The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

This is the route I envisioned about a year ago which has a tunnel section under Gottingen, Barrington, and SGR. The part that extends into Dartmouth beyond the bridge terminal would be optional and maybe a 2nd phase.

It would feature long sections of dedicated lanes (Bayers, Robie, and Alderney) with both tunneled and elevated sections. It would have sole use of 3rd lane on bridge which alternates directions every 2.5 minutes allowing a blue line and a red line streetcar to cross together every 5 minutes in each direction during peak periods. A vehicle similar to the new TTC streetcars would provide reasonable capacity at this point seeing as they're 50% longer than our current artic buses.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Keep in mind that the overall size of a city has little to do with the specifics of a particular transit route. In other words, you're looking at the wrong thing. The important factors would be the cost vs potential ridership of the different options.

While someone already raised the Edmonton comparison, you can also compare to a larger metro area like Montreal which has about 70km of underground metro for a population of ~4 million which is about 1km for every 57k people. Using that figure Halifax could support about 7km, but we'd only need half that.

Originally Posted by Luisito

Everyone keeps saying a short tunnel. Are we talking half the line would be tunneled, 1/4 of it? Where would this tunnel be exactly??
Where off the peninsula has better terrain for a street car like people on here are asking for?

Not sure about anyone else, but I've been very specific in what I was referring to. My ideal is a tunneled section of about 3.5km, about the same as Edmonton LRT, which isn't short compared to something only a block or two but is very short compared to a fully underground route or system.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What a lot of such debates comes down to for me is that we need to move away from the goal of spending as little we can get away with spending and move toward the goal of building the best city we can afford to build.

I agree. It's not that I'm against a tunnel, but do you think Halifax could afford it? I mean hey, if money was no issue then go for it. There are other alternatives though.

[Luisito]

his is the route I envisioned about a year ago which has a tunnel section under Gottingen, Barrington, and SGR.

An elevated line along barrington from downtown through the north end would be cheaper, built quicker and run just as good. It could wrap around the peninsula very fast and make connections to other places, spryfield, clayton park, rockingham, bedfor, sackville etc etc. I like the idea of RT bridge over to Dartmouth.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Not sure about anyone else, but I've been very specific in what I was referring to. My ideal is a tunneled section of about 3.5km, about the same as Edmonton LRT, which isn't short compared to something only a block or two but is very short compared to a fully underground route or system.

How many of those stations on your map would be underground?

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

^Things like short cut and cover tunnel sections or sections that are mined out (like Ottawa's downtown LRT tunnel), rather than bored, can be pretty "cheap", especially if there are no underground stations. As I understand it, tunnels start to get very pricey when you have to launch a TBM and then dig deep, ventilated stations.

What are the bedrock conditions under downtown Halifax?

Can one of the downtown north-south streets and one of the east-west streets leading towards Dalhousie be sacrificed exclusively for transit and pedestrians/cyclists?

You can google Halifax rail cut and find pics and info on the rock that is the Halifax peninsula. I suspect that trenching out Barrington St. and recapping it is very doable and likely the best option for running LRT through city centre. And I don't really see a need to run anything towards Dal or Saint Mary's from city centre in terms of lrt. Using the the existing rail cut would allow for a stop a short walk from either school. The entrie pensinsula is very walkable and especially east west.

One thing I note is that Burnside, inspite of being one of the largest employment areas of the city, is perpetually left out of any musings on where rail should go. Also, in my reading of this thread and the Halifax Transit thread I haven't seen much talk or agreement on what issue/problem/whatever a rail solution in Halifax would provide. My personal perspective is that traffic congestion mainly caused by commutors is the primary issue and those commuters come from primarily off peninsula. Services, shopping and tourism by off peninsula folks factors in too. And then there are those who simply want to get around their city.

I'd like to see two intersecting lrt loops, one looping the basin and one looping the pennsula as a primary routing with expansion lines to heavier population nodes within the city in the future.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

You can google Halifax rail cut and find pics and info on the rock that is the Halifax peninsula.

Halifax has complicated geology. The peninsula has slate close to the surface which is probably relatively decent for tunneling. This is an area where locals make weird claims, that the whole city has granite under it, or it's hard to build tunnels because there is bedrock instead of soil.

