The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

From March 2022. Hoping we see some plans for a rebuild soon. I haven't used it myself, but I can imagine transferring between outbound Expo lines must be quite a pain.

Adding a third track and centre platform could be a good solution to improve the station without shutting it down for more than a few evenings and weekends.


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/435-colu...w-westminster-translink-columbia-station

I live near that station and use that station several times a week, and at rush hours it gets very crowded. The crowding is somewhat seasonal; during the school year in the morning, I've noticed a large number of passengers come in from Surrey and transfer there to the Production Way-University train. Some get off at Production-Way University, presumably to go to SFU, but the majority get off one station earlier at Lougheed and transfer to the eastbound Millennium Line, possibly to go to Douglas College. The crowding is exacerbated by the longer headways between the Production Way-University-bound trains compared to the King George (Surrey)-bound trains; very few people get on the Surrey-bound trains at Columbia in the morning. There are 2 King George trains for every Production Way train.

Now that post-secondary is mostly done for the summer, crowding in the morning is significantly less. I was on it yesterday and there were very few people waiting for the Production Way train at 8am.

It would be good if Translink could add a third track, and somehow expand frequency of service to Production Way at rush hour. Even a short, seasonal Columbia-Production Way run would help to help address the amount of traffic heading to SFU and Douglas College's Coquitlam campus.

Another problem with that station is accessibility. The only "accessible" entrance is the one off Columbia Street, but it is a pain for those who have accessibility needs; one must go through two elevators to get to the platforms. One (visible in the DH article) to get from street level down half a story to the area below the train platforms, then a second elevator to get up to the platform.

[ssiguy]

Broken record Ontario moron[/QUOTE]

If you can't act like a grown-up and engage in intelligent conversation without resorting to throwing personal insults at someone then you should get off this site. One more snide little comment like that and I'll report you and get you suspended.

[phone]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Why do you continue to hold yourself hostage in such a horrible province to live in??

Broken record Ontario moron

"If you don't like British Columbia you can geeeetout"

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by logan5

From 2016 to 2021, BC grew by 352 000 people vs Alberta 195 000 people. In 2022 BC grew by 147,540 vs Alberta 164,793 people. Even if you cherry pick the one year, that is hardly a significant difference. Overall, BC is growing at a much higher rate than Alberta over the last 6 years.

Absolutely true but, needless to saw, our world is a very different place than it was a couple years ago.

Covid: Covid sent the price of real estate soaring and especially in BC & Ontario but this did not happen in Alberta making the price difference even more glaring. At the same time it sent the price of oil plunging sending Alberta's into a major recession with soaring unemployment in an already battered economy.

Ukraine War: Putin's war path took a major oil exporter off the market resulting in soaring oil & natural gas prices which of course is a huge boost to the Alberta economy. This has meant a plunging unemployment rate and soaring government revenues. What's more is that this is not going to end when the war eventually ends. Russia has become an international pariah so it's export won't start when the war ends.

BC, like all of Canada, is growing quickly due to our unsustainable immigration levels but it will continue to have a major net loss with Alberta.

Population shifts can happen remarkably fast. Anyone who would have said in 2018 that within 5 years terminally static Atlantic Canada would become the fastest growing part of the country would have been committed.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

If you can't act like a grown-up and engage in intelligent conversation without resorting to throwing personal insults at someone then you should get off this site. One more snide little comment like that and I'll report you and get you suspended.

Because "I'm telling on you!" has always been the grown-up intelligent way to talk to someone.

I feel like the grown-up intelligent thing to do would be to talk about Canadian transit in the Great Canadian Transit Thread instead of generally just complaining about one province.

[Acajack]

The evil alt-right redneck anti-urban, pro-suburban, pro-rural pro-car anti-environment CAQ government in Quebec today announced that motorists in the outer suburbs of Montreal would have to pay the regional transit surcharge on their license renewals.

Previously only motorists residing on the island of Montreal had to pay it.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Because "I'm telling on you!" has always been the grown-up intelligent way to talk to someone.

I feel like the grown-up intelligent thing to do would be to talk about Canadian transit in the Great Canadian Transit Thread instead of generally just complaining about one province.

If someone disagrees with me, or anyone else for that matter, fine, knock yourself out but that does NOT give them the right to swirl around insulting personal comments like calling someone a "moron" and you know it.

