The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

A lack of electrified commuter rail means the country is unwilling to invest in commuter rail electrification not that it's "very unwilling to spend on transit." But of course its very true that Crawford types who don't see a major connection between improved service and increased ridership would probably assume that there's no point in investing in upgrades to a service unless ridership is high already.

Although I would caution against comparing urban and suburban system ridership by the same metric. Measuring solely by the number of riders or trips is more flattering to urban systems with more people taking shorter trips vs suburban systems where fewer people are taking longer trips. For instance, a 5km line with a stop every km, each where 10 people get off and 10 get on will have 5x greater ridership than one where 10 people got on and rode the full 5km even though it's providing just as much service. Plus suburban systems generally shouldn't be allowed to get as crowded because people need seats for the longer trips. So even if both systems are running at "full capacity", the suburban/commuter system will look less impressive on paper. Better to compare using riders kms of service provided.

And of course suburban systems generally don't need as much ridership in order to justify themselves because they're usually less expensive. I mean, compare the cost of electrifying a 30km commuter rail line with 10 stops, vs a building a 30km underground metro line with 30 stations.

I think you just highlighted the reason for the success of transit in Canada: transit systems can serve shorter trips more efficiently. Focus on shorter trips and urban design to encourage shorter trips is exactly what makes using transit easier for Canadians compared to people in US. Not electrification, not higher frequencies, not immigration, it's all about shorter distances. Distance from home to work, from home to the bus stop, and so on.

Commuter rail and park-and-ride for long trips is a reality of larger urban areas like Toronto and Montreal, but it's not something we should prioritize too much. Even in Toronto and Montreal, the priority should always be short trips. Local over regional. That is the real reason for success of transit in Mississauga and Brampton. Not frequency. Not immigrants. The real reason is that new subdivisions are designed to minimize walking distances, and people in Mississauga and Brampton mostly work in Mississauga and Brampton (e.g. 67% of Brampton residents work in either Brampton, Mississauga or Caledon). Live/work. If people live closer to where they work, they are much more likely to walk, bike, and take transit to work. Less physical and political barriers to deal with. And I think it's the political barriers rather than the physical barriers that are the biggest problem with transit in Toronto. Both GO and YRT especially could be so much more if not for politics getting in the way.

If I want to see improvement in the Milton Line, it is all-day, two-way service more than electrification. But even two-way, all-day service is not that big a deal because I can go all the way down to Lakeshore Line. Lakeshore is a great service, electrified or no. In a few years, the line I will take to get down to Lakeshore will be electrified, so I am not going to say this country is cheap and not caring, even if I judged based on electrification.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Doady

I think you just highlighted the reason for the success of transit in Canada: transit systems can serve shorter trips more efficiently. Focus on shorter trips and urban design to encourage shorter trips is exactly what makes using transit easier for Canadians compared to people in US. Not electrification, not higher frequencies, not immigration, it's all about shorter distances. Distance from home to work, from home to the bus stop, and so on.

Commuter rail and park-and-ride for long trips is a reality of larger urban areas like Toronto and Montreal, but it's not something we should prioritize too much. Even in Toronto and Montreal, the priority should always be short trips. Local over regional. That is the real reason for success of transit in Mississauga and Brampton. Not frequency. Not immigrants. The real reason is that new subdivisions are designed to minimize walking distances, and people in Mississauga and Brampton mostly work in Mississauga and Brampton (e.g. 67% of Brampton residents work in either Brampton, Mississauga or Caledon). Live/work. If people live closer to where they work, they are much more likely to walk, bike, and take transit to work. Less physical and political barriers to deal with. And I think it's the political barriers rather than the physical barriers that are the biggest problem with transit in Toronto. Both GO and YRT especially could be so much more if not for politics getting in the way.

Obviously transportation is easier to provide when less of it is needed. That isn't something unique to public transit though.

