London Rapid Transit (In-Design)

[micheal_can]

Sure. But where's the higher order local transit for Barrie, Stouffville, Oshawa, Burlington, Milton? The exceptions don't disprove the rule. The vast majority of communities with GO service are not getting higher order transit. Nor do they need it.

Populations of:
Barrie 141,000
Stouffville 46,000
Oshawa 160,000
Burlington 183,000
Milton 110,000

Kitchener 204,000
Waterloo 104,000
Missisauga 721,000
Vaughan 306,000
Markham 328,000
Newmarket 80,000

London 384,000

The first group are your ideas. The second is where the Hurontario LRT, Viva, Mississauga Transitway and ION are.
And then there is London. If placed within the second group, it would be the second largest by population. If placed within the first list, it is the largest with more than 100,000 more than the next one. Even without a possible future GO connection, this seems ripe for LRT. ION and VIVA are not there due to the GO.

You are right that they did blow this chance. Just like Toronto blew it's chance for an Eglinton Subway. Hopefully it doesn't take over 20 years for London to learn and recover from their mistake.

 

[kEiThZ]

ION and VIVA are not there due to the GO.

The first group are your ideas. The second is where the Hurontario LRT, Viva, Mississauga Transitway and ION are.
And then there is London.

Which doesn't connect to the GO network and nobody has any plans to connect to the GO network in any foreseeable plan put forward. A reminder that all those other projects (except ION...which still connects to GO) were part of Metrolinx's The Big Move regional transit plan....which London is not a part of. And most of those higher order plans were based on connecting the identified "mobility hubs". Of which GO has several. Virtually every non-416 project that is funded connects to a GO station or is actually used by GO. They will also be owned and operated by Metrolinx.

London is not on Metrolinx's radar. At all.

Even without a possible future GO connection, this seems ripe for LRT.

Sure. If it isn't tunneled at $300 million per km, which is what Londoners are apparently insisting is the only acceptable solution. And that is my point. "Ripe for LRT" means nothing when the locals insist that you have to build the most expensive form of LRT possible. BRT or LRT, it's the same problem. Either take away roadspace on Richmond or spends hundreds of millions tunneling. And higher level governments aren't interested in paying for grade separation.

You are right that they did blow this chance. Just like Toronto blew it's chance for an Eglinton Subway.

Do you just pull stuff out of your six? This some gaslighting bullshit.

Toronto never "blew its chance for an Eglinton subway". Have we forgotten about the Harris PC government, mostly elected by 905ers (and places like London) that cancelled the Eglinton subway and literally ordered the hole filled in?

It's not like Torontonians ever voted against an Eglinton subway. And I'd say the Eglinton LRT is a pretty decent compromise.

Hopefully it doesn't take over 20 years for London to learn and recover from their mistake.

They aren't getting LRT in 20 years. As long as they insist that roadspace inviolable, they will be getting nothing more than diamond lanes. Simple as that. There's no way to make the math add up.

 

[drum118]

Transportation top issue for Londoners, survey says

 

[Haljackey]

London is currently in a last min scramble to decide if we want a Bus Rapid Transit network.

It heavily contrasts to the cancelled freeway network plan that was in a last min scramble.

Some interesting history here from a 3-part documentary from CTV London

Part 1

Transit Deja Vu: London’s lost freeway, part one

As the BRT debate comes to a head, Sean Irvine looks back at the freeway that almost was, and the debate that scuttled it.

london.ctvnews.ca

Part 2

videoPlayer

london.ctvnews.ca

Part 3

videoPlayer

london.ctvnews.ca

 

[SaugeenJunction]

City politicians edging closer to dismantling London's $500M bus rapid transit system

I spent four years of my life in London when I went to Western from 2014-2018 and oh my it is a NIMBY city if I have ever seen one. Traffic is worse at rush hour than Toronto (because of no rapid transit alternative) but yet the city refuses to move forward. I'm honestly just sitting here shaking my head. It's absolutely backwards. The city has so much potential but Londoners refuse to think like a real city, and prefer to imagine themselves as a little town.

 

[TransitBart]

City politicians edging closer to dismantling London's $500M bus rapid transit system

I spent four years of my life in London when I went to Western from 2014-2018 and oh my it is a NIMBY city if I have ever seen one. Traffic is worse at rush hour than Toronto (because of no rapid transit alternative) but yet the city refuses to move forward. I'm honestly just sitting here shaking my head. It's absolutely backwards. The city has so much potential but Londoners refuse to think like a real city, and prefer to imagine themselves as a little town.

Gosh. I could say the same about Toronto. Politicians protecting their own little neighbourhoods.

