The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[The_Architect]

Originally Posted by Wharn

The route is not grade-separated, they still have to deal with street lights and intersections, so it is NOT true rapid transit.



Good riddance I say. The whole Transit City proposal was misguided from the start; the ideas would have worked nicely somewhere like London or Hamilton, but Toronto is simply too big and too congested to have glorified streetcars serving as the "rapid transit" backbone, especially to far-flung areas in the inner ring of suburbs. With any luck this section will turn into the much-needed Eglinton subway.



The underground sections had the right idea, but if you're going to spend the money to tunnel underneath, why not just go the extra mile and invest in heavy rail? It's done wonders along the Sheppard corridor (contrary to what all the pessimists and downtown bubble-boys over at blogTO seem to think), I'm certain you'd see some substantial urban renewal along the piece of shit that is Eglinton West.

Actually a subway isn't needed on Eglinton, or on any of the other Transit City routes. Stop listening to Rob Ford, it'll be for the better. I worked on Transit City and let me tell you it is by far more what Toronto needs than more expensive subways.
I don't know how many times I've had to repeat this but for Eglinton the LRT would carry the capacity, with room for growth, for 1/3 the cost of a subway that wouldn't even be half full.
If in 70 years the ridership on that line gets to the point where a subway is needed, it could easily be converted to subway use, as quite a bit of it is already going to be underground. But right now, no subway.

[The_Architect]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Hamilton's LRT will have those signal street lights. If LRT approachs a street light it'll automatically switch to green. The entire route will take 30 minutes from Eastgate to McMaster.

Did you happen to go to the B-Line open house Tuesday?

[caltrane74]

The core of the Metrolinx strategy is Eglinton. No matter what Rob Ford whines about, this line is being built. Its not being funded by the city, so Fat Rob has no say in the matter.

So what might happen, is to consilate, the Eglinton Line will be built underground for more than the planned 12km, and another option is to have grade seperated track east and west of that.

[Wharn]

Originally Posted by The_Architect

Actually a subway isn't needed on Eglinton, or on any of the other Transit City routes. Stop listening to Rob Ford, it'll be for the better. I worked on Transit City and let me tell you it is by far more what Toronto needs than more expensive subways.

Tunnelling is the largest cost incurred when constructing subways or other forms of metro heavy rail (when underground, of course; no need to tunnel under green lawns). They are already planning to build the Eglinton tunnel to accomodate a future heavy rail line, and caltrane74 suggested that they may also consider grade-separated track when the line is not running underground. So, what is the real incremental cost of building this line to subway standards? It certainly cannot be that much if the main pieces of infrastructure will already in place. And how much bigger will the operating budget be? Certainly nothing more to pay the drivers since the same number of (or even fewer) trains would run through, and then a marginally higher cost of electricity to run the more energy-hungry subway trains.

I appreciate the Rob Ford remark, but seeing as he is not my mayor I have no need to listen to his tripe. This is all my impartial point of view, looking in from the outside on the mess that is Toronto.

Originally Posted by The_Architect

I don't know how many times I've had to repeat this but for Eglinton the LRT would carry the capacity, with room for growth, for 1/3 the cost of a subway that wouldn't even be half full.
If in 70 years the ridership on that line gets to the point where a subway is needed, it could easily be converted to subway use, as quite a bit of it is already going to be underground. But right now, no subway.

So is this the same line of thinking that prevailed when the construction of the Toronto subway was first underway in 1949, when the city only had about 670,000 people? Or even earlier when they built the lower rail deck on the Bloor Street Viaduct before there was even a network to speak of? Barring these, seeing the development we've seen along the Sheppard line in only eight years, do you really think it would take 70 years before the Eglinton LRT's capacity is reached, considering it will be running through an area that was more densely populated to begin with?

Toronto, despite its size, is becoming more like Little London. Build for today, ignore the needs of tomorrow, who cares if the costs are even semi-justified. Sure explains our invisible Ring Road

[BretttheRiderFan]

Does Quebec City have any plans to develop rapid transit?

They must be the only city over 500,000 without any rail transit or plans for it

[feepa]

^ Does Winnipeg have any real plans for rail transit?

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by feepa

^ Does Winnipeg have any real plans for rail transit?

brt with plans for upgrade to lrt and plans being drawn up for a bunch of other lines but.. untill we get a different mayor its not guna realy be much

[ToxiK]

Originally Posted by BretttheRiderFan

Does Quebec City have any plans to develop rapid transit?

They must be the only city over 500,000 without any rail transit or plans for it

Mayor Labeaume want a tramway for his city. He also wants the Nordiques back... The problem right now is money...

Here's a link to Cyberpresse about that project. It is in french.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/dossiers/le-tramway-labeaume/

[Wharn]

Originally Posted by ToxiK

Mayor Labeaume want a tramway for his city. He also wants the Nordiques back... The problem right now is money...

Here's a link to Cyberpresse about that project. It is in french.

