The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Population shifts can happen remarkably fast. Anyone who would have said in 2018 that within 5 years terminally static Atlantic Canada would become the fastest growing part of the country would have been committed.

I think that's really what the point was in the first place, it's certainly exactly what I was saying. You're picking a moment in time and saying that BC is done for and it's too late to turn the ship around, but just a couple years ago the exact opposite was true.

Picking one year and making bold claims off the current trends just doesn't work.

Who know what is happening in three years, maybe Calgary is more expensive than Vancouver, maybe westcoast kelp is found to be the superfuel of the future and everyone can't stop moving to Vancouver, maybe it gets so expensive in Vancouver that everyone leaves and goes back to London Ontario...

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_LRT
What I speak of is the 2015 proposal for surface LRT that the city cancelled. If instead, they simply did express buses with no upgrades, or even minimal upgrades it could have been run in a way for the council to show that it was not needed, or for the ridership to tell council it is needed. So, instead of the LRT phased system, a full express bus/BRT "light" BLAST network could have been implemented. Instead, nothing was done.

The city didn't cancel it. The Ontario government did.

Presuming senior governments don't do that again, the city will have both an LRT line and an express system with a rationalized network of local routes to feed them both.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

The city didn't cancel it. The Ontario government did.

Presuming senior governments don't do that again, the city will have both an LRT line and an express system with a rationalized network of local routes to feed them both.

My mistake. For some reason I thought the city was against it.
Still stand on the idea that even with it cancelled, the city should have tried to bring in express buses to show the need.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

My mistake. For some reason I thought the city was against it.
Still stand on the idea that even with it cancelled, the city should have tried to bring in express buses to show the need.

There were some councillors who were against. And a former mayor, though the cancellation happened after his term was done. There are still residents opposed and the occasional cry from their ilk to cancel it, but the dissenting voices seem to have a lower volume now. Many people are wondering what's going on though as it's been taking a while to relaunch procurement -- supposedly there will be an update presented to city council soon, with many changes to the original plans.

I wish they had introduced express services on more of the routes too. Years ago. The LRT was cancelled in December 2019, and then we all know what happened 3 months later and the effect it had on transit demand; perhaps service changes were being discussed until the world stopped, who knows. I doubt it though, Hamilton city council doesn't move that fast.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I think that's really what the point was in the first place, it's certainly exactly what I was saying. You're picking a moment in time and saying that BC is done for and it's too late to turn the ship around, but just a couple years ago the exact opposite was true.

Picking one year and making bold claims off the current trends just doesn't work.

When I stated that "it maybe too late to turn the ship around", I should have been more specific. I was talking about BC, Vancouver in particular, being able to bring back some sanity to it's horrific cost of housing.

BC has a lot to offer and great economic potential but that will, as with all places, be dependent upon getting qualified workers and affordable land to help a business expand. Many young Canadians would love to come to BC but financially it simply isn't an option and conversely many young BCers would like to stay but know that fare greener pastures lie over the Rockies.

This is not some "anti-BC" thing but simply reality but you don't have to take my word for it, just go ask California.

[ssiguy]

On a more positive note, I see Victoria has gotten some money to build a BRT to it's eastern suburbs. I'm curious if this is just express buses or a bus-only lane BRT. Anyone have any info?

[madog222]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

On a more positive note, I see Victoria has gotten some money to build a BRT to it's eastern suburbs. I'm curious if this is just express buses or a bus-only lane BRT. Anyone have any info

They're calling it Blink RapidBus but it's just an rebranding of one of their regular routes with a few stops removed and higher frequencies, 7-8min peak, 15min off peak. It has a paint separated bus-only lane for part of the route, how much of the route I don't know.

They're planning for rebranding the routes to UVIC and Swartz Bay next.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

Yeah that's basically it. Plenty of capital expenditure but no political will to address the systemic inability of transit agencies to provide adequate service.

In 2013, Montreal and Toronto both had better transit frequencies than in 2013. That's wild.

This isn't that damning an argument. Have transit ridership levels returned to 100% of pre-pandemic levels? Even if they have, how long has it been? There is an ebb and flow to this stuff. For a long time during and after the pandemic transit vehicles ran mostly empty at considerable cost and people were OK with that.

BTW the REM de l'Est is going to get built by this government and I believe it's now likely it will be over a longer distance.

And of course there is the huge tramway project in Québec City.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

The CAQ is a nationalist party, not a party driven by any sort of coherent ideology,.

Not entirely untrue, but it's still ridiculous how people label them with all sorts of American or Prairie Conservative tropes, just because they don't like them.

I love how it often goes:

"Oh, Quebec's right-wing CAQ government will absolutely hate this!"

"Actually, they're totally in favour of this and are moving in that direction already."

""

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by madog222

They're calling it Blink RapidBus but it's just an rebranding of one of their regular routes with a few stops removed and higher frequencies, 7-8min peak, 15min off peak. It has a paint separated bus-only lane for part of the route, how much of the route I don't know.

They're planning for rebranding the routes to UVIC and Swartz Bay next.

It sounds like they are setting themselves up to be able to go to the various levels of government to show the need for LRT or better. The question is whether funds can be allocated outside of the GVA for doing that in the future.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by madog222

They're calling it Blink RapidBus but it's just an rebranding of one of their regular routes with a few stops removed and higher frequencies, 7-8min peak, 15min off peak. It has a paint separated bus-only lane for part of the route, how much of the route I don't know.

They're planning for rebranding the routes to UVIC and Swartz Bay next.

