The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[Truenorth00]

I don't know what you imagine the competition to be, but I can't imagine VIA carrying. Corridor West may be the least subsidized. But it is subsidized. If ridership migrate to GO, then VIA cuts services. Simple as that. VIA isn't territorial.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

No matter what happens to GO service to London, it will most certainly catch VIA rail's attention and concerns. VIA's SWO routes require the least amount of subsidy per passenger KM that any other routes in the country including Mon/Tor. For VIA, this is a population they cannot allow to ignore and have GO take over much of their ridership. Such a scenario would put a real dent in VIA's already precarious financial situation and further reduce it's credibility to effectively serve even the most populace areas of the country.

Even the threat of a GO service to London may finally be the kick in the ass VIA needs to take it's London service seriously lest they loss a huge portion of market share.

VIA's owner probably would be happy to be relieved of their burdens, not scared of losing market share. The federal government treats VIA like a red-headed stepchild, doing the absolute minimum to keep it alive but nothing else.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I assume the last question is rhetorical, but the answer would be that GO is a metropolitan commuter service provider with the rolling stock, operations, and mandate intended to optimize that role rather than the role of intercity service provider. The solution to the problem of the appropriate intercity provider not being interested in providing improved service is for them to be made to change their mind and become interested, rather than for an inappropriate commuter service provider to step in. But of course, not being an optimal solution doesn't necessarily mean it won't work. Let's face it, the current iteration of GO isn't even optimal for metropolitan service given that it isn't electrified or particularly frequent, but it nonetheless manages to function.

It was a rhetorical question.

It's less that I view GO as a good option, but the least bad option. As you mention, GO still has its work cut out for it in the GTA as-is.

However, GO seemingly has a mandate to do something from government. VIA is just around as a legacy and treated as an afterthought because it has no broad public support at a federal level to do anything other than just not be cancelled and keep service to a handful of isolated communities.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by someone123

In the future the line between transit and private vehicles may be blurrier. If you imagine autonomous vehicles running in tunnels for example these could be public or private and they could have one or more people in them. The ideal transit system of the future is one where you get a car that takes you exactly to where you want to go (but the service is available to everyone, upkeep is managed centrally, no parking needed, etc.). The model where big vehicles carry lots of people is a consequence of having a limited number of routes and needing a driver in the vehicle. Busy stations are related to this as well.

The article talks about moving shipping containers through tunnels which are not small.

Furthermore if you can separate out some kinds of traffic then options increase for what you do with transit on the old road and rail network.

Yes various "personal rapid transit" schemes have been imagined for decades now; he's an emperor who changes his clothes on a regular basis! I think the issue is that the way the article author fantasizes about "making right of ways non-rival" in a similar way as non-corporeal ideas. Doing so would necessitate not just a reduction in tunneling cost through various efficiencies, but actually making tunnels basically free. Those are two VERY different things. They use the analogy of how unlike with something non-physical like information, only one person can have an individual physical item like a fridge at once and if someone else wants one there needs to be a second fridge. But I would argue that right of ways will always be physical.

For instance, highways can be built on the surface much less expensively than they can be through tunneling, but they're still very expensive to the point that we've failed to use them to build our way out of congestion. That's partly because of land cost of course, but if it becomes very cheap to build tunnels, underground property right will become much more valuable because more can be done with it. And even if the act of tunneling itself (excavating the space) becomes cheaper, the physical components of the infrastructure such as the walls still have a cost. And of course things like underground utilities would still need to be relocated which is both costly and disruptive. This is not unlike how parking spaces have a high cost and how parking floors add thousands to the cost of many new condo units whether or not the parking is underground. It may be feasible to do, but still not a good use of resources. Many of the issues described in the book, "the high cost of free parking" have nothing to do with tunneling. What it comes down to is that in a crowded area like a city, having everyone do things separately as individuals is less efficient and takes more space and resources. The fact that you can choose to do so doesn't mean you should. Space will always be a physical thing and will always be at a premium in an urban setting.

I always thought it would be cool if a major city basically raised its "floor" and had its ground level not actually on the ground but on a sort of 1 or 2 story high platform while there was a service area underneath for transportation and utilities. Kind of like that neighbourgood in Seattle but across the whole city (at least in the central parts). Basically all the streets would be two levels and the ground floor of all the buildings would be like a basement that faced onto the under level. That would inevitably be cheaper than to tunnel under every street considering, so if we believe that tunneling is really needed. If I were to plan a new city from scratch I'd probably do that since it would give so much space and would encourage the city to be more tightly knit. There would probably still be a few tunnels, but very few.