A huge proportion of people already live in extensive suburban areas in Canada without there being frequent or high quality commuter rail for the most part. It hasn't prevent suburban sprawl, all it has done is increased congestion and commute times. So we already know that theory is wrong. We need to do our best to provide all types of transit to allow people to get around where ever they want to go, not just where we think it's convenient for them to want to go. The idea of encouraging people to live close to work is great and I support it, but it isn't a solution to having weak regional service. When you have large cities in the millions there will always be destination that people may wish to visit that are far away. Even in the most transit friendly cities such as Paris, Tokyo, and Munich etc. there are excellent commuter/regional rail options (and no, most aren't park and rides). Stockholm is the size of Vancouver and it's commuter rail network carries more passengers than GO despite it having a metro system that's larger than the TTC subway and equally busy. Yet we're supposed to believe Canada is doing better with transit than them by restricting people to local-only trips?

I know a lot of what you say is satire so i apologize if that wasn't meant to be taken seriously (I honestly can't tell), but I'm sure most of us realise that expecting everyone live close to work isn't a coherent or logical transportation strategy. Many people share a household with a spouse or other family member and it isn't possible for them both to find jobs nearby. People often have a hard enough time finding a good job that they're really happy with as is and sometimes have to travel when you find one. Especially since people change jobs more frequently now than in the past.

Originally Posted by Doady

If I want to see improvement in the Milton Line, it is all-day, two-way service more than electrification. But even two-way, all-day service is not that big a deal because I can go all the way down to Lakeshore Line. Lakeshore is a great service, electrified or no. In a few years, the line I will take to get down to Lakeshore will be electrified, so I am not going to say this country is cheap and not caring, even if I judged based on electrification.

Once we see it actually happening then sure. But the fact of investment up to that point was definitely a choice.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by esquire

You can't really judge SW BRT by the short segment that was in operation for the past eight years, prior to the opening of the stretch from Jubilee to Markham last month. Even though the gestation period was absurdly long, the line was effectively born on April 12, 2020.

Wrong. When your government uses YOUR money to produce infrastructure projects, you should be judging the outcome of the project. Every city has an ongoing, changing transit plan but that doesn't stop us from judging its effectiveness, for example, the Confederation Line in Ottawa.

If you want to wait for another 30 years for the full vision to be realized, please be my guest.

Originally Posted by esquire

I'm not holding up SW BRT as a model of great project management or political leadership on transit projects because it clearly isn't. But operationally I'm not seeing any real problems with it.

My biggest issue with Winnipeg's BRT is not the process but the design of it all. Winnipeg's BRT infrastructure is not that much different than a road and the stations are basic so I don't understand how such a high amount of tax dollars was dedicated to extra roads that don't actually reach popular destinations (on their separate right of way roads) such as the U of M.

This system isn't designed for its current needs or for the future at all...

Originally Posted by esquire

I'm not prepared to write the whole thing off because the last mile into downtown is on a diamond lane instead of on a separate road, and the last half mile into the university campus is on the street.

Did you even read what you wrote? The two most popular transit destinations in Winnipeg is the downtown area and the U of M; and you're fine with a system that doesn't conveniently connect those two destinations ?

Again, for me, I will write the whole thing off depending on how they connect to the downtown area because in my lifetime I probably won't live long enough to see it "upgraded" to an LRT system.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Doady

Commuter rail and park-and-ride for long trips is a reality of larger urban areas like Toronto and Montreal, but it's not something we should prioritize too much. Even in Toronto and Montreal, the priority should always be short trips. Local over regional. That is the real reason for success of transit in Mississauga and Brampton. Not frequency. Not immigrants. The real reason is that new subdivisions are designed to minimize walking distances, and people in Mississauga and Brampton mostly work in Mississauga and Brampton (e.g. 67% of Brampton residents work in either Brampton, Mississauga or Caledon). Live/work. If people live closer to where they work, they are much more likely to walk, bike, and take transit to work. Less physical and political barriers to deal with. And I think it's the political barriers rather than the physical barriers that are the biggest problem with transit in Toronto. Both GO and YRT especially could be so much more if not for politics getting in the way.

