The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[MalcolmTucker]

So, is the circle line in Tokyo mass transit, metro, commuter, heavy rail, etc? It is even operated by the regional passenger rail company, not one of local transit companies or the city itself.

Does this matter? Not one little bit.

[Nouvellecosse]

Of course it doesn't matter. If it was in Canada, and we were trying to understand it, discuss it, compare/contrast it. etc. in this thread, then it would (not to the wider world necessarily, but to the people discussing it). Terminology is only relevant to things you're discussing. In fact, terms (words) basically exist for the sole purpose of communication.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by rbt

I'm not sure what you mean by bottoms out. Did you mean to state that was the highest capacity service that would be provided?

Sorry... wasn't clear, semantics blargh. 15 minutes is the least frequent RER will ever be. It will either be 15 minutes or better, and in most areas at most times it will be better.

Originally Posted by rbt

All that said, provincial elections are coming up and I think the RER implementation timeline will probably slip (possibly by a decade).

I don't think this will happen. Kathleen Wynne basically pulled RER out of her ass in the leadup to the 2014 election campaign, but since then, Metrolinx has done the necessary planning work and such, and RER is ready to go for opening in phases between 2020 and 2024. So when a new government (if there is one) takes power in 2018, all of the hard planning work will be done and much of the construction work will underway... and most importantly, all of the RER work is already funded. So there's very little for any government to gain from cancelling it.

In any case, RER is a very popular initiative in the 905 suburbs which is a very politically valuable region that neither party can afford to lose.

I'd more worried about a future PC government scaling back support for transit projects more specific to Toronto proper, like the Relief Line.

[ssiguy]

It will be Toronto centered transit that would be halted/delayed if the Tories win because they have little to lose by doing so.

The Tories of today are very different from Harris. Even the Tories know that transportation is a necessary investment including transit. It is at the centre of so much political discourse today that it is right up there with taxes, the economy, and healthcare on people's priority list. This backed up the fact that the feds will now fund 50% of transit projects make it even more palatable politically.

As for the Ontario NDP, I don't think they even know where they stand.

[caltrane74]

First phase of RER will be ready by 2020, next election is 2018.

As mentioned, this project has already been budgeted. There would be no point to cancel it now.

Next government will be a minority anyways (Liberal/NDP or Conservative)

[Mister F]

^Never underestimate the vindictiveness of the populist wing of the Conservative party. Mike Harris cancelled a subway that was already under construction after all. Tim Hudak was talking about the mythical "war on the car" in the last election and he wanted to scale back transit investment in favour of more highways. And for all his more moderate talk over the last year, Patrick Brown is very much from that wing of the party. I do agree that they probably wouldn't mess with the RER work that's already funded, but I could see them interfering with other projects like the Relief Line, DVP/Gardiner tolls, etc.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Although most wouldn't consider Wikipedia a very reliable source, if you do, take note that when you search for the term "metro system" you're immediately redirected to the page "rapid transit". And of course for a topic like this, almost any encyclopedia is going to be more accurate than a dictionary, since dics do little more than scratch the surface.

If you read the encyclopedia Britannica's "subway" page, it starts out by establishing that the term could also mean metro, underground, or tube, and part way through the article, it uses the term rapid transit as interchangeable. Same thing as "Info Please's" Encyclopedia which has a rapid transit page, where it discusses it interchangebly with metro and subway, and says there are about "160 metropolitan rapid transit systems in the world" which coincidentally enough is the same number of systems listed in Wikipedia's "List of Metro Systems" page. So yes, the terms are indeed one and the same. But of course, if RER will actually have metro/rapid transit service levels for the majority of its length, then maybe this is all a moot point as it could just be rounded up to a metro system.

It seems that some sources accept the general usage of the term while others don't. Both Merriam-Webster and Harper Collins for example keep it general, one mentioning buses and the other saying "rail or other". That infoplease article is overly specific, talking about third rail and an operator on either end of the train. So I guess it doesn't consider overhead powered systems like Madrid to be rapid transit. This just proves my point that there's no single, authoritative definition. We could go back and forth like this all day, but it's definitely not as cut and dry as you claim. You can keep using your APTA definition that's correct in a certain context, others will use the more general usage that's just as correct in a different context.

