05-26-2018, 04:37 PM
(05-26-2018, 02:35 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(05-26-2018, 09:27 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Unfortunately, in this case “RT” means they might settle for BRT. I’d say it’s about a 30% change LRT, 70% chance BRT, rounding error all other possibilities combined. Now that we have an LRT system, all future non-bus expansion will be LRT. The new line will not require more maintenance facilities; they would just have to add some additional storage tracks to the OMSF. So the plus side is that the per-km cost of an expansion will be less, until we get to such a large system that the existing maintenance spaces are insufficient.
Why do you reckon 70/30 BRT? We chose LRT for the first two phases, and at this time we would have additional LRT efficiencies.
Saying “reckon” is very kind. It’s my wild guess, biased towards the pessimistic side. I’m not sure this city is politically ready for a multi-line LRT system, and won’t be at all surprised to see BRT chosen and then watered down until it’s just minor improvements on the iXpres, similar to the ION Bus in Cambridge.
But I do hope LRT will be chosen, and I agree that extension can be expected to be cheaper than the original system due to the lack of need for another OMSF. All we would need is more storage tracks, either within the existing OMSF or at a new “SF”. The “OM” part of the existing facility should be sufficient for a system quite a bit bigger than anything we’ll see in the near future.
I also think that regional roads should be designed for the addition of LRT. That is, the exact location of the rails should be designed into every suburban regional road, and utilities placed accordingly. Then when it’s time to build LRT on that street, only the last couple of months of the construction that we saw previously will be needed. A road like Fischer-Hallman could be designed to accept LRT later with essentially no impact on initial construction costs — there is tons of space, so it’s just a matter of taking it into account when deciding exactly where the buried services and lanes actually go. Not at all the same sort of challenge as threading LRT through downtown Kitchener.