Shift: London's Rapid Transit Initiative

[MolsonExport]

Thanks, just did it and signed up for the newsletter

[MrSlippery519]

Was already signed up for the newsletter and just did the survey as well, thanks GreatTallNorth.

I also agree everyone needs to get their opinions out there, survey, letters, meetings, etc. Worst thing we can do is sit back and then complain after the fact.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

Ottawa also has astronomical user costs compared with many cities. As much as I like Ottawa, that is one thing that would potentially discourage me from moving there.

Ottawa has among the highest transit fares in the country and even then they only cover half the cost of running the system. To put it in perspective, York Region Transit has a similar situation (high fares + 50% fare recovery)... and they don't have the near-captive suburb->downtown ridership base that Ottawa has. The Transitway may have been cheap to build but it costs a fortune to operate. If Ottawa had built the entire system as LRT 30 years ago instead, it would have cost way more at the time, but we would have saved huge amounts of operating dollars over the past 30 years... by now, the two would have come out even, and we'd have a better transit system too.

Glad to hear London is pursuing LRT for the busier route. I hope Ottawa's mistakes are brought up in all the consultations... make sure to push it, Londoners.

[ssiguy]

The main route that will have a tunnel would be better off going for full LRT to begin with as reconfiguring a tunnel from buses to LRT can be very costly, and time consuming.

How far from Ox/Rich will this tunnel go and I hope to god it won't be just a bus tunnel but also a station at Ox/Rich.

[GreatTallNorth2]

^Agreed. I was at Wortley's Gathering on the Green today and ShiftLondon was there. I talked to someone I've never met before, but I know he is a senior transportation person. He was singing the praises of BRT and said it is as good as LRT and better because it is not permanent, which I disagreed with. It goes to show you that we need to make sure we give our input if we really want LRT.

[1overcosc]

One thing that's important for this, is that BRT tunnels are actually substantially more expensive than LRT tunnels, because a BRT tunnel has to have far more ventilation to clear exhaust, and it has to be wider. The second you start going underground, the financial case of LRT over BRT becomes way stronger.

[manny_santos]

I was on York Region's VIVA (BRT) today and I was impressed. One observation I had was that while it runs well overall, transit priority signals are vital. There was one serious choke point I noticed and it was a busy intersection with no transit priority signal, where a bus had to turn left. If London is going to get BRT or LRT right, they have to make sure transit priority signals are thoroughly implemented. York Region has done a great job with dedicated BRT lanes. At present, Kingston's "express" buses are almost useless in the older parts of the city because there's no dedicated lanes or transit priority signals.

London can learn a lot from all this.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I was on York Region's VIVA (BRT) today and I was impressed. One observation I had was that while it runs well overall, transit priority signals are vital. There was one serious choke point I noticed and it was a busy intersection with no transit priority signal, where a bus had to turn left. If London is going to get BRT or LRT right, they have to make sure transit priority signals are thoroughly implemented. York Region has done a great job with dedicated BRT lanes. At present, Kingston's "express" buses are almost useless in the older parts of the city because there's no dedicated lanes or transit priority signals.

London can learn a lot from all this.

They still save some time, albeit the savings are more minimal in the core (for example, the urban part of Princess from KC to downtown is 10 minutes on the express vs. ~13 minutes on the 4).

Kingston's approach to transit priority is weird. They're putting priority signals on roads that already flow fast & mostly get greens anyway, like Bayridge Drive and Highway 15. Roads like Princess and Bath that could actually really use them aren't. Although Princess & Centennial did get a cheapy sort of queue jump arrangement (bus bays extended to intersection) a couple years back.

[1overcosc]

I'm looking forward to seeing what London comes up with. As so many other cities have moved forward with rapid transit London has the advantage of being able to observe and learn from the mistakes and successes of everybody else.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

I'm looking forward to seeing what London comes up with. As so many other cities have moved forward with rapid transit London has the advantage of being able to observe and learn from the mistakes and successes of everybody else.

There will be 2 key things that I am interested in: 1) Are we getting light rail or brt? 2) Will that lrt or brt have dedicated lanes or will it be in mixed traffic?

I know we are hearing a lot about ShiftLondon, but this could (and I stress the word could) be a game changer for London if it is done right.

[ssiguy]

Will the BRT/LRT be using Dundas?