By the way, none of your definitions seem to mention specific frequencies. So if that's what you're going by, you can stop insisting on the ten minute frequencies for 50% of the network rule, which is arbitrary and made up.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Mister F

And for all his more moderate talk over the last year, Patrick Brown is very much from that wing of the party. I do agree that they probably wouldn't mess with the RER work that's already funded, but I could see them interfering with other projects like the Relief Line, DVP/Gardiner tolls, etc.

If Brown wins the election by being a moderate, then turns around and becomes an angry rural populist once in office, his government's approval ratings will tank like crazy and by 2020 people will actually be nostalgic for Kathleen Wynne. I don't think he's that stupid.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Mister F

^Never underestimate the vindictiveness of the populist wing of the Conservative party. Mike Harris cancelled a subway that was already under construction after all. Tim Hudak was talking about the mythical "war on the car" in the last election and he wanted to scale back transit investment in favour of more highways. And for all his more moderate talk over the last year, Patrick Brown is very much from that wing of the party. I do agree that they probably wouldn't mess with the RER work that's already funded, but I could see them interfering with other projects like the Relief Line, DVP/Gardiner tolls, etc.


It seems that some sources accept the general usage of the term while others don't. Both Merriam-Webster and Harper Collins for example keep it general, one mentioning buses and the other saying "rail or other". That infoplease article is overly specific, talking about third rail and an operator on either end of the train. So I guess it doesn't consider overhead powered systems like Madrid to be rapid transit. This just proves my point that there's no single, authoritative definition. We could go back and forth like this all day, but it's definitely not as cut and dry as you claim. You can keep using your APTA definition that's correct in a certain context, others will use the more general usage that's just as correct in a different context.

By the way, none of your definitions seem to mention specific frequencies. So if that's what you're going by, you can stop insisting on the ten minute frequencies for 50% of the network rule, which is arbitrary and made up.

The info please article is just a little outdated since third rail has been pretty much universal for metro systems for most of their history (and still nearly universal for that matter). And obviously this reinforces the fact that it specifically equates rapid transit and metro systems because frequent suburban rail systems have existed for much longer than overhead powered metros and this specifically excludes them.

But as I said, it's only in dictionaries which are not set up to provide detailed information on topics where there's any ambiguity. In any other situation, if there was something stated in a dictionary that was shown to be incomplete and/or inaccurate through further research, people would simply recognise which was the more reliable source. If you looked up bacteria and one of a dictionary's example turned out to be a protozoan upon checking an encyclopedia, few people would imply that both are equally "correct".

As far as the frequencies, I find it odd that you would suddenly change your stance on that topic, as your original stance was to agree that the lower frequencies we were discussing were not metro system standard (remember when you claimed I "moved the goal post"?), and your only dispute was to assert that a system could accurately be labeled rapid transit even if it couldn't be considered a metro.

But in terms of the headways, I think it's made fairly clear in the wiki rapid transit article passage. One simply needs to compare the headways of the systems cited.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

Suburban commuter rail is a heavy rail system that operates at a lower frequency than urban rapid transit, with higher average speeds, often only serving one station in each village and town. Commuter rail systems of some cities (such as German S-Bahns, Chennai rail, Australian cityrails, Danish S-tog etc.) can be seen as the substitute for the city's rapid transit system providing frequent mass transit within city. As opposed to some cities (such as PATH in New York, Dubai Metro, Shanghai Metro, MetroSur of the Madrid Metro, Singapore MRT, Taipei Metro, Kuala Lumpur Rapid Transit etc.) the mainly urban rapid transit systems have lines that fan out to reach the outer suburbs. With some other urban or "near urban" rapid transit systems (Guangfo Metro, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Los Teques Metro and Seoul Subway Line 7, etc.) serving bi- and multi-nucleus agglomerations.
Some cities have opted for two tiers of urban railways: an urban rapid transit system (such as the Paris Métro, Berlin U-Bahn, London Underground, and the Tokyo subway) and a suburban system (such as their counterparts RER, S-Bahn, future Crossrail & London Overground, JR Urban Lines respectively). The suburban systems may have their own purpose built trackage, run at similar "rapid transit-like" frequencies, and commonly operated by the national railway company. In some cities these suburban services run through tunnels in the city centre and have direct transfers to the rapid transit system, on the same or adjoining platforms.[54][55] California's BART and Washington's Metrorail system is an example of a hybrid of the two: in the suburbs the lines function like a commuter rail line, with longer intervals, and longer distance between stations; in in the downtown areas, the stations become closer together and many lines interline with intervals droping to typical rapid transit headways.
[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_transit#Modal_tradeoffs_and_interconnections"]

