The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Again, not saying commuter rail is the answer for everyone. Ottawa doesn't have enough of that existing infrastructure. Edmonton and Calgary are compact, so LRT can be built to serve the entire city. Toronto on the other hand has commuter rail. Likely the best system in North America, yet politicians are pushing subway lines further and further into the suburbs already well served by GO. Old Toronto on the other hand is served by overcapacity subways and streetcar lines. Next to nothing is being invested to improve the situation there.

It kinda sucks that someone living on the fringes of the GTA (Burlington/Newmarket) can, in some ways, get downtown quicker than someone in a distant streetcar suburb. They get bathrooms too.

[TorontoDrew]

Way back when i was living in Markham and going to George Brown i could leave my front door and be at my campus on King in 1hr and 15 minutes 45km distance thanks to the GO train. I know live in Riverside only 4km from work and it can take 30-45 mins yo travel that distance some mornings across the core. Thank god I bike to work 15-20 mins. Also living and working downton its pretty sad the subway really isnt a good ootion during rush hour unless you like cramming into a packed subway car.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

It kinda sucks that someone living on the fringes of the GTA (Burlington/Newmarket) can, in some ways, get downtown quicker than someone in a distant streetcar suburb. They get bathrooms too.

Of course the caveat lies in the "in some ways" part, since that only applies if you're measuring the time required for journeys starting at the same time as a trip on the available mode and from that mode's departure point. But if you're measuring journeys starting at a random time and a random location within the respective communities it's a whole other matter. Compared to a bus or streetcar route in a streetcar suburb that has the same trip length as a GO trip from an outer area, GO routes have very high stop spacing and lower service frequency meaning that it would take a higher average time to get to a stop, and a trip starting at a random time would have a far higher average wait.

A GO trip that takes 1 hr and departs every 30 minutes might require an average of 15 minutes to get to the station and a journey starting at a random time would have an average wait of 15 minutes. So that's an average total journey of 1.5 hours. With the bus or streetcar journey, if the actual trip also took an hour but had 10 minute service intervals the average wait would be 5 minutes and the average time to reach a stop may only be 5 minutes. That would make the average streetcar suburb journey time 70 minutes vs 90 minutes for the outer suburban GO commuter.

Obviously a person using an infrequent service isn't going to show up randomly and would instead follow the schedule, but the time needed to access a station should still be considered and the lack of frequency is still a major trade-off imo.

[Mister F]

The good news is that RER will improve service for distant suburbs and central neighbourhoods alike. Suburban stations like Aurora and Bramalea will get electrified trains every 15 minutes or better. Downtown neighbourhoods will get new stations like Gerrard and Liberty Village, often with more than one line serving them, giving them metro-style service. Once fares are integrated it really can't be overstated how much this is going to transform how people get around the GTA.

There's always the danger of Doug Ford cancelling it because "subways subways subways". Maybe GO can rebrand it to "GO Metro" or something like that so that he can say he built his subway to Markham and Pickering.

[Nouvellecosse]

It's hard to tell what they'll do since Ford seems to be mainly obsessed with subways for the sake of not having transit vehicles like LRT or streetcars at street level taking up lanes or slowing down his SUVs (or at least that's how it came across during Rob's tenure). I don't think they'll be "opposed" to trains like they are streetcars, but there's definitely the fear that they'll want to siphon funding from other places to pay for more subways.

Ironically, the new subway line that's actually needed is the one he doesn't care about. He's happy to cram ever more commuters into the same central choke points because let's face it, the new subways he wants aren't for the subway riders, they're for him. To get transit riders out of his sight and out of his way. Whether or not the system is comfortable or functional is irrelevant.

[Doady]

You can see in east Mississauga, very few people use GO. Dixie and Malton stations have almost non-existent ridership. Almost everyone opts to take the bus to Islington subway station instead. GO often is more convenient for car drivers than actual transit riders.

Perhaps GO would be more useful if there was co-fare with TTC. People could take the subway from Union, and so not be limited to Union due to exorbiant fare costs. But of course, lack of any sort of fare integration between TTC and 905 systems is also an issue.

To travel from Westwood Mall in Malton to Albion Centre in Rexdale costs a whopping $6.00. $6.00 for a 4km trip. That's what the left-wing downtown bicycle-riding elites give you: the physical isolation of two of the poorest neighbourhoods in the GTA, Malton and Rexdale.

In contrast, to take the train from Malton GO to Etobicoke North GO only costs $4.71! World of difference! No, I'm just kidding. GO is garbage.

Bottom line, GO Train and TTC subway are both essential pieces of the transit puzzle, but both will always be limited by political conflict.

