The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[niwell]

The Yonge line at rush hour gets that full. Other ones not so much. Although the new trains have helped noticeably - the last few times I was forced to get on at Yonge after work I didn't even have to wait for a train to go by before getting on.

[J.OT13]

IMO, Toronto needs to build the downtown relief line more than a lot of the proposed lines and extensions. That is one of the reasons why I admire Montreal so much; they built two parallel downtown lines right off the bat.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

IMO, Toronto needs to build the downtown relief line more than a lot of the proposed lines and extensions. That is one of the reasons why I admire Montreal so much; they built two parallel downtown lines right off the bat.

Montreal seems to have focused more on the inner city, while Toronto is providing more of a suburban service. It would seem that providing service to the most densely populated areas would be the best use of the systems capacity (and cost). Montreal ridership is 20% higher than Toronto despite having a million and a half less people.

Skytrain in Vancouver is very suburban by comparison. Toronto's farthest flung station is Finch, 15km from downtown. While King George Station (in a metro region less than half the size of Toronto) in Surrey is 22km away from downtown Vancouver. Most of Vanvcouver's dense neighborhoods are not serviced by rapid transit at all.

[J.OT13]

That's the problem with Ottawa's system; we are concentrating on converting the original BRT Transitways to the older suburban centres and investing the rest of the money building more BRT to the suburbs. Meanwhile there are no plans to serve dense downtown neighborhoods (which also still have a lot of potential for further intensification) along Bank, Rideau and Montreal. Yet Carling, which is essentially lined with suburban strip malls, will get a glorified streetcar within 30 years.

[Chadillaccc]

Glorified streetcar?

[Doug]

Originally Posted by Rusty van Reddick

Calgary's trains are absolutely this crowded during rush hour. I've never seen the Toronto subway as crowded as the C-Train gets, ever.

Correct. Not even close. I haven't seen any North American rapid transit lines, save for Lexington in NYC, that are as over burdened as Calgary's south line during rush hour.

[Chadillaccc]

It's terrible. The whole 201 line is the shits in rush hour.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

But isn't there also the technical aspect of it that LRT runs on overhead wires as opposed to a third rail? Also reading the definition on wikipedia, LRT doesn't have to have it's own ROW to be called LRT-the only real difference between it and a street car is rolling stock.

Third rail/catenary doesn't work as a distinction, because some heavy rail metros (most Chinese metro lines, for example) run on caternary rather than third rail.

[ssiguy]

Much of the capacity of any system is strictly regulated by frequency.

The new Sao Paulo monorail which is set to open next year will have 100 meter trains 3 meters wide {Bombardier Innovia} but will be running an incredible frequency level of every 75 seconds bringing capacity to 49,000 pphpd.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Much of the capacity of any system is strictly regulated by frequency.

Not entirely. Shanghai Metro Lines 1 and 2 both have daily ridership around 1.4 million (let's say 700 000 in each direction), and operate for about 17 hours per day. So that works out at an average ridership of just over 41000pph. And given that this is an average, the hourly ridership at rush hour is likely at least 25% higher than this, if not more. However, the frequency on these lines is only about 150-180 seconds - so this high capacity is regulated not by high frequency but rather by using longer trains - the trains on these two lines are both around 150m long, and are completely walk-through. This gives each train a capacity of over 2000 people.

[nname]

But that's assuming everyone ride the line from end to end, which is definitely note the case. Assuming each person ride exactly half of the line, and they are evenly spaced out, then it the average ridership at any point of the line is only 20500pph.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

IMO, Toronto needs to build the downtown relief line more than a lot of the proposed lines and extensions. That is one of the reasons why I admire Montreal so much; they built two parallel downtown lines right off the bat.

In its defence Toronto does have 2 parallel downtown lines, and the DRL is now the highest ranked project for importance. The next time transit money is given to the city, it is going to the DRL.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Glorified streetcar?

Tramway?

[Chadillaccc]

I was just wondering what he was making reference too. Because once additions are made to Ottawa's Confederation Line down the road, it will be exactly akin to what Edmonton's Capital Line currently is. Certainly not a glorified streetcar.

[Chadillaccc]

I found a cool picture of Edmonton's new line, the first new line since they built their first. It is aptly named the "Metro Line" It will be coming online in April 2014 and is expected to increase Edmonton LRTs ridership to nearly 110 000 people per day. They expect to start construction of the Valley Line almost immediately after the completion of the Metro Line. The Valley Line will be an actual "glorified streetcar," as it will not have it's own segregated ROW for most of its length, and will run on the street.


https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/MetroLine.JPG

[rike5]

^ The Valley line has been delayed by about a year yesterday because of a 515M$ shortfall that the city was expecting to get in provincial and federal grants. Also, the projected ridership of the line is 13 200, which should bring the ridership closer to the 115 000 mark.

[Chadillaccc]

That sucks about the Valley Line, but I did read that utility work is still going to start for the Valley Line in 2014, with actual construction in 2015. So still, not so bad!

That's great about the ridership!

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

In its defence Toronto does have 2 parallel downtown lines, and the DRL is now the highest ranked project for importance. The next time transit money is given to the city, it is going to the DRL.

I'm glad to heat about the DRL, but if the current "parallel downtown lines" refers to the Yonge-University line's "U", it's not in the same category as Montreal's distinct, fully independent lines going to completely different areas of the city. Regardless, the "U" shape has certain advantages in capacity that a straight line does not (say if Union would still be the terminus).

Anyway, I would love to see the DRL not only providing relief to the Yonge-Univeristy line but also servicing the western and eastern quadrants of Downtown Toronto which seem to be the only rapid transit dead zones left in old Toronto.

By glorified streetcar I mean something closer to "classic LRT"; the trains will be running on their own right of way in Carling's median but will be subject to all intersections along the road.

[Beedok]

I think that's roughly what Hamilton has planned, but I'm not certain.

[Chadillaccc]

So by glorified streetcar you actually mean "actually above-average standard LRT system."