Well that's disappointing. Seems like this is nothing more than a political announcement than anything else. It's a shame because Victoria has high levels of transit ridership and the road system is horrific with no freeways even in the suburbs.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Well that's disappointing. Seems like this is nothing more than a political announcement than anything else. It's a shame because Victoria has high levels of transit ridership and the road system is horrific with no freeways even in the suburbs.

It kind of does have a freeway. TCH 1 is freeway from Tillicum Rd to the Malahat.

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

It kind of does have a freeway. TCH 1 is freeway from Tillicum Rd to the Malahat.

Yes, and 17 north of Gateway Village - close to where 1 becomes a freeway - is a divided highway with no intersections for six kilometres.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Acajack

This isn't that damning an argument. Have transit ridership levels returned to 100% of pre-pandemic levels? Even if they have, how long has it been? There is an ebb and flow to this stuff. For a long time during and after the pandemic transit vehicles ran mostly empty at considerable cost and people were OK with that.

Ridership will never recover if service is constantly being cut. There won't be some magic moment when people suddenly decide to take the bus again after shunning it because a route that used to come every 10 minutes now comes every 30, and fares went up just to really rub some salt in the would. There's a reason transit advocates are warning of a death spiral.

You just need to look south of the border to see where we're headed. There are lots of shiny new transit lines in the US, but hardly anyone uses them because service is so awful. And the legacy transit is crumbling into dust.

[Nouvellecosse]

That's so weird. The service is pretty much back to pre-pandemic levels here. There are a few routes that were discontinued a couple months ago, but under performing routes tend to be cut from time to time anyway. One was a route I took but I don't think I ever saw it with more than 2/3 seats full while most routes are tight standing room only in rush hour. It was a route that fully overlapped with at least one other service its whole length so meh.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Yes, and 17 north of Gateway Village - close to where 1 becomes a freeway - is a divided highway with no intersections for six kilometres.

Victoria is interesting, it is a mini metro with a mini little freeway "system."

The #1 out to Langford now is nearly sufficient for the corridor it serves, just the final intersection at West Shore Parkway needs to be upgraded to an interchange to call it "complete" for me.

The 17 is a classic "BC special" of free flow sections with interchanges mixed with nearly freeway scale sections that just need intersections upgraded to interchanges and a couple small sections of crappy highway with houses having direct driveway access to the road.

[SFUVancouver]

I'm not holding my breath on timing, but when Kelowna eventually gets serious about putting an LRT line down Harvey Drive/Highway 97 and simply duplicating and replacing the existing BRT-light service currently in place, that will be a very successful system. Especially with UBC Okanagan as a major trip generator at its eastern terminus and four urban growth nodes, including downtown, in the centre. The downsides of building your whole city around one road are manifest, but the upside is that you've built your whole city around your LRT line should you build it.

Crossing Lake Okanagan and climbing the steep hill into West Kelowna are the obvious conundrums for an LRT line. I don't have a great answer for the latter, other than trusting that a suitable alignment is feasible, possibly with a bored tunnel section up the hill to ease the grade (not dissimilar to the SkyTrain Evergreen Line extension in Metro Vancouver). But for the former, there would be a ton of local support for a second crossing, assuming that the new bridge would include LRT, road lanes, and multi-use trail elements.

The new bridge would not necessarily need to have all that many vehicle lanes, I would suggest only two with space for an emergency shoulder lane. This would allow the existing bridge and the new bridge to function as one-way couplets. The new bridge would provide two westbound lanes, the existing bridge would continue providing two east-bound lanes, and the remaining three narrow lanes would be reconfigured to be two reversible rush-hour lanes to address the daily diurnal congestion that is endemic in the city and out of recognition that it is still a provincial highway carrying non-local traffic through the city.

[Coldrsx]

What a waste of time and resources for the most part. Put in fare gates and call it a day.

---
Transit peace officers have given out many more tickets and warnings for fare evasion in the first few months of 2023 compared to the previous four years, especially on the LRT system. Between January and March of this year, officers handed out 157 tickets and 2,798 warnings, compared to 17 and 92 during the same period in 2019. Steve Bradshaw, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 569, told CBC the drastic increase is part of a deliberate effort by the city to address safety and social disorder. Nearly 60% of tickets went to people who are homeless or who provided no fixed address. Coun. Ashley Salvador said fining homeless people for fare evasion is “absolutely concerning” and intends to question administration about the issue in mid-May. Erick Ambtman, executive director of EndPovertyEdmonton and chair of the Edmonton Police Commission, said people who don’t appear in court to pay a ticket can be subject to a warrant, which can lead to an arrest the next time they interact with police. “It ties up that officer’s time. It ties up the justice system’s time,” said Ambtman.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/...D%5D&mc_cid=0096601f46&mc_eid=b81cde227f

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Acajack

BTW the REM de l'Est is going to get built by this government and I believe it's now likely it will be over a longer distance.

And of course there is the huge tramway project in Québec City.

This is good news for Montreal. I hope the new route still provides transit coverage for the people In MTL north.

After the REM is done it would be great to see Montreal improve its its commuter rail.

[Rico Rommheim]

What Montreal REALLY needs to do now is to maintain and dramatically improve its current transit service. Especially the buses. I used to hop on the 80, a bus that used to reliably show up every 4-6 minutes. I have stopped taking the bus altogether a few years ago when I ended up waiting 10-15 minutes on a regular basis. Sometimes the bus wouldnt show up at all. I recall waiting for up to 20-30 minutes in the early mornings of deep cold February and freezing my ass off for that bus. I used to get to work late regularly and getting shit for it because my bus just didnt show up.

Its unacceptable. They need to fix this first.