The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

I have to admit, I'm pretty disappointed with the alignment of Winnipeg's BRT. Would it have been that much more expensive to relocate the freight rail to the hydro corridor instead and use the existing rail corridor along Pembina for the busway?

I cannot speak for Winnipeg specifically, but moving rail lines cost millions, if not billions. So, yes it would be much more expensive.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I cannot speak for Winnipeg specifically, but moving rail lines cost millions, if not billions. So, yes it would be much more expensive.

Billions? Really? I can't see that short section costing near a billion dollars to build. That corridor can't be any longer than 3-4 km and it looks as though there are little constraints.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Billions? Really? I can't see that short section costing near a billion dollars to build. That corridor can't be any longer than 3-4 km and it looks as though there are little constraints.

Adding 4 curves, including a fairly tight one is one. Two is that the rail line would need to stay, to service CG Power Systems. Three would be needing a near hairpin turn to go from the west west mainline east bound, to the Winnipeg-Chicago mainline southbound.

[SFUVancouver]

For what it's worth, the Roberts Bank Rail Corridor project in Metro Vancouver seeks to provide total grade separation for the 70km railway corridor serving the Port of Vancouver's Deltaport/Robertsbank terminal complex.

Phase One saw nine road and highway overpasses were built for $310M and completed in 2014. It was funded by the Port, railways, communities, Province, and Federal government.

https://www.portvancouver.com/development-and-permits/development/roberts-bank-rail-corridor/

Phase Two is a $45M investment in on-site road overpasses at Deltaport itself.

https://www.portvancouver.com/wp-content...-DTRRIP-Project-Update-December-2014.pdf

[mintzilla]

so in the future could the brt zone be used for LRT tracks if Winnipeg so wanted?

[headhorse]

^lots of people are unhappy with the winnipeg route, it could have run parallel to the tracks (or ideally, right down Pembina Hwy) but was doglegged to serve an empty TOD being built by a developer close to the previous mayor... who had a similar situation in the first phase but ran in to a bunch of legal troubles and sold off. so there are a bunch of empty lots around stations on phase 1.

the line is basically just to reduce commuting times for the wealthy S/SW portions f the city. rapid transit to the North and West parts of the city is much more urgent but those areas are less affluent and have been historically ignored (especially the north)

rail relocation has been talked in Winnipeg for a long time (a communist councillor, Joe Zuken, was a big supporter of moving them to the edge of the city in the 70s and many inner city and indigenous orgs have been active in supporting relocation as well) but there's no political will to get it done.

[J.OT13]

Pretty common with transit. Either its built in mixed traffic or it uses an existing dedicated corridor, usually former or existing railroad tracks. It's not about best serving the population, but the lowest possible price.

Ottawa's Transitway (and now O-Train) was (is) the same; former railroad corridors and along the highway. In the west, we'll be dinging a tunnel under a former streetcar right-of-way. The downtown tunnel is the only part of our network that isn't somehow using existing infrastructure, and that only came after 35 years of using bus lanes on existing roads.

I imagine the same applies to most transit lines in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver (other than Canada Line and the future Broadway extension). The same applies to Montreal's REM. Only Toronto (TTC Subway) and Montreal (Metro) built transit lines from scratch, and that could only be done by tunneling deep under the cities.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Adding 4 curves, including a fairly tight one is one. Two is that the rail line would need to stay, to service CG Power Systems. Three would be needing a near hairpin turn to go from the west west mainline east bound, to the Winnipeg-Chicago mainline southbound.

I was thinking of an alignment that wouldn't have many curves, like this:

[SFUVancouver]

^ That alignment also misses all sorts of destinations.

[MalcolmTucker]

Tight curves there (railways don't like you building worse routes, so you'll want to build to the curve they have to deal with today). If you don't care about those woods, can do this for the rail, if the problem really was the railway not letting you lease corridor, versus political factors pushing for the hydro corridor instead.

