The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[someone123]

A lot of the modern streetcar projects in the US or Europe are pretty well-liked and successful though. I think part of what's going on is Canada has threadbare utilitarian transit services and a lot of the benefit of streetcars is in the form of subjective "frills" (nicer and more desirable to have in a given urban area, more environmentally friendly). Plus in Canada we do not do a good job of allowing mixed use of rail lines, either in terms of scheduling or mixed light/heavy rail, so a portion of the advantage of rail is unrealizable. Most cities have rail corridors that are much less congested than the streets, but are not by themselves great transit routes and cannot be fully dedicated to transit.

The lack of mid-range options is apparent in a place like Halifax and I suspect Winnipeg is also in the "uncanny valley" of transit where buses don't quite cut it but subway or LRT are unaffordable or impractical. In Halifax there is no great route that serves the city and it is not economical to build a $1B line to serve 1/5 of the metro. They are moving to a BRT corridor and transfer type system and I could imagine one or more of those corridors (e.g. green line for those familiar with the plans) being worth turning into a streetcar at some point, maybe with small underground or elevated portions. I think bus tunnels could also be good and there's a bottleneck area where they could put in a cut-and-cover tunnel while doing some other work but probably won't. It is possible that battery electric and self-driving buses will change the calculus too.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

The toolkit of transit infrastructure development in most Canadian cities seems to be missing mid-range options. Options like streetcars or gondolas or short sections of bus tunnel that avoid bottlenecks.

There's an easy solution in most cases: give up road space to transit. Ottawa would be just fine in all the cases mentioned with a bus lane in each direction. A lot of what Ottawa residents consider "busy" would be typical suburban traffic in a larger city. They just don't want to do that. So then naturally, the logic becomes that the only way to support transit is to tunnel. If you want to see something bizarre in Ottawa, ask about the Bank St subway. A demand to build a tunneled subway 2 km from an existing fully grade separated heavy rail corridor (Trillium Line). On an avenue with less bus ridership Pre-Covid than say Finch or Wilson in Toronto.

Originally Posted by someone123

I hope at least that electric buses will become the norm in a few years so the diesel buses will be gone.

I hope so too. It's disappointing that the feds haven't leaned into this a bit more. There's transit money to buy electric buses. But what would help is a few billion in infrastructure dollars to fix up the garages and install en route chargers for all operators, so that transit authorities can go full electric over the next decade. The should have dedicated $2-3B specifically towards bus electrification infrastructure over the next 5-8 years. This would have allowed transit operators themselves go to Q
100% electric bus purchases on their own. The total cost of ownership of electric buses is already cheaper. The hurdle is mostly the initial infrastructure cost and the higher initial purchase cost. The Feds could and should have helped with this.

Electrified fleets would also mean more predictable fare increases and better fiscal planning by transit authorities. No more having to deal with volatile oil prices in the budget. Fare increases will be based almost entirely around wage increases.

[casper]

Originally Posted by someone123

TransLink is planning to run the SkyTrain to Broadway/Arbutus and Fleetwood (Surrey) right now, and then the "future future" plans are UBC and Langley Centre.

UBC is a major commuter destination about 12 km from downtown. Langley has 25,000 people and is about 45 km from downtown. Some of the proposed alignment is farm fields and I am not sure it can ever be developed due to the ALR. The public discussion about this at one point revolved around "should the new multi-billion dollar extension to the small town be SkyTrain or 'light rail'?".

There is a significant difference the run out to Langley is relatively low cost elevated guideways. It would be a completely different discussion if we were talking about a subway tunnel.

[biguc]

A billion dollars on metro rail for 25 thousand people isn't right. I can't imagine a reasonable case for Langley getting Skytrain in the next 30 years. Just run a commuter train to PCS and some express busses into Surrey.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by someone123

A lot of the modern streetcar projects in the US or Europe are pretty well-liked and successful though. I think part of what's going on is Canada has threadbare utilitarian transit services and a lot of the benefit of streetcars is in the form of subjective "frills" (nicer and more desirable to have in a given urban area, more environmentally friendly). Plus in Canada we do not do a good job of allowing mixed use of rail lines, either in terms of scheduling or mixed light/heavy rail, so a portion of the advantage of rail is unrealizable. Most cities have rail corridors that are much less congested than the streets, but are not by themselves great transit routes and cannot be fully dedicated to transit.

