The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

What happens to the overhead lines in the underground stations?

You may need to clarify that, as anywhere else, they are simply attached to the top of the tunnel. At least that is what I have seen on thee Streetcars in Toronto and the Green Line in Boston.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You may need to clarify that, as anywhere else, they are simply attached to the top of the tunnel. At least that is what I have seen on thee Streetcars in Toronto and the Green Line in Boston.

And this will be the way the Confederation Line will operate in Ottawa as well.

[GlassCity]

I'm assuming they just didn't feel like drawing the overhead lines on the renderings, but they'll be there. They're there in Calgary's existing LRT tunnels.

[Kitchissippi]

The Confederation Line uses rigid catenary bars in the tunnels (downtown and St-Laurent)

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Our first LRV arrived in town.

Isn't that a little early? The line is barely under construction and won't be in service for a few more years. Or are these new cars for the current line?

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

The Valley Line that has its SE portion U/C. The west leg will start in 2019/2020.:cheers:

has the west line formally been confirmed with funding or is this just a wish?

[Coldrsx]

^It is a bit early, but likely for familiarization, promotion, etc.

West is a go. Preliminary work is already underway with utility relocations next year and work commencing in 2020, open 2024/25.

[J.OT13]

Pictures of Ottawa's Confederation Line progress.

A few I took earlier this week.

On this one, we can (sort of) see the line coming out of the tunnel, Pimisi and Bayview Stations. In person, we can even see Tunney's Station.



This is Lyon Station's west entrance.



The three Parliament Station entrances.

East entrance.



Accessible entrance.





West entrance from the street and the lobby of the adjoining office complex (both the same entrance technically).





Lees Station from local Councillor Mathieu Fleury's Twitter.






https://twitter.com/MathieuFleury/status/1020674778603155456

A few uOttawa Station pictures from Twitter


https://twitter.com/613STEVE/status/1016844110609698817




https://twitter.com/Milnoc/status/1020697691540647938

[SkahHigh]

Good to see the CL is coming along nicely. Been following a lot of it’s progress from the start.

[J.OT13]

I'm more familiar with Ottawa and Montreal, so I'd like to get an idea of how transit is perceived and used in other cities.

In Ottawa, our bused based system is nearly exclusively a way to get to and from work. If you have a car, you probably drive anytime outside of rush hour, with the exception of big crowd events (Sens/RedBlacks/Fury, concerts, Canada Day, BluesFest) when special event buses are added to deal with the increased loads.

In Montreal however, the Metro is seen as a legitimate way to get around. People park at a subway station closer to home and take the Metro for an evening downtown or to visit family and friends.

How are transit systems viewed and used in other parts of the country?

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I'm more familiar with Ottawa and Montreal, so I'd like to get an idea of how transit is perceived and used in other cities.

In Ottawa, our bused based system is nearly exclusively a way to get to and from work. If you have a car, you probably drive anytime outside of rush hour, with the exception of big crowd events (Sens/RedBlacks/Fury, concerts, Canada Day, BluesFest) when special event buses are added to deal with the increased loads.

In Montreal however, the Metro is seen as a legitimate way to get around. People park at a subway station closer to home and take the Metro for an evening downtown or to visit family and friends.

How are transit systems viewed and used in other parts of the country?

If you're talking about those with money and access to a car, I'd say Winnipeg is definitely a commute & events transit city, and Vancouver leans that way too. Though in Vancouver, I think lots of people hate driving downtown so the park & ride at SkyTrain stations thing is popular too. But I don't think anyone who has a car already will be taking transit for errands or anything like that.

[SaskOttaLoo]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I'm more familiar with Ottawa and Montreal, so I'd like to get an idea of how transit is perceived and used in other cities.

In Ottawa, our bused based system is nearly exclusively a way to get to and from work. If you have a car, you probably drive anytime outside of rush hour, with the exception of big crowd events (Sens/RedBlacks/Fury, concerts, Canada Day, BluesFest) when special event buses are added to deal with the increased loads.

In Montreal however, the Metro is seen as a legitimate way to get around. People park at a subway station closer to home and take the Metro for an evening downtown or to visit family and friends.

How are transit systems viewed and used in other parts of the country?