 

[ssiguy2]

This is London 101...……...reserved to the core and totally risk adverse. In London doing nothing about anything is always politically advantageous. That has had sad results for the city and especially in transportation but London was a slow & steady kind of place so it was manageable. Today however London is one of Canada's fastest growing cities and growing at more than twice level future planning is based on and is experiencing it's fastest population growth since the early 80s. London is already well over 400,000 and the city forecast another 70,000 residents by 2040 which now looks like they will pass by 2030.

London is going to miss out on all this infrastructure money and the city's traffic will get even worse than it is now which, in London's case, is really saying something.

 

[doady]

London is in the Snow Belt, and articulated buses can't operate in the snow. LRT would make much more sense than BRT. But if they are not willing make sacrifices even for BRT, then LRT which requires even greater committment is also out of the question.

Honestly, I don't think it is that urgent, regular buses can handle the ridership of London for now and in the near future. Mississauga and Winnipeg systems are twice as large as London's they only built BRT very recently.

But Mississauga and Winnipeg get much less snow than London, so they don't have to worry as much about having to leave the artics in the garage when it's snowing. And I know Mississauga for sure keeps their artics in the garage when it's snowing. London doesn't need the extra capacity of high order transit yet, but when the time comes, I think LRT is really the only choice for them.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

London is in the Snow Belt, and articulated buses can't operate in the snow. LRT would make much more sense than BRT. But if they are not willing make sacrifices even for BRT, then LRT which requires even greater committment is also out of the question.

Honestly, I don't think it is that urgent, regular buses can handle the ridership of London for now and in the near future. Mississauga and Winnipeg systems are twice as large as London's they only built BRT very recently.

But Mississauga and Winnipeg get much less snow than London, so they don't have to worry as much about having to leave the artics in the garage when it's snowing. And I know Mississauga for sure keeps their artics in the garage when it's snowing. London doesn't need the extra capacity of high order transit yet, but when the time comes, I think LRT is really the only choice for them.

The thing about low ridership is that it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody rides the bus because its slow and infrequent therefore you only build higher order transit when when the sheer population size requires it. But they could at least do some small stuff first, like rebranding the existing express busses as a seperate brt service, kinda along the lines of how Viva started out.

Ottawa is pretty snowy, and yes artics are horrible in the snow. The Double Deckers on the other hand do quite well in snow, and do better on tight city streets which is why Ottawa moved them from just commuter buses into active duty on a lot of the inner core routes. Of course, given the two accidents, now is probably not a good time politically to float DDs.

 

[Haljackey]

articulated buses can't operate in the snow.

The LTC (London Transit Comission) has operated articulated buses here since 2003 without any issues.

 

[drum118]

The LTC (London Transit Comission) has operated articulated buses here since 2003 without any issues.

True, but it only has had a few over that time frame compared to rest of the fleet or other systems. Seen them on only 3 routes so far, where one is only artic's that goes from Wonderland to the University every 13-15 minutes..

The city is a car city and rule by car folks who don't want to change the model split. The best thing for the system is to beef up the headway by moving from 30+ to 15-20 headway 7 days a week. Need to start with quality of service before moving to more express service before moving to True BRT/LRT, with LRT being the right chose regardless of cost.

Hell!! they are planning on making Wonderland 6 lanes compare to 4 lanes today, to deal backup at peak time. Easy to widen bridges for this expansion, other than the CN bridge. It will have to be 100% rebuilt that is overhead doing one track at a time. Lots of property will have to be bought to the point very little land to be had at a few spots.

 

[doady]

The thing about low ridership is that it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nobody rides the bus because its slow and infrequent therefore you only build higher order transit when when the sheer population size requires it. But they could at least do some small stuff first, like rebranding the existing express busses as a seperate brt service, kinda along the lines of how Viva started out.

But LTC doesn't have low ridership does it? London has the best transit ridership per capita in Ontario outside of Toronto and Ottawa. It's better than Guelph, Mississauga, Waterloo, Hamilton...

Comparing nationally, London Transit's approximately 60 riders per capita is on the same level as Victoria and Halifax, and slightly lower than Winnipeg (70 riders per capita).

I'm not convinced of building BRT or LRT just to attract ridership. York Region Transit ridership growth was better before VIVA. Winnipeg's ridership has been falling since its BRT began operation.

Systems have BRT/LRT because they already have high ridership, not the other way around. Ottawa for example already had insane ridership before they built BRT. In 1981, two years before BRT, Ottawa's system got 70 million riders, around 120 per capita, the same as today. BRT and LRT is to address too high ridership, not too low ridership, and I'm not sure London is at that point yet.

Ottawa is pretty snowy, and yes artics are horrible in the snow. The Double Deckers on the other hand do quite well in snow, and do better on tight city streets which is why Ottawa moved them from just commuter buses into active duty on a lot of the inner core routes. Of course, given the two accidents, now is probably not a good time politically to float DDs.

I'm not sure about double deckers either. Double capacity? But still only two doors for boarding or getting of the bus for so many people.

Victoria and GO use double deckers as well and I never heard about safety issues.

