Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Highly unlikely. Even the highest projections has global population less than double what it is now by 2100, somewhere between 9 and 13 billion with most of the growth in Africa. A lot of the increase in our population can be attributable to higher lifespan and immigration in the last half century. The average global age will be past childbearing age in the near future, so the rate has to decline. The improving standards of living in developing countries could also mean that less people will be motivated to immigrate.

That said, if the North American population starts to decline, it would be smart for cities to be more efficient as they shrink, shedding suburban sprawl and maintaining their denser cores amid a contracting tax and labour base, so yeah bring on more urban subway lines!

North America has been driven by immigration for quite some time, and many parts of the world that are growing fast are pretty crowded, and starting to get rich enough to send out skilled immigrants. Canada is probably going to be pushing 50 million in just 50 years, and the cities will take most of that growth. At least doubling by 2100 is pretty likely for Montreal, tripling is pretty plausible. With double or triple it's population Montreal will need more metro lines.

[You Need A Thneed]

If you want to keep an updated list:

Calgary - Green line - ~40 km - 28 stations - starting 2017.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

If you want to keep an updated list:

Calgary - Green line - ~40 km - 28 stations - starting 2017.

Thank you!

[FFX-ME]

I suppose if you wanted to you could add:

Ottawa - Trillium line (extension) - 8 km - 5 station - starting 2018
Ottawa - Confederation line (extension) - 23 km - 14 stations - starting 2018

But they have been trying to secure funding for more extensions from what I hear so those numbers may not be final.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

I suppose if you wanted to you could add:

Ottawa - Trillium line (extension) - 8 km - 5 station - starting 2018
Ottawa - Confederation line (extension) - 23 km - 14 stations - starting 2018

But they have been trying to secure funding for more extensions from what I hear so those numbers may not be final.

When the numbers are finalized I'll add these two to the list.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Ha, well the federal government now charges for parking even in the suburbs as if transit is really an option for more than a few.

Service cuts have been a way of life in Ottawa since the 1990s both in off-peak and peak hours. The new strategy is to put an articulated bus on in order to avoid adding trips for particular routes. The worst thing came with double decker buses, which gave them an excuse to cut trips on many routes in the suburbs. To add to that was that double decker buses are much slower to operate, something that bloggers here denied, when city officials were informed in advance that this would be the case.

This is an important point. Ottawa's planners care too little about frequency. In their minds, once you've hit 15 minutes, service is frequent enough to be convenient, and there's no point making it better. They'll just jack up the capacity of routes to avoid having to go below 15 minutes. There's absolutely zero understanding or awareness that service at 10 minutes or 5 minutes is more convenient and attracts more riders.

It's true that once you're down to about 5 minutes or so, there's not much benefit from making it more frequent aside from capacity. But that's definitely NOT true at 15 minutes.

We recently had this debate in Kingston. When we introduced the express bus system, the city expected 15-minute service with standard buses to be enough to maintain adequate capacity until at least 2025, but ridership has grown so much faster than expected that peak period service is now overloaded. The transit planners had a meeting to decide how to solve this, and it was decided that despite their higher cost, frequency improvements were preferred due to increased customer convenience.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

When the numbers are finalized I'll add these two to the list.

The city has allocated its funding, and both the provincial and federal governments have pledged funding, but the paperwork isn't formal yet. I believe the city is aiming to have the tenders out by this summer, so we'll probably see it formalized very soon.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

This is an important point. Ottawa's planners care too little about frequency. In their minds, once you've hit 15 minutes, service is frequent enough to be convenient, and there's no point making it better. They'll just jack up the capacity of routes to avoid having to go below 15 minutes. There's absolutely zero understanding or awareness that service at 10 minutes or 5 minutes is more convenient and attracts more riders.

It's true that once you're down to about 5 minutes or so, there's not much benefit from making it more frequent aside from capacity. But that's definitely NOT true at 15 minutes.

We recently had this debate in Kingston. When we introduced the express bus system, the city expected 15-minute service with standard buses to be enough to maintain adequate capacity until at least 2025, but ridership has grown so much faster than expected that peak period service is now overloaded. The transit planners had a meeting to decide how to solve this, and it was decided that despite their higher cost, frequency improvements were preferred due to increased customer convenience.

I agree with you.

Even at 15 minute frequency, it is a major impediment for transfers. You are asking people to stand around too long. You need to get this down to 10 minutes or even 5 minutes. Once you have it down to 5 minute frequency, then most people won't be concerned about transfers knowing that if they miss a connection, they won't be waiting very long.

Back in the olden days and I am talking about the 1970s, all the main central bus routes (former streetcar routes) ran every 10 minutes all day and on Saturdays. Those were the days before Sunday shopping. And because certain routes were actually branched or twinned, the busiest streets actually received 5 minute frequency or even better. Service during peak periods was even better when you might wait 2 to 6 minutes. This is the level of service that the TTC provides, but Ottawa abandoned that level of service in the name of efficiency and drove away a lot of short distance (cheap to service) riders in the process.