The lack of mid-range options is apparent in a place like Halifax and I suspect Winnipeg is also in the "uncanny valley" of transit where buses don't quite cut it but subway or LRT are unaffordable or impractical. In Halifax there is no great route that serves the city and it is not economical to build a $1B line to serve 1/5 of the metro. They are moving to a BRT corridor and transfer type system and I could imagine one or more of those corridors (e.g. green line for those familiar with the plans) being worth turning into a streetcar at some point, maybe with small underground or elevated portions. I think bus tunnels could also be good and there's a bottleneck area where they could put in a cut-and-cover tunnel while doing some other work but probably won't. It is possible that battery electric and self-driving buses will change the calculus too.

Good post.

In Winnipeg's case, the city exists in the form it's in because of its streetcar network--the pattern of TOD suburbs, the wide avenues, the (formerly) thriving high streets. Ripping it out was a catastrophe and the city's struggled since.

It should be very easy for Winnipeg to rebuild the core of that network. Tram networks aren't inherently expensive if you keep them simple and are willing to take away road space, like Truenorth says. That shouldn't be a difficult decision; a tram line can move more people than a lane of traffic--responsible traffic engineering should dictate it. In Winnipeg's case, the pattern is already there, just start laying down track.


Light rail costs tend to get out of control because we want longer lines to deeper suburbs, more grade separation, no interference with road traffic, and palatial stations--we want metro systems. But most Canadian cities don't need that. All of Canada's mid-sized cities would get by fine with tram systems in the city and commuter rail systems to the suburbs and exurbs--as they do in Europe. Like you said, our service is threadbare and needs sweeping improvement. Unfortunately, few Canadians have much experience with rail culture and don't trust that existing modes work. When we start building, we run down a wish list to create some Platonically ideal "transit line" and end up with more expensive and, therefore, less overall transit.

[Truenorth00]

They don't even need to rebuild tram networks. Paint up bus lanes on major avenues and start running bus services with headways that are 10 mins or less.

Also, in Winnipeg's case, they tend to prefer buses because the city is home to one of the largest busmakers in North America. They should do a better job showcasing what buses can do though.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's not an entirely fair portrayal
Yes, Ottawa does suck with urban transit. No, Ottawa doesn't need a subway under every major avenue in the downtown core.

Imagine building a subway under Lawrence or Ellesmere/York Mills in Toronto. This is the level of development and density for most of Bank, Elgin and Montreal Rd. But thanks to the idea that no roadspace should be reserved for transit, they've convinced themselves that the only solution is expensive grade separation.

A better way to look at it would be to imagine a subway line going up Bay. Most people would se that as a good idea for a few reasons. First, it can alleviate some traffic off Yonge. Second, it serves more people.

I can see an LRT eventually under Bank or Elgin, or even Montreal Rd, but likely not till a phase 3 is built out.

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's true, but I think it's somewhat understandable.

No modern city would build streetcars the way they exist in their most low tech form in Toronto or Melbourne - the platforms are very narrow, kinda sketch and probably not built to some standards. And you have those super tight corners. When a modern city builds a streetcar, it's always closer to LRT than those old streetcars, with cost to match. So the question is; why spend the expense of LRT when you end up with something little better than a bus? You could just put in bus lanes and get 90% of the benefit (plus greater reliability).

The counter to that is it is politically easier to give a dedicated ROW to a train than a bus. And hence a streetcar/LRT is inherently better because the ability to cheap out and skip dedicated ROWs is lessened.

Toronto doesn't even want to built Streetcar lines, when what they are building is much like one. For an example, What is the difference between the 501, 504, 510 and Line 5? Besides the vehicles, not much.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's an easy solution in most cases: give up road space to transit. Ottawa would be just fine in all the cases mentioned with a bus lane in each direction. A lot of what Ottawa residents consider "busy" would be typical suburban traffic in a larger city. They just don't want to do that. So then naturally, the logic becomes that the only way to support transit is to tunnel. If you want to see something bizarre in Ottawa, ask about the Bank St subway. A demand to build a tunneled subway 2 km from an existing fully grade separated heavy rail corridor (Trillium Line). On an avenue with less bus ridership Pre-Covid than say Finch or Wilson in Toronto.

It is easy to say to give up road space, but, politically, it is a challenge. Look at what happens with bike lanes.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

They don't even need to rebuild tram networks. Paint up bus lanes on major avenues and start running bus services with headways that are 10 mins or less.

