The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Reecemartin]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Thanks! The document seems to answer all the questions I had. Good stuff!

The consortium selected to re-develop LeBreton Flats (Rendez-Vous LeBreton (RVL) which includes the Senators building a new arena) wants to bury about 600 meters of the Confederation Line that currently runs on the surface.

Not quite the same project as Calgary though; LeBreton Flats is sort of a giant hole in the downtown, sinking maybe 30 feet lower than the main drags on either side. So RVL wants to build a parking garage on the entire south end of the site between the Confedetation and Albert Street, with every building sharing the same massive garage (similar to Lansdowne Park). the north end of the garage would act as one of the LRT tunnel walls. A second wall would be built on the north side of the Line and the whole thing would be topped out by a pedestrian plaza and boulevard.

It's nice to see the success of Calgary providing a good example of how such a project can be done.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/column...ne-wouldnt-cost-much-senators-group-says

Is anyone here old enough to remember how Vancouver handled such a project when the covered the Expo Line between the Dunsmuir Tunnel and Waterfront Station?

This whole project is certainly interesting and combined with the Confederation Line will likely lead to a wave of redevelopment.

[Reecemartin]

OOf final video Montreal~!

https://youtu.be/fjMPyKXYzck

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

OOf final video Montreal~!

https://youtu.be/fjMPyKXYzck

Nicely done.

[Reecemartin]

I think we had a discussion about this recently but upon seeing this I felt it was worth rehashing . . .

https://www.news.com.au/national/victori...s-story/e090af5becdfcb2d9ca9f97edbfaa77c

Why is it that Australia despite being a fair bit smaller than Canada in POP and GDP, is able to afford so many massive transit projects? They already have really extensive regional rail systems in several cities and it seems like they are building numerous new Urban Railways as well (Sydney Metro and LRT, this project, Melbourne Metro Tunnel etc.) while I can appreciate that we too do have some large projects (Eglinton and REM come to mind) REM seems to be our largest project and it falls on the small end of what Australia is building.

[MalcolmTucker]

Well, it helps that Australia's big cities are too far away from each other to demand massive road capacity. Only in 2013 was the highway from Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne upgraded to four lanes, an equivalent distance of Jasper to Saskatoon. The population is also way more concentrated into a handful of regions.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

OOf final video Montreal~!

https://youtu.be/fjMPyKXYzck

Great series! Montreal is miles ahead (quite literally) from any other city in Canada. As someone commented on the video, you should make a video of your own suggestions for other Canadian cities, as you did with Montreal. Maybe the top 12.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Great series! Montreal is miles ahead (quite literally) from any other city in Canada. As someone commented on the video, you should make a video of your own suggestions for other Canadian cities, as you did with Montreal. Maybe the top 12.

Thankfully MTL didn't drink the LRT kool-aid, and any streercar proposed is for secondary transit or urban renewal.

[ssiguy]

Thanks for the vid. Looks like Montreal is planning a great new system with REM. Shame Toronto can't get it's act together with RER.


I guess the real decider of REM's success will be the fares. Will these have standard Montreal transit fares and will there be full integration?

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Thanks for the vid. Looks like Montreal is planning a great new system with REM. Shame Toronto can't get it's act together with RER.


I guess the real decider of REM's success will be the fares. Will these have standard Montreal transit fares and will there be full integration?

Full integration. Bixi has Opus support too and Communauto partially.

And the REM comes from "private" sector thinking. No way any public servant or politician would have been able to propose such system.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

I think we had a discussion about this recently but upon seeing this I felt it was worth rehashing . . .

https://www.news.com.au/national/victori...s-story/e090af5becdfcb2d9ca9f97edbfaa77c

Why is it that Australia despite being a fair bit smaller than Canada in POP and GDP, is able to afford so many massive transit projects? They already have really extensive regional rail systems in several cities and it seems like they are building numerous new Urban Railways as well (Sydney Metro and LRT, this project, Melbourne Metro Tunnel etc.) while I can appreciate that we too do have some large projects (Eglinton and REM come to mind) REM seems to be our largest project and it falls on the small end of what Australia is building.

Autralia and New Zealand are both spending ridiculous amounts of money on infrastructure right now - Both previously severely lacked in the department. Sydney - Brisbane won't have a full freeway connection for about another 10 years - and just a few years ago had nothing close to a freeway-freeway connection, with hundreds of km of two lane roads. Many of the major cities (especially outside of the big three) had little to no freeways 10 years ago. Rail networks were lacking severely for cities of their scale. Etc., Etc., Etc.

They are playing catch up in a lot of ways. Montreal has a much more robust infrastructure system than any Australian city, despite it being roughly the same size as the two largest cities. Toronto will be miles ahead once RER is up and running, too.

