Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[caltrane74]

No. Hamilton and Kitchener are the effective population release valves for Toronto. They need LRT, as their economies are going to be tied into Toronto more and more. One with Tech/Insurance the other Health-Science. They both have land for housing , Toronto doesn't have, so it is possible they will grow faster than Toronto in absolute terms in the not too distant future. Hence all the talk of Hamilton 1 million and Kitchener passing Hamilton/or Winnipeg. I give Kitchener the advantage as the province wants to build the high speed rail link here and not to Hamilton. Because they own all the track.

The province is spending $30 billion dollars over then next 10 to 15 years. $1.5 billion each for Kitchener and Hamilton is still a drop in the bucket for the province/Metrolinx.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I disagree. There's really no reason for cities that small to be building rapid transit. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were all at around a million when they started building theirs. It may assist in inducing urban development along the corridor, but at the cost of developing a more comprehensive transportation network region-wide.

It's only been 20 years since we were still building around the automobile and transit was viewed as a frivolous luxury better suited to the cities of Europe. We slowly accepted the necessity of it in our biggest metros but scoffed at the idea that it made sense in smaller places.

There's still considerable push back in our culture but LRT should be viewed as an investment in our economic future. Just because we used to see things one way doesn't mean it's written in stone. Canadian urban planning is slowly coming around to the idea that big investments in LRT aren't just for big 1 million+ metros.

Halifax, Victoria, Saskatoon and others should be building LRT too. If we repeat what we did before we'll end up with the same outcomes: cities that are less urban/vibrant than their European counterparts. I'd rather see us learn from past mistakes instead of repeating them.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by isaidso

It's only been 20 years since we were still building around the automobile and transit was viewed as a frivolous better suited to the cities of Europe. We slowly accepted the necessity of it in our biggest metros but scoffed at the idea that it made sense in smaller places.

There's still considerable push back in our culture but LRT should be viewed as an investment in our economic future. Just because we used to see things one way doesn't mean it's written in stone. Canadian urban planning is slowly coming around to the idea that big investments in LRT aren't just for big 1 million+ metros.

Halifax, Victoria, Saskatoon and others should be building LRT too.

Well I'm strongly against LRT in general, but that's a different discussion. I'm just wary of sacrificing overall transportation systems (based on buses) by directing funds to shiny rapid transit projects. Is there extremely strong demand along this corridor for this project? Given that its predicted ridership is only 20,000 people a day, I would say not. I don't believe in building rapid transit to induce demand. We're not the US, our transit demand is high enough to not have to go that route. I think a more balanced approach to our transportation planning would be preferable.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by isaidso

It's only been 20 years since we were still building around the automobile and transit was viewed as a frivolous luxury better suited to the cities of Europe. We slowly accepted the necessity of it in our biggest metros but scoffed at the idea that it made sense in smaller places.

There's still considerable push back in our culture but LRT should be viewed as an investment in our economic future. Just because we used to see things one way doesn't mean it's written in stone. Canadian urban planning is slowly coming around to the idea that big investments in LRT aren't just for big 1 million+ metros.

Halifax, Victoria, Saskatoon and others should be building LRT too. If we repeat what we did before we'll end up with the same outcomes: cities that are less urban/vibrant than their European counterparts. I'd rather see us learn from past mistakes instead of repeating them.

I agree, Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo are going to become more urban, more walkable and more connected due to the LRT.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

We're not the US, our transit demand is high enough to not have to go that route.

Wait... what? Canadian per-capita transit ridership is consistently in a class of its own compared to American cities.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I disagree. There's really no reason for cities that small to be building rapid transit. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver were all at around a million when they started building theirs.

I'll have to disagree with you here too; These cities started to build their metros at 1M, but we have to remember that they had RT in the form of streetcars and trams for almost a century before that. And although they definitely weren't rapid transit after the 1940s, until then, there were relatively few other road users (other than in the core) for it to be considered RT. And unlike the heavy rail which came later, these lines were built to both address existing demand and structure the growth which would spring up later along the line.

