Canadian LRT/RT projects U/C

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I had the nerve to suggest that a bus tunnel was probably the cheapest way to solve the downtown congestion problem on the Ottawa board, probably around $1B. You can imagine the ridicule I got with my screen name. When we decided to build an LRT tunnel, it became inevitable that the Transitways had to be converted at a cost of $5B+ and if we want to reach Kanata and Barrhaven, we just keep on adding to that. In addition, Ottawa has been suffering from over a decade of transit disruption on its most critical route.

A bus tunnel would have bought us 20 years and post-pandemic, probably 50 years. There was a problem. Instead of focusing on moving people, it also became an urbanist project, that required the removal of all OC buses off of Albert and Slater Streets, with the idea of making them urban paradises. We would have ample capacity for years, by using both a tunnel route and a surface route. But a bus tunnel alone would be at capacity, so that option was automatically eliminated. Total bus removal became necessary. We were going to have a multitude of outdoor cafes all along Albert and Slater. Unfortunately, the buildings are not designed for street facing retail and restaurants and both streets are urban canyons, shaded most of the day. This was never going to happen and it hasn't happened in 5 years since the removal of the bus jam.

A bus tunnel would have freed up a lot of money to make other transit improvements, that would have grown ridership, whether new rail lines or busways. All these other projects have now been indefinitely postponed or simply deleted from the Transportation Master Plan.

What I cannot fathom, is proceeding with projects that were not going to move people faster. Is that not the point of rapid transit investment? And many of the problems that we are seeing were predictable, but why did our decision makers not see it? Part of it, is that they don't use transit, and also, they did not see the limitations of rail in comparison to grade separated BRT. Rail could give you capacity but not faster service. As it turns out, rail offers slower service especially where the old bus jam did not exist.

I would agree with most of that since having invested in BRT and already built transit ways, the tunnel would have been the least disruptive and least expensive option. And it would even adhere to the theme of potential future LRT conversion. This might sound like a sunk cost fallacy, but considering sunk costs is really only fallacious reasoning if the investment is gone and therefore does nothing to actually advance a particular option. Like if they had spent hundreds of millions on a plan that failed, and now they could choose another plan that had a better cost-benefit ratio in terms of costs moving forward but felt compelled to stick with the old plan to make it seem like the prior money wasn't wasted. But in this case the existing infrastructure would have greatly reduced the additional costs.

The only part I don't agree with is that the point of rapid transit investment is to make transit journeys faster. There are plenty of cases when rapid transit systems are upgraded purely for increased capacity. For instance, cities like Paris and Madrid renovated their busiest metro lines to extend the platforms for purely capacity reasons which is an expensive and disruptive project for an underground system. And there are also examples of new city-centre tunnels like the one planned for Munich S-Bahn that are purely to relieve congestion of the current one.

And closer to home, both Montreal and Toronto were forced into building their first RT routes due to insufficient capacity. Buses and streetcars were too short to hold all the riders, and being stuck in congestion meant there was low throughput. Taking transit out of mixed traffic was necessary to create capacity since it allowed the vehicles to be longer and for them to complete more journeys in the same time frame thus moving more people with the reduction of individual journey duration being an incidental side benefit. Since increases in capacity often have this side benefit people tend to draw the association.

In Ottawa's case a BRT with dedicated, grade separated busways is already a form of rapid transit (in terms of speed) so there's no reason to expect rail to offer a speed increase. It's really more similar to a platform length increase in that respect. But I agree with the criticism that the transfers should have been streamlined in a way to reduce speed loss.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I had the nerve to suggest that a bus tunnel was probably the cheapest way to solve the downtown congestion problem on the Ottawa board, probably around $1B. You can imagine the ridicule I got with my screen name. When we decided to build an LRT tunnel, it became inevitable that the Transitways had to be converted at a cost of $5B+ and if we want to reach Kanata and Barrhaven, we just keep on adding to that. In addition, Ottawa has been suffering from over a decade of transit disruption on its most critical route.

