The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Our latest video looks at the newest part of Toronto Union Station, the UP Express Station! This seemingly small station within a station provides a surprising number of amenities all in a very modern and attractive space! Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/7YqDkjXEbkA

Nice video... I haven't taken the UP Express yet so this was the first good look I've had at the Union Station facility. They made good use of a chronically underused space... it's nicely designed. Although I will say, the clash of the 1980s vintage skywalk and the very sleek, minimalist design of the UP Express station is a little jarring.

[Coldrsx]

West LRT Update - Construction start is 2021:

There continues to be a lot of activity and interest in the Valley Line West. Our project is in procurement, and we recently shortlisted three teams to participate in the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage of procurement for the contract to design, build and partially finance the 14-kilometre extension from Downtown to Lewis Farms in west Edmonton.

The shortlisted teams are:

Aecon | Dragados Valley Line West Joint Venture (VLWJV)
Marigold Infrastructure Partners
urbanTransitT
The procurement process launched on Jan. 7, with the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) phase. The RFQ phase required each team to demonstrate how their experience and expertise could successfully deliver the project. The City selected these teams after carefully reviewing and evaluating their submissions based on rigorous criteria.

The remainder of the year will be a busy one. We are continuing our procurement process using videoconferencing technology and electronic document management systems, for the safety of everyone involved. During initial meetings the teams were very engaged and positive about the project and the procurement process. They will work with the City to develop their technical and financial submissions, which the City will review and evaluate before selecting the successful team.

City of Edmonton release

[ssiguy]

The UPX station is actually quite attractive. I really like the use of wood as well. Vancouver used a lot of wood along the Millennial Line and is really is not only attractive but adds a sense of warmth to the stations as opposed to the standard sterile subway stations. Proof that it actually doesn't take a lot of money to turn a station from a bunker to a welcoming and appealing one.

[Coldrsx]

UPX is great through and through.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

West LRT Update - Construction start is 2021:

There continues to be a lot of activity and interest in the Valley Line West. Our project is in procurement, and we recently shortlisted three teams to participate in the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage of procurement for the contract to design, build and partially finance the 14-kilometre extension from Downtown to Lewis Farms in west Edmonton.

The shortlisted teams are:

Aecon | Dragados Valley Line West Joint Venture (VLWJV)
Marigold Infrastructure Partners
urbanTransitT
The procurement process launched on Jan. 7, with the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) phase. The RFQ phase required each team to demonstrate how their experience and expertise could successfully deliver the project. The City selected these teams after carefully reviewing and evaluating their submissions based on rigorous criteria.

The remainder of the year will be a busy one. We are continuing our procurement process using videoconferencing technology and electronic document management systems, for the safety of everyone involved. During initial meetings the teams were very engaged and positive about the project and the procurement process. They will work with the City to develop their technical and financial submissions, which the City will review and evaluate before selecting the successful team.

City of Edmonton release

I wonder with the drop in oil prices whether this will get deferred due to not being able to pay for it.

[Coldrsx]

We went through that during budget talk 2019... Feds are there, the City is there and we are doing bridge funding for the Province in their ~2yr funding delay.

Certainly things can change, but this should still move forward.

For those unfamiliar with the Valley-Line West... perhaps the most important connection to our city-wide LRT... for once complete, we will generally have that for all intents and purposes. It will connect 124st, our other urban hood, our other hospital ie. ALL major hospitals connected via LRT, West Edmonton Mall ie. 30,000,000 visitors and the FAR west end for park and ride.

-------

Blue- East leg u/c, open in a yr or so.

Cherry - West leg, u/c 2021, open 2025/2026


http://mastermaq.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/new/lrt_wse.gif

[esquire]

^ Getting that built will be a huge accomplishment for Edmonton. It will really boost a strip that has great potential.

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[J.OT13]

Awesome to see all hospitals in Edmonton will be served by LRT. The City has certainly done great strides towards transit over the past decade.