A big problem in Toronto (and Vancouver) is housing affordability. When I first worked in downtown Toronto 5 years ago, I was making reasonably good money, but as a single person I couldn’t hope to afford to live anywhere remotely close to my work. For nearly four years I had a monster-length commute on the TTC that was often over an hour each way due to various TTC issues, sometimes up to 2 hours each way. I didn’t want to commute that far, but living in the part of North York I lived in was saving me over $9,000 a year in rent - which was also significantly higher than what owning a car was costing me in those days.

People would live closer to work in cities like that if it was more affordable. It would also help to decentralize corporate jobs and have more jobs in smaller, less expensive cities; I had tried for years to find work in London, Hamilton or K-W, close to my parents and with much better affordability, but the job market was (and is still) almost non-existent in marketing management in those places while pre-pandemic you could get laid off in Toronto and find another job in that field the next day. Those jobs are very hard to find outside Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver in Canada and even though they pay well they aren’t enough for a single person to live in at least Toronto and downtown Vancouver. My point being that long-distance transit will always be necessary for certain segments of the population.

[Doady]

^ As I said, commuter rail and park-and-ride is a reality of larger urban areas. Nothing is 100%. All I say is, planners should do what they can to encourage shorter trips. That is the secret of Brampton's high transit ridership. It is more self-contained than a typical suburb. A suburb needs to be both origin and destination. Mixed-uses. Buses carrying riders in both directions, that is efficiency. Buses or trains full in one direction but empty in the other direction is not efficient.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Obviously transportation is easier to provide when less of it is needed. That isn't something unique to public transit though.

A huge proportion of people already live in extensive suburban areas in Canada without there being frequent or high quality commuter rail for the most part. It hasn't prevent suburban sprawl, all it has done is increased congestion and commute times. So we already know that theory is wrong. We need to do our best to provide all types of transit to allow people to get around where ever they want to go, not just where we think it's convenient for them to want to go. The idea of encouraging people to live close to work is great and I support it, but it isn't a solution to having weak regional service. When you have large cities in the millions there will always be destination that people may wish to visit that are far away. Even in the most transit friendly cities such as Paris, Tokyo, and Munich etc. there are excellent commuter/regional rail options (and no, most aren't park and rides). Stockholm is the size of Vancouver and it's commuter rail network carries more passengers than GO despite it having a metro system that's larger than the TTC subway and equally busy. Yet we're supposed to believe Canada is doing better with transit than them by restricting people to local-only trips?

I wasn't saying we should only invest in local transit, or that we should compare only local transit ridership and ignore regional transit ridership. I was saying shorter length of trips is what makes it possible to serve more Canadians with transit compared to US. Of course, Canada is more sprawled than Europe, so longer distances, more car use.

As I said, I want to see full service on Milton, it would be a dream come true, and I like to use Lakeshore in the meantime. Investing in commuter rail is good. I am not against it at all. I just think it would be wrong to focus so much on it. More investment including electrification of GO and Exo would be cool, but they are just small part of transit in two particular regions.

MiWay and Brampton Transit together get around 100 million boardings annually while GO Transit gets around 80 million, Long Island Rail Road 110 million, Metro-North Railroad 90 million. Is GO more important than MiWay and Brampton Transit? Is Canada doing worse than the US because of lack of electrified commuter rail?

I think we should not start to ignore or downplay what we have accomplished with suburban transit all over Canada. And yes, that includes places like Scarborough and Montreal-Nord as well. Even if the US can't learn anything, at least we know how well transit already works in these places and we can build upon it. Incrementally building upon previous successes is really what improving transit is all about. Nothing suddenly appears out of thin air. Even there really was a lack of electrified rail service in suburban Canada (there isn't), we are busy laying the foundations for more (or were busy until the coronavirus came along).

