[ericmacm]

City of London is considering changing the designation of where the future North BRT corridor is going to be located, switching it to Wharncliffe/Western Road instead of utilizing Richmond Street north of Oxford. I personally think this is the right move since Richmond north of Oxford has lots of houses fronting out onto the street, and the road allowance is very narrow. Building a proper BRT on that corridor would involve a lot of expropriation for road realignment, and would likely meet more resistance. The Wharncliffe/Western Road corridor is much wider, the road is less awkward, and it would run right through the middle of Western.

The deputy mayor has also stated in the article that they are looking to explore additional BRT corridors, including suggestions of an East BRT extension along Oxford to YXU, and a longer West BRT corridor along Oxford to West 5 (Oxford/Westdel Bourne). They are looking to leverage the annual federal transit funding that is supposed to come online in 2026 (provided a potential new government doesn’t immediately remove this funding).

 

[micheal_can]

City of London is considering changing the designation of where the future North BRT corridor is going to be located, switching it to Wharncliffe/Western Road instead of utilizing Richmond Street north of Oxford. I personally think this is the right move since Richmond north of Oxford has lots of houses fronting out onto the street, and the road allowance is very narrow. Building a proper BRT on that corridor would involve a lot of expropriation for road realignment, and would likely meet more resistance. The Wharncliffe/Western Road corridor is much wider, the road is less awkward, and it would run right through the middle of Western.

The deputy mayor has also stated in the article that they are looking to explore additional BRT corridors, including suggestions of an East BRT extension along Oxford to YXU, and a longer West BRT corridor along Oxford to West 5 (Oxford/Westdel Bourne). They are looking to leverage the annual federal transit funding that is supposed to come online in 2026 (provided a potential new government doesn’t immediately remove this funding).

Sadly they won't use both corridors. The Richmond one would allow expansion to Masionville easily. Warncliffe and Western Rds makes sense.

 

[ericmacm]

Sadly they won't use both corridors. The Richmond one would allow expansion to Masionville easily. Warncliffe and Western Rds makes sense.

The Wharncliffe/Western road corridor will still allow for this - Richmond and Western intersect north of the campus and from there it is just a short trip up to Masonville, which they are still planning as the terminus of the North BRT. It wouldn’t really be any different than what will happen at Highbury/Oxford on the East BRT corridor.

The Richmond corridor has less options for TOD, there are too many houses along the road, and they would also have to reconstruct the bridge over the Thames. It would come at a much higher cost for lower gain.

 

[duffo]

As it currently stands, existing bus service between Western U and downtown London that use Richmond seems to be a few mins faster than comparable routes down Western Rd/Wharncliffe. At only 5km, I would say the opportunity for meaningful time savings of dedicated lanes would be somewhat limited. The city should really think about if they want to pour money into a Wharncliffe BRT which would be less direct and basically provide comparable travel times to existing mixed-traffic routes on Richmond.

To meaningfully reduce travel times for Western students/staff, it may make more sense in this case to just do some targeted transit priority measures along Richmond, while beefing up the service frequency to reduce wait times.

On the other hand, one advantage of the Wharncliffe alignment would be that riders on the future West London BRT travelling to Western U wouldn't need to travel into downtown to transfer onto the northbound BRT route, and instead could transfer at Oxford/Wharncliffe.

 

[micheal_can]

The Wharncliffe/Western road corridor will still allow for this - Richmond and Western intersect north of the campus and from there it is just a short trip up to Masonville, which they are still planning as the terminus of the North BRT. It wouldn’t really be any different than what will happen at Highbury/Oxford on the East BRT corridor.

The Richmond corridor has less options for TOD, there are too many houses along the road, and they would also have to reconstruct the bridge over the Thames. It would come at a much higher cost for lower gain.

Fair point.
For TOD, generally,I have seen smaller lots bought up one by one and then something bigger built on them. London is still coming to grips with being a big city and planning for that future. Reminds me of Mississauga.

 

[Haljackey]

The north leg won't happen unless the BRT can run on it's own lane. The old Wharncliffe plan had it running in mixed traffic on it's way to downtown. Western Road was recently widened to 4 lanes, so people either need to accept losing that new lane to the bus, or widen again which would need a rail overpass replacement that was just replaced ~10 years ago.

I need to see the routing, and what they plan to do with the mixed traffic section on Wharncliffe before I am waking up to reviving the extremely disliked north leg.

 

[micheal_can]

The north leg won't happen unless the BRT can run on it's own lane. The old Wharncliffe plan had it running in mixed traffic on it's way to downtown. Western Road was recently widened to 4 lanes, so people either need to accept losing that new lane to the bus, or widen again which would need a rail overpass replacement that was just replaced ~10 years ago.

I need to see the routing, and what they plan to do with the mixed traffic section on Wharncliffe before I am waking up to reviving the disliked north leg.

Is it any better than going up Richmond?

 

[Haljackey]

Is it any better than going up Richmond?

I assume yes since they're trying again with this route?

Running the north leg up Richmond would have lost a lane for sure, and that was extremely disliked by pretty much everyone. Richmond also has a rail level crossing near Oxford Street where super long, slow freight trains block the road, messing up travel times and schedules. A underpass was looked at for the LRT plan but dismissed due to cost and construction complexity. The BRT plan kept the level crossing, and again pretty much everyone disliked that.

 

[ssiguy2]

The original idea of having LRT/BRT up Richmond was so stupid one knows hardly where to start.

