The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[nname]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Why would it only have 3 round trips?

Who knows... I'm just reading the old interurban schedule from the 1940s. Maybe there weren't that much demand to run more trains?

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Building the HFR in Ontario won't even take billions. Not sure why this one would.

Again, I'm just getting information from a study done by TransLink. The cost for Surrey to Langley segment alone would cost $356M to $697M back in 2006. In today's money and running it all the way to Chilliwack would probably cost $2 to $4 billions.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The WCE should get extended out to Hope. Doing this can help stabilize the high cost of housing in the Lower Mainland.

Do we really wish people live all the way in Hope? Even with WCE-style commuter service, it is going to take at least 2 hours each way. Mission and Abbotsford is already pushing the boundary of reasonable commute distance... As for serving other non-commute purpose.. Eastern Fraser Valley is not Golden Horseshoe and does not really have the population for a commuter rail service. Hope have a population of 6000, Laidlaw 900, Kent (Agassiz) 6000, Harrison Hot Springs 1500, Popkum 1000... and these are all the major population centres beyond Chilliwack.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by nname

Who knows... I'm just reading the old interurban schedule from the 1940s. Maybe there weren't that much demand to run more trains?

I, and others are talking about today and the future. Three lines back in the 40s? That could mean today that it would be 15 minutes each way or better.

Originally Posted by nname

Do we really wish people live all the way in Hope? Even with WCE-style commuter service, it is going to take at least 2 hours each way. Mission and Abbotsford is already pushing the boundary of reasonable commute distance... As for serving other non-commute purpose.. Eastern Fraser Valley is not Golden Horseshoe and does not really have the population for a commuter rail service. Hope have a population of 6000, Laidlaw 900, Kent (Agassiz) 6000, Harrison Hot Springs 1500, Popkum 1000... and these are all the major population centres beyond Chilliwack.

Obviously living closer to where they work is ideal, but until the cost of housing goes down, that is not about to happen. Kitchener GO to Union Station is almost 2 hours. People still do it. With people moving out of the big cities due to the pandemic good transit is going to be important. Maybe something like Via's Corridor service is needed for the area. Not as frequent as GO. Not as cheap, but still a regular service to the further areas.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by someone123

If Vancouver had reasonable land use rules, it would have had better transit coverage even with the current system.

Completely agree. The suburban municipalities are much better at TOD, but those communities are standalone precincts of high density quasi-urbanness surrounded by pedestrian-hostile surroundings - either light industrial or residential sprawl, so it doesn't have quite the city-building effect that it would if it were inside the city's boundaries and these places were nodes within an urban city.

In the few places where the city has allowed development to take place near a Skytrain station, the results have been quite good. The area near Joyce-Collingwood station, for example.

The poor connection between land use and the transit network is my biggest gripe too.

My 2 other gripes about Vancouver's transportation system, in order, are:

1. Having next to no regional road planning and relying too much on surface arterial roads for all uses. This means that everything is congested and the transportation network works at a 4/10 for all users: cars, trucks, transit, pedestrians, cyclists, etc.

2. Keeping antiquated U-shaped bus routes in the City of Vancouver that thread through downtown. These routes are almost a hundred years old, and probably made sense in the 1950s when the DTES was the central business and shopping district, but now it makes no sense to thread all these routes along Hastings in a convoy of trolleybuses that can't pass each other. These routes are also too long, and the operational quality can be really bad at the ends.

[ssiguy]

Vancouver {nor Cal/Edm} will EVER get a dime from Ottawa for HSR until the Corridor route is completely built out from Windsor all the way to QC.

[Chadillaccc]

I don't think even in Alberta's wildest fever dreams did any of our respective administration's ever expect to get money from the feds for HSR. Every proposal I've ever seen is for the province and private firms to fund it.

The only inter-city rail project I would expect to see federal money from is the Calgary - Rockies train that the Canadian Infrastructure Bank is currently looking into.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

I don't think even in Alberta's wildest fever dreams did any of our respective administration's ever expect to get money from the feds for HSR. Every proposal I've ever seen is for the province and private firms to fund it.

