The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[swimmer_spe]

For those within the Halifax area, here is a survey on transit that a friend of mine shared.

https://engage.jrta.ca/rtp/survey_tools/ideas

"As our region grows and changes, our regional transportation system will need to grow and change, too. Nova Scotia achieved a major milestone in 2021 – the province surpassed a population of one million people, following a period of record growth. Over 63% of the population of Nova Scotia live within Regional Transportation Plan area:"

[Reecemartin]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

But instead of a second station, how about turning Union into a true terminus for most services and extending the trainshed east and west? Remove the through" of many of the tracks (e.g., Lakeshore West separated from Lakeshore East, so both terminate at Union rather than continuing from one to another) and keep the through-service for VIA?

Adding a second "lower" level to Union's platforms is another idea. Costs are a key issue. Tunnelling is expensive! But if the demand makes the economics worthwhile, then that's something to consider. IMO it's something that should have been considered when the new lower concourses were developed, but missed opportunities happen.

This is not a good idea, terminals have less train capacity than through station (turning trains, especially big ones takes time), so by turning a through running line into two dead ends, you lose loads of capacity.

Re a tunnel, we have room for like 10 tracks on both sides of the rail corridor, thats an enormous amount of capacity that we aren't anywhere close to fully utilizing (Paris has like 6 full cross city tracks on the RER B, A, and C and moves an order of magnitude more people than GO).

Originally Posted by DirectionNorth

The eventual plan is to through-operate Kitchener, Lakeshore E and W, and Stouffville. Transfer-less trips across town, and you don't need to turn around trains (which takes time and reduces capacity - the Finch turnaround reduces capacity on YUS, for example).

Yep! Many Stouffville trains are already quietly (well they do announce it when you arrive at Union) turning into Kitchener trains, which will only expand in the future.

Originally Posted by Doady

I wonder if GO will ever recover all its ridership, let alone become the "game changer". 2023 train ridership still only 36% of 2019, while the suburban bus systems have fully recovered, Brampton reached 100% in May 2022 and Mississauga reached 110% in February this year. You can see the similar problem with the TTC, the subway and streetcar ridership at 56% and 38% respectively, while the bus ridership is at 85%.

Of course it will! GO is already above pre pandemic ridership on weekends and it super busy on Tuesday Wednesday Thursday when most offices have people coming in. I have taken a number of standing room only commuter services in the last few months and its been getting more and more crowded, off peak services are busy too.

GO is going to more than double the amount of service its providing, and a bunch of new stations are also being added. Plus new transit oriented development is starting to pop up at stations and theres going to be loads of new rapid transit / LRT connections in Toronto and surrounding burbs.

Personally I think the only question to ask is "How many times more riders will GO have in 20 years than it did in 2019?"

[zoomer]

Curious to hear Reece’s view on this Very Light Rail technology - I’m guessing: “it’s gadgetbahn!”

I’ll admit to not being well informed on rapid transit, but I also find it crazy the billions it costs and the endless delays, disruptions and technical troubles. I’ve always believed in “Better, Faster, Cheaper” but really it doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s interest (other than taxpayers) to be cheaper when it comes to transit. Why can’t we focus innovation to build a system that is better, faster, cheaper or at least be significantly cheaper and 80% as good and as fast?

Article in the local Victoria BC paper today about a British company likely trying to drum up business here, and going to the smallest of Victoria’s 13 municipalities (but strategically located) to test the waters.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news...-backing-of-other-municipalities-7190977

Council has agreed to explore a pilot program that would allow a Canada-U.K.-based partnership to lay two to three kilometres of tracks along an existing road or trail to support a light-rail battery-powered train similar to a system under development in Coventry, England.

… the system would use lighter-gauge tracks and concrete slabs that can be installed at a quarter of the cost of conventional rails.

Trains would be battery-­operated, bi-directional, and ­subject to less friction and wear.

Kong said the track system uses patented concrete slabs that can be laid at depths of less than 30 centimetres, ­avoiding the need to uproot ­utility ­systems, and can be laid in weeks at a cost of about $20 million per kilometre.