Also, in Winnipeg's case, they tend to prefer buses because the city is home to one of the largest busmakers in North America. They should do a better job showcasing what buses can do though.

Thunder Bay is the home of where the Bilevels and some LRVs are made, yet they only have buses. They don't even have intercity rail. So, just because it is made there, does not mean it is going to be used there.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

A better way to look at it would be to imagine a subway line going up Bay. Most people would se that as a good idea for a few reasons. First, it can alleviate some traffic off Yonge. Second, it serves more people.

I can see an LRT eventually under Bank or Elgin, or even Montreal Rd, but likely not till a phase 3 is built out.
...
It is easy to say to give up road space, but, politically, it is a challenge. Look at what happens with bike lanes.

Political infeasibility in a city is not going to be enough to convince the federal and provincial government to prioritize your city over so many other competing demands in the same province. In fact, an inability to prioritize transit in those corridors actually undermines the case for further higher capacity transit in those corridors. This is especially true in Ontario where the GTA makes up 50% of the population and every city is competing for transit dollars with the 416 and 905.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Thunder Bay is the home of where the Bilevels and some LRVs are made, yet they only have buses. They don't even have intercity rail. So, just because it is made there, does not mean it is going to be used there.

Way easier to use buses than it is to use LRVs and Bilevels. Especially in a city of 700k.

And I'm not endorsing the idea. I'm saying this is exactly why Winnipeg has had a long history of pushing bus only solutions. The problem is that they do it so badly. If they really wanted to make New Flyer look good, they'd be the BRT capital of North America, on their way to an all electric bus fleet. Kind of like how Shenzhen is a showcase for BYD in China.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

It is easy to say to give up road space, but, politically, it is a challenge. Look at what happens with bike lanes.

In the Halifax transit debates a lot of people bring up the "no space" argument when what they mean is that all available space is taken up for mixed traffic. Of course the traffic will tend to expand to use up the available road space. The point of reserving lanes and developing transit is partly to improve density, and transport more people using less land area. Saying there is no space for transit is like saying a city that is all houses has no space for an apartment building.

In Halifax there are transit priority lanes/corridors and they are being expanded. They actually go pretty far back, maybe to 2003 or so (MetroLink), but the city started expanding the system a lot around 2018 (Gottingen, Bayers, Robie, Bedford Highway coming).

This is a good change but it's compromised in that the busiest areas are 2 lane streets about 10 m wide and are hard to add a bus lane on, and around the core these dedicated lanes have many crossings (often less than 100 m apart) with other vehicle traffic, pedestrians, and cyclists. If the city keeps growing at the rate it's growing right now (around 2% per year, with a lot of that growth going to the urban core), I don't think this strategy is going to be sufficient on a timescale of 10-20 years, and the planning horizon for anything more elaborate is normally 5-10 years or more. It will work okay farther out in the suburbs but the service will be very slow in the urban core and there may even be congestion at times just around the bus terminals and stops. An ideal fix for this would probably involve some investment targeted at the inner city, not LRT lines that are 80% suburban by distance.

[Truenorth00]

Cities like Halifax are perfectly positioned to really make the best of an urban renaissance. It's easy to live car free in downtown Halifax. But this requires real pushback suburbanites and driving. I'm not sure these smaller cities have the fortitude to do that.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yes, Ottawa does suck with urban transit. No, Ottawa doesn't need a subway under every major avenue in the downtown core.

Nobody is really proposing that for every major avenue, though. Bank is easily Ottawa's major central north-south corridor and should be served as such by transit. Just like with its roadways, Ottawa lacks good north-south connections, either to the airport or to residential and commercial nodes outside of the core. Subway would not only help with this but would spur TOD along the way.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

It is easy to say to give up road space, but, politically, it is a challenge. Look at what happens with bike lanes.

This recently happened on Danforth and Bloor and life continued on. Would like to see it happen more on streets like Bay. University has bike lanes but still feels like a racecourse for cars.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Cities like Halifax are perfectly positioned to really make the best of an urban renaissance. It's easy to live car free in downtown Halifax. But this requires real pushback suburbanites and driving. I'm not sure these smaller cities have the fortitude to do that.

Well in Halifax there has been pedestrian, cycling, and transit oriented planning for many years now. The car oriented planning began to decline in the late 90's or so. The last faux highway traffic sewer plan for the inner city, a replacement plan for similar 60's-70's infrastructure, came out in 1998 or so and was never built. There was always a significant population there that lived without a car, and a lot of the city was built in the pedestrian era (approximately 1860's and earlier), before average people commuted by streetcar.

