The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Airboy

On your Map of the ETS lines. The Campbell Road station is actually in St Albert. This would be a joint venture I believe. St Albert is also going to study expanding the line into St Albert. However this will probably not be in my lifetime. As for the low floor line, I to believe this should have been the same style as the existing system. I feel it could have been elevated like BCs line through Richmond. The years we had council not spending money on the LRT set Edmonton’s LRT development way back.

It will be a joint venture. St. Albert is already talking about feasibility and ways to fund this expansion.



But back to current systems... I'd say Corona and Grandin are probably my two favorite subway stations that I've been in, outside of Vancouver's Canada Line. Corona's has like three huge 2 storey chandeliers hanging through each of three holes in the cieling in the station, through the mezzanine, down to the platform level. You can kinda see the bottom ones in my photo.

Grandin/Government Centre


Corona

[red-paladin]

Corona's decor is pricelessly 1979/1980

[Chadillaccc]

Yep, just like all of Toronto's except more functional, less dirty.

[miketoronto]

Edmonton was the smart one in building a downtown tunnel from the start and providing true metro like rapid transit with LRT.

It is a shame Calgary and Ottawa did not do this from the start, as it would have reduced the large congestion problems they have with surface transit in the downtown areas.

The only sad thing is that Edmonton is now moving away from building true rapid transit, and is instead following the fad of planning to build in the middle of the street streetcar style LRT. Instead of building on the success of the current system.

[shreddog]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Edmonton was the smart one in building a downtown tunnel from the start and providing true metro like rapid transit with LRT.

It is a shame Calgary and Ottawa did not do this from the start, as it would have reduced the large congestion problems they have with surface transit in the downtown areas.

Hmmmm, both Calgary and Edmonton have spent roughly the same on their LRT networks. Calgary's is twice as big and carries 3 times the passengers.

Sure, Calgary could have spent a shitload on the DT ug portion and had a smaller network with less boardings but at least it wouldn't have any congestion DT!!

Funny, I always thought the role of public transit was to move people and not reduce congestion DT ... silly me!

[red-paladin]

Give and take on both options.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by shreddog

Hmmmm, both Calgary and Edmonton have spent roughly the same on their LRT networks. Calgary's is twice as big and carries 3 times the passengers.

Sure, Calgary could have spent a shitload on the DT ug portion and had a smaller network with less boardings but at least it wouldn't have any congestion DT!!

Funny, I always thought the role of public transit was to move people and not reduce congestion DT ... silly me!

I meant transit congestion, not car congestion.

Also, this excuse about funding and having smaller networks is just that, an excuse.
Both Ottawa, Calgary, and countless other cities could have made the decision to not only build downtown tunnels, but also build vastly expanded networks.

It is all about priorities, and not so much about funding.

If we thought like that, then no city would ever build an underground segment. Remember that Toronto was only about the size of Calgary when it built a subway.

What do you have to say to the European cities that are the same size or smaller than Calgary or Edmonton, which have built underground sections?

What about the ridership that is lost due to Calgary and Edmonton not being able to offer more service, due to congested transit corridors downtown?

Edmonton did not expand for years, due to political reasons. Not due to a lack of $$$. But that tunnel is and will continue to pay off.

The only reason LRT (or BRT in the case of Ottawa) operates on streets in downtown areas, is because it was a half ass attempt to provide transit without wanting to spend $$. That $$ instead went to more roads.

[Chadillaccc]

Calgary doesn't really have any congestion on a regular basis. Every now and then one part of the network gets stopped, but only once every few weeks/months for a short amount of time. I remember that someone posted the average speed of the respective transit systems in Canada, and Calgary's average speed including stops and crossings was faster than Toronto, Montreal, and I believe even Edmonton.

Like I said in the previous page, I can get home from the east end of downtown to the outer suburbs of the Northwest in only 20 min.

[Innsertnamehere]

Stop spacing tends to have more to do with overall speed than the odd at grade crossing. Toronto's and Montreal's systems for the majority of the system had stops 5-700 meters apart, with some being as close as 300m. Systems in Calgary and Edmonton mostly have stop spacing of 1+km, meaning less stops and therefor faster speeds.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Edmonton did not expand for years, due to political reasons. Not due to a lack of $$$. But that tunnel is and will continue to pay off.

