[St. John's] Transport development (Highways, Airport, and Public Transit)

[SignalHillHiker]

Wow... that is an awful website.

[Architype]

I think the tram idea would work well as you outlined above, it also ties in with the tourism image of the city. Also, I noticed the Metrobus site trip calculator doesn't work too well.

[PoscStudent]

How much would taxpayers have to dish out for trams?

[Architype]

The problem with trams is not necessarily the cost, but the fact that drivers would be resistant to sharing the road with them and having to drive over tracks. There would also be times in the winter where they would not function because of snow, but I suppose that also applies to busses.

[PoscStudent]

Originally Posted by Architype

The problem with trams is not necessarily the cost, but the fact that drivers would be resistant to sharing the road with them and having to drive over tracks. There would also be times in the winter where they would not function because of snow, but I suppose that also applies to busses.

The best thing with St. John's weather would probably be subways, but that's unrealistic.

[mrjanejacobs]

Originally Posted by Copes

Trams certainly do feel like a better option, given our downtown streets. Are we talking about a separate tram "lane", or just installing tracks in the street and having them travel with traffic like I'm witnessing here in Toronto (I've never seen it before. )

It is also times like this where I despise St. John's neighbours.

For Water Street, I would propose a complete retrofit.

The beauty of trams, because they are so lean, slender and long, is that they can, at times, run on their own right-of-way and where it's not possible, they can merge with traffic.

I take a tram to school every day and I would approximate 70% of the trip has it's own right of way, and 30% is mixed with traffic. With that said, the 30% in traffic probably takes just as long, or longer at times, to get through. It's astounding.

Because Water Street is so narrow, I would propose something that involves removing a lane of car-traffic as well as both on-street parking lanes. In replacement, I would propose a tram line on both sides. I don't think a traffic-based tram would work well on water street because it would degrade the rapidity and reliability.

More broadly speaking, building a new tram thoroughfare is much cheaper, less invasive and more discrete than building a new road.

I was thinking something like this:

[mrjanejacobs]

Originally Posted by PoscStudent

The best thing with St. John's weather would probably be subways, but that's unrealistic.

haha - very unrealistic. But to be fair, our weather really isn't that bad. For Canadian standards, yeah our weather sucks. But for some more northern European country's standards, they get just as much rain as we do with similar temps. Yet, Scandinavian, dutch and german cities have some of the best transit in the world - trams are often the backbone of those systems.

[jeddy1989]

I think it looks great!
being the devil's advocate .. not that it's how I see it but how other's would .. people may not want the vehicle capacity to be reduced .. maybe put the bike lanes on harbour drive and another car lane going in the same direction, or one row of parking .. I'm just thinking about what the people would complain about and that would be people who just want to pop into a place for a short few minutes to pick soemthing up etc. and they would be discouraged by zero on street parking .. or we could just have parking along harbour drive and theyid just have to walk around the corner to water street .. hmm . I LOVE the idea of trams love love love and also we could make pedestrian, bike, tram and car transport options available in the same area which is one of the keys to smart growth (multiple transportation options) .. this could also connect into the bus system concept I brought up .. have the hubs at where the park and ride points are for the trams .. that way connecting everything

it would be amazing

I only say that about vehicle capacity because people use water street to get to the other side of DT too, not just to stop, I love the idea though

[mrjanejacobs]

Originally Posted by jeddy1989

I think it looks great!
being the devil's advocate .. not that it's how I see it but how other's would .. people may not want the vehicle capacity to be reduced .. maybe put the bike lanes on harbour drive and another car lane going in the same direction, or one row of parking .. I'm just thinking about what the people would complain about and that would be people who just want to pop into a place for a short few minutes to pick soemthing up etc. and they would be discouraged by zero on street parking .. or we could just have parking along harbour drive and theyid just have to walk around the corner to water street .. hmm . I LOVE the idea of trams love love love and also we could make pedestrian, bike, tram and car transport options available in the same area which is one of the keys to smart growth (multiple transportation options) .. this could also connect into the bus system concept I brought up .. have the hubs at where the park and ride points are for the trams .. that way connecting everything

it would be amazing

I only say that about vehicle capacity because people use water street to get to the other side of DT too, not just to stop, I love the idea though

Eh - you can't please everyone, imo! (the biggest problem with opportunistic, municipal politicians!)