The planning problems there today aren't so much to do with attracting people into the core as they are to do with handling the growth that's happening or already happened as well as renewing and adapting old infrastructure. Lots of these plans are at odds with convenience for people who want to drive and park in the urban core.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Nobody is really proposing that for every major avenue, though. Bank is easily Ottawa's major central north-south corridor and should be served as such by transit. Just like with its roadways, Ottawa lacks good north-south connections, either to the airport or to residential and commercial nodes outside of the core. Subway would not only help with this but would spur TOD along the way.

Bank is one of several N-S corridors. There's also Bronson and more relevant to the discussion at hand the Trillium Line. Just because you drive on a street, doesn't mean that a subway should be built under it. And the argument gets even weaker when there's a fully grade separated rail line less than 2 km away, that will also be connected to the airport, in a year.

The only way to make a ridership case for Bank St would be to shut down the Trillium Line, because splitting ridership won't justify grade separation under Bank. And that is why no city planner puts it on any official plan because they all know that would be professionally embarassing. Not to mention the feds and province would laugh off any such idea having spent the better part of a billion on the Trillium Line already.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Bank is one of several N-S corridors. There's also Bronson and more relevant to the discussion at hand the Trillium Line. Just because you drive on a street, doesn't mean that a subway should be built under it. And the argument gets even weaker when there's a fully grade separated rail line less than 2 km away, that will also be connected to the airport, in a year.

Trillium Line doesn't service anything on Bank, though, and this argument really loses water once that is realized. Getting off the Trillium Line at Carleton does not make Lansdowne more accessible. Bronson isn't a good north-south corridor for transit because of this reason of the Trillium Line supposedly serving it enough (and because it's a four-lane racetrack for commuters). Riverside is an ok north-south route for transit if you're travelling from Hurdman but it's a bit of a loop around if you're going from downtown to South Keys, and St-Laurent isn't much of a north-south corridor for transit users.

This argument is akin to saying that Spadina shouldn't have streetcar service because the University Line is so close, and that's under the assumption that Trillium is a self-sufficient, respectable transit line which it really is not.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Trillium Line doesn't service anything on Bank, though, and this argument really loses water once that is realized. Getting off the Trillium Line at Carleton does not make Lansdowne more accessible. Bronson isn't a good north-south corridor for transit because of this reason of the Trillium Line supposedly serving it enough (and because it's a four-lane racetrack for commuters). Riverside is an ok north-south route for transit if you're travelling from Hurdman but it's a bit of a loop around if you're going from downtown to South Keys, and St-Laurent isn't much of a north-south corridor for transit users.

This argument is akin to saying that Spadina shouldn't have streetcar service because the University Line is so close, and that's under the assumption that Trillium is a self-sufficient, respectable transit line which it really is not.

Yes, the Trillium line corridor is 2-3 km west of Bank St.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Trillium Line doesn't service anything on Bank, though, and this argument really loses water once that is realized.

If one is strictly concerned about local travel on Bank, that is what bus service is for. Don't need billion dollar subways for that.

Originally Posted by JHikka

Getting off the Trillium Line at Carleton does not make Lansdowne more accessible. Bronson isn't a good north-south corridor for transit because of this reason of the Trillium Line supposedly serving it enough (and because it's a four-lane racetrack for commuters). Riverside is an ok north-south route for transit if you're travelling from Hurdman but it's a bit of a loop around if you're going from downtown to South Keys, and St-Laurent isn't much of a north-south corridor for transit users.

And yet none of this will show enough potential ridership to build a $2B subway, 2 km from a billion dollar heavy rail line. Yeah, people in Ottawa might think they are that important. But federal and provincial politicians are wondering what that $2B would buy them in the GTA (and elsewhere). And you're going to have a tough time arguing that Bank is more important than say Hamilton's LRT or Ion Stage 2 or London's BRT plan.

Originally Posted by JHikka

This argument is akin to saying that Spadina shouldn't have streetcar service because the University Line is so close, and that's under the assumption that Trillium is a self-sufficient, respectable transit line which it really is not.

No. This is akin to arguing that you need a subway under the streetcar because the surface transit solution (buses on Bank) isn't enough and the University line is too far away to serve Spadina. In Ottawa's case, the argument is more absurd because they haven't even bothered with building real high frequency surface transit to begin with.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If one is strictly concerned about local travel on Bank, that is what bus service is for. Don't need billion dollar subways for that.