It was a mix of both. The tunnel itself took up a large chunk of the initial capital funding, leaving us unable to build a second leg with the money we received. A large reason further expansion was stalled was due to the fact that not only a recession hit (local and then national), the only expansions we could conceive relied on expanding the tunnel system. The economic boom that started in the late 90s saw us putting real tangible plans forward and actual work on building them.

[Daveography]

^ That and tunneling with our geology is actually pretty difficult. Our cities are basically resting on massive beds of glacial till, which is a fancy word for "sand". When disturbed, it can basically flow freely and cause damage to everything above it (the north end of HUB mall actually sank slightly when they tunneled out the extension to University station). Boring through it and stabilizing the tunnels is no simple task, and therefore more expensive.

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

Corona's decor is pricelessly 1979/1980

Corona and Enterprise are my favourite station by far. The tacky lucite chandeliers and mirrored paneling are pretty sweet.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by RTA

^ That and tunneling with our geology is actually pretty difficult. Our cities are basically resting on massive beds of glacial till, which is a fancy word for "sand". When disturbed, it can basically flow freely and cause damage to everything above it (the north end of HUB mall actually sank slightly when they tunneled out the extension to University station). Boring through it and stabilizing the tunnels is no simple task, and therefore more expensive.

Not to be pedantic, but till is almost the exact opposite of sand and is usually well consolidated and stable. Sorted deposits such as lacustrine, fluvial, and eolian deposits (which appear to be more common in the Edmonton area), are another matter.

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

Not to be pedantic, but till is almost the exact opposite of sand and is usually well consolidated and stable. Sorted deposits such as lacustrine, fluvial, and eolian deposits (which appear to be more common in the Edmonton area), are another matter.

yes. Edmonton is situated on a glacial lake. The result is extremly fine sediment such as clays that are pretty difficult to do anything with.

If we had all sand that would be awesome. Sand drains. clay holds water and makes construction a real bitch.

[Chadillaccc]

I'm pretty sure Toronto is also on the glacial/lacustrine soils of the ancient Lake Iroquois as well... in fact, driving north on University Ave you can actually see where the ancient shoreline was, about 7 - 10 km inland from the current shores on Lake Ontario.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

It is all about priorities, and not so much about funding.

Do you mind telling us which Federal and Provincial grants were available to provide this funding that wasn't an issue?

[Daveography]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

Not to be pedantic, but till is almost the exact opposite of sand and is usually well consolidated and stable. Sorted deposits such as lacustrine, fluvial, and eolian deposits (which appear to be more common in the Edmonton area), are another matter.

Thanks for the clarification, I was trying to recite what I could remember from a book on the subject a few months ago.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Riise

Do you mind telling us which Federal and Provincial grants were available to provide this funding that wasn't an issue?

And while he's at it, he can explain why Calgary decided not to avail itself of the same funding and stopped LRT expansion for a decade (no new stations between 1991 and 2001).

Mike, it was a matter of funding, ultimately.

[Layton's Brylcreem]

Originally Posted by shreddog

Hmmmm, both Calgary and Edmonton have spent roughly the same on their LRT networks. Calgary's is twice as big and carries 3 times the passengers.

Sure, Calgary could have spent a shitload on the DT ug portion and had a smaller network with less boardings but at least it wouldn't have any congestion DT!!

Funny, I always thought the role of public transit was to move people and not reduce congestion DT ... silly me!

And now Calgary needs to build a very expensive tunnel—or is it two tunnels—though the downtown to connect the proposed SE and North Central lines, and increase capacity on the existing lines.

[Chadillaccc]

exactly, and that won't happen for quite sometime. The timeline for the SETWAY is short term, but the timeline for converting it to LRT and building the North Central Line are both long term, and as is building the tunnel for the 201 line under Stephen Avenue. Though, the 201 needs it now... in fact we needed it years ago. In ten years it will be imperative, but we won't have it for 20 - 25 years.