Personal insults are not allowed and it is a clear violation of the rules of this site and not a crybaby response but rather one pointing out that if someone can not abide by the rules, like everyone else does, then they will be reported. Over the years there have been multiple times when I would love to tell a few people where to go and how to get there but I have not done it because I, like most on the site, respect the rules that we agreed to adhere to when joining SSP.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Quickly becoming the Canadian mainstay for LRVs - Ottawa, Toronto, Mississauga, now Quebec City.. Hamilton will more than likely follow as well.

I'm not exactly sure this all-in for LRT is a good thing.

Some systems like Edm/Cal are great but more importantly rapid transit while Finch on the other hand is just a glorified streetcar. Finch isn't going to be any faster than just a centre bus lane but cost a lot more and take much longer to build.

LRT is more comfortable than buses but not by much. The reason buses are so unpleasant has far less to do with the technology itself and more to do with the what they ride on. The ride on buses are horrible because the roads they run on are equally horrible. BRT in it's own bus lane is far more pleasant because the lanes are well maintained and smooth. This is why highway buses are always more comfortable than city buses. The noise factor is also greatly diminishing as battery/hydrogen buses come on line. Also due to these non-ICE buses, the difference in maintenance and operations is the same as LRT while these battery buses have far better pick-up and hill climbing ability than standard diesel. LRT vehicles will last longer than buses {although again electric buses last much longer than standard diesel ones} but conversely buses don't need track maintenance nor separate maintenance/garage centres.

I can certainly see LRT when high capacity is an issue but for cities under one million that is rarely a problem. I guess my point is that if you are going to spend, for example, a $1 Billion is it better to spend it on one small LRT route or on 5 BRT routes serving thousands of more destinations and ten of thousands of more riders? I often think that this LRT mania seems to be based upon a "look Mom I have LRT too" mentality and politicians looking for a ribbon cutting ceremony as opposed to sound transit planning.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by someone123

I don't think those stats relate in any significant way to what I'm saying, which has more to do with the kind of people who live in small portions of each of those metro areas and why they do what they do.

You could probably come up with similar stats for Kitchener vs. Toronto.

The other thing these stats miss is that there's a lot more population "churn" in cities like Vancouver or Toronto. They're a constant revolving door of young people moving in to do the big city thing for a few years before moving back out to a smaller place to settle down; as well as being gateways for immigrants doing the same thing.

Net, they might end up more people leaving than coming in; but if you were to just add up the total number of internal migrants moving to those cities in a given year it'd massively exceed that of somewhere like Calgary.

[DirectionNorth]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I'm not exactly sure this all-in for LRT is a good thing.

Some systems like Edm/Cal are great but more importantly rapid transit while Finch on the other hand is just a glorified streetcar. Finch isn't going to be any faster than just a centre bus lane but cost a lot more and take much longer to build.

Finch was out of capacity as a bus route. Same reason Ottawa built an LRT (though metro would have been better - and more showoff-y too) - a bus every two minutes wasn't enough to carry passenger loads. You might as well skip the BRT step, since the same frequency of buses on a dedicated lane don't carry more people.

Eglinton is questionable though. Should have gone for full metro on that one, especially since Ford built the western end tunneled as well.

Out of the Canadian LRT systems, I think Calgary and Edmonton had the best implementation. KW is okay, Eglinton is horrible, Finch is okay, Ottawa should have gone for metro, we'll see about Hamilton.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

LRT is more comfortable than buses but not by much. The reason buses are so unpleasant has far less to do with the technology itself and more to do with the what they ride on. The ride on buses are horrible because the roads they run on are equally horrible. BRT in it's own bus lane is far more pleasant because the lanes are well maintained and smooth. This is why highway buses are always more comfortable than city buses. The noise factor is also greatly diminishing as battery/hydrogen buses come on line. Also due to these non-ICE buses, the difference in maintenance and operations is the same as LRT while these battery buses have far better pick-up and hill climbing ability than standard diesel. LRT vehicles will last longer than buses {although again electric buses last much longer than standard diesel ones} but conversely buses don't need track maintenance nor separate maintenance/garage centres.

When I lived in Ottawa, I found the Transitway to be quite a bumpy ride. Some stations felt like they were falling apart, the roadway was hardly what I call "well maintained and smooth". A BRT won't change poor operational funding, just look at VIVA.

