Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Are we sure those numbers are right? I'm far from an expert on Edmonton transit but they seem suspiciously high. The entire LRT network in Edmonton prior to the Valley Line opening was reporting 85,000 daily riders and that was on a network which has had decades to build ridership patterns.

Looking at the article more closely:

City staff attributed some of the growth to the new Valley Line Southeast LRT, which saw 85,000 additional monthly riders in its first six months. The new line represents about 13 per cent of total LRT ridership, the city said.

“We are seeing over 100,000 trips a day on the Valley Line and that’s been growing month over month,” Rutherford said.

If they are seeing 85k new riders per month, I doubt the Valley Line itself has 100k riders. May be a miss-quote, or Rutherford mistakenly saying the Valley Line when she meant system wide.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Generally pretty good. It looks awesome and really adds an urban feel to more of central Edmonton.

“We are seeing over 100,000 trips a day on the Valley Line and that’s been growing month over month,” Rutherford said.

Overall, considering all modes of public transportation, ridership reached 5.3 million in May 2024, “which is phenomenal,” Feldman said.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10564914/...ndemic-levels/

I definitely enjoy the ride a lot more than the bus along that route. It's also greatly improved the public realm around Bonnie Doon.

[Coldrsx]

^^yeah, seemed very high to me, but it also serves A LOT of former bus routes and provides access to a lot of people.

[LeftCoaster]

That makes no sense. According to their stats the entire system carried just over 100,000 passengers per day before the pandemic. Now one line is carrying that?

[Coldrsx]

Unsure, but it is a SIGNIFICANT line with a huge catchment area, but I would agree that the stats seem questionable.

[Nouvellecosse]

100k riders per day is what the Canada line was getting a few months after opening. And compared to Valley line's phase 1 it's a longer, more frequent line with more stops in a larger, denser metro area. So while certainly not impossible, it would be quite an achievement.

[Luisito]

Progress on the new ontario line
• Video Link

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

100k riders per day is what the Canada line was getting a few months after opening. And compared to Valley line's phase 1 it's a longer, more frequent line with more stops in a larger, denser metro area. So while certainly not impossible, it would be quite an achievement.

This actually makes it seem more plausible. Not counting the Airport spur, the Canada Line is barely longer and has low station density through some low-density areas. These areas have since densified--and are densifying further--but back in 2010 it was, as far as the Canada Line is concerned, suburbia from Broadway down. No stops on the urban part of Cambie, no stop (still) near the hospital, and Richmond was mostly malls. Even the Marine Drive tower cluster wasn't there yet.

Valley Line serves working class areas, multiple employment centres, and draws from a huge area at the end of the line. It's probably the perfect use-case for light rail in a mid-sized, suburbanized city.

Glasgow and Vancouver might have to enter some kind of pageant to see who has the world's cutest widdle subway line but the point is, it's not like the Canada Line is offering service above and beyond the Valley Line. At the airport, it feels like you're getting on some kind of people mover that'll take you to a real metro line; it's weird that it just takes you all the way into the city as a two-car baby train. It's going to have capacity problems sooner than later, and that's even without people living around 16th, 33rd, and 59th demanding new stops.


Anyway, good for Edmonton. They're picking up some real wins in transit development. When Valley Line West and the Metro Line extension opens, I'd even suggest they'll have a better light rail system than Calgary--at least until the Green Line opens.

With Alberta getting serious about intercity rail, are there any plans to bring a train station back into downtown Edmonton?

[nname]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

100k riders per day is what the Canada line was getting a few months after opening. And compared to Valley line's phase 1 it's a longer, more frequent line with more stops in a larger, denser metro area. So while certainly not impossible, it would be quite an achievement.

According to APTA ridership report, the average weekday ridership for the entire LRT system in Q1 2024 was 83,200.

So it's certainly a misquote. Perhaps they meant around 100k daily rider for the entire LRT system?

Source: https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uplo...rship-APTA.pdf page 38.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by biguc

This actually makes it seem more plausible. Not counting the Airport spur, the Canada Line is barely longer and has low station density through some low-density areas. These areas have since densified--and are densifying further--but back in 2010 it was, as far as the Canada Line is concerned, suburbia from Broadway down. No stops on the urban part of Cambie, no stop (still) near the hospital, and Richmond was mostly malls. Even the Marine Drive tower cluster wasn't there yet.

Yeah I'm not buying that one at all. Not just the airport, but the Canada Line replaced several busy bus services that connected the entire suburbs of Richmond and Delta to downtown Vancouver as they were altered to feed into the Canada line. And I would definitely not characterize 19.2km as being "barely longer" than 13.1km. It's almost 50% longer.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by nname

According to APTA ridership report, the average weekday ridership for the entire LRT system in Q1 2024 was 83,200.

