Hamilton Hamilton Line B LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

[mdrejhon]

Having a southside-eastside config as above is probably going to limit the directions in which vehicles can move between A and B lines, no? Especially if these are "standard LRVs" without Toronto downtown cars turning radius capabilities.

This be true, however:

1. A-Line and B-Line won't be making these turns in revenue passenger service
   Switching between these routes will be done while LRV is off service
   
   
2. We're using reversible double-ended vehicles with cabs on both ends, and there will be crossovers between parallel track at select intervals.
   So you can preposition one vehicle for an off-revnue-service turning between A-Line and B-Line, using a long-radius curve skimming the north-west corner of intersection.
   .
3. It is still unknown how A-Line will be configured.
   Regarding A-Line configuration, one of the many possible scenarios being thrown about is the possibility of a James-Hughson loop (north of King), so that when James is closed (Supercrawl, etc), it can run back-and-fourth as a peoplemover during Supercrawl. This would provide another potential off-revenue-service interchange between A-Line and B-Lines.

Alternatively, it is possible that a service line may be installed elsewhere, to allow A-Line vehicles to reach the MSF (Maintenance Service Facility), which was diagrammed earlier in this thread.

I will presume that the ongoing 2016 studies will answer these questions.

 

[mdrejhon]

When is construction going to start and what's the projected opening date?

2015 reopening of the LRT office (ongoing, jobs posted already, 3 already hired, ramping up)
2016 study adjustments (modification of 2011 EA)
2017 procurement
2018 (early) signature of contracts, lock-in (cancellation penalty locked before election)
2019 construction start
2024 service start

 

[WislaHD]

Let's hope they sign contracts prior to the 2018 election.

 

[nfitz]

2015 reopening of the LRT office (ongoing, jobs posted already, 3 already hired, ramping up)
2016 study adjustments (modification of 2011 EA)
2017 procurement
2018 (early) signature of contracts, lock-in (cancellation penalty locked before election)
2019 construction start
2024 service start

Good luck with that. In May 2009 Ontario and Canada announced full funding for the Sheppard East LRT which was to open in 2013. In April 2009 the province announced the Finch West LRT and Eglinton LRT would be 100% provincially funded, with Finch West opening in 2013 and Eglinton opening in 2016. At that time, Finch West was to go all the way from Don Mills Road to Humber College, with a branch down Don Mills Road to Don Mills station.

 

[mdrejhon]

Good luck with that. In May 2009 Ontario and Canada announced full funding for the Sheppard East LRT which was to open in 2013. In April 2009 the province announced the Finch West LRT and Eglinton LRT would be 100% provincially funded, with Finch West opening in 2013 and Eglinton opening in 2016. At that time, Finch West was to go all the way from Don Mills Road to Humber College, with a branch down Don Mills Road to Don Mills station.

Two words: Rob Ford

Right now, we have a surprisingly pro-LRT city council, pro-LRT province, and pro-LRT federal -- which will remain stable through to fall 2018. This will help all of us, just like City of Ottawa or City of Kitchener-Waterloo to go at full throttle through to the next election. Once all the pieces aligned, they quickly got to the procurement phase.

Stop thinking "Toronto size". Turn your head and look at Calgary, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, all similar sizes. Cities of similar sizes to Hamilton (at least in the same order of magnitude, not the next level higher) once approved, often have the project getting rolling more quickly.

IWhile not everybody loves our mayor, let's consider Mayor Fred Eisenberger is from Amsterdam a transit-friendly city, and just went travelling recently there, renting a bike to get around while on vacation. He has come of quite pro-LRT on his twitter conversations.

We have our own dramas, and yes, we had crazy stadium drama and delays (but pointing out the obvious: stadium still got built, and on time for PanAm Games), but we aren't Brampton where a bare majority don't want LRT. Today, the majority on the council wants LRT.

There is an element of concern of keeping our city accountable. Mr. Ferguson, a rural city councillor, who has construction interests in that his constituency has a lot of construction companies, has the reputation of calling out on City of Hamilton in his criticisms. In one view, this is a rightful concern of keeping the city accountable, and in another view, it produces a Chicken Little headline that is one ten-thousandths Rob Ford panic-worthy at all in a project timeline basis. Afterwards, even Metrolinx reports Hamilton LRT being on time relative to the current internal milestones. Ferguson simply wants to accelerate shovels to 2018, rather than 2019, which I don't think is practical (albiet it would produce a stronger lock-in).

