The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Wharn]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Why do you say that? Light rail is just as fast as Skytrain technology.

Christ almighty Jesus, here we go again.

Brace yerselves, lads. The Great Toronto LRT debate is about to return.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by Wharn

Brace yerselves, lads. The Great Toronto LRT debate is about to return.

Thanks for the tip.

[armorand93]

Originally Posted by Wharn

Christ almighty Jesus, here we go again.

Brace yerselves, lads. The Great Toronto LRT debate is about to return.

Not if the Winnipeg BRT debate can help it!

*haybale passes by*

[Metro-One]

No posts about the train derailment? Just saw a blurp on the news was hoping to get more info here...

[vegeta_skyline]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

No posts about the train derailment? Just saw a blurp on the news was hoping to get more info here...

Why would a public forum have more info than news agencies who are getting their updates straight from VIA?

[Mister F]

It'll be interesting to see what happened with the VIA derailment. These kinds of things shouldn't happen at all, but they seem to happen all too frequently, especially with freight.

Originally Posted by Wharn

Christ almighty Jesus, here we go again.

Brace yerselves, lads. The Great Toronto LRT debate is about to return.

Who pissed in your corn flakes this morning? That was a general statement, nothing to do with Toronto specifically. The idea that LRT is slow is just weird.

[Hybrid247]

Who pissed in your corn flakes this morning? That was a general statement, nothing to do with Toronto specifically. The idea that LRT is slow is just weird.

Running at-grade is the main factor that would slow LRT down. Skytrain is fully grade separated whereas an LRT system like the ones in calgary and edmonton have to cross intersections.

[armorand93]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Running at-grade is the main factor that would slow LRT down. Skytrain is fully grade separated whereas an LRT system like the ones in calgary and edmonton have to cross intersections.

Calgary Intersections:

Lions Park station
SAIT station
Sunnyside station
7th Avenue
A few streets along MacLeod Trail

Edmonton Intersections:

All over the Northern section of the line

Calgary Travel time to Downtown (Crowfoot to 7th): roughly 15-25 minutes

Edmonton travel time (Central - Century Park): 15-20

Not much of an difference...

[Hybrid247]

I didn't say those systems were slow. In fact they're quite time efficient. All I said is that running at-grade would be the main factor that would make LRT slower than a system like the skytrain, but like you said it's not much of a difference

[White Pine]

Originally Posted by 1331Massi

Where would this have been built so that the Oratory is directly behind the station? Wouldn't it be where Collège Notre-Dame is now? Or is that another church in the background?

I think that's Mary Queen of the World Cathedral. It's in downtown. It's kind of a downscale copy of St. Peters.

http://www.imtl.org/montreal/building/Basilique-Marie-Reine-du-monde.php

This is the Oratory:

http://imgpe.trivago.com/uploadimages/49/79/4979284_l.jpeg

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

I didn't say those systems were slow. In fact they're quite time efficient. All I said is that running at-grade would be the main factor that would make LRT slower than a system like the skytrain, but like you said it's not much of a difference

Calgary and Edmonton's LRT systems are fast because even the at-grade sections have full priority, with crossing arms, and with fencing or concrete walls separating the tracks from traffic.
In Calgary and Edmonton's case, many of the at-grade middle of the street running sections, also have wide gravel sections between the tracks and the wall or fence separating traffic lanes from the tracks. Basically more like a rapid transit line running down the middle of a highway.

This is totally different than Portland's Interstate MAX or the Transit City LRT lines for Toronto, where the tracks are much closer to the street traffic, and where no walls or fencing is used to separate traffic, meaning trains must only travel the speed of the local traffic, which is slow.

[sober2ndthought]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

This is totally different than Portland's Interstate MAX or the Transit City LRT lines for Toronto, where the tracks are much closer to the street traffic, and where no walls or fencing is used to separate traffic, meaning trains must only travel the speed of the local traffic, which is slow.