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Doady

^ As I said, commuter rail and park-and-ride is a reality of larger urban areas. Nothing is 100%. All I say is, planners should do what they can to encourage shorter trips. That is the secret of Brampton's high transit ridership. It is more self-contained than a typical suburb. A suburb needs to be both origin and destination. Mixed-uses. Buses carrying riders in both directions, that is efficiency. Buses or trains full in one direction but empty in the other direction is not efficient.

Keep in mind that a lot of peak period surge commuter service is, and will continue to be, provided by trains that are stored at the end of the line coming into town in the morning and laid over until the evening commute back. Not all trains are returning empty. Yes there will be two way all day service since there will always be some demand in both directions including reverse commutes, but even when there is less traffic in the opposite direction, it's still much more efficient for an electrified train carrying say 1000 people to take them 30km and return empty than it is for 1000 people to drive 800 cars 30km and find places to park them downtown before driving back. If the average car has 150hp (some have less, many have more) that's 120,000hp worth of machinery. By comparison, a typical electric locomotive may have 6000hp. Plus according to a Wikipedia source, "Electric locomotives usually cost 20% less than diesel locomotives, their maintenance costs are 25-35% lower, and cost up to 50% less to run."

So I disagree that trains running full in one direction and empty is inefficient.

Originally Posted by Doady

I wasn't saying we should only invest in local transit, or that we should compare only local transit ridership and ignore regional transit ridership. I was saying shorter length of trips is what makes it possible to serve more Canadians with transit compared to US. Of course, Canada is more sprawled than Europe, so longer distances, more car use.

As I said, I want to see full service on Milton, it would be a dream come true, and I like to use Lakeshore in the meantime. Investing in commuter rail is good. I am not against it at all. I just think it would be wrong to focus so much on it. More investment including electrification of GO and Exo would be cool, but they are just small part of transit in two particular regions.

MiWay and Brampton Transit together get around 100 million boardings annually while GO Transit gets around 80 million, Long Island Rail Road 110 million, Metro-North Railroad 90 million. Is GO more important than MiWay and Brampton Transit? Is Canada doing worse than the US because of lack of electrified commuter rail?

I think we should not start to ignore or downplay what we have accomplished with suburban transit all over Canada. And yes, that includes places like Scarborough and Montreal-Nord as well. Even if the US can't learn anything, at least we know how well transit already works in these places and we can build upon it. Incrementally building upon previous successes is really what improving transit is all about. Nothing suddenly appears out of thin air. Even there really was a lack of electrified rail service in suburban Canada (there isn't), we are busy laying the foundations for more (or were busy until the coronavirus came along).

I agree that no one should focus on regional transit at the expense of local. The point is that regional has long been an area of weakness or a sort of missing link in Canada so that's why there needs to be additional focus on bringing it up to par. I also don't think we should interpret this criticism as being praise for the US, or being a result of making comparisons to the US. At this point, the US is largely irrelevant to Canada in terms of transit. I'm sure there are a few things to be learned here and there, but in most cases NYC is too big to make for realistic comparisons and few of the more comparable cities are doing things much - if any - better.

And I still have to caution against comparing regional systems like GO and LIRR with local systems using boarding numbers. Using Brampton as an example, it stretches about 15km from edge to edge in either direction, but of course there's little reason for people to travel edge to edge. There are two regional centres, Downtown Brampton and Bramlea Ciy Centre so if we assume the average trip to one of them 9or a similar distance), 5km as an average trip length would probably be a generous estimate.

