The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[lrt's friend]

Ha! Where is all this money coming from for the suggested subway extensions? Sounds like a 50 year plan. Does Ford think he is going to be in office this long?

In any event, at some point commuter rail is superior beyond a certain distance from downtown.


Perhaps, a subway could be extended where commuter rail is not possible or where service cannot be improved enough.


This just sounds like an excuse to throw out years of planning for Liberal era RER concept. This would be foolish.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Ha! Where is all this money coming from for the suggested subway extensions? Sounds like a 50 year plan. Does Ford think he is going to be in office this long?

In any event, at some point commuter rail is superior beyond a certain distance from downtown.


Perhaps, a subway could be extended where commuter rail is not possible or where service cannot be improved enough.


This just sounds like an excuse to throw out years of planning for Liberal era RER concept. This would be foolish.

The Big Move

Transit City

Move 2020

In short, every politician makes you think they are never leaving.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The Big Move

Transit City

Move 2020

In short, every politician makes you think they are never leaving.

Yeah, the foolishness of excessive political involvement in planning transit. So much spinning the tires. So much time and money going into re-planning and not actually building.

It never seems quite as bad with roads so roads always get built faster without project resets.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

That video is crazy. It might make sense to extend some metro systems deep into the burbs but not the TTC subway. It works for the likes of BART and the DC Metrorail due to their high speeds and infrequent stops. BART has an average speed of 56km/h and a top service speed of 110km/h compared to the TTC subway average of 32km/h and max service speed of 75km/h.

Good comparison. I see Vancouver's Skytrain and Ottawa's O-Train as systems using the BART or DC Metro Rail concepts (with lower capacities, however). Underground in the city, cheaper above ground rail where possible, fewer stations, higher speeds.

Montreal and Toronto's subways are more akin to New York City or Paris, where they are supposed to serve the dense inner area, supplemented by commuter lines. Montreal's is doing well building the REM, similar to Paris, in order to bolster its commuter rail options. Toronto was on the right track with the RER, but that seems dead under Ford (?) in favour of ridiculous subways to suburbs mentality.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Good comparison. I see Vancouver's Skytrain and Ottawa's O-Train as systems using the BART or DC Metro Rail concepts (with lower capacities, however). Underground in the city, cheaper above ground rail where possible, fewer stations, higher speeds.

Montreal and Toronto's subways are more akin to New York City or Paris, where they are supposed to serve the dense inner area, supplemented by commuter lines. Montreal's is doing well building the REM, similar to Paris, in order to bolster its commuter rail options. Toronto was on the right track with the RER, but that seems dead under Ford (?) in favour of ridiculous subways to suburbs mentality.

Is RER actually dead? I thought there was construction ongoing everywhere. Anyways, didn't Ford also launch the beginning of construction of the first leg of the Niagara extension?

[Dengler Avenue]

Plus Lakeshore West and Lakeshore East got more frequent service too. At least Barrie Line has all-day service now. Stouffeville Line has midday train service (which apparently didn’t work out for people from Uxbridge...)

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Is RER actually dead? I thought there was construction ongoing everywhere. Anyways, didn't Ford also launch the beginning of construction of the first leg of the Niagara extension?

I'm not exactly sure what's going on with the RER, which is why I added the (?). I thought I read somewhere that he had killed it or reduced its scope significantly. Hopefully, Toronto forumers can clear this up.

[CityTech]

A lot of the double tracking and grade separations work needed for RER was completed during Wynne's term in office (this was helped by the fact that much of the studies/design work for this were actually carried out in McGuinty's second term, so much of it was already ready to go), and using this, GO has been gradually expanding off-peak train service on all the future RER corridors since.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Good comparison. I see Vancouver's Skytrain and Ottawa's O-Train as systems using the BART or DC Metro Rail concepts (with lower capacities, however). Underground in the city, cheaper above ground rail where possible, fewer stations, higher speeds.