So it's certainly a misquote. Perhaps they meant around 100k daily rider for the entire LRT system?

Source: https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uplo...rship-APTA.pdf page 38.

Yeah that's the most plausible theory by far.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Yeah I'm not buying that one at all. Not just the airport, but the Canada Line replaced several busy bus services that connected the entire suburbs of Richmond and Delta to downtown Vancouver as they were altered to feed into the Canada line. And I would definitely not characterize 19.2km as being "barely longer" than 13.1km. It's almost 50% longer.

I did say I excluded the airport spur. If the Canada Line hadn't been built for the Olympics, I doubt anyone would have found it that essential, and I doubt the airport (or the parking lots also pointlessly served) contribute much to CL ridership. So, the part of the line that matters is only 1 km longer. And part of that part is a single-track stub.

For what it's worth, I agree that it's a mis-quote. But I'm not buying at all that the CL isn't so limited that a tramline in Edmonton couldn't outperform it

[Coldrsx]

I would agree given everything before us.

Pre-COVID was ~115-120k/day system-wide.

That said, the City docs do talk about 30k Metro line, 80k Capital WITHOUT the SE Valley line... math does not seem to add up.

Only thing I can assume is that the above lines dropped to say 70k, with the new line at 30k.

[nname]

Originally Posted by biguc

I did say I excluded the airport spur. If the Canada Line hadn't been built for the Olympics, I doubt anyone would have found it that essential, and I doubt the airport (or the parking lots also pointlessly served) contribute much to CL ridership. So, the part of the line that matters is only 1 km longer. And part of that part is a single-track stub.

Maybe you need to actually ride it before making assumptions.

Here is the 2023 weekday boarding data for those stations that do not contribute much to the ridership:

YVR Airport: 7820
Sea Island Centre: 980
Templeton: 3350

So that's 12,150 weekday boarding from those 3 stations. Then if you consider alighting, it's safe to say those contributed about 20% of the ridership for the entire line, similar to the proportion of the airport spur compared to the entire length of the line.

Source: https://public.tableau.com/app/profi...ableofContents

[giallo]

Originally Posted by biguc

I did say I excluded the airport spur. If the Canada Line hadn't been built for the Olympics, I doubt anyone would have found it that essential, and I doubt the airport (or the parking lots also pointlessly served) contribute much to CL ridership. So, the part of the line that matters is only 1 km longer. And part of that part is a single-track stub.

Eh? The Canada Line, as you mentioned, is the sole RT connection to the airport, as well as the sole connection (currently) to the Broadway Corridor (the second biggest employment hub in Metro Vancouver), and Richmond. It also terminates at Waterfront Station which allows direct access to the North Shore via the seabus and Expo Line from the airport, central/south Vancouver and Richmond.

The "widdle" subway line does A LOT of heavy-lifting. The amount of density that has formed around it since its completion should not be ignored. It was built for the future, so dismissing it as "not essential" is missing the point. Sure, it wasn't essential in 2010, but it sure is in 2024.

[craner]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Edmonton's WLRT is well underway.
• Video Link

That’s a really cool video - I feel like I just did the full (future) trip.

[casper]

Originally Posted by giallo

Eh? The Canada Line, as you mentioned, is the sole RT connection to the airport, as well as the sole connection (currently) to the Broadway Corridor (the second biggest employment hub in Metro Vancouver), and Richmond. It also terminates at Waterfront Station which allows direct access to the North Shore via the seabus and Expo Line from the airport, central/south Vancouver and Richmond.

The "widdle" subway line does A LOT of heavy-lifting. The amount of density that has formed around it since its completion should not be ignored. It was built for the future, so dismissing it as "not essential" is missing the point. Sure, it wasn't essential in 2010, but it sure is in 2024.

The more common model in North America would have been for the airport to build a people mover to cover connection to the parking and a nearby transit station.

Canada line was a unique situation where the airport and transit authority were able to collaborate, the airport chipped in some money and Vancouver ended up with an integrated system.

Far better setup than having different technology and a transfer station. One seat from the airport terminal to downtown Vancouver is a much better setup.

[Metro-One]

The "minature" quality of the Canada Line is also played up a lot, only a fool from perhaps the largest metros in the world would confuse it for "a people mover." It uses full scale heavy rail subway cars, and 2 car trains aren't as uncommon, especially when utilizing high frequencies, in mid sized metros / corridors of similar density and catchments as the Canada Line around the world.

For example, the local trains where I live in Japan, running along a corridor with a catchment of around 700 000, use one car to three care trains. These trains are also far less frequent than the Canada Line (about thee times as hour). There is also an express train though about twice an hour, but that is a trans regional train that goes far out of the catchment area of the local train, and is far more expensive, and only has limited stops.