Vic Young of Penmark said new ultra-light trains can be recharged in 10 minutes, reach speeds up to 90 kilometres per hour and seat up to 56 passengers.

It sounds like this system is still in the development stage with a fair bit of British R&D investment, but could this be a good fit for smaller cities like Victoria, Halifax, Regina, Saskatoon, etc?

[Nite]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Curious to hear Reece’s view on this Very Light Rail technology - I’m guessing: “it’s gadgetbahn!”

I’ll admit to not being well informed on rapid transit, but I also find it crazy the billions it costs and the endless delays, disruptions and technical troubles. I’ve always believed in “Better, Faster, Cheaper” but really it doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s interest (other than taxpayers) to be cheaper when it comes to transit. Why can’t we focus innovation to build a system that is better, faster, cheaper or at least be significantly cheaper and 80% as good and as fast?

Article in the local Victoria BC paper today about a British company likely trying to drum up business here, and going to the smallest of Victoria’s 13 municipalities (but strategically located) to test the waters.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news...-backing-of-other-municipalities-7190977





It sounds like this system is still in the development stage with a fair bit of British R&D investment, but could this be a good fit for smaller cities like Victoria, Halifax, Regina, Saskatoon, etc?

We have suitable technology for these cities already and it's not that different from bigger cities, It's high-frequency automated LRT or light metros. going away from standard transit technology and vehicles is just asking for problems.

look at the Scarborough RT to see the fate of said novel technologies.

I don't know why you think Reece would be impressed by such a technology when he always emphasizes to use industry standards to obtain the many benefits that standardization gets you.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Curious to hear Reece’s view on this Very Light Rail technology - I’m guessing: “it’s gadgetbahn!”

I’ll admit to not being well informed on rapid transit, but I also find it crazy the billions it costs and the endless delays, disruptions and technical troubles. I’ve always believed in “Better, Faster, Cheaper” but really it doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s interest (other than taxpayers) to be cheaper when it comes to transit. Why can’t we focus innovation to build a system that is better, faster, cheaper or at least be significantly cheaper and 80% as good and as fast?

The high cost of rapid transit construction in some places isn't really an issue with the technology and doesn't require technological solutions. And i say "some places" because the costs vary by orders of magnitude between not only countries but sometimes even between cities in the same countries. The issues are things like the cost of labour, real estate, and bureaucratic policies or procedures.

It's also important to remember that in most cases, the costs aren't actually that high in terms of any metric other than the sticker price when viewed in abstract. The number of people transported, the money saved by preventing passenger productivity loss from congestion, the number of worker hours and amount of fuel saved by replacing bus services, amount of land saved by reducing parking, etc. more than make up for the cost. Yes it's great to find ways to reduce costs, but if it's done by reducing the quality or capacity of the infrastructure it isn't a real savings.

In terms of the British gadget-bahn thingy, the same basic issues would apply as with other gadget-bahns. It's trying to invent something new and fancy to achieve a goal that existing technology can already provide. They say each vehicle can seat up to 56 passengers and tracks can be built for about $20 million per kilometre. Well that's about the same number of seats in an articulated bus which can use existing roads without spending anything extra to build tracks. The main purpose of tracks is to allow larger vehicles to operate and carry larger loads when they'd otherwise be too long and hard to steer without a guideway. Yes tracks also make the ride quality smoother and more comfortable, but if that's the main benefit over buses, $20/km is actually kind of pricey without any increase in capacity or speed.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that rapid transit operates in its own right of way (ROW) to ensure vehicles can move quickly without getting stuck in traffic. Not so much for the sake of trip speed (although that can be a nice side effect) but for the sake of passenger throughput. A transit system just can't transport enough people in a major city if the system moves slowly due to congestion. But that's expensive if you don't have the space readily available on the surface. That's the reason why so many cities have all or part of their rapid transit services underground or elevated. Making it cheaper to install tracks does little for rapid transit since the ROW is the biggest cost. Cheaper track installation would be useful for a streetcar service, but again hard to justify for something that offers no speed or capacity increase. The TTC streetcars can seat 70 people for instance. And you'd be stuck with a proprietary technology preventing you from ever buying rolling stock from other streetcar makers. I don't see the point personally.