A bus tunnel would have bought us 20 years and post-pandemic, probably 50 years. There would have been minimal disruption during construction. There was a problem. Instead of focusing on moving people, it also became an urbanist project, that required the removal of all OC buses off of Albert and Slater Streets, with the idea of making them urban paradises. We would have ample capacity for years, by using both a tunnel route and a surface route. But a bus tunnel alone would be at capacity, so that option was automatically eliminated. Total bus removal on the surface became a necessary project requirement. We were going to have a multitude of outdoor cafes all along Albert and Slater. Unfortunately, the buildings are not designed for street facing retail and restaurants and both streets are urban canyons, shaded most of the day. This was never going to happen and it hasn't happened in 5 years since the removal of the bus jam.

A bus tunnel would have freed up a lot of money to make other transit improvements, that would have grown ridership, whether new rail lines or busways. All these other projects have now been indefinitely postponed or simply deleted from the Transportation Master Plan.

What I cannot fathom, is proceeding with projects that were not going to move people faster. Is that not the point of rapid transit investment? And many of the problems that we are seeing were predictable, but why did our decision makers not see it? Part of it, is that they don't use transit, and also, they did not see the limitations of rail in comparison to grade separated BRT. Rail could give you capacity but not faster service. As it turns out, rail offers slower service especially where the old bus jam did not exist. But shiny new trains were irresistible to our politicians and the general public, until they did not meet expectations.

Can you imagine building the Eglinton Crosstown, or the Hurontario LRT or Montreal's REM without some expectations that passengers would be moved faster?

I attended the transit consultations in the late 2000s. It was quite apparent then that any tunnel in the downtown was going to be very difficult. A bus tunnel was going to be exceptionally difficult and expensive. It would have to be much larger and ventilation requirements much higher. $1B would probably have been the starting cost. And that's not cheaper or good value when you consider that all of Stage 1 was $2.1B.

Next, that bus tunnel would be not really have solved capacity issues for 20 years. This was made apparent during their presentations too. And nor were they even confident they could staff and support the number of buses needed to deliver that kind of throughput.

Fundamentally, building a transit line that requires 10 000 pphpd through a downtown core using buses is nuts. You talk about how Toronto would never build a slower Eglinton. Nor would they attempt something crazy like that. The bus tunnel called for OC Transpo to have a fleet as large as the TTC trying to do what most cities do with a metro in an area where tunnel construction required them to build one if them the deepest stations in the country.

Also, it's laughable to suggest that transit would have been better if buses were used instead of constructing the LRT, because they would have applied three savings from LRT. First, those savings are highly dubious since operational budgets would have been a lot higher. Next, Ottawa politicians have never shown any interest in bolstering transit in any way. If there were any savings, I think it's reasonable to assume they would have gone to tax cuts or the police budget.

Finally, you had no issues supporting LRT when it was the old plan that would have benefited your neighbourhood. You seem to have rediscovered your love for buses after the new plan settled on different design for Trillium. You seem to forget how much of a boondoggle that old plan was, designed to boost developer property values rather than cater to the vast, vast majority of transit riders in the city.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

You don't think Ottawa politicians and voters are easy to fool?

Who flip/flopped on transit decisions that cost the city many millions? Who claimed that breaking a signed contract would cost nothing? Who chose untested transit vehicles? Who approved Trillium Line improvements that did not even come close to what was promised?

Who voted in politicians who said they could freeze taxes, or contain tax increases well below inflation without impacting services? Think about Larry O'Brien, and earlier, Mike Harris and now Mark Sutcliffe. The public routinely votes in politicians based on tax policy without considering what would be impacted as a result. Often, there is no discussion of the impacts of tax policy until after an election.

Right. So the voters of Ottawa are getting what they voted for. I fail to see the complaint here. Let's see how much voters learn.

Toronto is a good example. Voters put in Rob Ford on magical promises of building subways without tax increases. After the chaos be caused, they picked John Tory who brought in years of austerity and eventually fed up with that, they've now elected Olivia Chow, Toronto's first left leaning mayor in living memory for most.

Ottawa is still stuck electing politicians who deliver austerity so they are getting what they vote for.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

The only part I don't agree with is that the point of rapid transit investment is to make transit journeys faster. There are plenty of cases when rapid transit systems are upgraded purely for increased capacity. For instance, cities like Paris and Madrid renovated their busiest metro lines to extend the platforms for purely capacity reasons which is an expensive and disruptive project for an underground system. And there are also examples of new city-centre tunnels like the one planned for Munich S-Bahn that are purely to relieve congestion of the current one.

