The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Innsertnamehere]

they would need to double track it, yes. It isn't that busy, and hourly frequencies would leave plenty of room for freight.

Glen Murray (Ontario's transportation minister) is apparently making another announcement tomorrow at the downtown GO bus terminal as well, so there may be something coming from there..

Expect a whole lot of announcements over the coming weeks as the Liberals finally start to show off their fancy new transit projects that will be paid for by the taxes.

[Chadillaccc]

Calgary Transit to add 20 more bendy buses in 2014 for $12-million

Public transit users should expect longer rides this summer — although, that’s only because they’ll be more stretched-out, accordion-style buses on city streets.

Calgary Transit declared earlier this month it’s adding 20 more of the so-called “articulated” buses in 2014 for a total cost around $12 million.

Transit fleet manager Russell Davies told Metro the new buses will likely cater to rapid-transit routes where passengers would be hard-pressed — literally— to cram into the standard 40-footers.

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/974850/...more-bendy-buses-in-2014-for-12-million/




First of 150 new Calgary Transit buses hit city streets

Platform shoes, bell-bottomed jeans and Farrah Fawcett haircuts were all the rage in 1978 when Calgary Transit rolled out its GMC bus fleet.

After racking up 1.5-million kilometres, the last of that classic armada was retired last week with a sleek new line coming out.

On Friday, reporters got to tour one of 150 new 40-foot rigs.

The new models are equipped with air conditioning, bike racks and low floors.

“It should be a fair bit cleaner and healthier experience,” Transit fleet manager Russell Davies.

Davies tipped his cap to the old faithful — which was parked a metre away from its successor at the press event. But he admitted it’s “not typical” for a bus to run for 36 years, noting that’s three times more than many U.S. jurisdictions.

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/949028/first-of-150-new-calgary-transit-buses-hit-city-streets/




Calgary councillors hear ‘daunting’ plans for downtown LRT connector

Transit planners were questioned Wednesday over the sky-high obstacles in building an underground downtown tunnel as city councillors looked for middle ground in linking Calgary’s new cross-town LRT.

Consultant Michael Thompson told a transportation committee there would be a “tremendous cost difference” between burying the so-called Green Line or running it at street-level coming north out of the core.

“If you do tunnel underneath the (Bow) River, that tunnel will not be surfacing until north of 16th Avenue and that will be adding significant capital costs to the project,” said Thompson of Stantec Consultants Ltd.

If it’s even possible, he added, the CTrain stations would have to be “extremely deep” north of Memorial Drive.

http://metronews.ca/news/calgary/969733/...unting-plans-for-downtown-lrt-connector/

[miketoronto]

Calgary needs to just build the tunnel.

It is so annoying how cities across the nation want to cheap out and act poor. Can you imagine if Toronto and Montreal acted like this in the 50's and 60's, and did surface rail instead of a subway?

Just build the tunnel and get it over with.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The province announced all day GO service to Kitchener today, with a phase 1 of 2 additional trains opening in 2016, and all day service starting at an unspecified date (presumably when the portion of the line through Brampton gets it, which is supposed to be late 2010's or early 2020's). I presume it will be paid for by expanding the transit taxes to KWC.

Two more morning trains and two in the afternoon, supposedly on the path toward all-day two-way service. Wynne also made some mention of track improvements to reduce the travel time, which is currently a ridiculous two hours.

[Innsertnamehere]

once Georgetown south is completed most of the corridor between Bloor and Bramalea will be zoned for 90mph which should be a huge improvement there alone. Include some crossing upgrades through Guelph as well as an express service after Brampton or Bramalea and you can easily shave off 30 minutes from the travel time.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Calgary needs to just build the tunnel.

It is so annoying how cities across the nation want to cheap out and act poor. Can you imagine if Toronto and Montreal acted like this in the 50's and 60's, and did surface rail instead of a subway?

Just build the tunnel and get it over with.

It's a big gap to leap over. It took Ottawa a good deal of time to finally find the balls to build a tunnel, for example.

Interesting to find out that Calgary still has buses from the 1970s! Here in Ottawa all the buses are from the 21st century and most are from the past 5-10 years. In Kingston almost the entire fleet is from 2007 or later, with a couple spares from the late 90s.

Ontario passed a law a few years ago mandating that all transit agencies in the province have 100% low-floor wheelchair-accessible fleets by the end of 2013. That forced municipalities to upgrade to entirely modern fleets. I guess Alberta doesn't have a similar law (or maybe they do but they're still in the transition period?)

[1overcosc]

Two hours is crazy. One hour is reasonable.