In Ottawa, we just have one hospital (Riverside) plugged into a Transitway Station, a short bus ride from Confederation's Hurdman Station. It does not have an emergency department or admit patients since the Harris Government decimated the Ontario Health Care system in the late 90s. It's basically an out-patient medical building.

Other hospitals (both general/acute care and specialized care) are served by ok bus routes that connect to rapid transit. The new Civic will (eventually) be built across the street from Trillium's Carling Station, about a kilometer east of the current trauma centre. The new hospital will be around twice the size of the current.

In terms of post-secondary institutions, our main universities (uOttawa and Carleton) are served by rail. St-Paul is about a kilometer walk from Lees Station. Our biggest college, Algonquin, has been served by the Transitway since the 80s, and will be directly connected to a new underground O-Train Station once Stage 2 is complete. La Cité, Ottawa's French language college, is well served by bus routes that connect to Blair Station. La Cité's Orléans trades campus is very close to Stage 2's Trim Station, but won't be connected as the City will not pay for a pedestrian bridge to the station placed in the highway median, though a developer has expressed interest in building that link.

The three Gatineau Hospitals have horrendous service as far as I know. One Cégep is well connected to the RapBus, but the other two are not, though I imagine bus service is still decent. The Université du Québec en Outaouais is on the RapiBus and might be served by the Alylmer Tramway depending on the route chosen.

So in Ottawa, transit service to hospitals is acceptable for the most part, but not stellar. Major post-secondary institutions on the other hand are well served.

How well are post-secondary institutions and hospitals connected to transit in cities across the rest of Canada?

[Dengler Avenue]

And what about Montfort?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

And what about Montfort?

Served by urban routes on city streets. Doesn't seem too bad. (Similar to La Cité collégiale service described above, as it's very close to it.)

As for service between the CEGEPs in Gatineau it's not too bad. There is a direct frequent route between them that is about 75% on the Rapibus corridor, with the rest on city streets.

One of my kids used that service every weekday (pre-COVID) and it's very reliable.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

And what about Montfort?

I rambled on, but my listing wasn't super clear. Line 1 in red, Line 2 in green, the Transitway (OC) in dark blue and RapiBus in light blue. Institution highlighted in colour if directly served.

General care hospitals and attached specialized care facilities.

1. Civic and Heart Institute - 1 km from Carling Station, Trillium Line 2, decent urban bus service
2. Montfort and DND Hospital- 4 km from Blair Station, Confederation Line 1, decent, but unreliable, urban bus route
3. General and Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario - 1 km from Transitway, 2 km from Hurdman Line 1
4. Riverside - Direct connection to Riverside Transitway Station, 1.5 km from Hudman Line 1
5. New Civic (5-10 years off) - across the street from Carling Station, Line 2
6. Queensway Carleton - 1 km from Bayshore Transitway (Line 1 by 2025)
   
7. Gatineau Hostpital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)
8. Hull Hospital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)
9. Papineau Hospital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)

Specialized care.

1. Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre - 2 km from Carling Station Line 2, near Civic Hospital
2. Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital - 1 km from Rideau Station, Ottawa's original General Hospital, long term care, complex care, rehab, palliative and specialist clinics
3. St-Vincent Hospital - roughly in between Lyon and Pimisi (500 meters either way), long-term care, complex care, rehab, palliative.

Post-Secondary institutions.