I don't think reducing traffic volumes is actually a big deal at all, Harbour Drive is sensationally under-utilized. So I can't say for sure, but I'm failry confident that Harbour will be able to absorb a lot of the displaced traffic volume (which might actually bring some new opportunities to Harbour Drive, as businesses gain more visibility, etc).

I think bike lanes on water street is critical. Bike transport in SJ needs better branding - they need high visibility and they need to be prioritized. Putting them on Harbour Drive would just be the continued practice of 'de-prioritizing cycling', as in... cyclists are not as important as cars and motorists, so you can go on this less important road to the side where there isn't actually anything happening (haha). Also, people drive pretty damn fast on Harbour Drive, so cyclists wouldn't be as comfortable. And Harbour Drive is much more exposed to cold, wind and rain when compared with Water which also makes it unpleasant for cyclists. Plus, Harbour Drive would require cyclists to go past their location (presumably somewhere on Duckworth or Water) to use the bikelane on Harbour. In other words, cyclists just wouldn't use it. haha.. I bike everywhere in Montreal, so I can get inside the head of a time/effort-savvy cyclist.

And in terms of on-street parking, there will still be lots on Harbour and Duckworth (so it's definitely not zero on-street)!

And if I recall correctly, I was proposing the same system you are talking about with rapid bus routes... haha (jus'sayin')

[jeddy1989]

Originally Posted by mrjanejacobs

Eh - you can't please everyone, imo! (the biggest problem with opportunistic, municipal politicians!)

I don't think reducing traffic volumes is actually a big deal at all, Harbour Drive is sensationally under-utilized. So I can't say for sure, but I'm failry confident that Harbour will be able to absorb a lot of the displaced traffic volume (which might actually bring some new opportunities to Harbour Drive, as businesses gain more visibility, etc).

I think bike lanes on water street is critical. Bike transport in SJ needs better branding - they need high visibility and they need to be prioritized. Putting them on Harbour Drive would just be the continued practice of 'de-prioritizing cycling', as in... cyclists are not as important as cars and motorists, so you can go on this less important road to the side where there isn't actually anything happening (haha). Also, people drive pretty damn fast on Harbour Drive, so cyclists wouldn't be as comfortable. And Harbour Drive is much more exposed to cold, wind and rain when compared with Water which also makes it unpleasant for cyclists. Plus, Harbour Drive would require cyclists to go past their location (presumably somewhere on Duckworth or Water) to use the bikelane on Harbour. In other words, cyclists just wouldn't use it. haha.. I bike everywhere in Montreal, so I can get inside the head of a time/effort-savvy cyclist.

And in terms of on-street parking, there will still be lots on Harbour and Duckworth (so it's definitely not zero on-street)!

And if I recall correctly, I was proposing the same system you are talking about with rapid bus routes... haha (jus'sayin')

I wasn't criticizing it lol! I was just trying to see how to work around what the major opposition would be that's all .. like I said .. I love the idea .. just thinking outload .. sorry!

[Bcasey25raptor]

I think St. John's really needs to focus on expanding metro bus to better meet the demands of Mount Pearl, CBS, holyrood, and paradise. Those areas are severely lacking in the transit department.

Also more frequent bus stops and times would greatly improve efficiency. St. John's has a very car oriented set up that can only bottleneck the city in the long run.

[jeddy1989]

Originally Posted by Bcasey25raptor

I think St. John's really needs to focus on expanding metro bus to better meet the demands of Mount Pearl, CBS, holyrood, and paradise. Those areas are severely lacking in the transit department.

Also more frequent bus stops and times would greatly improve efficiency. St. John's has a very car oriented set up that can only bottleneck the city in the long run.

agreed

[Architype]

Expensive real estate - New parking spaces will cost city more than $17,000 a pop

The extra 461 public parking spaces the City of St. John’s will create in the downtown core will cost $8 million or $17,353 per parking spot.

Coun. Tom Hann said the city was limited in its options and chose the cheapest way to meet an immediate need for public parking.

St.John’s had consultants do a parking study a few years ago, which was amended and accepted Tuesday by council. It found the downtown was deficient by 500 parking spaces.

Continue reading: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Loca...-17000-a-pop/1

[PoscStudent]

'lotta money!

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by mrjanejacobs

For Water Street, I would propose a complete retrofit.

The beauty of trams, because they are so lean, slender and long, is that they can, at times, run on their own right-of-way and where it's not possible, they can merge with traffic.

I take a tram to school every day and I would approximate 70% of the trip has it's own right of way, and 30% is mixed with traffic. With that said, the 30% in traffic probably takes just as long, or longer at times, to get through. It's astounding.

