Canadian Transit Thread II

[rdaner]

I will add to the Canadian vs. US cities debate that Australian and Canadian cities are diverging from US urban forms at a similar rate but Canadian cities are a bit further ahead in terms of density and also suburban city centres but both have very large, dense and rapidly growing central areas. For example, Sydney has as many cranes as Toronto.

[Paper Boy]

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

Victoria Park Stampede LRT station in Calgary has been under re-construction for the past few years and after a closure last week, finally open.

• Video Link

Great Video
Watching the seasons and events in the background 😀

[savevp]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

In what ways are our cities much more similar to those in Aus and NZ than to the US? Without some pretty convincing explanation, I'm not seeing it.

These comparisons are such a waste of time but as you've asked...

Similar rates of transit usage (slightly higher in Canada generally).
Similar rates of transit expansion. Massive light rail and regional rail growth in all major cities in Canada and Australia.
Similar levels of provincial/state level involvement in transit planning and funding , rather than almost-entirely local control in the US.

Similar methods and levels of taxation to fund infrastructure at the provincial/state level.

Similar urban layouts - strong cores surrounded by desirable neighbourhoods. Very limited 'inner city' decay and suburban flight like you see in the US. And yes Australian/NZ cities generally do use a grid; Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland less rigidly due to topography. Like Halifax for instance.

I could make just as many points demonstrating why American cities function entirely differently but there are too many obvious reasons to anyone who's spent time there.

Look at a ridership graph and you'll see plenty of evidence to show who our global peer cities are.

[Luisito]

All true except Australian cities are far a head of Canada when it comes to regional rail. Canadian cities for the most part are still using diesel locomotives. Australian cities are using EMUs Electirc mutliple Units. With the exception of a few places in the US, we are still very much behind the rest of the world when it comes to this.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Luisito

All true except Australian cities are far a head of Canada when it comes to regional rail. Canadian cities for the most part are still using diesel locomotives. Australian cities are using EMUs Electirc mutliple Units. With the exception of a few places in the US, we are still very much behind the rest of the world when it comes to this.

This is true, although I wouldn't really hold this against Canadian cities. The network of mainline railways that regional rail could use is pretty thin on the ground in every Canadian city except Toronto. These are just historical circumstances that were determined before the advent of the car or even before our cities grew to be really big.

Even Montreal doesn't really have a hub and spoke of rail lines converging on a main downtown railway station, and I can see why they went with a proprietary automated light metro like the REM to serve [some] of their longer-distance travel needs.

At least in Toronto they've realized the potential of regional rail and are beefing up the GO system as we speak.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

This is true, although I wouldn't really hold this against Canadian cities. The network of mainline railways that regional rail could use is pretty thin on the ground in every Canadian city except Toronto. These are just historical circumstances that were determined before the advent of the car or even before our cities grew to be really big.

Even Montreal doesn't really have a hub and spoke of rail lines converging on a main downtown railway station, and I can see why they went with a proprietary automated light metro like the REM to serve [some] of their longer-distance travel needs.

At least in Toronto they've realized the potential of regional rail and are beefing up the GO system as we speak.

The MTL Exo locomotives have dual electric/diesel locomotives but as far I know they only use diesel. The only EMU (the two mountain line) they had is being replaced with the REM, which is a good thing. All the other lines use diesel as far as I know. WOuld be great to see Montreal to update their commuter trains to EMUS.

Toronto go trains will eventually get electric locomotives but still won't be able to run as fast as EMUS. I am not sure why they don't just replace what they have with EMUS. Electric locomotives is becoming outdated technology and Torontos plan is to start using them.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Luisito

All true except Australian cities are far a head of Canada when it comes to regional rail. Canadian cities for the most part are still using diesel locomotives. Australian cities are using EMUs Electirc mutliple Units. With the exception of a few places in the US, we are still very much behind the rest of the world when it comes to this.

