The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think it is easy to say that it is small and can't have changed that much, but it had the fastest growing downtown population in Canada in the last census. +26%. I don't mean that as some kind of cheerleader point but a lot of those areas are fundamentally changing and their needs and the services they can support are already quite different from 10, 20, 30 years ago.

You can see a kind of phase change or tipping points in urban areas too. A lot of neighbourhoods in Halifax in the 90's and 2000's were degraded and became too low density to support day-to-day shopping, broad amenities, reliable transit, etc. They went from so-so places to live to attractive places to live for broader groups of people.

It's easy to say becuase it's true. Saying Halifax has the fastest growing downtown population isn't saying much. It was dead for a long time and doesn't have a big population to begin with. Downtown has grown and so have other areas I. With the cost of real estate on the peninsula so high, areas outisde will also grow.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by someone123

This picture reminded me of the conversation here. There probably was some kind of traffic issue but it might not be that unusual. Halifax has 2 harbour bridges, the newest being from 1970, with 3 lanes and 4 lanes respectively. It is growing at around 2% per year or maybe more. A few years ago the bridge commission said the 1970 bridge is falling apart and they planned to replace it with a 6 lane bridge by 2030 (timeline likely now slipped). You can see some buses mixed in there.


Source

Getting across the harbour is a whole other discussion....

So, lets discuss.
There is talk of a 3rd harbour crossing. Depending on who you talk to, it would be 4 lanes or more with 2 tracks for some sort of RT. It would connect the 111 at the other end and somewhere around where the Via station is.

Now, without getting any new crossing, you could run a commuter rail from almost Eastern Passage, up to Sackville and then back into Halifax on existing rail infrastructure.

Originally Posted by Luisito

Really? Not me...

What exactly are you wanting day one of it opening?

Originally Posted by Luisito

Not sure what you mean by that.

Commuter rail runs a few times a day. That can be fit within existing freight traffic coming out of the freight terminals.

sing the lines for rapid transit would require a train every 15 minutes or better. That will mean that the freight now has a smaller window to fit in.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Luisito

It's easy to say becuase it's true. Saying Halifax has the fastest growing downtown population isn't saying much. It was dead for a long time and doesn't have a big population to begin with. Downtown has grown and so have other areas I. With the cost of real estate on the peninsula so high, areas outisde will also grow.

The fact that a "dead" downtown is now the fastest growing one is a good sign.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Luisito

No i'm not. You brought up commuter rail being expensive and i simply pointed out it would be cheaper than buidling tunnels. I have not seen that commuter rail study you mention so i can't comment on that plan but commuter rail is not useless. Commuter rail if done right can provide good service to everyone if done right. Specially electric commuter rail.

It is useless for people on the peninsula because the rail cut doesn't offer any convenient station locations. So it would always be easier to take the bus that stops where you actually want to go. The problem I pointed out with expense is that it's very expensive compared to the small number of people you'd be serving. You can justify a more expensive project if you're serving a lot more people and replacing a lot of existing bus routes with a more efficient service.

[Luisito]

Commuter rail runs a few times a day. That can be fit within existing freight traffic coming out of the freight terminals.

sing the lines for rapid transit would require a train every 15 minutes or better. That will mean that the freight now has a smaller window to fit in.

[/QUOTE]

I don't know what trains you're talking about but no commuter trains i ever used only ran a few times a day or had any issues with freights. Did you mean to say a few times an hour??

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Luisito

I don't know what trains you're talking about but no commuter trains i ever used only ran a few times a day or had any issues with freights. Did you mean to say a few times an hour??

Look up West coast Express - Vancouver's commuter rail system.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Luisito

It's easy to say becuase it's true. Saying Halifax has the fastest growing downtown population isn't saying much. It was dead for a long time and doesn't have a big population to begin with. Downtown has grown and so have other areas I. With the cost of real estate on the peninsula so high, areas outisde will also grow.

Have you been back lately or looked at this data in detail?

[someone123]

There's another good food for thought image here showing the Cogswell area: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/1447785644

If you draw a line 4-5 blocks into the distance, that area will have a planned population increase somewhere in the 4-5k ballpark, with 2.5k on the Cogswell lands (plus tower pads not counted, St. Pat's-A multi 30 storey tower site, and so on). The 2016-2021 absolute change for the wider downtown area was +5k. Current transit plan is for an at-grade bus mall. They have an opportunity to do cut and cover underground infrastructure here although the window may already be closed.

