Streety McCarface said:
Except it's not a "subway" and doesn't go to its original planned terminal. The point is that the mode of higher-order transit is still up the Air. BRT can (and probably will) be the downgrade the system receives.
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"Subway" is defined as an "underground electric railway". The Eglinton West Subway was originally supposed to be "heavy rail" and underground. The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is "light rail", but it still fits into the definition of an "underground electric railway" or "subway".

The first "subway" in North America, was the Boston Tremont Street Subway opening first on September 1, 1897, using the streetcars of the time. Today, it uses light rail vehicles. See the Green Line at this link.
 
W. K. Lis said:
"Subway" is defined as an "underground electric railway". The Eglinton West Subway was originally supposed to be "heavy rail" and underground. The Eglinton Crosstown LRT is "light rail", but it still fits into the definition of an "underground electric railway" or "subway".

The first "subway" in North America, was the Boston Tremont Street Subway opening first on September 1, 1897, using the streetcars of the time. Today, it uses light rail vehicles. See the Green Line at this link.
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There's a reason I put it in Quotations.

The point was that Metrolinx still cheaped out by not building a heavy rail line. That's okay, but the point was that Hamilton will likely face a similar fate.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Yup. I'm picturing a couple hundred million spent on a BRT system as well as some highway and other Transit Signal Priority upgrades like queue jump lanes in specific locations. My guess list:

- BRT from Mcmaster to Eastgate, including the full reconstruction of both Main and King Sts.
- Transit Signal Priority measures on a few other routes
- Highway 5/6 interchange in Waterdown
- Twinning Highway 6 from the 403 to the airport
- anything left going to upgrading the 403 towards an eventual widening, likely in the form of a few bridge replacements.
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Instead of dumping leftovers into upgrading the 403, it would be better to build a number of Priority Bus corridors across the city. Metrolinx's 2041 plan shows several Priority Bus corridors in Hamilton, might be good to add more.

Jonny5 said:
Is that needed? I know it was constructed with that in mind and bridges built for it, etc... but anytime I've been on it--it's been about five years since I was there--it was operating at about 10% capacity, if not only 5%. Has Mount Hope boomed in population or something?
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YHM is one of the busiest freight airports in Canada, giving it direct 400 series access would definitely sell well as "Open for Business".
 
gibsonm said:
Please don’t spend a cent of that transit money on highways. Hamilton has an excess of highways. Even the streets in the core function as virtual highways because they are one-way arterials. What a disaster. Busways? How second rate.
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Call me silly, but I think that all transit operators should put in BRT like routes to show the demand is there. So, Hamilton should already have dedicated buses running along the BLAST routes. The changes they should have already done should include transit priority signals, queue jumping, and more space between stops, s well as the letters being used.

Ottawa did that and it showed the dire need for something in the central part.

Either that, or the city pay for it all.
 
Towered said:
Maybe Hamilton "deserves" a subway - somebody tell Thug and the bucks will start rolling in!
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I think a subway is overkill except for a one-station hop on the escarpment climb -- a tunnel ramp section of A-Line.

It would make Hamilton LRT climb the escarpment more easily by giving weather protection to the steepest part of a theoretical Hamilton LRT A-Line. The alternate routes can be the James access, but a tunnel ramp would give weather protection to the uphill/downhill climb.

Basically between the Lower City St. Joe Hospital and the transit station at Mohawk College; I napkin-mathed that to be an approximately 5-6 degree slope between the two stations -- this is quite within the capabilities of the LRT, and same angle as planned slope at the CP railroad underpass near Delta -- and near a similar slope angle as Toronto new streetcars on the steepest slopes in Toronto.

Streety McCarface said:
There's a reason I put it in Quotations.
The point was that Metrolinx still cheaped out by not building a heavy rail line. That's okay, but the point was that Hamilton will likely face a similar fate.
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The Elginton Crosstown LRT will be a faster 'subway' (in average speed, stopping time included) than the Yonge subway south of the Bloor Line.

