The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Of course the Mascouche line will have most of its stops in Montreal rather than the suburbs and is largely intended to provide relief from the orange line congestion. It really isn't about the suburbs; that was just thrown in to make a more complete project.

I would argue that the Liberal's decision was based mostly on trying to get votes from the Mascouche-Terrebonne voters. Spending 700 millions dollars to add only 5000 commuters is ridiculous. And the cost is still growing and will probably reach one billion by the time this line operates. And to think that it will provide relief to the orange line is wishful thinking at best.

http://www.lapresse.ca/debats/editoriaux...B50c_place-publique_1085214_section_POS1

[Nouvellecosse]

We can certainly *speculate* about the intent behind it, but the fact remains that it provides much more service to Montreal than it provides to anywhere else, including to large parts of the city that are currently served poorly by rail transit.

Although I would rather have seen some extra money thrown in and had a 5th metro line built to serve the north east.

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

The AMT Train de l'est Mascouche is almost completed.

http://www.amt.qc.ca/uploadedImages/AMT/Site_Usager/Train/BlocDroit/Train_Map_Agrandi.jpg?n=7501


http://www.envillesansmavoiture.com/cms-.../Photos-00006_Insertion-Est-1024x682.jpg
http://www.portailconstructo.com/sites/default/files/traineststructure.jpg
http://www.cima.ca/images/13_Realisations_transport/ferroviaire1.jpg

I don't get it, there's only going to be 1 track? Or am I missing something?

[Nouvellecosse]

Many (probably most) commuter train lines in NA have one track for all or part of their route. It's likely that the conflicts with freight rail on the rest of the route will keep frequency low enough that double-tracking isn't necessary.

[GreaterMontréal]

Morning rush hour (6:00 to 9:00 a.m.)
With 5 departures from Mascouche to Central Station, you don't need 2 lines.

[MTLskyline]

On the Mont Sanit-Hilaire line it is a weird situation. There are double tracks owned by CN for the whole route. AMT has the right to use one, and VIA has the right to use the other. It doesn't matter which way they're going.

On a side note, taking this line into Montreal is one of the best ways to get into the city. From St. Lambert it is literally under 10 minutes to get to Central Station, which, if you're going to the CBD, is lot quicker than to take the yellow line and connect to the green/orange to McGill or Bonaventure. It has a fantastic view as well. Only problem is that it is mostly rush-hour only, and even then it is not quite frequent enough.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by MTLskyline

On a side note, taking this line into Montreal is one of the best ways to get into the city. From St. Lambert it is literally under 10 minutes to get to Central Station, which, if you're going to the CBD, is lot quicker than to take the yellow line and connect to the green/orange to McGill or Bonaventure. It has a fantastic view as well. Only problem is that it is mostly rush-hour only, and even then it is not quite frequent enough.

They should really think about making it more frequent and all-day once they close or partially close the Champlain Bridge... I've always found S-Bahn-styled city rail to be a bit of a no-brainer when the infrastructure already exists.

[GernB]

Believe it or not, we once had streetcars here in Deathbridge. Built for the International Dryland Farming Congress in 1912, they went along 5th street (I think) and 3rd and 7th avenues, and up 13th street. Population at the time was about 12,000 I believe.

[Chadillaccc]

Most cities in the country had streetcars back then, it's not hard to believe. Even Woodstock had one running from Ingersoll Avenue up to (I think) Clarke Street (about 3 km).

[caltrane74]

Union Station Reno

By me

From Today

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Most cities in the country had streetcars back then, it's not hard to believe. Even Woodstock had one running from Ingersoll Avenue up to (I think) Clarke Street (about 3 km).

Kingston had a few streetcar routes as well, running in the city as well out to Portsmouth Village, which was then outside the city. They actually used horse-drawn streetcars from 1877 to 1890, then electric streetcars until 1930.

http://kingstonmobilemarketing.blogspot.ca/2012/12/the-forgotten-streetcars-of-kingston.html

[Chadillaccc]

C-Train New Years Eve

Originally Posted by Design-mind

I was very impressed with the great New Years Eve/New Years Day service. A few shots I took at LRT stations.

[vid]

With a population of less than 5,000 in 1892, Port Arthur opened the first municipally-operated electric street railway in Canada. It covered 6 miles at first to connect Port Arthur and Fort William and within 20 years, served not just the entire urban area but also much of the soon-to-be-developed areas around the cities. The original portion was then, and is still today (as a bus route) called the Mainline, making it one of the longest operating transit routes in the country, being in existence for over 120 years.

