The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by GreaterMontréal

... he ruled out the idea of a light-rail train system.

He ruled out a high speed heavy rail train.


It would be extremely difficult to justify a HSR infrastructure between Montréal and Québec City, heck, the current trains are pretty much underused.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

In that case, you can accept the 9 local and 99 express for Broadway

[WhipperSnapper]

And the 85, 85A, 85B, 85C, 85D, 85F, 85J and 334 would be one family as well.

[Cirrus]

In what city? Does the 85 family change the result for my purposes (listing the #1 line for each major city)?

[Acajack]

If different lines along a single corridor are being counted...

Pretty sure the central corridor of Ottawa's BRT Transitway carries well over 100,000 passengers a day.

[TorontoDrew]

Not much chance of the NDP forming a government but it would be nice to see the Northlander return to service.

NDP vowing to bring back the Northlander
Daily Press mobile multimedia journalist Ron Grech.
By Ron Grech, The Daily Press (Timmins)
Thursday, November 9, 2017 9:32:41 EST PM

http://www.timminspress.com/2017/11/09/ndp-vowing-to-bring-back-the-northlander

TIMMINS - The Ontario New Democrats are promising to bring back the Northlander Train and enhance bus service throughout the North, if they form the next government.

MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP – Timmins-James Bay) was on the campaign trail Thursday morning, presenting a plank from his party’s platform for the next provincial election.

“We’re going to have a (transportation) system that is going to treat all regions of the province fairly,” said Bisson, who held a press conference inside the Ontario Northland bus depot in Timmins Thursday morning.

If the NDP form the next government, “we’re going to tell the ONTC, a revitalized Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, to go out and consult with individuals, with municipalities, with businesses and with labour in order to determine how to bring the train back.”

Bisson said it is clear there were problems with train schedules back when service was in operation.

The goal, he said, would be to resolve those issues and bring the train service back.

“The schedule didn’t work for some. The train didn’t even come to Timmins which is the largest community other than North Bay on the line. And so we need to look at how do we bring that service back in a way that we can increase ridership; and how to develop the bus service so that the bus service is able to augment what the train does, so that it is an integrated system.”

Bisson said an NDP-led government would “provide the capital dollars necessary to build the infrastructure that needs to be done. In some cases, it might be equipment, it might be rail, it might be buses, it might be buildings.”

source: https://i.cbc.ca


source: https://www.google.com

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Not much chance of the NDP forming a government but it would be nice to see the Northlander return to service.

NDP vowing to bring back the Northlander
Daily Press mobile multimedia journalist Ron Grech.
By Ron Grech, The Daily Press (Timmins)
Thursday, November 9, 2017 9:32:41 EST PM

http://www.timminspress.com/2017/11/09/ndp-vowing-to-bring-back-the-northlander

TIMMINS - The Ontario New Democrats are promising to bring back the Northlander Train and enhance bus service throughout the North, if they form the next government.

MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP – Timmins-James Bay) was on the campaign trail Thursday morning, presenting a plank from his party’s platform for the next provincial election.

“We’re going to have a (transportation) system that is going to treat all regions of the province fairly,” said Bisson, who held a press conference inside the Ontario Northland bus depot in Timmins Thursday morning.

If the NDP form the next government, “we’re going to tell the ONTC, a revitalized Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, to go out and consult with individuals, with municipalities, with businesses and with labour in order to determine how to bring the train back.”

Bisson said it is clear there were problems with train schedules back when service was in operation.

The goal, he said, would be to resolve those issues and bring the train service back.

“The schedule didn’t work for some. The train didn’t even come to Timmins which is the largest community other than North Bay on the line. And so we need to look at how do we bring that service back in a way that we can increase ridership; and how to develop the bus service so that the bus service is able to augment what the train does, so that it is an integrated system.”

Bisson said an NDP-led government would “provide the capital dollars necessary to build the infrastructure that needs to be done. In some cases, it might be equipment, it might be rail, it might be buses, it might be buildings.”

source: https://i.cbc.ca


source: https://www.google.com

They were the ones who voted with the Liberals to cancel it. The PCs wanted it cancelled too.

[Innsertnamehere]

PCs have its restoration in their platform as well.

[lrt's friend]

Haha! then they will plan and plan until people forget the promise and let it slowly die away. Or, they bring it back, and cancel it again to save money for the budget and claim that ridership was insufficient.