(bold parts added by me for emphasis)

[Doady]

I think it is too simplistic to classify lines as either "rapid transit" or not. I think we just need to recognize what defines rapid transit or heavy rail: extremely high efficiency and capacity through limited stops, longer/wider trains, ROW and of course extremely high frequencies, which usually necessitates grade separation. A true rapid transit line will have all these features, but lines that have some but not all of these features can be still reasonably be considered rapid transit, but to a lesser extent, hence light rail. Subway has higher capacity than LRT, everyone can agree with that.

Likewise, streetcar is a form of light rail. TTC's new streetcars (aka light rail vehicles) are blurring the lines even further, being much longer and having all door boarding. And some streetcar lines are in ROW anyways. The only thing lacking of TTC streetcar is the limited stops like modern light rail and subway. That's what I like to call it: modern light rail vs. traditional light rail. But as I said, TTC streetcar is both modern and traditional anyways.

It's funny, the proponents of modern LRT as rapid transit also vehemently deny that streetcar is LRT, even though modern LRT has just as much if not more in common with streetcar as it does with subway. LRT literally is the streetcar concept combined with the rapid transit concept. Personally, I think all the pro-LRT people who say streetcar is not LRT are far more annoying than the anti-LRT people who say LRT is not rapid transit. Those pro-LRT people are just hypocrites.

[Nouvellecosse]

I think a big thing that would help is to fight the stigma against the other modes of transit, because it seems like people are desperate to call things by a particular term just because it has a more positive connotation. Calling things rapid transit seems to legitimize it to people, so people insist on that title and will fight to justify it even when it isn't accurate. That's understandable since RT tends to be the most expensive and highest capacity type of service. But in a similar way to prestigious brand names, the more the brand loses its exclusivity and goes mainstream, the more it loses its cache. And RT isn't even the most suitable option for every situation to begin with.

But of course, the recent discussions haven't been about what the definitions of the terms should be, but rather what the definitions actually are. Although we can use research to try to verify definitions, it isn't within our scope to change them.

[ssiguy]

The real issue is frequencies.

The service maybe fast but if you end up spending too much time waiting for your train/bus then it takes the "rapid" out of rapid transit. To me true rapid transit means never having to have a schedule no matter what time or day it is. My perameters would be maximum 15 minutes each way on a Sunday night at 11:00 PM and at least every 10 minutes during all days and better at rush hour.

Except for the few cities that enjoy reasonable ridership levels, most American cities have lousy frequencies.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

If Brown wins the election by being a moderate, then turns around and becomes an angry rural populist once in office, his government's approval ratings will tank like crazy and by 2020 people will actually be nostalgic for Kathleen Wynne. I don't think he's that stupid.

I hope you're right.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The info please article is just a little outdated since third rail has been pretty much universal for metro systems for most of their history (and still nearly universal for that matter). And obviously this reinforces the fact that it specifically equates rapid transit and metro systems because frequent suburban rail systems have existed for much longer than overhead powered metros and this specifically excludes them.

But as I said, it's only in dictionaries which are not set up to provide detailed information on topics where there's any ambiguity. In any other situation, if there was something stated in a dictionary that was shown to be incomplete and/or inaccurate through further research, people would simply recognise which was the more reliable source. If you looked up bacteria and one of a dictionary's example turned out to be a protozoan upon checking an encyclopedia, few people would imply that both are equally "correct".

As far as the frequencies, I find it odd that you would suddenly change your stance on that topic, as your original stance was to agree that the lower frequencies we were discussing were not metro system standard (remember when you claimed I "moved the goal post"?), and your only dispute was to assert that a system could accurately be labeled rapid transit even if it couldn't be considered a metro.