The above-ground station point is a good one. I'm not sure it's been studied for Halifax. If there is room for a bus transit mall in the Cogswell area there is likely room for some kind of surface platform that leads to a tunnel.

I agree with the comment about trying to hunt for dollar savings with transit. It is not so much that planners try to avoid waste, it's that often the entire planning process is short-circuited by politicians implicitly deciding to start planning activities on projects they think are more affordable while they ignore others they think are unaffordable. And because the city amalgamated, most of the councillors are from the suburbs. The whole process is lacking in imagination and follows weird threads where you start from some imagined cheap starting point, then add requirements, then end up with a much bigger bill in the end anyway.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Luisito

How many of those stations on your map would be underground?

There would be 8, but they'd be very small and simple since it would be for 30m long LRVs. Similar to the Queen Quay streetcar stop if you're familiar with Toronto. Much cheaper than a metro station.

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

One thing I note is that Burnside, inspite of being one of the largest employment areas of the city, is perpetually left out of any musings on where rail should go. Also, in my reading of this thread and the Halifax Transit thread I haven't seen much talk or agreement on what issue/problem/whatever a rail solution in Halifax would provide. My personal perspective is that traffic congestion mainly caused by commutors is the primary issue and those commuters come from primarily off peninsula. Services, shopping and tourism by off peninsula folks factors in too. And then there are those who simply want to get around their city.

I find that Burnside's problems are more related to built form than a lack of transit. Burnside Dr. is basically a highway with nothing built directly on it requiring circuitous routing. Plus there are areas without sidewalks (or sidewalks on only one side) and intersections where there are overly long waits for walk signals. But there's plenty of room if the city ever wanted to build bus lanes. Both Windmill Rd through Burnside and Burnside Dr are already 6 lanes wide and have room on the sides to allow further widening if desired. Without the built form issues being addressed, I can't see higher order transit attracting much additional ridership.

In terms of the peninsula, the goals I personally consider most important are:

1) Allowing people to bypass congestion (which I agree largely comes from off peninsula) thus reducing travel times.
2) Reducing demand for in town parking (particularly surface parking) which would free up space for housing and other developments while making the city more attractive.
3) Making transit more comfortable and attractive to more people, many of whom dislike the slowness, unreliability and the rough ride of buses. This, along with the reduced travel times from goal #1, would increase transit usage helping to also achieve goal #2.

If a service that was faster, more comfortable, more frequent and more reliable served the peninsula, that would allow suburbanites to bypass central city congestion and eliminate the cost of driving and parking in town. So it would absolutely get a lot of usage.

These goals could also be supplemented by a central city congestion charge, perhaps something small like the $1.20 bridge toll equivalent when entering the peninsula from any direction. But I'd hesitate to support a congestion toll unless a transit alternative like I described existed out of fear it would drive retail and employment into the suburbs.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

I do think these density stats are pretty skewed for Halifax, though.

For example, Statistics Canada shows Halifax's downtown density at 6,200 per sq. km—the sixth-highest in the country, after Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa and Calgary.

But it also has the next closest ring of neighbourhoods—the downtown-adjacent “urban fringe”—at a dramatic density drop-off of only 1,340. That’s lower than the equivalent neighbourhoods in Regina and Windsor or even Drummondville. No offense to those cities, but that's ridiculous. A quick scan at Census Mapper will show that densities in the urban fringe areas, and the inner suburbs beyond, well into the thousands per square kilometre.

I think part of the issue is that the city's harbour creates a huge swath of empty area which is counted against the density statistics, and once you get farther out, there are large gaps between some suburbs where there is preserved forested areas (even close to the urban core) or large industrial/military uses. The actual effective density of the neighbourhoods is much, much, much higher than the 1,463 cited above.

Having said that: I'm not sure tunnelling is necessarily a great use of money in Halifax, at least outside of the most congested part of the city centre. It's sort of irrelevant anyway as it would likely require provincial funding, and that's very, very unlikely under the current government.

Edmonton is not on that list.... and it has a tunnel under the CBD, and it works well.

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

You can google Halifax rail cut and find pics and info on the rock that is the Halifax peninsula. I suspect that trenching out Barrington St. and recapping it is very doable and likely the best option for running LRT through city centre. And I don't really see a need to run anything towards Dal or Saint Mary's from city centre in terms of lrt. Using the the existing rail cut would allow for a stop a short walk from either school. The entrie pensinsula is very walkable and especially east west.

