Interesting transportation things

[M II A II R II K]

It doesn't include Commuter Rail but with systems that have their Commuter Rail act as a subway within city limits, perhaps they only factor in the price of those rides.

[SkahHigh]

High-speed train network to span across Montreal by 2020

Quebec’s largest pension fund manager announced Friday it will build a new high-speed rail network to link the West Island, the South Shore, and the northern suburb of Deux Montagnes.

“What we’re announcing today is the most important public transit project in Montreal in the last 50 years,” said Macky Tall, the president of CDPQ Infra, the infrastructure arm of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

The Caisse said it will lead a $5.5 billion project using existing tracks and building new ones dedicated to passenger traffic. The project calls for a fully electric, automated, and universally accessible train, with Wi-Fi and place for bicycles. The stations will enter into service by 2020.

The 67-kilometre network will use the track running through the Mount Royal tunnel, taking over the Deux Montagnes Line currently run by the Agence Métropolitaine de Montréal. New tracks will be built over the Champlain Bridge, and link to the South Shore, ending near the intersection of Highways 30 and 10 in Brossard. Two other dedicated tracks will be built, branching off from the Deux-Montagnes Line where Highway 13 meets Highway 40. One track will head to the airport, with a stop in the Technoparc in St-Laurent. Another will follow along Highway 40 towards Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue.

The Caisse has promised trains will leave every three to six minutes from the South Shore and every six to 12 minutes on the West Island and Deux Montagnes Line, with a 20-hour operation schedule from 5 a.m. to 1:20 a.m. The result will be four times more trains that currently serve the Vaudreuil-Dorion line.

It’s estimated it will take 40 minutes to take the train either from Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue or Deux-Montagnes downtown. The train will link downtown to the airport in 30 minutes. It will take between 15 and 20 minutes to travel from Brossard downtown.

Tall said the decision to follow Hwy 40 was made because of work going on in the Turcot Interchange. That work will prevent crews from building dedicated lines for the next five years. He said building along that corridor would also cost $1 billion more because it would have to build a track dedicated to passenger traffic.

The thorny issue of parking remains unsolved, however. Currently many stations along the Deux-Montagnes Line are over capacity, and there is no space to build new parking spots.

Tall said the Caisse will speak with municipalities about this issue and hopes to come up with a solution.

The announcement follows about a year of study by the Caisse ever since the Quebec government proposed it build the two train projects. The government adopted a law last year to permit a private company to build public transit projects for the first time.

In January 2015, Quebec proposed the Caisse build train service to the airport, and further west to boost service on the beleaguered Vaudreuil-Dorion line, and a light-rail project over the Champlain Bridge. The Caisse had been studying the viability of the projects since that time.

This is not the pension manager’s first foray into public transit. The Caisse is one of the builders of the Canada Line, a train that links Vancouver’s airport to the downtown region, and the suburb of Richmond. The train was built in time for the 2010 Olympic Games.

[Busy Bee]

Awe-some

[a very long weekend]

only in montreal does a mega-project like delay 2 of the 4 most important stations on the system (mcgill and edouard montpetit) until a second project phase. they'll be expensive but they're totally essential.

[Busy Bee]

Looks like political strategy. Delay the most expensive stations until after the first phase is complete and deemed a success so everyone and their dog will cry for financing to get them built. Mass support avoids political office endangering criticism.

[a very long weekend]

quebec doesn't really work like that though, plus this is a p3. i really do think that there's no intention to build there unless they're totally paid for by the government and essentially gifted to the company. it's appalling since without those stations a) the rail line they're building will have a lower ridership and b) they'll be inducing thousands of people onto the orange line and into bonaventure station. i'm glad they're going to build this but these stations should be essential to the plan.

[M II A II R II K]

A self-driving monorail is being built to chop 2-hour commutes down to 10 minutes

Read More: http://www.techinsider.io/skytran-flying-pods-will-launch-in-nigeria-2015

.....

A self-driving monorail designed to hover 20 feet above roads and travel up to 155 mph. The system would turn a two-hour car commute into a 10-minute trip, SkyTran CEO Jerry Sanders tells Tech Insider.

- The company just announced that it will launch its first-ever track in Lagos, Nigeria by 2020. The World Bank commissioned Systra, a global transportation consulting firm, to find a railway that could help alleviate traffic in the city, and SkyTran was chosen. Lagos has some of the worst traffic jams in the world, due largely to its island-locked financial hub and exponential population growth. To put things in perspective, the city has more than twice the population as New York City but roughly the same land area.

.....

[Busy Bee]

Here we go again. PRT is about as practical and realistic as Rosie, and will remain so.

[M II A II R II K]

Urban cable cars: from transport solution to tourist attraction

Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2015/jun/06/urban-cable-cars-cities-tourist-attractions

.....

The transport once regarded as belonging only on ski slopes is becoming part of the city scene. Steven Dale, strategist at The Gondola Project, says: “Ten years ago people thought the idea of urban cable cars ludicrous. Now almost every city in the developing world wants one.”

- Lagos in Nigeria is a good example: it has 21 million people and barely any fixed transport infrastructure. Its planned cable car system will soar over all kinds of planning nightmares, at a fraction of the cost of a subway or railway service. What is fascinating is that tourists have also taken them to their hearts. In Rio de Janeiro, a cable car built to connect the notorious favela of Complexo do Alemão with the city has been adopted by holidaymakers as a cheap tour. In fact there is now a tourist ticket that helps subsidise the cost to locals.

