The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Big time. Who know if the City will have funding available by then as well, giving the hollowing-out of its oil and gas industry.

Originally Posted by foolworm

That depends on future funding levels and commitments. Who knows, we might return to the days of incremental expansion instead of building entire lines as one mega-project.

Speaking of Green Line, I noticed the links for next week's virtual public engagement sessions are up. Should be interesting to hear the design team elaborate on some of the choices made. I also didn't realise the 4.65 billion would include 301 BRT improvements to Max-level standards, which I guess is a bit of a consolation prize to north-central residents.

This all doesn't take into account anything the feds offer. I'd bet if they did something, Calgary would want in on it in someway.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by foolworm

What about the Max Teal conversion? I thought there was some discussion about a surface (i.e. low floor) line from Westbrook to at least MRU / Currie since the Blue line spur was shelved.

I thought Max Purple was supposed to eventually terminate at Inglewood / Ramsey. If converted to LRT, will it run downtown using the Green Line tunnel?

Otherwise, it looks like Calgary is looking to go all in on BRT - the only new rail corridor looks to be the Airport Connector. Would it be worthwhile linking up Max Yellow to the proposed deep south BRT?

The MAX Teal May eventually be converted to a streetcar, but it’s only ever been briefly mentioned in one city document, the next line after the Green Line will be the Purple Line (MAX Purple). It will interline with the Green Line at Inglewood. One can assume it would operate similar to other interlinked transit systems, where the purple will only go to Eau Claire Station or 16 Avenue North Station, rather than sharing the entire north ROW. Chestermere has expressed interest in one or two stations on the Purple Line. Their official city plan is preparing for a population of 70 000 by 2050, and 17 Avenue is going to be their main street.

Yeah though, the city is going ham on BRT. I can’t wait for the Bowness/Canada Olympic Park Line. That will make it a lot easier to get to COP. It would make sense linking the MAX Yellow with the South BRT, but given that the SW is the quadrant most resistant, even militantly so, against Transit, I don’t imagine that would happen. At least not right away.

Originally Posted by Harrison

Big time. Who know if the City will have funding available by then as well, giving the hollowing-out of its oil and gas industry.

Are you interring that this wouldn’t affect your city equally disastrously?

Originally Posted by foolworm

Speaking of Green Line, I noticed the links for next week's virtual public engagement sessions are up. Should be interesting to hear the design team elaborate on some of the choices made. I also didn't realise the 4.65 billion would include 301 BRT improvements to Max-level standards, which I guess is a bit of a consolation prize to north-central residents.

Yeah info on that is actually on one of the maps I posted on the last page. It should improve their transit accessibility and speed significantly.

[foolworm]

Originally Posted by FrAnKs

But let's never forget that it's not a TRAMWAY system, it's a whole new transit network INCLUDING Tramways.

Yeah, it's crazy that Quebec City is building out a multi-modal mass transit system all in one go. I'm wondering if the price tag of 3.3 billion will hold though, Edmonton's Valley line alone already costs 4+ billion for a similar amount of track.

The stub line from Pole Saint-Roch to Expocite seems very strange, should it not be a spur off the longer trambus route? Unless I am reading the map wrong and Couronne St is a shared Tramway / Trambus corridor?

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

This all doesn't take into account anything the feds offer. I'd bet if they did something, Calgary would want in on it in someway.

Well yes, but shovel ready projects inherently favour small work packages that are quicker to get off the ground. Even if the government suddenly gave another 5 billion to build the Green Line to North Pointe, it would take years of design work (and property acquisitions!) before any soil is turned.

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

The MAX Teal may eventually be converted to a streetcar, but it’s only ever been briefly mentioned in one city document, the next line after the Green Line will be the Purple Line (MAX Purple). It will interline with the Green Line at Inglewood. One can assume it would operate similar to other interlinked transit systems, where the purple will only go to Eau Claire Station or 16 Avenue North Station, rather than sharing the entire north ROW. Chestermere has expressed interest in one or two stations on the Purple Line. Their official city plan is preparing for a population of 70 000 by 2050, and 17 Avenue is going to be their main street.

