The future of Hamilton's public transit

[SteelTown]

LRT stop to McMaster will be at Main St, it won't even go up to the front entrance of McMaster Hospital.

[raisethehammer]

that has yet to be decided, as has the entire possible route.
I'll be one of the people pushing for it to go into campus. That's one of the most common themes of building LRT in North America - it is compatible with pedestrian zones and it is absolutely essential to get it into university campuses where ridership potential is ridiculous.

[flar]

Removing buses from campus is a really, really, really bad move. It takes ten minutes or more to walk from Main St. to most points on campus. Thousands of students will have to cross one of Hamilton's busiest roads, which incidentally has that stupid two stage pedestrian crossing in a 60km/h zone. I absolutely guarantee that pedestrians will be hit by cars and some will be seriously injured or killed. This move is just plain stupid. McMaster is completely wrong on this.

[SteelTown]

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere on the report that the LRT at Main St near McMaster could be elevated or street level with an underground pedestrian crossing.

[raisethehammer]

that's a complete waste of money.
Run it up the new entrance into the middle of campus near the Student Centre or McMaster Hall and back out to Main St. It's quite simple to design a proper LRT system that taps into the ridership potential of a university.
At the end of the day, it's a public institution and if Hamilton wants LRT on campus, that's what Hamilton will get.

[flar]

Email Terry Sullivan, director of parking and security at Mac, with your concerns:
[email protected]

[SteelTown]

We'll have a good idea of how the LRT will look like in a few days with the report to council in September.

[raisethehammer]

A photo of a pedestrian plaza at Portland State University:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25286635@N04/2491674518/sizes/l/

[MsMe]

That's a great setup and that isn't on the actual roads that would interfere with the traffic.

[markbarbera]

Route it through to the new GO McMaster Terminal via the new Main Street entrance. It's located relatively more centrally and within the campus. This terminal should be a multi-modal transport node anyway.

[raisethehammer]

i'm confident that we'll make the right choice when it comes time to plan LRT.
We aren't going to bypass one of our largest employers, our largest university and largest hub of potential riders.
McMaster will be forced to take a wild step out of the 80's and get with the program.

[SteelTown]

These are the guys you wanna talk to about McMaster's LRT route.....

ACT Office (All-modes Commuting & Transportation)
http://act.mcmaster.ca/

[JoeyColeman]

I don't mind the change personally. It will be a little quicker on Main St since it will not get stuck behind other buses and traffic in Westdale Villege and along Sterling.

Plus, I travel to the east end using the B-Line and I often cannot get on the bus because of people taking it to Westdale from the campus. The only people who will walk 3-5 minutes to the front of the campus are those people who actually need the express bus because they are travelling to downtown or points beyond.

I once tried to go to Bell Manor Loop from McMaster and could not get on the 55A because of overcrowding. It was frustrating to realize my only transit option was unavailable when other on the bus could have taken the 51 to Westdale Village. Of course, they have the right to take that bus, they've paid a valid fare and can use it as they sit fit.

I find the quote from the biochemistry student to be sadly uninformed. Being a bio-chem student, most of their classes will be near the hospital. Add the time the bus saves on Main Street, subtract the time to walk across the hospital and in that incidence, the change is time neutral.

I agree that the university is the problem here. I found it ironic that it was the university using students has bargaining chips against the city.

UNIV:"If we do get our way, we'll punish the students!"
CITY: "Fine, we don't like them anyway!"

[JoeyColeman]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

that's a complete waste of money.
Run it up the new entrance into the middle of campus near the Student Centre or McMaster Hall and back out to Main St. It's quite simple to design a proper LRT system that taps into the ridership potential of a university.
At the end of the day, it's a public institution and if Hamilton wants LRT on campus, that's what Hamilton will get.

Universities view themselves has publicly-funded private institutions and act as private bodies - hence their aversion to measures of public accountability. The city should play hardball with the university and force it to get with the times.

[flar]

The ACT office might be worth a try, but they don't have much clout in the university, they're more of a PR thing.

[mishap]

Originally Posted by raisethehammer

And to not have every bus stop at Mac Medical Centre is stupid. And Longwood. Both of those should be stops, both ways, with ALL buses.

You'd never fit all the buses in at the med centre. Just King and B-Line clog it up now. Plus, all it takes is a "code red" to get fire trucks blocking the loop, then all buses are forced to detour down to Sussex. It's happened several times; I've witnessed it once.

However, having said that, you're on the right track. Notice that nice grassy semicircle between Main St and the med centre? Pretty much the perfect spot for a bus terminal. At the east end of the semicircle, provide a bus-only exit to Main St eastbound (and westbound) with a transit signal. This allows for all routes in all directions to stop on the north side of Main, cutting down on the problem of Mac students playing in traffic.

Assuming that all buses come off campus in the near future, but the route lineup is otherwise unchanged, here's an example of how it could work:
- Westbound through routes share a stop on Main near the lights at Forsyth. This would be routes 5B, 52 and 10, though the latter could have its own stop.
- Westbound to southbound routes stop on Main at the east end of the terminal. When the signals behind them are red, the buses can move left to make the turn onto Emerson. This applies to routes 5C and 51.
- Routes terminating at the terminal enter via Forsyth, where they take their layover at dedicated bays. They exit eastbound onto Main via the transit signal. This applies to routes 1A and 10A/10.
- Eastbound through routes, either from Main or Emerson, enter via Forsyth, stop at a common stop (or grouped stop), then exit via the transit signal. This applies to routes 5, 5A, 5E and 51. Route 10 would use the dedicated stop.

The layout of the terminal could easily accommodate changes in the bus network, and with the likelihood of LRT, there will need to be many changes.

[flar]

The thing I don't like about moving buses off campus is that most of the campus is quite far from Main St. It reduces the convenience of traveling there by bus when you have to walk 10-15 minutes to your destination. Most transit use at Mac is during the school year, which occurs during the eight months with the worst weather. As it is now, the bus will drop you off very close to where you need to go, which is ideal. McMaster's "goal" of increasing transit use is and reducing the need for parking not served by this at all.

[DC83]

^^ That's a great point, Flar.
Not only does it stop on campus, but there are actually a couple different stops within the campus currently which makes it that much more convenient.

I don't know what Mac was thinking with this. I really hope there's a good reason that they're just waiting to surprise us with... I wont hold my breath tho.

[SteelTown]

McMaster rewarded a contract to some landscaping company to redo the front entrance garden area. Should happen next year as the Engineering Building will be completed.

[adam]

WIll they still have the commuter buses from the #6 parking lot coming into campus? They come into campus more often than the city buses.