The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Honestly hugely exciting to see, though that being said I do wish we'd see more widespread LRT development in Calgary and Edmonton. Given the lower cost of At-Grade LRT/Tramway and the usefulness in serving lower density areas, I'd hope they were building a lot more.

At-grade can be more expensive than elevated if utilities need to be moved or roads reconstructed. Plus higher operating costs. That's why the REM is elevated in Pointe-St-Charles even if it could be at grade.

I've yet to be sold for at-grade LRT...

[lrt's friend]

Despite their flaws, I loved riding Toronto's legacy streetcars on my recent trip. The high frequency was a big selling point.

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Calgary and Edmonton have huge expansions funded.

Hearing rumors that Calgary's Green Line might be in jeopardy depending on what happens in the Provincial budget coming out later this week. Since the scope of the project has changed since initial funding was announced some are speculating that the Province could pull funding.

Hope this does not come to pass.

[Chadillaccc]

That would be brutal if it happens, but honestly it's not something I will hold the provincial government responsible for, despite how distasteful they otherwise are. This Green Line debacle is entirely the fault of the city and not doing their due diligence until looong after they had requested funding. They should have requested 6 billion total, not 4.6. I don't know what they were thinking, not doing the detailed downtown tunnel study before requesting federal and provincial funding. Just complete fucking idiocy that could result in getting a piecemeal surface/tunnel section through the core rather than the 4 km tunnel that we need.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

That would be brutal if it happens, but honestly it's not something I will hold the provincial government responsible for, despite how distasteful they otherwise are. This Green Line debacle is entirely the fault of the city and not doing their due diligence until looong after they had requested funding. They should have requested 6 billion total, not 4.6. I don't know what they were thinking, not doing the detailed downtown tunnel study before requesting federal and provincial funding. Just complete fucking idiocy that could result in getting a piecemeal surface/tunnel section through the core rather than the 4 km tunnel that we need.

The federal government announced their contribution before any studies were even ordered. Yay electoral politics! The provincial government signed the contribution agreement before the city was ready to tender to try to show benefits of their carbon tax.


The city has had lots of issues in its process, but it isn't the city's process that has led to the current situation. If the feds hadn't jumped the gun a bus transitway would be close to opening by now.

[SaskOttaLoo]

I was nerding out this weekend reading about the comparative ridership of different light rail systems in North America. I had forgotten just how impressive Calgary's LRT system is. This wikipedia page blew me away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_light_rail_systems_by_ridership

So interesting how comparatively lower (albeit still super strong) the Edmonton LRT system ridership is (around 3x less). Are there any good analyses on why that is? The three reasons I've seen are: a) really high number of downtown workers in Calgary, b) high parking rates, and c) choosing proven technologies that were cheaper and allowed more to be build.

It's also interesting to see the widely varying ridership per km of the different lines. I am curious about how a place like Denver or Dallas, which have really long lines but less ridership, will evolve over time.

[J.OT13]

For the Calgary vs Edmonton aspect, I've always believed Calgary's choice of running rail at street level downtown in order to have enough capital for near constant expansion is what put them over the edge. Edmonton placed all of its resources in a tunnel which was expanded one station at a time over a long period of time. Only in the mid-2000s did they start building up again after more than a decade of nothing.

On a side note, Ottawa's choice of a tunnel was the best option today considering we are twice the size of the Prairie cities when they built their systems, with ridership numbers comparable to Calgary today.

The U.S. is a completely different beast. While car culture is slowly declining in Canada, it continues to thrive in the U.S. Denver, Houston and Dallas are much larger cities with rail systems of comparable, or larger size with significantly lower ridership. Quite embarrassing frankly.

On the Green Line question, I wonder if it may be time to shelve that project in favour of a tunnel for the red line.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

That would be brutal if it happens, but honestly it's not something I will hold the provincial government responsible for, despite how distasteful they otherwise are. This Green Line debacle is entirely the fault of the city and not doing their due diligence until looong after they had requested funding. They should have requested 6 billion total, not 4.6. I don't know what they were thinking, not doing the detailed downtown tunnel study before requesting federal and provincial funding. Just complete fucking idiocy that could result in getting a piecemeal surface/tunnel section through the core rather than the 4 km tunnel that we need.

Ottawa made similar mistakes. In the mid-2000s, we requested $200M from each upper level government for what was estimated to be a $600M project. The cheapest bid ended up coming up to $900M.

That plan was eventually scrapped and replaced with Stage 1 Confederation. For that project, we estimated $1.8B and subsequently requested $600M from the Feds and Province. Once the final estimates came in, after the money was committed, the final tally came to $2.1B, and that's after significant value-engineering.

And now, Stage 2 currently u/c, the estimated cost was $3B. We had initially requested $1B from each level for the 1/3-1/3-1/3 split before requesting an additional $200M for extensions further east to Trim and a stump to the airport (those additions 100% paid for by upper levels). The Feds and Province agreed. With an additional extension west to Moodie and relocation of the proposed secondary rail yard, final estimates came to $3.6B. Contracts came in, and the final cost is $4.6B!!! That's $1.3B in additional costs over 10 years of planning due to inadequate estimates, all on the back of municipal taxpayers.

The City will be requesting 100% funding for Stage 3 (Kanata and Barrhaven). If they make these sorts of miss-calculations again, it will be extremely difficult to build the next phase.

While all of this is happening, Gatineau is demanding commitments from the Feds and Province based on their very rough $2.1B estimate, before settling on a route or a way to cross to Ottawa.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The U.S. is a completely different beast. While car culture is slowly declining in Canada, it continues to thrive in the U.S. Denver, Houston and Dallas are much larger cities with rail systems of comparable, or larger size with significantly lower ridership. Quite embarrassing frankly.