Here's an interesting picture of Montreal's Rosemont neighbourhood as it was being built along the newly-installed streetcar line to nowhere:



I think that KW's LRT is more akin to a pre-war interurban streetcar line (whose purpose was to structure greenfield development as well as move existing transportation demand) than it is to a post-war metro (which were built to address transportation demand and, in Toronto and Vancouver, structure urban redevelopment).

With that in mind, I would consider that KW is building their line at the right time; as the city grows, its LRT will structure its greenfield development as well as its densification. The disadvantage is that, for the first few years, the seats won't always be full. But I think that's an acceptable price to pay for well-structured, long-term development.

[caltrane74]

LRT is a more permanent form of public transit than a bus route. Like a longterm commitment from the province to the urban area. A vote of confidence perhaps.

[eemy]

You can't really see the ION LRT in a vacuum. Redevelopment along the King Street corridor has been occurring at a very aggressive pace due to supportive measures taken by Kitchener and Waterloo to encourage growth in the Central Transit Corridor. I'm somewhat more skeptical that redevelopment along Hespeler Road will be as effective, but there are signs that it is beginning there too and the Region has been proactively developing new guidelines for growth and development in that area. Ridership goals for the LRT have also already been hit with the 200 iXpress route, which suggests that the region has been conservative in their estimates.

Keep in mind as well that Calgary and Edmonton started constructing their LRT systems when they were pretty much the same size KW is now. Was that a mistake too?

[FFX-ME]

Plus, building rail transit is pretty much always the better option economics-wise. Ottawa's transit costs, overall, would have been much lower had they built LRT right off the bat instead of BRT since LRT is cheaper to operate.

[MalcolmTucker]

It is a number of years ago now, but I believe the KW Phase 1 actually replaced mixed traffic BRT with slower LRT service. It is totally a redevelopment play first, with the justification coming from the Regional Growth Management Strategy, which even with continued 5.5% growth the Regional Municipality will miss its population target of 729,000 for 2031 by 100k (628,400).

The city ran a Multiple Account Evaluation (full report) process that reported to council right before an endorsement of LRT as the preferred technology. A higher cost, higher benefit type thing, that mostly justified LRT as BRT even with the same lane protections as LRT would be overwhelmed (given the low ridership projections, a pretty dubious assumption):


Surprisingly, BRT had lower operating costs, lower capital costs, and one of the BRT options had more travel time savings than LRT.


When you go into travel time, you can see that the whole project is justified to decrease travel time from 37.8 minutes under business as usual to 35.6 minutes under the King Street LRT Option (LRT 1C, the option selected), while encouraging 1350 more people to take transit than business as usual.

All for the wonderful price of billions!

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Wait... what? Canadian per-capita transit ridership is consistently in a class of its own compared to American cities.

I know, I must have worded it wrongly. What I mean is, American transit ridership is poor and demand is low, so most LRT projects are ridership-inducing projects meant less to improve service and more to create shiny trains that non-transit users would want to try. In Canada, our transit ridership and demand is healthy enough where we can design networks based on accommodating this demand and gradually improving service, rather than spending a lot of money on individual vanity projects.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I'll have to disagree with you here too; These cities started to build their metros at 1M, but we have to remember that they had RT in the form of streetcars and trams for almost a century before that. And although they definitely weren't rapid transit after the 1940s, until then, there were relatively few other road users (other than in the core) for it to be considered RT. And unlike the heavy rail which came later, these lines were built to both address existing demand and structure the growth which would spring up later along the line.

Here's an interesting picture of Montreal's Rosemont neighbourhood as it was being built along the newly-installed streetcar line to nowhere:



I think that KW's LRT is more akin to a pre-war interurban streetcar line (whose purpose was to structure greenfield development as well as move existing transportation demand) than it is to a post-war metro (which were built to address transportation demand and, in Toronto and Vancouver, structure urban redevelopment).

With that in mind, I would consider that KW is building their line at the right time; as the city grows, its LRT will structure its greenfield development as well as its densification. The disadvantage is that, for the first few years, the seats won't always be full. But I think that's an acceptable price to pay for well-structured, long-term development.

I would struggle to call early 1900s streetcars as rapid transit. They had local stops. They served the same purpose that buses serve today. And in Vancouver, we built our first rapid transit line long after our streetcar system was torn up.

