Canadian Transit Thread II

[WhipperSnapper]

One possibility is a new crosstown line connecting the green with the blue through the airport. It's just not a direct shuttle but, it will advance C-Train as more than a commuter downtown route.

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

So a bit Toronto-centric, but the TTC will replace the 510 Spadina streetcar with buses starting June 23 while it does repairs.

The 510 streetcar was slow, but it was reliable. You could expect it to arrive every couple of minutes and it had the ridership to show for it. I'd actually argue that, unless they had special constables positioned at key intersections to keep the King (504) streetcar moving, that the Spadina streetcar was the only reliable streetcar route in the entire city. Now that it's out of service, the TTC streetcar system is a dog's breakfast of short turned routes, bus-substitutions, detours and unacceptable wait times. It's very difficult for anybody to keep track of what's in service and what's not. Reece Martin was right in this video when he said that the streetcar system is the worst thing the TTC does.

Could only think of this after reading the above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZnLjRi_g9o

[Airboy]

Working on a couple of proposals right now. All have a large component of federal funding.

And All have a line that states must take into account Future Fuels.

[Doady]

Should get rid of streetcars altogether. They're expensive to maintain, damage the roads ... go with electric trolly's, hybrids, or electric busses.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Doady

Should get rid of streetcars altogether. They're expensive to maintain, damage the roads ... go with electric trolly's, hybrids, or electric busses.

Because buses aren’t heavy and damage roads?

[DirectionNorth]

Originally Posted by Doady

Should get rid of streetcars altogether.

[deleted by self]

Note: I've kept the replies below for anyone who believes this is a good idea.

Originally Posted by Doady

They're expensive to maintain

Compared to operating 3x the buses (meaning 3x the drivers, by far the largest driver of cost in most surface transit operations) with bunching, loss of ridership due to passbys?

Also, consider that buses typically last 12 years, maybe 18 if you refurbish (another cost) compared to 30-40 years for the CLRV/ALRV fleet.

Originally Posted by Doady

damage the roads ...

This may be news to you, but buses damage the roads too. And when you run multiples of what currently exists today, you'll get more damage, not less.

Originally Posted by Doady

go with electric trolly's, hybrids, or electric busses.

You'd still need to maintain overhead infrastructure for trolleybuses. Besides, conversion of the existing diesel bus fleet to electric will suck capital out of other needed priorities, let alone a foolish streetcar conversion .

[Nouvellecosse]

Guys, Doady just likes to say outrageous-sounding stuff to get a rise out of people. He's been doing it for years and has no reason to stop since people keep reacting to it.

[Doady]

Yeah, sorry guys I was just posting a comment from the article, I should have made that more clear. It's the kind of thing I hear often, even with modern LRT. Buses every 3 minutes is not enough to justify conversion to light rail, why not just increase the frequency to 2 minutes, that sort of thing.

[DirectionNorth]

Yeah, I overreacted yesterday; for that, I apologise. I'll edit the post.

[hipster duck]

I don't mind streetcars, but it makes next to no sense to build a streetcar system from scratch. It's a large capital investment in a parallel transit technology that only has benefits in specific use cases.

A streetcar is a great tool for moving medium amounts of people over a medium distance in a dense, urban environment. Let's say you want to travel 3 km in a dense city. At that distance, walking would take 45 minutes while rapid transit, which would be underground or elevated, would require you to walk to the nearest station, descend up or down to a platform, wait for the train, get out at the closest station to your destination and then cover the last section on foot. You might not achieve any time savings over a direct surface route. It's better than a bus in these tight urban environments, since a bus has about 1/2 the capacity, and needs more space.

Other than that, I'd say a streetcar is pretty inferior: it doesn't have the speed or capacity of rapid transit, and it doesn't have the low cost or flexibility of a bus.

The other thing about modern streetcars is that they're actually 30 meter long light rail vehicles with four doors and a capacity of almost 200 people, and they can't really operate well on a regular street without major modifications.

