The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Our of curiosity, how do you account for hundreds of other transit agencies with unions overcoming those problem? Vancouver's transit agency has unions too. Unions aren't to blame for all the world's problems.


Are they really any more susceptible to bunching than buses? The only reason I can think of that they'd bunch more is because you have more people getting on through a single door, but that's being addressed with the new streetcars having all door boarding.

I've seen bunching on Viva bus routes that run in their own right of way. Not sure how they manage it to be honest.


This looks pretty overcrowded to me....


http://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/2cpp8n/yonge_bloor_subway_station_this_morning/

And that's pretty typical of a weekday rush hour.

Streetcar routes tend to be longer distance routes. They also can't change lanes to avoid obstructions.

There are few successful transit agencies that don't experience near or at capacity at points in their route during rush hour. There are lines or crowds and you may have to wait two minutes for the next train. This is hardly horrendous. The C Train, in my experience, was much worse.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I left 5 years ago, so just before Andy Byford took the helm and before Brad Ross turned a lot of stuff around. Brad Ross and Andy Byford make for an excellent team. The problem is that they're "starting from the bottom" (Toronto pun) and they're not "there" yet. When I left in 2010, the TTC had not updated its website since the 1990s.

The TTC's customer service problems also extend beyond just user-friendliness. There is a culture of arrogance and Town Guy is correct that the TTC's union is more than partly to blame. For example, TTC operators have been assaulted enough that they put up those special cages so that bus drivers can be physically isolated from their passengers. I haven't seen this in American cities or Latin American cities where violent crime rates are an order of magnitude higher than Toronto, so I think there might be something pissing off enough riders that they snap.



Yes, but those are service changes to existing routes, not new routes. The routing of TTC's surface bus network is essentially the same as it was nearly 50 years ago within the same built up area. Here's a route map from 1970. Just looking at the area south of Eglinton, there has been virtually no change in service - even the route numbers are the same. This despite the fact that the geography of transit demand changed profoundly during that time: that area lost and then regained about a quarter of a million people and hundreds of thousands of jobs are located in areas that they weren't then.



Those are my top picks as well. On top of that, the next biggest change I want to see are east-west bus routes that run through Yonge street. They don't have to travel from the edge of Scarborough to the edge of Etobicoke, but there should be a central portion that overlaps the eastern and western branches running from at least Dufferin to Kennedy.

Glass partitions are in place or being implemented everywhere. I seldom see an experienced driver here use it. The bus stations at subway stations are ideal transfer points. The only thing that would make some sense in alleviating some crowding on Yonge were to make the Spadina side of the line the transfer point.

[SteelTown]

Here we go....

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5643062-lrt-announcement-imminent-for-hamilton/

The province is expected to announce support for a transformative and contentious light rail transit project in Hamilton as early as Tuesday, The Spectator has learned.

News of the impending announcement started circulating among city and business leaders on the weekend. The timing of the big reveal was thought to hinge in part on co-ordinating schedules of various political leaders this week.

Sources at both levels of government said Monday a funding announcement was imminent for at least a portion of Hamilton's requested $811-million, 14-kilometre LRT line. The plan will include a spur line to at least one downtown-area GO station at the province's insistence.

A fast-tracked timeline is also expected to be confirmed for expansion of GO Train service to a new station planned near Centennial Parkway.

Hamilton transit announcement coming Tuesday

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/hamilton-transit-announcement-coming-tuesday-1.3086567

A provincial announcement on public transit is happening in Hamilton Tuesday morning, according to both local and provincial sources.

Mayor's office representative Amanda Kinnaird confirmed an announcement is happening Tuesday morning.

The province has set aside $16 billion for transit projects in the GTHA — including, it has said, "rapid transit" for Hamilton. But until now, it has refused to clarify whether that means bus rapid transit (BRT) or LRT.

In a previous interview Mayor Fred Eisenberger said the premier told him in January that the province will fund the full capital costs of LRT.

And even though the province has not publicly specified LRT, "LRT is the direction I believe the province is going to go," he said.

[vegeta_skyline]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Doesn't CN use a seperate track through that area? I know the freight trains don't use the Weston tunnel and instead continue to cross at grade.

Your thinking about the CP's line which is indeed completely separate and much more frequently used by freights.

But CN retains running rights to operate on GO's line and their freights do go through that tunnel on the rare occasion.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

Here we go....

http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5643062-lrt-announcement-imminent-for-hamilton/

The province is expected to announce support for a transformative and contentious light rail transit project in Hamilton as early as Tuesday, The Spectator has learned.

News of the impending announcement started circulating among city and business leaders on the weekend. The timing of the big reveal was thought to hinge in part on co-ordinating schedules of various political leaders this week.

Sources at both levels of government said Monday a funding announcement was imminent for at least a portion of Hamilton's requested $811-million, 14-kilometre LRT line. The plan will include a spur line to at least one downtown-area GO station at the province's insistence.

A fast-tracked timeline is also expected to be confirmed for expansion of GO Train service to a new station planned near Centennial Parkway.