I was on a subway in Paris that used LRT trains and it performed pretty well. Shallow railbed and pantographed, it kinda surprised me. I recall it was far better than Ottawa LRT.

They're perfectly capable of venn-diagram overlapping a subway. Maybe not has high capacity as a heavy rail subway but the light rail subways still can have an average speed faster, if designed well.

Hopefully Metrolinx avoids the mistakes of Ottawa LRT and makes sure that the light rail subway is a well-performing one. Proper European-style traffic priority systems for the surface sections will be key.

But yes, the futher watering-down of the Hamilton LRT, is indeed a potential concern. Such as being built with only single 30 meter LRVs, without 60 meter allowance for many years, and/or loss of dedicated-corridor sections, etc.
 
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gibsonm said:
Please don’t spend a cent of that transit money on highways. Hamilton has an excess of highways. Even the streets in the core function as virtual highways because they are one-way arterials. What a disaster. Busways? How second rate.
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Hamilton's downtown streets should be turned back into streets, from highways. That doesn't preclude converting a highway to 400 series to service a major industrial land site.

LRTs? How second rate. Scarborough deserves a subway. Scarborough won't have the ridership the support a subway, and it is also doubtful that Hamilton will have the ridership to support an LRT.

micheal_can said:
Call me silly, but I think that all transit operators should put in BRT like routes to show the demand is there. So, Hamilton should already have dedicated buses running along the BLAST routes. The changes they should have already done should include transit priority signals, queue jumping, and more space between stops, s well as the letters being used.

Ottawa did that and it showed the dire need for something in the central part.

Either that, or the city pay for it all.
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Yes, cities should do priority bus first, then figure out if BRT would have work for ridership for a life cycle, if not, then do an LRT, but only if BRT won't work.

mdrejhon said:
I think a subway is overkill except for a one-station hop on the escarpment climb -- a tunnel ramp section of A-Line.

It would make Hamilton LRT climb the escarpment more easily by giving weather protection to the steepest part of a theoretical Hamilton LRT A-Line. The alternate routes can be the James access, but a tunnel ramp would give weather protection to the uphill/downhill climb.

Basically between the Lower City St. Joe Hospital and the transit station at Mohawk College; I napkin-mathed that to be an approximately 5-6 degree slope between the two stations -- this is quite within the capabilities of the LRT, and same angle as planned slope at the CP railroad underpass near Delta -- and near a similar slope angle as Toronto new streetcars on the steepest slopes in Toronto.


The Elginton Crosstown LRT will be a faster 'subway' (in average speed, stopping time included) than the Yonge subway south of the Bloor Line.

I was on a subway in Paris that used LRT trains and it performed pretty well. Shallow railbed and pantographed, it kinda surprised me. I recall it was far better than Ottawa LRT.

They're perfectly capable of venn-diagram overlapping a subway. Maybe not has high capacity as a heavy rail subway but the light rail subways still can have an average speed faster, if designed well.

Hopefully Metrolinx avoids the mistakes of Ottawa LRT and makes sure that the light rail subway is a well-performing one. Proper European-style traffic priority systems for the surface sections will be key.

But yes, the futher watering-down of the Hamilton LRT, is indeed a potential concern. Such as being built with only single 30 meter LRVs, without 60 meter allowance for many years, and/or loss of dedicated-corridor sections, etc.
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I'm not sure how well the Niagara Escarpment Commission would feel about tunneling through the Escarpment.
 
gibsonm said:
Please don’t spend a cent of that transit money on highways. Hamilton has an excess of highways. Even the streets in the core function as virtual highways because they are one-way arterials. What a disaster. Busways? How second rate.
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The problem is that if a billion isn't enough for an LRT, it's too much for a BRT.. so you have some left overs. I imagine they'll spend a good chunk of it building a fairly high quality BRT system along King and Main with traffic calming in order to make the streets less highway like, but there will likely still be cash left over. I also believe they are going to try and "spread it around" more, which means some spending on HSR bus fleet, queue jump lanes and transit priority, etc., but also likely a few road projects.
 
