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  #41  
Old Posted May 8, 2010, 4:45 AM
ue ue is offline
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^I was unaware the line was that old (although it makes sense with the fact it connects to the Grand Trunk and everything)...but it still feels like it does rip between neighborhoods. I guess we just look at it different.

I believe that the basics to what the route will be and the general idea of stations and of course being low floor were all decided, now just small things like station size where the line will run (ie take up an existing lane, demolish to create a new one) and the main thing left is funding which the City is looking into (raise taxes a little bit or reallocate existing funds going in).

The current spacing of the stops is fine I think, but also it tends to be that denser areas (ie Stony Plain Road over 87th Ave) will have more closer together stations (see the Downtown and Uni)...so I'd expect a few more stations than the 87 or even 107 Ave line would have brought, especially as it goes through Oliver. I don't think it really matters if it
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  #42  
Old Posted May 8, 2010, 2:11 PM
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Nice photos from the Edmonton system. Out in Vancouver it was also a better idea to build a heavier ALRT system as opposed to traditional LRT.
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  #43  
Old Posted May 8, 2010, 11:42 PM
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Westside, grade separation is part and parcel to capacity, because it affects how often you can run trains, and at what speed.

Also, the FTA's strict funding formulas were politically imposed during the Bush years and have since been changed. They did not reflect actual need, but a political desire to make rail hard to fund.

And in case you haven't noticed, Boston and San Francisco also have full third rail metros. I don't mean to suggest there's no place in the big/dense cities for light rail at all, only that light rail is incapable of doing the job alone there.
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  #44  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 3:49 AM
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Originally Posted by Brandon716 View Post
Nice photos from the Edmonton system. Out in Vancouver it was also a better idea to build a heavier ALRT system as opposed to traditional LRT.
Thanks.

Now here's one I actually took. This is of the new extension that just opened weeks ago:



Edmonton's new low floor lines will go through Downtown and central communities above floor much like Portland's or I'm guessing Salt Lake City. Above ground can actually be very successful as long as it isn't a pain to get to and doesn't clog roads. Calgary's LRT goes above ground downtown and is amazingly successful. It's only downfall is the sidewalk varies in elevation as there are raised platforms (it's high floor, that's why) and it's a block off from the action of Stephen Ave so 7th Ave is pretty uninteresting on the street save for the cool LRVs going by . For those that don't know what Calgary's system downtown looks like:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinca...27834/sizes/l/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinca...69480/sizes/m/
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  #45  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 4:23 AM
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Buffalo's may just be the least-known subway in the US. I often forget they've got one.

Calgary's light rail system is arguably the most successful on the continent.
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  #46  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 5:21 AM
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Based on ridership alone I don't think it arguable at all, Calgary's is the most successful LRT system, bar none.

If predictions hold edmonton's ridership per km or per station will be on par with calgary this year, but their much larger system means that they will still have more than twice the ridership. I guess that the only failures of Ctrain are it's slow and disruptive movement downtown, and overcrowding, but that's only a failure because of their overall success: if the had ridership on the same order as a US city, there wouldn't be problems.
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  #47  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 6:12 AM
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^And there looks to be no ending to it either....lots of expansions underway for Calgary. You guys are right, bar none most successful.

Edmonton is playing catch-up. It may have the continents first modern LRT, but for around 15 years there was 0 construction. With the NAIT, West, and Mill Woods lines, we will be caught up to cities like Calgary for kilometres of track and considering Edmonton already has a high ridership per capita, may be similar to Calgary in total ridership/day (although I doubt we'll take over Calgary as number one for now).

At least Edmonton is really starting to make LRT's expansion a big priority, finally. And it seems we'll be able to do it quickly, efficiently, and cheaply.
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  #48  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 6:51 AM
Dr Nevergold Dr Nevergold is offline
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Originally Posted by fflint View Post
Buffalo's may just be the least-known subway in the US. I often forget they've got one.

Calgary's light rail system is arguably the most successful on the continent.
Buffalo's system is least-known because Buffalo is treated like a bastard child that no one wants to touch, but having lived here I'm learning its not the city deserving of its reputation.

The Buffalo Metro (and its called a Metro despite being LRT) is 6.4 miles in length and covers the central urban area from downtown to UBNorth.

5.2 miles of the 6.4 mile line is underground, so over 80% is a subway for its entire length. No other city of 290,000 or metro of 1.25 million can make such a claim. It is certainly a unique system and at 23,000 riders a day it's not bad for a 6.4 mile stubway system.

What makes the C-Train so amazing is that it breaks stereotypical North American trends by proving that there is possibility of middle class people who will use transit if a city is built the right way. While Calgary has plenty'o'sprawl, its business district is a true business district, not an office park wonderland with most offices in the periphery. Even Portland has too much of that despite its status as America's new urban darling.