GO transit published ridership by station for 2018 here (found posted on UT) and if we combine the three GO stops in Brampton (Bramlea, Brampton, and Mount Pleasant), GO estimates about 2.38 million annual trips to/from them in 2018. SInce about 95% of all GO train trips start or end at Union which is 34km from the centre of Brampton, that equates roughly to 81 million rider km of travel done by transit. Brampton transit ridership is about 27.4 million, so at an average of 5km, that would equate to 137 million rider km of travel. In other words, about 60% as much travel is provided by 3 stops on one line (even before it's electrified or given high frequency service) as is provided by the entire local system. That should absolutely not be downplayed.

If we were to extrapolate that to the entire GO system, if it has 80 million annual boardings, and if the average trip length were 30km, that would be 2.4 billion km of service in rider kms. 15x that of Brampton Transit. Even if we grant an overly generous 10km average trip for the Mississauga and Brampton systems, with 100 million annual boardings that equates to 1 billion rider km or just over 1/5 of GO. That's what I meant about it being "flattering" to more local system to use simple trip or rider figures when comparing to longer distance systems. It doesn't mean the longer distance systems are less efficient; it just means they're providing a different type of service that should be measured and evaluated using different methods.

[foolworm]

Originally Posted by scryer

Seems like Canada just doesn't have a good track record with effective BRT systems. Winnipeg's system is a failure and it seems like the Ottawa BRT was a failure as well to an extent.

Winnipeg's system isn't a failure, it's just not built out. I'd compare it to Edmonton's LRT circa 1990, where after 20 years in service it was still a shuttle between the northeast and downtown. That said, Winnipeg builds infrastructure at a leisurely pace - just look at Perimeter Highway, 65 years on.

Canada has produced some really good BRT systems - to claim Ottawa's is a failure is just gross ignorance or bias.

In other news, REM construction is supposed to resume this week. I feel like it has huge similarities to Sydney's metro project which is also under construction, especially with the choice of rolling stock and to convert existing commuter rail corridors. It's surprising how little publicity this project has generated, or is that just a matter of being in the Anglo-verse? Ditto with Quebec City - their trambus corridor looks to be something unique.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by scryer

Did you even read what you wrote? The two most popular transit destinations in Winnipeg is the downtown area and the U of M; and you're fine with a system that doesn't conveniently connect those two destinations ?

Huh? It literally connects those two places. I don't know how exactly you define "convenient", but if you're taking the bus from the U of M to downtown Winnipeg, this is the route you're going to take. The fact that the buses go on street at the very ends of the line does not negate the benefits of the line itself.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by foolworm

Canada has produced some really good BRT systems - to claim Ottawa's is a failure is just gross ignorance or bias.

The Transitway in Ottawa was a reasonably effective BRT system, given that it was conceived when the city was only ~550,000.

It certainly had flaws (no tunnel through centre of city) but it worked reasonably well and got more kilometres of high-speed transit per dollar than a LRT system would have. It also reserved a corridor for upgrades, as we see with Confederation Line.

That's the rub with smaller cities - you can either have a gold-plated tiny LRT system that does almost nothing for most of the city or something more modest but eventually can become something more.

Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton have all approached it in different ways. For their size and layouts, they have pretty effective systems.

The unfortunate thing about Winnipeg is that there never was a corridor reserved in earlier days or sections of convenient railway abandoned within the city. So, now it costs $$$ to build anything.

[esquire]

^ There wasn't really a ton of railway abandonment in Winnipeg. It's mostly just industrial spurs that have been abandoned. The only former ROW I can think of that would have possibly made a decent BRT route is the old CN line through River Heights parallel to Route 90... but it would have been fairly marginal as far as transit routes go as it doesn't lead downtown.

Some rail ROWs were abandoned in the early/mid 20th century way before anyone would have considered reserving them for transit uses.

[MalcolmTucker]

As a non Winnipegger just hear me out. Winnipeg has some really wide streets (8 lanes!) with low traffic counts relative to the number of lanes. Winnipeg can more than afford taking those down to 6 lanes while re-purposing the extra space.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

As a non Winnipegger just hear me out. Winnipeg has some really wide streets (8 lanes!) with low traffic counts relative to the number of lanes. Winnipeg can more than afford taking those down to 6 lanes while re-purposing the extra space.