1. uOttawa - served by three Line 1 stations - Rideau, 300 meters north of main campus, uOttawa Station at the centre of main campus, and Lees at south (Lees) campus
2. Carleton - Carleton Station Line 2
3. St-Paul University - 1 km from Lees Line 1, decent but unreliable urban bus service
4. Algonquin College - Baseline Transitway Station since 1983, O-Train Line 1 integrated underground station u/c
5. La Cité main campus- good bus connection from Blair Line 1, 2 km away
6. La Cité trades campus - near 2024 Trim Line 1 Station highway median station, good service dependent on possible pedestrian bridge
   
7. Cégep de l'Outaouais, Campus Gabrielle-Roy and Heritage College - good suburban STO bus service
8. Cégep de l'Outaouais Félix-Leclerc - served by LaCité RapiBus Station
9. UQO - served by decent semi-urban STO bus routes, .5 km from Alexandre-Taché RapuBus Station. Might be served by Aylmer Tramway depending on route chosen.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

In what may end up being our most controversial video yet, we look at the differences between buses and streetcars and why we think there is still a strong case for properly implemented streetcars!

https://youtu.be/BNatNSV8GBE

I think there are very few contexts where it makes sense to build a streetcar system from scratch. It's kind of like having an in-ground pool in your house. Great if you already have one, but no real estate agent would ever tell you that it's worth the resale value to build a pool where there isn't one.

While you save money on labour (drivers) for the same amount of service, you also have to operate an entirely new fleet, with an entirely separate operations and maintenance centre and servicing staff with entirely different kinds of expertise (electrical wiring, substations, track installation and repair, etc.).

Those American systems where they form a uni-directional circle around downtown are idiotic.

I think that the only places where it makes sense to build a streetcar line from scratch are along corridors where there is a fairly high volume of traffic traveling no further than about 3 km, and the street is very narrow and urban. In other words, places where a frequent bus might mar the landscape and not travel fast at all, and where it doesn't make sense to build rapid transit because there's no distance/time advantage.

Off the top of my head, the places where a new-build streetcar might make sense in Canada:

- Vancouver: Davie and Denman streets, from Yaletown-Roundhouse to Coal Harbour
- Halifax: Dalhousie to downtown via Spring Garden-Barrington
- Ottawa: Bank St. from Parliament station to Lansdowne Park, maybe continuing on to Carleton along Sunnyside

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I rambled on, but my listing wasn't super clear. Line 1 in red, Line 2 in green, the Transitway (OC) in dark blue and RapiBus in light blue. Institution highlighted in colour if directly served.

General care hospitals and attached specialized care facilities.

1. Civic and Heart Institute - 1 km from Carling Station, Trillium Line 2, decent urban bus service
2. Montfort and DND Hospital- 4 km from Blair Station, Confederation Line 1, decent, but unreliable, urban bus route
3. General and Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario - 1 km from Transitway, 2 km from Hurdman Line 1
4. Riverside - Direct connection to Riverside Transitway Station, 1.5 km from Hudman Line 1
5. New Civic (5-10 years off) - across the street from Carling Station, Line 2
6. Queensway Carleton - 1 km from Bayshore Transitway (Line 1 by 2025)
   
7. Gatineau Hostpital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)
8. Hull Hospital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)
9. Papineau Hospital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)

Specialized care.

1. Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre - 2 km from Carling Station Line 2, near Civic Hospital
2. Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital - 1 km from Rideau Station, Ottawa's original General Hospital, long term care, complex care, rehab, palliative and specialist clinics
3. St-Vincent Hospital - roughly in between Lyon and Pimisi (500 meters either way), long-term care, complex care, rehab, palliative.

Post-Secondary institutions.

1. uOttawa - served by three Line 1 stations - Rideau, 300 meters north of main campus, uOttawa Station at the centre of main campus, and Lees at south (Lees) campus
2. Carleton - Carleton Station Line 2
3. St-Paul University - 1 km from Lees Line 1, decent but unreliable urban bus service
4. Algonquin College - Baseline Transitway Station since 1983, O-Train Line 1 integrated underground station u/c
5. La Cité main campus- good bus connection from Blair Line 1, 2 km away
6. La Cité trades campus - near 2024 Trim Line 1 Station highway median station, good service dependent on possible pedestrian bridge
   
7. Cégep de l'Outaouais, Campus Gabrielle-Roy and Heritage College - good suburban STO bus service
8. Cégep de l'Outaouais Félix-Leclerc - served by LaCité RapiBus Station
9. UQO - served by decent semi-urban STO bus routes, .5 km from Alexandre-Taché RapuBus Station. Might be served by Aylmer Tramway depending on route chosen.

