The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[thebasketballgeek]

One of Winnipeg’s city councillor wants to try and bring light rail on the Main/St. Mary’s corridor.

https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/winnipeg/2023/1/3/1_6216704.html

Hey if Quebec and Hamilton want to build light rail then Winnipeg should be in the conversation for light rail as well. Even though I’m actually a fan of BRT and the city’s proposed plan, with the time it’s expected to roll out we might as well build light rail instead to support our growing population. I think putting light rail on this 20km north-south route would do wonders for the city.

[Luisito]

Nice to see some at least talking about it. Thanks for sharing that.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by thebasketballgeek

One of Winnipeg’s city councillor wants to try and bring light rail on the Main/St. Mary’s corridor.

https://beta.ctvnews.ca/local/winnipeg/2023/1/3/1_6216704.html

Hey if Quebec and Hamilton want to build light rail then Winnipeg should be in the conversation for light rail as well. Even though I’m actually a fan of BRT and the city’s proposed plan, with the time it’s expected to roll out we might as well build light rail instead to support our growing population. I think putting light rail on this 20km north-south route would do wonders for the city.

This is great news!
If all 3 start by 2030, that will mean the top 10 CMAs will have some sort of higher order transit.

[superelevation]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

So, that is 1 check mark.
Did you take transit?
Did you also drive?
Did you walk a lot?




The gridlock and other problems in the cores of most cities.



Great!
Let's build a subway line!

I do not agree with most of his opinions.

Lets dive a little deeper into One of the best and worst,and unique lines I like - the Green Line in Boston. It was buried because it was too busy. It had many branches. It is still a busy line. Sure if it were built out to subway size it would run better and carry more people, but that would not be possible right now, if ever. The thing is, at the time, it was the best solution, and it worked.

But if your argument is either surface LRT or full Subway? I guess Halifax will get a subway system.

Cities like Lille and Rennes get by really well with their systems! There are more than two options . . .

[someone123]

Europe has a lot of smaller city metros. Lausanne is another interesting example. The Quebec City tramway plan calls for an underground portion and an above-ground portion. I think a good plan for Halifax would be detailed and would depend on the specific alignment with various options being in the toolkit. I could also see gondolas being possible for parts of town (Northwest Arm crossing to higher level areas on either side) although the gondola-friendly areas may not currently be zoned for enough density.

I've pointed it out before but if such a system were built in Halifax it would take many years to be implemented and at the rate the city is growing it will likely have 600,000 or more people by then. Municipal planning calls for a disproportionate amount of new construction to go in the urban core in areas that could be served by higher order transit where it may be hard to fit LRT or trams in some existing streets due to the nature of the network and grade issues. It's not really that out there to think that transit developers there might want to build something more than buses and consider underground portions in some key areas. It's not a situation where we are talking about a very small city that would be a huge outlier if it had some rail transit. Halifax is already the same size Edmonton was when it built its LRT and is way more space constrained.

[someone123]

This map got posted on Reddit. I think it is an alternate rendition of the current Halifax BRT and ferry plan. It's not entirely new stuff as some of these routes already have transit lanes (the Dartmouth side of the red line matches the MetroLink service that began in 2005 or so) and there are 3 ferry terminals today. The bridge bus terminal got upgraded a few years ago and is pretty nice.


https://www.reddit.com/r/TransitDiagrams...ture_brt_network_in_halifax_nova_scotia/

Completely realistic that this may be funded in the next few years (municipal and federal portions already in place) and that in the 2030's some portion becomes trams, possibly underground in some portion of the central area, like around where the red and yellow routes overlap.

There is a separate plan to put the Mumford terminal underground and expand it as part of TOD around there with a bunch of 30 storey towers. That's "Halifax Shopping Centre" on this map (Mumford terminal name and Mumford on city maps).

One big oversight is the area all around the Scotia Square terminal on that map is getting torn up but there doesn't seem to be much future planning happening.

[someone123]

Bridge terminal, set into the hill:


(from Google Maps)

[GreaterMontréal]

• Video Link

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by someone123

Bridge terminal, set into the hill:


(from Google Maps)

That looks great. Is that an honest to God enclosed waiting area I see in the middle. Might it have seats and arrival screens?

[giallo]

^ Yeah. Very nice terminal.

Progress on the Emily Carr/Great Northern Way station (Millennium Line extension) as of last Wednesday

• Video Link

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

That looks great. Is that an honest to God enclosed waiting area I see in the middle. Might it have seats and arrival screens?

Plus bathrooms and a small convenience store.