mdrejhon said:
The Elginton Crosstown LRT will be a faster 'subway' (in average speed, stopping time included) than the Yonge subway south of the Bloor Line.
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I mean, that's not a very high bar to set, most people would agree that stops are too closely spaced south of Bloor, though, there's no real way to avoid it given the high density of downtown and the layout of the major streets.

Eglinton is a different beast though, it's largely suburban, and has the potential to be very similar to Line 2 in terms of usage (travel patterns and whatnot).

Even though we're probably set on Eglinton for at least a decade, we don't really know what travel patterns are going to be like 20, 30+ years beyond that. Eglinton has a lot of potential to change, and they went with a low floor vehicle design.
mdrejhon said:
I was on a subway in Paris that used LRT trains and it performed pretty well. Shallow railbed and pantographed, it kinda surprised me. I recall it was far better than Ottawa LRT.

They're perfectly capable of venn-diagram overlapping a subway. Maybe not has high capacity as a heavy rail subway but the light rail subways still can have an average speed faster, if designed well.

Hopefully Metrolinx avoids the mistakes of Ottawa LRT and makes sure that the light rail subway is a well-performing one. Proper European-style traffic priority systems for the surface sections will be key.

But yes, the futher watering-down of the Hamilton LRT, is indeed a potential concern. Such as being built with only single 30 meter LRVs, without 60 meter allowance for many years, and/or loss of dedicated-corridor sections, etc.
Click to expand...
High floor is always better for Rapid transit, Paris is no exception.

Hopefully few things are tampered with, but only time will tell.
 
The next election is in 2022. This project needs to be kept in the public eye until then. It's crucial to get commitments from the Liberals and NDP to build it should either of them manage to win in 2 years so that this can be re-started immediately. I asked earlier - was all the design work completed, making the LRT shovel-ready should funding suddenly be available?
 
Towered said:
The next election is in 2022. This project needs to be kept in the public eye until then. It's crucial to get commitments from the Liberals and NDP to build it should either of them manage to win in 2 years so that this can be re-started immediately. I asked earlier - was all the design work completed, making the LRT shovel-ready should funding suddenly be available?
Click to expand...

In essence, this project is delayed, not cancelled.
 
innsertnamehere said:
The problem is that if a billion isn't enough for an LRT, it's too much for a BRT.. so you have some left overs. I imagine they'll spend a good chunk of it building a fairly high quality BRT system along King and Main with traffic calming in order to make the streets less highway like, but there will likely still be cash left over. I also believe they are going to try and "spread it around" more, which means some spending on HSR bus fleet, queue jump lanes and transit priority, etc., but also likely a few road projects.
Click to expand...
the thing about the Hamilton LRT is, a large chunk of the money is being spent on neglected infrastructure that Hamilton didn't feel like maintaining

Towered said:
The next election is in 2022. This project needs to be kept in the public eye until then. It's crucial to get commitments from the Liberals and NDP to build it should either of them manage to win in 2 years so that this can be re-started immediately. I asked earlier - was all the design work completed, making the LRT shovel-ready should funding suddenly be available?
Click to expand...
The design work isn't done, the contract that was supposed to go out included design.
 
Wm Perkins Bull said:
the thing about the Hamilton LRT is, a large chunk of the money is being spent on neglected infrastructure that Hamilton didn't feel like maintaining


The design work isn't done, the contract that was supposed to go out included design.
Click to expand...

That's why all the paper work, computer files, MUST be duplicated and kept in a safe place. The Conservatives are known for destroying plans and models, based on the past experience, such as the Avro Arrow (but did supply expertise to NASA). See link.
 
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