The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[WhipperSnapper]

That could be. However, there's a minor difference between supplying vehicles to a transit agency and building/ P3 financing a new line.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

I'm hoping they do, as the Azur is a fantastic example of Bombardier's design ability, and the Rockets are quite good too. I also fear that in lieu of BBD, the CDPQ might choose Alstom, which on its own produces absolute garbage (I realise that the azur is a bbd-alstom partnership) . We have their horrible light rail cars in Sydney, which are up for replacement after a few short years of shaky, shoddy service. I do think that losing the commuter rail monopoly will teach BBD a much-needed lesson to not take Canadian contracts for granted, however. I also quite like Calgary's new Siemens rolling stock. Anything but Alstom.

There's quite a bit of Alstom rolling stock on Shanghai's Metro (Lines 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 10 all use at least some Alstom) and I don't see any issues with it.

[nephersir7]

No matter the rolling stock supplier, the REM can't come soon enough. The current bus situation is just ridiculous. A friend sent me this pic today:

[osmo]

^^^^Wow, I'm surprised there isn't at least a bus exclusive lanex even if only during rush hour periods.

[nephersir7]

Originally Posted by osmo

^^^^Wow, I'm surprised there isn't at least a bus exclusive lanex even if only during rush hour periods.

What you see on the picture is an exclusive bus lane.

[GreaterMontréal]

maybe I'm wrong , but I think it's 400 buses during the rush hour,

[begratto]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

maybe I'm wrong , but I think it's 400 buses during the rush hour,

780 buses per day (this stat is from 2013, it must have increased since), so 400 per rush hour sounds about right.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

I'm hoping they do, as the Azur is a fantastic example of Bombardier's design ability, and the Rockets are quite good too. I also fear that in lieu of BBD, the CDPQ might choose Alstom, which on its own produces absolute garbage (I realise that the azur is a bbd-alstom partnership) . We have their horrible light rail cars in Sydney, which are up for replacement after a few short years of shaky, shoddy service. I do think that losing the commuter rail monopoly will teach BBD a much-needed lesson to not take Canadian contracts for granted, however. I also quite like Calgary's new Siemens rolling stock. Anything but Alstom.

The Azur trains are very nice.. some of the nicest metro cars I've ever been in.

Alstom's LRT vehicles that are all over Europe are all pretty great.

[hipster duck]

re: Montreal bus pic

Is rail service from the South shore into downtown really bad? Do the South Shore transit agencies not funnel commuters to AMT stations? Is Longueuil Metro too far north for people from Brossard, Candiac etc. and is the connection at Berri-UQAM to travel west considered enough of a hindrance for people to tough it out on a one seat bus?

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

re: Montreal bus pic

Is rail service from the South shore into downtown really bad? Do the South Shore transit agencies not funnel commuters to AMT stations? Is Longueuil Metro too far north for people from Brossard, Candiac etc. and is the connection at Berri-UQAM to travel west considered enough of a hindrance for people to tough it out on a one seat bus?

All services serve distinct areas. Yes it would be a hindrance for people from Brossard to go to the metro or take the RTM train.

[begratto]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

re: Montreal bus pic

Is rail service from the South shore into downtown really bad? Do the South Shore transit agencies not funnel commuters to AMT stations? Is Longueuil Metro too far north for people from Brossard, Candiac etc. and is the connection at Berri-UQAM to travel west considered enough of a hindrance for people to tough it out on a one seat bus?

The buses you see on the pic come mostly from Brossard, Chambly, Laprairie, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu and even as far as Bromont. It would be quite a detour for them to go to the Longueuil métro station. I'd say that with the transfers, it would add half an hour to their commutes (or a hour per day). The AMT suburban trains serve other cities around Montréal, but not anywhere near the Champlain bridge corridor. And the trains offer limited service (~ 5 trains per rush hour, very limited services the rest of the day) , so they are not convenient to a lot of people.

The REM metro trains will follow the same corridor, though.

[GreaterMontréal]

people always forget about the other bridges.

Jacques-Cartier is the 3rd busiest in Canada. daily traffic 100k
Pont Mercier is used by people from Châteauguay, Saint-Constant, etc. daily traffic 82k
Pont Victoria 24k
Tunnel L-H Lafontaine - daily traffic 125k.

the daily traffic between the South Shore and Montréal is more than 500k.

The Tunnel will be a 2nd ''Turcot'' , starting 2019.

the A-20 on the South Shore is starting to be jammed all the way to Saint-Hyacinthe.

