Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
A worthy price to pay for a plan that was a disaster in my opinion. The long term cost would have been far more.
I don't get why people think the plan was any good at all. Ridership would have been terrible. And it wouldn't have done the one thing the LRT was supposed to do: get buses off the road in the core. Let's not forget that a major motivation for LRT and the DOTT was the massive bus congestion on Albert and Slater.
Because ridership is poor. And hence demand is poor. It really shows you how flawed the old plan was, when they actually went back and planned from scratch without the massive influence of suburban developers wanting a premium line to help out their sprawling mcmansion dreams.
I disagree. Here's what would have happened. They would have spent a ton. They would not have realized serious operational savings from going to the LRT. The public would have become more resentful and cynical about this LRT thing that costs so much and benefits so few (vast majority of riders are East-West, not N-S) . It would have made further LRT development more challenging. See the Scarborough subway debates for what would have followed. Instead by building the Confederation line, the City actually has a decent shot at creating a more transit friendly environment.
How do you figure? Retrofitting a tunnel after the fact, is no easy feat. It would be a particularly tough sell to make just a few years after the LRT opened promising to cure downtown congestion and failing miserably at that.
When people in the south start actually using transit, billions can be justified in spending for them. It's not even that hard to double track the Trillium line. I am actually surprised they didn't do it this round. Which really shows you how little demand they must have, now that the Confederation Line is going to run to Baseline in 2023.
It will remain that way, because it's pretty apparent that demand isn't there along that corridor. And it's apparent that the last plan only managed to generate demand by roping in Barrhaven to ride along the O-Train/Trillium line corridor. Once you shift that ridership to the Confederation Line at Baseline, the Trillium Line doesn't even have enough to justify double tracking.
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You are not really making any sense.
First of all, we are not going to get the ridership unless we build a line that goes to where people want to go and that is downtown. Look at a map. The Trillium rail line goes way west of downtown and you have to transfer. I went downtown on Sunday on transit. Did I take the Trillium Line? No. It was shut down yet again and it was not going in a reasonably direct line to downtown and you have to transfer on top of that. I wouldn't have chosen that route even if it was in service.
The original plan would have dealt with most of the issues but particularly the transfer in a crappy location. Furthermore, it was to be the trunk line to downtown. If you lived in the south end, you would have taken the train downtown. We all knew that ridership was to more than triple. Buses would have all fed into the Trillium Line. As it stands and I have said this repeatedly, the Trillium Line can't handle this and people would have complained loudly, so the buses are going to Hurdman instead. What a ridiculous plan that we have now. We bus by a rail line and don't use it.
Second, this is becoming a massive joke amongst my friends and neighbours, that we are all figments of people's imaginations. None of us exist in the south end. The south end of the city is all bush and empty farm fields, still. Nobody lives here. Give me a break. Meanwhile, the exist road infrastructure is breaking down. The old rural road grid can't handle the traffic anymore.
Third, your assumptions of failure are ridiculous. This is a perfect example of, if you build it they will come. It was going to serve Hunt Club, Findlay Creek and go right through the centre of Riverside South and Barrhaven. People would have used it and it would be growing every day. This is the fastest growing part of the city now. The reactionary approach to building LRT is not going to be the most effective way to increase ridership. Building new routes into underserved areas will be more effective.
You keep repeating yourself about low ridership. How do you expect to grow ridership without a decent system of moving people in place? It is a defeatist argument. Using this rationale, we would always build only for the same people, and in a way, that is what we are doing.
I also don't get the part about retrofitting for a tunnel. A surface route would not have compromised a downtown tunnel given its original planned routing. If Albert and Slater could not have handled LRT, what better way to accelerate a tunnel plan.
Your overall comments support my overall worries, that unless LRT is going draw the highest ridership in all of North America, it should not be built. There are dozens of cities in North America that build LRT with much lower ridership expectations and still consider it a success. Why do we have to expect 250,000+ ridership for any line that we build? We are really limiting possibilities if that is the minimum bar. As I have said just recently, we might as well abandon all route considerations including to Gatineau if this is our attitude.
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