One thing I note is that Burnside, inspite of being one of the largest employment areas of the city, is perpetually left out of any musings on where rail should go. Also, in my reading of this thread and the Halifax Transit thread I haven't seen much talk or agreement on what issue/problem/whatever a rail solution in Halifax would provide. My personal perspective is that traffic congestion mainly caused by commutors is the primary issue and those commuters come from primarily off peninsula. Services, shopping and tourism by off peninsula folks factors in too. And then there are those who simply want to get around their city.

I'd like to see two intersecting lrt loops, one looping the basin and one looping the pennsula as a primary routing with expansion lines to heavier population nodes within the city in the future.

I look forward to see how they will dig 250 feet down to cut and cover to cross the peninsula.

[MalcolmTucker]

Halifax is a unique problem. Destinations relatively close together that don’t feel very close together. 600m from the convention centre would cover off almost all of downtown but it wouldn’t connect to the ferries.

A tunnel is not the expensive part, stations are ludicrous. So a challenge:

If you were going to do 4 underground stations for Halifax: where would they be?

Stations in rail cuts are so much more affordable so should use them as much as possible.

Then use elevated to fill in the gaps to keep roads functional while building.

I’d aim for a cost of a modern Canada Line. $4 billion or so target.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Edmonton is not on that list.... and it has a tunnel under the CBD, and it works well.



I look forward to see how they will dig 250 feet down to cut and cover to cross the peninsula.

Who would suggest such a thing? I wouldn't...and didn't. I did suggest that Barrington St. could be trenched and capped and certainly there would be no need to go 250 feet down.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Halifax is a unique problem. Destinations relatively close together that don’t feel very close together. 600m from the convention centre would cover off almost all of downtown but it wouldn’t connect to the ferries.

A tunnel is not the expensive part, stations are ludicrous. So a challenge:

If you were going to do 4 underground stations for Halifax: where would they be?

Stations in rail cuts are so much more affordable so should use them as much as possible.

Then use elevated to fill in the gaps to keep roads functional while building.

I’d aim for a cost of a modern Canada Line. $4 billion or so target.

I find the best approach for transit involves choosing the details of a system based on what's appropriate for the city rather than deciding on the details in advance and imposing them on a city regardless of appropriateness. City centre rapid transit tends to be best with a station spacing of 400-500m which is what you typically see in Toronto and Montreal. Transit expert Jarett Walker also recommends 400m spacing as the best compromise between longer distance express transit and shorter distance local transit since the walking distance isn't unreasonably long to get to the stations while it's far enough apart to not compromise travel speed as much as typical bus stop spacing of 300m or less. In that context, it makes sense why the 3.5km tunneled section I suggested would have 8 stops.

But since we're talking about very small stations only about 30m long, it would take 5 to equal one MTL metro station and 4 to equal an Edmonton LRT station. So there's already a cost savings there.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

If you were going to do 4 underground stations for Halifax: where would they be?

I don't even think 4 underground stations would be needed. One possible sequence:

- Above ground station at University Ave for the universities and hospitals along the median there
- Underground station for Spring Garden Road area
- Underground multimodal complex with station on tunnel for downtown that connects ferries and buses and partly dumps onto the new square/mall being built on the Cogswell land
- Tunnel continues but above-ground station is built on North Common (lots of people will be mad about this but let them be mad; also put more public amenities there)
- Tunnel continues to Young and Robie somewhere, station there is above ground
- Line eventually continues to mainland suburbs above ground

This would be the basic skeleton of a decent route that would have a good variety of destinations on it and population. It's a much better route than any currently available route like the rail cut. I agree with the earlier point that the density numbers are often very misleading.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

But since we're talking about very small stations only about 30m long, it would take 5 to equal one MTL metro station and 4 to equal an Edmonton LRT station. So there's already a cost savings there.