Because Water Street is so narrow, I would propose something that involves removing a lane of car-traffic as well as both on-street parking lanes. In replacement, I would propose a tram line on both sides. I don't think a traffic-based tram would work well on water street because it would degrade the rapidity and reliability.

More broadly speaking, building a new tram thoroughfare is much cheaper, less invasive and more discrete than building a new road.

I was thinking something like this:

I LOVE the enlarged sidewalks.

However, I think we're still going to need two lanes of traffic and parking along Water Street.

We could make Water and Duckworth one-way streets, in opposite directions. With two lanes of traffic and one dedicated tram line making that circle.

We could enlarge the sidewalks a bit and have diagonal parking on one side of both streets. That greatly increases the number of available spaces.

Would there be room for that? Or is that also a little too snug?

[Copes]

Originally Posted by Bcasey25raptor

I think St. John's really needs to focus on expanding metro bus to better meet the demands of Mount Pearl, CBS, holyrood, and paradise. Those areas are severely lacking in the transit department.

Also more frequent bus stops and times would greatly improve efficiency. St. John's has a very car oriented set up that can only bottleneck the city in the long run.

I agree, but I think those municipalities need to cooperate if St. John's is going to do that.

[mrjanejacobs]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

I LOVE the enlarged sidewalks.

However, I think we're still going to need two lanes of traffic and parking along Water Street.

We could make Water and Duckworth one-way streets, in opposite directions. With two lanes of traffic and one dedicated tram line making that circle.

We could enlarge the sidewalks a bit and have diagonal parking on one side of both streets. That greatly increases the number of available spaces.

Would there be room for that? Or is that also a little too snug?

haha - so in other words, you just like the sidewalks? Honestly, the enlarged sidewalks are my least favourite part of the design... haha, I find big sidewalks in Toronto and Montreal can be a little out-of-scale with the pedestrian. But they can be nice if well-executed, as they can make room for urban trees.

We don't need to increase the number of parking spaces, that's the point of the design! haha

If we are opening up, let's say, 200 parking spots on each end of the tram line, then there is no need for parking on water street. There would still be on-street parking on Harbour, Gower, Duckworth, every other street. We compromise the approximate 100-150 spots on water street to make room for a tram that will provide rapid access to 400+ spaces.

Diagonal parking is retrogressing... haha. It takes up way more space.

Why do we need two lanes of traffic? The lane of traffic being displaced can be absorbed by Harbour Drive (which is really underused!). Plus, many people who take water street are looking for somewhere to park - and so if no one is looking for spaces, then that will also greatly reduce the volume of cars passing along water street as well.

The whole premise of the proposal is to prioritize cycling and transit. Currently, the only transport mode being acknowledged at all is the privately owned automobile. It's the only priority. How can we expect cycling and transit to ever catch on in our city if they are never a priority? If we continuing worshiping cars, nothing will ever change (I know you're not worshiping, haha, I'm speaking more generally about our society, haha)

[mrjanejacobs]

It's also funny, because this is just how roads are built in Europe. There no such thing as a single-mode road. They are always dynamic thoroughfares that acknowledge all transport modes.

Progressive Canadian cities are correcting this - Montreal and Vancouver are doing a fantastic job with really dynamic, "complete" roads. Toronto is not succeeding, for obvious reasons (couch * hill-billy mayor * cough) but also due to a lot of resistance.

[mrjanejacobs]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

We could make Water and Duckworth one-way streets, in opposite directions. With two lanes of traffic and one dedicated tram line making that circle.

Hmm - but where would the dedicated tram line be if you still have two lanes of traffic?

You would need to remove a lane of parking on both streets.

The only difference would be that it costs twice as much because you would need to tear up two roads instead of one.

[Copes]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

We could make Water and Duckworth one-way streets, in opposite directions. With two lanes of traffic and one dedicated tram line making that circle.

This is more along my line of thought as well. Let the tram "loop" around our commercial district. The lane of traffic to be removed will correspond with the direction of traffic that is removed. Tram has its own lane, and bikes have their own lanes. Plus, wider sidewalks which could maybe lead to some trees and urban art scattered around our downtown.

This is of course assuming that the sky is the limit and money is no obstacle. Which we all know is the case.

EDIT: Although I just realized that only one looping tram makes it incredibly convenient if you are traveling one direct, and incredibly inconvenient if you are traveling in the other.