The only inter-city rail project I would expect to see federal money from is the Calgary - Rockies train that the Canadian Infrastructure Bank is currently looking into.

That would be a good project. Maybe they can extend it to Edmonton one day.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

I don't think even in Alberta's wildest fever dreams did any of our respective administration's ever expect to get money from the feds for HSR. Every proposal I've ever seen is for the province and private firms to fund it.

The only inter-city rail project I would expect to see federal money from is the Calgary - Rockies train that the Canadian Infrastructure Bank is currently looking into.

Well, what I would say is:
Few expect EXTRA SPECIAL MONEY outside of existing grant pools.



If Alberta wants to use some of the current federal pools for passenger rail - the projects would be 100% eligible under the current federal grant rules.



I also don't expect a huge EXTRA SPECIAL MONEY taxpayer subsidy (over and above the CIB amount) into HFR. Like I'd accept a $1 billion subsidy to enable the other ~$4 billion or so investment to generate a rate of return and 'pay for itself'. Similarly I'd hope for the same into the quasi-private, quasi-public potential Alberta projects, and the Vancouver Project (I'd hope the Vancouver project would partly 'pay for itself' by enabling a few dense developments around new stations along the corridor.

[J.OT13]

Upcoming improvements to O-Train system.

Originally Posted by sseguin

O-Train Improvements and Enhancements - Interview with Pat Scrimgeour, Director of Transit Customer Systems and Planning - March 2021

• Video Link

Ottawa's O-Train system continues to move forward with improvements and enhancements to better serve and support customers and passengers.

In this March 2021 interview with Pat Scrimgeour, Director of Transit Customer Systems and Planning, we discuss some of the improvements and enhancements that are being undertaken on the O-Train. Areas discussed include:

-Work to allow fare gates at stations and Presto readers on buses directly accepting credit cards and mobile payments.
-OC Transpo Presto and STO Multi Card usage on each-others networks.
-Real-Time Information Improvements.
-Station Retail.
-Advertising in Stations and Trains.
-Improvements to customer service, namely the social media channels of OC Transpo.


Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/railfanscanada?sub_confirmation=1

[TorontoDrew]

I meant to go to this rally but was stuck downtown waiting to pick up an item at Best Buy. This Ford Subway line pisses me off because the DRL had already been approved as a burred line through this neighbourhood. Metrolinx is trying to say that if they go underground they wont be able to build a stop at Queen Street. That's absolute bullshit. Metrolinks changed the orientation of the new above ground tracks and didn't let the community know. Now the Queen station will sit over top of queen street, the new tracks like the L trains in Chicago will need to run as a bridge of Degrassi south end, and it's connecting Wardel Street. Bruce Mackey Park will be all but lost (The creator of Degrassi), two other parks will be destroyed as well, Tiverton Avenue Parkette, and The Gerrard and Carlaw Parkette.

This are is not full of NIMBY's as some might argue. People here fully support transit, and are fully aware a burried line will take longer and disrupt the are longer. But we are able to see past a few years and election cycles.

Toronto neighbourhood says proposed changes to Metrolinx's Ontario Line will destroy local parks



Phil Tsekouras
Multi-Platform Writer, CTV News Toronto

@PhilTsekouras Contact


TORONTO -- Community activists in Toronto’s east-end say that a proposed change to the Ontario Line subway system will effectively destroy some of the neighbourhood’s most beloved parks.

At issue is an above-ground section of an existing track that runs from Riverside to Leslieville. The group alleges that the provincially-run Metrolinx has moved construction plans from the east side of that rail corridor to the west side “without consulting, or even informing, the community.”

“This will effectively destroy Bruce Mackey Park, Saulter St. Parkette and Gerrard Dog Park. It will also have a dreadful impact on homes along the rail corridor,” a news release issued by groups Save Jimmie Simpson and Lakeshore East Community Advisory Committee reads.

The groups held a rally on Saturday in opposition to the proposed change and presented a plan for an underground route, which they say is feasible and would reduce the impact on the community.

Speaking to those at the rally, CTV News Toronto learned that the advocacy groups were only made aware of the changes through Coun. Paula Fletcher, who represents Toronto-Danforth.