[someone123]

The cost per mile lane of bare bones tunnel is down to around $40M US. There is an up front setup cost that is currently down to around $2.5M. Imagine that setup cost drops to 1/10 or less of what it is today. You could build a bunch of short tunnels to eliminate at-grade crossings. You could use this to improve whatever kind of routes you want, mixed traffic, transit, active transportation, etc. I think one underappreciated aspect is that there's potential to design all kinds of new electric vehicles. You could have a tunnel under downtown Toronto where people drive scooters or whatever. Who knows what will eventually work best in all different situations?

Here in Vancouver we have a lot of tricky suburban areas that have major arterials running through them. They are basically a mess. Hard to cross, and there is an inherent conflict between people who want to use the arterials as roads and people who are trying to travel around the neighbourhood (the stroad problem). If it becomes cheap to put every little side street under the arterial for a few meters then these areas will become completely different.

And of course most cities could use more subways, and would build a lot more if they could do it for $40M US per mile. Cities like Toronto could have grids of subways and smaller cities could have some. Whether they contain train-like vehicles or car-like vehicles is a second-order concern. Bus fleets are already shifting to electric so many cities will have the option of running these buses through tunnels with lower ventilation demands than diesels would require. If they built a complete tunnel network, they could also make the buses self driving. A bus could run in self driving mode along a dedicated ROW route (always uniformly lit with no rain/ice/snow) or driven by a person.

I think there's a future with cheaper tunnel construction that would completely revolutionize what transportation looks like around here. There would effectively be more highway-like routes, there would be more subway-like transit routes. You would be able to travel along a lot more paths at an average of 60 km/h instead of 15-20 km/h. Opposition to building the tunnels might be lower. I am not convinced the cost structure enabling this currently exists but if it were to happen it would be a big deal.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I assume the last question is rhetorical, but the answer would be that GO is a metropolitan commuter service provider with the rolling stock, operations, and mandate intended to optimize that role rather than the role of intercity service provider. The solution to the problem of the appropriate intercity provider not being interested in providing improved service is for them to be made to change their mind and become interested, rather than for an inappropriate commuter service provider to step in.

I think that GO is in a better position to step in and provide Intercity service from Toronto to London than VIA.

Not only does Metrolinx already own about half the route, but GO has over 900 bi-level coaches. This is about 3 times more than all other operators of these cars combined, or more than twice the size of VIA's entire fleet.

Since the successful bidder that wins the huge OnCorr contract to build and operate GO-RER gets to pick the rolling stock, it's very likely that many of these coaches will wind up being surplus, and GO will have few prospective buyers for them. It makes sense for GO to retrofit many of them for longer-distance intercity-style operations.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I don't know what you imagine the competition to be, but I can't imagine VIA carrying. Corridor West may be the least subsidized. But it is subsidized. If ridership migrate to GO, then VIA cuts services. Simple as that. VIA isn't territorial.

And I doubt GO would take over passenger service without VIA's explicit agreement.

VIA may even want to just focus on a single corridor between London and Toronto.

[milomilo]

This guy is pretty obnoxious, but if you can get past that, the clickbaity look and the needless filler segments in the videos, they are very good critiques of various hyped technologies, many of which are Elon Musk's ideas. He's done a few on the boring company and many on Hyperloop, and I've yet to see anything that wasn't valid. He really hates Elon Musk though and I don't know if that clouds his judgement, I feel like his take on SpaceX might prove wrong, as the stuff they are doing is real, you can't say a company that can put people into orbit isn't serious.

• Video Link

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

And I doubt GO would take over passenger service without VIA's explicit agreement.

VIA may even want to just focus on a single corridor between London and Toronto.

It wouldn’t be unprecedented for GO to take over a VIA route. They did just that with the old CN commuter routes from Barrie and Stouffville to Toronto in 1982.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

This guy is pretty obnoxious, but if you can get past that, the clickbaity look and the needless filler segments in the videos, they are very good critiques of various hyped technologies, many of which are Elon Musk's ideas. He's done a few on the boring company and many on Hyperloop, and I've yet to see anything that wasn't valid. He really hates Elon Musk though and I don't know if that clouds his judgement, I feel like his take on SpaceX might prove wrong, as the stuff they are doing is real, you can't say a company that can put people into orbit isn't serious.

There are Elon Musk fanboys and anti-Elon-Musk-fanboy reactionaries and none of that is relevant but it's hard to separate out all the noise. More generally there are always naysayers. I have noticed that a lot of urban planning stuff has shifted from progressive (trying to get people to do something different in the 80's and 90's) to essentially conservative (argue for a narrow range of existing solutions).

Getting the setup cost of tunnel boring down and getting the cost per unit distance down significantly would be transformative for cities for a whole bunch of reasons. That is more the meat of the ideas above. There are some specifics around what saves on costs too. Of course, not all costs savings will apply in all situations (maybe you don't want above ground stations on Manhattan).

