The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[niwell]

As someone who heard about Portland non-stop as an urban planning student I was pretty underwhelmed when I finally made it there 5 or so years ago. As noted above the transit system felt quite slow, and not really that much more substantial than the portions of Toronto's streetcar streetcar system running in it's own ROW. Very different than Calgary's system. The actual streetcar far moreso and seemed a bit useless tbh. Wasn't too impressed with the cycling infrastructure either, despite how often it comes up - mostly just paint and drivers had less awareness than I expected.

Cool city, had a good time, fun bars (though the WC chill was in full effect), beautiful scenery. Just not exactly the urban planners paradise the image at the time had cultivated.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by niwell

As someone who heard about Portland non-stop as an urban planning student I was pretty underwhelmed when I finally made it there 5 or so years ago. As noted above the transit system felt quite slow, and not really that much more substantial than the portions of Toronto's streetcar streetcar system running in it's own ROW. Very different than Calgary's system. The actual streetcar far moreso and seemed a bit useless tbh. Wasn't too impressed with the cycling infrastructure either, despite how often it comes up - mostly just paint and drivers had less awareness than I expected.

Cool city, had a good time, fun bars (though the WC chill was in full effect), beautiful scenery. Just not exactly the urban planners paradise the image at the time had cultivated.

It's an urban planners paradise from the American perspective maybe, but for an outsider, not so much.

This from a guy who's never really been outside Canada.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by niwell

Cool city, had a good time, fun bars (though the WC chill was in full effect), beautiful scenery. Just not exactly the urban planners paradise the image at the time had cultivated.

Portland was a bit of an early mover on some urbanism issues, which may explain why it’s a bit underwhelming when you experience it 10-15 years after the fact.

I think it was one of the only American cities doing anything like tying land use to transit expansion in the late 1990s, and it had some quirky, citizen-led spontaneity around things like food trucks and restaurant and proto-craft brewing in the early ‘00s (think Toronto equivalents of the time like Mill St, Steam Whistle and Amsterdam, only with more inventive selections) before the craft brewery movement exploded.

I first visited in 2010 and was quite impressed, but the rest of the world has caught up and surpassed Portland in the areas they specialized in, and Portland has stood still.

[Acajack]

Yet another sign that there isn't exactly a bromance between François Legault and Pierre Poilievre.

Last week when Quebec announced that the third link across the St Lawrence between Quebec City and Lévis would only be for "collective transport" (ie mostly transit), Poilievre responded that a federal Conservative government won't be contributing to any such project that doesn't involve private vehicles.

This announcement by Quebec also made me chuckle as people always claim that the CAQ is an evil rurally-focused right wing government beholden to suburban and rural interests.

They just went against rural and suburban people on one of the biggest issues in recent years, and sided with the city slickers and more progressive types.

Not that I think they're having an ideological shift.

They're just very pragmatic. And electoralist too.

[Nouvellecosse]

The federal conservatives don't contribute to any infrastructure that doesn't involve private vehicles? So that not only rules out urban transit but also mainline railroads, ports, dams, airports, the power grid, military bases...

I wonder if he was having a stroke. If so, best wishes for his recovery.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The federal conservatives don't contribute to any infrastructure that doesn't involve private vehicles? So that not only rules out urban transit but also mainline railroads, ports, dams, airports, the power grid, military bases...

I wonder if he was having a stroke. If so, best wishes for his recovery.

I don't know if that's a blanket requirement or if it was just related to the third Québec-Lévis crossing.

It could just be the latter, as Poilievre's Quebec contingent is very concentrated to the south of Quebec City and a lot of people there are pissed that what was billed as at a minimum a highway+transit crossing is now looking like it will be transit-only. Or maybe transit + active mobility maybe.

Someone should ask him!

[Ozabald]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

In the US transit is viewed as a social service while in Canada {like the rest of the world} it is viewed as an essential service. To most Americans transit is something only poor people use. This is especially true when it comes to buses where most Americans would rather be seen walking into a porn shop than boarding a bus.

I would include Winnipeg in that category with its attitude towards transit.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I first visited in 2010 and was quite impressed, but the rest of the world has caught up and surpassed Portland in the areas they specialized in, and Portland has stood still.

Real estate was pretty affordable there even just a few years ago, and might still be now, so a lot of people (e.g. early 30's couples with medium level white collar jobs) who would struggle to buy condos in Vancouver end up in small town village style neighbourhoods with Craftsman homes and the like. A lot of the more interesting businesses or places to see in Portland are quite far from downtown, like along say NE Alberta which would be equivalent to having a nicer Commercial Drive in South Vancouver somewhere. The quality of life in these areas is quite good, arguably a lot better than Vancouver for many, but it's not very urban or easy to serve with high-end transit.

