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London Rapid Transit (In-Design)

aquateam said:
The average annual growth in GDP in Canada has been about 2% over the last decade and it's predicted to be about the same in the next decade.

Large cities are the economic engines of countries.
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I think the discussion was about growth in population not GDP.....Canada's growth in population between the 2011 and 2016 Census was a total of 5%....so a bit less than 1% annual compounded growth.
 
ssiguy2 said:
London a dying city?
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ssiguy2 said:
I am not downplaying the strength of the KWC hi-tch sector or KWC relatively quick growth.

The issue was that London was referred to as a "classic Midwest declining city". Every Midwest city of the US would kill to enjoy a "death" like London's. Yes, London has never been a city that embraces change, a reflection of it's old wealth past. London has always been more "steady as she goes". London has however made huge gains in it's downtown which nearly died in the 1990s with the collapse of Eaton's. The downtown today is quite vibrant and seeing a fast growing population and a lot of downtown proposals.

Londoners also enjoy a very liveable, pleasant, safe, green, and socially progressive city that is always ranked as one of Canada's nicest. London, unlike KWC, has a solid built form where I can hardly even think of more than one block of unused space with 5 km of the downtown core except at the old hospital site. London never allowed an urban freeway to rip apart the urban fabric so it's beautiful old neighbourhoods are not only intact but also interconnected. You don't have the disconnection of communities that effect KWC, St,Catherines/Niagara, and to a lesser extent, Hamilton. KWC has some nice areas but the urban agglomeration is very much a series of 5 different cities the bulk of which are socially and economically connected by nothing more than a freeway.

London slow and steady growth has meant that the city has never really boomed but never really bust. That said Londoners still enjoy a high disposable income than most cities as it's wages are on the national average but it's cost of living and housing is much lower than the norm and certainly KWC. It's begrudging acknowledgement that 2st century is upon them has definitely hurt the city. It's lack of urban freeway has resulted in horrific traffic problems but left the city a beautiful and interconnected one.
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London is certainly under threat and my contention is that they will end up there if the infrastructure to support the city doesn't happen. I didn't say it's there yet. Just that the trend doesn't look good.

This is not just coming from me. My wife is from London. As charming as I consider the place, she tells me all the time there's no opportunity there. Half her high school graduating class is in the GTA.

See Steve Paikin's panel on London recently.

 
A very interesting video, thanks for sharing.

London has relied on it's old wealth reputation to get by and it hasn't worked. Some things were certainly beyond London's control like the soring CDN$ in the early 2000s which made a lot of Ontario manufacturing uncompetitive along with cheap labour products from China and Mexico. London, unlike many manufacturing cities, is very fortunate in that it already had a very solid education, medical, finance, and government industry. For a manufacturing city to have that kind of solid white collar presence is quite rare.

London's rather conservative nature has inhibited the city from changing quickly. London's traditional "growth but not at any price" has left the city without the "get up and go" of KWC or Calgary. Conversely it has left Londoners with a beautiful, connected, safe, and very pleasant city that no other city in Southern Ontario outside of Toronto can match.

London really is a lovely city and a very liveable one. Not only is that very nice from a quality of life point of view but is also a formidable economic strength. When high skilled labour can go where they want, being able to offer a job in a city that offers a high quality of life is a real economic advantage. Same with industry.........they want to set up shop where they know they cannot only get skilled workers but entice new ones to come and just as importantly, stay.

London has missed a beat or two and will probably continue to although the city and especially the downtown, has taken a very marked turn for the better in the last decade. London is definitely not KWC or the innovation it's known for but when considering they are the same size metros, London has far more to offer and is an infinitely nicer and more pleasant city than KWC or most cities in Ontario will ever hope to be.
 
ssiguy2 said:
A very interesting video, thanks for sharing.

London has relied on it's old wealth reputation to get by and it hasn't worked. Some things were certainly beyond London's control like the soring CDN$ in the early 2000s which made a lot of Ontario manufacturing uncompetitive along with cheap labour products from China and Mexico. London, unlike many manufacturing cities, is very fortunate in that it already had a very solid education, medical, finance, and government industry. For a manufacturing city to have that kind of solid white collar presence is quite rare.

London's rather conservative nature has inhibited the city from changing quickly. London's traditional "growth but not at any price" has left the city without the "get up and go" of KWC or Calgary. Conversely it has left Londoners with a beautiful, connected, safe, and very pleasant city that no other city in Southern Ontario outside of Toronto can match.

London really is a lovely city and a very liveable one. Not only is that very nice from a quality of life point of view but is also a formidable economic strength. When high skilled labour can go where they want, being able to offer a job in a city that offers a high quality of life is a real economic advantage. Same with industry.........they want to set up shop where they know they cannot only get skilled workers but entice new ones to come and just as importantly, stay.

London has missed a beat or two and will probably continue to although the city and especially the downtown, has taken a very marked turn for the better in the last decade. London is definitely not KWC or the innovation it's known for but when considering they are the same size metros, London has far more to offer and is an infinitely nicer and more pleasant city than KWC or most cities in Ontario will ever hope to be.
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London was initially populated by retired British military officers. KW was founded by German immigrants. The difference in their attitude towards progress and change goes all the way back to their founding.
 
ssiguy2 said:
London really is a lovely city and a very liveable one. Not only is that very nice from a quality of life point of view but is also a formidable economic strength. When high skilled labour can go where they want, being able to offer a job in a city that offers a high quality of life is a real economic advantage. Same with industry.........they want to set up shop where they know they cannot only get skilled workers but entice new ones to come and just as importantly, stay.

London has missed a beat or two and will probably continue to although the city and especially the downtown, has taken a very marked turn for the better in the last decade. London is definitely not KWC or the innovation it's known for but when considering they are the same size metros, London has far more to offer and is an infinitely nicer and more pleasant city than KWC or most cities in Ontario will ever hope to be.
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Absolutlely agree. Which is why I'd love to see some kind of solid rail connection there. Forget "real HSR". If they build that 90 min rail connection with hourly frequency to London, that alone will make demand for living in London for lots of mobile professionals soar. The faster that train, the more the demand. But at 90 minutes, you'll get a lot of well off professionals who don't have a daily commute living in London. Get it down to 60 minutes and you'll get daily commuters from London. With the 90 minute train, I can see lots of Waterloo tech folks moving to London too.
 
On-topic. I really was hoping that London would pick LRT. But to be honest, BRT is one of the things that might actually survive a PC government. And they can expand on it steadily, like Ottawa to convert it later.
 
Excellent news for London. Federal commitment makes this project more real.

Seeing as PC candidates in Hamilton have come out against the LRT, I doubt Patrick Brown would have much empathy for London LRT project either. Federal money makes this project a tad safer assuming a change in provincial government.
 
kEiThZ said:
On-topic. I really was hoping that London would pick LRT. But to be honest, BRT is one of the things that might actually survive a PC government. And they can expand on it steadily, like Ottawa to convert it later.
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Only in Canada do we half-ass a transit project with BRT instead of LRT, only to convert it to LRT 30 years later by spending even more money than if LRT was built in the first place.
 
The systems Seattle and Ottawa are building today however are truly effective networks. They operate as true rapid transit, while KWCs lrt is more of a hybrid.

That is fine today as it's all the city needs, but it will probably delay implementing a proper high capacity, high speed system later when that is needed.
 
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