Toronto still hasn't learned that and runs its Flexity Outlooks the same way it ran its CLRVs - which is to say like a 12 meter-long bus on an arterial road. If you're going to spend $1 billion on streetcars, half a billion on a new streetcar maintenance centre and tens of millions on maintenance and upkeep, you have to reconfigure your street operations otherwise it's just money down the drain. To do this, streetcars have to dominate the street and cars have to take a backseat. Basically every streetcar street has to operate in a quasi-transit mall otherwise it won't be efficient. This is a difficult conversation that I don't think any North American city - not just Toronto - is ready to have yet.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don't mind streetcars, but it makes next to no sense to build a streetcar system from scratch. It's a large capital investment in a parallel transit technology that only has benefits in specific use cases.

A streetcar is a great tool for moving medium amounts of people over a medium distance in a dense, urban environment. Let's say you want to travel 3 km in a dense city. At that distance, walking would take 45 minutes while rapid transit, which would be underground or elevated, would require you to walk to the nearest station, descend up or down to a platform, wait for the train, get out at the closest station to your destination and then cover the last section on foot. You might not achieve any time savings over a direct surface route. It's better than a bus in these tight urban environments, since a bus has about 1/2 the capacity, and needs more space.

Other than that, I'd say a streetcar is pretty inferior: it doesn't have the speed or capacity of rapid transit, and it doesn't have the low cost or flexibility of a bus.

The other thing about modern streetcars is that they're actually 30 meter long light rail vehicles with four doors and a capacity of almost 200 people, and they can't really operate well on a regular street without major modifications.

Toronto still hasn't learned that and runs its Flexity Outlooks the same way it ran its CLRVs - which is to say like a 12 meter-long bus on an arterial road. If you're going to spend $1 billion on streetcars, half a billion on a new streetcar maintenance centre and tens of millions on maintenance and upkeep, you have to reconfigure your street operations otherwise it's just money down the drain. To do this, streetcars have to dominate the street and cars have to take a backseat. Basically every streetcar street has to operate in a quasi-transit mall otherwise it won't be efficient. This is a difficult conversation that I don't think any North American city - not just Toronto - is ready to have yet.

Lots of good points. A lot of European street car systems are a bit hybrid. With grade seperated spots that let them bypass chokepoints mixed traffic and then towards suburbs dedicated right of way. Combined with reduced labour costs given greater capacity this can be a good model. But yes our use is problematic across the board.

[DirectionNorth]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I don't mind streetcars, but it makes next to no sense to build a streetcar system from scratch. It's a large capital investment in a parallel transit technology that only has benefits in specific use cases.

A streetcar is a great tool for moving medium amounts of people over a medium distance in a dense, urban environment. Let's say you want to travel 3 km in a dense city. At that distance, walking would take 45 minutes while rapid transit, which would be underground or elevated, would require you to walk to the nearest station, descend up or down to a platform, wait for the train, get out at the closest station to your destination and then cover the last section on foot. You might not achieve any time savings over a direct surface route. It's better than a bus in these tight urban environments, since a bus has about 1/2 the capacity, and needs more space.

Other than that, I'd say a streetcar is pretty inferior: it doesn't have the speed or capacity of rapid transit, and it doesn't have the low cost or flexibility of a bus.

The other thing about modern streetcars is that they're actually 30 meter long light rail vehicles with four doors and a capacity of almost 200 people, and they can't really operate well on a regular street without major modifications.

Toronto still hasn't learned that and runs its Flexity Outlooks the same way it ran its CLRVs - which is to say like a 12 meter-long bus on an arterial road. If you're going to spend $1 billion on streetcars, half a billion on a new streetcar maintenance centre and tens of millions on maintenance and upkeep, you have to reconfigure your street operations otherwise it's just money down the drain. To do this, streetcars have to dominate the street and cars have to take a backseat. Basically every streetcar street has to operate in a quasi-transit mall otherwise it won't be efficient. This is a difficult conversation that I don't think any North American city - not just Toronto - is ready to have yet.