Can you imagine if the subway in Scarborough was extended into Markham, what would happen? People would finally have the opportunity take transit from Denison Street to McNicoll Avenue without having to pay $6.63 in fares. Finally, they would only have to pay one fare to travel 2km instead of two fares.

For that reason, maybe further subway extensions into the suburbs isn't such a bad idea. If the downtown elites treat suburbanites this way, you can't blame suburbanites for taking back control of the situation, and subway extensions are only way they can do that.

Personally, I'd rather just see integrated TTC/905/GO fares and integrated routes (e.g. 905 routes can operate without restriction in Toronto, some TTC routes operate in 905, GO/905 routes take over some services in Toronto), much easier and save everyone money, and allow for the development of a truly integrated and comprehensive transit network in the Toronto area. But the downtown elites would never allow that, they want to do things another way, and I don't mind if Doug Ford gives them that.

[TownGuy]

Purely anecdotal but I've noticed, on the Lakeshore East line, a lot more ridership at the Toronto city proper stations. There used to be a smattering of people get on but now I couldn't even tell you the amount.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Doady

You can see in east Mississauga, very few people use GO. Dixie and Malton stations have almost non-existent ridership. Almost everyone opts to take the bus to Islington subway station instead. GO often is more convenient for car drivers than actual transit riders.

Perhaps GO would be more useful if there was co-fare with TTC. People could take the subway from Union, and so not be limited to Union due to exorbiant fare costs. But of course, lack of any sort of fare integration between TTC and 905 systems is also an issue.

To travel from Westwood Mall in Malton to Albion Centre in Rexdale costs a whopping $6.00. $6.00 for a 4km trip. That's what the left-wing downtown bicycle-riding elites give you: the physical isolation of two of the poorest neighbourhoods in the GTA, Malton and Rexdale.

In contrast, to take the train from Malton GO to Etobicoke North GO only costs $4.71! World of difference! No, I'm just kidding. GO is garbage.

Bottom line, GO Train and TTC subway are both essential pieces of the transit puzzle, but both will always be limited by political conflict.

Can you imagine if the subway in Scarborough was extended into Markham, what would happen? People would finally have the opportunity take transit from Denison Street to McNicoll Avenue without having to pay $6.63 in fares. Finally, they would only have to pay one fare to travel 2km instead of two fares.

For that reason, maybe further subway extensions into the suburbs isn't such a bad idea. If the downtown elites treat suburbanites this way, you can't blame suburbanites for taking back control of the situation, and subway extensions are only way they can do that.

Personally, I'd rather just see integrated TTC/905/GO fares and integrated routes (e.g. 905 routes can operate without restriction in Toronto, some TTC routes operate in 905, GO/905 routes take over some services in Toronto), much easier and save everyone money, and allow for the development of a truly integrated and comprehensive transit network in the Toronto area. But the downtown elites would never allow that, they want to do things another way, and I don't mind if Doug Ford gives them that.

What really should happen is each current local transit agency operate on a fare zone method where there is one base fare regardless of where you start your trip, and then as you cross each fare zone, a smaller, additional fee is added. Kinda like how York Region is with their fare zone.

[Dengler Avenue]

Or Vancouver-style: one integrated fare, with each region (not cities!!) as a zone where it will costs at most 50 cents to cross from one zone to another. Heck we can even attempt this in the entire province (of Ontario). Imagine only spending ~$15 to take public transit from Windsor to Montreal. (I count Elgin and Wellington County out, so excluding those 2, there are 16 counties, regions and cities on the way.)

A caveat though: Ontario will need to negotiate with Quebec and Manitoba to allow its (future?) provincial transit to terminate at Montreal (QC), and Winnepeg (MB). The add-fare can be insane if we're talking about crossing provincial boundaries.

[Aylmer]

What I’ve been thinking about is how great it would be to establish a pan-agency framework to offer some forms of ticketing and fare integration.
For monthly passes, I’d propose that it allow a user to have a certain number of days (say 7 or 8) of free transit use in other jurisdictions. So if I pay for my Gatineau monthly pass, I’d be entitled to up to 7 days of unlimited transit use on the TTC, 7 days on STM, etc.

What that does is it allows for me to use my pass for occasional use in other cities, but it avoids the problem of total compatibility where people would just buy a cheaper Gatineau pass and use it every day in Toronto to avoid the more expensive TTC pass. If you’re doing 9-5 on the TTC, you’d still need to buy a TTC pass since one from another jurisdiction would limit you to 7 days of transit use before you’d have to buy tickets. And if you’re commuting in regularly from Barrie, you’d still need a GO pass.