Nicely done, thanks! Though I find letters in green harder to read.

[someone123]

Another factor in building a new streetcar network from scratch is that batteries and automation are improving every year. Diesel buses are pretty awful but in principle you can already build a driverless battery-powered streetcar-shaped vehicle that either goes along its own ROW or in mixed traffic. Over the hypothetical lifetime of a new streetcar system built in 2020, these options are going to expand. I think overhead wires for medium-sized vehicles are going to be obsolete in 20 years.

I agree with those Vancouver, Halifax and Ottawa examples. There's an awkward mid-range corridor where neither buses nor conventional metro-style rapid transit options are a good fit.

Something around Main Street and 2nd in Vancouver qualifies for this too I think. That area is awkward to get around in on transit currently and the SkyTrain system doesn't link up well there (or really anywhere except Waterfront). In the future I think some North End corridor in Halifax (Gottingen/Agricola/Robie) needs some kind of higher-order urban-oriented transit too. Gottingen has bus lanes but they're designed for getting suburban traffic downtown.

I think in Halifax another possibility would be some kind of mixed transit tunnel downtown. Unfortunately the city has not considered building anything like this, or even a good multimodal transit terminal, as part of the Cogswell redevelopment.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

- Ottawa: Bank St. from Parliament station to Lansdowne Park, maybe continuing on to Carleton along Sunnyside

You could also run it along Queen Elizabeth Dr. next to the Rideau Canal, which is generally a couple of blocks east of Bank St.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

- Vancouver: Davie and Denman streets, from Yaletown-Roundhouse to Coal Harbour
- Halifax: Dalhousie to downtown via Spring Garden-Barrington
- Ottawa: Bank St. from Parliament station to Lansdowne Park, maybe continuing on to Carleton along Sunnyside

Can't say I agree with Bank Street. Streetcars would get stuck in traffic just as bad as buses. Not to mention the years of disruption to existing bus routes, traffic and businesses during construction.

I think Bank needs a light-metro. The density of Centretown, major destinations like the Glebe and Lansdowne along with an important transfer at Billings Bridge could justify this within the next 20 years. It could continue to the airport for an eventual direct service to downtown.

I would be on board with a streetcar loop around downtown as part of the STO tramway network, using Sparks.

Carling, with its wide corridor and relatively few traffic lights could also accommodate a streetcar (or classic LRT) quite well, connecting Bayshore, Lincoln Fields and Carling along the way. A streetcar down Carling could extend to Lansdowne as well, using the Queen E. Parkway. Bus lanes should suffice for the time being.

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Nicely done, thanks! Though I find letters in green harder to read.

Ya, I know. I tried all of the different greens, but the others looked too much like the standard black lettering. Plus, lime is closer to the colouring used by OC Transpo to identify Trillium.

[someone123]

I looked up the old trolleybus ridership in Halifax and it peaked at 28 million passengers per year in 1952 (source). The current transit system has 26 million annual riders.

During WWII the Barrington streetcar frequency was every 90 seconds. The city was overcrowded, there was little to no maintenance of the system during the war, and it used small Birney cars that were adequate in 1910 but not in 1944. In 1949 the whole system was scrapped for electric buses similar to what's still used in Vancouver or Seattle today. It was one of the earliest trolleybus systems and at one time was one of the largest. It was the last ambitious transit project in metro Halifax. In 1970 the overhead system was scrapped as ridership declined to just under 11 million a year.

In retrospect it was probably premature to scrap the overheads even if it makes no sense to rebuild them today. People in the 1960's expected transit to continue to decline in future decades but it rebounded somewhat.