This is certainly true, and I think while there's slow progress (King), we're not there yet. But given the TTC's abysmal operations involving 40 ft buses operating on wide arterials and the not-moving-at-all disaster that is the Spadina replacement bus, I see zero credibility in the premise that a streetcar to bus conversion would bring superior transit service.

[Coldrsx]

New Federal $30,000,000,000 transit fund now open for applications.

$3bil x 10 years

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

New Federal $30,000,000,000 transit fund now open for applications.

$3bil x 10 years

Great to hear, hopefully they can wrap up negotiations to fund many projects before the election because even if they loose it will be bad politics to cancel transit funding for badly needed projects across the country, but conservative governments have done that before. This will hopefully keep canada's largest transit expansion going for a while longer.

[ericmacm]

This is a good piece of policy that I had been hoping would happen for a long time. It may ultimately end up being deficit spending, but infrastructure spending in deficit is not necessarily a bad thing (in my opinion) because of all the spinoff economic growth that transit generates. What I am hoping is that this will help encourage smaller cities to aim higher and plan to build some LRT instead of half-assed BRT. Would also be nice to see this help get the Quebec City and Gatineau Tramways off the ground.

[hipster duck]

The Liberal "promise" is to have the money start flowing in 2026 which, of course, is after they lose the election, so this is a meaningless gesture.

This reminds me of Kathleen Wynne's HSR bluff in 2014. She promised SW Ontario that they would begin planning an HSR line to connect Toronto to London. It seemed like she was going to lose, so it was an empty gesture. Miraculously, she won, and, predictably, she never brought it up again during her next 4 years in power.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

This reminds me of Kathleen Wynne's HSR bluff in 2014. She promised SW Ontario that they would begin planning an HSR line to connect Toronto to London. It seemed like she was going to lose, so it was an empty gesture. Miraculously, she won, and, predictably, she never brought it up again during her next 4 years in power.

Except a business case was pulled together, for Toronto-Windsor high speed rail.

Then Ford came along...

It's frustrating. Multiple "studies" for HSR between Toronto and Montreal. And this one, that may have re-ignited the fire.

[Innsertnamehere]

PP has stated specific opposition to the Quebec LRT so I doubt that one is getting federal funding.

Things like Toronto’s new subway trains will happen regardless of government.

[casper]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

The Liberal "promise" is to have the money start flowing in 2026 which, of course, is after they lose the election, so this is a meaningless gesture.

This reminds me of Kathleen Wynne's HSR bluff in 2014. She promised SW Ontario that they would begin planning an HSR line to connect Toronto to London. It seemed like she was going to lose, so it was an empty gesture. Miraculously, she won, and, predictably, she never brought it up again during her next 4 years in power.

I think we know PP is not a fan of public transit. All for the Liberals signing deals with the provinces and municipalities that are locked in over the next 10 years. That will be hard to cancel and should help bridge the dark days of conservative under funding.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

PP has stated specific opposition to the Quebec LRT so I doubt that one is getting federal funding.

Things like Toronto’s new subway trains will happen regardless of government.

Even more reason to get ink on paper before the election.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

Except a business case was pulled together, for Toronto-Windsor high speed rail.

Then Ford came along...

It's frustrating. Multiple "studies" for HSR between Toronto and Montreal. And this one, that may have re-ignited the fire.

You must be easily impressed by studies.

Hipster is right. They acted like they were going to prioritize the project. They did nothing for years. Then hired David Collenette to take more time to do a business case for what was obvious. Instead of just using Metrolinx or having MTO do it. And then a year before the 2018 election they spent $15M on engineering studies. These are not serious efforts to get shovels in the ground. They are delay tactics to convince the easily duped that something is being worked on. And they only commissioned those studies after an outcry from SWO because people were expecting something more substantial than a very basic business case.