The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

Four with possibly one more on the way is a fair bit for a city of under 300K. Or will the new one be a replacement for one or more of the older facilities?

It hasn't been determined yet if any new hospital capacity will also replace an old one, or be in the form of a major reno or expansion of it.

In all cases, we're talking about Hull though. The Gatineau hospital is in pretty good shape and is even being expanded to host a satellite medicine faculty affiliated with McGill.

At first glance it appears like a lot but the reality is that our hospitals still seriously underperform - mostly due to staffing issues (both nurses and doctors) as opposed to capacity.

Though the Hull hospital is still very old and in pretty bad shape.

[esquire]

^ A similar situation to Winnipeg. We have been going through the exercise locally of closing some of the small old legacy hospitals and centralizing most of the services at three larger hospitals, with the idea being that it's better to have three fully staffed hospitals than having a thin layer of doctors running around to all of the hospitals around the city. It's never easy to go through that kind of change, though, and the rewards are uncertain... I can see the appeal of keeping things the way they are.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ A similar situation to Winnipeg. We have been going through the exercise locally of closing some of the small old legacy hospitals and centralizing most of the services at three larger hospitals, with the idea being that it's better to have three fully staffed hospitals than having a thin layer of doctors running around to all of the hospitals around the city. It's never easy to go through that kind of change, though, and the rewards are uncertain... I can see the appeal of keeping things the way they are.

I often compare us to Laval, which has 385,000 people to Gatineau's 285,000 people.

Laval has a single super-hospital on its territory: the Cité de la Santé.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ A similar situation to Winnipeg. We have been going through the exercise locally of closing some of the small old legacy hospitals and centralizing most of the services at three larger hospitals, with the idea being that it's better to have three fully staffed hospitals than having a thin layer of doctors running around to all of the hospitals around the city. It's never easy to go through that kind of change, though, and the rewards are uncertain... I can see the appeal of keeping things the way they are.

I live in a smaller city (Sudbury) that underwent such a process.

In our case, the advantages of centralization on one site and the closing of 2 other pre-1960s sites was lost as the province slashed the overall number of beds available during centralization.

However, another city I lived in merged two hospitals into one and it was hugely beneficial not having staff run around from point A to B all the time. However, the number of beds remained stable through that.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by wave46

I live in a smaller city (Sudbury) that underwent such a process.

In our case, the advantages of centralization on one site and the closing of 2 other pre-1960s sites was lost as the province slashed the overall number of beds available during centralization.

However, another city I lived in merged two hospitals into one and it was hugely beneficial not having staff run around from point A to B all the time. However, the number of beds remained stable through that.

Same situation in Ottawa under Harris. The Grace on Parkdale (near downtown and the Civic) was closed. Riverside, near the General, was closed, though I' not sure if Harris turned it into an out-patient facility or if that was McGuinty. Harris attempted to close the Montfort, the only east-end hospital and the only francophone hospital in Ottawa. The former mayor of Vanier led the fight to save the Montfort, and we were ultimately successful. The Montfort went through significant expansions since.

Originally Posted by Metro-One

The Canada Line is still only at 40% capacity so no need to panic just yet.

In the coming 20 years the Canada Line will be able to function much more efficiently with just a couple key improvements:

1. All stations expanded to their full 50m allowing the use of the middle 15m C-car. (Which is part of the build out plan)

2. A new south entrance for Vancouver City Centre.

3. A second platform at Brighouse on the west side.

4. A second platform at YVR in the south side (this is already on YVR’s radar).

5. A second entrance at Bridgeport.

I feel most on here who talk as if the Canada Line is already at capacity are those who don’t even live in Vancouver or those who spend their entire time on SSP painting a bizarre self hating skewed image of Vancouver and BC in general (nearly all posters from Van know who I am talking about).

As for Arbutus, it is actually one of the few corridors in Vancouver that I feel naturally matches LRT, since most of it would run on its own right of way and it would be a secondary line for the corridor.