But in terms of the headways, I think it's made fairly clear in the wiki rapid transit article passage. One simply needs to compare the headways of the systems cited.

(bold parts added by me for emphasis)

There's nothing about a dictionary definition that disqualifies it from being just as valid as a longer, not so well written encyclopedia article. Quantity does not equal quality. Even in a short dictionary definition, some of them manage to say that there can be non-rail based rapid transit systems. The number of words isn't relevant.

You may want to read what I wrote again. My position hasn't changed at all. I was merely casting doubt on your rule about frequencies, which you're presenting as authoritative but isn't mentioned at all in the definitions you keep touting.

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I think a big thing that would help is to fight the stigma against the other modes of transit, because it seems like people are desperate to call things by a particular term just because it has a more positive connotation. Calling things rapid transit seems to legitimize it to people, so people insist on that title and will fight to justify it even when it isn't accurate. That's understandable since RT tends to be the most expensive and highest capacity type of service. But in a similar way to prestigious brand names, the more the brand loses its exclusivity and goes mainstream, the more it loses its cache. And RT isn't even the most suitable option for every situation to begin with.

But of course, the recent discussions haven't been about what the definitions of the terms should be, but rather what the definitions actually are. Although we can use research to try to verify definitions, it isn't within our scope to change them.

lol...Desperate? Prestigious? If there were a passive aggressive Olympics you'd be taking home the gold medal for this post.

[gunnar777]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It will be Toronto centered transit that would be halted/delayed if the Tories win because they have little to lose by doing so.

The Tories of today are very different from Harris. Even the Tories know that transportation is a necessary investment including transit. It is at the centre of so much political discourse today that it is right up there with taxes, the economy, and healthcare on people's priority list. This backed up the fact that the feds will now fund 50% of transit projects make it even more palatable politically.

Um what about Hudak? He was a (Go) transit destroying monster.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

Um what about Hudak? He was a (Go) transit destroying monster.

The structural adjustment of the 90s is not an illustrative example to look at of how any party would act now. Given the circumstances, there were huge cuts all over the country done by governments of very different ideological stripes.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

Um what about Hudak? He was a (Go) transit destroying monster.

Yeah, Tim Hudak did not want to commit to Phase 2 of the Confederation Line and with that one comment lost a number of seats in Ottawa.

The more people realise how they will benefit from transit improvements, the less likely that they will support an austerity Conservative plan that cancels big ticket transit projects. However, I see the DRL as at big risk to a Conservative victory. It will not be advanced enough by the 2018 election and the cost will be huge. Of course, they could claim to support it but drag out the planning process to defer the big costs.

I have been around long enough to understand that since Mike Harris shifted the Conservative party further to the right, that the Conservative party is now the party of slash and burn and the Liberal party are the Builder party. During the Robarts/Davis era, the Conservative Party was the Builder Party. I now associate the Conservatives with periods of public infrastructure stagnation.

[osmo]

Originally Posted by Mister F

^Well, some are arguing that rapid transit is metro only while others are arguing that it's a more general term.

For those who are wondering how Smarttrack is evolving, the project website gives the latest. It seems that they're exploring options C and D, which propose to integrate Smarttrack and the already underway RER. Essentially it would be beefed up RER.



In every field there are technical terms that mean one thing to people working in those fields and something else to the other 99% of the population. A theory in everyday life and a theory in science are different things entirely, for example. That doesn't mean that everyone who's not a scientist is wrong, it just means that the word has a different meaning outside that technical context. As for rapid transit, Wikipedia gives S-bahn style regional systems as a variation of it. The Oxford dictionary gives light rail as an example. The Cambridge dictionary keeps it general, referring to fast moving trains in a city (and certain subways in rush hour are are anything but fast moving).

In any case, we're not designing a railway so there's no need to worry about how APTA or any other body defines certain terms in their engineering manuals. It has a more general meaning in day to day life that's no less correct than what a manual says.


Assuming you mean 10 minutes for high frequency, the portion of RER that will meet that is anywhere that two or more lines converge or where the service is enhanced by Smarttrack. That means from Pearson Airport to Unionville, a distance of 52 km.