I had a discussion one time with someone who said that our cities were better than Australian cities because Sydney (for example) didn't have a true "metro" system. Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen the map of the Sydney area and the passenger rail coverage it has? Who cares if it's not officially a "metro" and is mostly GO Transit style rail. It covers way more of the Sydney region (inner and outer) than the coverage we have in even our biggest cities.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Toronto go trains will eventually get electric locomotives but still won't be able to run as fast as EMUS. I am not sure why they don't just replace what they have with EMUS. Electric locomotives is becoming outdated technology and Torontos plan is to start using them.

GO transit has almost 1,000 Bombardier bilevel coaches, or about three times more than every other operator of these coaches combined. They're a huge sunk cost, and they would only be able to sell them at pennies on the dollar.

ONExpress - the consortium that's designing, building and operating GO RER - hasn't publicly ruled out acquiring EMUs in the future, but it makes sense not to junk the fleet of bilevels that they have.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by savevp

These comparisons are such a waste of time but as you've asked...

Similar rates of transit usage (slightly higher in Canada generally).
Similar rates of transit expansion. Massive light rail and regional rail growth in all major cities in Canada and Australia.
Similar levels of provincial/state level involvement in transit planning and funding , rather than almost-entirely local control in the US.

Similar methods and levels of taxation to fund infrastructure at the provincial/state level.

Similar urban layouts - strong cores surrounded by desirable neighbourhoods. Very limited 'inner city' decay and suburban flight like you see in the US. And yes Australian/NZ cities generally do use a grid; Sydney, Brisbane, and Auckland less rigidly due to topography. Like Halifax for instance.

I could make just as many points demonstrating why American cities function entirely differently but there are too many obvious reasons to anyone who's spent time there.

Look at a ridership graph and you'll see plenty of evidence to show who our global peer cities are.

If one chooses to use those particular criteria then I can see why one would consider Canada more similar to Aus/NZ, although "world's apart" seems more suitable for say, Canada vs Japan or Spain. Aus/NZ and the US are both similar enough to make for reasonable comparisons imo. I also don't agree about the grids. Look at Aus cities on Google maps or Earth. There are often square blocks at the smallest scale, but the most important element of a grid vs non-grid from a transit perspective is in the layout of the major streets where transit is likely to run. Sydney doesn't have a grid at all, and not just because the grid is interrupted by geography like Halifax or Toronto. It just doesn't have a large scale grid to interrupt. Same with Brisbane, Perth, and Auckland. Adelaide and Melbourne are similar to Places like Winnipeg and Ottawa with proto-grids that are interrupted by radials and otherwise non-conforming streets.

I think the challenge is that the cities in each country tend to vary too much to make country level comparisons work very well. Particularly with the US which has major cities as different as NYC is from Phoenix and everything in between.

[someone123]

New RMTransit video about the Quebec tramway. I was disappointed by the apparent stall in the project and curious about the details. The idea that Quebec should start with a $8B system doesn't seem to pass the sniff test, and this video suggests that there wasn't much competition in the bidding and the price quoted for the vehicles is wildly inflated compared to other cities (yes in France but also Ottawa).

• Video Link

I think it's really bad how these projects get out of hand and then the media jump on these large dollar figures while some politicians grandstand about narrowly averting profligacy. There are a lot of low information observers who interpret this stuff as transit or public works being very expensive. The entire journalistic mode of inducing sticker shock with low context billions and millions seems even more dubious in these days of high population growth and inflation. I doubt most people have an intuitive sense of the resources of their local governments. A real discussion would talk about how the projects would change budgets and taxes in relative terms but that is more complicated.

[Nouvellecosse]

^ One thing he mentioned is that there were only two initial bidders for the rolling stock procurement which is unusual for such a large contract. But it isn't really clear why so many potential bidders opted out. Perhaps there was a Canadian content requirement they couldn't meet such as requiring a certain percentage of jobs or manufactured components to be based here? Or they didn't feel the process was stable enough to warrant their efforts and was prone to cancellation, political interference, etc. Who knows.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

GO transit has almost 1,000 Bombardier bilevel coaches, or about three times more than every other operator of these coaches combined. They're a huge sunk cost, and they would only be able to sell them at pennies on the dollar.