The other interesting aspect of these American light rail systems that I find is that you often hear complaints that Americans aren't willing to spend on public transit, but looking at the operating budget of Dallas Area Rapid Transit, I'm amazed at big their operating budget is given the modest ridership. Even taking out depreciation, farebox and ad revenue recovery is less than 15%.

On the Green Line question, I wonder if it may be time to shelve that project in favour of a tunnel for the red line.

Yeah, the Green Line has become so expensive that I also question whether it's worth spending $2+B on a tunnel for a line that will only have 60-65K trips a day, when the rest of the CTrain (with over 300K trips a day) have to make do with 7th Avenue.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

While all of this is happening, Gatineau is demanding commitments from the Feds and Province based on their very rough $2.1B estimate, before settling on a route or a way to cross to Ottawa.

Québec City did the same mistake, they even added a 700M$ contingency.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Yeah, the Green Line has become so expensive that I also question whether it's worth spending $2+B on a tunnel for a line that will only have 60-65K trips a day, when the rest of the CTrain (with over 300K trips a day) have to make do with 7th Avenue.

The reason we have to not be short sighted on the tunnel issue is because once phase 2 of the line is complete (finally getting into the north central residential zone and to McKenzie Town in the south), there will be a looot more riders using the line. When the entire 46 km is complete, we could see it having the most ridership on the system.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

The reason we have to not be short sighted on the tunnel issue is because once phase 2 of the line is complete (finally getting into the north central residential zone and to McKenzie Town in the south), there will be a looot more riders using the line.

I would agree with that if I hadn't lost faith that the City will be building Phase 2 in the foreseeable future; we still don't even know what Phase 2 will be even though Admin was supposed to make that decision in early 2018 and we've gone from hoping for cost savings in constructing Phase 1 to seamlessly go to a Phase 2 to now hoping for cost savings to complete downtown without too many compromises. It'll probably be like the 20+ year delay between the NE and West line before the Green Line goes substantially north.

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[p_xavier]

Some REM updates and great videos of the stations being built.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/rem-hopes-to-avoid-hiccups-of-ottawas-lrt-network

[TorontoDrew]

Ya the American numbers are sad. This was the 2018 light rail'Subway ridership for cities across North America.

01. N.Y.C 2,629,594,200 (373 km)
02. Mexico City 1,591,984,000 (226.5 km)
03. Toronto 416,210,500 (76.9 km)
04. Montreal 383,147,700 (69 km)
05. Chicago 225,895,100 (165.4 km)
06. Washington 226,349,600 (188 km)
07. Monterrey 180,818,000 (32 km)[
08. Boston 155,748,800 (61 km)
09. Vancouver 160,014,800 (79.5 km)
10. San Francisco 125,576,400 (167 km)

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Ya the American numbers are sad. This was the 2018 light rail'Subway ridership for cities across North America.

01. N.Y.C 2,629,594,200 (373 km)
02. Mexico City 1,591,984,000 (226.5 km)
03. Toronto 416,210,500 (76.9 km)
04. Montreal 383,147,700 (69 km)
05. Chicago 225,895,100 (165.4 km)
06. Washington 226,349,600 (188 km)
07. Monterrey 180,818,000 (32 km)[
08. Boston 155,748,800 (61 km)
09. Vancouver 160,014,800 (79.5 km)
10. San Francisco 125,576,400 (167 km)

How did Boston beat Vancouver, unless that's a typo.

I'm surprised Chicago's numbers aren't higher. It's a great system in my experience. I wonder how NYC compares to London...

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Ya the American numbers are sad. This was the 2018 light rail'Subway ridership for cities across North America.

01. N.Y.C 2,629,594,200 (373 km)
02. Mexico City 1,591,984,000 (226.5 km)
03. Toronto 416,210,500 (76.9 km)
04. Montreal 383,147,700 (69 km)
05. Chicago 225,895,100 (165.4 km)
06. Washington 226,349,600 (188 km)
07. Monterrey 180,818,000 (32 km)[
08. Boston 155,748,800 (61 km)
09. Vancouver 160,014,800 (79.5 km)
10. San Francisco 125,576,400 (167 km)

Fascinating to be reminded of just how much more extensive US systems tend to be than Canadian, yet Canada manages to punch well above its weight in terms of ridership. Were Toronto to have the same amount of track for its subway as New York, and ridership rates remain the same, in this hypothetical Toronto could be racking up ridership numbers a touch over 2 billion!

Also, clearly the Boston-Vancouver rankings should be reversed; it's an error.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Ya the American numbers are sad. This was the 2018 light rail'Subway ridership for cities across North America.

01. N.Y.C 2,629,594,200 (373 km)
02. Mexico City 1,591,984,000 (226.5 km)
03. Toronto 416,210,500 (76.9 km)
04. Montreal 383,147,700 (69 km)
05. Chicago 225,895,100 (165.4 km)
06. Washington 226,349,600 (188 km)
07. Monterrey 180,818,000 (32 km)[
08. Boston 155,748,800 (61 km)
09. Vancouver 160,014,800 (79.5 km)
10. San Francisco 125,576,400 (167 km)

Canada's system length numbers are sad. While Vancouver is Canada's most expansive rapid transit system at the moment (with Montréal years away from doubling their current length), many U.S. cities that have rail are well ahead of us, including those with much lower ridership numbers. In addition to Chicago, Washington D.C. and San Fransisco, they have these over 80 km:

Portland 39,000,000 (96.6 km)
Dallas 29,760,000 (150 km)
Los Angeles 108,017,525 (169 km)
San Diego 39,700,000 (86.1 km)