ION Stage I: what would you do differently?

[tomh009]

Does anybody else see an image there? In the edit window it shows an image, but in the actual post I only see the BB code with base64 raw data.

Yeah. Alas, posting of images into the rich text edit boxes is broken on MyBB.

[timc]

It's not really an ignorant statement at all. Articulated BRT was considered and studied. An articulated bus can offer something like 80-85% of the capacity that Flexity Freedom LRVs do and they were the next strongest contender. We also did studies on monorails and subway systems. The LRT was obviously the preferred option because we got a lot of funding for it from the provincial and federal governments, and at a regional level, they considered that it would offer more economic benefits over BRT. We could have easily built a BRT network with both grade separation and signal priority without sacrificing much in terms of capacity and would gone with exactly that if we didn't get money from higher levels of government. As I said in another comment somewhere, the LRT was alluring as an economic engine, but our actual network isn't all that rapid.

Are you saying that there wouldn't have been provincial/federal money for BRT? That's not how I remember things.

[ac3r]

Are you saying that there wouldn't have been provincial/federal money for BRT? That's not how I remember things.

I actually don't recall myself, but with the extra money it would make sense we jumped on developing an LRT over BRT at the time if the region wasn't going to be paying a whole lot for it.

[ijmorlan]

Are you saying that there wouldn't have been provincial/federal money for BRT? That's not how I remember things.

I actually don't recall myself, but with the extra money it would make sense we jumped on developing an LRT over BRT at the time if the region wasn't going to be paying a whole lot for it.

I’m pretty sure the funding was available for either.

That being said, BRT is only cheap if it isn’t full BRT. Full BRT is almost as expensive to build as LRT but doesn’t provide the reduction in operating expense (specifically, to staff the vehicles) at higher traffic levels. This is because full BRT basically means the same design as the LRT but with slightly wider dedicated lanes (more expense) due to the vehicles not being constrained by tracks, and with no need for rail infrastructure (less expense).

If you ever hear about BRT being way cheaper, I guarantee it’s watered down BRT, maybe with dedicated lanes only in a few areas or reserved lanes separated only by paint from the rest of traffic. This is actually one of the advantages of LRT: it’s less likely to be watered down. Still technically possible, because part of the line could be built as a streetcar, but it’s more obviously a dumb idea. Similarly, the inflexibility of tracks embedded in the pavement is part of why LRT is more attractive to property buyers: it’s pretty clear the LRT is unlikely to move. Buses are sometimes sold as more flexible because routes can be changed whenever, but this means people don’t count on them staying around, even though the important routes tend to be pretty stable. How long did Route 7 make the same trip between Fairview Mall and UW?

[danbrotherston]

I actually don't recall myself, but with the extra money it would make sense we jumped on developing an LRT over BRT at the time if the region wasn't going to be paying a whole lot for it.

I’m pretty sure the funding was available for either.

That being said, BRT is only cheap if it isn’t full BRT. Full BRT is almost as expensive to build as LRT but doesn’t provide the reduction in operating expense (specifically, to staff the vehicles) at higher traffic levels. This is because full BRT basically means the same design as the LRT but with slightly wider dedicated lanes (more expense) due to the vehicles not being constrained by tracks, and with no need for rail infrastructure (less expense).

If you ever hear about BRT being way cheaper, I guarantee it’s watered down BRT, maybe with dedicated lanes only in a few areas or reserved lanes separated only by paint from the rest of traffic. This is actually one of the advantages of LRT: it’s less likely to be watered down. Still technically possible, because part of the line could be built as a streetcar, but it’s more obviously a dumb idea. Similarly, the inflexibility of tracks embedded in the pavement is part of why LRT is more attractive to property buyers: it’s pretty clear the LRT is unlikely to move. Buses are sometimes sold as more flexible because routes can be changed whenever, but this means people don’t count on them staying around, even though the important routes tend to be pretty stable. How long did Route 7 make the same trip between Fairview Mall and UW?

Also, no overhead catenary unless they are electric buses, which even further defeats the benefits of BRT since buses cannot interline with the BRT route.

But you're absolutely right...the "smart" opponents of LRT supported BRT because of their ability to slowly strip away any semblance of RT and just leave us with little old Bs.

Edit: I should note, I would support BRT in certain locations/circumstances but only in a hypothetical and probably imaginary place where everyone is actually acting in good faith to build good transit.

[robdrimmie]

That base64 post destroys my browser (Safari, OS X Big Sur, 2020 MBP). Can the unusable data be edited out by someone?

[ijmorlan]

Edit: I should note, I would support BRT in certain locations/circumstances but only in a hypothetical and probably imaginary place where everyone is actually acting in good faith to build good transit.