Why is a system like Buffalo underutilized - aside from being a stubway? Because downtown Buffalo only has 80,000 workers.

In order to have transit worth something, the buildings that people work in have to be located in the right places and in the right fashion as well. Its not just a transit thing, so encouraging office growth in TOD fashion is most important. Traditional downtowns and TOD centers along transit is the only way to make transit useful.

Last edited by Dr Nevergold; May 9, 2010 at 7:18 AM.
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  #49  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 8:02 AM
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Buffalo also uses the weirdest equipment. The LRV's are single non-articulated units. The doors are one panel each. They are meant for platform boarding and on the downtown stretch there are little stairs that pop out from under the train.
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  #50  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 3:25 PM
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The Buffalo system should expand there system , which will be hard in NYS because all the money goes to NYC. Anyway , even though the Hudson-Bergen LRT system gets 40,000 , i think its safer to say its around 60,000......for some reason its always crowded and jammed. Anyway , it has generated at least 15 billion $$$ in Developments since 2000. New Jersey also has 2 more systems that service the Philly Metro and Newark. There are plans to connect all of NJ's Cities with Light Rail by 2025. That would mean around 300 miles of LRT , some diesel , some electric , maybe one Automatic system. Due to Jersey Politics and other stuff , we are behind on getting 2 lines up and running. But I do see it happening , those areas are starting to become bottlenecks. Now unfortunately due to the rising costs , there won't be a cut n cover tunnel running under Board Street form Newark Penn. There will be street running , intill they get to near the airport and then a separate guide-way will form for the Newark Penn - Midtown Elizabeth via Jersey Gardens. The Newark Penn - Midtown line would probably be a Streetcar and run along a busy bus line. Then there's a proposed line form Midtown Elizabeth west along the former Conrail Tracks to Cranford NJT station , its basically an extension of the Newark Penn - Midtown Elizabeth via Jersey Gardens. Then Theres the proposed line form Newark Board Street Station to Paterson ,NJ , it would run on abandoned and lightly used freight tracks. Another proposed line would run form Bloomfield's Grove Street Newark LRT station to Jersey City via an abandoned Freight line. Another proposed line would run along abandoned tracks form Passaic to Paterson. My County was supposed to have a Diesel Light Rail line running across it by now , but corruption & NJT stupid mismanagement delayed that. 2 Extensions of the Diesel Riverline are planned in South Jersey. New Jersey has a bright LRT future , the problem is $$$$ & Corruption / bad planning.....sigh.....
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  #51  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 5:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Brandon716 View Post
Buffalo's system is least-known because Buffalo is treated like a bastard child that no one wants to touch, but having lived here I'm learning its not the city deserving of its reputation.

The Buffalo Metro (and its called a Metro despite being LRT) is 6.4 miles in length and covers the central urban area from downtown to UBNorth.

5.2 miles of the 6.4 mile line is underground, so over 80% is a subway for its entire length. No other city of 290,000 or metro of 1.25 million can make such a claim. It is certainly a unique system and at 23,000 riders a day it's not bad for a 6.4 mile stubway system.

What makes the C-Train so amazing is that it breaks stereotypical North American trends by proving that there is possibility of middle class people who will use transit if a city is built the right way. While Calgary has plenty'o'sprawl, its business district is a true business district, not an office park wonderland with most offices in the periphery. Even Portland has too much of that despite its status as America's new urban darling.

Why is a system like Buffalo underutilized - aside from being a stubway? Because downtown Buffalo only has 80,000 workers.

In order to have transit worth something, the buildings that people work in have to be located in the right places and in the right fashion as well. Its not just a transit thing, so encouraging office growth in TOD fashion is most important. Traditional downtowns and TOD centers along transit is the only way to make transit useful.
Edmonton suffers from the de-centralization of office jobs too. There is about 70 000 workers in the Financial and Government Districts (both Downtown). Most of this is because we still have a large industrial base so many people work in industrial jobs which are of course not Downtown. I think Downtown has the most office/commercial jobs though. But there is a growing number of warehouses used for offices in South, Northwest, and Southeast Edmonton.

I think Edmonton can very easily compensate for this lower number of office workers (Calgary is well well over 100 000, being Canada's second largest CBD for office) with the University of Alberta, which holds 30 000 students. The NAIT LRT line will connect up the 2nd and 3rd largest educational institutions in the city - NAIT and MacEwan University (which realistically already is only 4 blocks from LRT). MacEwan has another 30 000 students and NAIT over 70 000.

Then you consider the West LRT line will connect light rail to the biggest tourist trap on the Prairies (many of which will likely take the option of visiting Downtown with a quick LRT route instead of skipping it), the West line will hook up the densest residential community in Alberta also and will directly go through 2 urban neighbourhoods beginning revitalization who could easily opt to take the train to Southgate or Kingsway instead of driving.