Fort William had a private, horse-drawn street railway since 1891, it was taken over by Port Arthur in 1893. In 1913, the Ontario Government declared that a municipality couldn't operate services in other municipalities without their permission, and since Fort William resisted any form of amalgamation or co-operation, the line was severed at the town limits and passengers were forced to transfer trolleys and pay another fare to continue. The Fort William system was folded back into Port Arthur's system in 1970 and renamed to Thunder Bay Transit in 1972, and that my friends is how my humble city has Canada's oldest municipal transit agency.

The dam that powered the railway is now privately owned and generates a small amount of electricity for its private owner. (I don't know when it was sold; probably in 1972 when the trolleybuses were decommissioned.) The street car barn still exists as a garage for municipal hydro equipment, but part of it was demolished last summer to make room for taller vehicles.

Lastly, not only was Thunder Bay Transit operating today, it was also free. No one told us; it seems to be just some weird thing they decided to do today.

[caltrane74]

Here is another picture of the Union Station renovation, this one taken from the opposite side from where I took my picture. With these two pictures you can no understand how the whole renovation will really improve passanger flow from both the Union Station TTC as well as Union Station Commuter lines.



Picture from Drum at Urbantoronto.

[Innsertnamehere]

And the incredible thin is that the only thing in that photo that will be there in 3 years is the subway entrance, the construction site will duplicate those entrances and the stairs in the foreground will be replaced with a level walk into the shopping concourse for Union.

[caltrane74]

Wow! they just built those stairs, and once, the otherside is complete, I guess they will dig them out, and replace it with the throughway right into the concourse levels. Will make getting into and out of Union Station a hell of a lot easier. And blunt some of the pedestrian crush that goes with getting even near the place.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by vid

No one told us; it seems to be just some weird thing they decided to do today.

That's very Thunder Bay. Like the secret bus route(s) they've had.

[Chadillaccc]

Yeah Calgary had it all free on NYE too, I'm not sure if it's the first time they did that, but I didn't hear about it last NYE. I think it's a very good idea that all cities should embrace, especially the ones with rapid transit.

[GernB]

No service New Year's day. Or Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Labour Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas. No service Sunday after 6PM. The new mayor says he's going to "look into" the problems with transit. Just another bullshit promise from another piece of shit asshole politician.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by GernB

No service New Year's day. Or Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Labour Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas. No service Sunday after 6PM. The new mayor says he's going to "look into" the problems with transit. Just another bullshit promise from another piece of shit asshole politician.

^ Where is this occurring?

Re: Free transit on New Year's Eve, it's been the practice here in Metro Vancouver with Translink, and BC Transit before it, for as long as I can recall and I think it's a great public service. The buses and trains are packed and in my experience it's a very mellow, happy atmosphere. Lots of people are taking transit for the first time and I find that there is an uncommon degree of friendliness as people ask for directions/stops and people start up conversations with strangers just for the pleasure of it.

The free service starts in the evening, around 5pm I think, and runs through to 5am, which is approximately the beginning of normal service the following day. The night bus service - a couple dozen major routes - runs through the night and SkyTrain is extended a bit, however I think that Translink should step up to a far greater degree and run SkyTrain right through the night.

I think that 24 hour SkyTrain service New Year's Eve would be a good proof-of-concept for all-night SkyTrain service that should, in time, be extended to Friday and Saturday nights throughout the year. SkyTrain is an automated service, after all, so the staffing costs would be relatively limited and restricted primarily to customer service SkyTrain Attendants, Transit Police, and the handful of staff that operate SkyTrain's operations centre. If track maintenance is the issue, then it should be possible to figure out a routing plan that allows the track inspecting vehicle to do its thing while the trains themselves would alternate directions on the opposite track in the block section where the maintenance is occurring. Even if it meant a significantly reduced frequency, I think that people would be more than happy to wait ten or even twenty minutes between trains for those few hours between 1am and 5am when the trains wouldn't otherwise run. Good luck getting a taxi downtown in a timely manner once SkyTrain stops running and the absence of viable transit or taxi options likely means a scary amount of people are driving tipsy, if not full-on drunk.

As an aside, I took the TTC in Toronto last year (2012-13) on New Year's Eve and the streetcar driver tried to collect fares during the early morning hours of Jan 1st. Their stated reason was that it was no longer New Year's Eve and there was no free transit on January 1st. Needless to say, there was widespread disobedience as revellers boarded and fares were not paid as per the 'free TTC on New Year's Eve' service.