Shift: London's Rapid Transit Initiative
 

So I thought Shift London should have it's own thread as they are really moving forward planning and speaking to upper levels of government for funding of Rapid Transit for London...

London mayor Matt Brown makes case in Ottawa for transit cash

Transit funding is high on the agenda this week as Matt Brown represents London as mayor for the first time in the nation’s capital.

Brown, the first-term mayor, is joined in Ottawa by other mayors from large Ontario cities, who together will push the federal government for more funding to meet municipal needs.

Transit will be Brown’s top priority — specifically, the rapid-transit plan that’s arguably the No. 1 mandate of his early tenure as mayor.

“We need all levels of government to partner on this groundbreaking project,” Brown said Tuesday in an interview from Ottawa.

London’s long-term transit overhaul, still in its infancy, could cost between $300 and $400 million. City hall wants the provincial and federal levels of government to each pay one-third of that tab.

Though it’s his first visit to Ottawa as mayor, Brown arrived keenly aware of the political context he was entering Tuesday.

“We’re heading into an election period and we want to make sure all parties are aware of our priority,” he said.

“Congestion hurts our economy, our public safety, our quality of life, our environment. We can do better.”

London, he noted, is expected to grow by about 77,000 people over the next two decades, making transit and traffic increasingly important issues.

Shift, the name of city hall’s transit plan, is in an early stage — a two-year environmental assessment, during which public input is collected. After just a few months, about 4,000 Londoners have already chimed in.

The resulting rapid-transit system could include light rail, rapid bus routes or a combination of both.

It fits, too, with other priorities Brown brought to the mayor’s office, including a renewed emphasis on downtown revitalization.

As part of the Large Urban Mayors Caucus of Ontario, Brown is in Ottawa for two days to advocate for urban issues, including transit cash but also affordable housing and police/fire costs.

Thursday, he’ll be in Toronto with council colleagues Phil Squire and Jesse Helmer, who sit on the London Transit Commission, along with city and LTC officials to study its rapid-transit plans.

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please light rail. not brt.

Totally agree.

I'm all for this project, it has the potential to transform many depressed/mediocre areas for the better. It is the equivalent of building an in-city freeway for our time!

While the cost will be a big issue, IMO the level of expropriation required for it will be the real battle. Having to sell the required taxes to fund it, plus telling x amount of people they're going to lose their property and thus won't benefit from it. Council will have to have a pair of ball, not buckle to the pressure and ram it though.

As well the proposed routing, while I'm fine with it, logically goes along the busy, intense routes I can see some areas being pissed/ SW and NW areas, that don't directly benefit from it and will be hard to sell why they should pay for other areas to have RT while they still have (sub)standard transit.

I was pretty excited to see the “Shift” banner on the rail overpass just west of Wonderland on Oxford on Saturday. I think it’s great branding, and I’m pleased to see them trying to attract attention. My wife (who is not from London and is generally even more pessimistic about the city than I am) asked me if it was “for real,” or if it would “fizzle out.” I wasn’t sure what to tell her.

I don’t think appropriation will be a big obstacle either; some pockets may be able to organize and get some attention, but generally it’s hard to get anyone excited about someone else losing part of his front lawn. Especially as suburbanites are generally the most important constituency, and won’t feel a lot of sympathy for property owners on Oxford or Wellington. The cost will be it: it will be easy to get people upset about the prospect of paying more tax for transit when they haven’t taken the bus in their life. Expect organized “taxpayers’” organizations of varying levels of credibility.

That’s why BRT is right for London. For $300 million, London can relatively quickly install two rapid transit lines stretching across the city. If you insist on LRT, the price tag will be more like $1 billion, it will be much shorter (read less useful to fewer people), and it will feel to a lot more people like a high-price-tag shuttle between the university and the downtown.

On the shiftlondon.ca web site, there is a survey asking for the respondent’s “preferred route” of a total of ten different options. Some of these seem immediately pointless (London does not need rapid transit to the airport, for instance), but if this helps them to say that there is real demand for the most important line (north-south from Masonville to White Oaks), so much the better. There are several proposed lines in the southwest, though I would imagine it’s pretty unlikely that there is the density there to support higher-order transit.

Happy to see "London" really pushing for this and asking for help and money from upper government levels. That was always part of the issue, people talked about it internally it seemed but never really got talking about it to the right people.