[CityTech]

Privatizing the freight rails was one of the biggest mistakes we made, IMO. You see it in transit planning in virtually every city, how the freight railways really block good ideas.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

^ That alignment also misses all sorts of destinations.

As far as I can tell, based on satellite imagery, it only misses one potential destination (PTI Transformers LP).

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Tight curves there (railways don't like you building worse routes, so you'll want to build to the curve they have to deal with today). If you don't care about those woods, can do this for the rail, if the problem really was the railway not letting you lease corridor, versus political factors pushing for the hydro corridor instead.

Don't take my drawn curves on the northern end of the alignment too literally. It was just to give you a general idea of the alignment I was referring to. It doesn't appear like it would be prohibitively expensive to build an alignment like the one you've shown. Whether the railway owner would be on board would depend on a whole other set of factors I would think (property value, equal trade-off?)

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Privatizing the freight rails was one of the biggest mistakes we made, IMO. You see it in transit planning in virtually every city, how the freight railways really block good ideas.

Yet we keep voting in politicians who say they will privatize things to save money. Will we ever learn?

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Privatizing the freight rails was one of the biggest mistakes we made, IMO. You see it in transit planning in virtually every city, how the freight railways really block good ideas.

Even if they were Federally owned, why would they easily surrender their rights to a lowly city.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Even if they were Federally owned, why would they easily surrender their rights to a lowly city.

In normal countries the railway infrastructure is a public service, it doesn't exist to fight with municipalities but to provide a rail service that works for all interests. Sadly in Canada, it is ingrained in the national psyche that it is perfectly acceptable to have a railroad company fuck us over.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by milomilo

In normal countries the railway infrastructure is a public service, it doesn't exist to fight with municipalities but to provide a rail service that works for all interests. Sadly in Canada, it is ingrained in the national psyche that it is perfectly acceptable to have a railroad company fuck us over.

Considering that we paid for CN and CP lines, it really is a horrible situation we created.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by milomilo

In normal countries the railway infrastructure is a public service, it doesn't exist to fight with municipalities but to provide a rail service that works for all interests. Sadly in Canada, it is ingrained in the national psyche that it is perfectly acceptable to have a railroad company fuck us over.

Canada has prioritized freight, and it has helped us be rich even though we are spread out and generally far from markets. We move a lot of freight!

I think over the next 20 years as rail gets more constrained we will probably need a massive public supported investment to expand capacity once again. This will be a chance to build bypasses everywhere, move yards where it makes sense, and move beyond diesel hopefully.

And we can change the model for how that rail is owned if we want at the time. A capacity use arrangement for the new segments is the most economic for the railways, so that is probably the only way to massively expand capacity, since a lot of that capacity will sit idle for decades until it is needed. In exchange for that, the government of the day will hopefully reserve capacity for passenger rail, and have the foresight to pay for enough crossovers to lead to no freight train holding up passenger rail ever again.

[Ottawaresident]

Looking at the Lac Megantic accident ... (and 1979 Mississauga)

[niwell]

Yeah, I think that at some point there will need to be a massive investment to divest many freight rail lines from urban areas. All while maintaining capacity. This will happen to a degree on its own but not nearly to the degree necessary. It'll cost a lot but a ton of opportunity there as well.

For those thinking that moving freight lines is trivial just look how much Metrolinx / GO Transit has spent securing it's own corridors.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by niwell

Yeah, I think that at some point there will need to be a massive investment to divest many freight rail lines from urban areas. All while maintaining capacity. This will happen to a degree on its own but not nearly to the degree necessary. It'll cost a lot but a ton of opportunity there as well.

For those thinking that moving freight lines is trivial just look how much Metrolinx / GO Transit has spent securing it's own corridors.

Yeah, no doubt!

Major capacity increases, bypasses, and all. Probably looking at north of $30 billion just for infrastructure cost, not for land cost, associated infrastructure (level crossing removal, or ensuring we don't add level crossings where it would be very disruptive) and then on top of that any work for very large infrastructure (tunnels, large bridges). Probably north of $50 billion in today's money.

Not something the railways can do on their own.