Yeah though, the city is going ham on BRT. I can’t wait for the Bowness/Canada Olympic Park Line. That will make it a lot easier to get to COP. It would make sense linking the MAX Yellow with the South BRT, but given that the SW is the quadrant most resistant, even militantly so, against Transit, I don’t imagine that would happen. At least not right away.

Well, that's all in the far future for now. Half of the BRT lines on that network map are greyed out - it'll take serious capital funding to build out all of those, never mind any conversions to rail. Ditto to intermunicipal extensions - Calgary will annex them long before any track is laid.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by foolworm

I also didn't realise the 4.65 billion would include 301 BRT improvements to Max-level standards, which I guess is a bit of a consolation prize to north-central residents.

The Stage 1 budget is now up to $5.5B . I think thanks to financing savings from the Governments of Canada and Alberta paying out their portion quicker than originally expected allowing the City to use the savings for construction costs, plus some financial trickery in how the City will now use its construction and financing streams.



I don't think without Gondek screaming about it, the City would have even bothered with the BRT improvements; but I think it's still an insignificant prize given the change from a tunnel to surface running to 16th Avenue. The BRT improvements will probably not even make up for the loss of total passenger capacity into Downtown from the north side.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

The MAX Teal May eventually be converted to a streetcar, but it’s only ever been briefly mentioned in one city document, the next line after the Green Line will be the Purple Line (MAX Purple). It will interline with the Green Line at Inglewood. One can assume it would operate similar to other interlinked transit systems, where the purple will only go to Eau Claire Station or 16 Avenue North Station, rather than sharing the entire north ROW. Chestermere has expressed interest in one or two stations on the Purple Line. Their official city plan is preparing for a population of 70 000 by 2050, and 17 Avenue is going to be their main street.

Yeah though, the city is going ham on BRT. I can’t wait for the Bowness/Canada Olympic Park Line. That will make it a lot easier to get to COP. It would make sense linking the MAX Yellow with the South BRT, but given that the SW is the quadrant most resistant, even militantly so, against Transit, I don’t imagine that would happen. At least not right away.





Are you interring that this wouldn’t affect your city equally disastrously?





Yeah info on that is actually on one of the maps I posted on the last page. It should improve their transit accessibility and speed significantly.

It would be effected, just not to the same scale as Calgary, since it's economy isn't as tied to oil and gas. I think the City of Calgary's finances were in more dire straights than Edmonton's even before the pandemic hit as well.

Either way, the Green Line is a massive investment and would be great if construction can start in short order.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by foolworm

Yeah, it's crazy that Quebec City is building out a multi-modal mass transit system all in one go. I'm wondering if the price tag of 3.3 billion will hold though, Edmonton's Valley line alone already costs 4+ billion for a similar amount of track.

The stub line from Pole Saint-Roch to Expocite seems very strange, should it not be a spur off the longer trambus route? Unless I am reading the map wrong and Couronne St is a shared Tramway / Trambus corridor?

Yes, but we are terribly late on upgrading our Transit network. We are a metro area of 830k with buses only...it was about freaking time and it's good news if they do it all at once ; thats what they plan to do anyway and they got all funds.

Québec City's mayor always said it will be 3.3 Billion and nothing more...let's give it a look in the coming years, we will see...

Yup, Rue de la Couronne will be a shared street (Tramway+Pedestrian+Bikes) for a distance of about half a kilometer, but it will be possible for perpendicular (East/West) streets to cross it.

As far as I know, there will only be a short Trambus line that will leave Pôle St-Roch to Expocité. It is not that far, but it became an important destination. This is where you find the Videotron Center (Still waiting for the Nordiques lol) and there is the Brand new Food market of Québec City that was relocated there.

I hope that answer your questions again.

