[blaixx]

Wow, that looks amazing. Riding the King bus in Hamilton now is so loud and bumpy. If anything, Hamilton LRT will be slightly smoother because it's pretty much a straight shot across the city compared to Ion and its frequent turns. It is nice that we can point to Waterloo when people ask what LRT will actually look like when it's ready!

 

[BurlOak]

Wow, that looks amazing. Riding the King bus in Hamilton now is so loud and bumpy. If anything, Hamilton LRT will be slightly smoother because it's pretty much a straight shot across the city compared to Ion and its frequent turns. It is nice that we can point to Waterloo when people ask what LRT will actually look like when it's ready!

I wonder if the bus would be less bumpy if this invested $50M per km to smooth it out.?
I admit that I haven't followed this close enough, but my gut tells me that a BRT corridor is likely a better alternative the LRT for these cities of ~500k population. Various buses could jump in and out of these lanes to speed the downtown bound portion of their trips.

 

[Steve X]

I wonder if the bus would be less bumpy if this invested $50M per km to smooth it out.?
I admit that I haven't followed this close enough, but my gut tells me that a BRT corridor is likely a better alternative the LRT for these cities of ~500k population. Various buses could jump in and out of these lanes to speed the downtown bound portion of their trips.

For your next ride, that's true. For development, no one will invest in revitalizing the core beside a bus route. In a decade, all the mid size cities will point to Kitchener-Waterloo and say they built a LRT and look at how much their downtown changed, we want that too.

In TO, Transit City was always about getting midrise development along those LRT corridors and revitalizing priority neighbourhood for the future of the city. Everyone keep missing the point and only selfishly thought about moving their butts faster across the city. With the lack of future sight, the population has voted PC and Doug Ford. What happened next?

 

[ViveleCanada]

I wonder if the bus would be less bumpy if this invested $50M per km to smooth it out.?
I admit that I haven't followed this close enough, but my gut tells me that a BRT corridor is likely a better alternative the LRT for these cities of ~500k population. Various buses could jump in and out of these lanes to speed the downtown bound portion of their trips.

The BRT you seem to suggest sounds more like an "Curitiba-style" system which would work well if the corridor was more suburban-like, whereas the LRT proposed in Hamilton is running through a dense core area so I don't think businesses would be willing to shutdown even more of Main Street to install "Bus-Jump" lanes. Even in the lower-dense areas of the corridor, I can't imagine being able to widen the road enough to accommodate "jump" lanes without removing more traffic lanes or demolishing a huge amount of property (at that point they might as well build a subway). The jump lanes in the downtown sector would also probably be close to useless as the buses would probably stop at most stops in the core as most traffic would be alighting in that area.

For your next ride, that's true. For development, no one will invest in revitalizing the core beside a bus route. In a decade, all the mid size cities will point to Kitchener-Waterloo and say they built a LRT and look at how much their downtown changed, we want that too.

Investments in BRT vs LRT corridors isn't as black and white as you suggest. I have lived on Highway 7 and there is significant amount of development along the corridor because of VIVA with most new condos using it as a major selling point not to mention South America has been incredibly successful in implementing BRT with Curitiba being that shining example. Investors biggest fear with bus lines is that they can be changed or withdrawn easily, constructing BRT lanes largely eliminate those fears as a government agency with half a brain won't invest a billion dollars in infrastructure they won't use. The amount of investment in BRT vs LRT seems to be in LRT's favour, but suggesting no investment is put into a BRT corridor is rather silly.

 

[mdrejhon]

I wonder if the bus would be less bumpy if this invested $50M per km to smooth it out.?
I admit that I haven't followed this close enough, but my gut tells me that a BRT corridor is likely a better alternative the LRT for these cities of ~500k population. Various buses could jump in and out of these lanes to speed the downtown bound portion of their trips.

Then you missed all the drama over the last 10 years.
May we remind you that our municipal election ended being a defacto referendum for the LRT?

 

[blaixx]

I wonder if the bus would be less bumpy if this invested $50M per km to smooth it out.?
I admit that I haven't followed this close enough, but my gut tells me that a BRT corridor is likely a better alternative the LRT for these cities of ~500k population. Various buses could jump in and out of these lanes to speed the downtown bound portion of their trips.

Sure, BRT would be a huge improvement but when LRT can be had for $75M/km, I think you have to go with that. Even if you make a BRT that's technically as good as LRT in terms of moving large numbers of people in as little time, it just doesn't bring the same level of ridership increase and infrastructure investment (at least historically in North America).

It's a nice idea that local buses could share the designated lanes, but at least for the Hamilton RT it doesn't make sense. The design is mostly reserved centre lanes with 800 metre stop-spacing. Any overlapping local service would have <200 m spacing and would constantly be merging in and out of the BRT lane. I suppose you could have an express bus that uses half of the BRT route and then half in mixed traffic but I don't know how useful that would be in Hamilton's specific case. I know the Mississauga BRT does a really good job at that.

