Future Canadian Transit Maps

[Aylmer]

That's what he's referring to. Though not strictly subway service, a minimum of 15 minute headways (which is pretty good on its own for regional rail) on the individual lines translates to 7 or even 2-3 minutes on trunks, which, for a passenger, is equivalent to rapid transit.

I wish we would really get on frequent regional rail in Montreal - though the Métro is great, it would be all kinds of awesome to have frequent rail to not only reach poorly-served areas (West Island, Montréal-Nord, South Shore, etc.), but also to have a sort of 'métro express': instead of taking the metro 17 stops from Concorde to downtown, you could take an 'RER' for only 6 or 7.

Hopefully once Toronto gets it up and running, we can be shamed into it

[Nouvellecosse]

Interesting document! Hopefully it doesn't get stuck in the planning phase too long.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Hopefully once Toronto gets it up and running, we can be shamed into it

Just like I hope that when KWC gets their LRT up and running it will shame Hamilton into making theirs.

[ACmodels]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Now we've got to hope that a future Phase 3 will concentrate less on the suburbs and more on improving the often dismal inner-city travel (mostly on Bank St. And Rideau St.).

Most likey phase 3 will go out to the Surburbs! well I hope!

[ACmodels]

Should'ed Toronto be this now with Tory as mayor...

[ehlow]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

That's what he's referring to. Though not strictly subway service, a minimum of 15 minute headways (which is pretty good on its own for regional rail) on the individual lines translates to 7 or even 2-3 minutes on trunks, which, for a passenger, is equivalent to rapid transit.

I wish we would really get on frequent regional rail in Montreal - though the Métro is great, it would be all kinds of awesome to have frequent rail to not only reach poorly-served areas (West Island, Montréal-Nord, South Shore, etc.), but also to have a sort of 'métro express': instead of taking the metro 17 stops from Concorde to downtown, you could take an 'RER' for only 6 or 7.

Hopefully once Toronto gets it up and running, we can be shamed into it

Yeah, the promise was 15 min minimum frequency, but it's very possible that it could be more frequent during times of higher usage (they're working on determining level of service now).

The promise of SmartTrack was taking two of the GO lines, through routing them, have it cost TTC fare, and adding stations in many more locations within Toronto. Once you have bus routes feeding into the stations and in some cases improve connections with the existing subway network (Dundas West station), it essentially becomes a new long subway which will be on the TTC RT map.

Whether it's part of the TTC or GO system though, I think it will be the biggest expansion of the transit system for the GTA in the next 10 years.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

That's what he's referring to. Though not strictly subway service, a minimum of 15 minute headways (which is pretty good on its own for regional rail) on the individual lines translates to 7 or even 2-3 minutes on trunks, which, for a passenger, is equivalent to rapid transit.

I wish we would really get on frequent regional rail in Montreal - though the Métro is great, it would be all kinds of awesome to have frequent rail to not only reach poorly-served areas (West Island, Montréal-Nord, South Shore, etc.), but also to have a sort of 'métro express': instead of taking the metro 17 stops from Concorde to downtown, you could take an 'RER' for only 6 or 7.

Hopefully once Toronto gets it up and running, we can be shamed into it

I think it would be a pretty tough sell to planners to create a service that could draw a lot of ridership from Laval part of the Metro considering how recently it was created and the investment it required. It's different in cities whose metro system has cheap, surface branches at the periphery like the London Underground whose services like the Metropolitan line branches is basically commuter rail at the edges with as little as 4tph.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

To be fair to Ottawa, the only project we did cancel was the NS LRT project with a downtown tram as the backbone of our transit system, which was ridiculous to begin with. As much as it did put us back (a little less than a decade ― NS LRT was to be completed in 2009), in retrospect, Phase 1 and Phase 2 really justify cancelling NSLRT.

Now we've got to hope that a future Phase 3 will concentrate less on the suburbs and more on improving the often dismal inner-city travel (mostly on Bank St. And Rideau St.).

I will always disagree with this. Ottawa was a small city until World War II and therefore it is today largely a post-war suburban community that requires a transit system that reflects this. Focusing on the small pre-war urban core is simply not reasonable or realistic.

The 2006 cancellation has permanently set Ottawa's plans back and directly resulted in the underfunding of the current plan by the federal and provincial governments. There was a cost to pay for wasting millions of taxpayers money by the neophyte mayor at the time. And if you look at the current plans, you will note that only one route will ever serve the downtown area. This is a fundamental flaw. No other major Canadian city will have only one rapid transit route serving their downtown area.

Now, don't get me wrong. The subway currently being built is absolutely necessary but it will not effectively serve the entire city.

The direct result of Ottawa's fumbling, has been the cutting of the urban routes (Carling Avenue and Rideau Street routes) that the poster has so much desire for.