ONExpress - the consortium that's designing, building and operating GO RER - hasn't publicly ruled out acquiring EMUs in the future, but it makes sense not to junk the fleet of bilevels that they have.

You hit the nail on the head. There is zero likelihood that for the foreseeable future there will be anything running on GO Transit lines other than Bilevel coaches.

Electric locomotives pulling Bilevel coaches? Absolutely.

A longer-term EMU acquisition strategy to replace the retained (newest) diesel locomotives and oldest Bilevels coaches as they age out? Assuredly so.

I would expect the initial order of electric locomotives pulling Bilevels will be enough to switch over the regular Lakeshore East and West services. Diesels will still be used on express trains for a long time since they would benefit least from the acceleration/deceleration benefits of pure electric locomotives. As additional electric locomotives are acquired, they will convert other lines to electric service.

Eventually it will be an all-electric locomotive fleet, but I would expect that as the final tranches of diesel locomotive replacements comes up, the procurement strategy will switch over to acquiring EMU trainsets. This will let the remaining diesel locomotives and oldest Bilevels be retired and initiate the long-term line-by-line conversion process over to EMU trainsets. Even so, I would expect electric locomotives pulling Bilevels to continue for a very long time for express service.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

You hit the nail on the head. There is zero likelihood that for the foreseeable future there will be anything running on GO Transit lines other than Bilevel coaches.

Electric locomotives pulling Bilevel coaches? Absolutely.

A longer-term EMU acquisition strategy to replace the retained (newest) diesel locomotives and oldest Bilevels coaches as they age out? Assuredly so.

I would expect the initial order of electric locomotives pulling Bilevels will be enough to switch over the regular Lakeshore East and West services. Diesels will still be used on express trains for a long time since they would benefit least from the acceleration/deceleration benefits of pure electric locomotives. As additional electric locomotives are acquired, they will convert other lines to electric service.

Eventually it will be an all-electric locomotive fleet, but I would expect that as the final tranches of diesel locomotive replacements comes up, the procurement strategy will switch over to acquiring EMU trainsets. This will let the remaining diesel locomotives and oldest Bilevels be retired and initiate the long-term line-by-line conversion process over to EMU trainsets. Even so, I would expect electric locomotives pulling Bilevels to continue for a very long time for express service.

The best strategy would be to initially replace all the diesel locos with electric and use more locomotives to add acceleration to the electrified sections. One locomotive per 6 passenger coaches compared to as few as one diesel loco per 12 car train that we see now. Electric locos may be more powerful, but the track adherence would limit acceleration because putting that much power down through so few axles doesn't work on rails which have low friction. Plus, electric locos tend to be lighter since they only have the electric components rather than both electric parts plus a huge generator and fuel tanks that the diesel models have. And it's more cost effective to run more electric locos since electric operation is cheaper. It would also be much easier to sell diesel locos since they can probably be re-purposed for freight or intercity operation in addition to commuter rail unlike the passenger coaches.

The longer distance services beyond the electrified zones (like NF, Stouffville, etc.) should be run using bi-mode multi-units where they can use electric while under the wires and switch to diesel or battery beyond that. These would be fairly easy to convert to electric-only in the future. In places where whole lines aren't electrified like Milton and Richmond Hill, it might be worth switching to hybrid locos that work like hybrid cars in that they recover energy lost to braking to re-use when accelerating. This makes for quieter, faster acceleration and lower fuel cost/emissions.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I had a discussion one time with someone who said that our cities were better than Australian cities because Sydney (for example) didn't have a true "metro" system. Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen the map of the Sydney area and the passenger rail coverage it has? Who cares if it's not officially a "metro" and is mostly GO Transit style rail. It covers way more of the Sydney region (inner and outer) than the coverage we have in even our biggest cities.

Yeah Sydney actually has an awesome suburban train system. They actually do have a metro also.

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

You hit the nail on the head. There is zero likelihood that for the foreseeable future there will be anything running on GO Transit lines other than Bilevel coaches.

Electric locomotives pulling Bilevel coaches? Absolutely.