Halifax was always just on the wrong side of things, not quite large enough for underground trams in the early 1900's (a line like Boston's Tremont Street subway was planned in both Halifax and Saint John at one point but I have not found any materials from those plans aside from written council minutes) or a real metro in the postwar era, yet it hit really aggressive modernization in the 1960's and 70's that was based on a vision that didn't age well. Halifax did inherit a completely grade-separated rail ROW originally intended partly for passenger travel but it ended up in CN's hands and basically cannot be used for commuter rail now. So while it's an older city that had extensive transit at one time, it hasn't inherited a lot of usable infrastructure, or at least hasn't been able to put it to effective use.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

- Vancouver: Davie and Denman streets, from Yaletown-Roundhouse to Coal Harbour
- Halifax: Dalhousie to downtown via Spring Garden-Barrington
- Ottawa: Bank St. from Parliament station to Lansdowne Park, maybe continuing on to Carleton along Sunnyside

Something around Main Street and 2nd in Vancouver qualifies for this too I think. That area is awkward to get around in on transit currently and the SkyTrain system doesn't link up well there (or really anywhere except Waterfront). In the future I think some North End corridor in Halifax (Gottingen/Agricola/Robie) needs some kind of higher-order urban-oriented transit too. Gottingen has bus lanes but they're designed for getting suburban traffic downtown.

I agree with above for Vancouver. And actually I think that Vancouver has a lot more opportunity for streetcar routes; in fact I am surprised that no one has mentioned the Arbutus Greenway line.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I think there are very few contexts where it makes sense to build a streetcar system from scratch. It's kind of like having an in-ground pool in your house. Great if you already have one, but no real estate agent would ever tell you that it's worth the resale value to build a pool where there isn't one.

While you save money on labour (drivers) for the same amount of service, you also have to operate an entirely new fleet, with an entirely separate operations and maintenance centre and servicing staff with entirely different kinds of expertise (electrical wiring, substations, track installation and repair, etc.).

Those American systems where they form a uni-directional circle around downtown are idiotic.

I think that the only places where it makes sense to build a streetcar line from scratch are along corridors where there is a fairly high volume of traffic traveling no further than about 3 km, and the street is very narrow and urban. In other words, places where a frequent bus might mar the landscape and not travel fast at all, and where it doesn't make sense to build rapid transit because there's no distance/time advantage.

Off the top of my head, the places where a new-build streetcar might make sense in Canada:

- Vancouver: Davie and Denman streets, from Yaletown-Roundhouse to Coal Harbour
- Halifax: Dalhousie to downtown via Spring Garden-Barrington
- Ottawa: Bank St. from Parliament station to Lansdowne Park, maybe continuing on to Carleton along Sunnyside

I can see the whole of route #1 being converted into streetcar but not breaking it up such that a small section of it between downtown and dal is converted. Unless route #1 bus had a forced transfer to the streetcar at either end, the ridership would not be high enough for it to make sense imo. Its ridership for the whole route is only around 10k from what I remember, and this total includes a number of origin/destination pairs that wouldn't be served well by that setup. Halifax Shopping Center to Dal wouldn't be served, HSC to downtown and Bridge term to Dal would require a transfer which would probably lower ridership for those segments, while Bridge terminal to downtown and HSC to Dal wouldn't be served at all. Halifax doesn't have the core density to generate sufficient ridership for a streetcar on a route that short.

Even the whole #1 route is about 10km, slightly shorter than 505 Dundas. While 505 has over 30k in ridership, obviously we wouldn't be judging the Halifax streetcar on the basis of central Toronto. If the #1 route as a streetcar gained about 50% in riderhip which i think is very optimistic but not far fetched, its ridership per km would equal the Portland streetcar system. However, I think the corridor would need some major upgrades for it to be successful. Perhaps not hardware upgrades in the sense of physical infrastructure, but at least a software upgrade (for lack of a better term) in the sense of policies. King st. style transit priority, street parking bans, reducing stop spacing, etc.