[hipster duck]

Man, if the Boring Company wanted to prove their technology, they couldn't have picked a worse first project than the LVCC. Maybe that's their own fault, but the fiasco of having to use Teslas driven by people traveling at 30 km/h really detracts from selling their tunneling technology. This isn't the first video making the rounds, and the project has been the butt of jokes on the internet.

I mean, if they would have installed a simple moving sidewalk none of this would have blown up and we'd all be focused on how quickly and cheaply they built the tunnel.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

It wouldn’t be unprecedented for GO to take over a VIA route. They did just that with the old CN commuter routes from Barrie and Stouffville to Toronto in 1982.

Not at all. Niagara is becoming GO-centric as well... VIA doesn't even stop in Hamilton-proper any more.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

Getting the setup cost of tunnel boring down and getting the cost per unit distance down significantly would be transformative for cities for a whole bunch of reasons. That is more the meat of the ideas above. There are some specifics around what saves on costs too. Of course, not all costs savings will apply in all situations (maybe you don't want above ground stations on Manhattan).

Except that if we're being truthful, the Boring Company really hasn't contributed much here. The actual tunneling costs are not that much lower. Cities outside North America achieve similar costs by simply having continuous subway construction. And next, the Vegas Loop is a really shitty, low capacity solution that can't even be retrofitted with a higher capacity vehicle because the tunnel diameter won't allow for vehicles where it's possible for passengers to stand up. It's literally a shitty transit themed roller coaster.

It's only real value is that it's finally succeeded in revealing to planners that Boring Co and Elon's promises are definitely far fetched. Other than a handful of mostly second rate cities who need the publicity of Elon Musk cutting a ribbon for a bit of fan fare, nobody is going to take Boring Co seriously as a major transit constructor after the Vegas Loop. Good for Tesla and Elon though, for taking Las Vegas taxpayer money to build an autonomous driving test loop.

I prefer this rant from a public transport advocate to really cut to the heart of how shitty the Vegas Loop is:

• Video Link

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Man, if the Boring Company wanted to prove their technology, they couldn't have picked a worse first project than the LVCC. Maybe that's their own fault, but the fiasco of having to use Teslas driven by people traveling at 30 km/h really detracts from selling their tunneling technology. This isn't the first video making the rounds, and the project has been the butt of jokes on the internet.

I mean, if they would have installed a simple moving sidewalk none of this would have blown up and we'd all be focused on how quickly and cheaply they built the tunnel.

That's one of their biggest flaws. Since they exist to help market Teslas, they have to use Teslas, regardless of whether cars are the right solution. They literally only offer one diameter of tunnel for construction. Sized to fit Teslas. Imagine any traditional construction or engineering doing that.

They are doing only marginally better than Hyperloop, where only dictators and shitty governments who don't want to invest in public transport show any interest.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

And I doubt GO would take over passenger service without VIA's explicit agreement.

I don't know if that is absolutely necessary per se. But GO and VIA do co-operate. I don't get where the idea that they have an adversarial relationship comes from. And GO taking over a route is a solid gift to VIA. Allowing them to cut a route, saves their budget and transfer the subsidy liabilities to GO. Why would VIA complain?

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

VIA may even want to just focus on a single corridor between London and Toronto.

I hadn't thought about this before. But you might have a point. In theory, it might serve them with any HFR West plans to concentrate investment on a single routing. Most likely the Northern Main Line with the need to connect to Pearson airport.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

No matter what happens to GO service to London, it will most certainly catch VIA rail's attention and concerns. VIA's SWO routes require the least amount of subsidy per passenger KM that any other routes in the country including Mon/Tor. For VIA, this is a population they cannot allow to ignore and have GO take over much of their ridership. Such a scenario would put a real dent in VIA's already precarious financial situation and further reduce it's credibility to effectively serve even the most populace areas of the country.

Even the threat of a GO service to London may finally be the kick in the ass VIA needs to take it's London service seriously lest they loss a huge portion of market share.

Did anything really change with Via when Megabus came in? What about when Greyhound stopped running? The same will happen when GO arrives in London. GO is not for travelers, but commuters. Travelers tend to have several bags, whereas commuters may have a small one. Via has meal services and a baggage car to cater to the traveler.

The only thing that may change is if GO runs on both routes from Toronto, that they collaborate on an HSR route plan.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

I think that GO is in a better position to step in and provide Intercity service from Toronto to London than VIA.

Not only does Metrolinx already own about half the route, but GO has over 900 bi-level coaches. This is about 3 times more than all other operators of these cars combined, or more than twice the size of VIA's entire fleet.