[Dither City]

More information on London's (Shift) rapid transit initiative.

http://www.shiftlondon.ca/reports

http://london.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=742697

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/11/04/new-ci...ld-a-light-rail-transit-system-in-london

[GreatTallNorth2]

Very excited about this plan. It was about a year ago that Grandpa Larry Ducharme was at the helm and all the talk was BRT. This changed the minute that Matt Brown gave his first State of the City speech where he announced Shift London and called it rapid transit instead of BRT. Thankfully we have a pro transit group, except Phil the debbie downer.

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by GreatTallNorth2

Very excited about this plan. It was about a year ago that Grandpa Larry Ducharme was at the helm and all the talk was BRT. This changed the minute that Matt Brown gave his first State of the City speech where he announced Shift London and called it rapid transit instead of BRT. Thankfully we have a pro transit group, except Phil the debbie downer.

Absolutely love the turnaround the City has done with how they look at transit. What a turn around from the last year.

LRT in London would be such a great fit.

[MolsonExport]

LRT LRT LRT LRT

It should be the mantra for Shift London.

Except I reckon that London will get the Short Shrift and end up with brt. Fuck brt. Let's get into the game, London, and build the city we want for tomorrow. Less Rim Whoreton's mediocrity; more ____ (I couldn't find any example of inspiring building/initiative existing in London).

[haljackey]

Bus service is bus service no matter how you sell it.

Glad LRT is actually being legit proposed. Even a small line will do wonders long term. A lot goes in to build all the infrastructure and maintenance facilities for the trains... adding more rails after that is easy.

[Pimpmasterdac]

London should shoot for the stars with RT, go LRT all the way!

The senior Liberal governments have whipped out the transit funding tits, might as well go to town. London can get a good chunk out of provincial non-GTA transit fund. Who knows what funding options the feds will bring to the table.

This is our generations equivalent of the 402 In-London debate. London needs to step up early and get what it needs and deserve. My only reservation I can see if the nay-sayers get pissing and moaning loudly,either another property expropriations, or that funds should go to X special interest instead.

Let's hope London doesn't drop the ball!

[HillStreetBlues]

BRT can be very, very, very good, providing a lot of mobility at a fraction of the price of LRT. Actually, BRT which is completely separate from other traffic can be a lot better than LRT running in mixed-traffic.

I doubt London could pull off true BRT, though, and the temptation to water it down would probably mean we don't get quality BRT. But what if the decision is between BRT with almost total coverage connecting many parts of the city with rapid, versus LRT down one choice corridor that will serve many fewer people? Given the relative costs, this might be the choice.

For anyone interested in learning about BRT, LRT, streetcars, and a lot more (instead of just parroting that "BRT is just buses, and buses are terrible"), I'd recommend visiting Human Transit. The transit planner who writes the blog does a good job of explaining transit's basics, and why it's important to be technology agnostic.

London shouldn't rule out any technology. I think what we want is improved transit to offer better mobility. There are a lot of different ways to provide that- we should go through the process based on ours goals and the problems we want to solve, not preconceived notions of what we think the solutions should look like.

[haljackey]

City council approve LRT plan.

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/11/09/london...system-with-a-final-vote-set-for-january

A step into the 21st century.

While it's not as 'grand' as I hoped, the fact that this bare-bones LRT is moving is huge. Let's hope nothing derails.

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by haljackey

While it's not as 'grand' as I hoped, the fact that this bare-bones LRT is moving is huge. Let's hope nothing derails.

In the report, it was said that demand in the west was such that LRT there (with its much-higher-capacity vehicles) would likely run only four times hourly for the foreseeable future. That's not good frequency, and it's much more sensible to have buses (in their own lanes with signal priority) running more frequently in terms of ridership building.

I'm surprised to hear the opinion that Wellington couldn't support LRT, though: I would have thought so. But this is great, that hybrid option looks like a great system.

Edit: Maybe someone can explain to me the statement in the article "London is the largest Canadian city without rapid transit." At first, I just thought it was the Free Press saying something that sounded right to them, without checking. How can this statement be correct? Hamilton, for instance, has an express bus (business hours Monday to Friday...). Halifax has MetroLink, but it's essentially a limited-stop route, too. London has limited-stop routes. So how is the Free Press defining "rapid transit"? And how is their statement accurate?