But now someone with a VIVA pass can use the STM during a long weekend jaunt or head into Toronto on a Friday night without having to figure out how to buy a new ticket.

The advantage of having integration is that it helps to make transit easier and more attractive. Having to figure out a new ticketing system every time you go from one system to another is unnecessarily frustrating. After all, I don’t have to pay for a new license every time I take my car to Montreal - why should I need to get a new transit pass?

If we want to make transit an attractive and practical alternative to the car, it has to be just as easy and seamless to pass from one mode or jurisdiction to another as it is to drive from a street to a highway or from one province to the next. This kind of semi-integration is a good stepping stone - the fare losses for transit agencies are minimal since it doesn’t take away their bread and butter (monthly pass users) and are likely offset by increased monthly pass use since being able to use them in other jurisdictions makes them more attractive.

[p_xavier]

The Opus card works for most of Quebec's transit agencies.

[Innsertnamehere]

Another big benefit of RER is the expected time savings of electrification. Trip times are expected to be dropped by 10-20%. The planned introduction of level boarding is going to save an estimated 30 seconds per stop as well. When you combine this with improved frequencies and other track work to improve average speed, I expect you will see trips taking much less time. A train trip Union - Burlington takes 50 minutes on the express train today. I wouldn't be surprised if after RER that trip is under 40 minutes.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by milomilo

That's the first time I've heard anyone call Calgary compact!

In the sense nearly all built up area is concentrated within the relatively small City of Calgary (same with Edmonton) boundaries. From any point at the edge of the suburban area, it's about the same distance to downtown. Both cities are basically circles of civilization.

So Toronto is really the only example of a Canadian city where commuter rail is feasible, and that is the only city where it is being expanded with GO RER and SmartTrack, at huge expense. So what more could be done with commuter rail in Canada? Montreal is building the REM, so there's not much else.

I agree though, subways to the suburbs are largely a waste of money. It wouldn't be so bad if the inner city was being given them too, but they aren't.

Montreal and Toronto are the only two cities that I can say for sure commuter rail should be central to transit planning.

Compared to the Alberta cities compact form, MTL and TO have gaps of rural between suburbs, built up areas along highways with nothing else beyond (for example, highway 15 in north of Montreal), narrow suburbs along waterways that go on forever. Those two cities have true sprawl. If we're looking for a cost effective way to serve these suburbs, commuter rail is the only option. But it seems governments are more focused on building high-grade lrt/subway/metros instead. Because votes.

Vancouver is also pretty sprawling, but I don't know enough about its current rail network to know how feasible commuter rail might be (beyond the existing Westcoast Express).

[MalcolmTucker]

In the west commuter rail runs into major freight congestion issues. Big investments needed for better (Vancouver) or any (Calgary, Edmonton) service.

[J.OT13]

https://twitter.com/evdelen/status/1013086897479012356

[Nouvellecosse]

But... how??

And a Mercedes? I thought this shit was supposed to be reserved for BMWs.

[J.OT13]

A few near complete stations in Ottawa.

First picture is Cyrville, a minor station that serves the local area and possibly one or two bus routes up and down Cyrville Road.

The second picture is Blair, the Stage I eastern terminus serving major bus routes to the east end suburb of Orleans, local bus routes, a few mid-rise office buildings, and a suburban retail/entertainment area (mall, largest cinema in Ottawa and chain restaurants, Chapters).

Third picture is Tremblay, serving Ottawa's main VIA rail stations, a few kilometers east of downtown. Across the footbridge (out of frame) is a large suburban hotel complex and minor league baseball stadium.

Last pictures is uOttawa station. The tunnel starts a few dozen feet to the north out of frame, in both pictures.

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

New Tweet from Tim Tierney with aerial photos of Blair, Cyrville, and Tremblay stations.
https://twitter.com/TimTierney/status/1013063853469466626

uOttawa from Mathieu Fleury's Twitter, June 30.



https://twitter.com/MathieuFleury/status/1013058350567837697

[J.OT13]

Question for anyone willing to answer. Do your transit systems have public washrooms? In Ottawa, I don't believe any of our Transitway Stations ever had washrooms, but the Confederation Line will have 4 initially and 8 (9 including one at the end of Trillium Line) after Stage 2. Washrooms are to be built at transfer and terminus stations along Confederation.

[Dengler Avenue]

In Vancouver, no (unless things have changed after I left in 2013).

In K-W, strictly speaking, only at Charles Street Bus Terminal and Ainslie Terminal. For every other terminal (which is at a mall, anyway), you need to enter the mall to use the washroom inside.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

In Vancouver, no (unless things have changed after I left in 2013).

Washroom was always available at SeaBus platforms. Other than that, no.