Hamilton transit announcement coming Tuesday

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/news/hamilton-transit-announcement-coming-tuesday-1.3086567

A provincial announcement on public transit is happening in Hamilton Tuesday morning, according to both local and provincial sources.

Mayor's office representative Amanda Kinnaird confirmed an announcement is happening Tuesday morning.

The province has set aside $16 billion for transit projects in the GTHA — including, it has said, "rapid transit" for Hamilton. But until now, it has refused to clarify whether that means bus rapid transit (BRT) or LRT.

In a previous interview Mayor Fred Eisenberger said the premier told him in January that the province will fund the full capital costs of LRT.

And even though the province has not publicly specified LRT, "LRT is the direction I believe the province is going to go," he said.

You would think that there should be some local financial commitment towards a local transit project. After all, this would prove that there is adequate value in the project and LRT typically delivers back some sort of operating cost saving.

[Beedok]

Why does it take longer to get from downtown to North Van than New Westminster? I know the subway is a bit faster, but the distance is like doubled...

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Why does it take longer to get from downtown to North Van than New Westminster? I know the subway is a bit faster, but the distance is like doubled...

It doesn't if you take the SeaBus, but then again that's not very frequent outside of peak hours. If you bus, not only do you have to make a large sideways U shape to get to the bridge and back to North Van, but the bridge is basically always very heavily congested, not to mention that bussing through downtown itself always takes a very long time. Downtown is intended for pedestrians, so driving through it is a pain, especially with all the buses being packed so that it takes a long time for passengers to load and unload.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

It doesn't if you take the SeaBus, but then again that's not very frequent outside of peak hours. If you bus, not only do you have to make a large sideways U shape to get to the bridge and back to North Van, but the bridge is basically always heavily congested.

Ah, congestion, got ya. Well I think I should have time.

[matt602]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

You would think that there should be some local financial commitment towards a local transit project. After all, this would prove that there is adequate value in the project and LRT typically delivers back some sort of operating cost saving.

If any sort of municipal commitment is required at all, it'll kill the project unfortunately. All of Hamilton's suburban councilors and even some of the inner city ones have made it very clear that they won't support a municipal contribution of any amount to LRT.

I agree that it's unfair to the other municipalities who have supported their projects at the municipal level but Hamilton politics is kinda a special case where anything even slightly progressive and urban needs to be completely paid for by other levels of government or it won't happen at all. Even WITH the full provincial contribution to the project, a select number of city councilors have still done everything they can to derail and confuse the initiative over the past few years, including our outgoing previous mayor. Hamilton's transit system has been horribly underfunded since the 1980's because of this.

[Drybrain]

Originally Posted by niwell

Just out of curiosity, how long ago did you move to Vancouver? In the past 3 or 4 years there have been noticeable improvements in the way the TTC handles customer services and generally in how the commission is run. Andy Byford has done an amazing job so far and I expect this trend to continue at a faster pace under Tory as compared to Ford.

While it's true the TTC hasn't created new bus routes, they have started to modify routes to adapt to service levels. This was just announced today for instance: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/20...m_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook

The biggest changes I would like to see (aside from new construction) would be faster rollout of Presto and better integration with GO and other surrounding agencies.

I lived in Toronto from 2008 to 2014, and it always seemed to me like Andy Byford, well intentioned as he was, simply hasn't made a dent in the TTC. Leaving aside the abysmal, politically motivated transit planning and desperately insufficient infrastructure, basic customer-service problems still plague the system. It's possible I'm not familiar enough with the pre-Byford system, but u can hardly imagine it being worse. It definitely felt that in my years there, overcrowding for worse and breakdowns more frequent.

I visited just a few weeks ago, and on my first day back, on my second subway ride, the train was stuck in a tunnel for ten minutes. A garbled and completely impossible to discern message over the PA, then silence until we started moving. Still don't know what the problem was.

The next day I'm on a streetcar and it's jammed to the gills, the driver almost yelling at people to move back and telling people at stops to just try and get on at the back, waving them off as they try to pay fares.

Of course I have friends who visit Toronto for a week and ride a non-rush-hour streetcar a couple of times and zip from the ROM to the Eaton Centre in the subway, and come away with the impression of a great transit system. It's hard to explain just how inadequate it is on a daily basis.

[WhipperSnapper]

I don't know. I've switch between subway and streetcar for 4 years at the height of rush hour and never had any experience as extreme with overcrowding. I've had much worse customer service with European agencies. As inadequate the built infrastructure and confusion with operations, the system functions reasonable well. It is squarely in the middle of all the transit agencies I've ridden. The message may have been garbled but, at least there was an announcement. That alone puts it ahead of half the lines II've ridden.

[niwell]

It's quite rare to get a garbled PA nowadays in my experience. They have gotten much better at explaining why delays are occurring in general too. Of course things will still go wrong, but I find there is a lot of exaggeration about how bad / overcrowded it actually is. Of course we remember the time things went abysmally wrong. I commuted by GO for a year and vividly remember the time I was stuck for over an hour, but don't think about the other times things went smoothly.