How is Waterloo's LRT going to structure greenfield development, I thought it was running through existing urban neighbourhoods eclusively? In general though, I oppose building rapid transit as a form of urban development structuring. I think far too many planners see transit as a development tool rather than its intended purpose of getting people around town. Plenty of cities have developed strong urban neighbourhoods without any rapid transit.

Originally Posted by caltrane74

LRT is a more permanent form of public transit than a bus route. Like a longterm commitment from the province to the urban area. A vote of confidence perhaps.

As I previously said, I don't want to argue bus vs. rail. I can't imagine how much I've bored people with it already. But in short, I don't see it the same way.

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

You can't really see the ION LRT in a vacuum. Redevelopment along the King Street corridor has been occurring at a very aggressive pace due to supportive measures taken by Kitchener and Waterloo to encourage growth in the Central Transit Corridor. I'm somewhat more skeptical that redevelopment along Hespeler Road will be as effective, but there are signs that it is beginning there too and the Region has been proactively developing new guidelines for growth and development in that area. Ridership goals for the LRT have also already been hit with the 200 iXpress route, which suggests that the region has been conservative in their estimates.

Keep in mind as well that Calgary and Edmonton started constructing their LRT systems when they were pretty much the same size KW is now. Was that a mistake too?

Again, I just don't believe in using rapid transit as an urban development tool. That should be its side-benefit, not its main purpose. I don't know anything about Waterloo, but any rapid transit line with a projected ridership of 20,000 probably shouldn't be being built.

As far as Calgary or Edmonton, I have no idea. Everything's a case-by-case basis, and I wasn't around when their systems were being planned.

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

Plus, building rail transit is pretty much always the better option economics-wise. Ottawa's transit costs, overall, would have been much lower had they built LRT right off the bat instead of BRT since LRT is cheaper to operate.

LRT should not be seen as the final goal, a grade-separated metro is. LRT is a massive obstacle to developing true metros.

[Aylmer]

I would caution to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. What I understand from your post is that you don't want LRT because it will push the need for a full metro line back a few years or decades. That may very well be the case, but I don't know if a metro is worth the decades of poor service, especially in a small centre like KWC where such a line likely won't be justifiable for 50 years at least.

I'd invite you to see it this way; the intermediary step of LRT can help put in place the necessary conditions for a metro. A LRT-less KWC wouldn't develop the same way that it will with LRT; Without some form of higher-capacity transit, residents, offices and destinations would have to be more spread out with wider roads and more parking to sustain them. In that context, a metro would be a poor choice since there wouldn't be a concentrated spine of activity and density for it to run along. So if come 2070, a LRT-less KWC looks like Brampton, then you're no closer (and may actually be further) from a true metro than if you had gone with LRT.

An analogy might be to say that children shouldn't go to high school because the improvement in what they know will push the need for a university degree back a few years. That may be true, but it's only with the knowledge acquired during high school that you'll be able to get to university at all.

It's rare for a city to go from nothing to metro in a single leap because the concentration and density necessary for a metro often requires some intermediary technology which can put the right conditions in place. Even in places which built them after taking down their streetcar networks (Montreal, DC, Vancouver, etc.), the urban form which allowed for their metros were only made possible by those very same streetcar networks. So if you want more metro lines, the best thing you can do today in small towns is to advocate for that intermediary step, no matter what it is.

[milomilo]

Yeah. I think it's a false dichotomy to state LRT now vs metro in the future. More likely, it's LRT now vs LRT later and no metro ever.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Well I'm strongly against LRT in general, but that's a different discussion. I'm just wary of sacrificing overall transportation systems (based on buses) by directing funds to shiny rapid transit projects. Is there extremely strong demand along this corridor for this project? Given that its predicted ridership is only 20,000 people a day, I would say not. I don't believe in building rapid transit to induce demand. We're not the US, our transit demand is high enough to not have to go that route. I think a more balanced approach to our transportation planning would be preferable.

I am quite supportive of the first phase of the KW-LRT, even if I'm not that supportive of LRTs in general.