[someone123]

Mumford has a little waiting area too but it was too small from the beginning and the layout is bad. You can really see the difference in quality between an early 2000's terminal and 2010's terminal. I'm not sure which of the 2 terminals is busier, but it might be Mumford. Looks like the more basic Lacewood terminal is from about 2015 as well.

It is interesting in that transit debates often revolve around the question of modes or grand plans for new systems but there's a lot of room for improvement of a boring bus system, and these sorts of improvements would likely transition well to streetcars (bus lanes become streetcar lanes and bus terminal become intermodal terminals where the inner-city streetcar or LRT connects to suburban bus routes).

There's a provincially led transportation initiative that's doing an RFP for multi-modal planning for the city and there's a chance that'll generate something good that people don't necessarily expect. I think what the city needs is a lot more capital investment in transit and then complex improvements across many modes. I hope that if this happens it isn't too late to integrate these improvements with Cogswell and create a proper multi-modal downtown terminal (which in the long run will likely connect to some tunnels and require more ferry docking space).

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Plus bathrooms and a small convenience store.

Originally Posted by someone123

Mumford has a little waiting area too but it was too small from the beginning and the layout is bad. You can really see the difference in quality between an early 2000's terminal and 2010's terminal. I'm not sure which of the 2 terminals is busier, but it might be Mumford. Looks like the more basic Lacewood terminal is from about 2015 as well.

It is interesting in that transit debates often revolve around the question of modes or grand plans for new systems but there's a lot of room for improvement of a boring bus system, and these sorts of improvements would likely transition well to streetcars (bus lanes become streetcar lanes and bus terminal become intermodal terminals where the inner-city streetcar or LRT connects to suburban bus routes).

There's a provincially led transportation initiative that's doing an RFP for multi-modal planning for the city and there's a chance that'll generate something good that people don't necessarily expect. I think what the city needs is a lot more capital investment in transit and then complex improvements across many modes. I hope that if this happens it isn't too late to integrate these improvements with Cogswell and create a proper multi-modal downtown terminal (which in the long run will likely connect to some tunnels and require more ferry docking space).

What a concept. Our fancy Stage 1 Confed stations have open to the outside cold and wind concourses with no benches, few to no next bus arrival screens, bathrooms (we'll give them that) and water fountains that may never functional.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

What a concept. Our fancy Stage 1 Confed stations have open to the outside cold and wind concourses with no benches, few to no next bus arrival screens, bathrooms (we'll give them that) and water fountains that may never functional.

Yeah. But the priority was designing for potential street running in the suburbs so that a tiny minority of suburban riders would not need to transfer. And now we'll never use that capability either.....

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yeah. But the priority was designing for potential street running in the suburbs so that a tiny minority of suburban riders would not need to transfer. And now we'll never use that capability either.....

I guess i'll wait for Stage 2 to really cast judgment but i'm nearing the stage where i'm ready to call Stage 1 a complete and utter misfire in almost every way possible.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I guess i'll wait for Stage 2 to really cast judgment but i'm nearing the stage where i'm ready to call Stage 1 a complete and utter misfire in almost every way possible.

The only success was the downtown tunnel relieved the Central Transitway.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I guess i'll wait for Stage 2 to really cast judgment but i'm nearing the stage where i'm ready to call Stage 1 a complete and utter misfire in almost every way possible.

When it works, it's fine. Not "world class" by any means, but perfectly functional. Good frequencies of 4 or 5 minutes. Decent speed (not for the last year and a bit due to slow orders). Problem is that the maintenance contractor has neglected its work, both operationally and general station maintenance.

The City and the contractor recently settle a court dispute; in exchange for some of the unpaid maintenance money (held due to breakdowns), the contractor pinky-swore that they will hire a couple new staff to deal with the maintenance issue (feels like more operational than station maintenance). We'll see what comes out of it.

If they can bring it up to snuff, the best it can be, it will be a decent system if you live on it or have a direct and reliable bus to the train from your home (so, suburbs).

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-light-rail-lrt-rtg-lawsuit-settle-1.6728088

[J.OT13]

RailFans Canada has added new systems to its Canada System Map, including Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, VIA Rail, the Toronto Streetcar...

https://otrain.railfans.ca/system-map

[hw621]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

RailFans Canada has added new systems to its Canada System Map, including Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, VIA Rail, the Toronto Streetcar...

https://otrain.railfans.ca/system-map

It is interesting they are not showing the GO rail system...

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by hw621

It is interesting they are not showing the GO rail system...

It doesn't show Montreal Exo commuter rail either. Only Metro and REM. They must be sticking mainly to high frequency rail service.