Search results

Let's celebrate this twenty-year story of success. Twenty years you ask? This from a 2011 presentation doc on the plan to make this a barrier-free plaza: Why does the year 2004 ring a bell in your head? Same year as Transit First, the plan to bring streetcars to the east waterfront before...

Well the rest of the building is more or less already this colour. Get some Tremclad and a big roller.

There are days when I think the federal government should form a crown corporation to expropriate all of the main rail lines in the GTA and Montreal/Laval areas and impose some sort of rationalization on the transportation system.

Not surprising that they have cheaped out and there will be no transportation to Ontario place. A nice straight sidewalk and a giant above-ground carpark. We know how people are supposed to go to FordSpa.

Don't necessarily hold your breath. I rode some high speed and regional rails in Spain this winter and did not encounter a single train that did not have narrow awkward steps. It might go on a long time, but we can hope the same mistakes are avoided here. (edited because jet lag 😐)

There is one like that in Moscow (at least) I used to ride that was 3 minutes if you stand still. Of course it was also a bomb shelter. A factor with elevators is the speed and type. Are they fast counterweighted hares or hydraulic tortoises?

There are rough plans in existence for a GO level below the existing station. I think that makes more sense than thinking of putting VIA there.

OK we'll build a four-track, grade-separated station for the 5,000 people in Tweed and the 5,500 in Perth and the 5,500 in Greater Havelock. Over the past 6 years the idea of stations there gradually disappeared because they really don't make any economic sense, and that was when the project...

I don't think I've seen a reference to this recent video by Lucid Stew about the route. It's fun and highly visual, going over his interpretation of the Alstom proposal that came out a couple of years back. He does a lot of calculations about the travel times. Others with greater technical...

I had the idea that the ridership would eventually overwhelm buses, so that starting with LRT made more sense. But we haven't seen updated ridership projections, I don't think. The EA projected 3-4K riders at peak, whereas they were looking at over 5000 several years ago. So buses could do it...

The Star article mentions: Which is all a little odd and ambiguous. Union is at the bottom of the centre I suppose. If you try to find the geographic centre of the city, you end up somewhere around Sunnybrook Hospital, and if you draw a circle around that it would include much of the midtown...

I don't think it's fair to say those visuals of dozens of buses were "the norm." They happened too often, but 90 percent of the time it operated acceptably during rush hours and with no delays off-peak.

The bus plan was twin tunnels under Albert and Slater, with the stations connecting them on the cross streets. It would be expensive because each tunnel was two lanes, and a lot of ventilation was required. That was part of the rationale for switching to rail. I was sure I had a copy of the...

Are the dwell times at stations also an issue in Ottawa? I've seen complaints about that online, but has anyone quantified the differences? I recall very snappy stops in Toronto even where there are many more passengers than in Ottawa. OC Transpo just seems to be run by folk who don't think it...

OC's own trip planner shows the bus as being faster, and in some cases you have to trick it to get it to show you the train options. But they also admit that their bus routes are not very reliable and the faster bus connection might not work out in reality. The train is pretty reliable even if...

The previous study found that a people mover would cost a lot less. And it could potential be more flexible, and certainly easier to build. REM is not the only solution.

As I’m experiencing HSR route derangement syndrome and there is no new information to feed it, I went back to the 2022 Request for Proposals to see what it says about stations and routings. The priorities and principles include the following: Integration into city centres by using existing...

A lot of good points in the video about our approach to over-studying and over-paying for infrastructure. What I am equally afraid of is this thing collapsing into another culture war. Now that it's fully HSR, the impacts on rural areas are potentially greater (land requirements, grade...

I am well aware of the conventional wisdom on this. But the train has to go somewhere, and ALTO has suggested that it's casting a fairly wide net in planning the segment between Peterborough and Ottawa. The abandoned line is no longer the presumed route: “What is being studied now (are) all...

I’m not sure I’d put too much stock in the map released in the puffy business plan. After all, it does have an “illustrative purposes” disclaimer. It also shows a straight line from Peterborough to a point south of Smiths Falls, which is about as fanciful as it gets, unless we’re actually...