Can someone with railway knowledge explain this to me: why is it that VIA trains go 165km/h, but slow down to a crawl whenever they enter any town even if they aren't stopping there? As somebody who trains between Ottawa & Kingston regularly, it's frustrating when what the Kingston-Ottawa express (with no intermediate stations) train slows down to a crawl through Brockville, Smiths Falls, and the Ottawa suburbs.

[Innsertnamehere]

Smith Falls is because of the rail yard it has to traverse to get through the town.

the express service from Ottawa to Toronto slows down to around 60km/h through towns as well, and while I really don't know the reason, I feel it is the large amount of level crossings.

1 hour is pushing it, you are looking at 101 kilometers here. Short of some direct Toronto-Kitchener service with no stops I don't see it happening. with even a semi express run (say Kitchener-Guelph-Acton-Georgetown-Brampton-Union) and 90mph operations for most of the route you are looking at somewhere between 1:20 and 1:30.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

It's a big gap to leap over. It took Ottawa a good deal of time to finally find the balls to build a tunnel, for example.

Interesting to find out that Calgary still has buses from the 1970s! Here in Ottawa all the buses are from the 21st century and most are from the past 5-10 years. In Kingston almost the entire fleet is from 2007 or later, with a couple spares from the late 90s.

Ontario passed a law a few years ago mandating that all transit agencies in the province have 100% low-floor wheelchair-accessible fleets by the end of 2013. That forced municipalities to upgrade to entirely modern fleets. I guess Alberta doesn't have a similar law (or maybe they do but they're still in the transition period?)

Exactly. You guys have Ontario with a tax base of nearly 14 million people to fund those things, largely thanks to successive liberal governments who love transit and spending money. We have Alberta with a tax base just past 4 million, which suffered through dual terms with Ralph Klein as premier basically halting all provincial funding of infrastructure, especially public transit. Thankfully Redford is pretty spendhappy and seems to like transit, and thank the Gods for Nenshi, he is like a dream come true for a sustainable and cosmopolitan future. Also, as the article states, Calgary no longer has busses from the 70s, that's what the entire article is about. Most of Calgary's busses are from the mid to late 2000s as well. Not even 1/6 of the fleet is from before the 2000s.


And in regards to the tunnels, they will be built. There's no option for the future of our inner city. The 8th Avenue Subway is a complete necessity, and the 2nd Street/Centre Street Subway is a necessity if City Hall wants to the 203 line to be integrated. If not, it will be 2 separate lines without an intermodal station downtown for transfers, basically useless.



EDIT: I just remembered, my hometown in Ontario (Woodstock) had busses from the 60s running up until just a few years ago when we got hand me downs from Quebec City.

[Innsertnamehere]

We went through that in the late 90's with Harris. Bus replacements are normally paid for by the city as well, the province gave out some grants a few years ago to get accessible buses in but otherwise they are same old same old. Toronto runs it's buses on a 20 year life cycle, so we still have a ton of buses from the early 1990's. We had some 1970's buses up until a year or two ago as well.


Remember, while Ontario may have a tax base of 14 million, they have to pay to support those 14 million as well.

The accessible requirement date is also 2026 from my understanding? But at that point all subway stations need elevators and all buses and streetcars need to be accessible. GOs network is already compleat accessible, and the TTC has a very expensive (and city paid for) program for adding elevators. The only line that was actually built with them to platform level from the start was the Sheppard line..

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

It's a big gap to leap over. It took Ottawa a good deal of time to finally find the balls to build a tunnel, for example.

Interesting to find out that Calgary still has buses from the 1970s! Here in Ottawa all the buses are from the 21st century and most are from the past 5-10 years. In Kingston almost the entire fleet is from 2007 or later, with a couple spares from the late 90s.

Ontario passed a law a few years ago mandating that all transit agencies in the province have 100% low-floor wheelchair-accessible fleets by the end of 2013. That forced municipalities to upgrade to entirely modern fleets. I guess Alberta doesn't have a similar law (or maybe they do but they're still in the transition period?)

It would be a HUGE gap. It would go down on the south side of the Bow River and it wouldn’t come up for about 15 blocks, north of 16th. That’s maybe twice as long as the tunnel on the WLRT and much deeper. The WLRT tunnel was cut and cover. I’m sure this tunnel will be built at some point, but I think a bus lane on Centre St. in the medium term would be just as effective. I think the next tunnel we should build is the one under 8th Ave. downtown.

[theman23]

That's great news about the KW-GO. Hopefully the travel time eventually ends up being closer to one hour. One more step to fully integrating all the regions of the GTA/GH.

