The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by scryer

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.

Vancouver's wide streets and dense urban core are well positioned for streetcar lines.

The Arbutus Greenway corridor should be prioritize once the Broadway Subway is complete to UBC. It could play a very important role in relieving the Canada Line. I wonder though if Skytrain technology might be better considering the capacity issues with C.L. Had they build the C.L. to full 90 meter platforms from the get go, then streetcars/classic LRT would likely be sufficient for Arbutus.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

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.

It's hard to go from bus route ridership to corridor ridership. There are many bus routes along Barrington and Spring Garden Road, and plenty of trips that are only 8 or 10 blocks where you have 3 or 4 options of routes to take.

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.

Portland is the bigger city but the scale of activity and development of a few areas reminds me a lot of Halifax (and is quieter than similar parts of Vancouver).

The US doesn't do a great job of developing transit but they tend to have much better transportation infrastructure for a given level of demand. There aren't a lot of 99/Broadway type setups where huge throngs of people are crowding onto buses. And there are some half-empty subways and streetcar lines that you don't find in Canada.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's hard to go from bus route ridership to corridor ridership. There are many bus routes along Barrington and Spring Garden Road, and plenty of trips that are only 8 or 10 blocks where you have 3 or 4 options of routes to take.

What do you mean by "plenty"? In my observation, the majority of the activity in those core areas are from people coming into and out of the core and simply starting or ending their trips at the various stops along the way. I would be very surprised if there is a significant percentage of corridor trips that both start and end within the short section between downtown and dal. Also, keep in mind that while there may be a large number of routes that share part of the corridor, most of them are much lower in frequency compared to the #1 with the next most frequent running only I believe 1/2 as much. So even if most people were familiar enough with the routing of the other options to see them as an alternative, they're not going to be available that often.

I'd be very surprised if the total trips limited to that short stretch yielded a reasonable ridership per km on their own but I'd be certainly be open to seeing the actual data.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Vancouver's wide streets and dense urban core are well positioned for streetcar lines.

The Arbutus Greenway corridor should be prioritize once the Broadway Subway is complete to UBC. It could play a very important role in relieving the Canada Line. I wonder though if Skytrain technology might be better considering the capacity issues with C.L. Had they build the C.L. to full 90 meter platforms from the get go, then streetcars/classic LRT would likely be sufficient for Arbutus.

That sounds like an opportunity for Reecemartin to research and produce another great video .

I also agree that there is a significant argument to use Skytrain technology along the Arbutus greenway which makes it a super interesting project to me.

There is no doubt in my mind about the Canada Line being underbuilt however the problem is that we are kind of stuck with a super important piece of infrastructure that goes all the way to YVR. I don't think that the Arbutus line would see as much ridership as the Canada line would even if it was built as a full-blown Skytrain line because it would never reach a destination as popular as YVR. But I definitely think that there is a case and a great opportunity to build transit to support a secondary N/S connection from South Vancouver all the way to downtown.

[Dengler Avenue]

What’s wrong with having Arbutus Line cross North Arm to reach YVR Airport?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

What’s wrong with having Arbutus Line cross North Arm to reach YVR Airport?

It would need to go around it. It is faster to go to the Canada Line.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

What’s wrong with having Arbutus Line cross North Arm to reach YVR Airport?

It would need to go around it. It is faster to go to the Canada Line.

Yes, that.

I also wanted to add onto my previous post that if a Skytrain were to be considered that the route along the Arbutus Greenway runs straight through NIMBYville. So you can bet that we will see these 60-year old boomers chaining themselves to bulldozers unless it is completely underground - which exponentially increases the costs and probably nixes the whole point of the Arbutus Greenway being a convenient routing path.

I will also just clarify that I think that IF the Arbutus Greenway was developed as an at-grade LRT/Streetcar system then Canada Line relief would come slowly and as a by-product. Instead I think that the Arbutus Greenway LRT project should focus its marketing appeals based on enhancing and connecting far-reaching neighbourhoods like Kerrisdale to major destinations and transit nodes; along with the environmental benefits that comes along with getting cars off the roads.

