The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by jamincan

What makes you say that?

ION takes so long and its route’s so circuitous from Downtown Kitchener to Fairview Mall...

[jamincan]

Unfortunately with Covid, it will be some time before we have a good measure of ION's success or failure, however, it would be a mistake to consider ridership alone in assessing its success. Nevertheless, looking at ridership, the 200 iXpress route, which was the precurser to ION had already exceeded projections for ION before the LRT was ever in place.

On the other hand, one of the key objectives of ION from the start was to reshape development patterns in the region and spur intensification along the corridor. By that measure, it is already an unqualified success with over $3 billion invested in the corridor before the LRT opened, and redevelopment continuing aggressively.

[Reecemartin]

Check out the newly constructed platform at Toronto's Kennedy GO station!
https://youtu.be/Po99V7GvIF0

[scryer]

Originally Posted by jamincan

On the other hand, one of the key objectives of ION from the start was to reshape development patterns in the region and spur intensification along the corridor. By that measure, it is already an unqualified success with over $3 billion invested in the corridor before the LRT opened, and redevelopment continuing aggressively.

In other words you have moved the "goal posts" to measure transit system success with.

A transit system needs to actually be used by people in order for it to be successful. Otherwise it will fail like the many American LRT systems.

TOD should always be a by-product of a transit system, not the focus; rather the focus should be on converting drivers into transit users by giving them a system that is convenient and reliable. TOD is just a really nice by-product at the end of the day. And there was nothing stopping the Kitchener-Waterloo region's urban planning committee(s) from planning for transit pathways and nodes either.

BTW if you think that people aren't going to continue to take precautions (including using their own private vehicles) beyond 2020 due to the pandemic, then you are seriously underestimating the lasting effects that this pandemic is going to have.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by ue

Ok, so obviously it isn’t as black-or-white as this. For example, as another poster noted, the build out of the Trillium and Confederation Lines will hit many key Ottawa destinations.

However, if we look at it as purely as you’re saying (or at least how I’m interpreting your words), Ottawa is doing a cheap build out which will enable it to have a very large light rail system even if they don’t hit ideal locations. What is the benefit of this? Surely any cost benefit to the cheaper build out will be lost if you’ve got an inconvenient track route that misses a large sum of people.

Just build the track where people are and where people want to go. You’ll get a better ROI even if it’s more expensive.

Well... I'd say that Ottawa is going for a cheap-buildout, that happens to hit many important destinations. Purely coincidence, really.

As with Trillium that utilized a seldom used railway, the Transitway was built along former rail corridors. It was conceived to serve suburban commuters working along employment nodes in the centre of the city. Many high density areas were skipped, such as a 4 km stretch between Westboro station and Lincoln Fields, with Dominion being added in the late 90s at the request of the NCC, in exchange for OC Transpo's continued use of the Ottawa River Parkway. The Confederation Line is partially resolving this with a few infill stations however, the suburban focus is clear when areas like Jasmine Crescent, a high-density low income neighbourhood on the east extension, does not get a station, while a low density area like Convent Glen with absolutely no TOD potential will be served by rail.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by scryer

In other words you have moved the "goal posts" to measure transit system success with.

I haven't moved the goalpost. From the very start the project had transportation goals as well as development goals. It exceeded both before the LRT even opened for service, so it's hard to consider it a failure in any sense based on the goals of the project itself.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Well... I'd say that Ottawa is going for a cheap-buildout, that happens to hit many important destinations. Purely coincidence, really.

As with Trillium that utilized a seldom used railway, the Transitway was built along former rail corridors. It was conceived to serve suburban commuters working along employment nodes in the centre of the city. Many high density areas were skipped, such as a 4 km stretch between Westboro station and Lincoln Fields, with Dominion being added in the late 90s at the request of the NCC, in exchange for OC Transpo's continued use of the Ottawa River Parkway. The Confederation Line is partially resolving this with a few infill stations however, the suburban focus is clear when areas like Jasmine Crescent, a high-density low income neighbourhood on the east extension, does not get a station, while a low density area like Convent Glen with absolutely no TOD potential will be served by rail.

Meh. A cluster of mid-rise apartment buildings is density by Ottawa standards. But debatable if it's worth $70 million in station construction. It's a nice to have. Not a must have.