[TorontoDrew]

9 TTC Streetcars are being sent back to Bombardier for repairs after water damage during one of our last rainstorms.

• Video Link

source:http://images.dailyhive.com


source: https://i.cbc.ca

[niwell]

Fortunately only two of the streetcars are being sent away to a facility in upstate New York - these are the ones that were actually submerged under the rail overpass and heavily damaged by sewage backflow. Another two more are being repaired by Bombardier at Leslie Barns, and the other five are back on the road already.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/08/27/august-flooding-damaged-nine-new-ttc-streetcars.html

Non-paywall source: https://www.cp24.com/news/ttc-9-new-streetcars-damaged-by-rain-storm-earlier-this-month-1.4070832


In somewhat better new streetcar news, we are actually getting deliveries once every few days now! http://flexity.antonlodder.ca/

[osmo]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

9 TTC Streetcars are being sent back to Bombardier for repairs after water damage during one of our last rainstorms.

• Video Link

source:http://images.dailyhive.com


source: https://i.cbc.ca

You can notice the TTC is running thin with streetcars, very few double-cars as is that is being spread between Queen and King Streets (ALRVs). Plus, with CNE rush there is a need for the new Flexity cars to be running (on boosted service) to Exhibition Place.

King Street you notice a lull with Streetcars during rush hour, more single CLRVs creeping up than usual.

For all the abuse the streetcar network gets everyone can see how important it is these days as it is running on its near-absolute limits.

The Flexity mess, among others, is just another reason why politics needs to get out of transportation planning. Petyt politics took a rotten Bombardier deal that has delivered nothing on time and has granted us defective junk or streetcars that are unable to do the job. You notice these old but trust CLRVs did fine during the storm. The old CLRVs are terrible for accessibility but they are tried and true in getting decades of use and life that these Felxitys' will never come close to achieving IMO (nobody can say with a straight face these Flexity cars will be around in 25 years).

[Alegan]

Keesmat's transportation plan is finally out!

I think I need some help here, based on an earlier discussion on this thread. Why are we planning an LRT on the waterfront instead of a subway considering there is certainly going to be massive development along this corridor? LRT has a lower capacity than subways, and by the time it is built, it might already be underserving the population, especially in the developing portlands. A subway would have to be built within a few decades anyway, no? I get that there is a hierarchy of capacity and costs, but I feel like we are planning for 20-30 years instead of 50-100+ years. Or more! Hyperloop maybe? I dunno much about transportation planning, but I think we are well behind as it is, and not planning far enough ahead.



https://www.thestar.com/news/toronto-ele...tches-citywide-network-transit-plan.html

For some reason the text isn't showing ^^^but click the link and you'll find it. If you have already read 10 Toronto Star articles, try it in incognito mode

[MalcolmTucker]

Depends if you build real LRT, or just start calling a barely upgraded streetcar LRT. How many people are you expecting. Exclusive right of way with reasonable signals at level crossings can get you close to 10,000 ppdph.

[GeneralLea]

The Waterfront LRT sounds fine IMO.....though a subway extension to the Portlands may be needed sometime. (Maybe 4 stations..?)


I consider an LRT to be a streetcar, so honestly....I don't see much of an issue in buildings it.

[milomilo]

$50B for 1.1 subway lines and a handful of LRTs? What terrible value.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by milomilo

$50B for 1.1 subway lines and a handful of LRTs? What terrible value.

Apart from the DRL coverage area, are there that many places left in Toronto where the density justifies a subway line?

[milomilo]

I don't know, but that still is an obscene amount of money for not very much.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Alegan

Keesmat's transportation plan is finally out!

I think I need some help here, based on an earlier discussion on this thread. Why are we planning an LRT on the waterfront instead of a subway considering there is certainly going to be massive development along this corridor? LRT has a lower capacity than subways, and by the time it is built, it might already be underserving the population, especially in the developing portlands. A subway would have to be built within a few decades anyway, no? I get that there is a hierarchy of capacity and costs, but I feel like we are planning for 20-30 years instead of 50-100+ years. Or more! Hyperloop maybe? I dunno much about transportation planning, but I think we are well behind as it is, and not planning far enough ahead.



https://www.thestar.com/news/toronto-ele...tches-citywide-network-transit-plan.html

For some reason the text isn't showing ^^^but click the link and you'll find it. If you have already read 10 Toronto Star articles, try it in incognito mode

Is a subway practical along the waterfront? Isn't all the land below Front Street reclaimed from Lake Ontario? I am not sure what the implications of building a tunnel under these conditions, building a tunnel through fill and below the water table.