The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[White Pine]

Also, I think we've seen a great era of transit expansion in Canada, with West LRT, the Canada line, Confederation Line, eglington, Kitchener/Waterloo, GO expansion, UPX, Edmonton LRT, REM etc. being built. Although that stuff is tapering off, it looks like the next round will be bigger, not because of more projects, but the wheels seem to be in motion for some big ticket projects that are desperately needed, such as the Relief line, Broadway subway, and tunnel under downtown Calgary.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by White Pine

Also, I think we've seen a great era of transit expansion in Canada, with West LRT, the Canada line, Confederation Line, eglington, Kitchener/Waterloo, GO expansion, UPX, Edmonton LRT, REM etc. being built. Although that stuff is tapering off, it looks like the next round will be bigger, not because of more projects, but the wheels seem to be in motion for some big ticket projects that are desperately needed, such as the Relief line, Broadway subway, and tunnel under downtown Calgary.

And it sounds like the Federal Government wants to help to pay for them too.

I am looking forward to the new transit project coming online that is a new way for those places, such as Confederation line, BLAST network, Ion, etc. For the places that are getting a new mode of transportation, the outlook for even more expansion is rosy.

[Chadillaccc]

This will lead to between 4 and 6 subway stations in the Calgary inner city between 16 Avenue N and 12 Avenue S along the Green Line. This is not including the 3 subway stations planned for the 8th Avenue Red Line Subway.


Green Line LRT tunnel through downtown looking more likely
City administration says it's the best option despite the increased cost, and a big property manager agrees
Drew Anderson, John Gibson | CBC News

It's looking more and more likely the Green Line LRT will go underground through downtown Calgary.

The transportation and transit committee was told the underground option is ranked higher than four other options, as an elevated line could lower property values downtown.

The city is examining five possible routes for the Green Line to get from 20th Avenue North over or under the Bow River through downtown — using elevated, street level or underground sections — before finally making its way to the Beltline. ​

In April, the city said digging a tunnel underneath Crescent Heights, under the river and all the way under the city core at Second Street — at an estimated cost of $1.8 billion — has been identified as the best option.

The other options under consideration are building a new bridge to carry LRT cars over the Bow River, then either carrying the line above grade over downtown, or building a shorter tunnel below the city centre.

Those options were believed to be roughly $500 million less than the full-tunnel option.

...

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/green-line-meeting-route-transportation-committee-1.3636563

[Horus]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Today Moose Consortium applied to the Canadian Transportation Agency seeking federal government authorization to proceed with the development of a 400 km inter-provincial passenger rail service throughout Canada's Greater National Capital Region.

Simultaneously, Moose Consortoium applied to Canada's Competition Bureau to initiate a process towards obtaining a written opinion of the degree of accessibility versus exclusivity of the metropolitan passenger railway market in this region.

Details and Media Release:
https://www.letsgomoose.ca/letter-of-application-cta-2016-06-29/

Skyscraper hosts a very thoughtful community, and there has been some interesting discussion here in the past about our plans. Now that more specifics have been published with our formal application, we look forward to comments from participants on this site, and we'll be happy to respond to feedback.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com
[email protected]
[email protected]

Thanks for this update Joseph, it's good information.

I have a question about the MOOSE proposal and how you plan to integrate your service in the same track/routes as the O-Train Trillium line and Gatineau Rapibus corridor where there are some considerable bottlenecks to deal with (single track sections of Trillium line, Pont Noir in Gatineau)

[osmo]

Toronto really did it. They really have approved the motion to move forward with the Scarborough Subway Expansion (SSE) despite all logic that the ridership is to low and the costs to high.

A funded project that would serve many more riders that need improved express and local service vs. a unfunded glorified shuttle.

This expansion will likely cost upwards around $5 billion once all is said and done since it was never truly costed out correctly in the first place (the $3 billion is back of napkin, with very little design taken into account -35%). This is on pace to be the most expensive Subway expansion in modern history. No other city has attempted this (with good reason).

Toronto cries for Subways like Paris and Tokyo but then screams at the prospect of having the comparative density to support that high order of transit. You build tunnels in built up areas. Period.