Yes, streetcars can get bad during rush hour or if there is an accident, but with smartphone apps it's very easy to ensure that doesn't happen too often. When Bombardier gets it's shit together and ramps up new deliveries there should be a major difference too. I have never had too much issue if I wait for the second streetcar within 5 mins, and the new ones are about twice as large. Short turns are frustrating but they seem to be timed better in the last year or two. It can suck at the tail end of rush hour if you aren't careful. I can't think of any major cities that don't have crowded transit during busy periods though.

I admit I had to laugh when I was in Chicago last and experienced the nightmare transit can be there. 15 min delay on the El when a train broke down during rush hour and overheard people complaining about how it was the worst in the world. And then multiple delays and 10+ minute headways due to signalling issues on both the red and blue lines. As a tourist in off-peak hours it seemed fine as well!

[miketoronto]

Andy has really improved communication. The issue with subway PA announcements, is that the radio system gets dead spots.

Andy is addressing this, and they may move to having the train operators make the announcement, instead of having the central Transit Control Office make them, with the bad signal.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by matt602

If any sort of municipal commitment is required at all, it'll kill the project unfortunately. All of Hamilton's suburban councilors and even some of the inner city ones have made it very clear that they won't support a municipal contribution of any amount to LRT.

I agree that it's unfair to the other municipalities who have supported their projects at the municipal level but Hamilton politics is kinda a special case where anything even slightly progressive and urban needs to be completely paid for by other levels of government or it won't happen at all. Even WITH the full provincial contribution to the project, a select number of city councilors have still done everything they can to derail and confuse the initiative over the past few years, including our outgoing previous mayor. Hamilton's transit system has been horribly underfunded since the 1980's because of this.

If irresponsibility is what make Hamilton a "special case" then it shouldn't get one dime.

Hamilton transit have performed dreadfully in terms of ridership growth over the last 15 years compared to it's Ontario peers. Why should Ontarians bail out Hamilton because the city shows little interest in rapid transit and will begrudgingly accept the money but only if they don't have to kick in a nickel? This on top of the fact that they just got a new GO station and possibly another new one at the Centennial Parkway.

What makes Hamilton so special? Ottawa had to fork over mega bucks as did KW. London just announced it's new SHIFT rapid transit line and will be looking for money. They do not yet know if it will be BRT or LRT but the routes have basically been decided and the new mayor seems determined to start construction as soon as possible.

Londoners will also be looking for money from Queen's Park. The kicker is that HR serves an urban area of about 500,000 and London's LTC serves about 380,000 but London not only has far higher per-capita ridership than Hamilton but even higher total ridership. London has put money into the system and done many things to increase ridership over the last 15 years.

Why should Hamilton be congratulated on it's incompetence, lack of planning, and unwillingness to support any form of transit expansion with 100% rapid transit funding while London, which has seen ridership greatly increase and has far higher per-capita ridership be expected to come up with a third of the cost?

Seems to me it should be the other way around. It will interesting to see how Wynne responds to London's request for money if Hamilton get's 100% funding and London demands the same.

[Nouvellecosse]

It makes me wonder sometimes if Toronto made a serious planning error when creating the subway system. It's experiencing serious capacity issues downtown, yet Montreal has slightly higher ridership and similar theoretical capacity, yet it isn't as tightly pressed. When you compare their respective route maps, the issue is obvious.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_rapid_transit

Capacity is measured in pphpd (people per hour per direction) and the issue being that in Toronto the peak flow mostly goes in one direction with riders from all four main branches condensing southward or northward via the main downtown YUS loop. Whereas in Montreal, people are coming in from both ends of the loop so capacity in both directions is utilized. Yes there are some people going against the main flow due to Union being at the bottom of the loop, but the ridership of GO is only 1/5 of the subway and most people arriving at union are within walking distance to their destination anyway.

If the system had been more like this, would the DRL even be an issue?

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[Dr Awesomesauce]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Why should Hamilton be congratulated on it's incompetence, lack of planning, and unwillingness to support any form of transit expansion with 100% rapid transit funding while London, which has seen ridership greatly increase and has far higher per-capita ridership be expected to come up with a third of the cost?

Seems to me it should be the other way around. It will interesting to see how Wynne responds to London's request for money if Hamilton get's 100% funding and London demands the same.

Fair enough - many valid points raised.

However, all I'll say is there's plenty of support for LRT outside City Council. And, really, that's what matters, isn't it? Hamilton and its denizens will benefit tremendously from this investment regardless of the idiotic and parochial politicking found inside the council chambers. And if it benefits Hamilton, it'll benefit the GTHA and the province as a whole. It's a good investment in people and the economy.

And BTW there has be a tonne of planning and preparation for LRT - that's definitely not an issue.

[SteelTown]

Matthew Van Dongen
https://twitter.com/Mattatthespec/status/603171227985977344/photo/1

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[SteelTown]

YAY!!!!

http://la-deli.com/oprah-winfrey-speaking-tour/