And yet the Red Hill was built.

We can’t seriously see a tunnel as both too deep AND too disruptive on the surface.

With that said, I’ll see if I can find what the grade was going to be for the ICTS tunnel somewhere; bear in mind though that ICTS was going to be a straight shot in line with James St, while I think it’s pretty clear any modern project should serve Mohawk College directly.
 
I think the loss of the Claremont Access for over half a year without the city going insane may give a good clue on what could be repurposed. Sure that slope does not exceed 6%, probably much less.
 
Some news here. Posted today: https://www.metrolinx.com/en/news/important-steps-taken-towards-progressing-the-hamilton-lrt

"Important steps taken towards progressing the Hamilton LRT: City two-way conversion of Main Street enables refining the Hamilton LRT route for the better."

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This confuses me. It drops the reconstruction of the Longwood bridge as a "savings" - but it's at end of life and needs to be reconstructed anyway.

Then it adds the reconstruction of the Main St bridge instead, which looks like it's in generally fine condition.

Then it mentions that it will enable "highway widening" - but the Main St bridge looks like it could accommodate an extra lane on the 403 already, while the Longwood bridge most certainly couldn't accommodate it..

Add on top of that that this introduces two separate complex turn movements for the LRT and 2+ additional signalized intersections it has to go through.. This is definitely going to add travel time.

Seems like an odd decision to me.
 
innsertnamehere said:
This confuses me. It drops the reconstruction of the Longwood bridge as a "savings" - but it's at end of life and needs to be reconstructed anyway.
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It seems like for either alignment, the Longwood Bridge, the Main over CP bridge (EOL) and the highway ramps (2-way conversion) need to be reconstructed.

With the redesign, Metrolinx is trading off building a longer LRT-only bridge in favour of re-building the shorter Main over 403 bridge for mixed traffic. I can see how this will be cheaper but I don't like that this comes at the cost of two 90 degree turns on an otherwise straight alignment.
 
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Agree, dont know how these lines make 90 degree turns or how one navigates rail between Dundurn and the 403 (guess westbound offramp to Main goes under Main to come up on the right side (versus current left) Guess we will see.
 
And here I was thinking the updated design would make the line more RT-like…

I feel like there must be a better alternative that only costs marginally more than the new option, but has far less speed compromises. The 403 and CP’s line are ripe for the taking, for instance.
 
Sunnyside said:
And here I was thinking the updated design would make the line more RT-like…

I feel like there must be a better alternative that only costs marginally more than the new option, but has far less speed compromises. The 403 and CP’s line are ripe for the taking, for instance.
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I think having an alignment that continued along King toward Westdale, then turning onto Paradise road and then back onto Main would be my preferred. The curves are a lot less tight, and could open up the possibility of a Westdale station.
 
innsertnamehere said:
This confuses me. It drops the reconstruction of the Longwood bridge as a "savings" - but it's at end of life and needs to be reconstructed anyway.

Then it adds the reconstruction of the Main St bridge instead, which looks like it's in generally fine condition.

Then it mentions that it will enable "highway widening" - but the Main St bridge looks like it could accommodate an extra lane on the 403 already, while the Longwood bridge most certainly couldn't accommodate it..

Add on top of that that this introduces two separate complex turn movements for the LRT and 2+ additional signalized intersections it has to go through.. This is definitely going to add travel time.

Seems like an odd decision to me.
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Some feedback from a friend on this:

In terms of the changes, I’m inclined to see this more in terms of tradeoffs. Rebuilding the Main Street highway overpass means a chance to rebuild the interchange, which will facilitate the two-way conversion of Main. And the side track to the OMS facility means building the Frid Street extension over the CP tracks, which would otherwise be a city responsibility.

Honestly, the big takeaway for me is that the MTO agrees with the two-way conversion of Main Street, which is decades overdue, since MTO approval is necessary for any street conversion that impacts a highway interchange.
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Frid doesn't go over the CP tracks and was previously planned to be built as a part of the LRT anyway.

Looking at it, my bet is that it's largely a cost driver against having to build the flyover over the 403. Moving the LRT onto main isn't necessary to 2-way Main St - in fact, it likely makes it more challenging as there won't be as much space to make it work with the LRT there.

The previous alignment basically held the LRT to King St and left Main St to move cars into the downtown from the 403 - now both King St and Main St will be limited in access to the 403 by the LRT.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Frid doesn't go over the CP tracks and was previously planned to be built as a part of the LRT anyway.

Looking at it, my bet is that it's largely a cost driver against having to build the flyover over the 403. Moving the LRT onto main isn't necessary to 2-way Main St - in fact, it likely makes it more challenging as there won't be as much space to make it work with the LRT there.

The previous alignment basically held the LRT to King St and left Main St to move cars into the downtown from the 403 - now both King St and Main St will be limited in access to the 403 by the LRT.
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It's kind of like using a wall of train telling cars to eff off out of downtown 😂. That part I'm okay with 🤷‍♂️

The biggest issue here is the slow down around the corners. If they can make up for that with some signal priority, and reduced King St crossings, then I really have no major issues with this.
 
I'm surprised none of us noticed this in the map of properties included in the transit corridor that were sent letters last week. It can be seen on that map that Frid Street and Dundurn appears to be outlined in blue on that map, indicating it is part of the alignment.

I feel like this new alignment is a big mistake. It's going to significantly slow down the line. I'm not sure how they could achieve the high frequency they want, with these two 90 degree bottlenecks. If they wanted to reduce costs by using the Main Street bridge, they should have gone in behind the Fortinos Plaza through the park (along the rail corridor), keeping the alignment on the north side of Main. That way there would have been no traffic lights to go through at least. Going on Dundurn is going to slow things down so much.

I'm wondering if Metrolinx has expropriated the northwest corner of Dundurn and Main to create a very large turning radius there - keeping the LRT on the north side of Main and the west side of Dundurn. That way the LRT would really only need signal priority at Dundurn and King. I did notice in September the plaza removed the large brick concrete structure at that corner, maybe that is related to some upcoming early works there? This could keep the travel time pretty good through this section. Anyone else on this forum want to have a shot at how they could keep travel time similar to the flyover?
 
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Apologies if I sound naïve. I haven't been following this project whole lot. Why not just run the entire LRT along Main st. and be rid of the two 90 degree turns? Or is it too late for that?
 
Here's my brief commentary.

GOOD: They are going to make Main and King 2-way permanent, including adjusting the offramps to accomodate that.

BAD: It adds 2 turns to an otherwise straight Hamilton LRT alignment. It will significantly slow down the LRT ride especially for McMaster students going to Hamilton downtown.

MIXED: It will require more expropriation on Dundurn street to produce enough corridorwidth to keep this efficient, but an opportunity to improve traffic/cars/LRT/pedestrians/bike lanes.

WILDCARD: Is this an actual beginning of Dundurn Transit Hub, where Dundurn Mall is replaced by one big building podium (underground car parking, main floor retail + bus + LRT stop) with a couple or three residential towers above? I wrote about this years ago, back when "GO Expansion" was called "GO RER". An opportunity to interchange GO, LRT, HSR, and 403 highway buses. In theory, for more space, Cathedral Park (a topping for a large sewage tank) could be raised to be flush with Dundurn Mall, and still host an under-park garage / bus station below the park (but above the sewer storage) for easy interchange between transit modes.

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