Smart-track was never real. It was a napkin scratch idea dreamed up by Tory. Slowly as time goes on it will simply be intergraded into the GO RER system. "TTC fares" will be a subsidy and currently Toronto is in flux with its current GO subsidy (or lack of one) as it stands and won't budge on co-pay like the rest of the GTA transit systems do.

All I see for Smart Track is some different station paint in Toronto, and the LED boards switching over to advertise it. The up-run from more trains as the RERE lines converge in Toronto will be the dubious claim for actual service.

What really drives me up about Smart track is the millions of dollars wasted on studies and run around for a plan that will never see the light of day. City staff already running thin have been taken for a ride pumping out studies for this mythical project.

[ssiguy]

Elections, no matter where in Canada, are uniformly lost & won in the suburbs. The Left have the downtown and inner cities and the Right generally have small town and rural areas. It's the middle-of-the-road voters that always determine an electoral win and they are overwhelmingly located in the suburbs.......anything post-1970. The suburbs tend to have the average working person, with average wages, average value systems, and average political priorities...........Middle Canada 101.

NOBODY is going to put their balls on the line by cancelling projects that the suburbanites want and increasingly that means access to mass/rapid transit. There has been a huge shift in how Canadians view transit in the last 20 years. It has been put on the political front burner and it will remain there for decades to come. It has become, thanks in large part to Trudeau and Wynne, a top priority on people's minds because it effects them on a daily basis. Even Harper started to recognize this because even with his MANY faults he did start to realize it infrastructure was becoming a top political priority in the notoriously fickle suburbs. It may break the hearts of some hard core Left urbanites but Harper was the best PM Canadian cities have for a generation.

The rennaisance of Canadian urban transit has begun and, very importantly, become a priority issue for the suburbanites and that a priority issue for all the political parties and as our cities swell and all new provincial and federal ridings are creted in our cities, that will only increase.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The rennaisance of Canadian urban transit has begun and, very importantly, become a priority issue for the suburbanites and that a priority issue for all the political parties and as our cities swell and all new provincial and federal ridings are creted in our cities, that will only increase.

Unfortunately the "Public Transit Infrastructure Fund" money seems like it will be allocated per province based on current ridership, which means that places in provinces with underdeveloped transit will be underfunded.

In Atlantic Canada, this is consistent with the old pattern of federal money going into rural areas and bypassing the cities. And as far as Canada as a whole goes it's more of the same pattern of doling out money rather than spending strategically in order to generate the most value per dollar spent.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by someone123

Unfortunately the "Public Transit Infrastructure Fund" money seems like it will be allocated per province based on current ridership, which means that places in provinces with underdeveloped transit will be underfunded.

In Atlantic Canada, this is consistent with the old pattern of federal money going into rural areas and bypassing the cities.

This is only for the first 3 years. The next phase may be different - with new start or a pot for small systems. It was unrealistic to expect small systems to be able to find projects and matching on the time frames expected by the federal government.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Elections, no matter where in Canada, are uniformly lost & won in the suburbs. The Left have the downtown and inner cities and the Right generally have small town and rural areas. It's the middle-of-the-road voters that always determine an electoral win and they are overwhelmingly located in the suburbs.......anything post-1970. The suburbs tend to have the average working person, with average wages, average value systems, and average political priorities...........Middle Canada 101.

NOBODY is going to put their balls on the line by cancelling projects that the suburbanites want and increasingly that means access to mass/rapid transit. There has been a huge shift in how Canadians view transit in the last 20 years. It has been put on the political front burner and it will remain there for decades to come. It has become, thanks in large part to Trudeau and Wynne, a top priority on people's minds because it effects them on a daily basis. Even Harper started to recognize this because even with his MANY faults he did start to realize it infrastructure was becoming a top political priority in the notoriously fickle suburbs. It may break the hearts of some hard core Left urbanites but Harper was the best PM Canadian cities have for a generation.

The rennaisance of Canadian urban transit has begun and, very importantly, become a priority issue for the suburbanites and that a priority issue for all the political parties and as our cities swell and all new provincial and federal ridings are creted in our cities, that will only increase.

Didn't Vancouver residents vote against transit investment?