As the report that Malcolm Tucker posted reveals, the travel time will be about the same as the current limited stop bus service (the iXpress). However, I think that the point of the LRT is to establish a transit culture - or, maybe more properly, an alternative-to-car culture - in what we might describe as an "emerging" transit market.

Kitchener's major trip generators are all along one route, which is short enough to make travel times not a huge factor, but long enough that you need some form of rapid transit. These trip generators are also pretty major, even by big city standards. The urban built form along this route can be quite urban and dense, too, while most of the roads along which this route will travel are quite narrow and restrictive. The route already runs as a limited stop bus service with 10 minute frequencies, and I think there is potential for bus congestion if they doubled their level of service - particularly through the old cores of Kitchener and Waterloo where a bus ROW is not really feasible. I don't think a BRT is the way to go, and obviously grade separated metro - even light metro - is total overkill.

Now, I don't think an LRT is the way to go for the expansion to Cambridge, either.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ They could have built BRT ROW where they built the LRT ROW.

[jigglysquishy]

There's a segment of the population that views the bus as beneath them, but have no problems taking a train.

I wish that segment was 1%, but I think it's closer to 50% of the population.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

^ They could have built BRT ROW where they built the LRT ROW.

I don't think that would have been possible, actually. The route runs along the Spur Line between Uptown Waterloo and Northfield Drive. The Spur Line will continue to be used for freight movements overnight and I'm not sure that the RoW has room for two lanes for buses adjacent to it.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

I don't think that would have been possible, actually. The route runs along the Spur Line between Uptown Waterloo and Northfield Drive. The Spur Line will continue to be used for freight movements overnight and I'm not sure that the RoW has room for two lanes for buses adjacent to it.

Looking through the functional plans, it looks like the ROW is the standard 4 track width, so plenty of room. Could always pave around the rails too.

Looks like they are planning to use gauntlet track to maintain clearance with platforms. Haven't seen how they are going to maintain vertical clearance. Region of Waterloo owns the ROW, and their contractor the Goderich-Exeter Railway doesn't list the spur as having service right now. A quick search shows 4 companies with direct access to spurs along with the historic railway socieity which may still run excursion trains:

1. Commonwealth Plywood
   
2. Fairway Lumber
   
3. Sulco Chemicals
   
4. Chemtura Canada

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by isaidso

It's only been 20 years since we were still building around the automobile and transit was viewed as a frivolous luxury better suited to the cities of Europe. We slowly accepted the necessity of it in our biggest metros but scoffed at the idea that it made sense in smaller places.

There's still considerable push back in our culture but LRT should be viewed as an investment in our economic future. Just because we used to see things one way doesn't mean it's written in stone. Canadian urban planning is slowly coming around to the idea that big investments in LRT aren't just for big 1 million+ metros.

Halifax, Victoria, Saskatoon and others should be building LRT too. If we repeat what we did before we'll end up with the same outcomes: cities that are less urban/vibrant than their European counterparts. I'd rather see us learn from past mistakes instead of repeating them.

LRT shouldn't be limited to only the largest centres but, it certainly can be frivolous if not properly planned. The US is full of frivolous LRT lines. Phase 2 to Cambridge reminds me of one of those lines.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

No. Hamilton and Kitchener are the effective population release valves for Toronto. They need LRT, as their economies are going to be tied into Toronto more and more. One with Tech/Insurance the other Health-Science. They both have land for housing , Toronto doesn't have, so it is possible they will grow faster than Toronto in absolute terms in the not too distant future. Hence all the talk of Hamilton 1 million and Kitchener passing Hamilton/or Winnipeg. I give Kitchener the advantage as the province wants to build the high speed rail link here and not to Hamilton. Because they own all the track.

The province is spending $30 billion dollars over then next 10 to 15 years. $1.5 billion each for Kitchener and Hamilton is still a drop in the bucket for the province/Metrolinx.

They don't own the track to Kitchener either. They will be building a new bypass corridor. It'll be a boon to have improved rail service connecting more communities in Southern Ontario but, why would you suggest Kitchener as a "release value" as if Toronto doesn't sprawl far enough.