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/dossiers/le-tramway-labeaume/

I'm so glad to see that Quebec has some plans to get LRT in place (for a city that size it would work wonderfully), just hope to god they don't use those stupid bus-trams shown in the linked article. I've been on one system Mannheim, Germany; probably the dumbest form of transportation ever invented. They don't offer the smooth ride of a tram, or the flexibility of a trolleybus- plus I believe the guidance design is proprietary.

Personally, I like this much better, I think if you're going to invest in this sort of system you might as well go all the way and build something halfway decent:

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/le-soleil/doss...-boulevard-charest-le-trace-conteste.php

My only concern is whether this will adversely affect congestion on the narrower section of Boulevard Charest through the downown core of Quebec City.

[caltrane74]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...r-pan-am-games-metrolinx/article1875565/


ELECTRIFY THE PEARSON RAIL LINK !!


The long-awaited express rail line between Toronto's Union station and Pearson airport should be electrified, but not in time for its opening before the 2015 Pan Am Games, according to Metrolinx.

The province's regional transportation agency is recommending Queen's Park spend $1.6-$1.8-billion to upgrade GO Transit's Lakeshore and Georgetown corridors from diesel to electric trains, with the air-rail link being switched over first.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by sikandar

Some renderings taken from the CBC link:

New Pickering Mall to Rail Station Bridge.

[SteelTown]

LRT plans for the B-Line in Hamilton













The EA is complete. Now we sit and wait for funding.

[SteelTown]

• Video Link

[The_Architect]

^ I saw that video on a constant loop last night at the open house at Scottish Rite Castle..

The LRT plan is getting a lot more support in Hamilton than Transit City in Toronto. Kinda makes me envious of them that they actually have people that support a smart transit plan, something Toronto really lacks.

[Traynor]

^Good on Steeltown to go far an an LRT

Originally Posted by caltrane74

New Pickering Mall to Rail Station Bridge.

^So is GO also getting Bullet Trains with this new Bridge? That should get 'em to Oshawa in a hurry!

And that poor woman sitting on that bench all day and all night waiting for her husband to pick her up. *Tsk, tsk.

[caltrane74]

Bullet Trains - I wish!

lol.

But they are making the line Electric, which should speed up the trains. And of course we'll get some fancy new designs when that happens too!!

[Doady]

Originally Posted by The_Architect

Actually a subway isn't needed on Eglinton, or on any of the other Transit City routes. Stop listening to Rob Ford, it'll be for the better. I worked on Transit City and let me tell you it is by far more what Toronto needs than more expensive subways.
I don't know how many times I've had to repeat this but for Eglinton the LRT would carry the capacity, with room for growth, for 1/3 the cost of a subway that wouldn't even be half full.

Why does a transit line have to be full? The Yonge and Bloor lines are full right now, and it is not a good thing by any means. Full trains are an indicator that there is not enough capacity and that more service is needed.

The truth is, a new higher order transit line that manages to fill 50% of its capacity is alone is already a big accomplishment.

And it's funny that you say that subways aren't need on any Transit City route. It is a typical strawman argument that Transit City supporters like you make. The truth is, aside from Eglinton, no subways have ever been proposed for any of the Transit City routes, not even for the Sheppard LRT route, servicing Malvern and the Zoo. When has there ever been a serious plan or proposal to build a subway line to Malvern, let alone three subway lines?

[PoscStudent]

There has been no bus system in St. John's since the begining of November thanks to striking bus drivers and there are no sign of us getting one for a while yet.

[The_Architect]

Originally Posted by Doady

Why does a transit line have to be full? The Yonge and Bloor lines are full right now, and it is not a good thing by any means. Full trains are an indicator that there is not enough capacity and that more service is needed.

The truth is, a new higher order transit line that manages to fill 50% of its capacity is alone is already a big accomplishment.

And it's funny that you say that subways aren't need on any Transit City route. It is a typical strawman argument that Transit City supporters like you make. The truth is, aside from Eglinton, no subways have ever been proposed for any of the Transit City routes, not even for the Sheppard LRT route, servicing Malvern and the Zoo. When has there ever been a serious plan or proposal to build a subway line to Malvern, let alone three subway lines?

It wouldn't be full like Tokyo subways but it'd be better to serve the number of riders that would be using the line, even for years in the future.

And strawman argument? Seriously? I was saying subways aren't needed on the Eglinton route.. but Rob "Gravy Train" Ford says that he wanted to replace Transit City with subways, which implies he means all of the lines. Then he acts all surprised when it'd "found out" that it would cost 3x as much, and would completely go against his entire campaign.. Even though they knew that years ago. No serious proposals have been made because it is a ridiculous thing to suggest anyways. The main argument I was responding to was the one where it was said Eglinton needed a subway instead of an LRT, which isn't true at all. Though if they scrapped it, wasted the money already spent, built a subway and found out the hard way that it really wasn't needed at all, somehow Miller would still be blamed. What a joke Toronto is now politically.

[haljackey]

A couple more pics of rapid transit proposals for London: