The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Doady

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.

London gets less snow than Ottawa and way less accumulation. Even so, articulates are fine in the snow on regular bus routes. Where they CAN get a little more difficult is on fast open stretches of roadway like The Western Parkway used for Ottawa's Transitway. London will not be that kind of BRT but rather more akin to York Region. Also, BRT routes, outside of downtown, will not share the route with any other service and London has very few express routes and aren't planning on putting on the BRT but rather use community buses to feed into the BRT.

A big chunk of the reason why Ottawa's buses got so slow in the downtown and clogged up during the entire route was due to the many express buses that used it in rush hour but also because the dwell times at stations were much longer than they needed to be because Ottawa never brought in POP. London will be using POP on it's BRT.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

London gets less snow than Ottawa and way less accumulation.

The Wikipedia articles for each city has climate data.

London
Average yearly snowfall: 194.3 cm
Average snowy days: 60.3 days

Ottawa
Average yearly snowfall: 175.4 cm
Average snowy days: 52 days

[Chadillaccc]

For reference, the data on wikipedia is sourced from Environment Canada, and as such is of course reliable.

[Acajack]

Too lazy to check Wikipedia but I always thought Ottawa's annual snowfall average was around 220 cm.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Too lazy to check Wikipedia but I always thought Ottawa's annual snowfall average was around 220 cm.

It might have been many years ago.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

In 25-30 years when it's time for renewal get a new low-floor fleet with consistent door spacing as TheMatth69 suggested. Hopefully, they can also pair that with full automation.

Till then, we'll all have to live with it. They've advanced some Stage 2 vehicles to Stage 1. That would have helped alleviate overcrowding. If not for Covid, they probably would have bought more vehicles for Stage 2. But I doubt ridership recovers by Stage 2 completion in 2025, so they are probably good for now.

That sums it up. Hopefully in 30 years, more options will be available, not only a higher number and consistent spacing of doors, but as swimmer suggested (which does not exist today in low floor lrt), a continuous 100-120 meter train. My hope is that by Stage 3, we start demanding better adapted trains for our needs.

[hipster duck]

In transit, I feel that we should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and it's better to have multiple smaller-profile lines that create a more distributed network with redundancy than put all the eggs in one basket.

So, in Ottawa's case, I'd advocate building another medium-capacity line somewhat parallel to Line 1 before losing the line for a few years to make capacity upgrades. Maybe Carling-Bank-Rideau-Montreal? I'd leave it to Ottawans to discuss what an appropriate route might be.

In Vancouver's case, I'd advocate building a line roughly parallel to the Canada line rather than going through the onerous process of carving out larger stations, adding new entrances and exits and buying longer trains.

In Toronto, people are agonizing about how the Ontario Line will have smaller trains than the gigantic trains on the Toronto subway. That's kind of the point, though. Smaller trains run automatically and frequently have comparable capacity to large heavy rail metros, without much of the upfront capital cost. If it gets overloaded, they can always plan another relief line. That's a plus, not a minus.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It might have been many years ago.

The difference is in weather stations. Ottawa (Experimental Farm) reports less annual snowfall than Ottawa (Airport YOW) weather station.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

In transit, I feel that we should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and it's better to have multiple smaller-profile lines that create a more distributed network with redundancy than put all the eggs in one basket.

So, in Ottawa's case, I'd advocate building another medium-capacity line somewhat parallel to Line 1 before losing the line for a few years to make capacity upgrades. Maybe Carling-Bank-Rideau-Montreal? I'd leave it to Ottawans to discuss what an appropriate route might be.

In Vancouver's case, I'd advocate building a line roughly parallel to the Canada line rather than going through the onerous process of carving out larger stations, adding new entrances and exits and buying longer trains.

In Toronto, people are agonizing about how the Ontario Line will have smaller trains than the gigantic trains on the Toronto subway. That's kind of the point, though. Smaller trains run automatically and frequently have comparable capacity to large heavy rail metros, without much of the upfront capital cost. If it gets overloaded, they can always plan another relief line. That's a plus, not a minus.

I agree. I would never advocate for a rebuild of the Confederation Line in order to accommodate high floor trains. Shutting down the Transitway and the Trillium Line (twice in 20 years) has had negative impacts to service and the collective mental health, and shutdowns will only get worse as time goes on (Trillium will likely be shut down a third time at some point for double tracking/electrification).

The City made the decision to go low floor, for better or worse, and we'll have to live with that. The only thing we can hope for is future rolling stock that will be better adapted to our needs (similar to the rolling stock evolution in TO, MTL and VAN).