A longer-term EMU acquisition strategy to replace the retained (newest) diesel locomotives and oldest Bilevels coaches as they age out? Assuredly so.

I would expect the initial order of electric locomotives pulling Bilevels will be enough to switch over the regular Lakeshore East and West services. Diesels will still be used on express trains for a long time since they would benefit least from the acceleration/deceleration benefits of pure electric locomotives. As additional electric locomotives are acquired, they will convert other lines to electric service.

Eventually it will be an all-electric locomotive fleet, but I would expect that as the final tranches of diesel locomotive replacements comes up, the procurement strategy will switch over to acquiring EMU trainsets. This will let the remaining diesel locomotives and oldest Bilevels be retired and initiate the long-term line-by-line conversion process over to EMU trainsets. Even so, I would expect electric locomotives pulling Bilevels to continue for a very long time for express service.

What a shame, Toronto will be stuck with an outdated 70's/80s style commuter rail for at least another generation or two.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Yeah Sydney actually has an awesome suburban train system. They actually do have a metro also.


.

You're right. They do now. It's fairly new, with the first segment only opening in 2019.

But even before then, I'd argue that getting around the city and metro area by rail and public transit there was easier than in Toronto or Montreal.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I had a discussion one time with someone who said that our cities were better than Australian cities because Sydney (for example) didn't have a true "metro" system. Are you kidding me? Have you ever seen the map of the Sydney area and the passenger rail coverage it has? Who cares if it's not officially a "metro" and is mostly GO Transit style rail. It covers way more of the Sydney region (inner and outer) than the coverage we have in even our biggest cities.

Yes but at the same time, lines on a map doesn't mean much because it can be hard to tell if the service quality is comparable. A commuter line on a map can mean anything from a couple trips per weekday in the peak period/direction with inconvenient stop locations (like Seattle's Sounder North) to two-way all day frequent service with convenient stops. That's especially important for branching services which may lose a lot of frequency on the outer sections. Australia does tend to have more frequent suburban rail than we have in NA, but comparing it to metro systems is trickier. It isn't clear that a frequent express bus connecting a suburban area to the nearest frequent subway stop is inferior to a much less frequent commuter rail branch.

Also, Aus commuter rail tends to have a travel time issues according to some commentators I've heard. Because they try to fulfill the dual roles of inner city metro and outer city commuter rail, they need frequent stops but also need to cover long distances. And dwell times can be longer per stop because there are fewer doors per railcar. I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, just that you'd need to know a lot more than a "looks at these lines on a map" type comparison to judge. Metros on the other hand tend to be much more consistent between cities.

[Acajack]

This is Adelaide, which is about the size of Ottawa:



https://i0.wp.com/transitmap.net/wp-...4%2C1592&ssl=1

[MonkeyRonin]

Again, refer to the post above. Those lines on a map look more impressive than Ottawa’s lines on a map, but how does the service, use, and functionality conpare? I don't know the answer to this, but the map alone doesn't tell the whole story.

Maps are also easy to manipulate based on what's shown (or not), and how. For example, here are two maps of Toronto's rail system circa 2030. Which looks more impressive?

[Luisito]

Also, Aus commuter rail tends to have a travel time issues according to some commentators I've heard. Because they try to fulfill the dual roles of inner city metro and outer city commuter rail, they need frequent stops but also need to cover long distances. And dwell times can be longer per stop because there are fewer doors per railcar. I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, just that you'd need to know a lot more than a "looks at these lines on a map" type comparison to judge. Metros on the other hand tend to be much more consistent between cities.

This is not as much of an issue with EMUS which Australia has had for a long time now. There is a reason why when commuter rail is upgraded to EMUS they run more frequently with more stops. We see commuter rail run like metros in many places. We see this in Australia, Germany, Paris and even in the US. Sydney trains run more often and more rapidly than toronto go trains period.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Again, refer to the post above. Those lines on a map look more impressive than Ottawa’s lines on a map, but how does the service, use, and functionality conpare? I don't know the answer to this, but the map alone doesn't tell the whole story.

I doubt it could be worse than Ottawas confederation tram.