Another minor point is Portland is a bit more historic than Vancouver and you see this with say Portland City Hall being a fairly substantial building from 1895. There is a bit more to preserve there and a lot of it is in good shape, but again given how this preservation usually happens (not just preserving architecture but "historic feel" at a neighbourhood level) it'll tend to limit infill potential. Areas like Northwest Portland are packed with nice old lowrise apartment buildings and historic homes.

Downtown Portland seems like it was hit relatively hard by the covid era, protests, etc. Worse than Vancouver or Seattle or LA, maybe worse than SF. Not sure what the deal is there but they have tents everywhere and it seems like more violent crime as well.

It is more of a silly tangent but Portland also felt "normie" to me compared to big old urban cities (e.g. SF, NYC, Montreal) and the "Keep Portland Weird" stuff makes me think of soccer moms trying to learn to ride unicycles and hurting themselves. I think Portland selects in some ways for people who actually don't want the big city experience.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't know if that's a blanket requirement or if it was just related to the third Québec-Lévis crossing.

It could just be the latter, as Poilievre's Quebec contingent is very concentrated to the south of Quebec City and a lot of people there are pissed that what was billed as at a minimum a highway+transit crossing is now looking like it will be transit-only. Or maybe transit + active mobility maybe.

Someone should ask him!

Of course I didn't actually think it was a blanket statement. It was just my snarky way of pointing out how stupid I find it that he would insist on including private vehicles as a prerequisite for funding this (or any other) transportation project when that clearly has little to no bearing on the project's validity. But yes, if someone could ask him about it, perhaps someone based in Greater Ottawa would could pop over quite easily, then that would be great.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yet another sign that there isn't exactly a bromance between François Legault and Pierre Poilievre.

Last week when Quebec announced that the third link across the St Lawrence between Quebec City and Lévis would only be for "collective transport" (ie mostly transit), Poilievre responded that a federal Conservative government won't be contributing to any such project that doesn't involve private vehicles.

This announcement by Quebec also made me chuckle as people always claim that the CAQ is an evil rurally-focused right wing government beholden to suburban and rural interests.

They just went against rural and suburban people on one of the biggest issues in recent years, and sided with the city slickers and more progressive types.

Not that I think they're having an ideological shift.

They're just very pragmatic. And electoralist too.

And now the opposition, which opposed the vehicular 3em lien, is demanding Legault apologize to Quebec City area residents for changing the project.

https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2023/04/25/l...ur-le-3e-lien-ils-nont-pas-damour-propre

That's what sad with society; the opposition opposes no matter what, even if they agree. I often disagree with the CAQ and its policies, but they should be congratulated for finally making the right decision on this project.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Of course I didn't actually think it was a blanket statement. It was just my snarky way of pointing out how stupid I find it that he would insist on including private vehicles as a prerequisite for funding this (or any other) transportation project when that clearly has little to no bearing on the project's validity. But yes, if someone could ask him about it, perhaps someone based in Greater Ottawa would could pop over quite easily, then that would be great.

Oh drat! I literally bumped into Hélène Buzzetti, who covers Parliament Hill for six Quebec daily newspapers (including Le Soleil from Quebec City) last night. Seriously. I did.

Opportunity missed!

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Doady

I think the problem with the US systems is they are very basic, more focused on serving downtown with rail and they ignore buses, especially in the suburbs. The systems are designed as hub-and-spoke networks instead of as grid networks, so they cannot keep up with the current trend away from downtown commuting. In Canada, we have much more comprehensive transit networks with a mix of hub-and-spoke and grid routes. Look the TTC subway, even that is hybrid grid network. It's GO that is the pure hub-and-spoke network. The local buses operate on almost a pure grid and they fully cover the suburbs.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

In the US transit is viewed as a social service while in Canada {like the rest of the world} it is viewed as an essential service. To most Americans transit is something only poor people use. This is especially true when it comes to buses where most Americans would rather be seen walking into a porn shop than boarding a bus.

In Canada, outside the big cities, transit is treated very similarly to the US. London is one such example; service to the wealthier Byron area was slashed back around 2013 with the elimination of one of the three bus routes and increase in headways of one of the other routes from 20 minutes to 40 minutes at rush hour - without any controversy. London's BRT plans also does not cover any of the north or west of the city, because of how overwhelmingly people there did not want it. When I still lived there, locals were very firm that London Transit was a service for the poor and elderly, and I remember having an argument with a classmate at Fanshawe College who refused to come to the college to work on a group project because his car was out of commission and he refused to use the bus, despite living on a bus route that went straight to the college.