Hundreds of enthusaic citizens just recently started following the renewed Hamilton LRT advocacy on Twitter (started up barely more than 2 months ago). We now have more followers than the Brampton LRT advocacies, and in only two months!!!! The Hamilton LRT advocacy organization fully intend to keep Our City with their nose to the grindstone -- in a manner of speaking as citizens do want to keep the city accountable.

Any concern of delays that pops up, we already know quite immediately and will act upon it, too. We have a fast-growing number of volunteers (and now we need a volunteer to manage all the vounteers...)

I have watched the political climate behind many transit developments, and this one is looking pretty good. Expect TONS OF DRAMA, but that the Hamilton LRT will be built -- we have a window thru later 2018 to lock-it-in before any one of the three levels of governments have a new election.

Based on precedent of similar governments under similar political conditions, the odds are far better than 50-50 now (arguably closer to 80%+ odds) from three different pre-existing Canadian examples (Calgary, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Ottawa) watching them annually for the last 20 years, and their equivalent similar-levels of drama at similar progressions. Toronto is the government/statistical outlier here, due to its massive size which makes it difficult to focus on just one single project at a time. So, please, for municipalities the size of Hamilton, stop being stuck on the Toronto precedents, as that obviously doesn't apply to multiple cities that are in the same order of magnitude to Hamilton's size and also currently in positive political sentiment (unlike Brampton).

So let's focus on what is needed to make this happen, keeping the city accountable.

Yes, yes, yes, construction delays may happen, and I would count on it (e.g. 2025 instead of 2023-2024) but locking it in by 2018 is quite doable from the precedents of other similar sized cities that locked it quite quickly on time before their respective elections (with large cancellation penalties). Even Ottawa failed the first time around (the Airport/Barrhaven LRT) and it went back to the drawing board, but once Ottawa got a favourable plan and full funding, it went full throttle ahead. Hamilton already kind of failed a few years ago, but now funding happened --

For example, one of our volunteers (Charles) apparently, coincidentially lives next door to one of the city councillors (Jason Farr, chair of LRT sub-committee) and is a friend of him, and is an Urban Studies student! Through many contacts, we are able to keep a close monitor on the pulse of the LRT, as well as local public sentiments. Many are highly engaging on Twitter, farmoreso than Toronto councillors, and will allow a good, close-monitoring of the health of the Hamilton LRT schedule.

 

[Jonny5]

Two words: Rob Ford

Ford was not a dictator, ruling by decree. He had one vote at council like all others. Many "LRT friendly councilors" suddenly changed their minds when the political winds shifted, repudiating their own previous statements with no hint of shame.

In any case, it was ultimately the Ontario government that engineered the demise of Transit City in Toronto by compounding funding delays that cascaded through the project plan and made it possible to cancel at a manageable expense. We even have precedent for "shovels in the ground" projects being outright cancelled (Eglinton West Subway) by the Ontario government.

You're citing Twitter, LRT supporter volunteers, and "some guy who lives next to a councilor" as sources of being in touch with the status of the project and its support? This reads as a selection biased view. A common refrain I will re-purpose for conversations I had with Transit City advocates in Toronto would be "How could Ford win? I don't even know anyone who voted for him." They were ignorant of the real pulse of the city because they never interacted with, or had any comprehension of the lives outside of their immediate friends who agreed with everything they said.

 

[W. K. Lis]

There were a couple of competed radial railway plans, that didn't happen.

 

[Duck]

I really hope it happens, but man, 2024 is a long, long ways away. I really thought this project was further ahead than that...

I also wish that Hamilton had not cancelled the ICTS project that was proposed in the 80's...

 

[nfitz]

Two words: Rob Ford

That was a small part of it, however the provincial government had already significantly delayed and shortened the Finch and Sheppard LRT while Miller was still mayor - recall the attack ads that Miller made that were playing on the TTC subway every few minutes? And even since Tory became mayor, the Finch LRT has slipped another 2 years, and the Sheppard East LRT has slipped about 5.

 

[mdrejhon]

I really hope it happens, but man, 2024 is a long, long ways away. I really thought this project was further ahead than that...

The 2024 construction completion date was announced last spring during the $1bn funding announcement.