Toronto City Council has shown it is no better then a cage of monkeys. I made the mistake of listening to much of the debate yesterday and 90% of Council are complete morons who can't get facts strait. Much of the basic info is in the Star and Globe and Mail that anybody with warm brain can pick up and read. Yet these Council-people with budgets, assistants, and staff, can't even get the basics correct.

The writing is on the wall now. I can already see into the future Metrolinx taking over Toronto transit matters in due time. They won't take over the TTC ... I am not saying that. But look now with Metrolinx is already building LRT all over Ontario. What I mean is to essentially cherry pick the best routes in Toronto that will prove to be cost-effective and build and operate those lines leaving the TTC and Toronto to burn money on Subway stops to suburban Wal-Marts.

My rant is done. But this move by Toronto reminds me of how Madrid was building tunnel transit into the corn fields outside of the city. Blowing money and common sense out the window and leading the way towards fiscal ruins.

Nobody bailed out Spain and I suspect nobody will bail out Toronto either.

[WhipperSnapper]

Love rants. Always so hyperbolic.

Yeah, Scarberia is nothing but frozen tundra.

It is a built up area The rail corridor will be opened up without the Scarbourough RT. Always worthwhile to bring subways to this regional bus terminal that serves Durham Region and beyond. Probably more worthwhile than Pearson that has been brought up many times over the years in this thread.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Love rants. Always so hyperbolic.

Yeah, Scarberia is nothing but frozen tundra.

It is a built up area The rail corridor will be opened up without the Scarbourough RT. Always worthwhile to bring subways to this regional bus terminal that serves Durham Region and beyond. Probably more worthwhile than Pearson that has been brought up many times over the years in this thread.

Person is the second largest employment cluster after downtown Toronto in Canada. The Mississauga Corporate Centre as it is officially called has 300K+ jobs in the area with no express transit access. All those people drive in (or if working class or low income workers they take transit, sometimes with trips 2-2.5hours+ each direction).

You could make more of a business case to tunnel a Subway to that site as the demand is clearly there (but even with this situation logic prevails as a LRT is the most effective means to reach the Airport). It makes much more sense to build out transit to the airport, which is why Metrolinx will likely wrestle away the Eglinton West LRT from Toronto so it does not bumble it.

I have no issue with Subway expansion, and there is merit to connecting all of the "Growth Centres/Hubs" to higher order transit. But if the ridership is not there and the cost is to high for a heavy rail Subway then it isn't worth it. More ideal to connect riders in that area to the 80% of the trips they make which are local and in Scarborough.

For a city like Toronto that is all built out an is quasi urban and suburban having LRT and Subway work-together with the wide spread feeder bus services just makes sense.

The Scarborough residents have been taken as fools. That packed and cramped bus they sweat in just to reach STC to hop on the RT. Well. They still have to ride that packed and swamped bus to get to that Subway stop. Only now with even more riders as bypasses on the RT further along the line are no longer there. So now everybody has to ride that bus to STC.

I read a stat that at current costs this subway expansion is essentially going to cost $500k for each peak hour rider to build. You might as well just give everybody cab fare for life, it would be cheaper and get them to work quicker.

Still even with the news, Brampton still wins the award for transit bungles with rejecting the LRT.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ Airport employment clusters are notoriously hard to serve though. Cheap parking for most employees, odd hours of travel for many, very diffuse employment concentration, on a hard to serve spatial plan.

[memph]

Originally Posted by osmo

Person is the second largest employment cluster after downtown Toronto in Canada. The Mississauga Corporate Centre as it is officially called has 300K+ jobs in the area with no express transit access. All those people drive in (or if working class or low income workers they take transit, sometimes with trips 2-2.5hours+ each direction).

You could make more of a business case to tunnel a Subway to that site as the demand is clearly there (but even with this situation logic prevails as a LRT is the most effective means to reach the Airport). It makes much more sense to build out transit to the airport, which is why Metrolinx will likely wrestle away the Eglinton West LRT from Toronto so it does not bumble it.

