The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Rail Fans was able to get the ridership numbers for both Trillium and Confederation in November 2019!!

Are these not publicly released? IIRC TTC releases station stats fairly regularly.

The weekend decline for Parliament is rough but I guess November is a fairly weak month for tourism which I assume would have some impact on that station in particular.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

This looks like a great project, aside from the hydrogen powered trains.

I think the opposite. Hydrogen is a great place to use and promote it's transportation abilities. Going into a national park, they want a zero emissions vehicle and catenary would cost a fortune more and battery would not be ideal in it's very cold climate and rough terrain.

Many countries in the world are ordering hydrogen trains and manufacturers are going full tilt into advancing them. Alstom was the lone player up until 3 years ago and now the giants of Siemens, Skoda, Talgo, Stadler, and CCRW offering hydrogen trains with Hitachi and Hyundai Rotem soon to follow.

Alberta is trying to promote it's huge hydrogen potential as it tries to wean itself off oil and a hydrogen train is a good place to start.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Are these not publicly released? IIRC TTC releases station stats fairly regularly.

The weekend decline for Parliament is rough but I guess November is a fairly weak month for tourism which I assume would have some impact on that station in particular.

Parliament and Lyon are in the central business district, which is dead on weekends. Even during peak tourism, I doubt those numbers would be much higher, with tourists likely to just walk (if already downtown, faster to walk than go in and out of the subway for one stop) or drive (if staying at a hotel outside downtown).

Not counting stations with extremely low ridership numbers, Rideau's numbers are solid even through the weekend as the most complete urban location. Lees, which serves high-rises with a high student population is also quite high, as well as St. Laurent, a major transfer station in the urban east-end (wide mix of income levels). All three maintain roughly 50% of their ridership over the weekend.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Are these not publicly released? IIRC TTC releases station stats fairly regularly.

Forgot to answer your question; no, it's not. Like pulling teeth to get anything out of the City of Ottawa. Rail Fans had to work hard to get those, no doubt.

They do release the annual numbers and have been doing monthly since the pandemic to gauge the pick-up (and drop-offs) of ridership since March 2020.

Note: I have to give props to the City for their GeoOttawa website with historical satellite imagery and all sorts of other layers (zoning, rail implementation, water, cycling. and dozens more) and their development applications website that gives the public access to all proposals that come through, along with related documentation. Other than those, City of Ottawa sucks on transparency, especially when it comes to transit.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I think the opposite. Hydrogen is a great place to use and promote it's transportation abilities. Going into a national park, they want a zero emissions vehicle and catenary would cost a fortune more and battery would not be ideal in it's very cold climate and rough terrain.

Many countries in the world are ordering hydrogen trains and manufacturers are going full tilt into advancing them. Alstom was the lone player up until 3 years ago and now the giants of Siemens, Skoda, Talgo, Stadler, and CCRW offering hydrogen trains with Hitachi and Hyundai Rotem soon to follow.

Alberta is trying to promote it's huge hydrogen potential as it tries to wean itself off oil and a hydrogen train is a good place to start.

I get what you mean. I feel that unless it is well proven, it could cause the system to shutdown if it is unreliable or worse.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

I get what you mean. I feel that unless it is well proven, it could cause the system to shutdown if it is unreliable or worse.

Hydrogen buses have worked just fine for decades. Applying it to trains is a scale-up plus storage ~ 1.2 MW peak power from the fuel cells (though applications in testing with CP may be include some with more or fewer) charging batteries with maximum output between 2.4-3.3 MW.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Hydrogen buses have worked just fine for decades. Applying it to trains is a scale-up plus storage ~ 1.2 MW peak power from the fuel cells (though applications in testing with CP may be include some with more or fewer) charging batteries with maximum output between 2.4-3.3 MW.

The difference is if a bus breaks down it does not block one of the 2 mainlines in Canada.

[Coldrsx]

Great to see a new express/direct bus from Downtown to YEG as part of this plan.


https://twitter.com/EMTSCommission/status/1583507800780836866

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Great to see a new express/direct bus from Downtown to YEG as part of this plan.

Are these bus routes or planned/existing LRT?

[Coldrsx]

Regional bus routes.

[swimmer_spe]

In Ontario, we just had a municipal election. I am wondering if that will change anything transit wise.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

In Ontario, we just had a municipal election. I am wondering if that will change anything transit wise.

Not expecting any changes. GTHA transit projects seem to be in the hands of Queen's Park/Metrolinx and every Mayoral candidate supported Stage 3 in Ottawa, with little talk of proposed BRTs that would frankly be more useful, for far cheaper. And of course, nothing to improve the terrible transit within Ottawa's urban core, because why serve areas that already reach density targets and use transit regularly when we have swaths of single family homes and fields that could use billions in rail investments.

[JHikka]

Transit frequencies in the GTA:


https://twitter.com/A320Lga/status/1583199451019366400?

The authors point out the clear frequency drop between Toronto and York/Brampton/Mississauga

Related to that, Brampton/Zum September ridership is up 11% over Sept 2019 despite currently having less service availability. September 2022 set an all-time monthly record for trips.

https://www.brampton.ca/EN/residents/transit/About-Us/Pages/Ridership.aspx

[Innsertnamehere]

That graphic also does a great job illustrating why the Hamilton LRT makes so much sense.