I don't know about electric buses. We haven't had enough time with them to see how well they fare, and I think we'll need a generation of those vehicles to sort out the problems and figure out best practices.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I can certainly see LRT when high capacity is an issue but for cities under one million that is rarely a problem. I guess my point is that if you are going to spend, for example, a $1 Billion is it better to spend it on one small LRT route or on 5 BRT routes serving thousands of more destinations and ten of thousands of more riders? I often think that this LRT mania seems to be based upon a "look Mom I have LRT too" mentality and politicians looking for a ribbon cutting ceremony as opposed to sound transit planning.

LRT is (was) running out of capacity in Calgary. IMO, it works well as a spine route - BRT can and should be done cheaply as a way to speed feeder buses to the rail line, whether that be a metro or LRT. You take an express route with BRT features (bus lanes, could be painted, signal priority, etc) and transfer to a rail line.

I do agree that politicians focus on ribbon cutting. That's why TTC is cutting service for the second time this year, reducing YUS headways to 8 minutes at certain times

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The evil alt-right redneck anti-urban, pro-suburban, pro-rural pro-car anti-environment CAQ government in Quebec today announced that motorists in the outer suburbs of Montreal would have to pay the regional transit surcharge on their license renewals.

Previously only motorists residing on the island of Montreal had to pay it.

The CAQ is a nationalist party, not a party driven by any sort of coherent ideology, so it can always reverse course with enough pressure. But let's be clear, this is just a drop in the bucket, and it does nothing to stop all the transit agencies in Greater Montreal from having deficits next year without drastic cuts to service.

[Nite]

• Video Link

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by DirectionNorth

LRT is (was) running out of capacity in Calgary. IMO, it works well as a spine route - BRT can and should be done cheaply as a way to speed feeder buses to the rail line, whether that be a metro or LRT. You take an express route with BRT features (bus lanes, could be painted, signal priority, etc) and transfer to a rail line.

And this is precisely the issue in Hamilton too. Capacity along the main east-west corridor through the denser older city has been an issue for quite a while.

Pre-pandemic, people were often left waiting as one bus or two passed by with no room for them to alight. If that results in a 10 or 15 minute delay in a trip, then being able to get on a transit vehicle sooner actually does reduce travel times, regardless of whether the rail vehicles move at a speed similar to that of the express buses.

Hamilton's transit staff have a plan to revolutionize the bus network around modified versions of long-conceptual express routes (including a new one) and changes to other routes, all to make the LRT line the backbone of the entire system. We'll see how much these plans change once the political meddling happens, but the real benefit of this will be increased capacity where it's needed most. And I wish that was expressed as a point of debate more often, rather than complaints about the costs to build it, how much the city will need to pay to operate it, and the fact it won't save much time head-to-head vs. the current B-Line express bus route, vs. how much investment it may spur in the corridor.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

And this is precisely the issue in Hamilton too. Capacity along the main east-west corridor through the denser older city has been an issue for quite a while.

Pre-pandemic, people were often left waiting as one bus or two passed by with no room for them to alight. If that results in a 10 or 15 minute delay in a trip, then being able to get on a transit vehicle sooner actually does reduce travel times, regardless of whether the rail vehicles move at a speed similar to that of the express buses.

Hamilton's transit staff have a plan to revolutionize the bus network around modified versions of long-conceptual express routes (including a new one) and changes to other routes, all to make the LRT line the backbone of the entire system. We'll see how much these plans change once the political meddling happens, but the real benefit of this will be increased capacity where it's needed most. And I wish that was expressed as a point of debate more often, rather than complaints about the costs to build it, how much the city will need to pay to operate it, and the fact it won't save much time head-to-head vs. the current B-Line express bus route, vs. how much investment it may spur in the corridor.

When the BLAST LRT network was first suggested, and then voted down, they should have made it an express system to prove LRT was not needed. That network goes back to 2007. Had they put int he express bus network, maybe by now the need would have become apparent and that would end the discussion.

[madog222]

Translink has released their 2022 Service Performance Review. System wide boardings are at 79% of pre-covid levels for fall 2022.

https://www.translink.ca/-/media/transli...2_transit_service_performance_review.pdf

[niwell]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

The CAQ is a nationalist party, not a party driven by any sort of coherent ideology, so it can always reverse course with enough pressure. But let's be clear, this is just a drop in the bucket, and it does nothing to stop all the transit agencies in Greater Montreal from having deficits next year without drastic cuts to service.

Thanks for your take on this! I meant to ask more in person, but was a bit shocked to hear about service cuts on the ground. From Ontario all I hear about is the REM and capital spending. But at the same time the GTHA probably has more capital spending going on than any time in Canadian history yet we are cutting local services.

