Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

Probably wondering why it was ripped out in the first place...

Well actually, he was a big part of why Ottawa's streetcar network was ripped out; he hired the guy (Jacques Gréber) who created the capital's "car centric/remove any signs of streetcars or railways from downtown and make it a sterile uninhabited monument to blandness and banality" master plan in the 50s.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Mackenzie-King. Great leadership during the war, policies seemed decent from what I've seen, created Gatineau Park, which is awesome, but he was responsible for the steep decline of Ottawa's downtown in the mid-century.

[TorontoDrew]

A TTC Streetcar map with a few U/C connections like into the Distillery?Canary Districts and proposed lines.

Posted by: Andrew Alfred-Duncan

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Well actually, he was a big part of why Ottawa's streetcar network was ripped out; he hired the guy (Jacques Gréber) who created the capital's "car centric/remove any signs of streetcars or railways from downtown and make it a sterile uninhabited monument to blandness and banality" master plan in the 50s.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Mackenzie-King. Great leadership during the war, policies seemed decent from what I've seen, created Gatineau Park, which is awesome, but he was responsible for the steep decline of Ottawa's downtown in the mid-century.

To be fair, privately-owned streetcar systems (basically all but Toronto) hadn't made any real investments in their infrastructure since the 1910s:

- The 20s saw the emphasis shift from investment to value for stockholders, so profits weren't being reinvested.
- The 30s just weren't a good decade for transit ridership or profits
- The war monopolized resources for the 40s

So by the 50s, you had unprofitable companies running infrastructure which was almost a half-century old which would require significant investments to bring up to scratch. Twenty years earlier or later, governments might have payed up, but this was a time when there was a firm belief that cars and subways were the future and that streetcars were relics of a bygone era. Without investment in renewal, the new publicly-owned transit corporations determined that it wasn't worth the expense and that buses could do the job for much less.

We didn't save the streetcars, but I think that it was wild speculation and corporate shortsightedness that lead the streetcar to its untimely (but temporary, from the looks of it) death.


But I totally agree with you that a lot of Greber's plan was inestimably damaging to Ottawa.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

YEs, yes! All 4 TBM's get EXTRACTED at Yonge-Eglinton!

Why wouldn't they just bury them there?

[1overcosc]

It played out a little differently in Kingston.

Our streetcar system was largely a failure from the get go. Kingston started up a horse-drawn streetcar system (horses on tracks pulling streetcar cabs, essentially), in the 1870s (I wanna say 1878) followed by a full fledged electric streetcar system in 1891.

It was never much of a success. Back in those days, Kingston was a small enough city that one could walk from point A to point B pretty much anywhere in the city in a half hour or less, and there was never a lot of money in the city, so most people cheaped out and just walked everywhere instead of paying the streetcar fare. The city constantly gave it loans (many of which were forgiven) to cover its costs. When a fire broke out in the 1930s and burned down the garage, the city just gave up rather than buy more cars, and buses were brought in.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Why wouldn't they just bury them there?

They aren't done with them yet. Over the weekend of April 17–20, 2015, Dennis and Lea will be lifted out of the extraction shaft located just west of Allen Road, and moved to the launch shaft just east of Allen Road. The TBMs are being moved in order to bypass the TTC subway line in this area.

http://www.thecrosstown.ca/news-medi...day-april-20-a

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Why wouldn't they just bury them there?

the area is surrounded by highrise parking garages, meaning there isn't really anywhere they can just drive them into and abandon them.

Plus they will probably want to sell them like they did for the Spadina TBMs, which were sold for a Russian subway project.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

It played out a little differently in Kingston.

Our streetcar system was largely a failure from the get go. Kingston started up a horse-drawn streetcar system (horses on tracks pulling streetcar cabs, essentially), in the 1870s (I wanna say 1878) followed by a full fledged electric streetcar system in 1891.

It was never much of a success. Back in those days, Kingston was a small enough city that one could walk from point A to point B pretty much anywhere in the city in a half hour or less, and there was never a lot of money in the city, so most people cheaped out and just walked everywhere instead of paying the streetcar fare. The city constantly gave it loans (many of which were forgiven) to cover its costs. When a fire broke out in the 1930s and burned down the garage, the city just gave up rather than buy more cars, and buses were brought in.

That is the story of a lot of smaller city streetcar systems. Oshawa, Guelph, Peterborough, even Woodstock IIRC all used to have streetcar systems. They were never really profitable and were usually ripped out earlier than the larger city systems, which largely lasted until the 1950's, except for Toronto which was planned to last to 1980, if it wasn't saved.

[SkahHigh]

Transferred. Construction starting 2018.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Ontario Newsroom

News Release

Ontario Moving Forward with Hurontario-Main Light Rail Transit Project

April 21, 2015

Project to Bring 23 KM, 26 Stops of Light Rail Transit to Mississauga, Brampton

As part of the largest infrastructure investment in Ontario's history, Ontario is moving ahead with the Hurontario-Main Light Rail Transit (LRT) project.

This LRT is a new public transit project, led by Metrolinx, that will bring 23 kilometres of rapid transit to Mississauga and Brampton. The LRT line is proposed to have 26 stops, including three stops within downtown Mississauga and two stops in downtown Brampton. The service will move more people faster through these corridors than the existing bus service.

Through the Moving Ontario Forward plan the government is investing in priority rapid transit projects that will connect to the GO Transit network and other transit systems across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). These priority rapid transit projects will increase transit ridership, reduce travel times, manage congestion, connect people to jobs, and improve the economy.