I really hope we see LRT and that should be the main push as it is the best route in the long run. Certainly a mix of BRT routes might make sense as well.

Looking forward to hearing more about this.

Smartmoves

Rethink London

Shift

Let's just get something planned so when upper levels of government are ready to spend we have a project ready to go. I don't really care what it is at this point.
-Look at Mississauga. The feds didn't commit money to their Hurontario LRT project in their budget and the province decided to fund it themselves.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Wake up London.

I agree, London should just get something down on paper so that, when another level of government is looking for projects to fund, this one is “shovel-ready” as they like to say. Hurontario LRT was a bit of a different story since Metrolinx offered a lot of guidance and there is a funding pot. But there is a pot of money earmarked for the “rest of Ontario” under Moving Ontario Forward, so maybe London should go for that.

Even if another level of government would 100%-fund an LRT in London (which they won’t), it would be challenging to get it implemented. In Hamilton (which has a pretty detailed plan for LRT, paid for with good money), not everyone is convinced the city should get it, even with 100% funding from the province.

London should emulate Grand River Transit and implement express bus routes with the view that they will serve to demonstrate the viability of LRT on one very important line. You can get BRT implemented pretty quickly, and get people accustomed to the idea and utility of rapid transit pretty quickly after that.

From the LFP (May 23)

City hall recommending pair of corridors to serve as spines of London's proposed rapid-transit system

In a city with about 40 transit routes, the future may be built around two main corridors.

London’s $380-million vision for a rapid-transit system is coming into sharper focus, with city hall set to announce a pair of L-shaped routes that would be the heart of the massive overhaul, The Free Press has learned.

The so-called “preferred corridors” — recommended over several options after city officials gathered input from thousands of citizens — would run:

From the Masonville Place area along Richmond St., past Western University to the core, and east to Fanshawe College.
From the White Oaks Mall area along Wellington Rd. to the core, and west to the intersection of Wonderland Rd. and Oxford St.
So-called transit villages, areas where more intense development is planned, would pop up along those routes.

Other traditional routes would be designed to feed those two main paths, so even commuters not along them would have quick access.

The system would run along King St. in the core, making the downtown stretch of Dundas St. bus-free.

A focus on feeding into downtown London is a key part of the proposed transit blueprint, which Mayor Matt Brown says is the lifeblood of the vision for targeted growth outlined in the London Plan.

“There is no London Plan without rapid transit,” Brown said.

And there’s no rapid transit if it isn’t rapid — a challenge created by the level rail crossings that have long frustrated city drivers and snarled traffic.

So the transit plan’s next phase offers another new option: a transit-only tunnel that could be dug under the tracks cutting across Richmond St. just north of Richmond Row.

The tunnel would run from Central Ave. to north of Oxford St. Cars would veer around its openings and remain on Richmond St.

As these plans develop, they do so in the shadow of a massive price tag, in the hundreds of millions of dollars. About $100 million of that would be needed from city hall, with much of that coming from development charges.

The rest would be sought from the provincial and federal governments — both of whom have indicated money for these kinds of municipal projects will be available. The Ontario government, for example, has earmarked $15 billion for transportation investment outside Toronto, its suburbs and Hamilton. So securing the money is a reasonable possibility, at this point, for London.

But the creation of the plan is just like a cross-city commute: faster is better.

In January, the mayor announced the start of Shift, an environmental assessment that sets the stage for rapid transit. Its early priority has been gathering citizen input.

In five months, 6,500 people have weighed in. While making people less car-reliant and aiding the environment are important issues, the feedback suggests the top priority for Londoners is creating a faster, more comfortable service.

Shift’s second stage of public consultation starts next week, with public meetings at which the two recommended main routes will be made public.

The proposed rapid-transit system may include light rail, rapid bus routes or a combination of both. City hall is expected to recommend which technology to use by year’s end.

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PUBLIC MEETINGS

City hall wants to hear from Londoners as the second stage of its public consultations on a proposed rapid-transit system ramps up. Two meetings are slated for next week:

Thursday, 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Western Fair Agriplex
Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Goodwill centre, 255 Horton St. E.
Go to shiftlondon.ca for details

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Also, there will be 2 PICs about Shift. One on May 28 and one May 30.

I plan on attending the May 28th one.

http://www.shiftlondon.ca/events?utm_campaign=pic_2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=shiftlondon

Good map and routes. If only it were light rail.