Any plans on it eventually being all day two-way service, or will it simply carry people in? The demand may not be there currently, but I imagine having two-way service will do magic for commuting in the region once business/commercial corridors develop along these lines.

[Allan83]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

We went through that in the late 90's with Harris. Bus replacements are normally paid for by the city as well, the province gave out some grants a few years ago to get accessible buses in but otherwise they are same old same old. Toronto runs it's buses on a 20 year life cycle, so we still have a ton of buses from the early 1990's. We had some 1970's buses up until a year or two ago as well.


Remember, while Ontario may have a tax base of 14 million, they have to pay to support those 14 million as well.

The accessible requirement date is also 2026 from my understanding? But at that point all subway stations need elevators and all buses and streetcars need to be accessible. GOs network is already compleat accessible, and the TTC has a very expensive (and city paid for) program for adding elevators. The only line that was actually built with them to platform level from the start was the Sheppard line..

They use an enormous amount of salt on the roads in Ottawa. There are very few old vehicles of any sort there. I suspect that a 20 year old bus in Ottawa wouldn’t be roadworthy. I’ve seen cars there with rust holes through the floorboards.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

The accessible requirement date is also 2026 from my understanding? But at that point all subway stations need elevators and all buses and streetcars need to be accessible. GOs network is already compleat accessible, and the TTC has a very expensive (and city paid for) program for adding elevators. The only line that was actually built with them to platform level from the start was the Sheppard line..

2026 is the deadline for the Toronto subway. December 31, 2013 was the deadline for all municipal bus service.

[GreaterMontréal]

Calgary also has the Stoney Trail to complete. $$ And in Alberta, they don't want to be taxed like in Ontario and Quebec. Less money available.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Smith Falls is because of the rail yard it has to traverse to get through the town.

the express service from Ottawa to Toronto slows down to around 60km/h through towns as well, and while I really don't know the reason, I feel it is the large amount of level crossings.

1 hour is pushing it, you are looking at 101 kilometers here. Short of some direct Toronto-Kitchener service with no stops I don't see it happening. with even a semi express run (say Kitchener-Guelph-Acton-Georgetown-Brampton-Union) and 90mph operations for most of the route you are looking at somewhere between 1:20 and 1:30.

If they can eventually get two-way service down to 90 minutes, I think that would satisfy most people. At an estimated cost of $600 million, however, I don't think we should hold our breath. The K-W high-tech sector needs to keep pushing the province.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Allan83

They use an enormous amount of salt on the roads in Ottawa. There are very few old vehicles of any sort there. I suspect that a 20 year old bus in Ottawa wouldn’t be roadworthy. I’ve seen cars there with rust holes through the floorboards.

Gatineau's buses seem to have survived their frequent sorties into Ottawa.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

Aren't there tunnel designs that float and are suspended from the bottom of the waterbody? Maybe something like that would work in Vancouver.

Might be, certainly would be an interesting solution, not sure how well the would work in a seismically active location like BC though.

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Or...a bridge. The Crosstown Line could be extended from Willingdon up to North & West Vancouver. It'd only need a ~500 m bridge there. Or a spur from the Hastings Line crossing over further to the west.

I wonder if it'd also be possible to build a lower deck on the Lion's Gate Bridge and run trains to the North Shore through there instead.

No to the lower deck on LGB, it already doesn't allow trucks for weight purposes. But one day it will be replaced by a tunnel, it'd be nice if it became a transit/pedestrain only option in the future.

REgarding the hastings/Crosstown line going to the North Shore, that's a part of my 2055 plan! Next time I get some downtime I'm going to make that map.

Originally Posted by logan5

Main St. to Fell Ave. where the auto mall is. Lots of room. Lots of street connections, and it splits the difference between North and West Vancouver.

Well that doesn't really solve the problem since that's the widest deepest part of the inlet to cut across.

In all honesty the sea bus is fine for now and provides a pretty unique journey into downtown.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

If they can eventually get two-way service down to 90 minutes, I think that would satisfy most people. At an estimated cost of $600 million, however, I don't think we should hold our breath. The K-W high-tech sector needs to keep pushing the province.

I presume making the transit taxes go into Kitchener can easily pay for it. I thought all day Go to Kitchener would be $400 million as well? (presuming that all day GO already goes to Mount Pleasant)

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I presume making the transit taxes go into Kitchener can easily pay for it. I thought all day Go to Kitchener would be $400 million as well? (presuming that all day GO already goes to Mount Pleasant)

I don't know. I saw the $600 million somewhere, but I don't know if there are any firm estimates yet. Much of what Wynne seemed to be suggesting the other day was not defined.