London's system is primarily focused on getting people downtown, and bears very little resemblance to actual traffic patterns in the city, except for some of the routes that serve UWO and Fanshawe. For example, from the main corner in Byron, it takes 46 minutes and three different buses (5, 10, and 24) to get to No Frills on Southdale Road. It takes the same amount of time to walk there - or 6 minutes driving. Or if you live in Byron and need to get to a job in Lambeth, it takes almost 2 hours on the bus. It is actually faster to walk to Lambeth. But nobody talks about this because most locals are completely satisfied with the arrangement. This is the kind of lousy service I saw in suburban Orange County in California. Getting people downtown made more sense in the 1980s when most people worked downtown and you could go shopping at Eaton's or Simpson's downtown. With the exodus of retail from many downtowns, and now the trend towards remote work, hub-and-spoke systems focused on downtowns make less and less sense, especially when there are no major traffic generators such as a university downtown.

It's a very different mentality from what I've become used to in Toronto and more recently Vancouver. Someone like my Fanshawe classmate would get laughed at here in Vancouver but it's completely normal in smaller cities.

Originally Posted by Doady

Transit being viewed as nothing more than a service for poor people is as much an effect as it is a cause. US transit systems have lower fares, and so these systems get less revenue from fares, and of course less revenue cutting service, which will not attract many choice riders. And of course, fewer choice riders means even less fare revenue, just a downward spiral. US systems actually get similar amount of taxpayer subsidy as Canadian systems do, just the fare revenue is much lower, so the overall service is lower.

Columbus (2019)
Fare $2.00
Fare revenue $19 million
Total operating budget $185 million (USD)

Edmonton (2019)
Fare $3.50
Fare revenue $140.9 million
Total operating budget $340.0 million (CAD)

Columbus is one of the more expensive ones. I paid $1.25 in Houston, including for their bus that goes from downtown to the airport. I recall Los Angeles being $1.50 when I was there a year ago.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

In Canada, outside the big cities, transit is treated very similarly to the US. London is one such example; service to the wealthier Byron area was slashed back around 2013 with the elimination of one of the three bus routes and increase in headways of one of the other routes from 20 minutes to 40 minutes at rush hour - without any controversy. London's BRT plans also does not cover any of the north or west of the city, because of how overwhelmingly people there did not want it. When I still lived there, locals were very firm that London Transit was a service for the poor and elderly, and I remember having an argument with a classmate at Fanshawe College who refused to come to the college to work on a group project because his car was out of commission and he refused to use the bus, despite living on a bus route that went straight to the college.

London's system is primarily focused on getting people downtown, and bears very little resemblance to actual traffic patterns in the city, except for some of the routes that serve UWO and Fanshawe. For example, from the main corner in Byron, it takes 46 minutes and three different buses (5, 10, and 24) to get to No Frills on Southdale Road. It takes the same amount of time to walk there - or 6 minutes driving. Or if you live in Byron and need to get to a job in Lambeth, it takes almost 2 hours on the bus. It is actually faster to walk to Lambeth. But nobody talks about this because most locals are completely satisfied with the arrangement. This is the kind of lousy service I saw in suburban Orange County in California. Getting people downtown made more sense in the 1980s when most people worked downtown and you could go shopping at Eaton's or Simpson's downtown. With the exodus of retail from many downtowns, and now the trend towards remote work, hub-and-spoke systems focused on downtowns make less and less sense, especially when there are no major traffic generators such as a university downtown.

It's a very different mentality from what I've become used to in Toronto and more recently Vancouver. Someone like my Fanshawe classmate would get laughed at here in Vancouver but it's completely normal in smaller cities.

Even in Toronto in the late 90s people protested against Mississauga buses, blocking buses from entering the city, and the TTC banned Mississauga buses from the subway stations, and so eventually Mississauga Transit was forced to cut service into Toronto and reroute some its the routes within Toronto. To this day, the City of Toronto still bans incoming suburban buses from picking up riders and outgoing suburban buses from dropping off riders.

Within Mississauga you also have wealthy areas with no service, leaving huge gaps in the grid in the southern parts of the city. The residents would never allow those gaps to be filled.

London had very good ridership before the pandemic, so it must have a comprehensive system. Looking at the map, I see some grid and crosstown routes bypassing the downtown and university, so if they build upon that they should be okay. The ridership in 2022 has recovered to 73%, similar to other Canadian cities.