The LRT would have required digging up Richmond Row and demolishing several old buildings in the process. RR is the city's premier shopping, restaurant, and nighlife area and would have destroyed many of the businesses along the route. The tunnel was needed to get under the rail crossing near Richmond. The BRT wouldn't have a tunnel and therefore was at the whim of the freight line which would make the system unreliable. In both cases, Richmond, especially north of Pall Mall, all the way up to Western is far too thin.

Wharncliff/Western Rd should have been the first choice as the rail corridor has a bridge over Wharncliff and would be vastly easier to combine with a western leg towards Hyde Park which also is a more populated road with a lot of apt towers and infill opportunities. The North/West legs could have been interlined. The further expansion of the East Leg to London aairport is a good idea as the area is also home to a lot of commercial/industrial employment.

 

[micheal_can]

The original idea of having LRT/BRT up Richmond was so stupid one knows hardly where to start.

The LRT would have required digging up Richmond Row and demolishing several old buildings in the process. RR is the city's premier shopping, restaurant, and nighlife area and would have destroyed many of the businesses along the route. The tunnel was needed to get under the rail crossing near Richmond. The BRT wouldn't have a tunnel and therefore was at the whim of the freight line which would make the system unreliable. In both cases, Richmond, especially north of Pall Mall, all the way up to Western is far too thin.

Wharncliff/Western Rd should have been the first choice as the rail corridor has a bridge over Wharncliff and would be vastly easier to combine with a western leg towards Hyde Park which also is a more populated road with a lot of apt towers and infill opportunities. The North/West legs could have been interlined. The further expansion of the East Leg to London aairport is a good idea as the area is also home to a lot of commercial/industrial employment.

The challenge is that it is surface or nothing. The other challenge is that any disruptions are bad disruptions.
There are places surface RT makes sense,and there are places where a tunnel RT makes sense. RR is an example of where it should be a tunnel. It is also a place where a TBM could be used to minimize the disruptions. But, since they are trying to do RT on the cheap, it is a non starter.

 

[Haljackey]

Using a TBM for BRT seems absurd to me.

Go LRT or full subway if you're doing that. If you were you should be tunneling through all of downtown/Richmond Row- at least from Oxford Street to York Street where the Via Rail station is makes the most sense (via Richmond & Clarence Streets).

Extensions for the approved routes are already planned.
-The east leg is going to the airport- it may run in mixed traffic for now but that's not really a problem as Oxford east of Fanshawe College isn't that busy. Eventually it can run on it's own lanes.
-The south leg will go from White Oaks Mall to south of the 401 ending at a commuter parking lot. This will also be close to the new Costco. Costco may not be that practical for transit users, but it's a cool place for carpoolers as you can pull off a Costco run while you're switching to car.

 

[Lachlan Holmes]

How about some photos of actual construction progress for a bit of a change?

Here are some taken along Wellington between Montgomery Gate and Dearness Drive (White Oaks Mall area) this afternoon:

 

[Lachlan Holmes]

Pictures taken this afternoon in and around the intersection of Oxford and Highbury, which is about half a kilometre west of the edge of the main campus of Fanshawe College. This intersection has been a particular zoo through the construction but was even worse today since the active travels lanes along Highbury just this morning shifted from the west (old) side of the street to the east (newly built) side of the street. Many a car ignoring the traffic cones and driving right through the construction to get in Oxbury plaza on the southwest corner of the intersection!

PS: I think it's probably time to update the thread title to indicate that this is under construction — while not all legs of the system are being built right now, the parts that are under construction (or are completed, which I haven't gotten around to photographing yet) are decidedly beyond the "in-design" phase.

Looking east along Oxford:

Looking west along Oxford:

Looking east down Oxford to the intersection itself:

Still looking at the intersection, but now looking north up Highbury:

Looking east towards a platform for the BRT located along Highbury immediately before the route turns east onto Oxford (towards Fanshawe College). In background is (part of) the site of the former London Psychiatric Hospital, which is now slated to become Old Oak's "Legacy Village":

Looking south down Highbury. I think I managed to catch a car driving through the closed section to get into the plaza in each one of these:

Looking further south down Highbury:

Now we're back up at the intersection and looking north up Highbury, as seen from the NE corner:

Looking east down Oxford from the SE corner of the intersection. Not much construction has taken place east of the intersection, only about 50 metres or so — that is coming in one of the upcoming phases of construction (maybe the immediate next phase?):

Finally, two last looks west down Oxford, as seen from the SE corner:

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Thanks so much for posting these. As a former Western student who was there during the fight for RT, glad to see it happening.

 

[ericmacm]

I was reading a London Free Press article this morning discussing the City of London’s traffic congestion ranking. In addition to posting the article, I will post the source - TomTom’s Traffic Ranking Index. This index uses GPS data to determine the most congested cities globally (based on the approximate time taken to travel 10 km). The most recent ranking is from 2023 data.

When you set the filter to North America, from a city-centre perspective, London is ranked as the 12th most congested city in North America, and the 5th most congested metro area in North America. Canadian cities are disproportionately represented at the top of the North American metro list, occupying 8 of the top 10 spots.

Additional data from the City, presented in the article, shows that Wonderland/Oxford, Commissioners/Wellington, Oxford/Highbury, Southdale/Wellington, and Fanshawe Park/Richmond are the most congested intersections in the city, ranging from around 65,000 to 73,000 AADT. I think this obviously continues to show that there is an incredible need for the completion of the full BRT system, in addition to further extensions and/or spurs. I still think they should have gone for a full LRT system instead, but that ship sailed long ago.