Then there's the SE/Mill Woods line which already gets high ridership from suburbanites bus commuting.

There is going to be a huge boost to LRT ridership in the city over the next 10-15 years. I always find it surprising that Edmonton has a higher ridership per capita than Portland. I think the main difference between the two systems is that the urban parts of Portland that have rail are extremely used extremely well but this thins out extremely in the suburban ends of Hillsboro and Gresham. Edmonton still has moderate usage in suburban stations like Belvedere and of course high usage in the brand new Century Park.

Anyways I made a list by looking on Wiki at transit stats to compare rail (not just LRT, but LRT is in bold)) in some (not all) North American cities, their km of track

New York City (subway) - 7,791,700/day | 369 km
Toronto (subway) - 942,600/day | 68.3 km
Boston - 481,300/day | 61 km
San Francisco - 358,500/day | 167 km
Vancouver - 344 796/day | 68.7 km
Toronto (streetcar) - 276,000/day | 75 km |
Calgary - 266,100/day | 48.8 km
Atlanta - 247,200/day | 76.6 km
New York City (PATH subway) - 244,300/day | 22.2 km
Los Angeles - 144,900/day |
Portland - 115,400/day | 84.7 km
San Diego - 107,000/day | 82.2 km
Edmonton - 74,440/day | 20.5 km
Saint Louis - 61,573/day | 74 km
Denver - 62,900/day | 56 km
Houston - 45,000/day | 12.1 km
Phoenix - 43,509/day | 32 km
Buffalo - 23,200/day | 10.3 km
Seattle/Tacoma - 20,200 | 27.8 km
Charlotte - 20,000/day | 15.45 km
Cleveland - 18,600/day | 31 km

What's really peculiar is how high the ridership Edmonton's system is for such a dinky little system. I mean look at the ones in the same area for ridership...they have 74, 56, 82.2 km of track and Edmonton's done it in 20km. Just 40 km/20km more, which is barely anything would boost Edmonton to 148K/day on it's way to the cities with 200k a day. I had no idea our numbers were so high for such a small system compared to other places (I knew they were high, but). It's very true then when I've heard some people say Edmonton could still be a great transit marvel like Calgary, Vancouver, Portland, San Diego, etc.

Another thing that's peculiar is why is Cleveland's system so unused? I mean Buffalo isn't that far and it does the same ridership in a third of the track. I've seen that the Cleveland goes to the Airport, Tower City/Downtown, Amtrak, and what looks like a ton of neighbourhoods. It seems adding more track here won't help.
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  #52  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 9:28 PM
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Why would you include LRT for some cities but only heavy rail for others? -to-oranges-to-bananas...

Quote:
Originally Posted by edmontonenthusiast View Post
Anyways I made a list by looking on Wiki at transit stats to compare rail (not just LRT, but LRT is in bold)) in some (not all) North American cities, their km of track

New York City (subway) - 7,791,700/day | 369 km
Toronto (subway) - 942,600/day | 68.3 km
Boston - 481,300/day | 61 km
San Francisco - 358,500/day | 167 km
Vancouver - 344 796/day | 68.7 km
Toronto (streetcar) - 276,000/day | 75 km |
Calgary - 266,100/day | 48.8 km
Atlanta - 247,200/day | 76.6 km
New York City (PATH subway) - 244,300/day | 22.2 km
Los Angeles - 144,900/day |
Portland - 115,400/day | 84.7 km
San Diego - 107,000/day | 82.2 km
Edmonton - 74,440/day | 20.5 km
Saint Louis - 61,573/day | 74 km
Denver - 62,900/day | 56 km
Houston - 45,000/day | 12.1 km
Phoenix - 43,509/day | 32 km
Buffalo - 23,200/day | 10.3 km
Seattle/Tacoma - 20,200 | 27.8 km
Charlotte - 20,000/day | 15.45 km
Cleveland - 18,600/day | 31 km

What's really peculiar is how high the ridership Edmonton's system is for such a dinky little system. I mean look at the ones in the same area for ridership...they have 74, 56, 82.2 km of track and Edmonton's done it in 20km. Just 40 km/20km more, which is barely anything would boost Edmonton to 148K/day on it's way to the cities with 200k a day. I had no idea our numbers were so high for such a small system compared to other places (I knew they were high, but). It's very true then when I've heard some people say Edmonton could still be a great transit marvel like Calgary, Vancouver, Portland, San Diego, etc.