"This is a small city so we need really small stations, nothing like Edmonton" could be a footgun. While the city is smaller, it's not smaller than Edmonton was when they first planned and built their LRT, and a lot of the specific neighbourhoods are either quite dense and busy now or are likely to be in 10+ years.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't even think 4 underground stations would be needed. One possible sequence:

- Above ground station at University Ave for the universities and hospitals along the median there
- Underground station for Spring Garden Road area
- Underground multimodal complex with station on tunnel for downtown that connects ferries and buses and partly dumps onto the new square/mall being built on the Cogswell land
- Tunnel continues but above-ground station is built on North Common (lots of people will be mad about this but let them be mad; also put more public amenities there)
- Tunnel continues to Young and Robie somewhere, station there is above ground
- Line eventually continues to mainland suburbs above ground

This would be the basic skeleton of a decent route that would have a good variety of destinations on it and population. It's a much better route than any currently available route like the rail cut. I agree with the earlier point that the density numbers are often very misleading.



"This is a small city so we need really small stations, nothing like Edmonton" could be a footgun.

I really don't see any benefit to the city for building an underground system as you describe. Does it solve any transportation issues in terms of speeding up travel or lessening traffic congestion. It's just a ten minute walk from Granville mall to either the north common or SGR. I would think a touristy trolley using at grade rail and on a circ route around downtown would satisfy the need of those who really don't want or can't walk short distances. I can see an underground for the length of Robie as a spur line off of a loop around the peninsula utilizing the rail cut and undergrounding the Barrington St. portion.

[Nouvellecosse]

A big consideration in station spacing is whether the new route can replace most or all bus service on the corridor since that will have a huge affect on ridership. With stations too far apart you still need local bus service but the bus service would be worse since you'd have lower frequency to match the lower demand. Plus you could harm ridership by not getting people conveniently close to their final destinations since even if it's a distance most are physically capable of walking, people are in a hurry, we get crappy weather sometimes, etc.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

"This is a small city so we need really small stations, nothing like Edmonton" could be a footgun. While the city is smaller, it's not smaller than Edmonton was when they first planned and built their LRT, and a lot of the specific neighbourhoods are either quite dense and busy now or are likely to be in 10+ years.

Edmonton didn't need stations as big it has so I'm not sure why they chose that configuration other than (distant) future proofing. Edmonton has capacity for 5 car LRV trains while it was only about a decade ago that Calgary had to upgrade allowing 4 cars despite it having much higher ridership.

Regardless, the pre-pandemic Canada line carried around 140k people per day with 41m trains not even running at max frequency while the King streetcar carried around 80k per day with the same 30m rolling stock as I'm suggesting. So I based my rolling stock suggestion on the likely capacity needed rather than the city size. The current articulated buses are around 18m long, so a tunnel carrying 30, 30m long LRVs per hour is the equivalent about 8 of the route 1 capacity since it runs every 10 min. And 30tph isn't even the max possible frequency.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Halifax is a unique problem. Destinations relatively close together that don’t feel very close together. 600m from the convention centre would cover off almost all of downtown but it wouldn’t connect to the ferries.

A tunnel is not the expensive part, stations are ludicrous. So a challenge:

If you were going to do 4 underground stations for Halifax: where would they be?

Stations in rail cuts are so much more affordable so should use them as much as possible.

Then use elevated to fill in the gaps to keep roads functional while building.

I’d aim for a cost of a modern Canada Line. $4 billion or so target.

My pick for stations on the peninsula are:
Dalhousie U
Via Station
Ferry Terminal
Scotia Square
Barrington and the MacD bridge.
Ypung and Robie
Halifax Shopping Centre.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1e1uSBEo2e30x-bbjxkSOfXKTxCRqIW8&usp=sharing

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

Who would suggest such a thing? I wouldn't...and didn't. I did suggest that Barrington St. could be trenched and capped and certainly there would be no need to go 250 feet down.

Can you show me places where one line was built using both a TBM and cut and cover? I am not talking different phases, but one phase of construction.

The other problem is cut and cover is very disruptive. In a city where getting around by car is hard enough, adding one street, and potentially lots of cross streets not able to access it for YEARS is not a good plan for community buy in.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I find the best approach for transit involves choosing the details of a system based on what's appropriate for the city rather than deciding on the details in advance and imposing them on a city regardless of appropriateness. City centre rapid transit tends to be best with a station spacing of 400-500m which is what you typically see in Toronto and Montreal. Transit expert Jarett Walker also recommends 400m spacing as the best compromise between longer distance express transit and shorter distance local transit since the walking distance isn't unreasonably long to get to the stations while it's far enough apart to not compromise travel speed as much as typical bus stop spacing of 300m or less. In that context, it makes sense why the 3.5km tunneled section I suggested would have 8 stops.