And closer to home, both Montreal and Toronto were forced into building their first RT routes due to insufficient capacity. Buses and streetcars were too short to hold all the riders, and being stuck in congestion meant there was low throughput. Taking transit out of mixed traffic was necessary to create capacity since it allowed the vehicles to be longer and for them to complete more journeys in the same time frame thus moving more people with the reduction of individual journey duration being an incidental side benefit. Since increases in capacity often have this side benefit people tend to draw the association.

In Ottawa's case a BRT with dedicated, grade separated busways is already a form of rapid transit (in terms of speed) so there's no reason to expect rail to offer a speed increase. It's really more similar to a platform length increase in that respect. But I agree with the criticism that the transfers should have been streamlined in a way to reduce speed loss.

Transfers aren't functionally any different than at major TTC hubs. They are alright.

Also the claim that no time is saved at all is dubious. It's based on looking at only the one-seat rides. But this was not service offered throughout the day. It was mostly peak service. And that service was both expensive to run and the very cause of the congestion in the core. Imagine thinking this didn't cause delays:



Overall, post Stage 2, something like 80% of the population will be within 5 km of a station. This means that 80% of the population is within a maximum of an 18 min bus ride to an LRT station. That's very decent coverage. So even with the transfer, most downtown bound riders should net out a few minutes compared to the Transitway days. And they should save a lot more relative to peak time bus congestion which easily added 10-20 mins to any journey most weekdays.

Also, the previous system did real crosstown journeys rather poorly. Was a mix of Transitway and less frequent crosstown routes. They sort of did the job but were definitely going to struggle in a growing city with more crosstown demand. The LRT should do better on this.

Overall, having grown up in Toronto and having experienced OC Transpo in 2012 and today, I think Ottawa residents are whiners. And mostly because they only think of transit in terms of commuting to the core. The rail network being built has plenty of flaws. But it is giving them the basic network needed for a much larger city. The fantasy that they could move a city of 2M exclusively with buses was always ridiculous and was basically only appealing to public servants taking transit from the suburbs to work. I expect the complaints will smooth out after Stage 2 opens and people spend a lot less time on buses.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Transfers aren't functionally any different than at major TTC hubs. They are alright.

Also the claim that no time is saved at all is dubious. It's based on looking at only the one-seat rides. But this was not service offered throughout the day. It was mostly peak service. And that service was both expensive to run and the very cause of the congestion in the core. Imagine thinking this didn't cause delays:



Overall, post Stage 2, something like 80% of the population will be within 5 km of a station. This means that 80% of the population is within a maximum of an 18 min bus ride to an LRT station. That's very decent coverage. So even with the transfer, most downtown bound riders should net out a few minutes compared to the Transitway days. And they should save a lot more relative to peak time bus congestion which easily added 10-20 mins to any journey most weekdays.

Why do you bring this up? This is a very annoying statistic. You present it as coverage, but it really illustrates the degree of the last mile problem. You say an 18 minute bus ride, but what if you have to wait 25 minutes for that bus at the rail station? It has happened to me multiple times. That is where the problem lies. Unreliable transfer on your way home. I know there were capacity problems downtown, that needed resolution, however, I do not see any speed gains as a result of eliminating congestion. That is entirely lost with slow running trains and inefficient transfers.

Also, the previous system did real crosstown journeys rather poorly. Was a mix of Transitway and less frequent crosstown routes. They sort of did the job but were definitely going to struggle in a growing city with more crosstown demand. The LRT should do better on this.

Haven't we made cross-town trips worse? bus to train to bus sometimes to another bus. The current proposed changes, require bus to train to bus to get to the next neighbourhood in my area. A 10 minute bus ride becomes a one hour ordeal. When we create double transfers for routine trips, we are guaranteeing transit unpopularity.

Overall, having grown up in Toronto and having experienced OC Transpo in 2012 and today, I think Ottawa residents are whiners. And mostly because they only think of transit in terms of commuting to the core. The rail network being built has plenty of flaws. But it is giving them the basic network needed for a much larger city. The fantasy that they could move a city of 2M exclusively with buses was always ridiculous and was basically only appealing to public servants taking transit from the suburbs to work. I expect the complaints will smooth out after Stage 2 opens and people spend a lot less time on buses.