[Cirrus]

Originally Posted by Acajack

If different lines along a single corridor are being counted... Pretty sure the central corridor of Ottawa's BRT Transitway carries well over 100,000 passengers a day.

Not counting that. From the previous page:

Originally Posted by me

I am willing to accept "route families" of services on a single corridor if they are legitimately minor variations on a single trunk line... I'm not taking routes that are substantially different and merely share a particular stretch of road for awhile.

The key for accepting route families is that riders should be able to use any route in the family more or less interchangeably.

A downtown spine where everything in the region comes together is a different animal than a clearly cohesive line that happens to have a couple of variations on its stopping pattern. I admit there's a touch of subjectivity in deciding which is which, but a downtown spine is the classic case of what doesn't count. Tons of cities have a street downtown where several lines come together, and I'm not counting it for any of them.

I would, however, love to have a number for Ottawa that I could use.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

They were the ones who voted with the Liberals to cancel it. The PCs wanted it cancelled too.

I know, with elections around the corner one can expect many transit focused carrots to be dangled in front of the voters. My vote won't be swayed by who supports the Northlander, purely a tactic to lock votes in Ontario's large and sparsely populated regions. I'd love to see that train back though. It cost the same as the bus and was a great way to travel to the north from the city in comfort. It was the only train I have ever been on that would stop in the middle of the woods to pick up people standing at a marker on the tracks. It's also where I first found out Ontario had a town named Swastika .


Named way before WWII..
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

PCs have its restoration in their platform as well.

Along with just about everything else!

[vid]

Swastika was called that long before WWII, and they decided to keep the name afterwards because they didn't want to let Naziism force them to change their identity. Either way there's only a few hundred people there. Frenchman's Head is named after a decapitated Frenchman but no one complains about that.

PCs and NDP only say they want to bring back the Northlander to get political capital in the north. They don't actually want to do it and won't faithfully commit to it if elected, I can guarantee that.

Some of the shorter VIA Rail lines also do flag stops along their lines. Greyhound used to do it up here, there were certain points where the bus would just stop and let you on if you waited there. Rural bus routes in some cities also operate on the same principal, anywhere a bus can pull over is a bus stop.

[ssiguy]

So the NDP want to bring back the Northlander, yet another reason why they shouldn't govern.

Yes the service was poor and infrequent but that was because no one was taking it. These politicians who want it back probably never stepped foot on it and were proud to say so. Just because you bring in a service doesn't mean it will get used.

Canada should be drastically cutting back it's rail lines un these stupid and ultra-low ridership routes and directing those savings to the Corridor or Cal/Edm where the demand is.

[Doady]

You can see a lot of swastikas in Vietnam. It's not a big deal.

Better transportation to connect North Ontario is a good idea but maybe it would be better to focus on finish twinning Highway 11/17 first.

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by Doady

You can see a lot of swastikas in Vietnam. It's not a big deal.

Better transportation to connect North Ontario is a good idea but maybe it would be better to focus on finish twinning Highway 11/17 first.

Definitely!!! This should be a top priority of national interest. This thin strip needs to be better developed to better connect east and west Canada. Infrastructure investments are known to be a draw to people and development. Better connectivity would also be important from a defense point of view.

[OTSkyline]

^Agreed. I come from Northern Ontario and have made the 9hrs trek up from Ottawa and Toronto several times. As soon as the highway drops to 2 lanes (1 in each direction) the drive becomes horrible.... traffic and lines forming due to 1 car going slow, no passing lanes for miles and miles and it just gets worst when you add weather and the thousands of transports that take this road everyday shipping goods from Eastern Canada to the west.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Doady

You can see a lot of swastikas in Vietnam. It's not a big deal.

Better transportation to connect North Ontario is a good idea but maybe it would be better to focus on finish twinning Highway 11/17 first.

It would take about 9 Billion to do that.

I don't see any party committing that much to get it done within a decade. I doubt within 50 years.

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Doady

You can see a lot of swastikas in Vietnam. It's not a big deal.

Asia in general. They are very common at Buddhist temples, though Buddhist swastikas tend to be mirror images of the Nazi swastika (Buddhist swastikas typically have the hooks pointing to the left, while the Nazi swastika has the hooks pointing to the right).

[WhipperSnapper]

Yeah, The swastika has more than a thousand years of history until the Nazi party selected it to be their party symbol. It was a symbol of good fortune at a time when there was very little good fortune in Germany. Unfortunately, the party had a great marketing strategy.