The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Steveston]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Metro Vancouver residents reject tax to fund transportation projects

Metro Vancouver residents have rejected a tax increase to pay for expanded transit service, according to plebiscite results from Elections BC.

Elections BC says 61.68 per cent per cent of voters were against the new tax, compared to 38.32 per cent in favour. Of the 23 municipalities that voted, all but three rejected the tax increase, including Vancouver, Surrey and the region’s largest municipalities.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Metro+Vancouver+voters+reject+transit/11182909/story.html

Welcome to Metro Vancouver's "Rob Ford moment".

[nephersir7]

Originally Posted by SkahHigh

The AMT will unveil the conclusions of the study concerning the extension to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in late 2015/early2016. Apparently, plans are now for a station in Saint-Philippe (after Candiac) and one in Saint-Jean, which would be the new terminal of the line.

So in the next two years we might see 4 new commuter rail stations, three on the Candiac Line and one on the Saint-Jérôme Line in Mirabel .

Even if in 2016 the feasibility study's conclusion favored an extension to St-Jean, it doesn't mean the project will actually go forward anytime soon. Maybe they'll start drawing some plans in 2017, but the next election is in late 2018. It almost certainly will be a campaign promise for the PQ. If the Liberal government actually wants to get this thing built, they certainly won't commit before they get reelected.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The TC lines had signal priority. Lights would be synced to the trains to ensure >95% green lights. Yes, that's possible. We do it in Ottawa on the Transitway very successfully. Heck, we even do it in Kingston at some intersections (with more to come).

I think you need a debriefing on the past 30 years.

I know how signal priority works, and how Ottawa's works.

I would love to know where you are getting your numbers for TC, as I have talked with project staff, and that is not what I was told. In fact, I was told with the under construction LRT on Eglinton, that they cannot guarantee signal priority on the at grade section. They will try, but it will not be full priority like you see in Ottawa.

[lrt's friend]

Where is the signal priority in Ottawa? Most of the Transitways are on an exclusive right of way without signaled intersections. I know there is some prioritization downtown to work around the tunnel construction but that does not mean that buses don't meet red lights.

[ssiguy]

Are they going to tunnel under the Rideau Canal in Ottawa for the LRT?

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Are they going to tunnel under the Rideau Canal in Ottawa for the LRT?

Along with the rest of the downtown, yes.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Where is the signal priority in Ottawa? Most of the Transitways are on an exclusive right of way without signaled intersections. I know there is some prioritization downtown to work around the tunnel construction but that does not mean that buses don't meet red lights.

The places where the Transitway merges in and out of roadways:
1) Where westbound buses turn left out of Dominion station onto the JAM parkway
2) Where westbound buses turn left out of the JAM parkway into Lincoln Fields station
3) On Woodroffe just south of Hunt Club, where northbound buses turn left from the Transitway onto Woodroffe

There are probably a few others that I'm not thinking of.

All three have near-perfect signal priority.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

I would love to know where you are getting your numbers for TC, as I have talked with project staff, and that is not what I was told. In fact, I was told with the under construction LRT on Eglinton, that they cannot guarantee signal priority on the at grade section. They will try, but it will not be full priority like you see in Ottawa.

Guaranteeing signal priority (100% chance of all greens) is generally impossible but you can get close. >95% is the standard for signal priority.

Eglinton East already has its lights timed to favour E-W traffic so signal priority is actually not critical.

LRT will also not conflict with left turning traffic because left turns will be banned entirely outside of signalized intersections, which will have left turn lanes outside the lane. Similar to the BRT on Highway 7 up in York Region. (Which by the way, has pretty good signal priority, although the way it's designed up there is mainly to use signal priority as a way to get late buses to catch up).

[1overcosc]

Interesting editorial by the Ottawa Citizen's provincial affairs columnist on the Vancouver referendum:

Reevely: If you want big transit projects, elect a pro-transit government

Transit types are desolate over the failure of this attempt in British Columbia to raise sales taxes to pay for new rail and bus lines throughout greater Vancouver. Here’s the lesson: If you want a big public project, elect a government with the nerve to see it through.

The Vancouver plebiscite was a months-long mail-in affair asking people in and around Vancouver whether they’d pay an extra half-point in sales tax to fund $7.5-billion worth of transit projects. The idea was backed by nearly all the local mayors, who are maddened that the provincial government won’t help pay for things they think are critical.

Nope, said the people, in results announced this week. They rejected the proposal 62 to 38. Even in granola-strewn, transit-dependent Vancouver proper, it failed 51-49. Voters in only three jurisdictions agreed with the proposition: two tiny villages on the fringes of the city and a district dominated by the University of British Columbia. The three of them total about 4,400 votes among the 757,000 cast.

This kind of direct democracy, seeking yes-or-no votes on particular issues, isn’t how we Canadians ordinarily govern ourselves. Possibly because we’re a skeptical, cautious people who say no to things by default. The way it’s supposed to work, we elect people who see the world’s problems more or less the way we do and whose judgment we more or less trust to deal with them. If, after a few years, we think they’ve done a decent job, we re-elect them.

The recent history of such direct votes in Canada is a history of rejections. When Ontarians voted on electoral reform, we decided against it. British Columbians did, too, and against harmonizing their provincial and federal sales taxes. Quebecers have voted against separation twice. Canada as a whole voted against the Charlottetown Accord on constitutional reform.

You’d almost get to thinking that a good way to kill an idea is to put it to a popular vote. Especially if it’s a complicated idea that’s easily caricatured.