As much as there is also a desire (and possible need) for a Bank Street subway, it is at best wishful thinking. The Confederation Line will soak up almost all capital transit funding for the next generation.

Although, Ottawa is finally moving forward with its plans, it will likely have the least impact in delivering faster service and in the end, will produce the least spike in ridership.

The most creative transit plans were tossed out in 2006 as a result of political interference. It was not just the cancelled N-S route but the whole city transit plan that was thrown out and made politically impossible to resurrect in whole or in part. This was a permanent loss. Now, so many ideas cannot even be discussed.

And the end result, we get politically safe projects such as Rapidbus that has actually delivered worse service at a price tag of hundreds of millions of dollars.

I look forward to the 2018 opening of the Confederation Line with mixed feelings. It is exciting because I agree it is a city changer but I also know, that transit service in my part of Ottawa will end up worse.

[Innsertnamehere]

Toronto's transit map is set to expand extremely significantly in the coming years..


Yellow = Subway
Blue = LRT
Green = 15 minute RER service (both GO and "Smart Track")

What the map looks like today:



What it is funded to look like by 2023:



What it could look like by 2030 if we are lucky and get funding for all the desired projects:

[Nouvellecosse]

If the subway can have ridership of a million people with such a small coverage area I think a GO system with strong frequency and reliable service could easily have that too. When you looks at cities like Berlin, the S-Bahn has that kind of ridership even though the U-Bahn has even more! And in a smaller area.

[Innsertnamehere]

preliminary ridership projections put it at double today's level in 2031 (roughly 5 years after network completion), so around 500,000.

[Nouvellecosse]

Too conservative. If that's all they're aiming for they need a serious shot of ambition lest they end up with an equally conservative result too.

I would hope it would grow by that much in that long of a time frame even with network as it is.

[Innsertnamehere]

if they left the network as is with ridership at double today the network would collapse, it simply cannot handle that level of people.

Smart Track will likely boost those numbers, and you have to remember that 1,000,000 is a very, very large number to accommodate on lines that run every 15 minutes. That is an average of 140,000 people per line, many of which handle less than 20,000 today. It is also a preliminary number.

GOs annual trips will likely increase from 70 million annually today to well over 150 million in 15 years, as the TTC climbs above 700 million in the same period.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I will always disagree with this.

If you're not willing to change your mind then it's a dead men's dialogue and not worth much of anyone's time. "The poster" finds this a shame, since you raise very relevant and interesting points.

But if we can't have a discussion, then I'd at least like to get your take on how we should go forward post Phase 1 or Phase 2.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

if they left the network as is with ridership at double today the network would collapse, it simply cannot handle that level of people.

Smart Track will likely boost those numbers, and you have to remember that 1,000,000 is a very, very large number to accommodate on lines that run every 15 minutes. That is an average of 140,000 people per line, many of which handle less than 20,000 today. It is also a preliminary number.

GOs annual trips will likely increase from 70 million annually today to well over 150 million in 15 years, as the TTC climbs above 700 million in the same period.

There would be a lot more people standing but I doubt it would "collapse". Remember, 12 car double decker GO Trains are 312m long (not counting locomotive). The Canada line carries that many people on 41m trains with about 17tph. The GO trains are 7.5 times longer (in addition to being double deck) and would only run about 4.25 times less frequently. Yes it would be annoying for anyone having to stand on longer trips but that's hardly an insurmountable obstacle.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

If you're not willing to change your mind then it's a dead men's dialogue and not worth much of anyone's time. "The poster" finds this a shame, since you raise very relevant and interesting points.

But if we can't have a discussion, then I'd at least like to get your take on how we should go forward post Phase 1 or Phase 2.

I am sorry for the impersonal comment.

I feel very jaded about the decision making process in Ottawa. We lost a decade because of stupid politicians and their vendettas. We then dumped so many possible answers and boxed ourselves into a corner where the only possible answer was to go ahead with the most expensive solution, the Confederation Line which will be a glorified commuter rail line to the east and west ends of the city.

What will happen after Phase 2, if we get it funded, will be further extensions of the Confederation Line likely first to Kanata. Once it reaches Orleans, it will have to go west. The population will demand it.

Other transit projects will mostly be put under the bus, so to speak, because the Confederation Line will be sucking up almost all the money.

Yes, I would like to see other projects completed. The most critical one is the Baseline Road transitway, which represents a critical missing link within the Greenbelt. I would like to see a Bank Street subway, but as long as Confederation Line is sucking money, this will not be happening. I wish something good could be done with the Prince of Wales Bridge but even that looks like it will simply become a bike route at best.