Yes, when the LRT project was first discussed during 2007 it was supposed to be ~2015. But after some political football, PanAm distractions, Bob Bratina (lukewarm to LRT), and now Fred Eisenberger (pro-LRT) back in the office, the funding & the dates were targeted. 2017 procurement, 2019 construction start, and 2024 construction completion.

I also wish that Hamilton had not cancelled the ICTS project that was proposed in the 80's...

Yes, this be true.
Depends on if it was a good Vancouver SkyTrain system (2nd gen) rather than Scarborough RT (1st gen) system.
We might have dodged a bullet there. Or maybe not.

That was a small part of it, however the provincial government had already significantly delayed and shortened the Finch and Sheppard LRT while Miller was still mayor - recall the attack ads that Miller made that were playing on the TTC subway every few minutes? And even since Tory became mayor, the Finch LRT has slipped another 2 years, and the Sheppard East LRT has slipped about 5.

Fair enough. Delays could happen, especially with construction start.
Fortunately, we are having smaller-scale drama than that. At the moment. We shall see...

See, I just jinxed myself.

 

[mdrejhon]

In any case, it was ultimately the Ontario government that engineered the demise of Transit City in Toronto by compounding funding delays that cascaded through the project plan and made it possible to cancel at a manageable expense. We even have precedent for "shovels in the ground" projects being outright cancelled (Eglinton West Subway) by the Ontario government.

That I agree:
That is true of course, and I've written about this already.

You're citing Twitter, LRT supporter volunteers, and "some guy who lives next to a councilor" as sources of being in touch with the status of the project and its support? This reads as a selection biased view.

I must, explicitly, in the OP I chose a very, very limited set of examples (less than 2%).

There are many, many other engagements, including meeting city councillors in person, attending the Citizen Jury events in person. I presume you are already aware I had over two hours of direct one-on-one face time with Matthew Green earlier in the year (Ward 3 city councillor, where I also live) -- we discussed a lot of LRT talk for a couple of hours, in terms of how the public can productively engage the city over this topic, which was valuable in steering direction of our advocacy. I also meet with various contacts and we have in-person canvassed a few businesses to solicit their opinions (good and bad) as a means of homework towards preparing a presentation.

Also, the #HamOnt twitterverse is much powerful than Toronto -- Have you seen all that Terry Whitehead drama on Twitter? It made it to CBC/TheSpec news. And you may recall that yeswecannon.ca/@YesWeCannon was instrumental to bringing the Cannon cycle track to frutition.

Occasionally, even city councillors announce their intention to raise a motion via twitter (e.g. Jason Farr first mentioning via Twitter that he drafted a motion about the A-Line LRT extension). This triply shows where full Twitter awareness plays a hugely important role; moreso than for Toronto.

And if you heard students who attended McMaster University during the LRT funding announcement earlier in 2015, Ontario even acknowledged the earlier advocacy at McMaster university during the $1bn funding announcement. A member of the earlier advocacy, Nicholas Kevlahan, participates with the new Hamilton LRT advocacy too -- Also, we stood in front of the LRT sub-comittee to make this presentation on December 2nd. Lots of things are simultaneously going on, at a rapid fire pace, behind the scenes, including multiple of our members witnessing the LRT sub-committee meetings. We are currently expanding and formalizing (e.g. membership ideas) and brainstorming, talking to Hamilton Chamber, who has a 30-person LRT taskforce who will work on helping businesses survive. We have in-person meetings for our LRT advocacy to discuss steps too. We also have several BIA contacts now and talking to them... Now I've reached about, maybe 10%. This is still only a small faction of what we're doing of course. We have a unique front-seat perspective and intend to work hard at keeping the LRT on track this time around.

And this is only a partial descripton of what we've done so far.

Certainly things could go off track. Bad things could certainly happen. But we must keep the city accountable along the whole path. We're friendly with the stakeholders out of sheer diplomatic necessity, but we keep the city accountable also as residents who have voted for the council.

Let's consider the Ottawa and Kitchenner-Waterloo "CAN-DO" attitudes. They're already planning Phase 2 even as they are doing Phase 1 construction.

One of our PowerPoint slides belies our enthusiasm too, while reminding people that cities of similar sizes (to Hamilton) are currently going for rapid-fire incremental small extensions -- Ottawa now has Stage 2 being planned out (already partially funded) and Kitchener-Waterloo has Stage 2 planning already. All while their respective LRTs are still under construction!