 

[Steve X]

Investments in BRT vs LRT corridors isn't as black and white as you suggest. I have lived on Highway 7 and there is significant amount of development along the corridor because of VIVA with most new condos using it as a major selling point not to mention South America has been incredibly successful in implementing BRT with Curitiba being that shining example. Investors biggest fear with bus lines is that they can be changed or withdrawn easily, constructing BRT lanes largely eliminate those fears as a government agency with half a brain won't invest a billion dollars in infrastructure they won't use. The amount of investment in BRT vs LRT seems to be in LRT's favour, but suggesting no investment is put into a BRT corridor is rather silly.

It's true that VIVA does have some physical infrastructure and has seen more development than Mississauga Transitway. York Region, especially Markham is prime for development, has access to GO transit too and Markham has position themselves to mid and highrise development. If you take a city like Hamilton or London, I'm not sure if they'll get the same level of attraction. Although both of these cities have major universities and will attract some development with or without BRT/LRT.

 

[TRONto]

The BRT you seem to suggest sounds more like an "Curitiba-style" system which would work well if the corridor was more suburban-like, whereas the LRT proposed in Hamilton is running through a dense core area so I don't think businesses would be willing to shutdown even more of Main Street to install "Bus-Jump" lanes. Even in the lower-dense areas of the corridor, I can't imagine being able to widen the road enough to accommodate "jump" lanes without removing more traffic lanes or demolishing a huge amount of property (at that point they might as well build a subway). The jump lanes in the downtown sector would also probably be close to useless as the buses would probably stop at most stops in the core as most traffic would be alighting in that area.



Investments in BRT vs LRT corridors isn't as black and white as you suggest. I have lived on Highway 7 and there is significant amount of development along the corridor because of VIVA with most new condos using it as a major selling point not to mention South America has been incredibly successful in implementing BRT with Curitiba being that shining example. Investors biggest fear with bus lines is that they can be changed or withdrawn easily, constructing BRT lanes largely eliminate those fears as a government agency with half a brain won't invest a billion dollars in infrastructure they won't use. The amount of investment in BRT vs LRT seems to be in LRT's favour, but suggesting no investment is put into a BRT corridor is rather silly.

Off the top of my head I'd disagree with the last bit. Most of the development is in Markham and east of Bayview. The rest of the BRT in York Region outside of the subway area is not seeing much of any development (so west of Bayview and in Newmarket). I would say the stronger factor there is the Markham city council has been a strong proponent of the type of development that is Markham is getting.

 

[blaixx]

Off the top of my head I'd disagree with the last bit. Most of the development is in Markham and east of Bayview. The rest of the BRT in York Region outside of the subway area is not seeing much of any development (so west of Bayview and in Newmarket). I would say the stronger factor there is the Markham city council has been a strong proponent of the type of development that is Markham is getting.

To be fair, pretty much the only true-BRT (with dedicated lanes) currently open is on Highway 7 East in Markham and it opened in 2013–14. The Highway 7 West BRT towards Vaughan is scheduled to open by the end of 2019, so maybe that will spur development. The Richmond Hill portion of Yonge St. will open in 2020.

 

[ShonTron]

To be fair, pretty much the only true-BRT (with dedicated lanes) currently open is on Highway 7 East in Markham and it opened in 2013–14. The Highway 7 West BRT towards Vaughan is scheduled to open by the end of 2019, so maybe that will spur development. The Richmond Hill portion of Yonge St. will open in 2020.
View attachment 191743

Don't forget Davis Drive, pretty much the most useless BRT corridor in Canada.

 

[Streety McCarface]

For your next ride, that's true. For development, no one will invest in revitalizing the core beside a bus route. In a decade, all the mid size cities will point to Kitchener-Waterloo and say they built a LRT and look at how much their downtown changed, we want that too.

In TO, Transit City was always about getting midrise development along those LRT corridors and revitalizing priority neighbourhood for the future of the city. Everyone keep missing the point and only selfishly thought about moving their butts faster across the city. With the lack of future sight, the population has voted PC and Doug Ford. What happened next?

While that is great and all, the problem with that TC mindset for corridors like Eglinton and Don Mills is that ridership is already far too high to not invest in faster rapid transit. For Finch West, Jane, and the Waterfront it's a different story, where revitalization is absolutely necessary. Hamilton and KW as a whole also fit into this category of needing to revitalize key transit corridors without needing the huge speed boosts provided by subways or High Floor Light Rail.


To clarify, Light rail on these specific corridors should still be fast (even though the RoW arguably cheaped out on iON, it's still at least 30% faster and 200% more reliable than the 200, and those numbers could grow in the near future as the teething problems are resolved), but it doesn't require suburban subway speeds.