Who is saying we should run the system exclusively with buses?

TTC operated with a completely different service model than Ottawa. Toronto runs a frequent bus grid everywhere. Ottawa does not. I don't know why you try to compare. Ottawa's success came about as result of getting rid of legacy streetcars that operated at glacial paces, implementing express buses to move people quickly from the suburbs, and building the Transitways that supported the express bus model. I understand that we reached capacity downtown, however, it is unacceptable that the end result favoured only those who lived within walking distance of rail. This was about blowing away our transit model. We needed much more seamless transfers, which the city failed to deliver. The end result is predictable. I am not so confident about Phase 2, especially relating to the Trillium Line.

[Coldrsx]

Site/pre-lim work is already underway.

---
City names preferred bidder for Capital Line South LRT construction
April 2, 2024

The City of Edmonton has selected its preferred bidder to design and build Phase 1 of the Capital Line South Extension from Century Park to just north of Ellerslie Road.

The preferred bidder is Capital Line Design-Builders, consisting of team members Ledcor and AECOM.

The City will now enter into negotiations with Capital Line Design-Builders with the goal of awarding the contract by the end of May 2024.

Construction of the 4.5-kilometre extension is scheduled to begin later this year. Construction is expected to take four to five years, followed by testing and commissioning.

“We’d like to thank the bidding teams for participating in our procurement. We’re confident our fair and rigorous competitive process will ensure Phase 1 of the Capital Line South Extension will result in excellent value for Edmontonians and further strengthen our mass transit network,” said Bruce Ferguson, Branch Manager of LRT Expansion and Renewal with the City of Edmonton.

The City launched its Capital Line South procurement process in June 2022 and shortlisted two bidders in March 2023. Both bidders provided technical submissions, including draft designs and plans, to demonstrate their ability to meet the City’s rigorous technical requirements. Both bidders passed and were invited to submit a financial proposal. The City evaluated these proposals to ensure they met financial requirements, and the team with the highest combined technical and financial score was selected as the preferred bidder.

Transformational infrastructure projects like Capital Line South play a key role in strengthening our economy and expanding sustainable travel options for Edmontonians. An economic assessment of the project estimates construction will generate $330 million in wages in Alberta and another $100 million throughout the country. The project is expected to generate 3,700 jobs in the province and another 1,700 across Canada.

The $1.1-billion project has funding commitments from the Government of Canada, the Government of Alberta and the City of Edmonton.

For more information:
edmonton.ca/projects_plans/transit/capital-line-south

Media contact:
Jyllian Park
Communications Advisor
Integrated Infrastructure Services
780-554-9001

----

Will add 3 new stops including putting under 23 Avenue (major E-W arterial) and over the TUC and ring road to southern communities. One step closer to YEG!


https://www.edmonton.ca/projects_pla...tal-line-south

[Metro-One]

This is a pretty big nod to the Broadway Subway project!

Originally Posted by officedweller

• Video Link

[J.OT13]

Last week, media was invited to visit a section of the cut-and-cover tunnel being built in Ottawa between Kitchi Sibi Station (formerly Dominion) and Lincoln Fields. The tunnel is being built under a former streetcar alignment, the Byron Linear Park.

In the Transitway days, buses took the Ottawa River Parkway between the two stations, skipping over a well populated area of low rise and high rise apartment towers and single family homes. The tunnel includes two new open air trenched stations.

• Video Link

[Luisito]

Any updates on the Eglinton LRT? Any date given for its opening?

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Any updates on the Eglinton LRT? Any date given for its opening?

last I heard was September 2024.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Luisito

Any updates on the Eglinton LRT? Any date given for its opening?

https://www.thetorontoharold.com

[ClaytonA]

The Surrey Skytrain second contract award was also announced Friday; https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024MOTI0049-000546

Award tracked about 6 months behind their projected schedule of late 2023.
Opposite groups of the roughly similar two groups bidding on the two work packages awarded so far won one contract each.