Vancouver is an amazing city. We (Ottawa) can learn a lot from Vancouver; on density, transit of all forms, bike infrastructure, the public realm, historic preservation.

That said, no one can argue: Canada Line is under-built. Though it still has capacity to grow, it is not as future-proofed as Expo and Millennium. Whatever is built along Arbutus will help relieve some of those capacity issues. It's worth having the conversation now before capacity is maxed-out.

I think Arbutus would need, at a minimum, classic LRT. It could start at Bridgeport, cross over the the Greenway and run surface with traffic light priority for a few kilometers. North of 16th, you may need to tunnel or cut-off some streets (creating cul-de-sacs). It could then cross the Granville Bridge (on, over or under) with a station on Granville Island and up Granville Street to Waterfront Station. Honestly surprised Granville Street didn't get one more C.L. station around the curve from Yaletown. The Arbutus LRT would provide better transit service along one of (if not THE) premier streets of Vancouver.

Once Arbutus is dealt with, I would like to see either a subway line or a streetcar loop (TTC type streetcars) around the dense downtown peninsula.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I often compare us to Laval, which has 385,000 people to Gatineau's 285,000 people.

Laval has a single super-hospital on its territory: the Cité de la Santé.

Keeping in mind however that Gatineau is the major centre for its entire region for provincial services such as health. Laval is within a stone's throw of all other Montreal-area hospitals.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Keeping in mind however that Gatineau is the major centre for its entire region for provincial services such as health. Laval is within a stone's throw of all other Montreal-area hospitals.

And it’s crazy that the transit agency is straight up called Société du Transport de l’Outaouais. Not even “de Gatineau”.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I think Arbutus would need, at a minimum, classic LRT. It could start at Bridgeport, cross over the the Greenway and run surface with traffic light priority for a few kilometers. North of 16th, you may need to tunnel or cut-off some streets (creating cul-de-sacs). It could then cross the Granville Bridge (on, over or under) with a station on Granville Island and up Granville Street to Waterfront Station. Honestly surprised Granville Street didn't get one more C.L. station around the curve from Yaletown. The Arbutus LRT would provide better transit service along one of (if not THE) premier streets of Vancouver.

Once Arbutus is dealt with, I would like to see either a subway line or a streetcar loop (TTC type streetcars) around the dense downtown peninsula.

It's a very rare opportunity that you get a rapid transit ready corridor like Arbutus that takes you into the core of the city, where you otherwise have to pay 500 million per km to build a subway. Arbutus would cost a small fraction of that. Unfortunately it looks like Arbutus will lay dormant for years to come.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

And it’s crazy that the transit agency is straight up called Société du Transport de l’Outaouais. Not even “de Gatineau”.

The agency was founded in 1971 to serve the urban part of the Outaouais region, 4 years before Touraine, Templeton, Gatineau and Pointe-Gatineau were amalgamated to become what is now considered le "vieux" Gatineau, and just over three decades before the cities of Aylmer, Hull, Masson-Anger, Buckingham and le "vieux" Gatineau amalgamated.

It's like OC Transpo, which stands for Ottaw-Carleton Transport, was created in 1973 to serve the region of Ottawa-Carleton before all of its cities fused to become the mega Ottawa of today. The Carleton could be dropped, but it hasn't yet.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The agency was founded in 1971 to serve the urban part of the Outaouais region, 4 years before Touraine, Templeton, Gatineau and Pointe-Gatineau were amalgamated to become what is now considered le "vieux" Gatineau, and just over three decades before the cities of Aylmer, Hull, Masson-Anger, Buckingham and le "vieux" Gatineau amalgamated..

STO at one time even covered outlying municipalities that weren't part of the 2002 Gatineau megamerger, like Chelsea, Cantley, etc. They pulled out of STO 5-10 years ago, and created their own transit agency called TransCollines.