- La Paz, Bolivia, has just become the world’s first large city to have a cable car as its primary fixed transport system, a feat it achieved in record time. Now work has started on similar projects in cities as diverse as Mexico City and Berlin. Ankara, Turkey, has just opened its cable car, and the mayor, Melih Gökçek, is an enthusiastic advocate. “This is a breakthrough in public transportation in Turkey,” he says, pointing to savings of up to 80% over other systems.

- What probably wasn’t planned was that these municipal budget-savers would become tourist opportunities. Dale says: “There’s a human desire to get a bird’s eye view of new places, to get up high. A cable car fits with that.” Cities from Port-au-Prince in Haiti and Mecca in Saudi Arabia to Cardiff are soon to climb on the bandwagon. Perhaps even London’s Emirates Air Line will become a success.

.....

[M II A II R II K]

Transit streets are designed to move people, and should be evaluated in part by their ability to do so.

http://nacto.org/publication/transit-street-design-guide/introduction/why/designing-move-people/

[The Conductor]

Originally Posted by fflint

Who currently owns the lands in question? Are they in private hands? Or are we talking about just another one of those corporatist privatization schemes?


The silly thing is your attempt to equate a single family house with a border-to-border freeway, as if they're somehow indistinguishable in the impact they make on the environment and the landscape.

I get it, you're Canadian and your nation would be the sole beneficiary of this private freeway, so you support it. And I get that Maine's governor is such a corporate lackey that you and yours will probably get to pop champagne corks, no matter what the local population wants. What I don't get is the pretense that there's no legitimate reason to oppose such a thing.

The land was purchased by Cianbro, and it will be run by Cianbro, it makes perfect sense and reduces CO2 emissions but Quebec and Canada need to get their act together: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141019130123-179648671-the-can-am-super-highway

[M II A II R II K]

Saudi Arabia is building the largest urban transit system ever made from scratch

Read More: http://www.techinsider.io/saudi-arabias-...it-system-ever-built-from-scratch-2016-5

Riyadh, the capital city of Saudi Arabia, boasts a population of over six million. But as of now, it has no public transportation system. That’s about to change. By the end of 2018, the city is expected to open the biggest urban mass transit system that’s ever been created from scratch.

The new network, which is currently under construction, will be comprised of six metro lines that connect 85 stations and span nearly 110 miles of track. A brand new bus system is being built and implemented simultaneously. Saudi officials approved the plan in 2012 after population grown forecasts for Riyadh suggested a 50% increase by 2035. --- To create the system, the Saudi government awarded contracts to a variety of contracting and engineering companies from all over the world. The largest contract, worth a whopping $10 billion, was given to Bechtel, a U.S.-based firm specializing in mega-projects. According to Fortune, Bechtel's Riyadh project is the biggest lump-sum civil engineering contract that’s ever been given to a single team.

.....

[M II A II R II K]

My Ride Today


• Video Link

[mrsmartman]

The Californian Hyperloop will be maglev on steroid.

[Swede]

Don't think I've posted this before:
• Video Link

before: (from the wiki)


right now: (from webbkameror.se)

[Busy Bee]

^That is going to be incredible! Talk about an improvement.

[Yurkek]

Originally Posted by Swede

Don't think I've posted this before:
• Video Link

I am wondering how many decades it would take for US to catch up and start rebuilding infrastructure with the same level of understanding how it impacts people's life.

[Swede]

It's taken decades for us to get to this point too. It was realised that the whole thing needed to be replaced in the late 80s iirc, and the first competition to select the new design was in the very early 90s.
The current plan is now about 10 years old from the basic street-structure having a design competition.
So far appeals, obstructionism and political rounds of compromises have set back the whole plan by maybe 4 years (this time! the 90s plan died from not having political backing afaik).

There's still meetings where the people praising the old design have "debates" and try to understand how the politicians and civil servants want to destroy this "world-renowned landmark". They've gone full-on "conspiracy!" now with the usual splintering of believing in different conspiracies.


The plan isn't perfect, but it is amazing compared to the 1930s concrete autobahn cloverleaf currently there.

[Kingofthehill]

wow, fantastic improvement!

[Yurkek]

Originally Posted by Swede

It's taken decades for us to get to this point too. It was realised that the whole thing needed to be replaced in the late 80s iirc, and the first competition to select the new design was in the very early 90s.
The current plan is now about 10 years old from the basic street-structure having a design competition.
So far appeals, obstructionism and political rounds of compromises have set back the whole plan by maybe 4 years (this time! the 90s plan died from not having political backing afaik).

There's still meetings where the people praising the old design have "debates" and try to understand how the politicians and civil servants want to destroy this "world-renowned landmark". They've gone full-on "conspiracy!" now with the usual splintering of believing in different conspiracies.


The plan isn't perfect, but it is amazing compared to the 1930s concrete autobahn cloverleaf currently there.

In most cases public is behind and tries to preserve their surroundings as they are. That's why you need smart people in local governments to push the envelope. Once people see and feel how great it is to not depend 100% on cars, they wouldn't trade for anything else. Obviously feedback is needed, because it is easy for engineers and planners to be carried away. That's how we got in trouble in the first place.

At least I am glad that in US the new trend is trying to build more human scale environment.