The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[begratto]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

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)

Sytem lengths are lower in Canada, but frequencies are much higher. Dallas' DART trains, for example, pass every 15 minutes - at rush hour! Meanwhile, Montreal's métros pass every 2 1/2 minutes, and every 5 minutes or better outside of rush hours. And to my knowledge frequencies are similar in Toronto and Vancouver.

[jigglysquishy]

When is the Ontario line projected to start?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by begratto

Sytem lengths are lower in Canada, but frequencies are much higher. Dallas' DART trains, for example, pass every 15 minutes - at rush hour! Meanwhile, Montreal's métros pass every 2 1/2 minutes, and every 5 minutes or better outside of rush hours. And to my knowledge frequencies are similar in Toronto and Vancouver.

But that comes with high ridership. Ottawa's Confederation Line passes every 3 minutes at rush hour, but that's near crush load. Off peak during the day, it's every 5 minutes with room to breath on the train. Only after midnight does frequency drop to 15 minutes.

Considering the high ridership in Canada, it's embarrassing how short our systems are compared to those systems in the U.S. with much lower ridership, or Europe.

[ssiguy]

It is sad to see how small some of our systems are. The comparison however is not black and white. The vast majority of newer systems in the US are not comparable to ones in Canada. Many systems like Dallas are what we would consider suburban or enhanced commuter rail and others like Houston's are just glorified streetcars. Many US systems have also expanded quickly because they use current rail corridors that go thru unpopulated areas or even use freeway corridors and hence their lousy ridership.

Thankfully, Canada is in the midst of a transit expansion revival with more transit expansion underway now than at any time in our history.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by jigglysquishy

When is the Ontario line projected to start?

It's a long ways off. There will be a lot of push back through Riverside and Leslieville where the DRL was always supposed to be buried but now they want to cheap out and build it at grade widening the GO tracks.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by begratto

Sytem lengths are lower in Canada, but frequencies are much higher. Dallas' DART trains, for example, pass every 15 minutes - at rush hour! Meanwhile, Montreal's métros pass every 2 1/2 minutes, and every 5 minutes or better outside of rush hours. And to my knowledge frequencies are similar in Toronto and Vancouver.

We have very little to learn from the Americans on the public transit file. They build lines, but they’re usually political boondoggles that’s sap funds from basic operations. Despite all the lines they’ve opened, public transit ridership has fallen in pretty much every American city in the past 10 years.

In Canada, meanwhile most public transit agencies are posting record high transit ridership numbers.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

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)

This one out of Mexico is surprising though for it's size.
07. Monterrey 180,818,000 (32 km)

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

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

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

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

I'm pretty sure they based their ranking positions on the average daily weekday ridership figure despite the annual ridership figures being displayed in the list. It's common with systems that are fairly close that one is higher for the first figure and the other is higher for the second, probably due to differences in weekend ridership.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

We have very little to learn from the Americans on the public transit file. They build lines, but they’re usually political boondoggles that’s sap funds from basic operations. Despite all the lines they’ve opened, public transit ridership has fallen in pretty much every American city in the past 10 years.

In Canada, meanwhile most public transit agencies are posting record high transit ridership numbers.

This. Frankly, I'm always surprised when American transit planning (and most often city planning as well) is used as a point of comparison, whether as a positive or negative. Just about anything positive we do, we do more of and better.

More broadly, the contexts are just too different. We don't have massive downtown freeways, we have a stronger base urban living and transit culture, we don't have semi-rural estates as a common suburban development typology, etc. I never really understand when American cities are used as precedents/examples, when we likely have more relevant and higher quality examples here in Canada.

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[Truenorth00]

This article from transit consultant Jarett Walker is a decade old. But nothing has changed

https://humantransit.org/2010/10/further-cause-for-canadian-triumphalism.html

We don't have much to learn from the US on transit and urban planning.

[Chadillaccc]

If the Green Line wasn't already in a tumultuous place, the new provincial budget might be the final death knell... for now at least.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

We have very little to learn from the Americans on the public transit file. They build lines, but they’re usually political boondoggles that’s sap funds from basic operations. Despite all the lines they’ve opened, public transit ridership has fallen in pretty much every American city in the past 10 years.