Agreed! I’m imagining a bus route that starts at the LRT and goes way out into the suburbs. There could be a big benefit from running it on a dedicated right of way for the first 1km in the crowded core of the city. Of course, the trick would be finding the space for it but one can certainly imagine a scenario. As an alternative to the main LRT line though it’s pretty questionable.

[Bytor]

No. Absolutely not. "Moar busses" is a stunningly ignorant thing to say about solving the overcrowding and delay issues that plagued the 200/7. We already had busses ever 3 minutes and 20 seconds during peak, and every 5 minutes outside of peak. There's only so many busses you can put on a busy route on congested streets and we were at that point.

It's not really an ignorant statement at all. Articulated BRT was considered and studied.

See, now you're moving the goal posts.

Your original statement was:

Perhaps. Could have saved hundred millions dollars and added a few more dozens of buses (or just articulated buses) to the 200/7 routes

That's clearly a "moar busses" comment and not something about a BRT with fancy grade-separated lanes.

An articulated bus can offer something like 80-85% of the capacity that Flexity Freedom LRVs do and they were the next strongest contender. We also did studies on monorails and subway systems. The LRT was obviously the preferred option because we got a lot of funding for it from the provincial and federal governments, and at a regional level, they considered that it would offer more economic benefits over BRT. We could have easily built a BRT network with both grade separation and signal priority without sacrificing much in terms of capacity and would gone with exactly that if we didn't get money from higher levels of government. As I said in another comment somewhere, the LRT was alluring as an economic engine, but our actual network isn't all that rapid.

BRT was dropped not because we got funding from senior levels of government for an LRT only. By 2008, if not earlier, it was clear that LRT was the preferable option and the only question was how big would Stage 1 LRT be. You can see that in the public consultation docs which are still available online. BRT was deemed not suitable for the most heavily used portion of the system at least 2 years before we got funding.

Also, even when federal and provincial funding commitments were announced in 2010, they were still both for BRT or LRT, not just for an LRT system.

You are misremembering things if you think LRT was chosen because that's what we got funding for.

[ijmorlan]

Your original statement was:

Perhaps. Could have saved hundred millions dollars and added a few more dozens of buses (or just articulated buses) to the 200/7 routes

That's clearly a "moar busses" comment and not something about a BRT with fancy grade-separated lanes.

Also, please correct me if I’m remembering wrong, but didn’t ac3r also say something about how we should have built a subway? It’s a bit weird to both say we could save a bunch of money by just buying some buses instead of building an LRT system, and also that we should have built a subway. Which is it, did we waste money or not spend enough? Especially when the subway alternative is clearly not feasible here and now and the more buses alternative is basically what we were doing before we got the LRT.

[jwilliamson]

Your original statement was:


That's clearly a "moar busses" comment and not something about a BRT with fancy grade-separated lanes.

Also, please correct me if I’m remembering wrong, but didn’t ac3r also say something about how we should have built a subway? It’s a bit weird to both say we could save a bunch of money by just buying some buses instead of building an LRT system, and also that we should have built a subway. Which is it, did we waste money or not spend enough? Especially when the subway alternative is clearly not feasible here and now and the more buses alternative is basically what we were doing before we got the LRT.

I don't think ac3r has argued that we simply spent too much for rapid transit, but rather that we spent too much for a system that is (he thinks) deeply compromised. It's quite reasonable to say we could have spent significantly less to get BRT that's just as good, or somewhat more to get a system that's much better.

[ac3r]

Also, please correct me if I’m remembering wrong, but didn’t ac3r also say something about how we should have built a subway? It’s a bit weird to both say we could save a bunch of money by just buying some buses instead of building an LRT system, and also that we should have built a subway. Which is it, did we waste money or not spend enough? Especially when the subway alternative is clearly not feasible here and now and the more buses alternative is basically what we were doing before we got the LRT.

I don't think ac3r has argued that we simply spent too much for rapid transit, but rather that we spent too much for a system that is (he thinks) deeply compromised. It's quite reasonable to say we could have spent significantly less to get BRT that's just as good, or somewhat more to get a system that's much better.

At least someone can read hah. Yes, I believe the LRT in the state we built it has many flaws, especially for a region that is already as big as ours and with the growth projections we have. We are expected to have 800'000+ people by 2040, though that number may be even higher because that projection was done years before we even experienced any major growth. BRT could have carried almost the same amount of people as the LRT for significantly less.

My argument is that since the LRT seems to have so many issues with speed and operating within the traffic of the urban cores, we could have buried or elevated certain sections of it. I have not really argued for a subway system - at least not heavy rail like Toronto - and it was indeed studied but was deemed too expensive at the time we studied the feasibility of one. I don't know how many or if any of you work in fields related to engineering, urbanism, architecture, infrastructure etc. Indeed the tunneling would have cost money, but in the case of an LRT (especially in a city as undeveloped as ours...we don't have massive skyscrapers with deep foundations to worry about) you can get away with cut and cover tunneling which is significantly cheaper. We wouldn't need boring machines to tunnel anything here. Someone even tried to suggest the little creek running uptown would drive up costs to the extreme...really? It's a creek, it's not that hard to deal with.