DT Beloeil 76k . 22km away from Montréal
DT Saint-Hyacinthe 54k . 40km away from Montréal

the REM will not solve the A-20 problem.

[bikegypsy]

Originally Posted by nephersir7

No matter the rolling stock supplier, the REM can't come soon enough. The current bus situation is just ridiculous. A friend sent me this pic today:

Looks like Ottawa... You know it's time for rail when you have lines of buses like this.

[nephersir7]

Originally Posted by bikegypsy

Looks like Ottawa... You know it's time for rail when you have lines of buses like this.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

re: Montreal bus pic
is the connection at Berri-UQAM to travel west considered enough of a hindrance for people to tough it out on a one seat bus?

Usually, the south-shore <-> downtown bus service through the champlain bridge bus lane system is very fast and efficient. It carries more people than the yellow line metro during the rush hour.
During rush hour, buses take less than 15 minutes to reach the completely saturated downtown terminus, thanks to dedicated lanes. It's not pretty, but it's very efficient.

It's just that with such a high bus frequency, one little disruption can bring the whole transit corridor to its knees.

The congestion on the pic was caused by an unrelated incident that forced important street closures during the afternoon rush hour.

So luckily, most of the buses on the picture must have been empty, heading to pick up passengers at the TCV.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by nephersir7

Usually, the south-shore <-> downtown bus service through the champlain bridge bus lane system is very fast and efficient. It carries more people than the yellow line metro during the rush hour.
During rush hour, buses take less than 15 minutes to reach the completely saturated downtown terminus, thanks to dedicated lanes. It's not pretty, but it's very efficient.

It's just that with such a high bus frequency, one little disruption can bring the whole transit corridor to its knees.

The congestion on the pic was caused by an unrelated incident that forced important street closures during the afternoon rush hour.

So luckily, most of the buses on the picture must have been empty, heading to pick up passengers at the TCV.

The South Shore bus system works well with the reserved lane until you arrive Downtown where buses line up to get to the Downtown Terminus. At that point, it gets pretty chaotic and the countless buses take up a lot of space. Just looking at the 2016 streetview pic of the Mansfield/Saint-Jacques intersection (doesn't even look like rush hour), you can see about 10 South Shore buses leaving or arriving:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.4976375,-...xPgRgkzbtRsN7OzxONwnQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

The service is saturated and in the future, these buses will be rerouted to transfer people from the local networks to the rapid transit (REM) stations on the South Shore, which will be a breath of fresh air for Downtown.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by nephersir7

What you see on the picture is an exclusive bus lane.

[swimmer_spe]

I have never understood why transit extension projects are not done back to back. Seriously,, as one project is done, the shovels should be in the ground working on the next extension.

I would even be a fan of congestion tolls to pay for it.

Take the 401 for example. Let say once you cross into Toronto you pay $1 toll. Think of how quickly you could pay for the subway extensions there.

Montreal is even easier. Cross a bridge, pay a toll. Even $1, you would quickly rack up enough tolls to pay for transit funding, or you would have crush loads on current transit, which then also funds itself.

[MalcolmTucker]

[del]

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I have never understood why transit extension projects are not done back to back. Seriously,, as one project is done, the shovels should be in the ground working on the next extension.

I would even be a fan of congestion tolls to pay for it.

Take the 401 for example. Let say once you cross into Toronto you pay $1 toll. Think of how quickly you could pay for the subway extensions there.

Montreal is even easier. Cross a bridge, pay a toll. Even $1, you would quickly rack up enough tolls to pay for transit funding, or you would have crush loads on current transit, which then also funds itself.

All politics. The feds wanted to charge a toll on the new Champlain Bridge and they backed out. Tolls should be charged every weekday on all Montreal bridges from 6AM to 6PM IMO.

[begratto]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

All politics. The feds wanted to charge a toll on the new Champlain Bridge and they backed out. Tolls should be charged every weekday on all Montreal bridges from 6AM to 6PM IMO.

But then if you only have tolls on bridges around Montreal, you'd only penalize people who come to work and study in the city, and give an advantage to those whose commute is potentially even longer, but stay on there side of the river. People would eventually stay more and more in there respective suburbs, bringing jobs and retail with them. In the long term, the city centre would be penalized by this toll system.

A system that would seem more fair to me would be a distance-based charge (e.g. you drive 20km on highways - wherever these highways are in the metropolitan region - to get to your work, you get charged $X.XX per km). The island would not be penalized by such a system.