[someone123]

People, including residents there or in the region, often think of Halifax as a small city but it's larger now than Calgary and Kitchener-Waterloo were when LRT systems were planned in those cities, and likely either larger than Edmonton was or will be soon. And a high proportion of the growth these days (20k in the past year) is going into the urban core. Soon it will be one of the largest metros in Canada with no LRT.

If politicians decided to build LRT in Halifax next year, planning and construction would take the better part of a decade and there would likely be a lot of continued demographic growth in the region during that time since that's the current immigration policy.

I think part of what's going on is that we have a sticky notion of which cities are big or small and what they should support, and Canada isn't building enough transit. Many smaller European cities have trams or metros.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Nite

We have suitable technology for these cities already and it's not that different from bigger cities, It's high-frequency automated LRT or light metros. going away from standard transit technology and vehicles is just asking for problems.

look at the Scarborough RT to see the fate of said novel technologies.

The Scarborough RT is an automated light metro though. Exact same tech as the Vancouver skytrain, in fact.


(Otherwise agreed though. And I think Halifax would be similarly well-served by a light metro in the same vein)

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The Scarborough RT is an automated light metro though. Exact same tech as the Vancouver skytrain, in fact.


(Otherwise agreed though. And I think Halifax would be similarly well-served by a light metro in the same vein)

with non-standard technology and no one to build new vehicles for it.
Just stick with industry standards and your(city) will be have much less issues.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by Nite

with non-standard technology and no one to build new vehicles for it.
Just stick with industry standards and your(city) will be have much less issues.

If you're still referring to SkyTrain technology, TransLink (Metro Vancouver) doesn't seem to have any issues getting new vehicles or expanding the system.

[MalcolmTucker]

Trying to reduce the cost of the transit solution itself is good, but I question how this is any better than a battery powered bus. Big costs of fixed transit is associated infrastructure, and the biggest is utility relocation: the preference to reduce the risk of utility related closures of transit to near zero. It is likely a road selected for transit would also have been selected for sewer, water and electricity distribution earlier.

If we didn’t care about reducing that risk it would be easier to do for sure. Easier to do when you have many parallel lines like historical streetcars than modern all eggs in one basket single lines.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Curious to hear Reece’s view on this Very Light Rail technology - I’m guessing: “it’s gadgetbahn!”

I’ll admit to not being well informed on rapid transit, but I also find it crazy the billions it costs and the endless delays, disruptions and technical troubles. I’ve always believed in “Better, Faster, Cheaper” but really it doesn’t seem to be in anyone’s interest (other than taxpayers) to be cheaper when it comes to transit. Why can’t we focus innovation to build a system that is better, faster, cheaper or at least be significantly cheaper and 80% as good and as fast?

Article in the local Victoria BC paper today about a British company likely trying to drum up business here, and going to the smallest of Victoria’s 13 municipalities (but strategically located) to test the waters.

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news...-backing-of-other-municipalities-7190977





It sounds like this system is still in the development stage with a fair bit of British R&D investment, but could this be a good fit for smaller cities like Victoria, Halifax, Regina, Saskatoon, etc?

This speaks more to the strong desire for RT but no willingness to build it. If it were built, it would be a good thing, but it is solving a problem that doesn't really exist.

Originally Posted by someone123

People, including residents there or in the region, often think of Halifax as a small city but it's larger now than Calgary and Kitchener-Waterloo were when LRT systems were planned in those cities, and likely either larger than Edmonton was or will be soon. And a high proportion of the growth these days (20k in the past year) is going into the urban core. Soon it will be one of the largest metros in Canada with no LRT.

If politicians decided to build LRT in Halifax next year, planning and construction would take the better part of a decade and there would likely be a lot of continued demographic growth in the region during that time since that's the current immigration policy.