One can argue against Convent Glen. But then, you'd basically be arguing against most of the LRT in Orleans, because a lot of that extension will rely on feeder bus traffic. And that's exactly what the station spacing and placement are designed for. Which is why there's a stop at Orleans Boulevard.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Meh. A cluster of mid-rise apartment buildings is density by Ottawa standards. But debatable if it's worth $70 million in station construction. It's a nice to have. Not a must have.

One can argue against Convent Glen. But then, you'd basically be arguing against most of the LRT in Orleans, because a lot of that extension will rely on feeder bus traffic. And that's exactly what the station spacing and placement are designed for. Which is why there's a stop at Orleans Boulevard.

Transitway bus stations in the 80s and 90s would not have been more than a million, depending if you had Dominion style bus shelters of a proper station structure like Westboro (minus the trench).

The City will now be adding Sherbourne and New Orchard, as open trench stations within the Byron Strip tunnel. I'd estimate $10 million each, tops. Cut-and-Cover subway stations, as Sherbourne was supposed to be, might have been $15-$20 million.

I can't find the article, but back when Rideau station was moved to Rideau street from under Confederation Square, their was a debate regarding the addition of a fourth station downtown to serve the NAC. Watson quickly shut it down saying we didn't have an extra $30 million for an additional station, indicting that the Confederation Line downtown stations were relatively cheap considering their size and depth. The tunnel and stations came to $500-$600 total.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Transitway bus stations in the 80s and 90s would not have been more than a million, depending if you had Dominion style bus shelters of a proper station structure like Westboro (minus the trench).

The City will now be adding Sherbourne and New Orchard, as open trench stations within the Byron Strip tunnel. I'd estimate $10 million each, tops. Cut-and-Cover subway stations, as Sherbourne was supposed to be, might have been $15-$20 million.

Let's say $10-20 million. How much ridership are you getting for that amount? Jasmine is not a station that would have feeder bus traffic. And the number of midrise buildings there won't provide much. The major corridor nearby will have its own station (Montreal Rd). There's no potential commercial development nearby either, that would generate traffic. Costco shoppers aren't known for transit usage. So the argument is for a station to be built with no development value at all, no bus feeder traffic, and a small cluster of midrise buildings. I would bet money on this having lower ridership than Cyrville. Especially with the coming developments in the vicinity of Cyrville station. So is it worth $20M? I wouldn't be upset if the city spent that money. But I have real doubts that it really is going to do a ton for transit other than save a transfer for a few hundred transit users per day.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Let's say $10-20 million. How much ridership are you getting for that amount? Jasmine is not a station that would have feeder bus traffic. And the number of midrise buildings there won't provide much. The major corridor nearby will have its own station (Montreal Rd). There's no potential commercial development nearby either. So the argument is for a station to be built with no development value at all, no bus feeder traffic, and a small cluster of midrise buildings. I would bet money on this having lower ridership than Cyrville. Especially with the coming developments in the vicinity of Cyrville station.

Jasmine would serve a low-income area where car ownership is lower. It would also serve a high school and arena.

Orleans Boulevard serves a low density, mid-income neighbourhood. The closest of those SFH is 350 meters away. The walk-on ridership will be nearly non-existent. I understand that it could have some potential feeder-bus ridership, but I have my doubts because Jeanne d'Arc and Place d'Orleans are more logical drop-off stations.

[J.OT13]

Transitway shelters along Albert and Slater are being removed marking the end of a 35-40 year run as the Ottawa's central transit node, and possibly enough trust in the Confederation Line after a little over a year of operations.


https://twitter.com/Brienm/status/1332410047834583043

[scryer]

Originally Posted by jamincan

I haven't moved the goalpost. From the very start the project had transportation goals as well as development goals. It exceeded both before the LRT even opened for service, so it's hard to consider it a failure in any sense based on the goals of the project itself.

That has everything to do with urban planning and development goals, not with the transit system itself. You even said it yourself that the developments were happening before the LRT opened and with that said: the government could have switched technologies along the transit corridor unaffecting the developments that were under already construction, if the government wanted to. You are letting the new wave of developments jade your view of the ION system. If there were no developments (or even a significantly reduced number of developments) planned around any of the ION stations, would the system be effective on. Its. Own? Isolate the system from the developments and you get a very different set of metrics to work with.

Is the recent development around the ION stations correlated with the ION system itself? Absolutely and I am not denying that however it was the updated urban plans that allowed for those developments to take form as the city council could have up-zoned any time that they wanted to.