Light rail is still being considered. Just keep pushing for it at every possibility and keep hoping.

If it's LRT, would the Southern section use the LPS Rail Corridor?

Also, they want to build a tunnel under Richmond from Oxford to Central..............that will take up a good chunk of the $380 million. That's a hell of a price just to avoid one set of railway tracks.

If this system does just travel on the regular roadways how fast can it be? Not only is London littered with lights but also it's roads are quite thin making fast speeds very difficult.

It is good to see the mayor getting behind this 100% and he seems determined to make sure that the plan comes to fruition and isn't just another study to collect dust.

The proposed tunnel is quite the idea/concept. Whether BRT or LRT the CPR tracks at Richmond are a bottleneck for all traffic. Surprised the recommend a tunnel that long. While and underpass is much needed there, would've thought it be better to make an underpass/tunnel for all traffic? If the city is committing to spending $100s of millions on infrastructure to bypass rail lines kill 2 birds with one stone.

I highly doubt the old LPS tracks would be used. CN still owns and uses the tracks. The Wye that use to go downtown, was reconfigured to go away from downtown to the classification yards. The LPS tracks veer away from Wellington and go though Westminster Ponds and other low ridership areas.

It's still on the table. They're just being smarter about it than Waterloo was.

What do you mean by that?

Hey, Waterloo has shovels in the ground and will have trains running in 2017 so I wouldn't say that Waterloo hasn't been smart.

I'm talking about the rollout, not construction.

In Waterloo years ago, decision makers (politicians, planners, sr.management, etc) started talking about building a rapid transit system and in the same breath would mention "light rail", which is the most expensive alternative by far. What seemed to get forgotten was that an EA had to be done in order to select the mode and route - not a decree by those in power. When lo and behold the EA results basically mimicked what had been earlier mentioned, it rightly or wrongly gave many ratepayers the impression that the EA process was merely a formality (polite word for whitewash) and the results were always going to be a foregone conclusion: the "elites" were determined to build a multibillion monument to their vanity - public process, or opinion, be damned.

This began to generate a groundswell of local opposition in Waterloo Region to the project that exists to this day. London is being smarter by not discussing one preference over another until the EA is over and whatever recommendation that comes out of it is defensible. For any decision maker in London to stand up right now and be seen as pushing the light rail solution before a defensible case for it or another solution can be made through the EA process, could very well kill the project cold before the EA even is complete, as it's likely a similar groundswell of opposition will come out of the woodwork just as it did in Waterloo.

If what you're saying is true: awesome. I fear that it will end up simply being a BRT though. I suppose we'll just have to hold our breath and see what comes.

I think you are overstating the local opposition to LRT. A project of that size will always have opponents, but I would say that there is broad support for LRT in Waterloo. During the last municipal elections, there were several candidates who campaigned strongly on an anti-Ion platform, and were defeated resoundingly.

The original EA in Waterloo examined a number of possible technologies. I tend to agree that LRT seemed a foregone conclusion, though, which is a shame: these processes should obviously be technology agnostic. BRT is the better choice in many places (including, probably, London).

I remember how LRT was pushed in K/W, but from my memory it was the politicians who were doing the pushing. In fact, I was in Kitchener the day it was first brought forward and I remember that Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr was the major proponent behind LRT.

Contrast that to London, where it was the transit system who was completely writing off LRT and bringing forth different variations of BRT, and for the most part the politicians spoke little about it, at least not much until the last year or so.
Fast forward to January 2015 where Matt Brown mentioned for the first time "Rapid Transit" and not mentioning bus or light rail.

So in each city it has been a different story. I have to applaud K/W for pushing it through. It wasn't easy as they had the election where politicians were campaigning against it, but voters voted pro-LRT people in office.

The timeline of London's system will be interesting as we are so much farther behind Hamilton, Mississauga, K/W, Ottawa and Toronto. I don't see how we have shovels in the ground for several years. Wait until plans come forth and the city has to deal with NIMBYs from all angles - and to be fair they should be listened to in a major ordeal like building rapid transit.

If London ever had a chance for massive transit improvement, it is now and it is with the group of progressives we voted in.

No matter how much you sugarcoat BRT, it's still bus service.

There are many people / demographics that simply won't use it because it's a bus. LRT is at least somewhat similar to subways, where there is more of a mix of a city's classes / social demographics.