I think part of what's going on is that we have a sticky notion of which cities are big or small and what they should support, and Canada isn't building enough transit. Many smaller European cities have trams or metros.

Go back 100years ago and lots of small places had "LRT". They called them streetcars. Primarily due to the war effort needing the materials, they were allowed to rot till they were no longer serviceable. Sometimes,I like to imagine what would have been had they been refurbished and maintained and even expanded.

[zoomer]

Great insights - thanks everyone. Nouvellecosse I think you summarized the issues perfectly. I don’t take this proposal seriously, thus calling it a gadgetbahn and I can’t see it gaining any tracktion [sic]. Yet when we see the delays and cost overruns seemingly everywhere - does that speak to widespread construction incompetence or misleading numbers/timelines up front?

As for Victoria, I think we’re at least a decade away. I’m sure the provincial government will keep building new lines in metro Vancouver until the cost/benefit finally puts a Victoria system into the discussion after Vancouver’s broad expansion.

Just the other day I was walking by the new bike lane construction on upper Fort Street and what do you know - the remnants of an 1890 streetcar line is still buried beneath the road.

Fort Street bike lane construction reveals 1890 Fort St street car line. June 24, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

At the time Victoria was the third city in the country with electric streetcars, but the last run was in 1948.



And I’m sure most have seen this most well known footage of the Victoria streetcars in action, this 1907 footage (there is also a colourized version), the first 7 minutes and 30 seconds are in Victoria, the rest in Vancouver.

• Video Link

[ssiguy]

I'm not as opposed to some of these "gadgetbahn" as many are and I think in some situations they are ideal but only in niche applications. Some examples are connections to zoos, schools, airports, and large malls as connector systems to the nearest major transit station or in challenging geographic areas.

As far as "rapid transit" I fail to understand why the term is automatically associated with vehicles that run on steel. The Miss Transitway was built for significantly less money than Finch/Eglinton but is much faster and reliable. If there is an incident along any of the corridors the entire system comes to a screeching halt unlike buses that can just maneuver around them. BRT also has the advantage of being able to run express services which most LRT & subways can't. Due to interlining, buses also can rid a system of the dreaded "last mile" which is a very big issue especially in smaller centres.

The advantages of LRT over BRT are quickly vanishing. Electric buses {which all new ones are} are zero emissions, vastly quieter, more comfortable, and have significantly faster acceleration than the diesels they are replacing. Also bus-only lanes are smooth with far superior ride quality............the huge bumps and unstable ride is NOT caused by the buses themselves but rather the roads they travel on. BRT doesn't have the huge initial and highly disruptive costs and doesn't need separate vehicle storage areas to be built and due to being battery also have LOWER maintanence costs than LRT.

So many of these recent LRT/streetcar systems are nothing more than penis envy, "look Mom, we have LRT too" as opposed to sound transit planning. Many US cities have started to give up on LRT/streetcar programs and now headed towards BRT because they get a more functional transit system at a fraction of the cost, can be built infinetly faster and yet still offer ample capacity.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I'm not as opposed to some of these "gadgetbahn" as many are and I think in some situations they are ideal but only in niche applications. Some examples are connections to zoos, schools, airports, and large malls as connector systems to the nearest major transit station or in challenging geographic areas.

As far as "rapid transit" I fail to understand why the term is automatically associated with vehicles that run on steel. The Miss Transitway was built for significantly less money than Finch/Eglinton but is much faster and reliable. If there is an incident along any of the corridors the entire system comes to a screeching halt unlike buses that can just maneuver around them. BRT also has the advantage of being able to run express services which most LRT & subways can't. Due to interlining, buses also can rid a system of the dreaded "last mile" which is a very big issue especially in smaller centres.