When I lived in Waterloo, Ottawa and Montreal, I avoided owning a car by a) living in walkable neighbourhoods, which meant I primary walked where I needed to go, b) signing up to a carshare service, c) having a bike / using the bike share system, d) renting a car for weekend trips, and e) occasionally using transit (but not very frequently). In the case of Waterloo, that meant I had to live within a 5 minute walk of King Street, where the frequencies were under 10 minutes throughout the day.

My own experience supports that focusing on fewer, high frequency routes is the way to go to build ridership. I wouldn't have considered using transit if frequencies were 30 minutes or worse.

[hipster duck]

I think that transit-use among car-owners to run errands, and what not, has more to do with the "stick" of scarce parking that you have to pay for rather than the "carrot" of frequent transit service.

In Vancouver, we lived in an urban neighbourhood south of False Creek but if the destination was beyond walking distance, we would basically drive everywhere unless we were going to the downtown peninsula. In the summer months, we would bike for our personal enjoyment, but taking a bus was never time or cost competitive with the car (or the bike). Outside of the downtown peninsula, free parking is very easy to come by on neighbouring side streets. Ironically, I think this is one of the reasons why business owners have been less hostile to new bike lanes in Vancouver than they are in Toronto.

In Toronto, free parking is more of a challenge, so we take transit more.

[Nouvellecosse]

When it comes to errands, I don't think that's generally a practical application for transit anyway. There are usually too many possible destinations for there to be a reasonable direct and frequent connection to most people's homes, and people often have multiple stops to make so unless the service frequency is extremely high, transit isn't as time efficient. The best bet to reduce automobile usage for errands would be to increase the rates of active transportation such as walking and biking by encouraging increased density, pedestrian friendliness, and a greater mix of land uses. Also, locating things near transit hubs would help people include certain errands as part of their work trip so that they don't need to make a trip just for the errand.

[ainvan]

TTC has equipped a ‘small number’ of Toronto buses with USB chargers

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) has begun rolling out buses that are equipped with 12 dual-port USB chargers.

Back in March, the TTC announced that 200 clean diesel buses sporting the USB chargers would be added to its fleet of vehicles by summer. Green’s latest tweet adds that “at least 325 buses” fitted with 12 dual-port hubs will arrive throughout the rest of the year. Responding to another tweet, Green confirmed that the buses currently carry 2.1 amps chargers. He said that the company will look into other charging technologies in the future.

https://mobilesyrup.com/2018/07/18/ttc-usb-chargers-buses/

[GeneralLea]

That sounds like a terrible idea IMO. I get the intentions of it, but realistically, I see gum or other crud getting shoved into those slots over the months as those are a commonality on those buses. Not a huge fan of the seat design compared to the subways, but it's just a few minor differences.

[PBruge]

Originally Posted by GeneralLeeTPHLS

That sounds like a terrible idea IMO. I get the intentions of it, but realistically, I see gum or other crud getting shoved into those slots over the months as those are a commonality on those buses. Not a huge fan of the seat design compared to the subways, but it's just a few minor differences.

They’ve been working well on STM buses since Feb. 2017.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by SaskOttaLoo

When I lived in Waterloo, Ottawa and Montreal, I avoided owning a car by a) living in walkable neighbourhoods, which meant I primary walked where I needed to go, b) signing up to a carshare service, c) having a bike / using the bike share system, d) renting a car for weekend trips, and e) occasionally using transit (but not very frequently). In the case of Waterloo, that meant I had to live within a 5 minute walk of King Street, where the frequencies were under 10 minutes throughout the day.

My own experience supports that focusing on fewer, high frequency routes is the way to go to build ridership. I wouldn't have considered using transit if frequencies were 30 minutes or worse.

The problem with Ottawa is that the Feds decide to have Departments in the boondocks to save rent money. It took me nearly an hour by bus to get to work and I lived in the Byward Market. The strike of 2009 is when I quit and got a job in Montréal.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by PBruge

They’ve been working well on STM buses since Feb. 2017.

Yup, they're standard on all the new buses.

[Dengler Avenue]

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=8258883&posted=1#post8258883 #910

Via to resume service on Vancouver Island

Correction: Never mind that’s from 2014.

[SkahHigh]

The REM is starting to get real.

Canora Station (re)construction (West side until 2020):




Édouard-Montpetit intermodal station: