no media coverage. It should be government-ending level scandal.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Most mainline railways, or even abandoned rail rights of way, don't go anywhere close to trip generators in Metro Vancouver, and are often windy, taking a long route to travel a path that's relatively easy by car. In many cases, they're in low-lying floodplains that can't be developed into dense TOD. They also cross major bodies of water over ancient railway bridges that would be very expensive to replace. This is all before you consider that these lines are owned by private freight railways who call the shots in terms of scheduling. Commuter rail doesn't have a lot of promise in Vancouver.

Instead, Translink should make a more comprehensive express bus system using coaches rather than regular city buses. It already has some of these lines, like the 555 between Lougheed and Carvolth Exchange in Langley, but the system is not very legible. It should have separate branding, a separate map, blanket the region more, and have frequent, clockface schedules where buses meet up at the various suburban transit exchanges to facilitate easy transfers.

There's already a very limited stop bus from Chilliwack to Lougheed Town Centre via Abbotsford which has half hourly service and a scheduled 1hr 40 minute journey (which is about 30 minutes more than the theoretical drive time). It's not a TransLink service, because they don't receive any funding for service outside Greater Vancouver. It's run by BC Transit.

TransLink are developing a Rapid Bus BRT network which should provide faster service with more limited stops on major routes in the Region.

[kora]

Originally Posted by Changing City

There's already a very limited stop bus from Chilliwack to Lougheed Town Centre via Abbotsford which has half hourly service and a scheduled 1hr 40 minute journey (which is about 30 minutes more than the theoretical drive time). It's not a TransLink service, because they don't receive any funding for service outside Greater Vancouver. It's run by BC Transit.

Worst bus ride of my life. Imagine standing room only for the full journey on a regular city bus, not a coach bus. It's frequently jam packed with many people standing.

[hipster duck]

Speaking of the Vancouver Skytrain, here's a crazy idea to serve longer distance trips in the future.

If they installed platform screen doors at every station on the Expo line, and built turnouts and a third passing track in strategic locations - prioritizing places where it's easy to build, like surface sections (e.g. near Edmonds) or elevated sections where expropriation is relatively easy - maybe you could run express and local services kind of like the New York City subway, but on the existing two track alignment.

Some stations would serve both express and local (think important interchanges or destinations like Commercial-Broadway, Metrotown, New West, etc.) plus all the downtown locations which are not only high volume destinations but in a tunnel that's hard to retrofit. But others like 29th avenue or would only serve local trains, and the platform screen doors would shield passengers when an express train blasts through at 60-80 km/h.

Express services would be rolled out incrementally, limited by the number of passing opportunities. At first, maybe the express frequency is only once every 15 minutes per direction - not great, but better than nothing, and mostly just serving the very long distance riders. But as more passing tracks are built over the decades, and transfer stations are beefed up so that they even have separate express and local platforms, then you could increase the frequency.

Vancouver uses its automated system fairly well, but I think that there is still more that it can do with its existing technology, and this would be an example of that.

[casper]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Speaking of the Vancouver Skytrain, here's a crazy idea to serve longer distance trips in the future.

If they installed platform screen doors at every station on the Expo line, and built turnouts and a third passing track in strategic locations - prioritizing places where it's easy to build, like surface sections (e.g. near Edmonds) or elevated sections where expropriation is relatively easy - maybe you could run express and local services kind of like the New York City subway, but on the existing two track alignment.

Some stations would serve both express and local (think important interchanges or destinations like Commercial-Broadway, Metrotown, New West, etc.) plus all the downtown locations which are not only high volume destinations but in a tunnel that's hard to retrofit. But others like 29th avenue or would only serve local trains, and the platform screen doors would shield passengers when an express train blasts through at 60-80 km/h.

Express services would be rolled out incrementally, limited by the number of passing opportunities. At first, maybe the express frequency is only once every 15 minutes per direction - not great, but better than nothing, and mostly just serving the very long distance riders. But as more passing tracks are built over the decades, and transfer stations are beefed up so that they even have separate express and local platforms, then you could increase the frequency.

Vancouver uses its automated system fairly well, but I think that there is still more that it can do with its existing technology, and this would be an example of that.

^ I don't think you need the screen doors to do this. You simply have passing lanes in the center or out the outside of the station.

For example at 29th you build a bypass track on the Slocan Park side of the station and potentially a second on the 29th street side with switches before and after the station. Express trains switch to the bypass track if the main track is occupied. That limits how much you have to rebuild the stations. 29th is a bad examples given it at grade.

Patterson is probably an easier one to to. You build the express bypass track on the outside of the station.

That said, those fairly expensive projects. If they were to have been done it would have been when many of these stations were refurbished several years back.

I still think the best option is more commuter rail. If your going to spend money on tracks the Grandview cut could be double tracked or make a deal with CP to get increased capacity on the current WestCoast Express line.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by casper

^ I don't think you need the screen doors to do this. You simply have passing lanes in the center or out the outside of the station.