It's also short-term thinking to consider that the ION system can solely drive development in the long term if the system itself isn't convenient to use. Businesses that operate in denser zones expect the downtown core to be accessible and to have more foot traffic. Some of the American LRT systems did see a brief boom in developments at the time their initial LRT systems were created but they then saw a decline 5-10 years out. And I fear that the ION network has a similar structure to those declining American LRT systems. It doesn't help drive development either because if you have an inconvenient transit system in place then developers are going to catch on quite quickly that the LRT system isn't actually a strong selling point.

TBF, we won't know what the ridership numbers will be like until a year after the pandemic is over (and assuming that another virus doesn't ravage the global population... again). And until then, I won't judge the ION system to be either a success or a failure because it really still remains to be seen. And don't get me wrong, I am happy that the Kitchener-Waterloo region took a leap and invested in its transit but I am certainly confident that you need to use metrics (like PPHPD) to measure the system's actual functionality.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Jasmine would serve a low-income area where car ownership is lower. It would also serve a high school and arena.

Again though, the local income area is effectively only the cluster of buildings right near the station. Not that many units. Say 1000 units. How much ridership do you think that generates? You can't even count on ridership from north of Ogilvie because those areas will have bus routes which feed Montreal or Blair as part of the bus service on those avenues themselves.

And a high school and arena really aren't huge trip generators for rail. A lot of those students are either walking to school or bussing from nearby. Very few are likely to have a trip that gets them on to the LRT elsewhere.

There would have been much, much more of a case, if the city hadn't allowed a massive big box retail plaza to be built within walking distance of a potential station location. Maybe in 20 years when someone can offer enough cash to buy out Costco and densify that spot, we'll have better justification to build a station at Jasmine. Till then, it's a 10 min bus ride to Montreal or Blair station for them.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Orleans Boulevard serves a low density, mid-income neighbourhood. The closest of those SFH is 350 meters away. The walk-on ridership will be nearly non-existent. I understand that it could have some potential feeder-bus ridership, but I have my doubts because Jeanne d'Arc and Place d'Orleans are more logical drop-off stations.

Every bus route running on that boulevard (and several will be rejigged to serve the station) will stop at that station. It doesn't need walk-on ridership to be successful. A good example of this in Toronto is McCowan station. For decades nothing in its immediate vicinity, but plenty of feeder ridership to be worthwhile. This works when buses don't have to divert off a given boulevard to feed a station.

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Check out the newly constructed platform at Toronto's Kennedy GO station!
https://youtu.be/Po99V7GvIF0

Thank you! Very cool!

[J.OT13]

Happy Goat Coffee has opened it's first O-Train location at Blair Station. Three more will open in the coming months at Hurdman, Rideau and Tunney's.







https://twitter.com/TimTierney/status/1334880700235984899

[Reecemartin]

Happy to say, here's our second video of the day! This looks at the New Union Station Bus Terminal, a beautiful multilevel indoor bus facility for Downtown Toronto! https://youtu.be/oyXj9HA7qj0

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by craner

http://https://globalnews.ca/news/7509243/calgarys-green-line-lrt-derailed-mciver/

That's a Doug Ford move, with the cancelation of the Hamilton LRT. Claim the cost estimates are way off during the RFP process and cancel the project before the bids come in. Pushing the Green Line another year would only increase the costs further, not just because of inflation and competition from other similar projects around the country, but also because the Province and City can not be taken seriously.

[Chadillaccc]

Actually having read the article, it sounds like merely a rumour. The transport minister himself even said basically "that's not what I said" and so did his press secretary.

If he did that, it would turn even more Calgarians against the UCP, and all but guarantee an NDP victory in 2022, as Calgary is of course the key to the election. I could see them delaying it so they can take credit to try and get more votes in 2022, despite them being the main cause of delays so far.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Actually having read the article, it sounds like merely a rumour. The transport minister himself even said basically "that's not what I said" and so did his press secretary.

If he did that, it would turn even more Calgarians against the UCP, and all but guarantee an NDP victory in 2022, as Calgary is of course the key to the election. I could see them delaying it so they can take credit to try and get more votes in 2022, despite them being the main cause of delays so far.

You mean 2023 right (not that I'd love to have the election sooner!)?

[milomilo]

While it probably is still better the Green Line gets built, it would be nice to see the Council and city admin get punished for their collective incompetence (even though it's us that suffer really). And the wailing of the irrational "Green Line is the perfectest project ever" fanboys will be a delight.