I'm a big advocate of a Carling-Bank-Rideau-Montreal rapid transit line whenever that may be warranted. Over the next 10 years, we will see parallel service in the west end with the Carling bus lanes (future surface LRT in still in the long-term official plan) and Baseline BRT. The south end has some redundancy with the Barrhaven Transitway (to be converted to LRT in the coming years as part of Stage 3), Trillium and SE Transitway. But there are no plans for any sort of rapid transit in the urban east end outside of the Confederation Line. There are plans for a Transitway in south Orleans however.

Confederation Line is an imperfect system, but it is still far better than the kilometers long lineups of buses we had previously.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

In transit, I feel that we should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and it's better to have multiple smaller-profile lines that create a more distributed network with redundancy than put all the eggs in one basket.

So, in Ottawa's case, I'd advocate building another medium-capacity line somewhat parallel to Line 1 before losing the line for a few years to make capacity upgrades. Maybe Carling-Bank-Rideau-Montreal? I'd leave it to Ottawans to discuss what an appropriate route might be.

In Vancouver's case, I'd advocate building a line roughly parallel to the Canada line rather than going through the onerous process of carving out larger stations, adding new entrances and exits and buying longer trains.

In Toronto, people are agonizing about how the Ontario Line will have smaller trains than the gigantic trains on the Toronto subway. That's kind of the point, though. Smaller trains run automatically and frequently have comparable capacity to large heavy rail metros, without much of the upfront capital cost. If it gets overloaded, they can always plan another relief line. That's a plus, not a minus.

The Skytrain and SRT are virtually the same, yet one has operators and one does not. Which makes me wonder why the Toronto Subways are not able to go full automatic. It is not the equipment. It is the union and workers who would lose their jobs.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The Skytrain and SRT are virtually the same, yet one has operators and one does not. Which makes me wonder why the Toronto Subways are not able to go full automatic. It is not the equipment. It is the union and workers who would lose their jobs.

I think there's some train control systems that need to be installed too in the TTC's case.

[ssiguy]

The reason there are few parallel rapid transit routes {Toronto & Montreal are the only 2 examples in Canada} is not only due to money but also politics. People who have little access to raid transit can very legitimately claim that their taxes shouldn't go towards another route running the same as one a few blocks away while they get squat.

Certainly is our biggest cities of Tor/Mon they are justified but no where else.

[MalcolmTucker]

Yeah the lines need to be used to near their breaking point to justify investment. A Calgary example that is the same flavour but different (not a parallel long line, but a parallel short segment) is unlocking an extra 20,000 ppdph on the existing LRT network by building a downtown tunnel for the Red Line.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

In transit, I feel that we should never let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and it's better to have multiple smaller-profile lines that create a more distributed network with redundancy than put all the eggs in one basket.

So, in Ottawa's case, I'd advocate building another medium-capacity line somewhat parallel to Line 1 before losing the line for a few years to make capacity upgrades. Maybe Carling-Bank-Rideau-Montreal? I'd leave it to Ottawans to discuss what an appropriate route might be.

If money grew on trees.....

This won't happen in anybody's lifetime here. The Confederation Line has enough capacity to last a generation or three. And the city took on gobs of debt to achieve that. The mayor has already said no more expansion, without the "Toronto deal". Ie 100% paid for by the province and the feds. And they most certainly won't be paying for a whole other line to parallel the existing one.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The Skytrain and SRT are virtually the same, yet one has operators and one does not. Which makes me wonder why the Toronto Subways are not able to go full automatic. It is not the equipment. It is the union and workers who would lose their jobs.

It is equipment. Need Mk II cars. And they won't fit on the existing guideway. They already had this debate in Scarborough. People don't want a year long shutdown just to get SRT 2.0 and still have the Kennedy transfer.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It is equipment. Need Mk II cars. And they won't fit on the existing guideway. They already had this debate in Scarborough. People don't want a year long shutdown just to get SRT 2.0 and still have the Kennedy transfer.

Vancouver and Scarborough RT ran the same train since the start of the operation.

[MalcolmTucker]

There is a tunnel in Toronto's case which is built around Mark I cars' dimensions.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

There is a tunnel in Toronto's case which is built around Mark I cars' dimensions.

You do know they can put the exact same equipment on a different shaped car? This is not an equipment issue, this is a personnel problem.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

You do know they can put the exact same equipment on a different shaped car? This is not an equipment issue, this is a personnel problem.

Oh, in the case of getting new cars. The SRT being manned is entirely a union/safety issue. Not sure if Toronto ever installed an intrusion detection system at their stations though.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Oh, in the case of getting new cars. The SRT being manned is entirely a union/safety issue. Not sure if Toronto ever installed an intrusion detection system at their stations though.

It is purely a union issue. The rest isn't as big of a deal. For the cost of a few union workers wages for a year, you could have the intrusion detection system.