The advantages of LRT over BRT are quickly vanishing. Electric buses {which all new ones are} are zero emissions, vastly quieter, more comfortable, and have significantly faster acceleration than the diesels they are replacing. Also bus-only lanes are smooth with far superior ride quality............the huge bumps and unstable ride is NOT caused by the buses themselves but rather the roads they travel on. BRT doesn't have the huge initial and highly disruptive costs and doesn't need separate vehicle storage areas to be built and due to being battery also have LOWER maintanence costs than LRT.

So many of these recent LRT/streetcar systems are nothing more than penis envy, "look Mom, we have LRT too" as opposed to sound transit planning. Many US cities have started to give up on LRT/streetcar programs and now headed towards BRT because they get a more functional transit system at a fraction of the cost, can be built infinetly faster and yet still offer ample capacity.

Ottawa's Transitways were highly successful with its only downfall was the failure to build it through downtown creating a fatal bottleneck. LRT has proven to be much more expensive, and as has been demonstrated with several systems across the country, plagued with delays and problems after opening. LRT/HRT should only be built when demand clearly can not be met with buses/BRT.

[ssiguy]

Brisbane is massively expanding it's rapid transit system but decided to go with BRT instead due to getting much more bang for the buck and being able, due to much lower construction costs, serve hundreds of more destinations and hundred of thousands of more people. It is using 28 meter bi-articulated electric buses.

Cleveland didn't have the money for an LRT along the main street Euclid so they built a BRT and it has been a huge success not only with soaring ridership than the bus it replaced but also with billions in new infil right along the route in a city with a declining population. The corridor has one of the few areas in Cleveland that is significantly rising population. This is something LRT advocated, suppliers, and the politicians they bribe refuse to believe as they think only LRT/streetcar can do that.

One of the biggest hurdles BRT has is that it doesn't create as much big, juicy ribbon cutting ceremonies that LRT does and, when considering most politicians wouldn't be caught dead on transit, that is all that matters.

[someone123]

I am skeptical of these abstract arguments that BRT or LRT are a better value overall or cities need to move up some kind of transit tech tree. It will depend just as much on the trip demand in a specific areas, the geography and existing transport options, and so on. Not many people are familiar with this level of detail across many regions of Canada and in many smaller cities.

BRT is probably best in cities that have a good network of large arterial roads serving medium density areas and relatively simple geography. If you have a high density city with a quirky road network that requires bridge and tunnel building it may be relatively less attractive.

Many Canadian cities do already have successful bus systems and most of the rapid transit systems are very successful. In Canada, there are plenty of bus corridors with more passengers than some higher-order American transit corridors. Canada is not building boutique streetcars all over the place.

[someone123]

I'd like to look at historical demography and geography in Canadian cities, when transit developed, and what the proportional investment looked like at the time.

For example, Toronto's subway development and funding began in earnest in the late 1940's. The metro area's population was about 1.2 million then and the funding was around $550M in today's dollars. Adjusted for the size of the economy this would be a much larger figure.

The CTrain plan in Calgary originated in 1975 and the city at that time had about 450,000 inhabitants.

(From Wikipedia.)

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by zoomer

Great insights - thanks everyone. Nouvellecosse I think you summarized the issues perfectly. I don’t take this proposal seriously, thus calling it a gadgetbahn and I can’t see it gaining any tracktion [sic]. Yet when we see the delays and cost overruns seemingly everywhere - does that speak to widespread construction incompetence or misleading numbers/timelines up front?

As for Victoria, I think we’re at least a decade away. I’m sure the provincial government will keep building new lines in metro Vancouver until the cost/benefit finally puts a Victoria system into the discussion after Vancouver’s broad expansion.

Just the other day I was walking by the new bike lane construction on upper Fort Street and what do you know - the remnants of an 1890 streetcar line is still buried beneath the road.

Fort Street bike lane construction reveals 1890 Fort St street car line. June 24, 2023. by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

At the time Victoria was the third city in the country with electric streetcars, but the last run was in 1948.



And I’m sure most have seen this most well known footage of the Victoria streetcars in action, this 1907 footage (there is also a colourized version), the first 7 minutes and 30 seconds are in Victoria, the rest in Vancouver.