We are also not wanting this to be a "build-once-and-forget" tendancy like Toronto. For similar size cities Calgary, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo and notice that while they cancel sometimes (like Hamilton LRT 2007-2014 setbacks) they canceled far less often than Toronto does. The large and sprawled size of almagamated Toronto is even more difficult than almagamated Ottawa or almagamated Hamilton, as more cooks spoil the pot, trying to cancel this and that.. Ottawa being my hometown, I'm familiar with the Ottawa LRT dramas as well. Right now, the local LRT politcal climate has turned positive, not too different from the Ottawa example.

As you can see, we are REALLY enthusaic, including custom made Hamilton LRT T-shirts!

I could go on for many, many more pages, but I think this, suffice to say, demonstrates our point that we understand #HamOnt social media fairly reasonably well -- to the point that the city actually invited us [City Hall Meeting Agenda with my name] to introduce the existence of our advocacy in person at the LRT sub-committee (which Mayor Fred also attended). We are currently deciding next steps including how to improve our formalization of our membership (e.g. like a Hub) to improve our advocacy.

So far, we are mostly optimistic and we intend to work our damndest best to make sure the city stays positively on track. There will definitely be drama, but we are paying attention.

 

[Duck]

Depends on if it was a good Vancouver SkyTrain system (2nd gen) rather than Scarborough RT (1st gen) system.
We might have dodged a bullet there. Or maybe not.

The Scarborough rt, Vancouver Skytrain and Detroit People Mover all opened with MK I vehicles. Toronto decided to mess theirs up by adding cabs and not building in enough capacity - the "failure" of the rt had nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with politics/unions/dumb human decisions. I have no doubt Hamilton's would have been every bit as good as Vancouver's.

 

[dowlingm]

This be true, however:

1. A-Line and B-Line won't be making these turns in revenue passenger service
   Switching between these routes will be done while LRV is off service
   
   
2. We're using reversible double-ended vehicles with cabs on both ends, and there will be crossovers between parallel track at select intervals.
   So you can preposition one vehicle for an off-revnue-service turning between A-Line and B-Line, using a long-radius curve skimming the north-west corner of intersection.
   .
3. It is still unknown how A-Line will be configured.
   Regarding A-Line configuration, one of the many possible scenarios being thrown about is the possibility of a James-Hughson loop (north of King), so that when James is closed (Supercrawl, etc), it can run back-and-fourth as a peoplemover during Supercrawl. This would provide another potential off-revenue-service interchange between A-Line and B-Lines.

Alternatively, it is possible that a service line may be installed elsewhere, to allow A-Line vehicles to reach the MSF (Maintenance Service Facility), which was diagrammed earlier in this thread.

I will presume that the ongoing 2016 studies will answer these questions.

There is a similar issue in Dublin where line A crosses the line BX extension. Vehicles can only transfer in specific directions, because otherwise it would have been necessary to expropriate to widen the street junctions

 

[mdrejhon]

The Scarborough rt, Vancouver Skytrain and Detroit People Mover all opened with MK I vehicles. Toronto decided to mess theirs up by adding cabs and not building in enough capacity - the "failure" of the rt had nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with politics/unions/dumb human decisions. I have no doubt Hamilton's would have been every bit as good as Vancouver's.

All good points. One does wonder, though -- given Hamilton fell on very hard times, decimated in the early 90s, and might have felt white-elephant if it was a built as a short route and never extended. The SkyTrain is a wild success in people moving, while the Detroit one wasn't so much of a public transit success in numbers -- and Hamilton is more similar to Detroit than Vancouver.

 

[DonValleyRainbow]

All good points. One does wonder, though -- given Hamilton fell on very hard times, decimated in the early 90s, and might have felt white-elephant if it was a built as a short route and never extended. The SkyTrain is a wild success in people moving, while the Detroit one wasn't so much of a public transit success in numbers -- and Hamilton is more similar to Detroit than Vancouver.

The discrepancy between Detroit and Vancouver is probably more owed to alignment and location. The DPM is a dinky little loop in downtown Detroit, a downtown that has been hollowed out and has little life to it. The Skytrain is a broad reaching system in a west coast environment where people are active and outgoing.