The Great Canadian Transit Thread

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Will they have multiple stops throughout downtown like the subway does? Or still dumping most people at Union?

It would be awesome if there was a GO tunnel along King or Adelaide with stops at University/Simcoe and Yonge. Or even better, a GO downtown loop, but that would be super pricey.

GO is currently planning an additional stop around Bathurst, primarily to take some of the load off of Union since they figure it will be reaching capacity.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Will they have multiple stops throughout downtown like the subway does? Or still dumping most people at Union?

It would be awesome if there was a GO tunnel along King or Adelaide with stops at University/Simcoe and Yonge. Or even better, a GO downtown loop, but that would be super pricey.

What they need is a damn subway loop from Dundas West to Union to Donlands Station.

[Innsertnamehere]

Pape is the planned eastern terminus for the DRL, or at least the most commonly accepted one.

[LeftCoaster]

Dundas west to pape but it should run along Queen not hit Union.

[Chadillaccc]

I kindof agree with the Queen Street thing. Union is so far past capacity it's insane. It might become a headway bottleneck if you have two lines using one station.

[Chadillaccc]

Ottawa's new LRT was approved on December 19. The line will be complete with 3 underground stations(plus St. Laurent Station which already exists partially underground), at least 1 elevated station, and 13 stations in total. The line will cost around 2 billion, and is expected to be substantially complete by 2017.

[caltrane74]

From Udo/Skyjacked at UT



The Scope of The Union Station is seen in full here. Serious upgrades to Toronto transit infrastructure so that developers can build taller buildings.

From urbantoronto

[Nouvellecosse]

I can't wait for that ugly parking lot by the ACC to be developed. Surprising it even still exists.

[Chinook Arch]

Originally Posted by nname

I think most places outside of Canada and US define rapid transit as rail transit operating on exclusive right-of-way and completely separated from other modes of transportation. Try looking up the term in dictionaries or encyclopedia and you'll see what I mean... I think Wikipedia uses this definition too.

I've always heard people refer to the LRT system, and other city's LRT systems as rapid transit even if they don't have the complete right of way for the entire system.

Who cares what definition is used most often outside of North America.....we live in North America. Yes, if someone wants to get down to the nitty gitty and split hairs in order to feel good, you could say that technically Calgary's system isn't a rapid transit system, Like I say though, who cares? For all intents and purposes it is.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Chinook Arch

I've always heard people refer to the LRT system, and other city's LRT systems as rapid transit even if they don't have the complete right of way for the entire system.

Who cares what definition is used most often outside of North America.....we live in North America. Yes, if someone wants to get down to the nitty gitty and split hairs in order to feel good, you could say that technically Calgary's system isn't a rapid transit system, Like I say though, who cares? For all intents and purposes it is.

But that's the thing though. For some intents and purposes it is, and for some intents and purposes it isn't. Hence the distinction. With all the words we have in the English language, it's very common to have distinct terms to denote things with subtle differences. It seems to me that the people who are trying to lump everything under the same term are the ones who are doing so to "feel good." Otherwise, there would be no real reason for it, and they would just use the correct terms and stop dwelling on it.

[Chadillaccc]

Or perhaps it's for people to "feel superior" by separating the terms, that is certainly another reason this debate could still be ongoing after months. Who is to say?

[eemy]

Arguing about whether the C-Train is rapid transit is asinine in my opinion. When looking at the transportation system as a whole, without any doubt, the C-Train functions as a rapid transit system. Issues such as grade separation are implementation details.

More to the point, the terminology surrounding mass transit is a bit of a mess. Light rail, heavy rail, rapid transit and so on have, due to historic reasons, assumed meaning that in current use creates meaningless distinction. Light rail, for example, was originally created in distinction from heavy rail as the vehicles were lighter weight and could operate in mixed traffic and could not operate in mixed traffic with heavy rail vehicles. It is a description of technology. Similarly, because of history, rapid transit came to generally mean grade-separation, because historically, all rapid transit systems were.

This is problematic though, because these distinctions are no longer true. Developments in technology have allowed light rail systems to meet and in some cases exceed the capacity of heavy rail systems, even while not being fully grade-separated. Even where they don't, the difference in capacity is primarily a function of the reduced size of the vehicle being used, or signaling system being used, as headways on the highest capacity non-grade separated systems are in many cases lower than headways on heavy rail systems. So we now can have a situation where a light rail system which is higher order than a heavy rail system in all the meaningful metrics (frequency, capacity, speed) is not rapid transit, but the heavy rail system which provides worse service is. That is simply because rapid transit has incorporated an implementation detail into its definition which has no business being there.

