The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Oops, I was talking about Kingston. My bad.

LOL Yeah not sure how I got the comparison to Kitchener Transit/Grand River Transit from your post.

Still K/W has improved tremendously in the same time, at least based on what I've seen here and noticed the couple times I've been back in that area.

[1overcosc]

Most of Ontario's smaller cities (Kingston, K-W, London, Windsor, Barrie, etc.) have improved their transit a lot in recent years. The $300M/year provincial subsidy for transit operations that was introduced in 2004 went a long way to helping things along in those smaller cities, which previously had a chicken-and-egg problem where they didn't have the ridership base for municipalities to want to spend money on improvements, and ridership wouldn't go up without them. The subsidy allowed cities to expand service to get more riders which started a positive feedback loop in many areas.

One of the big reasons why Ontario's subsidy program went so well is it had measures built in to it to force municipalities to spend the additional dollars on transit improvements, not use it to cut fares or cut existing municipal subsidies.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Most of Ontario's smaller cities (Kingston, K-W, London, Windsor, Barrie, etc.) have improved their transit a lot in recent years. The $300M/year provincial subsidy for transit operations that was introduced in 2004 went a long way to helping things along in those smaller cities, which previously had a chicken-and-egg problem where they didn't have the ridership base for municipalities to want to spend money on improvements, and ridership wouldn't go up without them. The subsidy allowed cities to expand service to get more riders which started a positive feedback loop in many areas.

One of the big reasons why Ontario's subsidy program went so well is it had measures built in to it to force municipalities to spend the additional dollars on transit improvements, not use it to cut fares or cut existing municipal subsidies.

Now all we need is a coup in Hamilton to undo rural voters getting as many councillors as the inner city and Ontario will be on track for great transit in every city. (Except maybe St. Catherines which I remain convinced has malicious intent with their transit system.)

[Innsertnamehere]

Toronto's Union Station Bay Concourse closes on Sunday. The not-so-pretty station, opened in 1978, has been burned into most Torontonians consciousnesses after walking through the place more times than most of us can count. UrbanToronto grabbed some last photographs to memorialise its closing.











many more photos through the link...

http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2015/08/capturing-union-stations-go-bay-concourse-it-transforms

[Beedok]

They're getting rid of that part?

It's so wonderfully old school futuristic.

Definitely got to go for Montreal then, they're preserving their 60s and 70s stuff better.

[Coldrsx]

Concur, sci-fi awesome.

In other news, Edmonton's new Metro line will open, sorta, September 6!

[niwell]

Although I've spent plenty of time in the Bay concourse, can't say I'm going to miss it much. I generally like the 60s/70s design aesthetic but it really had nothing going for it. IMO at least. Dupont station is probably my favourite example in Toronto, and probably the only station that can match the style of Montreal's metro (at least in that regard).

[Innsertnamehere]

to be fair the concourses replacement will be much larger, and far, far nicer.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Toronto's Union Station Bay Concourse closes on Sunday. The not-so-pretty station, opened in 1978, has been burned into most Torontonians consciousnesses after walking through the place more times than most of us can count. UrbanToronto grabbed some last photographs to memorialise its closing.











many more photos through the link...

http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2015/08/capturing-union-stations-go-bay-concourse-it-transforms

Farewell, but good riddance. I remember walking through there once as a child, thinking that it had a "futuristic" vibe as others say... but experiencing it as a commuter for the past 15+ years the future got old pretty quick.

Should be great when complete. Though it seems that the saga of the Union Station renos is neverending.

[caltrane74]

Are they gonna shovel under this section to build retail?

Or have they already shoveled under here and will open it up when the renovations finish.

[miketoronto]

CUTA has some ridership stats for 2014 and overall I think they lead to a cautious viewpoint.

Ridership was down or barely grew in a number of cities. Some transit high growth areas like Kitchener-Waterloo saw ridership drops. Vancouver, Ottawa, Quebec City, among others have posted ridership declines.
Montreal's ridership barely grew less than 1%.

Some Stats, but not all, as it is too much to type in:

Ridership Change 2013 - 2014

The Big Three:

Montreal STM: 0.2%
Toronto TTC: 1.8%
Vancouver Translink: -0.9%


Highest Growth:

Kingston: 13.0%
Milton: 15.9%
Brampton: 5.2%
Regina: 16.3%
St. Catharines: 9.7%
Wood Buffalo: 15.9%
Bow Valley: 9.2%
Charlottetown: 9.4%
Leamington: 24.9%
Niagara On The Lake: 73.7%
North Bay: 13.9%
Stratford: 11.4%
Wasaga Beach: 10.1%
Whitehorse: 16.0%
Airdrie: 30.7%
Grande Prairie: 18.6%

Decline:

Burlington: -6.7%
Gatineau: -0.6%
Ottawa: - 0.7%
Quebec City: -0.4%
Halifax: -1.5%
Waterloo Region: -1.8%
York Region: -1.2%
Niagara Region: -3.3%
Sherbrooke: -2.4%
Windsor: -1.1%
Barrie: -3.2%

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

CUTA has some ridership stats for 2014 and overall I think they lead to a cautious viewpoint.

Ridership was down or barely grew in a number of cities. Some transit high growth areas like Kitchener-Waterloo saw ridership drops. Vancouver, Ottawa, Quebec City, among others have posted ridership declines.
Montreal's ridership barely grew less than 1%.

