The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by MexiQuebecois

Very Montrealish...

TTC is taking a chance with these buses, hope it goes well.

[LeftCoaster]

What chance? Nearly every large municipality in Canada already uses articulated busses on busy routes.

[SignalHillHiker]

One of our candidates for City Council has some wonderful ideas for public transit:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=6214317&postcount=618

And the idea of constructing parkades at opposite ends of downtown for commuters, with some form of public transit to bring those who use them throughout downtown, is gaining traction.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

What chance? Nearly every large municipality in Canada already uses articulated busses on busy routes.

Well, I just mean that last time the TTC got these "Artic" Buses there were major corrosion issues within 5 years of them entering service. So they are putting their toes back into the water again, and attempting not to get soaked. I still believe it's a wait and see situation. If it goes well, surely they will order more, but not before at least a 5 year test run on the selected routes.

[Beedok]

Why was the corrosion so bad? Does Toronto use too much salt?

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Why was the corrosion so bad? Does Toronto use too much salt?

Bad enough, the TTC had to pull the buses out of service, and they were never re-installed on those selected routes after this decommissioning.

[Innsertnamehere]

that had more to do with buying shitty buses than have local issues.

[Beedok]

I just know that other cities have slinky buses just fine, so I was wondering if Toronto did something different. The only thing I could think of was road salting as the climate is similar to Hamilton that uses them. (Miss. uses them too doesn't it?)

[Innsertnamehere]

yes and yes. York uses them as well. As I said, it was just a bad batch of buses.

[Doady]

Articulated buses are very expensive to maintain. There are corrosion problems as noted, exacerbated by the salt used to keep roads free of ice and snow. They don't work well in snow either. And as you might guess, most Canadian cities get a lot of snow. For example, Mississauga never uses their artics when it is snowing moderately or heavily. The artics get stuck in the snow very easily, so it is pointless to have them in operation during such times.

There are other problems, such as the increased amount of time it takes for passengers to board an articulated bus, reducing the speed and reliabilty of the service. Artics are best suited for limited stop service, especially with an all-door boarding scheme. It's why the TTC is switching to an all-door boarding scheme with the new LRVs. Lower frequencies, long transit vehicles and mandatory front-door boarding are not a good mix.

[niwell]

I had read that the articulated buses were to switch to all door boarding once Presto was fully installed. Granted, who knows when that will actually be...

[Beedok]

Why is it that Ottawa has finished putting in Presto faster than Toronto when they don't even have a reason for being part of Presto?

[franktko]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Why is it that Ottawa has finished putting in Presto faster than Toronto when they don't even have a reason for being part of Presto?

From what I'm reading, Presto is an efficient and electronic way to pay your fares just like the OPUS card in Montreal. Ottawa has the same reasons as any other city with public transport to adopt a system like this. And I would think that implementing it in Ottawa would be a simpler task by a factor of a lot, thus, faster to accomplish...

[Innsertnamehere]

ottawa finished installation first because they have an insanely smaller system.

[J.OT13]

News from Ottawa; the Queensway widening in the east end is well underway to add bus lanes when the Transitway is closed for conversion. The industrial and commercial units are being cleared to make way for the future Belfast rail yards. Also, both tunnel portals for the downtown subway line are under construction.

I would like to answer questions about the high cost of a line that is mostly a conversion. The line will cost 2.13 billion. Of that, around 800 million will be for the tunnel portion. The conversion of the Transitway is a little more complicated than it sounds. Most stations will be complete rebuilds and others will be gutted to the bare bones (only reusing the stairs and elevator shafts) and rebuilt. For example, the Le Breton Flats station is currently 2 bus shelters, one on each side of the intersection where Booth Street dips. This station will require building a whole new Booth Street bridge over the new line along with a whole new station with stairs, elevators and roof structure. Hurdman is currently a surface station and requires an elevated guide-way for the trains along with a rebuild of a bus transfer.

And now I have a question about Vancouver; with the new Evergreen Line, the Skytrain will become the longest rapid transit system in Canada at 80 km. But aren't we counting the line between Columbia and Waterfront stations twice (once for Expo, once for Millennium), adding 22 kilometers to the final count?

[Metro-One]

Nope, currently there is 68.6KM of track, the Evergreen Line will be adding 10.9KM for a total of 79.5KM of track.

The eventual Broadway extension will add another 10+ KM.

[J.OT13]

Expo Line: 28.9 km
Millennium Line: 20.3 km
Canada Line: 19.2 km
Evergreen Line: 11 km

Total: 79.4 km

But of that, 22 km is shared between the Millennium and Expo Lines and so that brings it down to 57.4 km of rapid transit. Montreal and Toronto's subway lines are on their own, i.e. don't share their rights of way with any other lines and so their 69.2 km and 68.3 km respectively, are true representations of the area served by rapid transit.

[Metro-One]

umm, how can 22 km be shared between the M line and the Expo line when the M line is only listed as 20km.

I think you are confused, 20km is the M-Line's separate built length, while including it's shared run is 42km long.

So yes, we will have 79.4 km of guideway.

[vid]

NovaBuses are pretty reliable. Thunder Bay's first batch of Newflyers in 1994 were all shit (they had to be sent back to Winnipeg for a total rebuild less than a year after receiving them) but overall they're a good product now. Toronto will probably be fine.

Even 40 foot buses have trouble in heavy snow, Thunder Bay shuts down parts of routes or diverts them to "snow routes" to avoid trouble spots when we have heavy snow, Toronto might want to do the same. If you set up a detour that will always be used in certain conditions and people know about it, it has less impact on service than an arbitrarily decided detour.

[ssiguy]

The Expo and Mill are 2 separate lines in terms of construction.

Metro-One is absolutely correct............79km when Evergreen is done.