[niwell]

As someone who didn't know a whole lot about Halifax beyond this site - I was floored at the amount of construction in the central city. Both when I visited pre-COVID and again this past September. Hell, there even seemed to be a fair bit of change between the two visits. My wife pointed out areas that were quite sketchy when she worked in the music industry and visited but are now full of new builds.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The fact that a "dead" downtown is now the fastest growing one is a good sign.

Yes it is. That is a good thing. I never said it wasn't

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by niwell

As someone who didn't know a whole lot about Halifax beyond this site - I was floored at the amount of construction in the central city. Both when I visited pre-COVID and again this past September. Hell, there even seemed to be a fair bit of change between the two visits. My wife pointed out areas that were quite sketchy when she worked in the music industry and visited but are now full of new builds.

I was astonished too. My dad's family is from Halifax so we visited often when I was a kid, but I hadn't been back since 2002 until I visited this year in late October/early November. It feels like a real boomtown right now.

Not just downtown, either. The suburbs were full of new condo towers and other types of new-build multi-family housing.

[Luisito]

I know the Scarborough line 3 is supposed to stop running sometime in 23 but does anyone know exactly when? I might be in TO in a few months and was hoping to catch some video and pics of this line before it shuts down.

[swimmer_spe]

https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/10026...o-bring-back-northeastern-passenger-rail

"Ontario Taking Next Steps to Bring Back Northeastern Passenger Rail

The Ontario government is purchasing three new trainsets as part of its plan to bring back northeastern passenger rail service. The $139.5 million investment marks a significant milestone in reinstating service between Timmins and Toronto,

The new rail cars will be built by Siemens Mobility Limited and will meet the latest EPA Tier 4 emission standards, making them one of the most environmentally friendly diesel locomotives on the market. The fully accessible fleet will include built-in wheelchair lifts, mobility aid storage spaces, galley style food services and fully accessible washrooms.

The trainset interiors will also feature spacious seating and modern amenities, including Wi-Fi connectivity and passenger information systems with audio and visual announcements.

Once reinstated, northeastern passenger rail service will be offered from four to seven days a week, based on seasonal travel demands."

They are expected to arrive by 2026.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/10026...o-bring-back-northeastern-passenger-rail

"Ontario Taking Next Steps to Bring Back Northeastern Passenger Rail

The Ontario government is purchasing three new trainsets as part of its plan to bring back northeastern passenger rail service. The $139.5 million investment marks a significant milestone in reinstating service between Timmins and Toronto,

The new rail cars will be built by Siemens Mobility Limited and will meet the latest EPA Tier 4 emission standards, making them one of the most environmentally friendly diesel locomotives on the market. The fully accessible fleet will include built-in wheelchair lifts, mobility aid storage spaces, galley style food services and fully accessible washrooms.

The trainset interiors will also feature spacious seating and modern amenities, including Wi-Fi connectivity and passenger information systems with audio and visual announcements.

Once reinstated, northeastern passenger rail service will be offered from four to seven days a week, based on seasonal travel demands."

They are expected to arrive by 2026.

Originally Posted by savevp

Glamour shot:



More here: https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/10026...o-bring-back-northeastern-passenger-rail

I'm always in favour of passenger rail initiatives, especially when it is a government commitment instead of a pie-in-the-sky private venture.

In the wake of the retrenchment of passenger bus service when Greyhound left the Canadian market, I don't really see an alternative to the government providing critical transport services to remote communities (that are large enough to warrant scheduled service).

Furthermore, the piggy-backing of this rail initiative on an existing train order is just brilliant. It boggles my mind how rarely this sort of this occurs in Canada, so I'm thrilled when it occurs. For example, why haven't the country's major transit agencies formed a purchasing pool that would assemble their bus orders and put them out for competitive tender that would likely attract more bidders and/or offer lower per-unit pricing than when they individually go to tender?

With that said, I don't know if $140 million is a good price for three passenger trainsets. Strikes me as high, but honestly, I have no idea. And I'm sure it includes maintenance packages and warranties and all sorts of things that are not purely rollingstock.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

I'm always in favour of passenger rail initiatives, especially when it is a government commitment instead of a pie-in-the-sky private venture.