Shovels in the ground is good but when we can’t rely on the Parc bus or 506 streetcar just “being there” anymore it’s not great.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by niwell

Thanks for your take on this! I meant to ask more in person, but was a bit shocked to hear about service cuts on the ground. From Ontario all I hear about is the REM and capital spending. But at the same time the GTHA probably has more capital spending going on than any time in Canadian history yet we are cutting local services.

Shovels in the ground is good but when we can’t rely on the Parc bus or 506 streetcar just “being there” anymore it’s not great.

Yeah that's basically it. Plenty of capital expenditure but no political will to address the systemic inability of transit agencies to provide adequate service.

In 2013, Montreal and Toronto both had better transit frequencies than in 2013. That's wild.

[Blitz]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

At the beginning of the pandemic Windsor actually shut down its transit system entirely. Not just the tunnel bus, but the whole system. There were stories of essential workers being forced to shell out money for taxis to get to their jobs, and I think city officials got caught off guard, assuming that “everyone drives”. It was shut down for about six weeks, then went to a Sunday schedule, then later to a Saturday schedule. It was September 2022 before they resumed full service, not counting the tunnel bus.

That’s how disposable public transit is considered in Windsor.

I doubt it was the only system to shut down, but it’s the only one I heard about in Canada.

That was actually one of the big issues in the last mayoral election campaign. The mayor took a lot of heat for that decision, but he was still re-elected.

There have been some good news stories lately though...we have expanded our transit system to nearby satellite towns (Amherstburg and Leamington), ridership is way up, and the city has committed $63M to improving the system.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

When the BLAST LRT network was first suggested, and then voted down, they should have made it an express system to prove LRT was not needed. That network goes back to 2007. Had they put int he express bus network, maybe by now the need would have become apparent and that would end the discussion.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying... implement BLAST to prove LRT not needed, but then by now need for LRT would be apparent?

BLAST was never "voted down." It was always just a concept.

What did get opposed locally was a provincial proposal for an elevated system that would have circled the downtown core and run up the escarpment, but that was in the very early 1980s and an entirely different idea. Had the city gone for it, it would have had a fully-funded nucleus of a transit system that could have been expanded and become akin to Vancouver's Sky Train. The economy of Hamilton was taking a deep dive into restructuring so maybe it was the wrong time for that idea anyway... or maybe it would have helped the city avoid rock bottom. It's fun to play the what-ifs.

The city's transit system has had the east-west B-Line since the mid-1980s, and the north-south A-Line but that is much newer. They're express bus routes, and while scheduling has improved especially in recent years, the capacity is still relatively low. I think the city should have implemented a changed route system by now, including the other conceptual express routes. But there's no way the B-Line in its current form could be the backbone of such a network, even with increased service on "local" routes that cross the lower city... additional capacity would lead to bus congestion like what happened in Ottawa. The need has been apparent for a while.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying... implement BLAST to prove LRT not needed, but then by now need for LRT would be apparent?

BLAST was never "voted down." It was always just a concept.

What did get opposed locally was a provincial proposal for an elevated system that would have circled the downtown core and run up the escarpment, but that was in the very early 1980s and an entirely different idea. Had the city gone for it, it would have had a fully-funded nucleus of a transit system that could have been expanded and become akin to Vancouver's Sky Train. The economy of Hamilton was taking a deep dive into restructuring so maybe it was the wrong time for that idea anyway... or maybe it would have helped the city avoid rock bottom. It's fun to play the what-ifs.

The city's transit system has had the east-west B-Line since the mid-1980s, and the north-south A-Line but that is much newer. They're express bus routes, and while scheduling has improved especially in recent years, the capacity is still relatively low. I think the city should have implemented a changed route system by now, including the other conceptual express routes. But there's no way the B-Line in its current form could be the backbone of such a network, even with increased service on "local" routes that cross the lower city... additional capacity would lead to bus congestion like what happened in Ottawa. The need has been apparent for a while.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_LRT
What I speak of is the 2015 proposal for surface LRT that the city cancelled. If instead, they simply did express buses with no upgrades, or even minimal upgrades it could have been run in a way for the council to show that it was not needed, or for the ridership to tell council it is needed. So, instead of the LRT phased system, a full express bus/BRT "light" BLAST network could have been implemented. Instead, nothing was done.