Some Stats, but not all, as it is too much to type in:

Ridership Change 2013 - 2014

The Big Three:

Montreal STM: 0.2%
Toronto TTC: 1.8%
Vancouver Translink: -0.9%


Highest Growth:

Kingston: 13.0%
Milton: 15.9%
Brampton: 5.2%
Regina: 16.3%
St. Catharines: 9.7%
Wood Buffalo: 15.9%
Bow Valley: 9.2%
Charlottetown: 9.4%
Leamington: 24.9%
Niagara On The Lake: 73.7%
North Bay: 13.9%
Stratford: 11.4%
Wasaga Beach: 10.1%
Whitehorse: 16.0%
Airdrie: 30.7%
Grande Prairie: 18.6%

Decline:

Burlington: -6.7%
Gatineau: -0.6%
Ottawa: - 0.7%
Quebec City: -0.4%
Halifax: -1.5%
Waterloo Region: -1.8%
York Region: -1.2%
Niagara Region: -3.3%
Sherbrooke: -2.4%
Windsor: -1.1%
Barrie: -3.2%

The main thing I'm taking from that is smaller cities generally performing quite well (Kingston, Stratford, Wasaga Beach, St. Catherines, Regina, North Bay, Grande Prairie, etc.).

TTC at 1.8% makes sense, as 100% of all population growth in the City of Toronto proper is now intensification which in Toronto tends to be almost entirely on corridors with good transit.

Leamington's and Niagara-on-the-Lake's numbers, because they are very small communities and because they are so high, strike me as the result of introducing new service (ie. what might have been only a single trip at peak to a nearby city is now all day service within the community, etc.).

Milton and Brampton's growth is impressive, too. While both cities are growing very fast thus making the gain less impressive than it looks on paper (easy to grow ridership when your city has way more potential riders to pick from!), it's nonetheless good that these suburban places are drawing in additional riders.

York Region is pretty bad but I'm not surprised; their transit system is starved by the York Region municipality's cheapness and unwillingness to invest in transit, with massive fare hikes, constant service cuts. Even those fancy new BRTs often have buses rolling down them only 2 or 3 times an hour. It's like an American city--constantly cutting ribbons on fancy projects but failing to actually improve service.

Kingston at 13.0% is damn impressive. Need I mention that Kingston's population only grew by 0.6% in 2014 (according to a City Council report earlier this year).

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Are they gonna shovel under this section to build retail?

Or have they already shoveled under here and will open it up when the renovations finish.

they still need to dig underneath, yes. Thats why its going to take 2 years.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

TTC at 1.8% makes sense, as 100% of all population growth in the City of Toronto proper is now intensification which in Toronto tends to be almost entirely on corridors with good transit.

Milton and Brampton's growth is impressive, too. While both cities are growing very fast thus making the gain less impressive than it looks on paper

Population growth is not the factor in large ridership increases. When you have ridership growing as fast as in Brampton, it is because people are finding the service attractive, as it is well above the percentage of population growth.

Also, Brampton and other places where fast growing 15 - 20 years ago, when ridership was actually declining, because people did not find the service attractive.

Same with Kingston. Ridership has grown high, because good service is being provided.

[1overcosc]

Population growth does factor in. Suppose you're a transit agency trying to attract 2,000 new riders. It's an easier task to do if your city gets 10,000 new people than if your city gets no new people.

Certain demographics are more likely to take transit than others (downtown commuters, low income people, students, seniors, etc.). If your city is growing fast, you can just keep counting on the growth of that base population that already takes transit, but if your city isn't growing, you have to actually attract entirely new demographics to transit to grow ridership.

That said, I do agree that the overall key factor is quality of service.

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Population growth does factor in. Suppose you're a transit agency trying to attract 2,000 new riders. It's an easier task to do if your city gets 10,000 new people than if your city gets no new people.

Certain demographics are more likely to take transit than others (downtown commuters, low income people, students, seniors, etc.). If your city is growing fast, you can just keep counting on the growth of that base population that already takes transit, but if your city isn't growing, you have to actually attract entirely new demographics to transit to grow ridership.

That said, I do agree that the overall key factor is quality of service.

What I mean is per capita ridership and mode share. If you ridership is just growing at around the rate of population growth, transit is not making any increases market share.

Also, there are fast growing areas both 10 - 25 years ago and now that are growing, but transit ridership is declining. One of them is York.

A growing population does not mean you will have growing transit ridership.
Service is the defining factor.

In Kingston's case the per capita ridership is going up, which is the most important stat.

[ssiguy]

Thanks for the info. Do you have a link as I would like to see how other cities are doing?

[someone123]

A new passenger ferry arrived today in Halifax, the Craig Blake. I think it's the fifth harbour ferry in operation right now but one of the older ones might be retired.


Source

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Thanks for the info. Do you have a link as I would like to see how other cities are doing?

Here you go

http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/CUTF/CUTF0415/index.php?startid=26

[TownGuy]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Here you go

http://www.nxtbook.com/naylor/CUTF/CUTF0415/index.php?startid=26

Kentville, Nova Scotia must be a typo. Over 400,000?

Anyways Cobourg seems to be doing well. 110,000 and 6% growth. Seems to be tops for a population around 20,000.