The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

Did the Federal government helped with the funding ? If not, I'm not surprised by the decision of the Ontario government. Quebec would not fund a big project without the help of ''Ottawa''.

From what I understand, the Wynn Government had pledged 100% of the funding from the very beginning. I don't think anyone even asked the Feds.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

From what I understand, the Wynn Government had pledged 100% of the funding from the very beginning. I don't think anyone even asked the Feds.

Maybe the Feds will now offer up some money and it will get reinstated.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Maybe the Feds will now offer up some money and it will get reinstated.

I think that might be Ford's end game. He's done this before with the l'Université de l'Ontario Français for example. The agreement sees the Feds funding the first 4 years with the Province taking over the following 4 years (when Ford can pull funding or when it will be someone else's problem).

[SteelTown]

Apparently Ford will set up a task force for Hamilton's $1 billion and apparently Hamilton will have no say who goes in the committee, it's up to Ford (probably will fill it with his cronies).

So either way it seems like they have a vendetta against LRT and will probably recommend BRT, highway improvements and GO Transit upgrade. The task force recommendation is due at the end of February 2020.

[SteelTown]

Now I'm fuming about to go nuclear, they took 30 YEARS of capital cost to make the $5.5 billion figure. They are being completely dishonest and a bunch of liars.

NEW: Transportation minister confirms the government has taken 30 years of capital costs for the Hamilton LRT and compiled them into one $5.5-billion figure.

Just look at the video below, Mulroney couldn't even be straight up
https://twitter.com/ColinDMello/status/1206714345058689028

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Now I'm fuming about to go nuclear, they took 30 YEARS of capital cost to make the $5.5 billion figure. They are being completely dishonest and a bunch of liars.

NEW: Transportation minister confirms the government has taken 30 years of capital costs for the Hamilton LRT and compiled them into one $5.5-billion figure.

Just look at the video below, Mulroney couldn't even be straight up
https://twitter.com/ColinDMello/status/1206714345058689028

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=192758&page=183 #3648

[GeneralLea]

This is absolutely ridiculous, what a petty thing to do after investing previously and trying to make it seem like the LRT would happen...god I can't bloody stand Fat Fuck Ford. He may as well cancel the Mississauga streetcar, it's a LOT less useful then Hamilton's, at least IMO.

This is truly just Mike Harris rhetoric, twenty five years later. Maybe we'll see the Hamilton streetcar in twenty five years U/C, just like what happened to Eglinton's subway...before it was axed by MH, and is now U/C, just with less capacity and more length.

[Mister F]

The Hamilton LRT, the downtown relief line, the Scarborough extension, the Yonge north extension...Ford has meddled with all of them with his idiotic reviews and, now, outright cancellations. Who knows how long even the surviving projects going to be delayed now.

[swimmer_spe]

My original thinking when he won was "If there aren't shovels in the ground, all transit projects are dead till he leaves."

I guess it's good he didn't let me down?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

My original thinking when he won was "If there aren't shovels in the ground, all transit projects are dead till he leaves."

I guess it's good he didn't let me down?

Not quite. Ottawa's Phase 2 has moved ahead. Of course, Phase 2 goes to suburban locations and potential Conservative seats. If Phase 2 was cancelled, Ford could kiss all Ottawa area seats goodbye, just as was the case with the previous election when Tim Hudak hesitated about Phase 2.

[GeneralLea]

The Finch LRT is going ahead as well, construction finally starting next year it seems.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by GeneralLeeTPHLS

The Finch LRT is going ahead as well, construction finally starting next year it seems.

Construction is already underway. Work is happening at the 400 underpass replacement and the maintenance facility.

[J.OT13]

Running the numbers, the $3.3B capital estimate makes no sense for Hamilton. 246 million/km?

Ottawa's Stage 2 Confederation, capital cost only (vehicles and maintenance contract was awarded to Stage 1 partners), is $2.57B for 27 kilometers, 16 stations. Stations are not enclosed and the architectural grandness not quite as nice as Stage 1, but still fairly elaborate. Of those 16 station, 5 will have washrooms.

That's only $95.2 million per kilometer, fully grade separated and includes extensive tunneling (about 3 kilometers of new cut-and-cover tunnels).

The contract for the 38 Alstom Citadis (48 meters) is worth $300 million.

If we add the rolling stock, it comes down to $106.3 million per kilometer capital. Maintenance numbers are available somewhere, but hard to find.

https://www.alstom.com/press-releases-ne...-2-of-ottawas-o-train-confederation-line

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Running the numbers, the $3.3B capital estimate makes no sense for Hamilton. 246 million/km?

Ottawa's Stage 2 Confederation, capital cost only (vehicles and maintenance contract was awarded to Stage 1 partners), is $2.57B for 27 kilometers, 16 stations. Stations are not enclosed and the architectural grandness not quite as nice as Stage 1, but still fairly elaborate. Of those 16 station, 5 will have washrooms.

That's only $95.2 million per kilometer, fully grade separated and includes extensive tunneling (about 3 kilometers of new cut-and-cover tunnels).