I have no issue with Subway expansion, and there is merit to connecting all of the "Growth Centres/Hubs" to higher order transit. But if the ridership is not there and the cost is to high for a heavy rail Subway then it isn't worth it. More ideal to connect riders in that area to the 80% of the trips they make which are local and in Scarborough.

For a city like Toronto that is all built out an is quasi urban and suburban having LRT and Subway work-together with the wide spread feeder bus services just makes sense.

The Scarborough residents have been taken as fools. That packed and cramped bus they sweat in just to reach STC to hop on the RT. Well. They still have to ride that packed and swamped bus to get to that Subway stop. Only now with even more riders as bypasses on the RT further along the line are no longer there. So now everybody has to ride that bus to STC.

I read a stat that at current costs this subway expansion is essentially going to cost $500k for each peak hour rider to build. You might as well just give everybody cab fare for life, it would be cheaper and get them to work quicker.

Still even with the news, Brampton still wins the award for transit bungles with rejecting the LRT.

I think calling that place a "cluster" is a bit of a stretch. Yes, the industrial parks and office parks surrounding the airport contain 300k+ jobs, but that's across a 50 square mile area (if you're using the same boundaries as me). All of Scarborough is about 63 square miles. Except Scarborough not only has jobs, about 150-200k of them, but unlike the Airport area, it also has residents, and not just a few, but over 600k of them, not to mention more retail, more post-secondary institutions and a variety of other destinations that can generate transit trips.

A good approach would be to look at the number of trips originating in each area and dividing by land area to get a "trip generation density". You could also look at "transit trip generation density". I can guarantee you that Scarborough will come far ahead of the broader Airport area. Only if you focus in on the densest parts of the airport zone, like the airport terminals, airport corporate centre, and maybe some of the hotel clusters can I see it rivalling Scarborough, and even so I'd expect the densest Scarborough nodes to outperform.

[osmo]

I drank the Kool-Aid of the GTAA report were a pulled that number, but the numbers have some weight. The Airport alone has 35K jobs so it is indeed a job node even if the wider area is quite vast.

This area is of course no walkable downtown it is a sea of office parks by-passed by roadways and parking lots for Airport travelers. It is at a notorious traffic bottleneck. IMO most of those commuters would ditch the car if they had the option.

I think folks over estimate Scarborough's job counts. These are dotted along the 401 corridor if they are office parks, and the large chunk are still industrial based which are scattered all around in various clusters.

"Scarborough Centre" only contains 17K jobs, far fewer than the Pearson Airport alone with 35K.

[manny_santos]

Since spending some time in BC's lower mainland and using public transit there, I honestly believe Metrolinx should just take over everything. No more TTC, no more GO, no more YRT or VIVA, no more MiWay - just one single system with zone fares. If the municipalities don't like it, too bad.

If they want to run other cities' system as well, they can go right ahead too. Cities like London should not have the right to reject LRT, the province should be imposing that project on London. The Wynne government knows how to do that with wind turbines, I'm sure they can do that with mass transit in the GTA and other cities.

Originally Posted by osmo

Toronto really did it. They really have approved the motion to move forward with the Scarborough Subway Expansion (SSE) despite all logic that the ridership is to low and the costs to high.

A funded project that would serve many more riders that need improved express and local service vs. a unfunded glorified shuttle.

This expansion will likely cost upwards around $5 billion once all is said and done since it was never truly costed out correctly in the first place (the $3 billion is back of napkin, with very little design taken into account -35%). This is on pace to be the most expensive Subway expansion in modern history. No other city has attempted this (with good reason).

Toronto cries for Subways like Paris and Tokyo but then screams at the prospect of having the comparative density to support that high order of transit. You build tunnels in built up areas. Period.

Toronto City Council has shown it is no better then a cage of monkeys. I made the mistake of listening to much of the debate yesterday and 90% of Council are complete morons who can't get facts strait. Much of the basic info is in the Star and Globe and Mail that anybody with warm brain can pick up and read. Yet these Council-people with budgets, assistants, and staff, can't even get the basics correct.