This is true.

However, it still has to cope with traffic lights and whatnot. The most effective portions of the Transitway in Ottawa were separated from local traffic. The least effective ones were just re-striped city streets, as one wouldn't be moving much faster than a car would, especially in a suburban setting.

Downtown Winnipeg doesn't really have much in the way of open spaces/roads to work with. Which means that you're using a city street (kind of like downtown Ottawa prior to Confederation Line) or tunneling.

It's a shame, since Winnipeg is at the point where a major transit system might be a thing to plan for.

[CityTech]

Ottawa is/was lucky in that the city used to have a huge network of railways throughout the city that have all been abandoned or near-abandoned; there are basically no freight trains that go to or through Ottawa anymore (the only active railway remaining is the VIA line). This means the city is full of cleared ROWs that can be repurposed for other transportation needs. That's why the city was able to build grade separated Transitways, and why they were able to build a grade separated freeway through the city without tearing anything down--they've been able to repurpose the old railways.

Although some have been lost to development, generally the city did a good job keeping the bulk of them as transportation corridors.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Ottawa is/was lucky in that the city used to have a huge network of railways throughout the city that have all been abandoned or near-abandoned; there are basically no freight trains that go to or through Ottawa anymore (the only active railway remaining is the VIA line). This means the city is full of cleared ROWs that can be repurposed for other transportation needs. That's why the city was able to build grade separated Transitways, and why they were able to build a grade separated freeway through the city without tearing anything down--they've been able to repurpose the old railways.

Although some have been lost to development, generally the city did a good job keeping the bulk of them as transportation corridors.

Being the capital helped too for Ottawa. The NCC could scoop up things and plan.

Winnipeg's got rail but it's basically CN and CP mainlines along with the rail yards that could cost $billions to move. It's one thing to move them out of the city like in Toronto where the land could sold for profit, but in Winnipeg's case, the potential doesn't outweigh the cost.

Winnipeg also didn't have a united force like the NCC/Metro Toronto to coordinate planning prior to amalgamation in the 1970s, I believe.

Winnipeg's core is old enough that it's densely packed, but the suburban areas are new enough that suburban density hasn't really become a thing yet. It is still easier to build out further. It's kind of a weird twilight zone city - it's got really good bones, but its development history, timeline, geography and compromises make it hard to layer things on top of it inexpensively.

[ssiguy]

London's problem with it's transit development is that the city, has no unused rail corridors, no old industrial areas to plow thru, no wide streets, and no street that goes downtown that crosses the city. Added to this a fully built and solid urban form meaning any new infrastructure will require the destruction of many homes and even more traumatising for Londoners, the destruction of many trees.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Keep in mind that a lot of peak period surge commuter service is, and will continue to be, provided by trains that are stored at the end of the line coming into town in the morning and laid over until the evening commute back. Not all trains are returning empty. Yes there will be two way all day service since there will always be some demand in both directions including reverse commutes, but even when there is less traffic in the opposite direction, it's still much more efficient for an electrified train carrying say 1000 people to take them 30km and return empty than it is for 1000 people to drive 800 cars 30km and find places to park them downtown before driving back. If the average car has 150hp (some have less, many have more) that's 120,000hp worth of machinery. By comparison, a typical electric locomotive may have 6000hp. Plus according to a Wikipedia source, "Electric locomotives usually cost 20% less than diesel locomotives, their maintenance costs are 25-35% lower, and cost up to 50% less to run."

So I disagree that trains running full in one direction and empty is inefficient.

But you wouldn't want electrified line to operate peak-hour, peak-direction only like a diesel line, right? I think we should expect a little more. If you make such an investment, the trains should be full in both directions operating at the same time.