In Canada, meanwhile most public transit agencies are posting record high transit ridership numbers.

I would expect mixed bus and rapid transit numbers to be higher for Canadian cities relative to American cities. The bus service in Toronto and Vancouver is much better than what I've seen in any major American metro, and the buses make the rapid transit lines a lot more useful. I would not be surprised if a lot of smaller Canadian cities' bus routes were as good as the routes in Boston or San Francisco in terms of service levels on paper and much more pleasant to take in practice.

One thing that surprised me a little travelling is that Canadian systems are pretty packed even relative to a lot of European systems. I expected Paris or London to make Vancouver look quaint but that's not what I've seen, even at rush hour on a few different lines. Trying to get on a downtown station in Vancouver is as bad as it is in one of the largest European cities. Obviously the Vancouver stations are smaller than what you get in the biggest cities but the density of passengers is worse than in a lot of very busy places. It's been a long time since I've been on a subway at rush hour in Toronto but I can't imagine it's better now than it was 10 years ago.

We talk a lot about ridership numbers but it would also be nice if we had more of a focus on comfort too, and aimed for people to have seats rather than having crush loads on lines that opened up 2 years ago. In Vancouver the Evergreen extension is already pretty packed at times for a very preventable reason; the system doesn't have enough trains so they are running 2 car trains for now along the Millennium Line. This is much more fixable than the problem downtown where the platforms are too small.

Vancouver likewise has some areas with buses running at 15-30 minute frequencies that regularly can't pick up passengers because they are too full. On paper that looks great according to the sort of metrics that tend to get the most attention but from a planning and usability perspective it's awful.

[lrt's friend]

I am really concerned that the enormous cost of the Confederation Line is creating a situation similar to what has been experienced in many U.S. cities that will lead to lower ridership. There has been a public backlash concerning bus service cuts and the overall poor speed and reliability of common transit trips. We are finding out that capital cost repayment at least matches all operational savings and this makes it impossible to improve neighbourhood bus operations needed to make the overall transit system perform well. One of the big problems relates to the fact that the city paid the largest share of the capital cost for building the Confederation Line.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

If the Green Line wasn't already in a tumultuous place, the new provincial budget might be the final death knell... for now at least.

Well that's disappointing to hear.
What about the ring road or is that already paid for?

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Well that's disappointing to hear.
What about the ring road or is that already paid for?

The SW Ring Road has been under construction for years, should be finished next year I think. The West Ring Road just started construction and will be done in like 2023? Including the twinning of the Bow River Bridge. Once those are done, the entire 101 km highway will finally be complete.

[Denscity]

Ah so no danger of that being cancelled then.
How far along is the green line?

[Chadillaccc]

Stoney Trail won't be cancelled, no. Not a chance. The Green Line hasn't started hard construction yet, just prep work, utility relocation, land acquisition, etc. A large portion of the right of way is ready for construction, virtually the entire southeast section of the line from Inglewood to Shepard, about 16 km. There has been talk of building the SE section of what would have been Phase 1, from Shepard Station in the South to 4 Street SE Station on the east end of downtown. Then get the tunnel finished concurrently but coming online later.

[J.OT13]

Rear-view time-lapse of Confederation Line. Blair to Tunney's and Tunney's to Blair.

• Video Link

• Video Link

[SaskOttaLoo]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

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)

One thing that I think about is that this investment in the track means that if US cities could ever figure out the importance of running frequent rail & bus service, their ridership numbers could increase substantially. (For evidence, refer to Jonathan England's great recent article in the Globe: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-torontos-secret-success-suburban-buses/

For the US system that I know best, Denver, they've undertaken a massive expansion in their system over the last 15 years without breaking the bank. There's some pretty major TOD happening around the stations. Yes ridership numbers aren't amazing (though better than many US cities), but once they actually start tackling the 'last kilometer' issue and have better bus service that serves the LRT stops, I expect ridership will start increasing steadily. After all, their system is already serving many of the most important places.