I tend to agree with this as well, granted anything "rapid" at this point would be great but I really do feel LRT is essentially required for those main corridors outlined. Also to have LRT to the airport would be amazing, right now you take a $30+ cab ride to get downtown which is less than ideal. We have vendors flying in often and its not a convenient place to get in/out of at the moment.

You can then have some BRT mixed into connecting points at the main hubs as well as standard services.

I also agree with what GreatTall says about "If London ever had a chance for massive transit improvement, it is now and it is with the group of progressives we voted in" glad to see a plan getting put into place, and not at a snails pace. Keeping the public informed and urging people to participate is great to see.

This. Very much. Grade-separated LRT is going to be swifter, more comfortable and less stigmatized, albeit far more expensive. BRT is busing.

Not to preach here, but I would say that now is the time for people who are interested in LRT to attend the Shift Meetings and make it known that we want LRT for the city. It's the people who attend these meetings and give input that will make the difference.

I know I have talked to city hall's top planner "off the record" and he is very much supportive of LRT over BRT. A year ago we were basically stuck in BRT mode, but with the new council, LRT could be a reality.

I plan to be at one of these on Thursday. :cheers:

Ha, right after I wrote that post, I went to Williams on Dundas to have a coffee and John Fleming (Head of Planning), Edward Soldo (Shift) & Kelly Paleczny (GM of LTC) were sitting at a table discussing rapid transit.

And did you overhear anything haha??

Talking a lot about transit and the London Plan. Also were talking about a hybrid system - part brt and lrt. I was too far away to get details and it would have been awkward to sit at the same table. ;)

I'm good with a hybrid. Lays the foundations for the future. I'll be at the Saturday Shift meeting. I agree about the current city staff sentiment. Privately, they all know LRT is the way to go. The problem is how to sell it to the public.

For those who have a strong a priori preference for LRT over BRT and are interested in transit, I recommend Jared Walker's book "Human Transit," and his blog of the same name. It is a great discussion of the basics of transit, and has some really thought-provoking arguments about technology agnosticism, and the need to look at goals before deciding on a technology to use.


To my mind, the main distinguishing characteristics of LRT as opposed to BRT are that some people seem to like it a lot more, and that it is a lot more expensive. The former is not really a characteristic, and I’m tempted to believe that mainly follows from the latter.

Assuming that there is a limit to the amount of money that can be spent on London’s rapid transit system, which there is, choosing LRT means choosing to serve fewer riders and cover less area. LRT may well be the right technology for the areas that need better service, but if it is, the price tag will not be $300 million. And to assume LRT is the right choice because “BRT is just buses” and “people like LRT more” seems rash.

What happens if, with the budget that is politically supportable, you can do BRT on both a 9-kilometre Oxford line and a 15-kilometre Richmond/Wellington line, or LRT on just the first? Would the right choice be LRT, even if it serves half the riders? Ultimately, that’s the choice that’s being made- to serve fewer riders- when a more expensive technology is chosen.

Well, I would say that since LRT is a more permenant mode of transportation than say buses, the city will get more benefit because land uses around transit stations will be of higher order. Also, in my opinion, it is much more comfortable, quieter and more desirable to ride a train vs a bus. Would you personally rather ride on a Via train or bus to Toronto? I do agree that some areas might lack if we heavily invest in LRT, but I would rather start building the right solution rather than builidng the wrong technology and therefore not benefiting from the increased ridership we would see with LRT.

Lastly, I wish the city would stop throwing around the number $300 or $380 millon as a total cost. Let's price out LRT for both routes and choose LRT as the technology we want. Then we go to the Ontario government for funding. I would rather ask for $800 million and get $500 million than set our sights too low and wish we had asked for more. Hamilton today got $1 billion for their system Why not ask for a similar amount? I can assure you that future governments will not be spending this kind of money on transit in the future so we get "one kick at the can" at this. Let's do it right the first time rather then regret it.

Interesting posts!

Luckily, we can look at K-W as they are the guinea pig of LRT construction in a city of similar size.

My beef with the LRT-BRT argument is that if other cities are getting LRT (Kitchener, Hamilton, Mississauga, etc.), why should London miss out? Sure the urban geography and demographics are factors, but surely we can fight for it if we had the political willpower, surely?