The writing is on the wall now. I can already see into the future Metrolinx taking over Toronto transit matters in due time. They won't take over the TTC ... I am not saying that. But look now with Metrolinx is already building LRT all over Ontario. What I mean is to essentially cherry pick the best routes in Toronto that will prove to be cost-effective and build and operate those lines leaving the TTC and Toronto to burn money on Subway stops to suburban Wal-Marts.

My rant is done. But this move by Toronto reminds me of how Madrid was building tunnel transit into the corn fields outside of the city. Blowing money and common sense out the window and leading the way towards fiscal ruins.

Nobody bailed out Spain and I suspect nobody will bail out Toronto either.

[memph]

Here's a map showing the catchment areas for the Sheppard Subway (red) and Scarborough RT (black), as well as the Scarborough portion of the Danforth Subway catchment (blue). Basically, if you live in the catchment of the SRT, that means that taking the SRT is the fastest way to get to Downtown TO.



So the SRT's catchment is tiny... due to the transfer time, and the way the bus network is configured, most Scarborough residents are better off taking the bus to the stations of the Danforth Subway. A few in the far reaches of Scarborough are better off taking GO and express buses, or even the Yonge subway if they can find a seat.

The Sheppard Subway faces a similar disadvantage compared to the Yonge Subway. The required transfer, as well as the Finch express buses and Steele buses causes the Yonge Subway's catchment area to be much larger than the Sheppard Subway's.

I think if you were to run some sort of rapid transit extension of the Danforth line or GO RER that made use of the existing ROW infrastructure of the SRT, that could make sense, but I'm pretty sure the added costs of running it underground along McCowan aren't worth it, even if it's the 3 stop subway that serves neighbourhoods a bit better than going along the SRT ROW through industrial areas. But if it's just a 1 stop subway??? Is there just no room for all the different rail proposals along the SRT ROW with Smart-track/RER, etc?

[memph]

Originally Posted by osmo

I drank the Kool-Aid of the GTAA report were a pulled that number, but the numbers have some weight. The Airport alone has 35K jobs so it is indeed a job node even if the wider area is quite vast.

This area is of course no walkable downtown it is a sea of office parks by-passed by roadways and parking lots for Airport travelers. It is at a notorious traffic bottleneck. IMO most of those commuters would ditch the car if they had the option.

I think folks over estimate Scarborough's job counts. These are dotted along the 401 corridor if they are office parks, and the large chunk are still industrial based which are scattered all around in various clusters.

"Scarborough Centre" only contains 17K jobs, far fewer than the Pearson Airport alone with 35K.

The job density in Scarborough might be lower, but the fact that there's more than just jobs there matters a lot IMO. Especially since commuting flows are generally going to be towards the centre of the GTA. I bet plenty of the people working at the airport live in Vaughan, Brampton, western Mississauga and other locations that won't benefit from a RT link like Eglinton West. I'm sure there are people commuting there from Etobicoke and York too, but I expect it's a smaller number.

Meanwhile, with Scarborough, commuting flows from the residents living there will probably be stronger towards the centre of Toronto than towards Markham and Durham, which means rapid transit connecting Scarborough to central Toronto will be more beneficial. It will also be of use to Scarborough residents travelling within Scarborough. I still think the RT should have been a less expensive proposal along the SRT corridor though, supplemented by other RT routes further east. So I do think Scarborough deserves better transit than what it has now, more so than the airport area, I just don't think the current subway proposal is the right kind of transit.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by memph

The job density in Scarborough might be lower, but the fact that there's more than just jobs there matters a lot IMO. Especially since commuting flows are generally going to be towards the centre of the GTA. I bet plenty of the people working at the airport live in Vaughan, Brampton, western Mississauga and other locations that won't benefit from a RT link like Eglinton West. I'm sure there are people commuting there from Etobicoke and York too, but I expect it's a smaller number.

Meanwhile, with Scarborough, commuting flows from the residents living there will probably be stronger towards the centre of Toronto than towards Markham and Durham, which means rapid transit connecting Scarborough to central Toronto will be more beneficial. It will also be of use to Scarborough residents travelling within Scarborough. I still think the RT should have been a less expensive proposal along the SRT corridor though, supplemented by other RT routes further east. So I do think Scarborough deserves better transit than what it has now, more so than the airport area, I just don't think the current subway proposal is the right kind of transit.