Of course, GO has ridiculously high cost recovery ratio but eventually it will be time for less. Lakeshore, Milton, Kitchener, and Stouffville eventually need to become true rapid transit: grade separation, high frequencies, in both directions at the same time. That means they need to serve more than just bedroom communities, and they need to be supported by strong local transit. As I said, we are laying the foundations.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

GO transit published ridership by station for 2018 here (found posted on UT) and if we combine the three GO stops in Brampton (Bramlea, Brampton, and Mount Pleasant), GO estimates about 2.38 million annual trips to/from them in 2018. SInce about 95% of all GO train trips start or end at Union which is 34km from the centre of Brampton, that equates roughly to 81 million rider km of travel done by transit. Brampton transit ridership is about 27.4 million, so at an average of 5km, that would equate to 137 million rider km of travel. In other words, about 60% as much travel is provided by 3 stops on one line (even before it's electrified or given high frequency service) as is provided by the entire local system. That should absolutely not be downplayed.

If we were to extrapolate that to the entire GO system, if it has 80 million annual boardings, and if the average trip length were 30km, that would be 2.4 billion km of service in rider kms. 15x that of Brampton Transit. Even if we grant an overly generous 10km average trip for the Mississauga and Brampton systems, with 100 million annual boardings that equates to 1 billion rider km or just over 1/5 of GO. That's what I meant about it being "flattering" to more local system to use simple trip or rider figures when comparing to longer distance systems. It doesn't mean the longer distance systems are less efficient; it just means they're providing a different type of service that should be measured and evaluated using different methods.

One transit trip is one transit trip. One chance to leave the car at home, or no need to buy a car. One less parking space, both at home and at work. Bottom line is, Brampton Transit and MiWay provide more chance of that for Peel residents than GO does for all residents of the entire Greater Golden Horseshoe, even if you ignore the whole park-and-ride thing.

If there is anything that could be unfair about using boardings to compare local bus systems to commuter rail systems, it's that the commuter rail systems probably have fewer transfers.

If you want to use linked trips, Brampton Transit is 31.9 million, MiWay 41.2 million, GO Transit 60.3 million. Unlinked trips (boardings), MiWay is 56 million and GO 79 million. Brampton Transit probably is 44 million boardings, so 100 million boardings total for local transit in Peel.

If there is anything not "flattering" about these numbers, it's that the local bus systems don't rely so much on park-and-ride facilities. GO relies on people driving for its success. The local systems rely on people walking, both from origin and to destination. Their ridership is a measure of urbanity, walkability, while GO's ridership is a measure of sprawl. GO doesn't actually reduce cars and parking lots as much as its numbers might suggest. Maybe GO doesn't reduce cars and parking lots at all. That's why it's wrong to value a GO trip more than Brampton Transit or MiWay trip. Is it easier to serve motorists in the suburbs, or is it is easier to serve the pedestrians? Is GO really doing more? Is getting a suburbanite ride a local Brampton or Mississauga bus really such a small achievement compared to getting a suburbanite to drive to a GO station? Think about that.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Doady

But you wouldn't want electrified line to operate peak-hour, peak-direction only like a diesel line, right? I think we should expect a little more. If you make such an investment, the trains should be full in both directions operating at the same time.

According to GO's electrification plans there will be 2 way all day service in addition to extra trains running during the peak period in the peak direction. So this isn't an either or and the idea of eliminating rush hour as a transportation strategy isn't a viable one unfortunately. Transit agencies and planner have been wishing it were possible for years but alas it has yet to come to past.

Originally Posted by Doady

Of course, GO has ridiculously high cost recovery ratio but eventually it will be time for less. Lakeshore, Milton, Kitchener, and Stouffville eventually need to become true rapid transit: grade separation, high frequencies, in both directions at the same time. That means they need to serve more than just bedroom communities, and they need to be supported by strong local transit. As I said, we are laying the foundations.