So, screw what wikipedia or the APTA or whomever else says. Rapid transit is a second order of transit within a region that operates a higher capacity, higher frequency, and higher speed than the conventional system.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Or perhaps it's for people to "feel superior" by separating the terms, that is certainly another reason this debate could still be ongoing after months. Who is to say?

I definitely do consider knowing and using correct terminology to be superior, but I'd much rather encourage others to do so as well rather than sit back and feel superior that I do and they don't. So that doesn't play a role.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

Arguing about whether the C-Train is rapid transit is asinine in my opinion. When looking at the transportation system as a whole, without any doubt, the C-Train functions as a rapid transit system. Issues such as grade separation are implementation details.

More to the point, the terminology surrounding mass transit is a bit of a mess. Light rail, heavy rail, rapid transit and so on have, due to historic reasons, assumed meaning that in current use creates meaningless distinction. Light rail, for example, was originally created in distinction from heavy rail as the vehicles were lighter weight and could operate in mixed traffic and could not operate in mixed traffic with heavy rail vehicles. It is a description of technology. Similarly, because of history, rapid transit came to generally mean grade-separation, because historically, all rapid transit systems were.

This is problematic though, because these distinctions are no longer true. Developments in technology have allowed light rail systems to meet and in some cases exceed the capacity of heavy rail systems, even while not being fully grade-separated. Even where they don't, the difference in capacity is primarily a function of the reduced size of the vehicle being used, or signaling system being used, as headways on the highest capacity non-grade separated systems are in many cases lower than headways on heavy rail systems. So we now can have a situation where a light rail system which is higher order than a heavy rail system in all the meaningful metrics (frequency, capacity, speed) is not rapid transit, but the heavy rail system which provides worse service is. That is simply because rapid transit has incorporated an implementation detail into its definition which has no business being there.

So, screw what wikipedia or the APTA or whomever else says. Rapid transit is a second order of transit within a region that operates a higher capacity, higher frequency, and higher speed than the conventional system.

But no one was arguing about heavy rail vs light rail. We all know there have long been heavy rail systems with typically lower capacity than light rail systems, and we don't call them rapid transit, we call them commuter rail.

I agree that needing to argue about the definitions is a bit asinine, but only because the distinction in most systems is clear enough absolutely no argument should ever be needed.

[Surrealplaces]

I could care less about the precise definitions of rapid transit. To me rapid transit is simply a transit system that is rapid. If you can move a person from point A to B in the same amount of time as a sytem that has grade separation, who cares.

The only reason this being debated is because it's in the Canada section.....

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by Hali87

This is a new high school? It looks just like the ones in NS from the 70s, only more colourful

The rest of the school looks different. The portion in the photo is a replication of the old school that was torn down to make way for the LRT

[Metro-One]

To me it seems a word such as "rapid" should only be associated with speed. Even if it is technically not, to me the C-train is rapid transit.

For, what it is not, is a metro. For me the word "metro" is more appropriate in defining grade separated to non-grade separated.

So the C-Train is rapid transit, but it is not a metro, while skytrain is both.

that being said, what is the average speed of the C-Train for curiosity?

[Surrealplaces]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

To me it seems a word such as "rapid" should only be associated with speed. Even if it is technically not, to me the C-train is rapid transit.

For, what it is not, is a metro. For me the word "metro" is more appropriate in defining grade separated to non-grade separated.

So the C-Train is rapid transit, but it is not a metro, while skytrain is both.

that being said, what is the average speed of the C-Train for curiosity?

I'm not sure what it is, but it would nice if it was faster. I'd like to see something like Ottawa's where it could be up to speeds of 100km/h

It might happen someday..... I don't think it would be that difficult to make the LRT NW/S line completely grade separate once they bury the downtown portion, which is planned down the road.

[Metro-One]

I would love to see the downtown portion of the C-Train buried, I think that is a big city aspect that is missing in Calgary currently that is found in all of Canada's other big 6 cities (well, Ottawa soon to be).

[nname]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

that being said, what is the average speed of the C-Train for curiosity?

35km/h