Fletcher was at the rally Saturday and asked why the project can’t be completed underground.

“We already have a preapproved design for an underground relief line running almost along the same area with a station on Queen...I don’t know why they are so resistant,” she said.

For Metrolinx’s part, they say proposed changes to the $11 billion project are “normal” and that none of the tabled modifications are set in stone.

“We haven’t quite finalized the plan, but when we do, in a couple of weeks, we’re taking that back to the community to tell them about the new ideas that we have,” Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said in an interview with CP24 Saturday.

“This won’t delay the project, it won’t hurt their parks and their green space, we know that, but we need to finalize it and bring it back to them.”

The future of Bruce Mackey Park, located just off of De Grassi Street north of Queen Street, is the subject of significant concern due to it’s cultural significance to the city, advocates say.

Bruce Mackey lived on De Grassi for decades and played a major role in the development of the internationally-syndicated TV show Degrassi.

According to a plaque that stands in the park, Mackey offered his home to the show’s creators in the 1970s to shoot the first episode of the series.

Aikins said that while Bruce Mackey Park and the other aforementioned sites will be “protected,” parts of the parks may be used to temporarily store cranes and other construction material.

Shovels are scheduled to go into the ground in 2023.

[Doady]

I wish they called it "Pape-Don Mills Line" instead of "Ontario Line". But I guess it's not as bad as "Canada Line".

[Chadillaccc]

Even the "Queen - Pape Line" would be better. It would actually be in line with the "Bloor - Danforth Line", "Yonge - University - Spadina Line", and "Shepard Line" that currently exist.

[Truenorth00]

Whatever name gets it paid for and built.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Whatever name gets it paid for and built.

Shoppers Drug Mart - Rogers - Scotiabank Line

[MalcolmTucker]

For the savings of going above ground (which are huge - shouldn't hold up above and below as equal options all other things being equal except for destroying some parks) for that section of the Ontario Line I say take 1/4 of the money, buy houses, and replace the parks time 2. Take 1/4, buy houses, build higher density to replace the lost units from replacing the parks.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Doady

I wish they called it "Pape-Don Mills Line" instead of "Ontario Line". But I guess it's not as bad as "Canada Line".

They named it that si Doug Fords Ontario government can take credit for it. Anyway after it's done I think it will just end up being Line #5.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

For the savings of going above ground (which are huge - shouldn't hold up above and below as equal options all other things being equal except for destroying some parks) for that section of the Ontario Line I say take 1/4 of the money, buy houses, and replace the parks time 2. Take 1/4, buy houses, build higher density to replace the lost units from replacing the parks.

Clearly you don't know the area. It's already dense with old homes and row houses. It already has high rise high density and will be getting more. Even if they tear down homes the land will be solely owned by CN and Metrolinks and they won't build anything on it.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

For the savings of going above ground (which are huge - shouldn't hold up above and below as equal options all other things being equal except for destroying some parks) for that section of the Ontario Line I say take 1/4 of the money, buy houses, and replace the parks time 2. Take 1/4, buy houses, build higher density to replace the lost units from replacing the parks.

You must not know the area. It's already dense with old homes and row houses. It already has high rise high density and will be getting more. Even if they tear down homes the land will be solely owned by CN and Metrolinks and they won't build anything on it.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Doady

I wish they called it "Pape-Don Mills Line" instead of "Ontario Line". But I guess it's not as bad as "Canada Line".

Why is Canada Line worse? Both names came to be in a similar fashion (Governments wanting to brand a subway Line to take credit). I'd argue Canada Line makes more sense as it was built as an Olympic project, though Olympic Line would have been more consistent with the Skytrain naming convention.

Personally, as a non Torontonian, it's a little insulting, as was the previous government's GTHA focused Move Ontario 2020.

[TorontoDrew]

When I think of the Canada Line I always think of it being named for the Olympics so it makes sense. The Ontario Line is terrible as all of Ontario like most of Canada hate Toronto. Why not The Downtown Line? That's where most of it is.

[TorontoDrew]

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