There have rumblings about changing the STO's name to STG (Société de transport de Gatineau) but so far no serious moves in that direction.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's like OC Transpo, which stands for Ottaw-Carleton Transport, was created in 1973 to serve the region of Ottawa-Carleton before all of its cities fused to become the mega Ottawa of today. The Carleton could be dropped, but it hasn't yet.

My guess is that a lot of younger people in Ottawa today probably think the OC stands for "Ottawa Canada" or "Ottawa Capital".

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

STO at one time even covered outlying municipalities that weren't part of the 2002 Gatineau megamerger, like Chelsea, Cantley, etc. They pulled out of STO 5-10 years ago, and created their own transit agency called TransCollines.

There have rumblings about changing the STO's name to STG (Société de transport de Gatineau) but so far no serious moves in that direction.



My guess is that a lot of younger people in Ottawa today probably think the OC stands for "Ottawa Canada" or "Ottawa Capital".

No point in changing the agencies names. It maintains a little connection to the past. The re-branding done by the STO when the RapiBus opened or OC when the Confederation Line opened were necessary to modernize the brands.

[SteelTown]

So after all that, the Hamilton transit task force recommends LRT. Such a waste of time and money. They are gonna have to pay for the cancellation fee for killing the project and basically recommend the same thing again in the future.



UPDATED: Provincial task force recommends ‘higher order transit’ for Hamilton — like LRT — just months after Ontario cancelled an ongoing light rail project

https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-re...-lrt-with-hamilton-task-force-today.html

A provincial task force has recommended resurrecting a “higher-order transit” project in Hamilton — like light rail transit or bus rapid transit — just four months after Ontario’s government killed an ongoing LRT project.

What projects are actually funded and built, however, remains up to provincial Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney.

Mulroney said Thursday she has asked Infrastructure Ontario and Metrolinx to further evaluate the recommendations.

The Progressive Conservative government abruptly killed Hamilton’s light rail transit project in December — after 60 building purchases and in the middle of construction bidding — citing anticipated cost overruns.

Facing fierce public blowback, Mulroney then assembled a five-person task force to study alternative projects for Hamilton that could be paid for with the $1-billion former LRT budget.

The province has been heavily criticized over the task force’s secret meetings, refusal to allow public delegations or other oversight of a study with massive ramifications for the city.

Today, the task force was allowed to release its preliminary recommendations report to the public about three weeks after it was submitted to the minister. Mulroney was slated to meet virtually on Thursday with task force members ahead of the release.

[J.OT13]

Classic!

No matter how much praise Ford is getting for his Covid-19 response, we can't forget the dumb shit he's done over the last two years.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

No point in changing the agencies names. It maintains a little connection to the past. The re-branding done by the STO when the RapiBus opened or OC when the Confederation Line opened were necessary to modernize the brands.

Plus, if we change STO to STG, we should change UQO (l'Université du Québec en Outaouais) to UQG as well. I don't know if they're inclined to doing that~

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ A similar situation to Winnipeg. We have been going through the exercise locally of closing some of the small old legacy hospitals and centralizing most of the services at three larger hospitals, with the idea being that it's better to have three fully staffed hospitals than having a thin layer of doctors running around to all of the hospitals around the city. It's never easy to go through that kind of change, though, and the rewards are uncertain... I can see the appeal of keeping things the way they are.

Gatineau also has a really shitty/under-capacity health care for a city of its size. Much of it is the fault of being next to Ottawa. Ontario health care is generally better than Quebec health care, and Canadian health coverage is portable across provincial borders, a lot of people in Gatineau just seek medical care in Ottawa instead, and the providers in Ottawa just bill the Quebec government for it. This becomes a harsh, reinforcing cycle, because Quebec City knows this, so it basically neglects Gatineau's health infrastructure, assuming that its residents will just go to Ontario instead. In fact, for some specialist services (the kind you might only see in large cities), it's quite possible its more efficient for Quebec to pay for that patient to be treated in Ottawa than it is to invest in providing the same service in Gatineau (or transport them all the way to Montreal). Ottawa and Ontario rarely complain because their hospitals and doctors still get paid either way.

