The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I'm no transit expert, so I can't say for sure, but low floor results in a reasonably low height difference between the platform and the rail bed, which is more conducive to people stepping down on the raill bed. Abundant chain link fencing along the lines make it susceptible to tresspasing and breaches from animals.

Some modifications could be made to make the RoW less penatrible. For the platforms, we may need platform screen doors, which is near impossible to implement due to the asymmetrical nature of low floor lrt vehicle doors.

On top of that, I don't believe there are any fully automated low floor vehicles on the market. I doubt any manufacturer would produce one for the only City (I'm pretty sure) that uses low floor for a metro system.

"I am no transit expert"....

Since you are no transit expert, how can you claim that no manufacturer would produce one?

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Re-engineering? What are you talking about?

The RFP hadn't gone out. No engineering had been done.

So, let me see if I understand this.... No money is spent before the RFP? We both know that isn't true. So, all that money spent now needs to be spent again. Preliminary engineering happens before the RFP goes out.

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Ottawa's system is capable to fully automated operation save for intrusion detection. Which is much easier to add in this day and age. Whether the people of Ottawa would have been compatible - I doubt it would have worked. They are really used to putting their hand in a door to delay departure from their experience with buses. Would have been an even larger schmozzle on rollout.

Edmonton's new retrofitted system on their high floor system is similarly capable by spec. Not that it even worked for block control in reality.

So, in a few years, possibly with Phase 2, we could see full ATC?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, in a few years, possibly with Phase 2, we could see full ATC?

With the P3 arrangement having OCTranspo workers driving the trains of private operators, I doubt it. But, as time goes on, it will get closer and closer to SRT style operators, as it was supposed to be from day one until the door issue led them to go a bit more human in the loop.

That being said, I suspect at least some of the maintenance issues comes from the automated cycles of breaking and acceleration - not having any randomness leads to tiny over wear, which leads to flat wheels, which leads to rail issues in the same spots.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

With the P3 arrangement having OCTranspo workers driving the trains of private operators, I doubt it. But, as time goes on, it will get closer and closer to SRT style operators, as it was supposed to be from day one until the door issue led them to go a bit more human in the loop.

That being said, I suspect at least some of the maintenance issues comes from the automated cycles of breaking and acceleration - not having any randomness leads to tiny over wear, which leads to flat wheels, which leads to rail issues in the same spots.

So, over a decade or so, we will have a low floor, almost ATC in Ottawa?
That is great!


I can see other cities looking at Ottawa for direction of how to do things.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

"I am no transit expert"....

Since you are no transit expert, how can you claim that no manufacturer would produce one?

I did not claim no manufacturer would ever produce a fully automated low floor train. I said I personally don't believe.

You asked what the difference is between low and high floor. Truenorth and I presented our arguments. If you don't agree, that's within your right. I'm bowing out of this particular conversation.

[rbt]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, in a few years, possibly with Phase 2, we could see full ATC?

Confederation line uses SelTrac; it's already a moving-block CBTC based system.

[Chadillaccc]

Some people were mentioning Lethbridge Transit the other day, I forgot to post these images of their fairly progressive transit plan. This is from 2017, before the city had even passed a population of 100,000.





Source: https://www.lethbridge.ca/living-here/ge...ments/News/TMP_Presentation_July2017.PDF

[Doady]

Lethbridge is a good example of how committed post-war Canadian cities are to serving new communities with bus service. It's a good example why Canada has 3 times higher transit ridership than USA. Only in Las Vegas can you see some meaningful commitment to buses in a post-war city and it shows in the above-average ridership by US standards. I think that's what it all about, just having a complete bus network that everyone can use. BRT vs. LRT vs. subway doesn't matter.

I think upgrading from bus or light rail is just about capacity. Like London, they are in the snowbelt, and articulated buses can't operate in the snow, so they will have build LRT sooner rather than later. That was the problem with Ottawa building BRT. A place with both heavy ridership and heavy snow? Disaster was inevitable. You can also see Toronto ignoring capacity issues of the Yonge subway and prioritizing light rail along corridors like Eglinton, which is too narrow for light rail in the first place.

I think Canadian cities should not get into the mentality of building rail just for the sake having more rail, especially light rail just for the sake of having more light rail, like so many places in the US. Rail vs. bus is just about capacity, not about attracting riders, as the lower ridership of US cities shows. Canada does not need follow that same path. A place like Lethbridge is on the right path, even without rail.