Bus service frequent and consistent enough to properly service Bank would require such an extensive rework and reconfiguration of Bank's road network that you might as well bury a subway underneath anyway. Anyone who has attempted to take Bank bus service during peak hours can attest to how woeful it is. Bus service has limits as areas grow and densify, and once they reach a certain threshold are no longer suitable next to comparables like rail.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And yet none of this will show enough potential ridership to build a $2B subway, 2 km from a billion dollar heavy rail line. Yeah, people in Ottawa might think they are that important. But federal and provincial politicians are wondering what that $2B would buy them in the GTA (and elsewhere). And you're going to have a tough time arguing that Bank is more important than say Hamilton's LRT or Ion Stage 2 or London's BRT plan.

The entire crux of your argument is essentially 'there's no money' whilst at the same time highlighting how much funding has already been pumped into the woeful Trillium Line. If one was funded it seems likely that another would be funded, too, unless Ottawa disappears from the map and is no longer eligible for provincial and federal transit funding mechanisms.

I don't see why Bank would have to be more or less important than Hamilton or ION when there's clearly going to be, eventually, enough funding for all of them. I'm not asking for a Bank subway tomorrow - this is for 10-20 years down the line. The thing about forecasting for future transit and future densification of urban areas is that planning ahead is oftentimes better than trying to play catchup. Saying the Bank corridor doesn't have the density today doesn't mean anything when the subway won't be in service for another 25 years, by which time Bank will obviously be more dense and more suitable to the infrastructure you're building for.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, the Trillium line corridor is 2-3 km west of Bank St.

Look at the map. At its furthest (Bayview), the Trillium Line is 2.1 km from Bank. At its closest (South Keys), it's 170m away. From Ottawa South, walking to Carleton Station is 1.5 km. From the Glebe, Dow's Lake is 1.8 km. From Centretown, Corso Italia will be 1.9 km. There's no place where the Trillium Line even approaches anything like 2.5 km from Bank. Let alone 3 km.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Bus service frequent and consistent enough to properly service Bank would require such an extensive rework and reconfiguration of Bank's road network that you might as well bury a subway underneath anyway.

The only way demand is that high is if commuters from the South are funneled along Bank St. But they won't won't be. There's a train 2 km away that they can be dropped off at.

Originally Posted by JHikka

Anyone who has attempted to take Bank bus service during peak hours can attest to how woeful it is. Bus service has limits as areas grow and densify, and once they reach a certain threshold are no longer suitable next to comparables like rail.

We can talk when that happens. Right now, developers have a lot of choice real estate along the Confederation and Trillium Lines that they can build condos along. Why would they build along Bank? There's also downtown itself. And soon a bunch of new sites along Gatineau's LRT.

Originally Posted by JHikka

The entire crux of your argument is essentially 'there's no money' whilst at the same time highlighting how much funding has already been pumped into the woeful Trillium Line. If one was funded it seems likely that another would be funded, too, unless Ottawa disappears from the map and is no longer eligible for provincial and federal transit funding mechanisms.

I don't see why Bank would have to be more or less important than Hamilton or ION when there's clearly going to be, eventually, enough funding for all of them.

I really want to believe that money grows on trees. But so far even Santa Trudeau has been rather guarded in what transit projects they are funding. You can choose to believe there's enough money to go around that higher governments will build subways 2 km apart. But I don't see it.

Originally Posted by JHikka

I'm not asking for a Bank subway tomorrow - this is for 10-20 years down the line. The thing about forecasting for future transit and future densification of urban areas is that planning ahead is oftentimes better than trying to play catchup. Saying the Bank corridor doesn't have the density today doesn't mean anything when the subway won't be in service for another 25 years, by which time Bank will obviously be more dense and more suitable to the infrastructure you're building for.

In 25 years, there will be so much development along all the current LRT corridors, that Bank will be just another busy avenue, like Elgin. People will be substantially habitualized to using the Trillium Line then too. And it's not just me thinking like this. The city doesn't have it in any of their forecasts either.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

In 25 years, there will be so much development along all the current LRT corridors, that Bank will be just another busy avenue, like Elgin. People will be substantially habitualized to using the Trillium Line then too. And it's not just me thinking like this. The city doesn't have it in any of their forecasts either.

Bet. Will bookmark this for 2046.