[Dengler Avenue]

And how does the 3rd link tie in with this? I'm just curious whether MTQ has fixed that lousy design near A20.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

And how does the 3rd link tie in with this? I'm just curious whether MTQ has fixed that lousy design near A20.

We don't know yet.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

And how does the 3rd link tie in with this? I'm just curious whether MTQ has fixed that lousy design near A20.

Hopefully it doesn't tie in with anything

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[Dengler Avenue]

I mean, the proposal has dedicated bus lanes (or rail tracks?) on top of the driving lanes, IIRC, so it’s natural to wonder about the 3rd link as we talk about Québec Tramway.

[SkahHigh]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I mean, the proposal has dedicated bus lanes (or rail tracks?) on top of the driving lanes, IIRC, so it’s natural to wonder about the 3rd link as we talk about Québec Tramway.

Obviously! I'm just a hater of that project so I was joking around

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Montreal's REM Metro network is one of the longest single transit projects in the world and will open as one of the most advanced Metro networks in the world, enjoy the video and consider sharing and subscribing!
https://youtu.be/CFSm9QLHrLw

Nice vid!

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Montreal's REM Metro network is one of the longest single transit projects in the world and will open as one of the most advanced Metro networks in the world, enjoy the video and consider sharing and subscribing!
https://youtu.be/CFSm9QLHrLw

Nicely made. I'll have to get back to my hometown and try it in the coming years! The Deux-Montagnes line used to be my line when going to downtown Montreal.

[scryer]

As far as I can tell, they aren't advertising the QC tramway as a rapid transit solution (please correct me if I am wrong) which is nice to see. From my perspective (and I really don't mean to open a can-of-worms here) the infrastructure of the QC tramway vs the Calgary/Edmonton LRTs aren't all that different even though the Calgary/Edmonton infrastructure is marketed as a rapid transit solution.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by scryer

As far as I can tell, they aren't advertising the QC tramway as a rapid transit solution (please correct me if I am wrong) which is nice to see. From my perspective (and I really don't mean to open a can-of-worms here) the infrastructure of the QC tramway vs the Calgary/Edmonton LRTs aren't all that different even though the Calgary/Edmonton infrastructure is marketed as a rapid transit solution.

No they aren't. Structuring network they call it, basically a city building project.

[foolworm]

Originally Posted by accord1999

The Stage 1 budget is now up to $5.5B . I think thanks to financing savings from the Governments of Canada and Alberta paying out their portion quicker than originally expected allowing the City to use the savings for construction costs, plus some financial trickery in how the City will now use its construction and financing streams.

How has the media not latched into this and raised hell? You'd think people would notice if the numbers went up almost a billion.

Originally Posted by Harrison

It would be effected, just not to the same scale as Calgary, since it's economy isn't as tied to oil and gas. I think the City of Calgary's finances were in more dire straights than Edmonton's even before the pandemic hit as well.

To be fair, Edmonton is infamously tight-fisted when it comes to capital spending (the arena being a notable recent exception). It's actually amazing how they've done a complete 180 and embarked on an LRT building spree - not only are they building both legs of the Valley Line back-to-back, they somehow managed to also wrangle cash for an extension to the old municipal airport, not to mention a mid-life refurbishment of their original line. On top of that the City is now requesting stimulus funding from the Provincial government for a second extension south, past the ring road (Anthony Henday Drive).

Originally Posted by scryer

As far as I can tell, they aren't advertising the QC tramway as a rapid transit solution (please correct me if I am wrong) which is nice to see. From my perspective (and I really don't mean to open a can-of-worms here) the infrastructure of the QC tramway vs the Calgary/Edmonton LRTs aren't all that different even though the Calgary/Edmonton infrastructure is marketed as a rapid transit solution.

Well, the Tramway is just one component of a full-scale transit buildout, which is evident when you look at their marketing materials. It's worth noting that the plan is to run single vehicles (albeit 42m long ones) as well rather than trains.

