The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by vid

Yeah they changed evening frequency but still aren't making connections. They might as well just run the buses around willy-nilly, we'd have the same effect.

Can't wait for the new network to go into effect next year. We find out exactly where the bus station will go in a few weeks, I think. May sometime?

They're building a new station? I did not know that. I'd only been told that they changed the evening schedule so that it made less sense.

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Eglinton Crosstown LRT Gets it's Drilling (Boring) Machine

From the National Post:


http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/04/09/...s-set-to-dig-the-eglinton-crosstown-lrt/

Almost two decades since the last effort to dig a transit tunnel along Eglinton Avenue was halted, construction of the Crosstown LRT tunnel is set to begin anew.

More reason to support more transit funding across Ontario, tons of jobs are being made.

Toronto LRT starts with giant Hamilton-made vault

There is a giant tunnel soon to be dug in Toronto for a new crosstown light-rail line and a Hamilton company played a key role in making that happen.

Bermingham Foundation Solutions built a giant L-shaped concrete vault into which a massive boring machine was dropped. Machines will chew up and spit out earth for about 10 kilometres starting at Black Creek Drive.

That’s the first phase of a $4.9-billion Eglinton-Scarborough Crosstown LRT scheduled to be open in 2020. It’s the largest capital transit project yet to be managed by regional transit authority Metrolinx.

The 116-year-old Bermingham Foundation Solutions builds foundations for tunnels, bridges and structures all over the world. Its focus areas are energy, mining and transportation.

The company, which takes up about 12 acres on Hamilton Port Authority land, expanded its manufacturing plant into the warehouse portion of the former Lakeport brewery last year. The company is already looking to further expand on the site, said Bermingham.

[Beedok]

We should figure out a way to get big donations to public transit like Hospitals and Universities get.

[vid]

Originally Posted by GernB

Still think it would be nice to have some transit to the industrial area. Almost 3 square miles and no real service.

It requires demand. Thunder Bay's industrial bus is the result of Bombardier (which is a public transit manufacturer) wanting to support public transit. The city could create an incentive, as well. Some places will allow a business to build less parking spaces than required if it offers its employees bus passes. My city will exempt up to 20 parking spaces if a developer builds bike racks or shower facilities, and even more if they build a bus stop nearby. (Our mall did this to be able to provide 20% less parking than the by-laws require; it built and maintains the transit terminal on that property, and I often joke that our transit system is a Mall Customer Delivery System).

Originally Posted by Beedok

They're building a new station? I did not know that. I'd only been told that they changed the evening schedule so that it made less sense.

They changed the evening schedule because the increased ridership was preventing the Memorial and Mainline buses from getting to the other downtown in time to make connections. The Mainline was missing its timing points nearly 90% of the time. They've improved it a lot but it's still struggling, and that's with the Extra system where a short run bus will run five minutes ahead to lighten the passenger load. They also extended the Hudson bus a little to better serve the new high school, but it no longer interlines with the Crosstown, and it runs on a 45 minute frequency at all times (since ridership is so low).

With the new route plan, all buses will go to the Intercity area, but the three downtowns, LU and Con College will still be focal points. LU will have bus connections, without transfer, to almost all parts of the city; currently it only has access to about a quarter of the city.

This is the preliminary map, there will be a couple changes before its implemented and probably a lot of minor tweaks once it is in place. Hopefully they start this in the summer so that a lot of kinks are worked out before the school year; you don't want college kids to just get used to the system, and then change it on them.



The biggest downside to the plan is that the routes are very convoluted.

Originally Posted by Beedok

We should figure out a way to get big donations to public transit like Hospitals and Universities get.

Naming rights to bus terminals? Transit systems aren't really doing research or providing care, though.

[ssiguy]

Must be difficult for a small city to have to serve 2 downtowns.

[Beedok]

There's some pretty major changes there, wow.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Must be difficult for a small city to have to serve 2 downtowns.

Yeah plus the major interchange at Intercity Mall.

[vid]

It's basically two cities of 50,000 right beside each other. Until now, the system has been two separate systems that kind of mingle together in between. This will be the first time we look at the city as a single entity, and design a public transit network that reflects that. Currently, everyone must go to one of the downtowns before going to another destination. This will allow them to bypass the downtown and get to the mall, the hospital, or the universities more directly. Only two routes don't change in that plan: Route 1 is completely unchanged, and route 7 is identical to the current route 8. The numbers will probably be tweaked in the final plan to be a bit more closer to the current routes.