• Video Link

Imagine for a moment if all those "LRT" lines were still there. Imagine if since they were ripped up, they had actually been expanded. How much better would the CRD be to get around?

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Ottawa's Transitways were highly successful with its only downfall was the failure to build it through downtown creating a fatal bottleneck. LRT has proven to be much more expensive, and as has been demonstrated with several systems across the country, plagued with delays and problems after opening. LRT/HRT should only be built when demand clearly can not be met with buses/BRT.

I wonder, had Ottawa just built the Central Transitway tunnel instead of the LRT, would that have been all that was needed to keep the network running smoothly. Definitely, Ottawa should have some sort of railed RT network, but, if they had done the tunnel, could it have be good enough till an actual network based on population traffic patterns could have been made up. The transitway was put where it was easy to put it in. This was not exactly where people were actually living or working. Much of it were old rail lines that were abandoned once the downtown union station was shut down.

Originally Posted by someone123

I'd like to look at historical demography and geography in Canadian cities, when transit developed, and what the proportional investment looked like at the time.

For example, Toronto's subway development and funding began in earnest in the late 1940's. The metro area's population was about 1.2 million then and the funding was around $550M in today's dollars. Adjusted for the size of the economy this would be a much larger figure.

The CTrain plan in Calgary originated in 1975 and the city at that time had about 450,000 inhabitants.

(From Wikipedia.)

What do the cities of Chatham, Welland, St Thomas and Temiskaming Shores/Cobalt have in common? They all had some sort of network that is no longer around.They are also small cities/towns. Lets ignore the bigger cities and look at all of these small cities/towns that had a railed network that is now long gone. Imagine one of those cities/towns asking for funding for railed transit now. It would be laughed away. Having said that, most of the old streetcar network was privately owned that was just left to degrade over time due to lack of maintenance.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What do the cities of Chatham, Welland, St Thomas and Temiskaming Shores/Cobalt have in common? They all had some sort of network that is no longer around.They are also small cities/towns. Lets ignore the bigger cities and look at all of these small cities/towns that had a railed network that is now long gone. Imagine one of those cities/towns asking for funding for railed transit now. It would be laughed away. Having said that, most of the old streetcar network was privately owned that was just left to degrade over time due to lack of maintenance.

Small communities had rail transit systems built before motor vehicles were prevalent or in some cases even invented. In fact, the idea of using rails started because the streetcars were horse-pulled and the horses could pull much greater loads when you eliminated much of the friction by putting the vehicles on metal tracks. So not only were streetcars among the only mass transit that you could build, but transit didn't have to compete with cars since they either didn't exist or were only affordable for the rich. That made rail-based transit feasible for far more places.

Today with our completely different circumstances, putting tracks down in small cities isn't necessarily going to attract enough ridership to make the cost premium over buses a good value. Not only because buses and cars exist and have gone through a good century of refinement, but also because cities are much lower density now as a result. In many cases legacy streetcar and LRT networks wouldn't even be built today in larger cities since their construction was also down to factors that no longer exist.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Small communities had rail transit systems built before motor vehicles were prevalent or in some cases even invented. In fact, the idea of using rails started because the streetcars were horse-pulled and the horses could pull much greater loads when you eliminated much of the friction by putting the vehicles on metal tracks. So not only were streetcars among the only mass transit that you could build, but transit didn't have to compete with cars since they either didn't exist or were only affordable for the rich. That made rail-based transit feasible for far more places.

Today with our completely different circumstances, putting tracks down in small cities isn't necessarily going to attract enough ridership to make the cost premium over buses a good value. Not only because buses and cars exist and have gone through a good century of refinement, but also because cities are much lower density now as a result. In many cases legacy streetcar and LRT networks wouldn't even be built today in larger cities since their construction was also down to factors that no longer exist.

Those factors that no longer exist are part of the problem of climate change. Back then cars were too expensive, so you relied on a horse. Had they kept the railed transit and improved it along side of improvements to buses and cars we might have seen that instead of a 2 car family, it would only be a 1 car family.