On April 16, 2015, Ontario moved ahead with its plan to unlock the value of certain public assets. This will provide the province with approximately $4 billion to build new transit and other priority infrastructure projects through Moving Ontario Forward.

Investing more than $130 billion over 10 years in public infrastructure ­-- the largest infrastructure investment in the province's history -- is part of the government's plan for Ontario. The four-part plan is building Ontario up by investing in people's talents and skills, building new public infrastructure like roads and transit, creating a dynamic, innovative environment where business thrives, and building a secure retirement savings plan.


QUICK FACTS

The province’s Moving Ontario Forward plan will make $31.5 billion available over the next 10 years for investments in priority infrastructure projects across the province and is expected to support over 20,000 jobs per year, on average, in construction and related industries.
Under Moving Ontario Forward, around $16 billion is being allocated to transit and transportation projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), and about $15 billion available for investment in roads, bridges, transit and other critical infrastructure in the rest of the province.
The Hurontario-Main LRT will provide a crucial link between many of the region’s existing transit lines, including GO Transit’s Kitchener, Milton and Lakeshore West rail lines, Brampton Züm, and the Mississauga Transitway BRT.

[caltrane74]

Notice that Light Rail Transit, doesn't mean Light Rapid Transit.

[Hybrid247]

Does the transit demand for the Hurontario corridor really justify the cost of an LRT system? I don't live there but it seems to me like most ridership is going to and from central Toronto, not between Brampton and Mississauga. It just seems strange that they're building cheaper BRT for what seems like a more congested corridor than the Hurontario line. Please excuse any ignorance. Like I said, I don't live there.

[1overcosc]

From what I gather, the Hurontario-Main corridor has seen a big boost in ridership in the past few years. I've heard it's the busiest bus route in the GTA outside Toronto.

Like Kitchener-Waterloo's LRT, this also has urbanization & development as a big push.

What makes this one particularly valuable, though, is the connection to GO RER at either end, especially important as the Milton GO route is not going to receive RER-level service for quite a ways into the future.

[Aylmer]

I actually just wrote a brief paper on this; we're still transitioning between two different ways of conceiving of transportation and transit planning - on one hand, the technocratic approach (not derogatory, that's just a loose translation from the French terms) and the post-technocratic approach.

The first sees transportation planning as a process of projecting and building infrastructure in a very detached and impartial way. This is still the norm for most routine road projects or service upgrades.
The latter sees transportation planning essentially as a powerful tool for reshaping the city. Though we've seen this since the 70s here and there around North America, it's becoming more and more common with projects whose main goal is more about redefining or shaping the city rather than responding to existing demand.

I tend to agree more with the latter if only because the idea that you can objectively meet demand without creating it has been thoroughly discredited in the past half century through both evidence and experience. However, it's rarely just one or another.

The Hurontario-Main corridor already has enough ridership to justify investment, but perhaps more importantly, it's meant to concentrate development and activity to hopefully create a "critical mass" of urbanity in Mississauga's developing 'downtown' (it'll be a while until I remove those quotation marks).

[thegx]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

Since we have a few LRT/rapid transit projects under construction right now and some more planned in the future, I suggest we make a specific thread where users can post construction updates of listed projects instead of doing it in one big transit thread with other modes.

Here's the list.

Under construction

• Edmonton - NAIT line (ETS) - 3 stations - 3.3km - 2015
• Vancouver - Evergreen line (TransLink) - 6 stations - 11km - 2016
• Kitchener-Waterloo - Ion (Grand River Transit) - 16 stations - 19km - 2017
• Toronto - Yonge/Spadina Extension (TTC) - 6 stations - 8.6km - 2017
• Ottawa - Confederation line (OC Transpo) - 13 stations - 12.5km - 2018
• Toronto - Eglinton Crosstown (Metrolinx) - 25 stations - 19km - 2020

It's called the Metro Line not the NAIT line.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by thegx

It's called the Metro Line not the NAIT line.

And it's "ion", not "Ion".

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

And it's "ion", not "Ion".

The actual name is ION.

http://rideion.tumblr.com

[TorontoDrew]

Will the Hurontario-Main Light Rail Transit Project have the same track gauge as the Eglington Cross-Town Line?


Also here is a good video that explains why the boring machines were lifted out at Eglington West and dropped back down east of the subway station.

• Video Link

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

The actual name is ION.

http://rideion.tumblr.com

You're right - I hadn't noticed before that "ion" is only used for the logo.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Does the transit demand for the Hurontario corridor really justify the cost of an LRT system? I don't live there but it seems to me like most ridership is going to and from central Toronto, not between Brampton and Mississauga. It just seems strange that they're building cheaper BRT for what seems like a more congested corridor than the Hurontario line. Please excuse any ignorance. Like I said, I don't live there.

In the mid-90s, Hurontario overtook Yonge, Dundas, and Burnhamthorpe to become the busiest bus corridor in Mississauga and the second busiest in the 905. A few years later, the 19 Hurontario also achieved higher ridership than 1/5/10 King/Delaware/Beeline in Hamilton and so it's been the busiest bus corridor in the 905 for over a decade now.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

A TTC Streetcar map with a few U/C connections like into the Distillery?Canary Districts and proposed lines.

Posted by: Andrew Alfred-Duncan

This looks great. The TTC really ought to run maps like these in the streetcars.