Another factor is that Ontario generally pays medical staff better, so Gatineau has a harder time attracting doctors and nurses and specialists than Ottawa does; a lot of Gatineau nurses actually work in Ottawa hospitals.

Politically, the fact that, until 2018, the Gatineau area was ultra-safe PLQ territory didn't help much either. The CAQ had a huge breakthrough in the area in 2018 so things might change.

[ClaytonA]

For Calgary's Green Line downtown to Sheppard, the RFP issue is pushed to July 24, 2020.
Expect this to be pushed back to Oct, so it will coincide with decisions on the 16 Ave to downtown section if this project proceeds at all and given how this process has unfolded so far.
RFQ announcement by May 2020.

Note as recently as Q4 2019, the RFP was to be released Q4 2019. Of course the alignment and project scope was finalized in June 2017. Of the 10 competing transit projects listed in 2017 impacting project teams (i.e. contractors' personnel available), only the Hamilton LRT hasn't jumped ahead of this.

https://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TI...Green-line/home.aspx?redirect=/greenline

Couldn't the engagement been moved to solely online? Design and planning work can happen from home. Virtual meetings. Just another in a series of delays. Maybe the next city council elected in 2021 will get this tendered? Soul sucking. Good luck to anyone bidding on this project.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by ClaytonA

For Calgary's Green Line downtown to Sheppard, the RFP issue is pushed to July 24, 2020.
Expect this to be pushed back to Oct, so it will coincide with decisions on the 16 Ave to downtown section if this project proceeds at all and given how this process has unfolded so far.
RFQ announcement by May 2020.

Note as recently as Q4 2019, the RFP was to be released Q4 2019. Of course the alignment and project scope was finalized in June 2017. Of the 10 competing transit projects listed in 2017 impacting project teams (i.e. contractors' personnel available), only the Hamilton LRT hasn't jumped ahead of this.

https://www.calgary.ca/Transportation/TI...Green-line/home.aspx?redirect=/greenline

Couldn't the engagement been moved to solely online? Design and planning work can happen from home. Virtual meetings. Just another in a series of delays. Maybe the next city council elected in 2021 will get this tendered? Soul sucking. Good luck to anyone bidding on this project.

Fuck the engagement. Why are we still even pretending any of the engagement was or is relevant? All that was brought up in the engagement was (rightly) thrown in the garbage when the experts actually looked at what was technically and economically feasible. The people know nothing, and this is all a charade that gives zero value to the end product.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Same situation in Ottawa under Harris. The Grace on Parkdale (near downtown and the Civic) was closed. Riverside, near the General, was closed, though I' not sure if Harris turned it into an out-patient facility or if that was McGuinty. Harris attempted to close the Montfort, the only east-end hospital and the only francophone hospital in Ottawa. The former mayor of Vanier led the fight to save the Montfort, and we were ultimately successful. The Montfort went through significant expansions since.



Vancouver is an amazing city. We (Ottawa) can learn a lot from Vancouver; on density, transit of all forms, bike infrastructure, the public realm, historic preservation.

That said, no one can argue: Canada Line is under-built. Though it still has capacity to grow, it is not as future-proofed as Expo and Millennium. Whatever is built along Arbutus will help relieve some of those capacity issues. It's worth having the conversation now before capacity is maxed-out.

I think Arbutus would need, at a minimum, classic LRT. It could start at Bridgeport, cross over the the Greenway and run surface with traffic light priority for a few kilometers. North of 16th, you may need to tunnel or cut-off some streets (creating cul-de-sacs). It could then cross the Granville Bridge (on, over or under) with a station on Granville Island and up Granville Street to Waterfront Station. Honestly surprised Granville Street didn't get one more C.L. station around the curve from Yaletown. The Arbutus LRT would provide better transit service along one of (if not THE) premier streets of Vancouver.