[ssiguy]

London already runs articulated buses and the RT lines will be articulated.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

London already runs articulated buses and the RT lines will be articulated.

Yes, they run (5?) articulated buses, but probably not when it's snowing.

Here in Mississauga, there are like 60-70 articulated buses, but they stay in the garage when it is snowing. Even when it is not snowing, an artic can get stuck in a bus bay that hasn't been cleared. I've seen it happen and I've actually been forced to get off buses because of it.

London gets way more snow and they will not be able to rely on artics as much as Mississauga does. To build BRT instead of LRT and is just a mistake there, just as it was for Ottawa.

[Acajack]

There was the one infamous photo of Ottawa's artics stuck in the snow but they ran them for decades without major issues. I took them many times even during snow storms. The location of the photo is actually in Gatineau and has a particular geometry and had particular conditions that day. The photo is wrongly held up as an exemple of typical performance of OC Transpo artics in winter.

Gatineau still runs artics, even when it snows.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There was the one infamous photo of Ottawa's artics stuck in the snow but they ran them for decades without major issues. I took them many times even during snow storms. The location of the photo is actually in Gatineau and has a particular geometry and had particular conditions that day. The photo is wrongly held up as an exemple of typical performance of OC Transpo artics in winter.

Gatineau still runs artics, even when it snows.

This is the sort of thing that happened a couple times a year during particularly bad snow storms. As Acajack pointed out, it was not as big of an issue overall as what people may assume.


https://raisethehammer.org/article/3581/...ns_on_challenges_of_upgrading_brt_to_lrt

The central Transitway was a far bigger problem, where buses lined-up for kilometers a dozen+ times a year, even when the weather was more than cooperative.

These pics were from the back-to-school service after Labour Day 2015 when the Transitway east of Hurdman closed for rail conversion, but it was not a rare sight even before Line 1 construction.




https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/major-delays-to-oc-transpo-tuesday-morning

Pre rail conversion and Transitway shut-downs. 2011 and 2015. Also known as the unibus. The omnibus. The conga line. The red and white snake.




https://austinrailnow.com/tag/bus-upgraded-transit/


https://austinrailnow.com/tag/bus-upgraded-transit/

[begratto]

Originally Posted by Doady

Like London, they are in the snowbelt, and articulated buses can't operate in the snow, so they will have build LRT sooner rather than later.

Montreal and Quebec City both have hundreds of articulated buses and they are operated all year round. Running them in the snow has never been a problem.

[J.OT13]

Lots of animals getting lost, trapped, or finding a home at Ottawa's Confederation Line stations.

This was a raccoon at Lyon station back in August. Somehow got through the doors and down two flights of stairs 15 or so meters underground.




https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/raccoon-spotted-at-oc-transpo-station-1.5064234

An owl at Hurdman station recently got trapped between two panes of glass along a flight of stairs. Twitter video, so I can't embed it on the forum.

https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1337118680140951552

Raccoons making a home within the elevator shroud at Pimisi station in September 2019.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/raccoon-lrt-pimisi-station-insulation-1.5291273

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, let me see if I understand this.... No money is spent before the RFP? We both know that isn't true. So, all that money spent now needs to be spent again. Preliminary engineering happens before the RFP goes out.

Money is spent. It's not close to substantial in the grand scheme of things. Changing the requirement to heavy rail wouldn't mean a complete restart by any means. Especially after they already spent all that time defining a fully grade separated and completely segregated rail line. Maybe a few more months and a few million more. And that cost would have been entirely recouped from cheaper rolling stock. It was a boneheaded ideological decision. From a city that also bungled their first LRT plan and spent tens of millions in cancellation fees, it's not that surprising.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, in a few years, possibly with Phase 2, we could see full ATC?

Kinda pointless if they have to have an operator in the cab, for various other reasons.

What was a mistake was not designing a fully automated system from the start as most cities designing a new metro from scratch are doing these days.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The central Transitway was a far bigger problem, where buses lined-up for kilometers a dozen+ times a year, even when the weather was more than cooperative.