Montreal and Toronto's subways are more akin to New York City or Paris, where they are supposed to serve the dense inner area, supplemented by commuter lines. Montreal's is doing well building the REM, similar to Paris, in order to bolster its commuter rail options. Toronto was on the right track with the RER, but that seems dead under Ford (?) in favour of ridiculous subways to suburbs mentality.

Just a precision, the REM is a lot more similar to BART or Washington Metro than the RER, in that it has way less capacity than the RER, but frequency that is more similar to regional rapid transit systems.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

Just s precision, the REM is a lot more similar to BART or Washington Metro than the RER, in that it has way less capacity than the RER but frequency that are more similar to regional rapid transit systems.

My mistake. Thanks for the clarification.

[Aylmer]

Via has confirmed that Siemens will build the new fleet of Corridor trains from 2022-24. They look pretty nifty.

• Video Link

[Martin Mtl]

/\ Nice, but slow as if this would still be the last century.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Via has confirmed that Siemens will build the new fleet of Corridor trains from 2022-24. They look pretty nifty.

• Video Link

cool except for the crazy man at 01:10. He looks like he's ready to kill somebody.

[Nouvellecosse]

So they're definitely going to be dual-mode diesel and electric compatible? I didn't see this mentioned in the video unless I just missed it.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

So they're definitely going to be dual-mode diesel and electric compatible? I didn't see this mentioned in the video unless I just missed it.

They don't need to be?
I assume they'll just buy new ones if they need them, and deploy these to their other lines.

[Nouvellecosse]

Isn't there like 3x more service in the corridor than in the rest of the country combined? I doubt there'd be a use for that many diesel locos in the rest of the country after HFR corridor electrification. They'd have to sell them. Besides, the goal was for electrification to be rolled out across the corridor over time so they wanted dual-mode to allow them to take advantage of the electrified sections before the whole thing was completed.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Isn't there like 3x more service in the corridor than in the rest of the country combined? I doubt there'd be a use for that many diesel locos in the rest of the country after HFR corridor electrification. They'd have to sell them. Besides, the goal was for electrification to be rolled out across the corridor over time so they wanted dual-mode to allow them to take advantage of the electrified sections before the whole thing was completed.

The current fleet is 74 locomotives, and this order is for 32 trains. Short trains will have one locomotive and longer ones two locomotives.



The RFQ has that only the future options for additional trainsets need to be dual mode capable. The solutions were to be judged on:

The simplicity in design of the Applicant’s approach to convert the diesel trainset into a dual mode trainset (diesel and 25kV) and the ease with which the conversion will be carried out.

So the hierarchy, depending on the cost of the conversion, would be: convert, replace other parts of the fleet, sell imo.

[ainvan]

TransLink to bring free Wi-Fi to entire transit system, beginning in 2020

TransLink users will be able to sign onto free Wi-Fi while riding the bus, SkyTrain or SeaBus starting in 2020.

The public transit provider announced plans to partner with Shaw Communications on the service, making it the first transit authority in Canada to do so, according to TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond.

"We have half-a-million people ride our system every day, and when we ask them what they'd like to see on transit, Wi-Fi is one of the most frequent requests," said Desmond in a news release.

Free Wi-Fi has already been available at SeaBus terminals and aboard the boat.

Shaw and TransLink plan to run trials throughout 2019 before launching the system-wide service. The roll-out is scheduled to be complete by 2025.

Eventually, the free Wi-Fi service will include HandyDART, West Coast Express and community shuttle buses.

CBC

The MV Burrard Beaver Pulls In by Joe A. Kunzler, on Flickr

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Via has confirmed that Siemens will build the new fleet of Corridor trains from 2022-24. They look pretty nifty.

[YOUTUBE]5UYBk5ZX30w[YOUTUBE]

Fantastic, these look a million times better than the old ones. Welcome to the 21st century VIA!

Is there any confirmation these are built to Euro standards? They don't look like tanks, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

[Nouvellecosse]

Technically you don't really need tank-like locos to comply with the old standards. For instance, the LRC locos were smaller and sleeker than the freight-style locos VIA currently uses.