Small and isolated fringe neighbourhoods like Lambeth and Byron are going to be hard to serve with multiple routes, especially grid or crosstown routes. I see Byron is already served by one grid route, the 17 along Oxford, and maybe 24 along Commissioners can be rerouted to Byron to complete the grid, but Lambeth seems too small and far away to be served my more than one hub-and-spoke route.

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Columbus is one of the more expensive ones. I paid $1.25 in Houston, including for their bus that goes from downtown to the airport. I recall Los Angeles being $1.50 when I was there a year ago.

Yeah, other big cities like Kansas City has $1.50 fare, St. Louis $1.00, Louisville $1.75, the list goes on. $2.00 or less is very typical in the US, and I think such low fares only deters riders in the end. Sometimes people talk about make transit free to encourage people to take transit, but I think it has the opposite effect.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by Doady

London had very good ridership before the pandemic, so it must have a comprehensive system. Looking at the map, I see some grid and crosstown routes bypassing the downtown and university, so if they build upon that they should be okay. The ridership in 2022 has recovered to 73%, similar to other Canadian cities.

Small and isolated fringe neighbourhoods like Lambeth and Byron are going to be hard to serve with multiple routes, especially grid or crosstown routes. I see Byron is already served by one grid route, the 17 along Oxford, and maybe 24 along Commissioners can be rerouted to Byron to complete the grid, but Lambeth seems too small and far away to be served my more than one hub-and-spoke route.

London's transit is heavily dependent on students at Western and Fanshawe, and headways are typically between 30 and 60 minutes at off-peak times for many routes. If the bus even shows up.

Byron had a population of 15,360 as of 2016 (up 17% since 2001), and I know there has been growth there since then, with both new single family homes and some densification infill. It just seems counterintuitive to cut back transit service in an area that is growing, particularly an area like that where there are almost no employment opportunities and commuting is required for most jobs that aren't WFH. Even back in my Fanshawe days, I remember the morning 17 bus being full before it even got out of the area, and that was back when there were 20 minute headways at morning rush, not the 40 minutes they have today. It's also not the isolated backwater it was back in the 1950s anymore, it's very much in the city. There is still a persistent misconception among longtime residents that London's urban area stops at Wonderland Road, but that hasn't been the case for decades. (Lambeth is a different story; its population is still below 5,000 and is still much more separate from the rest of London)

Originally Posted by Doady

Yeah, other big cities like Kansas City has $1.50 fare, St. Louis $1.00, Louisville $1.75, the list goes on. $2.00 or less is very typical in the US, and I think such low fares only deters riders in the end. Sometimes people talk about make transit free to encourage people to take transit, but I think it has the opposite effect.

It's very much cultural. Mexico City has some of the cheapest public transit in North America (5 pesos last I checked, or about 38 cents CAD), but that doesn't deter anyone from using the system, which is frequently very crowded. That kind of pricing wouldn't attract very many additional people in the US or Canada who aren't using public transit already.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I was in Houston a week ago for the Blue Jays games against the Astros, and after both games I used that city's LRT.

I've been to Jays and Raptors games in Toronto, Canucks and Lions games in Vancouver, and Mariners and Kraken games in Seattle; in all three cities, the subway or LRT is jam-packed with riders leaving the game. Not so in Houston; the LRT red line heading south from downtown was almost empty - and one of the other few passengers, like me was a Jays fan, presumably visiting from Canada. Most people I saw leaving the stadium were walking towards parking lots.

It's quite a jarring cultural difference from what I'm used to. But it also helps in Houston that parking near the stadium is only $25, versus $40 in downtown Seattle, not to mention the difference in gas prices between those cities. I have no idea what parking costs these days in either Vancouver or Toronto.

Craziest thing about that is it isn't the parking costs that keep me from driving to an event, it's the fact that I'm putting back at least a few beers during the course of the game/show.

I can't imagine how high rates of drinking and driving are in scenarios like that.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

London's transit is heavily dependent on students at Western and Fanshawe, and headways are typically between 30 and 60 minutes at off-peak times for many routes. If the bus even shows up.

Byron had a population of 15,360 as of 2016 (up 17% since 2001), and I know there has been growth there since then, with both new single family homes and some densification infill. It just seems counterintuitive to cut back transit service in an area that is growing, particularly an area like that where there are almost no employment opportunities and commuting is required for most jobs that aren't WFH. Even back in my Fanshawe days, I remember the morning 17 bus being full before it even got out of the area, and that was back when there were 20 minute headways at morning rush, not the 40 minutes they have today. It's also not the isolated backwater it was back in the 1950s anymore, it's very much in the city. There is still a persistent misconception among longtime residents that London's urban area stops at Wonderland Road, but that hasn't been the case for decades. (Lambeth is a different story; its population is still below 5,000 and is still much more separate from the rest of London)

I remember 20 years ago Mississauga and Brampton were the same size that London is now, and their transit systems were pure hub-and-spoke. It was only in 2005 that they started adding grid routes because up until that point their systems were too small for a proper grid network. Now both cities have doubled their population, and their transit systems are almost pure grid now. I think London will also start making that transition soon, especially with the new trend away from downtown commutes.