For example at 29th you build a bypass track on the Slocan Park side of the station and potentially a second on the 29th street side with switches before and after the station. Express trains switch to the bypass track if the main track is occupied. That limits how much you have to rebuild the stations. 29th is a bad examples given it at grade.

But the point of the platform screen door is that you don't have to build a passing track at every local station, which will require expensive engineering, construction and maybe even expropriation. A PSD isn't cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than that.

Skytrain is an automated system in the year 2026. I have some faith that we can solve an issue through coding/programming before we turn to steel and concrete.

I still think the best option is more commuter rail. If you're going to spend money on tracks the Grandview cut could be double tracked or make a deal with CP to get increased capacity on the current WestCoast Express line.

See my earlier point: rail lines, beside being owned by freight companies, don't go near where people want to go and are often located in places with poor development potential (at the bottom of valleys, next to the Fraser river or Burred Inlet but below a steep cliff, etc.).

[someone123]

The idea of putting in station doors so that passing tracks can be located elsewhere is interesting. The doors themselves are desirable regardless.

For Abbotsford and Chilliwack I think basically the Highway 1 corridor needs to be expanded and bus lanes or rail could be added as part of that. You could eventually have a system where an express train leaves waterfront and then becomes a surface train serving Abbotsford. It would be a dedicated light rail based system rather than a system using the old freight network.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Speaking of the Vancouver Skytrain, here's a crazy idea to serve longer distance trips in the future.

If they installed platform screen doors at every station on the Expo line, and built turnouts and a third passing track in strategic locations - prioritizing places where it's easy to build, like surface sections (e.g. near Edmonds) or elevated sections where expropriation is relatively easy - maybe you could run express and local services kind of like the New York City subway, but on the existing two track alignment.

Some stations would serve both express and local (think important interchanges or destinations like Commercial-Broadway, Metrotown, New West, etc.) plus all the downtown locations which are not only high volume destinations but in a tunnel that's hard to retrofit. But others like 29th avenue or would only serve local trains, and the platform screen doors would shield passengers when an express train blasts through at 60-80 km/h.

Express services would be rolled out incrementally, limited by the number of passing opportunities. At first, maybe the express frequency is only once every 15 minutes per direction - not great, but better than nothing, and mostly just serving the very long distance riders. But as more passing tracks are built over the decades, and transfer stations are beefed up so that they even have separate express and local platforms, then you could increase the frequency.

Vancouver uses its automated system fairly well, but I think that there is still more that it can do with its existing technology, and this would be an example of that.

Again, you're spending fantasy money to 'improve' a system that doesn't have sufficient capital funding to complete the existing planned network. TransLink commented in 2022 that platform screen doors are not feasible, because of the cost associated and that there are different models of trains on the line with different door sizes configurations making it “impossible” to install platform screen doors that work for all train models. That might change if all the rolling stock was upgraded, but it's not possible currently.

[someone123]

I don't think it's wrong to ask what the system could look like 30-50 years from now, or to acknowledge that we underinvest in transit infrastructure in Canada. It is a good exercise to think about what would be possible with more investment.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think it's wrong to ask what the system could look like 30-50 years from now, or to acknowledge that we underinvest in transit infrastructure in Canada. It is a good exercise to ask what would be possible with more investment.

No, except this thread is supposed to be about projects actually under construction.

There's a whole transit fantasy thread on the Vancouver section where these ideas pop up from time to time, just as there are proponents of new transit investments to link the Fraser Valley to the Lower Mainland better, who appear, and then disappear within a year or two as the financial realities sink in. TransLink does the best it can with the money it can raise, and the Province develop new or extended transit lines when they can leverage the limited federal financial support that's available to BC. There are plans out to 2050, but current priorities are the electrification of the bus network, introduction of Bus Rapid Transit, and the completion of the UBC leg of SkyTrain

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Again, you're spending fantasy money to 'improve' a system that doesn't have sufficient capital funding to complete the existing planned network. TransLink commented in 2022 that platform screen doors are not feasible, because of the cost associated and that there are different models of trains on the line with different door sizes configurations making it “impossible” to install platform screen doors that work for all train models. That might change if all the rolling stock was upgraded, but it's not possible currently.

Well, I did say it was a "crazy idea" and I didn't intend for it to be built in the next decade or two. In the interim, Translink could run a regional coach system with buses it already has.

However, I'm still trying to be pragmatic, hence the incremental rollout of passing tracks and using the existing infrastructure to run express services. I'm not suggesting building an entirely new line here.

I think you're getting caught up on the platform screen door issue. You can technically run express services without PSDs, it's just a bit more of a hazard. I think PSDs have other benefits, and systems that have rolled them out (notably Seoul, which is almost an order of magnitude larger than the current Skytrain system in both size and ridership) have cut accidents and incident rates substantially. I think the "train doors don't line up" argument is a bit of a red herring. You can just assign the cars whose doors do line up to run the local services on a single line. Everything else can be assigned to the Millennium line or run as the express service. In general, Translink should be ordering cars that have the same dimensions and characteristics to account for things like this. PSDs have existed for over 30 years.