[1overcosc]

^ This is one of the saddest things about Ottawa's transit system. It was actually better in the 1970s and 1980s than it is today. There's not many other cities where that's true.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

^ This is one of the saddest things about Ottawa's transit system. It was actually better in the 1970s and 1980s than it is today. There's not many other cities where that's true.

I remember when they first cut service on downtown routes to every 30 minutes before 10 am on Saturdays. I didn't know that they had done it. When I ended up waiting almost the entire 30 minutes to transfer at Billings Bridge, I had enough of it and never made that trip again. How many other riders were lost as a result of decisions made by the accountants, planners and computer experts?

[SkahHigh]

The Blue Line extension is expected to receive funding from the federal government, according to a local MP.

http://journalmetro.com/local/villeray-s...ns-le-prolongement-du-metro-de-montreal/

[Rico Rommheim]

Jesus I stopped caring about the blue line extension. By the time it'll be done, I'll be deeper into the ground then the metro tunnel.

And I will never use it, so it won't affect me personally. I mean, why would I ever want o go to Anjou? The people who live out east right now will probably have moved on to other hoods by then too.

I love the blue line, but for it to be more useful, it must be extended out west into NDG as well.

[Rico Rommheim]

Ideally something like this, terminating at Montreal-West station.


Blue Line extensions by Rommheim, on Flickr

[1overcosc]

From an outsider's point of view, it does seem like a western extension of the Blue Line into NDG is an obvious project; in fact, given the density in that area, it actually seems to make more sense than extending the line east. I know that a western extension beyond Snowdon was planned in the past.

I hate to think this, but I wonder if the linguistic demographics are at play; ie. the city/province is more interested in building metro lines to francophone neighbourhoods (Anjou) rather than anglophone ones (NDG).

[Laceoflight]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

From an outsider's point of view, it does seem like a western extension of the Blue Line into NDG is an obvious project; in fact, given the density in that area, it actually seems to make more sense than extending the line east. I know that a western extension beyond Snowdon was planned in the past.

I hate to think this, but I wonder if the linguistic demographics are at play; ie. the city/province is more interested in building metro lines to francophone neighbourhoods (Anjou) rather than anglophone ones (NDG).

I guess it's just that you don't know the East very well, is that the case? Saint-Michel, the southern and western parts of Saint-Léonard and most of Rosemont and the north of Mercier are pretty dense. And I'm not even talking about Montréal-Nord, a dense borough that could potentially benefit from the eastern extension! Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is dense too, but there are enclaves like Hampstead or Montréal-Ouest that are not. Plus Côte-Saint-Luc, Hampstead and Montréal-Ouest are not part of the city of Montreal, thus the situation is not as simple as in the East. The extension to NDG is capital in my opinion, but still less important (dans l'immédiat) than the eastern extension.

[SkahHigh]

The extension should go both East and West, but it'll only go East.

A Metro connection at Montreal-West station would be beneficial, as would be a Metro station at the Loyola Campus of Concordia University.

[Rico Rommheim]

There is of course no doubt that the eastern edge of the city needs this blue line bad. After all it's 700,000 people who live there. The combined population of Hampstead, Montreal-West, N-D-G and Cote-St-Luc is 110,000. It's dense enough for a metro but mostly importantly the west-end of town is served by some pretty terrible bus routes and suffers from a lack of direct and quick connection to the downtown core.

I know people who've been living in Montreal for years and were shocked when they discovered NDG.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

There is of course no doubt that the eastern edge of the city needs this blue line bad. After all it's 700,000 people who live there. The combined population of Hampstead, Montreal-West, N-D-G and Cote-St-Luc is 110,000. It's dense enough for a metro but mostly importantly the west-end of town is served by some pretty terrible bus routes and suffers from a lack of direct and quick connection to the downtown core.

I know people who've been living in Montreal for years and were shocked when they discovered NDG.

The East would be best served by the Blue line extension and if service was bonified on the Mascouche line (I'm talking RER-type service).

[Aylmer]

From the perspective of urban form, a Metro makes a lot more sense to the west (where the tight grid prevents above-ground transportation from moving at a reasonable speed) and LRT would make more sense for Anjou (where the wide streets can allow for reasonably quick and reliable service at-grade. There's also the problem of the overcrowded eastern portion of the orange line, which can only get worse with an Anjou extension. If they went with LRT, it could go straight downtown via Pie-IX and René-Levesque. The western part of the orange line is remarkably underused in comparaison, so it could easily accommodate extra riders.

There are other factors in play, but I'm not convinced that the $3B to Anjou is the absolute best use of transit monies in the city.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

The East would be best served by the Blue line extension and if service was bonified on the Mascouche line (I'm talking RER-type service).

The Deux-Montagnes line also looks like a very promising RER route. I'm guessing the tunnel under the mountain is pretty deep; but if its feasible, building connections to McGill and Édouard-Montpetit metro stations would be a great addition to such a project.