Most jobs commuters in Scarborough actually travel into Markham and vise-versa. This is one of the many reasons why Metrolinx wants to push Zone Fares as you the TTC system gumming things up with many cross-border commute trips between the 905 and 416.

In regards to catchment areas this can be misleading. All subway stops don't have very large catchment areas in theory. It is purely based of the amount of density that surrounds the station. Many stops on the Bloor/Danforth and Spadina stretch would show weak results as well. Plus one can't be surprised as the RT runs through brownfield and industrial wasteland for much of the corridor.

Few are within walking distance of a station. The LRT proposal would bring rapid transit closer to more residents which is why its ridership was so much greater in those projections.

Toronto gets beefed up ridership in the lesser dense parts from the feeder bus services that dumps thousands of riders into the Subway system (apparently Toronto is one of the better places of doing this, with constant non-stop bus service that feeds into rapid transit). This essentially makes the RT a shuttle service from the massive bus complex STC.

I don't buy that a subway extension will improve commute times much. The writing is on the wall that the TTC will turn back trains at Kennedy and only send one out of every so odd train out to STC. Because of the long 6km stretch it would bog and slow down the rest of the Line 2 system to constantly run every train out there, especially if it will not even get a quarter of the way filled. The Sheppard Line can do its own thing with awkward 8-12min headways since it does not interfere with any of the other lines, but this can't be the case with STC and Line 2 as that spacing will effect the overall headways of the overall line.

This is stuff the clowns at City Council don't want to talk about.

"horary no transfer" .. but you will have to wait much longer for a train.....

What good is "no transfer" (you still have to transfer off a bus) when you get to the station and have to wait 8 mins for train. That is the type of crap service you get in the USA in places like D.C. In DC after finding a bus to get you to a station you are rewarded with a wait of 12 mins for a subway train.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by osmo

I drank the Kool-Aid of the GTAA report were a pulled that number, but the numbers have some weight. The Airport alone has 35K jobs so it is indeed a job node even if the wider area is quite vast.

This area is of course no walkable downtown it is a sea of office parks by-passed by roadways and parking lots for Airport travelers. It is at a notorious traffic bottleneck. IMO most of those commuters would ditch the car if they had the option.

I think folks over estimate Scarborough's job counts. These are dotted along the 401 corridor if they are office parks, and the large chunk are still industrial based which are scattered all around in various clusters.

"Scarborough Centre" only contains 17K jobs, far fewer than the Pearson Airport alone with 35K.

Scarborough Centre is a regional transit hub that serves an area much bigger than Scarborough though.

The airport centre is what it is. It would costs billions more than the extension to Scarborough Centre to recreate it as a subway backed TOD and most of the fly by nights would vacate for cheaper options farther west. Transit also has a beginning and an end. I'm not convinced by offering only one would be that successful in getting people out of their cars.

[memph]

Originally Posted by osmo

Most jobs commuters in Scarborough actually travel into Markham and vise-versa. This is one of the many reasons why Metrolinx wants to push Zone Fares as you the TTC system gumming things up with many cross-border commute trips between the 905 and 416.

In regards to catchment areas this can be misleading. All subway stops don't have very large catchment areas in theory. It is purely based of the amount of density that surrounds the station. Many stops on the Bloor/Danforth and Spadina stretch would show weak results as well. Plus one can't be surprised as the RT runs through brownfield and industrial wasteland for much of the corridor.

Few are within walking distance of a station. The LRT proposal would bring rapid transit closer to more residents which is why its ridership was so much greater in those projections.

Toronto gets beefed up ridership in the lesser dense parts from the feeder bus services that dumps thousands of riders into the Subway system (apparently Toronto is one of the better places of doing this, with constant non-stop bus service that feeds into rapid transit). This essentially makes the RT a shuttle service from the massive bus complex STC.