There are routes here in Mississauga, 39 Britannia, 42 Derry, 61 Mavis, that had 35 minute off-peak service in 2004. Britannia had 27 minute on-peak service, Derry 20 minutes, Mavis 18 minutes. They have had to constantly bump up the frequencies because of overcrowding, so 39 Britannia is now 18 minutes all day, 18/42 Derry is now 6 minutes all day, and 61 Mavis 12 minutes. They also had to replace the regular 40 foot buses on Derry and Mavis with articulated buses. Before the pandemic, Britannia was operating at 25 minute frequency all day with articulated buses, but last year they increased the frequency to 20 minutes, and a few months ago to 18 minutes, so the articulated buses haven't come back (yet).

Even with poorly designed routes with poor frequencies, the system here still got overwhelmed and forced them to react. I think LTC transitioning to a big city transit system will be forced make some major changes in the same way. LTC also doesn't have a large fleet of articulated buses, and articulated buses are not practical in the snow belt, so they will be forced to increase the frequencies a lot.

[ssiguy]

All the service on the new BRT lines in London will use articulated low floor electric buses so that part of the fleet will grow tremendously.

According to the LFPress, by last Sept London had already hit 90% of it's weekday passenger loads pre-pandemic and weekend levels were up to 120%. The City is trying to expand service but is finding it hard to get staff and hence is on a training and hiring spree. London Transit ridership actually fares quite well against it's same-sized Canadian peer cities.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

In the US transit is viewed as a social service while in Canada {like the rest of the world} it is viewed as an essential service. To most Americans transit is something only poor people use.

Not really, at least not in London and Windsor. The system in London is improving but the general populace still views it as a system for students or the poor. In Windsor only the tunnel bus and the special events buses (Tigers/Red Wings/Lions games) seem to be considered essential services by the general populace.

[thebasketballgeek]

Originally Posted by Ozabald

I would include Winnipeg in that category with its attitude towards transit.

Which is a shame because for a city of our size in North America we punch well above our weight in transit ridership.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by niwell

As someone who heard about Portland non-stop as an urban planning student I was pretty underwhelmed when I finally made it there 5 or so years ago. As noted above the transit system felt quite slow, and not really that much more substantial than the portions of Toronto's streetcar streetcar system running in it's own ROW. Very different than Calgary's system. The actual streetcar far moreso and seemed a bit useless tbh. Wasn't too impressed with the cycling infrastructure either, despite how often it comes up - mostly just paint and drivers had less awareness than I expected.

Cool city, had a good time, fun bars (though the WC chill was in full effect), beautiful scenery. Just not exactly the urban planners paradise the image at the time had cultivated.

I had the experience of heading down to Portland in the mid- to late-2000s when Portland was firing on all cylinders. The Pearl District was about half built-out and something of an urbanist Disneyland, the Portland Streetcar was up and running (well, running at walking speed), the Portland Aerial Tram was open, the South Waterfront was wrapping up its first phase, the first cycle tracks were working their way through the neighbourhoods, and the floating cycling route was about to open. I loved it. It was revelatory to walk around downtown Portland, take all the street-level rail transit, ride the MAX out to interesting far-flung parts of the city, and just feel like it was a lovely weird little city just doing its thing and making astonishing progress.

With that said, it was a bit of a golden age that I experienced. Housing prices were still pretty moderate as I recall, and none of the street poverty and vagrancy that so many cities are facing now was really evident. The pan-handlers and crusty street punk kids where there, but they were everywhere and a normal part of city life from the perspective of someone who grew up in Vancouver.

I haven't been back to Portland since, so I cannot speak to its current state at all. It's frozen in amber in my mind's eye as it was in the 2005-2010ish timeframe. Reflecting upon this, I have more appreciation for how people get 'stuck' in their own conception of a place based on their experiences from an earlier time. I'm sure the same is true for Commercial Drive, where I lived and had a great time in the 2000s when I lived there in a cheap apartment with a great roommate and went to university. That's my Commercial Drive and my brain still thinks it must be the same today, even though well over a decade has passed since I lived there. I actually don't know what it's like now. As an urbanist and urban planner, that's sobering.