 

[adrianaliu]

the opening of the ion makes me quite optimistic about hamilton finch and hurontario. ion has so many curves but runs at a more than acceptable pace on straight on-street sections, the other corridors wont have nearly as many sharp turns. only thing that worries me about finch west is the frequency of stops, imo hurontario and ion got it right in terms of stop spacing.

 

[Steve X]

While that is great and all, the problem with that TC mindset for corridors like Eglinton and Don Mills is that ridership is already far too high to not invest in faster rapid transit. For Finch West, Jane, and the Waterfront it's a different story, where revitalization is absolutely necessary. Hamilton and KW as a whole also fit into this category of needing to revitalize key transit corridors without needing the huge speed boosts provided by subways or High Floor Light Rail.


To clarify, Light rail on these specific corridors should still be fast (even though the RoW arguably cheaped out on iON, it's still at least 30% faster and 200% more reliable than the 200, and those numbers could grow in the near future as the teething problems are resolved), but it doesn't require suburban subway speeds.

Don Mills isn't suited for a LRT. There is hardly any opportunities for development along the entire corridor. It's all built up and isn't commercial oriented. A Relief subway is more suitable.
Eglinton is debatable. Do we really need another subway across the city that would take well over an hour to make any trips from Etobicoke to Scarborough? Yes ridership is high but is there really a reason to confine them to Eglinton? There's no real destination along the route that requires people to stick on Eglinton. The Yonge Line is crowded only because it is the main way out of the city. If we build the Relief Line to Steeles/York Region, the Yonge Line will see a huge drop in ridership.

Personally, I rather see an integrated RER system for travelling between the two ends of the city. Subways are way too slow to get from Kipling to Kennedy. There is also a lot of development opportunities along Eglinton that would help the LRT case

 

[Leo_Chan]

Don Mills isn't suited for a LRT. There is hardly any opportunities for development along the entire corridor. It's all built up and isn't commercial oriented. A Relief subway is more suitable.
Eglinton is debatable. Do we really need another subway across the city that would take well over an hour to make any trips from Etobicoke to Scarborough? Yes ridership is high but is there really a reason to confine them to Eglinton? There's no real destination along the route that requires people to stick on Eglinton. The Yonge Line is crowded only because it is the main way out of the city. If we build the Relief Line to Steeles/York Region, the Yonge Line will see a huge drop in ridership.

Personally, I rather see an integrated RER system for travelling between the two ends of the city. Subways are way too slow to get from Kipling to Kennedy. There is also a lot of development opportunities along Eglinton that would help the LRT case

Downtown, Midtown and Uptown GO? (Lakeshore, CP, CN). Kind of getting off topic though.

 

[Streety McCarface]

Don Mills isn't suited for a LRT. There is hardly any opportunities for development along the entire corridor. It's all built up and isn't commercial oriented. A Relief subway is more suitable.
Eglinton is debatable. Do we really need another subway across the city that would take well over an hour to make any trips from Etobicoke to Scarborough? Yes ridership is high but is there really a reason to confine them to Eglinton? There's no real destination along the route that requires people to stick on Eglinton. The Yonge Line is crowded only because it is the main way out of the city. If we build the Relief Line to Steeles/York Region, the Yonge Line will see a huge drop in ridership.

Personally, I rather see an integrated RER system for travelling between the two ends of the city. Subways are way too slow to get from Kipling to Kennedy. There is also a lot of development opportunities along Eglinton that would help the LRT case

Don Mills needs a subway, especially to relieve the Yonge line, which is why building an LRT down there would have been an awful idea.

The crosstown is due to see riderships of 300K+ PPD within 10 years of opening, for a 19 km line, that's near the equivalent of Bloor subway riderships. Even if people transfer off the line, it is in no way suited for long term growth and will likely struggle with operations because it is significantly under built. Eglinton is a feeder route like Bloor, the corridor currently sees 150K PPD on buses alone. With rapid transit, the general rule is that ridership along the corridor doubles, so 300K PPD is completely within reason.

I'd disagree with that last point to an extent. It currently takes 40 minutes on the GO lines to get from Kipling to Kennedy, and that's on a line with almost no stations between each other. Throw in another 5-10 stations and you're looking at a 50-60 minute trip, no different from the subway. The subway also has a huge integration advantage, there are feeder bus routes from everywhere to Line 2, and the train stop often enough (but not too often) to cover a significant population. Maybe the trip from Etobicoke North to Lawrence East or further would be done faster on a RER line, but there's really no evidence to support the claim that RER would be faster along a direct subway routing between Kennedy and Kipling. Would it be more comfortable? Probably, but if you force people to take RER over the subway, then RER trains become just as crowded as subway cars. This is actually much worse for RER because the support for that network comes from riders using the system as commuter rail. Without those suburban commuters, the RER lines don't have enough ridership or funding to justify their existence.