You make it sound as if wanting to improve regional service is somehow pitting regional against local or ignoring the importance of local. But that's not what anyone suggested.

Originally Posted by Doady

One transit trip is one transit trip. One chance to leave the car at home, or no need to buy a car. One less parking space, both at home and at work. Bottom line is, Brampton Transit and MiWay provide more chance of that for Peel residents than GO does for all residents of the entire Greater Golden Horseshoe, even if you ignore the whole park-and-ride thing.

If there is anything that could be unfair about using boardings to compare local bus systems to commuter rail systems, it's that the commuter rail systems probably have fewer transfers.

If you want to use linked trips, Brampton Transit is 31.9 million, MiWay 41.2 million, GO Transit 60.3 million. Unlinked trips (boardings), MiWay is 56 million and GO 79 million. Brampton Transit probably is 44 million boardings, so 100 million boardings total for local transit in Peel.

If there is anything not "flattering" about these numbers, it's that the local bus systems don't rely so much on park-and-ride facilities. GO relies on people driving for its success. The local systems rely on people walking, both from origin and to destination. Their ridership is a measure of urbanity, walkability, while GO's ridership is a measure of sprawl. GO doesn't actually reduce cars and parking lots as much as its numbers might suggest. Maybe GO doesn't reduce cars and parking lots at all. That's why it's wrong to value a GO trip more than Brampton Transit or MiWay trip. Is it easier to serve motorists in the suburbs, or is it is easier to serve the pedestrians? Is GO really doing more? Is getting a suburbanite ride a local Brampton or Mississauga bus really such a small achievement compared to getting a suburbanite to drive to a GO station? Think about that.

Just imagine if we were carrying groceries home from the store and I had 20 items in 4 bags that weighed a combined 50lbs and you had a 50lb bag of potatoes and I claimed that I was clearly stronger and in better shape since I could carry more than you. Makes sense right? I'm carrying 20 items and you're only carrying one, and "one item is one item." Driving 30km takes a lot more time, uses a lot more energy, creates more pollution, and leads to more congestion. And reducing the number of cars parked downtown where space is more constrained is more important than reducing the number parked in suburban areas. Both are important but there's no way they're equal. I'm sorry but the idea that we should treat all trips equally even when some are multiple times larger and more impactful makes no sense to me. And you can be rest assured that it isn't because I haven't thought about it.

And don't forget - it makes little sense to attack GO for being too commuter focused when the whole reason for that is the current lack of off-peak service on many routes. Plus, having peak focused regional service encourages park and rides since it makes little sense to design the local system to feed into a station that only has service for a small part of the day, so it isn't very easy to access by local transit. But it does when there's all day, fairly frequent service.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

London's problem with it's transit development is that the city, has no unused rail corridors, no old industrial areas to plow thru, no wide streets, and no street that goes downtown that crosses the city. Added to this a fully built and solid urban form meaning any new infrastructure will require the destruction of many homes and even more traumatising for Londoners, the destruction of many trees.

I read that as "We have a vibrant city with a need for transit, but no cheap way to do it". Sounds like it is time to stop looking for cheap options, and start doing smart options.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I read that as "We have a vibrant city with a need for transit, but no cheap way to do it". Sounds like it is time to stop looking for cheap options, and start doing smart options.

Exactly. The only way it’s ever going to get done is, well, if you do it. If not now, then when?

[FrAnKs]

We got more details about the Tramway project in Québec City.
Alot have been said including the location & design of two important transit stations, but one of the major change is that Rue de la Couronne will become a pedestrian/Shared street (Tramway + Pedestrians + Bikes)
between Boulevard Charest on the south, to Rue du Prince-Édouard to the north.

This will greatly improve the St-Roch district.

Before/After (Photos courtesy Ville de Québec)





The street on google maps :

https://www.google.com/maps/@46.8148347,...KUfyw4p6tq5_xnc5IxWug!2e0!7i13312!8i6656