Since the successful bidder that wins the huge OnCorr contract to build and operate GO-RER gets to pick the rolling stock, it's very likely that many of these coaches will wind up being surplus, and GO will have few prospective buyers for them. It makes sense for GO to retrofit many of them for longer-distance intercity-style operations.

There was a plan for some to be retrofitted for the PBX in northern ON. Problem was the track condition was not suited for it for the ~4 hour trip. One can wonder if that could be an issue for longer intercity routes in the rest of the province.

Originally Posted by manny_santos

It wouldn’t be unprecedented for GO to take over a VIA route. They did just that with the old CN commuter routes from Barrie and Stouffville to Toronto in 1982.

And ONR absorbed the old Northland route into the Northlander.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by someone123

Here in Vancouver we have a lot of tricky suburban areas that have major arterials running through them. They are basically a mess. Hard to cross, and there is an inherent conflict between people who want to use the arterials as roads and people who are trying to travel around the neighbourhood (the stroad problem). If it becomes cheap to put every little side street under the arterial for a few meters then these areas will become completely different.

Mhm, they'd become even worse barriers because underpasses are notorious for being unsafe, especially at night. It's much better to put the 'stroads' on road diets, toss on some bike or bus lanes, maybe some green space in a central island, and let people have their level crossings.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Mhm, they'd become even worse barriers because underpasses are notorious for being unsafe, especially at night. It's much better to put the 'stroads' on road diets, toss on some bike or bus lanes, maybe some green space in a central island, and let people have their level crossings.

Underpasses don't have to be nasty barriers if designed right, usually before everything is built. Having what are essentially roadways for active transport is great, where it exists. But you're correct that if it is done later, if that's even possible, it's hard to give enough space for it to not be horrible.

While road diets may work, trying to put all functions into one road is what makes them stroads. In Calgary (and probably elsewhere), they call it a "mixed use urban boulevard" which is identical to a stroad, and they actively plan for them. The big problem is we often have business vehicle access on the main roadway, which impairs every other function. Just reducing the road isn't enough, especially if the road is intended to be a main connector. Probably the most important thing is to get that business access off the main road and onto a frontage road or alley, along with adding good bicycle and people paths. That makes things better for everyone.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

While road diets may work, trying to put all functions into one road is what makes them stroads.

"Road diet" is becoming a meme, and the idea that traffic is just "induced" and can be arbitrarily cut back on by reducing infrastructure without causing major problems is another bad old planning meme (less nuanced version of an economics style concept that as supply increases and the "cost" drops in monetary price or time, there will be higher utilization, all else being equal). I think part of what's going on is there are a lot of overbuilt 1970's era roads that are part of uncompleted plans, can handle more traffic than the bottlenecks around them, and can and should be downsized without causing traffic problems. The typical stroad is more complicated.

As far as underpasses go, there's one for pedestrians I use regularly that goes under a busy road. It's far better than the at-grade crossing and I wish there were more of them. Ideally the freight would go in some dedicated tunnels and be driven by autonomous vehicles, the local vehicle traffic would have underpasses, and the surface streets would be dedicated to pedestrians and low speed small electric vehicles with no lights or crossings and a lot more public space everywhere.

[Nouvellecosse]

I love the idea of cheap tunnels allowing for active transportation access. There's a network of multipurpose trails in the Cole Harbour area of he HRM that allows people to travel through the area often through scenic greenery between residential backyards. These trails go under thoroughfares in a few different spots like this, this, this and this. I love these trails and the only real improvement they need is for them to be wider and better maintained as the pavement can get kind of rough in spots.

However, therre are some issues with using bored tunnels for underpasses which include:

a) bored tunnels are deeper than cut and cover so there's a practical limit to how short they can be since there's a minimum distance needed in terms of approaches in order to drop the lower level deep enough. You can't have the approaches too steep if you want to maintain accessibility

b) While advances in bored tunnel technology and practices could potentially lower the cost of tunnel boring compared to current boring costs, cut and cover is already much cheaper. The main reason for the current use of bored tunnel is the reduction in surface disruption. For a short tunnel like an underpass, there's going to be surface disruption for either method since the main place where disruption occurs for a bored tunnel is at the portals (and any stations or ventilation shafts for longer tunnels). So basically all the disruption is going to be right there at the tunnel site.

c) So far I've only been focused on pedestrian/active transportation underpasses, but if we expand that to vehicular travel, we encounter the whole other issue of interchanges since the two roads being grade separated will still need to be able to interact with one another. People on the side street will still need access to the major street so without interchanges which would add to the cost, space requirements and complexity, you'd actually be reducing connectivity.

The takeaway is that trying to make tunnel boring cheaper for short tunnels compared to cut and cover is a very tall order.