[Metro-One]

The Canada Line is still only at 40% capacity so no need to panic just yet.

In the coming 20 years the Canada Line will be able to function much more efficiently with just a couple key improvements:

1. All stations expanded to their full 50m allowing the use of the middle 15m C-car. (Which is part of the build out plan)

2. A new south entrance for Vancouver City Centre.

3. A second platform at Brighouse on the west side.

4. A second platform at YVR in the south side (this is already on YVR’s radar).

5. A second entrance at Bridgeport.

I feel most on here who talk as if the Canada Line is already at capacity are those who don’t even live in Vancouver or those who spend their entire time on SSP painting a bizarre self hating skewed image of Vancouver and BC in general (nearly all posters from Van know who I am talking about).

As for Arbutus, it is actually one of the few corridors in Vancouver that I feel naturally matches LRT, since most of it would run on its own right of way and it would be a secondary line for the corridor.

[corynv]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Hull Hospital - suburban bus routes, poor service (afaik)

hasn't there been talk about the province acquiring the land of the federal building that had a fire and has been vacant since? If so that'd put the hull one right across the street from Casino Station.

[Franco401]

Originally Posted by someone123

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)

I would really, really really like to see these council minutes from Saint John. Do you have a link?

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Franco401

I would really, really really like to see these council minutes from Saint John. Do you have a link?

Nope. I saw it a long time ago on one of the history websites about Saint John. I should try to search for this material again.

I don't know what the proposed alignment was but it was a proposal for a tunnel that would have carried the same streetcars that ran on surface streets at the time. I am not sure if it would have gone under the harbour or not.

Some of the proposals from around 1880-1910 were wild in retrospect because many people expected a boom similar to what happened in Montreal and Toronto that never materialized. In those days the projects were also much more ambitious. The Halifax seaport modernization project in the early 1900's was far larger than any project that's being contemplated right now.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

What do you mean by "plenty"? In my observation, the majority of the activity in those core areas are from people coming into and out of the core and simply starting or ending their trips at the various stops along the way.

I mean that if you take a starting point and destination, particularly along a main corridor on the peninsula, you often have more than one bus route available to take.

This was even true of where I lived in the suburbs at one point. I could take the 14 or the 20, or I'd sometimes take the 1 for some trips, and I think they more or less overlapped or were equivalent for some trips. This was in the days before you could use Google Maps to suggest what bus to take. I'd figure out all of my bus options and take the first to arrive.

[Nouvellecosse]

It's true that if you have alternate routes that start/end at the same places it's potentially a plus for a longer route such as #1 since if it's upgraded it could potentially gain ridership by drawing some riders away from competing routes rather than just serving people who use the route currently (although that's not necessarily a good thing since it may lead to reduced service for people located on the other routes). But I was just referring to the case of a short segment such as from Dal to say, Scotia specifically. In that specific case the dynamic you mentioned would seem to work against it since even if there's a lot of traffic on the corridor, the vast majority of the trips that pass through that segment would have started or ended elsewhere meaning that they would either have to transfer to/from the streetcar to bolster its ridership or existing bus services would have to continue either on that or an alternate route rendering the streetcar ridership feeble.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

The Canada Line is still only at 40% capacity so no need to panic just yet.

In the coming 20 years the Canada Line will be able to function much more efficiently with just a couple key improvements:

1. All stations expanded to their full 50m allowing the use of the middle 15m C-car. (Which is part of the build out plan)

2. A new south entrance for Vancouver City Centre.

3. A second platform at Brighouse on the west side.

4. A second platform at YVR in the south side (this is already on YVR’s radar).

5. A second entrance at Bridgeport.

I feel most on here who talk as if the Canada Line is already at capacity are those who don’t even live in Vancouver or those who spend their entire time on SSP painting a bizarre self hating skewed image of Vancouver and BC in general (nearly all posters from Van know who I am talking about).