Portland's MAX Train runs at a pretty decent speed once you leave inner-city. In fact, the average speed of Portland's Max Train is about 34.1 KM/H while the TTC subway average speed is 32 KM/H.

• Video Link

• Video Link

[miketoronto]

The Portland Green line MAX line is different than the yellow Interstate MAX, which operates down the middle of the road.

Portland's street running sections are slow.

[sober2ndthought]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

The Portland Green line MAX line is different than the yellow Interstate MAX, which operates down the middle of the road.

Portland's street running sections are slow.

• Video Link

This is still operating at a fairly decent speed. That has to be about 60 KM/H, not the greatest but not the worst. The Yellow Line hasn't been fully developed, the short bit which is outside of the urban core is fairly fast. The part which is built in the inner-city component is slow. The reasons are obvious, the Yellow Line runs down the median of residential street, not a major arterial road, and that area is very dense and accidents are more likely to happen.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by sober2ndthought

• Video Link

This is still operating at a fairly decent speed. That has to be about 60 KM/H, not the greatest but not the worst. The Yellow Line hasn't been fully developed, the short bit which is outside of the urban core is fairly fast. The part which is built in the inner-city component is slow. The reasons are obvious, the Yellow Line runs down the median of residential street, not a major arterial road, and that area is very dense and accidents are more likely to happen.

That Portland video shows just how slow LRT is when it is operating in the middle of the street without the barriers which Calgary and Edmonton use.

No wonder it takes LRT 29 minutes to go from Columbia and Interstate (the start of the street running section) to downtown Portland, vs 10 minutes in a car.
And they wonder why transit modal share is so bad in Portland. Could this be one of the reasons?

Calgary and Edmonton did it right. Other cities have not followed.

[sober2ndthought]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

That Portland video shows just how slow LRT is when it is operating in the middle of the street without the barriers which Calgary and Edmonton use.

No wonder it takes LRT 29 minutes to go from Columbia and Interstate (the start of the street running section) to downtown Portland, vs 10 minutes in a car.
And they wonder why transit modal share is so bad in Portland. Could this be one of the reasons?

Calgary and Edmonton did it right. Other cities have not followed.

Portland has 126,000 people using its TriMax service every day. For an American transit system that is highly successful.

Calgary and Edmonton are the only cities in Canada to implement Light Rail, a comparison to American cities is simply disingenuous. American cities are built and grew in a very different fashion than Calgary and Edmonton. The urban cores are deserted, they have built a strong inter-state freeway system, they have a greater emphasis on suburban employment centres which are scattered across the city.

I don't know Edmonton very well, but I do know Calgary well. Calgary did not develop in this fashion. The urban cores is highly developed, with the CBD being the primary employment node. The city has encouraged the urban core to remain the primary employment centre through various policies. The city has also encouraged greater LRT use by discouraging automobile usage. The city hasn't built a single urban freeway, the city has limited parking in the CBD. At the same time Calgarians are Canadian and for odd reason Canadians just seem to take transit a lot more than Americans.

The real reason for the success of Calgary's LRT has more to do with factors which do not actually include the LRT itself. If you have the time see if you can dig up statics on old express bus network which Calgary ran along the current LRT corridors you will likely see very high ridership on those as well.

[1331Massi]

Originally Posted by The Gibbroni

The need for private boxes killed all the old arenas. I hate the new ones, they're all shopping malls with a rink in the middle.

The Pepsi Forum is an abomination that I will never step foot in!

Amen

[dleung]

I gotta say, Portland has some pretty nice freeways:

[1331Massi]

Originally Posted by White Pine

I think that's Mary Queen of the World Cathedral. It's in downtown. It's kind of a downscale copy of St. Peters.

http://www.imtl.org/montreal/building/Basilique-Marie-Reine-du-monde.php

Ya, I just figured that one out yesterday. MQOTW is a replica of the Saint-Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, but in the render it looks a lot more like the Oratory. My bad...

[LeftCoaster]

Those remind me of the expressways in singapore. Mainly in a trench and pretty green along the sides.