In the wake of the retrenchment of passenger bus service when Greyhound left the Canadian market, I don't really see an alternative to the government providing critical transport services to remote communities (that are large enough to warrant scheduled service).

Furthermore, the piggy-backing of this rail initiative on an existing train order is just brilliant. It boggles my mind how rarely this sort of this occurs in Canada, so I'm thrilled when it occurs. For example, why haven't the country's major transit agencies formed a purchasing pool that would assemble their bus orders and put them out for competitive tender that would likely attract more bidders and/or offer lower per-unit pricing than when they individually go to tender?

With that said, I don't know if $140 million is a good price for three passenger trainsets. Strikes me as high, but honestly, I have no idea. And I'm sure it includes maintenance packages and warranties and all sorts of things that are not purely rollingstock.

Metrolinx does pooled bus orders for most of Ontario, even though they don't technically cover the entire province.

The TTC is large enough that it usually doesn't participate, but most of southern ontario's bus orders are pooled together in single orders coordinated by Metrolinx.

The original budget for the trains in the business case was $143 million, so $139.5 million is actually slightly under budget.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The original budget for the trains in the business case was $143 million, so $139.5 million is actually slightly under budget.

Shows the danger of accurate estimating and disclosure. Each bidder is likely to play a game of closest to the prediction while still winning.

[hipster duck]

Well, I wasn't expecting the Northlander to come back with fancy new trains!

Good for Northern Ontario. That said, it's still going to be a slow journey with the same capacity restrictions. I wonder how much it would cost to speed up the service with better fixed capital. I'm not expecting fancy stuff, but some sidings here and there along the CN Bala sub and maybe sprucing up the track along the ONR-owned portion could really help.

In terms of services, I kind of wish they had ordered more than 3 trainsets. Maybe 5, and then run a twice daily Muskoka-Toronto service (Toronto-Gravenhurst-Bracebridge-Huntsville), or offer other services within Northern Ontario, like Sudbury-North Bay.

Still, this is much more than I expected, and we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Not just downtown, either. The suburbs were full of new condo towers and other types of new-build multi-family housing.

Statistics Canada compiled some good data as part of the 2021 census showing where new population growth happened in the metro areas: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/220209/t005b-eng.htm

In Canada, it has shifted more toward inner parts of metros with Halifax being one of the most extreme examples of that. In Halifax, the overall growth went up and development became majority multi-unit in the early 2000's. But if you listened to a lot of debates you would think that most people lived in increasingly far-flung detached houses and the puzzle of how to provide transit to that population is the prime task of transit planners.

There are different ways of looking at this. One is the "expand the service geography" model. These days, in Halifax, that means pushing buses out into exurbs to serve 5k more people per census period. An alternate view is to ask what kind of new transportation infrastructure you will need for the 10, 20, 30k new people (or 100k in a few decades) who are moving into already built-out parts of the metro. That is how you get to streetcars, LRT, tunnels, etc. The net tax base increase from this intensification will be large.

[ssiguy]

someone123................thanks for that StatsCan link, that's pretty cool. It's very interesting to see how the urban environment has changed in Canada in the last few decades.

We are all aware of the decline in downtown/inner city populations that happened in the 4 decades of post-war development. It is referred to as the "donut"............hollowing out downtown while the burbs exploded which is why we also saw the decline of downtown vibrancy as the suburban mall craze went full steam. This trend only started to halt in the 90s when most downtown population had finally bottomed out.

Today the term used by urban geographers is the "dartboard"..........resurgent downtowns and inner city populations and booming exurbs but now it's a hollowing out of those same once booming 50s to 80s suburbs that are stuck between the 2. Those thousands of SFH that once housed Mom, Dad, and 4 kids are now full of empty nesters or new family with, at most, 2 kids. The homes are still there but they house far fewer people. This is why even in fast growing cities you can still have huge swaths of the city declining in population.

[Coldrsx]

Positive news for the final important leg for 'city-wide' LRT in Edmonton.

'Budget - '$20 million to acquire land for Metro Line LRT expansion (Blatchford to Castle Downs)'

The RED Line going NW from NAIT/Downtown.





https://villageatgriesbach.com/lrt-expands-to-north-edmonton/