TransLink, the Vancouver area’s transit agency, is not popular, and the caricature there was that residents were being asked to give a bloated, inefficient government body a load more money to spend on God knows what, forever. Ginning up such a campaign in nearly any city with a large transit system wouldn’t be that hard. Who loves OC Transpo or the TTC? Who thinks Montreal’s STM is a model of efficiency?

It might seem like an oddity that Vancouverites were asked to vote on funding transit projects at all. British Columbians didn’t vote on whether to spend $600 million on the Sea-to-Sky Highway between Vancouver and Whistler, or $130 million in improvements to the Kicking Horse Pass that links B.C. and Alberta.

The thing is, Greater Vancouver has a bunch of mayors who think their cities and towns need more transit and a provincial government, led by Christy Clark, that thinks it shouldn’t pay for it. The popular vote was a way to break the logjam, which, well, it did.

Here in Ontario, the province is planning to spend billions and billions on both road and transit projects, not demanding votes on every single one. That’s what politicians do when they actually believe in something: they get going, believing that they’ll be proven right in time for the next election. Dalton McGuinty believed in raising taxes for health care and in harmonizing provincial and federal sales taxes, unpopular as both those moves were at the time, so he did it. We re-elected him.

Kathleen Wynne is betting we’ll do the same for her despite the budget squeezes she’s imposing on schools and health care, the impending sale of most of Hydro One, the fiddling with the LCBO and the Beer Store, the Ontario pension plan. We’d probably vote against all these things if you asked us. But they’ll be necessary evils in the past by 2018, tiny matters against all the construction, a balanced budget and a growing economy (Wynne and her fellow Liberals hope), just like McGuinty’s taxes and Mike Harris’s cuts in the 1990s.

We get governments with vision by electing politicians with vision, not by trying to force leaders to do things they don’t believe in.

http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columni...-projects-elect-a-pro-transit-government

[Daveography]

^ Excellent article. Direct democracy is terrible for getting anything done.

[lrt's friend]

OK, time for a highway referendum. See if that goes any better.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The places where the Transitway merges in and out of roadways:
1) Where westbound buses turn left out of Dominion station onto the JAM parkway
2) Where westbound buses turn left out of the JAM parkway into Lincoln Fields station
3) On Woodroffe just south of Hunt Club, where northbound buses turn left from the Transitway onto Woodroffe

There are probably a few others that I'm not thinking of.

All three have near-perfect signal priority.

A few spread out locations. How will this work on a busy urban street when there is a traffic signal every few blocks?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

A few spread out locations. How will this work on a busy urban street when there is a traffic signal every few blocks?

Exact same logic... if a train is about to arrive and the signal is green but about to end, extend it... shorten the green in the other direction is the train is about to arrive while it's still red... etc.

The TC plans in Toronto (including Eglinton, Finch, etc.) make it easier by closing off a huge number of intersections; a large number are being converted to unsignallized right in-right out only, and requiring those wanting to turn left to go right for a while, then U-Turn at the next traffic light.

Some intersections are having left-turn movements converted to a 'Michigan left' format to remove the need for left-turn signals.

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

This format results in a greater number of signals overall but allows for the signals that exist to be much shorter in length which makes it much easier to do transit priority (it's a lot less disruptive to add or remove a few seconds from a 20 second long light than it is to remove 10-20 seconds from a 1-2 minute long light).

[1overcosc]

Also, miketoronto, check out the planning documents from the Eglinton line, page 12.

http://faculty.geog.utoronto.ca/Hess/Courses/studio/2009-11-20_display_panels_part1.pdf

Shows that the surface portion of Eglinton LRT will be faster than the local bus. Average speed of 22-25km/h compared to 16km/h.

lrt's friend:
Pages 14-17 discuss the signal reduction.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by Steveston

Welcome to Metro Vancouver's "Rob Ford moment".

Vancouver proper and every other major municipality voted against it too so this is not a "suburb mentality" thing. The provincial government didn't want to fund transit and used the plebiscite to shuffle the blame to the general population. Pure dirty politics.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by Pinion

Vancouver proper and every other major municipality voted against it too so this is not a "suburb mentality" thing. The provincial government didn't want to fund transit and used the plebiscite to shuffle the blame to the general population. Pure dirty politics.

Well it was 50-50 in Vancouver essentially and 30-70 in many outlying areas, so there was still a big urban/suburban divide. However I agree that it was dirty politics, and I also wouldn't characterize it as a "Rob Ford moment". This was purely a "Tea-Party moment".

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Well it was 50-50 in Vancouver essentially and 30-70 in many outlying areas, so there was still a big urban/suburban divide. However I agree that it was dirty politics, and I also wouldn't characterize it as a "Rob Ford moment". This was purely a "Tea-Party moment".

I wonder what the past few years of transit optimization had on the vote.
Maybe suburbanites, seeing many of their services reduced to add service in other areas, felt that they did want to vote to fund Translink more???????

Does anyone know if this had an effect? I know ridership is down in Greater Vancouver, partly due to the optimization.

[jigglysquishy]

It's amusing how Translink is so demonized. They're likely the best transit organization in North America. Vancouver ' s standards are so high that being the best isn't good enough.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

It's amusing how Translink is so demonized. They're likely the best transit organization in North America. Vancouver ' s standards are so high that being the best isn't good enough.

Translink does a good job. But suburban Vancouver has a long way to go in terms of transit. 30 to 60 minute bus service, ending early in the evening on many routes, is no way to win over transit riders.

Translink also keeps telling people in lower density areas they can't support good transit (despite the fact that similar areas in Toronto do support good service).

So maybe the suburbanites hearing they are not worthy of good service, just decided to vote NO.

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