Here's the project thread; https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/sho...62194&page=396

[Nouvellecosse]

I'm still mad that they decided to paint the LRVs grey trying to make them seem more subway-like. First of all, the subway doesn't need to be colourful because it's mostly hidden. The only place where it spends much time on the surface is in the middle of a freeway. Not the middle of a major street lined with buildings. Second, natural exposed metal is NOT the same as grey paint. Exposed metal has its own austere beauty and texture that paint of a similar colour just doesn't. There's a model of LRVs (P3010) in the LA light rail network that features exposed metal and I like it. They actually do look a bit subway-like but that's also due to being high-floor. Plus that still have some nice accent colour. And that leads to the final issue which is that painting low floor LRVs grey doesn't even make them look subway-ish. The whole is just silly and fake. Either give them streetcar livery since that would at least look good. Or if you insist on subway simulation, make them bare metal, preferably with a touch of red accent paint so they still look good.

But yes, other than that I'm also excited about the opening.

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

https://www.thetorontoharold.com

[Luisito]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm still mad that they decided to paint the LRVs grey trying to make them seem more subway-like. First of all, the subway doesn't need to be colourful because it's mostly hidden. The only place where it spends much time on the surface is in the middle of a freeway. Not the middle of a major street lined with buildings. Second, natural exposed metal is NOT the same as grey paint. Exposed metal has its own austere beauty and texture that paint of a similar colour just doesn't. There's a model of LRVs (P3010) in the LA light rail network that features exposed metal and I like it. They actually do look a bit subway-like but that's also due to being high-floor. Plus that still have some nice accent colour. And that leads to the final issue which is that painting low floor LRVs grey doesn't even make them look subway-ish. The whole is just silly and fake. Either give them streetcar livery since that would at least look good. Or if you insist on subway simulation, make them bare metal, preferably with a touch of red accent paint so they still look good.

But yes, other than that I'm also excited about the opening.

I agree with your comment about the exposed metal look of the subway cars. I see a lot of people online complaining about them and comparing them to European systems. I actually really like the metal look. I agree about the LA lrt too, their high floor LRTs are quite nice!! I think we can learn from the LA system. ANother city that gets unfairly shit on all the time yet few cities are building or have build as much as LA has in recent times.

[niwell]

The grey is a weird choice for sure, but at least most of the line is underground, especially when the u/c western extension eventually opens.

I'm still hoping for a September opening for the Crosstown. The decision to only announce the opening date 3 months prior to service is direct from the Premier's Office and a very annoying choice. At this point I suspect they know a pretty exact date, particularly as testing / training is in full swing. As far as I can guess it's Ford's attempt to do a big "good news" presser claiming he got everything on track. As much as Metrolinx is at fault for things ALL communications have to go through PO prior to release, which is not the norm for something like this.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

I'm still mad that they decided to paint the LRVs grey trying to make them seem more subway-like.

Is that seriously the reason? If so, wow that's stupid.

[GeneralLeeTPHLS]

Originally Posted by niwell

The grey is a weird choice for sure, but at least most of the line is underground, especially when the u/c western extension eventually opens.

I'm still hoping for a September opening for the Crosstown. The decision to only announce the opening date 3 months prior to service is direct from the Premier's Office and a very annoying choice. At this point I suspect they know a pretty exact date, particularly as testing / training is in full swing. As far as I can guess it's Ford's attempt to do a big "good news" presser claiming he got everything on track. As much as Metrolinx is at fault for things ALL communications have to go through PO prior to release, which is not the norm for something like this.

Agreed in full. Although I'm unhappy about this being partly above ground, just because of how logistically problematic that can be with delays across the whole line with traffic, etc. And as much as I know it won't happen, I'd be happy to see the line rebuilt as a subway, because right now I question the capacity of this project going into the 2030's.

[Innsertnamehere]

Eglinton will be fine for capacity, concerns on that front are overblown. The line is capable of 90 second frequencies underground which means it's practical capacity isn't far below that of the Bloor line today, and on a much lower demand curve.

The east surface end of it will be quite low ridership for a long time. There is a ton of residential density in the pipeline out there but much of it is long-term, multi-decade buildouts and is generally deceptively low density compared to how it appears due to there being 0 background population density in the area today and the south side of Eglinton being reserved for employment uses.

I do agree that I would be very surprised if the line doesn't open this year though. There is basically no construction functionally left at this point. It's already visually at the point more or less when the Spadina extension opened with only small cosmetic work left to do.

[Luisito]

How about the FInch line? Is it looking like it will open on time?