[someone123]

It's fairly common today for trains to pass through SkyTrain stations without stopping. They're probably doing 30 km/h instead of 70 km/h or similar, plus you save on the dwell time. I'd guess it would be 1-2 minutes saved per station skipped, which for a line with 25+ stops becomes significant.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Changing City

No, except this thread is supposed to be about projects actually under construction.

SSP is dying from a lack of active posting and discussion...

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by someone123

SSP is dying from a lack of active posting and discussion...

Not that I want to leave - I like it here - but where are discussions shifting to?

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Not that I want to leave - I like it here - but where are discussions shifting to?

Forums are a dying breed of the older internet. It's mostly shifted to platforms like Reddit and facebook these days.. these kinds of discussion places are just dying in general though. Less being replaced and just fading from existence.

I've always appreciated SSP because the level of discourse here is just on another level compared to most platforms, even other traditional forums. Places like reddit are just a mess of populist messaging without real informed discussion. If you don't fit the populist message you just get downvoted to oblivion and argued with into circles - there is a lot more space for debate and discussion here on things than anywhere else.

It's a real shame that SSP is fading into the background, but traffic levels on the site have been clearly declining for years now.

[biguc]

Search engines don't really index forums anymore. They do, however, index the shit out of reddit and quora and their ilk. They get all the traffic and legacy forums have increasingly become de factoclosed communities that nobody will ever find or pay attention to.

It's a shame. Reddit and Quora honestly do well enough at replacing the information shared in forums, but they're terrible for discussion. Reddit in particular is tailor made for mediocre and mean spirited people to feel big about being mediocre and mean spirited. The anonymity and downvote system ensure real communities will never form but creepy echo chambers will.

This forum has been really good lately, by the way. Taking out the current events trash has made a big difference. My thanks to the mods

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by biguc

Search engines don't really index forums anymore. They do, however, index the shit out of reddit and quora and their ilk. They get all the traffic and legacy forums have increasingly become de factoclosed communities that nobody will ever find or pay attention to.

It's a shame. Reddit and Quora honestly do well enough at replacing the information shared in forums, but they're terrible for discussion. Reddit in particular is tailor made for mediocre and mean spirited people to feel big about being mediocre and mean spirited. The anonymity and downvote system ensure real communities will never form but creepy echo chambers will.

This forum has been really good lately, by the way. Taking out the current events trash has made a big difference. My thanks to the mods

I actually just started using Reddit this year after a forum I used for as long as this one closed. I had visited the site at different times since it regularly came up in search results but never spent any time just browsing and never really posted (which is still the case with Quora). It makes we wonder what effect the up/down vote and karma systems actually have.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by someone123

The idea of putting in station doors so that passing tracks can be located elsewhere is interesting. The doors themselves are desirable regardless.

For Abbotsford and Chilliwack I think basically the Highway 1 corridor needs to be expanded and bus lanes or rail could be added as part of that. You could eventually have a system where an express train leaves waterfront and then becomes a surface train serving Abbotsford. It would be a dedicated light rail based system rather than a system using the old freight network.

I would imagine the cost of doing that would be in the billions. Though I do think Metro Vancouver needs an express service, I would instead dedicate that money to an express line that runs down the #1, right into downtown Vancouver, from Abbottsford or Chilliwack, as you mentioned.

Since there would be no switching tracks involved, it would be far faster than an express train along the Expo Line, and it would also bring rapid transit to different parts of the city, bringing more people within walking distance of rapid transit, though this express line would better serve a park and ride type model, given how isolated the stations would be. Lots of room for cheap parking though.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by biguc

This forum has been really good lately, by the way. Taking out the current events trash has made a big difference. My thanks to the mods

Agreed. I'm a psycho who still looks at r/toronto to see how different their perception of the city is. They make it seem like a warzone because if they see a homeless person a block away they have an anxiety attack.

It's very different from my day to day life.

[IRT_BMT_IND]

Regarding passing tracks on the Skytrain, this is basically how all the private railways in Tokyo do local/express services, some of them have 4 track segments in the busiest parts of the line, but only the JR routes have New York style 4 track dedicated express/local tracks for entire lines. They can fit this in with super-precise scheduling and sometime uneven or non-clockface headways (ie a train might operate 6 times per hour, but on alternative 12 and 8 minute headways).

If we are talking about impractical and radical transit proposals that still would actually be useful, one of them might be extending the bottom of the "U" for Toronto's Yonge line from Union Station to Queens Quay. The south core area is growing fast, beyond the capacity of the tiny Queens Quay streetcar station, and even the expanded Union subway station is feeling overcrowded. This would also allow a through running streetcar on Queens Quay to the new developments in the portlands with a convenient subway connection New stations would be built at Yonge and Front (which would better service the St. Lawrence market area), Bay and Queens Quay, and York and Front (which would be the new Union subway station, and would be even larger with full Spanish solution platforms).