The Canada Line can still more than double its ridership with the planned expansions built into the system (10 metre additions to the stations and a third car, with even more frequent trains).

So yeah, given its automation and full grade separation, I would gladly take the Canada Line as is than nearly all LRTs with large portion of at grade rail.

[biguc]

Relax, guys. It's not the size of the train that matters, it's those 90-mile-an-hour hips.

Originally Posted by giallo

The "widdle" subway line does A LOT of heavy-lifting. The amount of density that has formed around it since its completion should not be ignored. It was built for the future, so dismissing it as "not essential" is missing the point. Sure, it wasn't essential in 2010, but it sure is in 2024.

Well exactly. Translink builds carrots for development. Little of what's been built since 2010 (probably more like 2006) along the Canada Line would have been built there without it.

If Translink had put those resources somewhere else, like under Broadway, that development would have gone there instead.

It shouldn't be controversial to point out that Translink is more interested in feeding a bawling (and ever-growing) brood of lower-mainland towns than in providing the best transit for Vancouver.

(If any of you sincerely prefer the pastiche of urbanity popping up in your suburbs to supporting actual urbanity in Vancouver, that's fine. I'd rather see all the Surrey and Burquitlam stuff concentrated in a stronger city of Vancouver. But this is a matter of taste. I'm not calling any of you "a prick from maybe the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands" so there's no need to call me "a fool from perhaps the largest metros in the world.")

The point is, development always follows infrastructure. There's an element of affirming the consequent or historical presentism in arguing that development built because of infrastructure makes that infrastructure essential.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of basically any proposed transit infrastructure on the grounds that it will provoke changes in development patterns. I think our transit should be designed to maximize this effect.

This is, in part, why I don't take the Canada Line seriously. It should have stops every 800 m through Vancouver--namely at 16th, 33rd, and 59th. Instead, Richmond is getting an infill stop because it's easier to build towers in parking lots and cheaper to build elevated stations.

Will Vancouver ever get infill stops on the Canada Line? I doubt it for the same reason I doubt the West End will get a fixed transit connection before Delta--Translink's motivations.


If it makes any of you feel better, the u4 line in Berlin also runs baby trains. It's a five-stop pony line built 120 years ago, when Schöneberg, then an independent city, wanted a subway connection to Berlin--like Translink, as a carrot to development.

The u4 is kind of extra sad because they actually built 100 m platforms and one of the stations is even this fancy Prussian thing. But I'm sure it's very important to the people who live along it. It connects at one end to three other ubahn lines and at the other to the sbahn ring. It's also ideally positioned for extension through a gap in coverage in the city centre. The Autobahn moronically (their second-most-favorite way do things after fascistically) built a road tunnel blocking extension southwards.

I still think the U4 is silly.

The Canada Line is obviously pulling more weight than a five-stop pony line. The thing is, it shouldn't look like a five-stop pony line because it shouldn't have been built below five-stop pony line standards.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by biguc

This actually makes it seem more plausible. Not counting the Airport spur, the Canada Line is barely longer and has low station density through some low-density areas. These areas have since densified--and are densifying further--but back in 2010 it was, as far as the Canada Line is concerned, suburbia from Broadway down. No stops on the urban part of Cambie, no stop (still) near the hospital, and Richmond was mostly malls. Even the Marine Drive tower cluster wasn't there yet.

Valley Line serves working class areas, multiple employment centres, and draws from a huge area at the end of the line. It's probably the perfect use-case for light rail in a mid-sized, suburbanized city.

Glasgow and Vancouver might have to enter some kind of pageant to see who has the world's cutest widdle subway line but the point is, it's not like the Canada Line is offering service above and beyond the Valley Line. At the airport, it feels like you're getting on some kind of people mover that'll take you to a real metro line; it's weird that it just takes you all the way into the city as a two-car baby train. It's going to have capacity problems sooner than later, and that's even without people living around 16th, 33rd, and 59th demanding new stops.


Anyway, good for Edmonton. They're picking up some real wins in transit development. When Valley Line West and the Metro Line extension opens, I'd even suggest they'll have a better light rail system than Calgary--at least until the Green Line opens.

With Alberta getting serious about intercity rail, are there any plans to bring a train station back into downtown Edmonton?

Overall, I think the Canada Line was a huge success. Rapid transit for cheap. Certainly has some pitfalls. An additional stop between Yaletown and City Centre would have been good. Another stop on Cambie maybe, not as familiar myself.

Strange a hospital isn't served. Is it this one?

https://www.google.com/maps/search/h...!1e2?entry=ttu