Once Arbutus is dealt with, I would like to see either a subway line or a streetcar loop (TTC type streetcars) around the dense downtown peninsula.

Oh I am not saying that it wasn’t under built, but there are some forum members on here that do spread misinformation and act as if it is already at full capacity (which it is not). That said I am much more happy with the Canada Line as is (with short platforms but grade separated and automatic) than the street grade version that was proposed before... That would have been a disaster. The Canada Line on the other hand has been a victim of its own success in a way.

It is definitely worth talking about the Arbutus Line, and I do agree with you that it should have done grade separated portions of its own. Although before that the Canada Line should be upgraded / built out to its full capacity.

In a perfect world I would have the Canada Line upgraded 10 years from now and the Arbutus Line opening 20 years from now.

Instead of crossing the river though I would actually have the Arbutus Line head west at its southern end along Marine (hub at Marine Station) and continue west along Marine all the way to New Westminster.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Oh I am not saying that it wasn’t under built, but there are some forum members on here that do spread misinformation and act as if it is already at full capacity (which it is not). That said I am much more happy with the Canada Line as is (with short platforms but grade separated and automatic) than the street grade version that was proposed before... That would have been a disaster. The Canada Line on the other hand has been a victim of its own success in a way.

Can you quote where someone said that it was at full capacity in this conversation? Because I know that I didn't say that and I know that it wasn't a narrative that was being produced. Nor did I ever deny that Canada Line upgrades would be effective. Seems a little pre-emptive if you thought that I was going to take it there.

Originally Posted by Metro-One

It is definitely worth talking about the Arbutus Line, and I do agree with you that it should have done grade separated portions of its own. Although before that the Canada Line should be upgraded / built out to its full capacity.

I agree that the Canada Line needs to be built to its full capacity before considering relief options. However that's only IF the government stays ontop of it. Yeah it's cool that we got more trains for the Canada line this year and it is sufficient but the Canada Line isn't on the government's radar ATM (AFAIK) for other upgrades such as building a west platform for Richmond Brighouse or twinning the rail after Aberdeen. I am happy to be wrong because I want nothing but the best for the Canada line.

I think that people are going to be very surprised by how much use the Canada Line will see when the Broadway extension to Arbutus opens up. It isn't like we are just waiting for the population to grow, we are also changing the system drastically.

Originally Posted by Metro-One

In a perfect world I would have the Canada Line upgraded 10 years from now and the Arbutus Line opening 20 years from now.

Part of the main point of my previous posts were to point out that there are more reasons to develop the Arbutus line other than relief for the Canada line. You are connecting communities like Kerrisdale, Arbutus Ridge and so on to the main spine of the transit network (being the future Arbutus Skytrain station) as well as to downtown Vancouver. Canada Line relief should only be a by-product.

However I will say that after the Millennium line extends to Arbutus that we should consider throwing down a quick Rapid Bus service from Waterfront station, through Arbutus street and down to Kerrisdale to mimic the Arbutus line just so that we can gauge ridership and effectiveness. To clarify: I don't mean that the rapid bus strategy should use the Greenway.

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Instead of crossing the river though I would actually have the Arbutus Line head west at its southern end along Marine (hub at Marine Station) and continue west along Marine all the way to New Westminster.

I sure that you mean east to New West . And for the most part I agree although it would get messy when you get to New West but if there's a will, there's a way.

I do think that if the Arbutus line gets developed as an LRT system that it will open up the region to the possibilities of LRT being developed along other corridors. As foreshadowed by other users, in Vancouver, there is actually a lot of opportunities for LRT to be developed as we have a lot of wide streets south of False Creek.

[Nouvellecosse]

I'm not going to mention any names, but there was one guy from Salt Spring Island who was constantly making the same false claims every few months no matter how many times people corrected them. It was the ultimate form of gas lighting. Whether or not it was explicitly raised in any individual conversation, the "Canada Line at capacity" trope has been a long running irritant on the site basically since the line opened.