But since we're talking about very small stations only about 30m long, it would take 5 to equal one MTL metro station and 4 to equal an Edmonton LRT station. So there's already a cost savings there.

That is the smartest approach to future building of transit. Saying "Well, this city is small, so spending billions on transit that is not worth it" is the biggest problem.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

A big consideration in station spacing is whether the new route can replace most or all bus service on the corridor since that will have a huge affect on ridership. With stations too far apart you still need local bus service but the bus service would be worse since you'd have lower frequency to match the lower demand. Plus you could harm ridership by not getting people conveniently close to their final destinations since even if it's a distance most are physically capable of walking, people are in a hurry, we get crappy weather sometimes, etc.

I'd imagine that most of the routes serving the peninsula would no longer exist, but each roadway that has transit would still likely see a single bus route serving it with ~15 minute service.

[Nouvellecosse]

Come to think of it, I suspect the reason Edmonton needed longer trains is that the line has full priority but not full grade separation. The line crosses major multi-lane streets like 112th, 95th and 82nd at grade with crossing boom like a traditional railroad crossing, so if trains were too frequent the crossing boom would basically be down all the time and traffic on these major arterial roads would be blocked. In the Hfx example, outside the tunnel it would be more like St. Clair with full ROW but not full priority. It would be much faster than a bus because of the ROW, wider stop spacing and partial signal priority, but not such complete priority as to snarl road traffic. The high frequency would also add convenience. At peak, it would be every 4 min between downtown and Mumford, 4 min between downtown and Bridge, and 4 min between Mumford and Bridge.

Also, this could be a sort of "pre-metro" where in the distant future the rest of the route could be grade separated to make it a full light metro line. Copenhagen metro has 39m trains on its light metro so while platform lengthening is expensive, this might be a good far future option. Paris and Madrid lengthened platforms on a couple of their lines as well.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Regardless, the pre-pandemic Canada line carried around 140k people per day with 41m trains not even running at max frequency while the King streetcar carried around 80k per day with the same 30m rolling stock as I'm suggesting.

Peak matters more than daily ridership, right? The Canada Line seems undersized to me, along with a lot of the SkyTrain system, and I was on it when it was quite full (crush loads, forget about getting a seat; getting bikes or luggage on was awkward too) only a few years after it opened.

Re: trenches along Barrington one tunnel advantage is it doesn't necessarily have to follow the streets. The streets are narrow and even the old Birney cars had trouble with some of those intersections due to the turning radius and grade issues.

[Arrdeeharharharbour]

[QUOTE=swimmer_spe;9812860]My pick for stations on the peninsula are:
Dalhousie U
Via Station
Ferry Terminal
Scotia Square
Barrington and the MacD bridge.
Ypung and Robie
Halifax Shopping Centre.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1e1uSBEo2e30x-bbjxkSOfXKTxCRqIW8&usp=sharing


I like this list. The only addition I'd make is Point Pleasant Park. With the exception of the Young and Robie stop, all stops are on a loop route around the peninsula and could use the existing rail cut and Barrington St. (underground downtown and street adjacent from Cogswell north). Undergrounding a route the length of Robie from a transfer station near the Mckay to Saint Mary's is making more and more sense given that the lions share of ridership will be by off peninsula residents as that's where most citizens live and Young and Robie is becoming and will become more densely populated.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

My pick for stations on the peninsula are:
Dalhousie U
Via Station
Ferry Terminal
Scotia Square
Barrington and the MacD bridge.
Ypung and Robie
Halifax Shopping Centre.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1e1uSBEo2e30x-bbjxkSOfXKTxCRqIW8&usp=sharing

Originally Posted by Arrdeeharharharbour

I like this list. The only addition I'd make is Point Pleasant Park. With the exception of the Young and Robie stop, all stops are on a loop route around the peninsula and could use the existing rail cut and Barrington St. (underground downtown and street adjacent from Cogswell north). Undergrounding a route the length of Robie from a transfer station near the Mckay to Saint Mary's is making more and more sense given that the lions share of ridership will be by off peninsula residents as that's where most citizens live and Young and Robie is becoming and will become more densely populated.

The rail cut is too far from Dal to be useful.