[hipster duck]

Wooo Guelph!

And, jeez, London doesn't even have any sub-15 minute service anywhere.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Not expecting any changes. GTHA transit projects seem to be in the hands of Queen's Park/Metrolinx and every Mayoral candidate supported Stage 3 in Ottawa, with little talk of proposed BRTs that would frankly be more useful, for far cheaper. And of course, nothing to improve the terrible transit within Ottawa's urban core, because why serve areas that already reach density targets and use transit regularly when we have swaths of single family homes and fields that could use billions in rail investments.

What about in Hamilton?

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Wooo Guelph!

And, jeez, London doesn't even have any sub-15 minute service anywhere.

London's transit was good when I lived there. The problem is building anything in its own ROW is a challenge. I almost think instead of BRT or surface LRT, they should bite the bullet and go for something underground..Then it can make the people who drive happy, and make the people who use transit happy.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What about in Hamilton?

As far as I know, the LRT is the only thing on the books, and that's Metrolinx.

As we saw in 2018, Ford made a unilateral decision to cancel the original LRT that was already up for tender, just to revive it a few years later at (probably) twice the price, but with Federal support. So I doubt Hamilton could make any new plans without Metrolinx/Queens Park.

If anything, he might just cancel it again to spite Horwath. Who knows.

Full disclosure, I did not follow the Hamilton election, so I don't know what was proposed, but if the race was as boring as everywhere else, I assume no new ideas came up transit wise.

[Doady]

The worse service across the border is mostly the result of lack of integration. The TTC refuses to provide any cross-boundary service, not even to Westwood Mall in Malton. The City of Toronto also bans incoming Mississauga, Brampton, York and Durham buses from picking up passengers and bans their outgoing buses from dropping off passengers. And of course there is the problem of fares, which especially affects York because of the long boundary they share with City of Toronto along Steeles Ave.

Of course, York could have done a much better job with Steeles Ave. even without Toronto's cooperation. A VIVA route along Steeles probably should have been their #1 priority in 2005. Steeles is a humongous gap in the York Region transit network. Steeles Ave is York's only continuous east-west transit corridor south of Rutherford Road and they have no route for it! It's just crazy.

You can also see similar gaps elsewhere in the 905 due to bad planning, like in Mississauga south of Dundas, where is the only one east-west transit corridor, Lakeshore Road. There was one other potential east-west transit corridor that was instead converted into a freeway, the Queen Elizabeth Way. The QEW is only bridge across the Credit River between Dundas and Lakeshore and it's only for cars and trucks, no local bus riders, cyclists, or pedestrians. That's a 4-5km gap, think about that. Not many north-south corridors in this area either, due to the conversion of the freeway, the route of the river, all the mansions, and again bad planning on top of all that. South Mississauga is a good example of what suburbs were like before TOD became a thing. New suburbs now not only with proper, continuous corridors closer together, but also development emphasizing those corridors, it is a much different time compared to the 50s.

I have to say, the way Derry Road stands out in north part of Mississauga is very strange to me. Unless things have changed due to COVID, Derry should not have more service or ridership than the adjacent Steeles corridor north in Brampton. Before COVID, the top east-west corridors in Mississauga were definitely Dundas, Bloor, Eglinton, and the 403/Transitway. The Queen and Steeles corridors in Brampton were on par with Dundas and Eglinton. I can understand if Derry has overtaken 403/Transitway due to less students and office workers, but all the others? Doesn't make sense, especially Steeles which is another industrial route just Derry. Maybe Steeles was more reliant on university students than I imagined.

Another one that stands out is McLaughlin parallel to Hurontario in Mississauga, but that's probably due to the LRT construction. I think the map still gives a good overall impression of quality of service in the GTA, but maybe can't look at it too closely, maybe no fault of the person who made the map.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

As far as I know, the LRT is the only thing on the books, and that's Metrolinx.

As we saw in 2018, Ford made a unilateral decision to cancel the original LRT that was already up for tender, just to revive it a few years later at (probably) twice the price, but with Federal support. So I doubt Hamilton could make any new plans without Metrolinx/Queens Park.

If anything, he might just cancel it again to spite Horwath. Who knows.

Full disclosure, I did not follow the Hamilton election, so I don't know what was proposed, but if the race was as boring as everywhere else, I assume no new ideas came up transit wise.

For Hamilton, I meant did any mayoral or councilor candidate try to say that Hamilton does not need an LRT?

[Doady]

Biggest problem with Hamilton was conversion of King and Main into one-way, removing one major east-west transit corridor from the city, increasing the walking distance to transit. Conversion back into two-way streets for King and Main is the most important thing about any LRT. If they had kept two two-way bus services when converting those two roads into one-way, maybe we wouldn't even be talking about LRT. Two separate buses routes would be able to handle that ridership easily.

Lower the walking distances to transit, that is the most important thing for successful transit, and that is what so many cities in the US forget when they funnel so much money into new LRT lines, often at the expense of the bus service too, increasing the walking distances even more.