These pics were from the back-to-school service after Labour Day 2015 when the Transitway east of Hurdman closed for rail conversion, but it was not a rare sight even before Line 1 construction.




https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/major-delays-to-oc-transpo-tuesday-morning

Pre rail conversion and Transitway shut-downs. 2011 and 2015. Also known as the unibus. The omnibus. The conga line. The red and white snake.

People have poor memories of how bad this was. It leads to a lot of rose tinted glass views. I'll wait for let's friend to tell us how everything would have been just fine with both a downtown surface tram and BRT and how the second phase of the original plan would have got us a tunneled LRT running in parallel to the surface tram.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

People have poor memories of how bad this was. It leads to a lot of rose tinted glass views.

BRT - while economical in the 1980s - simply just couldn't cope at rush hour anymore in Ottawa by the early 2000s.

It's a shame that the parsimonious nature of the capital led to such delays in constructing the Confederation Line. I can't imagine dozens of buses conga-lining it through downtown (with associated labour costs) was any cheaper than an LRT in the long run.

I hope the low-floor thing doesn't have the same thing happen - cheaping out now to only pay more in the future.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by wave46

BRT - while economical in the 1980s - simply just couldn't cope at rush hour anymore in Ottawa by the early 2000s.

It's a shame that the parsimonious nature of the capital led to such delays in constructing the Confederation Line. I can't imagine dozens of buses conga-lining it through downtown (with associated labour costs) was any cheaper than an LRT in the long run.

The delays aside, Ottawa does offer a model to follow. They built infrastructure that matched capacity to demand and created corridors that could then be developed in to LRT.

If you want to see how cost-effective this model is compare the entire O-Train network to the Eglinton Crosstown in Toronto. For $6.8B Ottawa is getting 64 km of fully grade-separated, fully segregated exclusive right-of-way and 43 stations built in 13 years from approval to completion. Toronto is spending $5.5B for 19 km, only 10 km of which is grade separated and exclusive, with 25 stations, in 11 years. Ottawa is getting substantially more capacity and capability for its $$$ and a lot of that comes down to building the Transitway network when land was cheap.

Originally Posted by wave46

I hope the low-floor thing doesn't have the same thing happen - cheaping out now to only pay more in the future.

It will. Ultimately, it provides less capacity than high platform heavy rail. So eventually, Ottawa will have to shut down the line to do a massive refit and upgrade. Or build a second tunnel through the core if demand really overwhelms the line. Admittedly that's a ways off. What bothers me more is that the inefficiency of light rail in this situation has probably made network expansion more expensive than it needs to be, which probably means less rapid transit in the long run.

[Reecemartin]

Exciting to start off 2021 with more major transit progress! Today the new Kipling Bus Terminal in Toronto's West opened! Connecting Mississauga buses to the TTC Subway!

https://youtu.be/3ZVVHbL8Izs

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Money is spent. It's not close to substantial in the grand scheme of things. Changing the requirement to heavy rail wouldn't mean a complete restart by any means. Especially after they already spent all that time defining a fully grade separated and completely segregated rail line. Maybe a few more months and a few million more. And that cost would have been entirely recouped from cheaper rolling stock. It was a boneheaded ideological decision. From a city that also bungled their first LRT plan and spent tens of millions in cancellation fees, it's not that surprising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Line
What's a couple of million when you are spending over 2 billion, right?

High floor LRT, using the same geometry as the existing rolling stock costs how much less per car?

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Kinda pointless if they have to have an operator in the cab, for various other reasons.

What was a mistake was not designing a fully automated system from the start as most cities designing a new metro from scratch are doing these days.

What can they not switch to automatic to get rid of the driver? AFAIK there is nothing they do that cannot be automated.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What's a couple of million when you are spending over 2 billion, right?

$6B actually for the Confederation Line between Stage 1 and Stage 2.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

High floor LRT, using the same geometry as the existing rolling stock costs how much less per car?

Probably a few hundred thousand per train. But the real cost comes from having to build longer than necessary platforms (and stations), and being forced to buy more trains for a given capacity target because LRVs have lower capacity. And this is then perpetuated long into the future.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What can they not switch to automatic to get rid of the driver? AFAIK there is nothing they do that cannot be automated.

It's not the driver that is the problem. Full automation requires proper protection of the corridor. Preferably platform screen doors. Which is why REM built fully enclosed platforms for their fully automated system. The added benefit will be the highest frequencies of any service in Canada and a fully climate controlled platform.