Another thing that's peculiar is why is Cleveland's system so unused? I mean Buffalo isn't that far and it does the same ridership in a third of the track. I've seen that the Cleveland goes to the Airport, Tower City/Downtown, Amtrak, and what looks like a ton of neighbourhoods. It seems adding more track here won't help.
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  #53  
Old Posted May 9, 2010, 11:57 PM
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^Because I was just mixing them up to show a variety. Some of them I also couldn't find sound numbers for based solely on LRT or heavy rail like the MUNI. There were some I specifically wanted to compare, but most of it I just picked cities at random so that I didn't have a large number of a certain type of city. I also didn't have the time to do other cities. If you want I could look into some more cities along with the subway for LA, People Mover for Detroit, SLU Streetcar, dig deeper for MUNI, etc. perhaps.
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  #54  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 12:22 AM
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Here:

City | Ridership/day | km of track

New York City (subway) - 7,791,700/day | 369 km
Montreal - 987,000/day | 71 km
Toronto (subway) - 942,600/day | 68.3 km
Washington DC - 801,400/day | 171 km
Chicago - 640,000/day | 170.8 km
Boston - 481,300/day | 61 km
San Francisco (subway) - 358,500/day | 167 km
Vancouver - 344 796/day | 68.7 km
Toronto (streetcar) - 276,000/day | 75 km |
Calgary - 266,100/day | 48.8 km
Atlanta - 247,200/day | 76.6 km
New York City (PATH subway) - 244,300/day | 22.2 km
Philadelphia (Market subway) - 178,715/day | 20.76 km
San Francisco (MUNI LRT) - 162,500/day |
Los Angeles (subway) - 155,000/day |
Los Angeles (LRT) - 144,900/day |
Portland - 115,400/day | 84.7 km
Philadelphia (Broad St subway) - 114,816/day | 19.3 km
San Diego - 107,000/day | 82.2 km
Edmonton - 74,440/day | 20.5 km
Dallas - 69,800/day | 78.2 km
Saint Louis - 61,573/day | 74 km
Denver - 62,900/day | 56 km
Sacramento - 49,800/day | 60.21 km
Houston - 45,000/day | 12.1 km
Phoenix - 43,509/day | 32 km
Salt Lake City - 43,400/day | 30.58 km
Minneapolis-St. Paul - 32,300/day | 19.8 km
Pittsburgh - 24,800/day | 40 km
Buffalo - 23,200/day | 10.3 km
Seattle/Tacoma - 20,200 | 27.8 km
Charlotte - 20,000/day | 15.45 km
Cleveland - 18,600/day | 31 km
Philadelphia (Norristown LRT) - 8,801/day | 21.6 km
Detroit - 7,500/day | 4.7 km


That's most cities I think now.

Last edited by ue; May 10, 2010 at 1:22 AM.
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  #55  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 1:51 AM
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Don't forget about Monterrey...fully grade separated LRT and 370,000 passengers/day.
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  #56  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 1:54 AM
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^Yeah I was only doing Canada/America if you didn't tell. No Mexico City or Guadalajara either. I was doing cultural North America (Central America is a different place culturally) over geographical North America (where Central America is in the same general land mass).
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  #57  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 2:05 AM
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  #58  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 2:11 AM
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^most, not all

i missed miami too! shucks.
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  #59  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 4:46 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by edmontonenthusiast View Post
^Yeah I was only doing Canada/America if you didn't tell. No Mexico City or Guadalajara either. I was doing cultural North America (Central America is a different place culturally) over geographical North America (where Central America is in the same general land mass).
For sure, but Mex City and Monterrey get overlooked a lot when talking about transit so I thought I'd rep Mexico a little.
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  #60  
Old Posted May 10, 2010, 7:03 AM
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Quote:
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^
That's not remotely true.

Many cities can make due with that level of service, but the larger and denser ones can't. In Washington we have major capacity problems with Metro. There are parts of our system that barely work with 8-car subway. They absolutely would not work with any lesser technology.

We are building light rail now because we already have the trunk subway lines. What we're working on now are the secondary corridors.
How much of the physical density of the DC area is due to Metro's presence, though? In 1950, with DC at a higher population than today and, due to the fixed boundaries, a higher density than today, the city managed just fine with streetcars (albeit ones with a few underground portions, e.g. Dupont Circle, Capitol Hill).

Metro's crush-loads could probably be accommodated just as easily on a dense network of streetcar lines as on a system of widely spaced subways. According to this (PowerPoint warning) the number of jobs in DC has remained relatively constant since the 1950s. If we accept this as a rough proxy for downtown DC employment, and you take into account that the majority of Metro riders are making a traditional downtown commute, I'd say the former streetcar system could easily take the role of Metro within the district.

Of course, that also raises a whole host of other questions... assuming the streetcars still existed and Metro had not been built, would downtown DC have been able to remain the huge regional employment center that it is, or would it just be the highest levels of government rubbing shoulders with tumbleweeds and shuttered storefronts, while the millions of suburban workers, both Federal and private, commuted to suburban office parks on the (much larger) DC-area freeway system? This is why I hate hypotheticals. Metro was undoubtedly a big factor in creating the dense and dynamic capital region that exists today, but there were innumerable other factors as well, whose effect may have benefited DC even without Metro.
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