Not to mention a large portion of the Hamilton line (pretty much east of Wentworth) is in an area with drastically lower costs for construction staging. They could, and have been in some cases, acquiring properties through open market purchases or expropriation because the land is so cheap relative to other markets where LRT's have been constructed.

I would have thought this would be one of the cheapest LRT's to construct on $/km basis.

[hipster duck]

Doug Ford is a convenient punching bag, and maybe that's the purpose he serves among Conservative handlers, but my impression is that transit has become less of a politician's game since the Conservatives got elected to Queen's Park, than under Wynne. Back then, white elephant GO stations were blatantly sited in Liberal MPP's ridings and Liberal transportation minister Steven Del Duca never missed an opportunity to call a photo-op, even if it was for something as mundane as opening a Tim Horton's at a suburban commuter train station (seriously). Under Ford, there seems to be a large amount of outside technocratic input - either from consultants or from Metrolinx itself; the Ontario Line proposal doesn't read like a back-of-the-napkin kind of plan, both in terms of alignment and choice of technology. It certainly doesn't seem like the brainchild of a man like Doug Ford.

While cancelling the Hamilton LRT sucks and was done in bad faith after the City of Hamilton had already expropriated a hundred homes, I also think that the LRT had tepid support within the city itself. It was never too popular with the half of Hamilton who lives on the top of the mountain, and the project could be cancelled because no contracts were signed, despite the EA having concluded over 2 years ago, and the current mayor being in power for 5 years. If we look at the technicals, the LRT was probably not going to be any faster than the current bus. Hamilton doesn't really have a congestion problem and it doesn't really have a transit capacity problem, either. Even if downtown Hamilton doesn't have a congestion problem right now, the plan to convert King St. to a two way street with one lane in each direction (down from 3-4 lanes westbound) seems problematic.

My personal opinion is that the Ford government cancelled the LRT to save face with their top-of-the-mountain constituency. It could also be a big F-U to Andrea Horwath, in whose riding this LRT travels almost exclusively.

[MalcolmTucker]

The only reason(s) I can think of is that:
The amount of utility work was severely underestimated (in Ottawa there is a cleared ROW already)
The geotechnical investigations were not done in high enough detail and there are problems

[WhipperSnapper]

I dislike Ford ('s government) and his (their) ideals but, he definitely has become an undeserving whipping boy for the financial mess he inherited from Wynne. Cuts to transit is probably the easiest thing. We see the tens of millions being spent on marketing by unions to his relatively minor cuts to jobs in the public sector.

The Hamilton LRT is not a priority either in improving the quality of commuters in the province's urban centres. It's more the Wynne government's fault for any monies spent to secure property for the line.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by GeneralLeeTPHLS

The Finch LRT is going ahead as well, construction finally starting next year it seems.

Lets not forget DoFo and his brother delayed it by more then a decade. It was part of David Millers fully funded transit city that DoFo helped tear up.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Doug Ford is a convenient punching bag, and maybe that's the purpose he serves among Conservative handlers, but my impression is that transit has become less of a politician's game since the Conservatives got elected to Queen's Park, than under Wynne. Back then, white elephant GO stations were blatantly sited in Liberal MPP's ridings and Liberal transportation minister Steven Del Duca never missed an opportunity to call a photo-op, even if it was for something as mundane as opening a Tim Horton's at a suburban commuter train station (seriously). Under Ford, there seems to be a large amount of outside technocratic input - either from consultants or from Metrolinx itself; the Ontario Line proposal doesn't read like a back-of-the-napkin kind of plan, both in terms of alignment and choice of technology.

Not sure I'd fully agree with this, coming at least somewhat from the inside looking out. Things are pretty much equally politicized, however in a more coherent and centralized way. The current iteration of the PC party is far more likely to toe the line even if individuals disagree with the current direction, biding their time for when it's more opportune. We saw a bit of that somewhat recently in the wake of Dean French. Liberal party members felt more comfortable in demanding things that would benefit their own riding. They also tended to at least pay lip service to bureaucratic staff advice, as opposed to staff sometimes learning about plans at the same time the public does (not even joking in some cases).

As for the Ontario line, well, the current value study (or whatever it's called) reads an awful lot like any number of consultant reports I've essentially had to rewrite. The overall concept is good in theory, but the details haven't really been fleshed out at all, glaringly so in a few areas (Riverside...). I do believe things will go forward but at the same time we are due for a host of changes that may see to return certain alignments similar to what was previously done. I do think Doug wants it to be his legacy, whereas he doesn't care at all about Hamilton.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

It certainly doesn't seem like the brainchild of a man like Doug Ford.

This is a weird one as I have no idea where the ideas came from, other than Dean was controlling pretty much everything at the time.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

The Hamilton LRT is not a priority either in improving the quality of commuters in the province's urban centres.

Um, how do you figure it's not a priority? Hamilton not only needed this for transit but it would have helped in a huge way with civic pride. Many developers and private investors have already started to make changes to Hamilton's' neglected downtown core. Aside from denying reliable transit to schools and downtown commuters, this will make people think twice about investing in the core.