I don't buy that a subway extension will improve commute times much. The writing is on the wall that the TTC will turn back trains at Kennedy and only send one out of every so odd train out to STC. Because of the long 6km stretch it would bog and slow down the rest of the Line 2 system to constantly run every train out there, especially if it will not even get a quarter of the way filled. The Sheppard Line can do its own thing with awkward 8-12min headways since it does not interfere with any of the other lines, but this can't be the case with STC and Line 2 as that spacing will effect the overall headways of the overall line.

This is stuff the clowns at City Council don't want to talk about.

"horary no transfer" .. but you will have to wait much longer for a train.....

What good is "no transfer" (you still have to transfer off a bus) when you get to the station and have to wait 8 mins for train. That is the type of crap service you get in the USA in places like D.C. In DC after finding a bus to get you to a station you are rewarded with a wait of 12 mins for a subway train.

What I was referring to regarding the catchment areas was taking into account the current structure of the bus feeder system.

Ex: 113 Sonmore Drive to Yonge & Bloor
If you look up the route google recommends you to take, it is to get on the bus at Midland, stay on the bus as it passes Midland Station on the SRT, and continue all the way to Kennedy Station by bus to make the transfer onto the subway. Therefore, on my map, 113 Sonmore would be mapped as being in the Danforth subway's catchment, rather than the SRT's, despite being much closer to the SRT.

The same is true for most of Scarborough. Due to the way the transit network is configured, it's faster to take the bus to the subway, than to the SRT if you want to get downtown, even if the SRT is geographically closer. Much of the Scarborough bus routes function as feeder lines for the Danforth Subway rather than as feeder lines for the SRT. That means SRT functions merely as a feeder for the Danforth Subway, rather than a trunk line. I suspect that transit in Scarborough was redesigned so that a Danforth extension functioned as a trunk line, ridership along it would be much higher than for the current SRT.

[memph]

As for Scarborough trips to Markham, here's the breakdown of where trips starting in Scarborough went to according to TTS 2011:

Scarborough: 691,300
Old Toronto: 117,500
North York: 112,000
Markham: 70,300
East York: 24,600
Pickering: 19,300
Ajax: 14,200
Mississauga: 13,700
Etobicoke: 12,800
Vaughan: 11,900
Richmond Hill: 10,800

Trips within Scarborough is #1 by far, and Markham is an important destination, but Toronto is still a bigger destination than Markham. (FYI I believe those stats count round trips as 2 trips... or more if you stop along the way)

For work trips from Scarborough, Toronto is even more significant.

Scarborough: 69,300
Old Toronto: 56,600
North York: 33,300
Markham: 17,100
Mississauga: 6,500
Vaughan: 5,800
Etobicoke: 5,100
East York: 4,800
Richmond Hill: 3,500

[memph]

Here's the total trips, density of trips per km2 and density of transit trips per km2 that begin and end in various wards relevant to the Scarborough vs Pearson discussion.

Mississauga Ward 5 (includes Airport, Malton, residential areas north of Square One and most of the employment in the greater airport zone)
-495,500 trips
-5,509 transit trips per km2
-435 transit trips per km2

Toronto Ward 38 (much of the areas near the various Scarborough subway proposals)
-284,800 trips
-18,824 trips per km2
-4,205 transit trips per km2

Toronto Ward 41 (north of Ward 38)
-248,400 trips
-11,739 trips per km2
-1,864 transit trips per km2

Toronto Ward 43 (east of Ward 38)
-178,400 trips
-11,451 trips per km2
-2,356 transit trips per km2

And just for comparison's sake, the part of Scarborough currently best served by the Danforth Subway, Ward 35:
-237,000 trips
-17,211 trips per km2
-4,668 transit trips per km2

[GreaterMontréal]

Person is the second largest employment cluster after downtown Toronto in Canada.

over 350k jobs in downtown Montreal.

[swimmer_spe]

A few thoughts on the announcement on the Subway extension.

1) The extension does make sense. The 1 stop over 6 km makes no sense.

2) If they build level sections where it crosses major streets, they could add infill stations later.

3) The other stops on the SRT are not that busy.

4) This does not prevent the Crosstown to be extended.

5) The Sheppard line should also be extended to STC. This would boost the STC's development.