Outside of transit, the two downtowns do cause a lot of rivalry. The city has re-built the waterfront in the north downtown and is considering a multiplex there as well, so people in the south end of the city are feeling left out. We still have only four roads that connect the two sides of town, but a fourth one will be built in the next decade. We often compromise and build things in between the two downtowns which is why Intercity has developed. It's sort of like our version of Square One, but without a residential population. Hopefully the locating of a public transit terminal there will help encourage more mixed-use development.

We're not entirely sure where it will be yet, but the city recently purchased a lot with a rail connection, and the most logical location across from the mall is on the CN line. The 40 year old Greyhound terminal is in the area too, and hopefully they will combine the two into a comprehensive transit centre.

[Beedok]

I want to check, is it true that the previous route system was designed by someone who'd never been to Thunder Bay?

[vid]

It's possible but I don't think so; I'm pretty sure it was simply done internally. The system we use now is a modification of what they developed in the 1999 transit plan, and that was really just a streamlining of the existing routes, which had been in place since 1970. (Many of them pre-dated amalgamation; the transit system changed little until 1999. The McComber 9 route existed in the early 50s and had the exact same routing in 1998.) The 1999 plan was a bit odd (thought the Junot/Crosstown route was pretty interesting and the Balmoral 16 was really handy since it connected my house and my school) but once they tweaked it in about 2004 or so, it worked fine. It just didn't have the necessary flexibility to adapt to rising ridership; it was designed with the assumption that ridership would remain the same for a long time.

The new plan was developed by Genivar Consulting, which is a national company, and the team doing it was not from Thunder Bay, but they're very well established here now and are building a new 3 storey office in Innova Park. (Brock McIlroy, the architects behind Prince Arthur's Landing, also relocated here from Toronto due to that project, so the city scored two large, professional companies with these improvement projects.) Considering the amount of time they've spent studying the system and talking to citizens I would say at this point, they know what they're doing, even if they weren't born and raised here. They worked on York Region's YRT/Viva system so they have experience working on systems that have to anticipate growing demand. Even if it isn't implemented, they'll have a plan for express buses covering the entire city, and higher level (perhaps BRT) transit in the long run, things we've never considered before.

The city is currently silently piloting an express route called 99 Memorial Express, which connects the two downtowns and the mall in the most direct routing possible. I'm not sure how far they'll go with publicizing it but it shows that they're starting to implement higher level service. The holiday express bus in December has been fairly successful.

[Beedok]

I do love those secret trials that they have for routes from time to time where they then cancel it because no one took it, but no one took it because they didn't know where it went or what it was.

[vid]

Yes, I call them Surprise Buses. I miss them a lot because I think no bus is coming, start walking home, and then it goes by unexpectedly.

[goodthings]

GO Transit makes its "biggest service improvement in history" so far: Starting June 29, it will double the off-peak and weekend frequency of their Lakeshore West and Lakeshore East lines to every 30 minutes...

Hopefully off-peak and weekend trains for Bramalea, Unionville, Richmond Hill and Newmarket will be the next big thing...

http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/go-transit-to-...shore-lines-to-every-half-hour-1.1245135

[Innsertnamehere]

That won't come until the Transit taxes are implemented as it requires capital expenditures on double tracking.

[Nouvellecosse]

They actually expect to have all the money raised and the tracks doubled by June 29?

And once this service increase goes through I wonder when we'll see electrification plans move forward.

[Innsertnamehere]

tracks are already doubled on lakeshore. You need double tracks if you want anything more than peak service, as you have to be able to have the trains pass each other going either way. I was saying that double tracks are required on the Milton, Kitchener, Barrie, or Stouffville subs in order for even hourly service to start. you could Run some weekend trains though, as well as a single train doing a run up and down the tracks off peak. (Probably resulting in the frequency of once every two hours)

[Nouvellecosse]

You don't necessarily need double tracks the whole way; some systems make due with short doubled "passing" sections, although this is less convenient obviously since one or both of the trains need to stop.

[bartlebooth]

There was a ground breaking ceremony Friday for Ottawa's LRT project!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/sto...-storage-maintenance-groundbreaking.html

Looks like things are finally getting started!

[caltrane74]

Awesome news for Ottawa on the LRT! Any word on whether they will piggyback with Toronto and Kitchner for their LRT train order or will they go it alone with Allstorm?

Also great news on the GO Transit, as we get this much closer to all day sevice and electrication of the lakeshore west line and the Airport Line. My prediction another 5 to 10 years before we get the go ahead.

[Innsertnamehere]

We could the GO ahead (see what I did there?) as early as the end of the year, along with $38 billion in other transit projects if the transit tax passes.