No question both have pro's and con's for me the main difference is up front cost vs long term benefit and cost. No question BRT is the cheaper in up front costs, however long term they end up being pretty close after you factor in employees, running costs and ridership.

In the long run I just see LRT as a much better solution for London, that said the study will answer what "they" feel is the better long term solution for London.

It’s not true that LRT is inherently more comfortable than BRT. Buses are getting better and better and more and more comfortable. If your LTC route has had thirty-year-old buses on it, you can be forgiven for thinking that it’s not the case, but the new buses (and especially on their own well-maintained rights-of-way) can be very comfortable rides. It’s also not true that LRT is more permanent- quality BRT has attractive stations and rights-of-way that are significant capital investments, too, and unlikely to be picked up and moved once implemented.

To answer your question, when I lived in London I took Greyhound a lot more often than Via when going to Toronto. The reason was they had twice as many departures and were about half the price!

Ok we can agree to disagree.

I actually think that it makes a lot of sense to have both BRT and LRT. I believe that a full-fledged BRT system like what was built in Ottawa would likely be a mistake; however, upgraded limited-stop routes occupy a useful niche between full rapid transit and regular bus routes. The success of the iXpress has increased the certainty that Ion will be a success here in KW, and the expansion of the iXpress is a key part of the transit strategy here.

Ok, just for fun let's say that London gets funding for 1 BRT line and 1 LRT line. Out of the 2 proposed RT routes, which one gets BRT and which one gets LRT? I am guessing the Northeast (Masonville to Downtown to Fanshawe) gets LRT.

You guessed the way I would (well I live in the North[west], so there's that too).

I would guess the same thing.

Absolutely the Masonville to Downtown to Fanshawe should get the LRT if there was only one, I will continue to mention the need for future expansion to include the airport on that line.

I am hoping to be able to attend the Saturday meeting, anyone else going aside from haljackey on Thursday??

Definitely the Richmond portion is most important; I would say the most important line would be a north-south connecting White Oaks in the south to Masonville in the north.

I don't get these 'L' lines: aren't straight lines much more logical? Additionally, White Oaks and Wellington have very strong ridership.

I will be attending the Thursday event. And HillStreetBlues, I have to agree with you, I don't understand the "L" shaped corridors either. To me it makes more sense to mimic the 90 and 91 express routes. The only reason I can think possibly for the L shaped corridor is so the city can have LRT on the Northeast corridor. They can sell this to the province and to citizens easier as it would service Masonville to UWO to Downtown to Fanshawe (with 2 hospitals being served as well) - servicing both post secondary institutions with the downtown is the key. The only problem with the above scenario is that the Northeast corridor is 13 kms long. Hamilton was just given $1 billion for 11 kms & a GO station. I don't know the costing, but $300-$400 million won't take us far, especially when you factor in the tunnel idea from Victoria Park to past Richmond. The more I think about it, I am guessing it's BRT for us.

Luckily London is outside the GTHA and will have access to a different pot of money than Hamilton. So they will likely be able to get more money based on population proportionality of the outer GTHA. Basically outside the GTHA major commitments would be Ottawa, London and Windsor.

I think that the combination of light Rail and HSR service (corridor) would transform London from the relative backwater that it is currently into something awesome.

I was wondering what the headway on that LRT will be?

My only experience with BRT was in Mexico City. On the positive side, it was very comfortable and the buses were smooth riding. On the negative side, in the more central part of the city, it was very slow compared to the subway, as it had to cross many major thoroughfares at-grade. That's where London has the right idea about putting in a grade separation on Richmond at the tracks.

Express buses can suffer from the same problem: even if there's a dedicated lane, they depend on traffic lights and waiting for traffic on crossing thoroughfares.

That's true of light rail as well. Both can use signal priorities to alleviate this problem.

One of the express bus routes in Vancouver is said by the transit authority to be so crowded with buses, that there would be simply no point to buy more buses for that route because they would keep leapfrogging each other. Its also said to be the most busy bus route in North America

That's route 95 in Ottawa. Probably by a long shot. Will be losing that title next month though as the 95 is being split into two separate routes with skip-stop operation. Both routes will then in turn be replaced by grade separated LRT in the core section in 2018.

London, and all other cities, should take cautious note of Ottawa's experiences. BRT proved to be a great and cheap way to build a rapid transit system but in the end it drove operational costs through the roof and is painfully overcrowded forcing conversion to LRT at great expense and disruption.