As for Arbutus, it is actually one of the few corridors in Vancouver that I feel naturally matches LRT, since most of it would run on its own right of way and it would be a secondary line for the corridor.

All of those are good points however with the nature of this conversation about the Arbutus LRT, we are indeed talking at least 10-15 years ahead after the Millennium line extends to UBC and after the Expo line extends as well. The Canada line has been in operation since 2009 (11 years ago) so it is absolutely appropriate to speculate and plan for the future right now.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I don't think that the Arbutus line's primary function would be to provide relief from the Canada Line; I just think that it would be a very attractive and convenient by-product if the LRT line gets developed on the Arbutus Greenway. I can see the government investing in those Canada Line upgrades along with the development of the Arbutus corridor at the same time. In fact, I can see the government prioritizing more upgrades on the Canada line after the Millennium line extends to Arbutus.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by corynv

hasn't there been talk about the province acquiring the land of the federal building that had a fire and has been vacant since? If so that'd put the hull one right across the street from Casino Station.

Yes, but no one "official" has really evoked that prospect on a serious level.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, but no one "official" has really evoked that prospect on a serious level.

To add to that, the CAQ's campaign promise was to build a new hospital for Gatineau within 5 years, in addition to the three that already exist. A relatively small hospital at only 170 beds..

The CAQ has never proposed any specific sites. In fact, they've never mentioned in what general area it would be built (Aylmer, Hull, Gatineau, Masson-Anger, Buckingham?)

A lobbyist group "proposed" that site near the casino, just as it has been unofficially proposed in the past and more recently as a site for a new NHL arena for the Sens.

At this time, the CAQ is debating on whether they will build a new hospital or expand an existing one.

Note: I am not necessarily criticizing the CAQ. I'm just providing information on the projects current status. It's nice that we're at least talking about it, which is more than the Liberals or PQ have ever done in the past 40 years.

[esquire]

^ Gatineau has three hospitals?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

To add to that, the CAQ's campaign promise was to build a new hospital for Gatineau within 5 years, in addition to the three that already exist. A relatively small hospital at only 170 beds..

The CAQ has never proposed any specific sites. In fact, they've never mentioned in what general area it would be built (Aylmer, Hull, Gatineau, Masson-Anger, Buckingham?)

A lobbyist group "proposed" that site near the casino, just as it has been unofficially proposed in the past and more recently as a site for a new NHL arena for the Sens.

At this time, the CAQ is debating on whether they will build a new hospital or expand an existing one.

Note: I am not necessarily criticizing the CAQ. I'm just providing information on the projects current status. It's nice that we're at least talking about it, which is more than the Liberals or PQ have ever done in the past 40 years.

For the record I think that former government building would be a great location.

Though prior to the COVID-19 crisis (which might lead to a massive reassessment of traditional office space needs), I thought the feds might occupy that building again, sooner than later, given that some of their major complexes (Terrasses de la Chaudière comes to mind) currently have lots of problems and aren't really healthy places to work.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Gatineau has three hospitals?

Yes.

A very old one in north-central Hull, a more recent 1980s-era one very close to my house in Gatineau (secteur Gatineau), and a small old one in Buckingham which is part of Gatineau city proper (about 25-30 from the main core of the city).

There is also a hospital in Wakefield-La Pêche called the Gatineau Memorial. It's about 25 km north of the city.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes.

A very old one in north-central Hull, a more recent 1980s-era one very close to my house in Gatineau (secteur Gatineau), and a small old one in Buckingham which is part of Gatineau city proper (about 25-30 from the main core of the city).

There is also a hospital in Wakefield-La Pêche called the Gatineau Memorial. It's about 25 km north of the city.

Four with possibly one more on the way is a fair bit for a city of under 300K. Or will the new one be a replacement for one or more of the older facilities?