Since this thread is more fantasy about what we could have done, the reality of whether or not we did it doesn't really matter now. We've got the LRT already. So for example:

A benefit of this would have meant that we would not end up with these ridiculous split stations blocks away that separate the northbound and southbound track.

In practice - again I am citing Nürnberg because 1. I lived there for quite a while and know their network well. 2. They are a comparable city in terms of population and geographic size...

This shows how easy it is to transition from surface level to underground using cut and cover tunneling:

This shows how you can elevate it on a very simple viaduct, which is significantly cheap to do as it does not disrupt much. On my poorly illustrated map, I would perhaps elevate things around Borden Station, swinging it over the rock climbing place, continuing that to Mill Station where you can then return to surface level as it currently is now.

Which is it, did we waste money or not spend enough?

I think we spent too much for what we got. We could have spent less and got close to the same, or more and got a system that would have been truly independent, not relying on the very roads we all claim to despise here, that goes just as slow as cars at times and has to stop at red lights to let them pass.

[Bytor]

It's quite reasonable to say we could have spent significantly less to get BRT that's just as good, or somewhat more to get a system that's much better.

Not really, no.

BRTs only seem cheaper, but they are not.

First off is the staffing issue. They require more drivers because the vehicles have a lower capacity, and more mechanics because internal combustion vehicles are more complex and more difficult to maintain. That leads to higher staffing costs.

Second is the busway. Sure, $140M for 72 lane⋅km worth of busway looks a lot cheaper than the $540-something million contract to GrandLinq for the tracks, but that doesn't take into account maintenance. The no defunct Charles St Terminal in it's 30ish year lifespan needed to be repave four times because of the wear and tear from all the busses. If you took the bus and saw those rebuilds, you saw how they laid concrete underpadding at more than just where the busses stopped and sat, so it's reasonable to assume that the BRT busway would require a similar level of care and frequency of repaving. The initial build plus having to redo it 3 more times over the next 30 years then equals or exceeds the cost of building the tracks.

Third is the energy cost. Doing some research I see that trams use about 1.1kWh/km so roughly 40kWh for a loop. Blair Allen told me in 2017 that GRT used about 9.2M litres of diesel fuel for 16.3Mkm travelled. That means three buses doing a loop the same size of ION Stage 1 is roughly 60L for a loop. Even for the large consumers, 1 kWh of electricity costs less than 1 L of diesel.

For those reasons, BRTs are only cheaper in the short term and when ridership is under the threshold of the LRT's higher fixed operating costs. That threshold in North America varies between 5,000 and 10,000 riders a day, based on local costs for these things, and most seem to center around 7,000/day.

So since our system has (pre-pandemic) more than 14,000 riders per day on average and we're operating on a md-term 30 year horizon, LRT is cheaper than BRT for us.

[ac3r]

You're assuming they'd use diesel. We are transitioning to electric buses now, with all new bus purchases (including the articulated ones) electric. And I think you're way overestimating how often they'd need to relace concrete pads. It would not be very often. I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.

I no longer have the figures handy, but I do believe BRT was deemed to be cheaper, they just wanted to go with LRT.

[ijmorlan]

Which is it, did we waste money or not spend enough?

I think we spent too much for what we got. We could have spent less and got close to the same, or more and got a system that would have been truly independent, not relying on the very roads we all claim to despise here, that goes just as slow as cars at times and has to stop at red lights to let them pass.

Thanks for the detailed reply and the great pictures, I think I have a better idea of what you’re suggesting.

Part of my problem is that I’m significantly less enthusiastic about the system as it is operated than I am about it as a concept. A significant amount of the slowness has to do with how they’re operating it, essentially due to safety paranoia (although I’m not totally clear if the paranoia is from the system management or filtered through safety regulations, so I don’t know who would have to be convinced to change it).

I think everybody would be much happier with the system if it was operated faster, and happier still if a few minor tweaks had been made during construction to avoid obvious inefficiencies and deficiencies.

One thing I will say about proposals to tunnel or elevate small sections is that they are way more realistic than the idea of building a subway. Who knows, maybe in the future this can be done as an upgrade in crucial sections. LRT is great for flexibility in this regard.

[danbrotherston]

You're assuming they'd use diesel. We are transitioning to electric buses now, with all new bus purchases (including the articulated ones) electric. And I think you're way overestimating how often they'd need to relace concrete pads. It would not be very often. I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.

I no longer have the figures handy, but I do believe BRT was deemed to be cheaper, they just wanted to go with LRT.

BRT is often cheaper because you do things like....forego dedicated lanes in the downtown core where there is an argument over space and where lanes are most needed.

I'm not sure if those particular details were released though.