The more I look at Quebec City's plan though, the more I'm struck by the breadth of its scope. It really does represent a paradigm shift in their transit system, which is markedly different from the usual hyperbolic pitches on how a proposed rail line (or even bus line) somehow has city-wide effects.

As to Rapid Transit, I think there is an ongoing trend of what could be termed 'Rapid Transit Creep' as an extension of BRT creep. Looking at Calgary or Vancouver's latest rapid transit maps, you will notice the inclusion of so-called 'rapid bus' services that are missing most of the elements of BRT, rendering the term almost meaningless. Perhaps owing to this, Edmonton has distanced itself from the term in its latest planning documents in favour of the alternate phrase 'Mass Transit'.

[FrAnKs]

Originally Posted by foolworm

The more I look at Quebec City's plan though, the more I'm struck by the breadth of its scope.

This new Structuring transit system has one main goal ; convincing as much people as possible to take public transit and to do that, they will be working on :

1)Comfort
2)Rapidity
3)High frequency
4)Accessiblity/Proximity

There are also two details about the Tramway that are worth nothing : It will have the priority at any time & anywhere at traffic lights and its platform will be about 30cm higher that the street level, to avoid incidents with vehicles.

[foolworm]

Originally Posted by FrAnKs

This new Structuring transit system has one main goal ; convincing as much people as possible to take public transit and to do that, they will be working on :

1)Comfort
2)Rapidity
3)High frequency
4)Accessiblity/Proximity

There are also two details about the Tramway that are worth nothing : It will have the priority at any time & anywhere at traffic lights and its platform will be about 30cm higher that the street level, to avoid incidents with vehicles.

I mean in the sense of the variety of infrastructure involved. Most transit projects only involve one mode of transit along a single corridor. This Reseau Structurant (pardon my French) is not only a multimodal network, the associated auxiliary infrastructure is also more extensive than most transit projects. Some examples:

- Interchange hubs are normally improvements /redevelopments of existing facilities rather than constructed from scratch (Kitchener's Central station comes to mind);

- Pedestrian walkways and shared-use paths are often considered ancillary infrastructure intended to improve station access and corridor connectivity, but the transit boulevard appears to give almost equal space to walkways as it does to P-way;

- Mechanical links such as cable cars and funiculars are treated as elements of network infrastructure in their own right;

to name but a few. Most municipalities would conceive of such a transit network in a strategic or planning document, then proceed to obtain funding for components as separate projects that are constructed incrementally in a phased approach. This on the other hand is a zero-to-hero approach that aims to deliver the vision in one shot as a single integrated whole (as far as I can tell).

[Reecemartin]

[Deleted]

[J.OT13]

I think Quebec City and Gatineau will get quite a shock when formal proposals come in, especially with the amount of tunneling in Quebec City's case. Their "budgets" haven't changed in years even though costs for such projects have gone up significantly. Ottawa's Stage 2 was estimated at $3.6B in 2017, and the City was quite confident with that number. When bids came in, the price soared to $4.6B, thus the City has to double its own contribution to the project.

Gatineau's project is still in its infacy. After about 4 years of planning, all we know is Gatineau wants two lines to Aylmer, at least one of those two lines will be a tramway, both might be tramways, one might be BRT. We also know that they want the tramway to Ottawa, with either a tunnel under Sparks or surface along Wellington.

Very little has be done in 4 years quite honnestly, though that might be a good thing if Gatineau can get ideas from Quebec City; this sounds like a goo way to build and operate a Tramway if your city can't afford a full metro:

Originally Posted by FrAnKs

This new Structuring transit system has one main goal ; convincing as much people as possible to take public transit and to do that, they will be working on :

1)Comfort
2)Rapidity
3)High frequency
4)Accessiblity/Proximity

There are also two details about the Tramway that are worth nothing : It will have the priority at any time & anywhere at traffic lights and its platform will be about 30cm higher that the street level, to avoid incidents with vehicles.