I cannot see the existing O-Train being electrified until after 2050. And the big concern will be level of service that can be offered in the meantime. We have already seen that service frequency is being quietly dropped from 8 to 9 minutes and this will further decline once the Gladstone and Walkley stations open. This is the limitations of a single track line that will become increasingly difficult to double track in the future. We had our chance in 2006 to do that and we said no, so it will be delayed a couple of generations and the cost will become enormous.

I look at what other Canadian cities are doing and I feel so very disappointed in what will likely happen in Ottawa. We used to be very creative in transit solutions, but now we blow all our money on the 'safe' project.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I cannot see the existing O-Train being electrified until after 2050. And the big concern will be level of service that can be offered in the meantime. We have already seen that service frequency is being quietly dropped from 8 to 9 minutes and this will further decline once the Gladstone and Walkley stations open. This is the limitations of a single track line that will become increasingly difficult to double track in the future. We had our chance in 2006 to do that and we said no, so it will be delayed a couple of generations and the cost will become enormous

Hmm? Currently it's every 15 minutes... being upgraded to 8.5min in a month or two.

The only real headache zone for double tracking would be the Dows Lake tunnel... the rest of the route could be doubled fairly easily.

Gladstone & Walkley won't cut down frequency. The travel time increase from the current expansion plan is because of the addition of two extra stops on passing sidings. When the time comes for those two new stations, they'll simply extend the passing sidings to them (it just so happens that the Walkley & Gladstone station sites are very near the new sidings), meaning the number of times the train stops will remain the same. What this really says, of course, is that it would have made far more sense for the city to just build the two new stations as part of the current plan.

If we run into a capacity crunch, we could couple up some extra cars before having to double track.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I am sorry for the impersonal comment.

I feel very jaded about the decision making process in Ottawa. We lost a decade because of stupid politicians and their vendettas. We then dumped so many possible answers and boxed ourselves into a corner where the only possible answer was to go ahead with the most expensive solution, the Confederation Line which will be a glorified commuter rail line to the east and west ends of the city.

What will happen after Phase 2, if we get it funded, will be further extensions of the Confederation Line likely first to Kanata. Once it reaches Orleans, it will have to go west. The population will demand it.

Other transit projects will mostly be put under the bus, so to speak, because the Confederation Line will be sucking up almost all the money.

Yes, I would like to see other projects completed. The most critical one is the Baseline Road transitway, which represents a critical missing link within the Greenbelt. I would like to see a Bank Street subway, but as long as Confederation Line is sucking money, this will not be happening. I wish something good could be done with the Prince of Wales Bridge but even that looks like it will simply become a bike route at best.

I cannot see the existing O-Train being electrified until after 2050. And the big concern will be level of service that can be offered in the meantime. We have already seen that service frequency is being quietly dropped from 8 to 9 minutes and this will further decline once the Gladstone and Walkley stations open. This is the limitations of a single track line that will become increasingly difficult to double track in the future. We had our chance in 2006 to do that and we said no, so it will be delayed a couple of generations and the cost will become enormous.

I look at what other Canadian cities are doing and I feel so very disappointed in what will likely happen in Ottawa. We used to be very creative in transit solutions, but now we blow all our money on the 'safe' project.

You seem to think that just by having a plan for 30 years out that it will come to fruition. That is not how municipal government works. You cannot commit future councils to a plan for the next 30 years and not expect changes. The big factor here is money. But even if the city had unlimited money, it couldn't possibly implement a large scale plan at once. It can't even add 2 sidings to the O Train line on time.

How can you claim that we are boxed into a corner at this stage when phase 2 has not even been funded or approved by the NCC for the city's poorly conceived idea of running the route along the parkway.

It is much easier to put lines on a map than to actually construct them, especially when you have to live with the political reality of having large suburbs caused by the greenbelt.

[miketoronto]

The Sydney Metropolitan Rail network carries about a million or slightly more riders each day on their network. A GO RER network would be similar to that, and I would expect at least a million or even more.
I say lets aim for 2 or even 3 million. There is no reason a region this large could not achieve that level of ridership, given the ridership on RER networks in Paris, Berlin, etc.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We used to be very creative in transit solutions, but now we blow all our money on the 'safe' project.

I think we need to ask this on a country wide basis. Canadian cities are still doing well in the transit picture. However we did a pretty outstanding job from the 60s-90s.

But it feels like we are trying to go for lost cost solutions now, and that our development controls are just not as good as they were in the past.

Take Ottawa for example. They actually had tighter controls 30 years ago, with trying to keep all office development in the central area or along the transitway. Including deals with the federal government to keep office space near transit.

Now we see the federal government decamping offices to sprawly places away from transit, and Ottawa does not seem to have as tight controls on development anymore.

The is not just an Ottawa situation. Toronto is the same, as are other Canadian cities.

We also see cities trying to push low cost, slow transit options, instead of building what they know needs to be built.

Again, we are doing pretty well. But we really could be doing so much better.