The LTC (London Transit Comission) has operated articulated buses here since 2003 without any issues.

Artics comprise less than 5% of LTC's fleet, 10 buses out of a total of 205. It's not like Ottawa where artics comprise more than 1/3 of the fleet (359 buses out of a total of 1069).

And Ottawa's troubles with their artics in the snow is well-documented:

In the past I have personally seen artics getting stuck in the snow here in Mississauga. Missisauga was very reliant on artics back then, they comprised around 20% of the total bus fleet, but they reduced them over the years and even considered getting rid of them altogether because of these problems.

 

[ssiguy2]

Yes northern London is in the snowbelt {note I said northern London as the northern end of the city gets 70cm more snow than the southern end} but unlike Ottawa, London is relatively mild so the snow, like Toronto, melts periodically while in Ottawa it doesn't. I don't think that snow is any issue.

I just rifled off a letter to the City's BRT office about a far superior and politically palatable option of a far larger BRT-lite system. In a nutshell it would be at least twice as large, serve thousands more and many more destinations and wouldn't take car lanes.
Using regular lanes have large stations with vending machines and real-time arrival, POP, level boarding , articulated buses, all door exit/entry, easily identifiable buses and stations, frequent, far fewer stops at only major intersections or destinations, and have que-jumping lanes where needed. Fast to implement, expandable, gets those transit infrastructure funds, moves buses faster, more reliable, no controversial lane or land acquisition, and actually INCREASES vehicular speed...…….....all the benefits with no drawbacks where everyone is happy.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

But LTC doesn't have low ridership does it? London has the best transit ridership per capita in Ontario outside of Toronto and Ottawa. It's better than Guelph, Mississauga, Waterloo, Hamilton...

Comparing nationally, London Transit's approximately 60 riders per capita is on the same level as Victoria and Halifax, and slightly lower than Winnipeg (70 riders per capita).

I'm not convinced of building BRT or LRT just to attract ridership. York Region Transit ridership growth was better before VIVA. Winnipeg's ridership has been falling since its BRT began operation.

Systems have BRT/LRT because they already have high ridership, not the other way around. Ottawa for example already had insane ridership before they built BRT. In 1981, two years before BRT, Ottawa's system got 70 million riders, around 120 per capita, the same as today. BRT and LRT is to address too high ridership, not too low ridership


I'm not sure about double deckers either. Double capacity? But still only two doors for boarding or getting of the bus for so many people.

Victoria and GO use double deckers as well and I never heard about safety issues.



Artics comprise less than 5% of LTC's fleet, 10 buses out of a total of 205. It's not like Ottawa where artics comprise more than 1/3 of the fleet (359 buses out of a total of 1069).

And Ottawa's troubles with their artics in the snow is well-documented:

In the past I have personally seen artics getting stuck in the snow here in Mississauga. Missisauga was very reliant on artics back then, they comprised around 20% of the total bus fleet, but they reduced them over the years and even considered getting rid of them altogether because of these problems.

But LTC doesn't have low ridership does it? London has the best transit ridership per capita in Ontario outside of Toronto and Ottawa. It's better than Guelph, Mississauga, Waterloo, Hamilton...

Comparing nationally, London Transit's approximately 60 riders per capita is on the same level as Victoria and Halifax, and slightly lower than Winnipeg (70 riders per capita).

I'm not convinced of building BRT or LRT just to attract ridership. York Region Transit ridership growth was better before VIVA. Winnipeg's ridership has been falling since its BRT began operation.

Systems have BRT/LRT because they already have high ridership, not the other way around. Ottawa for example already had insane ridership before they built BRT. In 1981, two years before BRT, Ottawa's system got 70 million riders, around 120 per capita, the same as today. BRT and LRT is to address too high ridership, not too low ridership, and I'm not sure London is at that point yet.



I'm not sure about double deckers either. Double capacity? But still only two doors for boarding or getting of the bus for so many people.

Victoria and GO use double deckers as well and I never heard about safety issues.



Artics comprise less than 5% of LTC's fleet, 10 buses out of a total of 205. It's not like Ottawa where artics comprise more than 1/3 of the fleet (359 buses out of a total of 1069).

And Ottawa's troubles with their artics in the snow is well-documented:

In the past I have personally seen artics getting stuck in the snow here in Mississauga. Missisauga was very reliant on artics back then, they comprised around 20% of the total bus fleet, but they reduced them over the years and even considered getting rid of them altogether because of these problems.

The DDs do well at opposite extremes, for long distance express routes, or crowded inner routes like OC Transpo's #6 where the capacity really cancels out the slightly longer dwell time. You don't want them in the middle scenarios.

 

[Haljackey]

Interesting CBC article about the BRT changes... if you can even call it BRT.

London arrives at 'a crossroads' in transit planning | CBC News

On Wednesday, London city staff will recommend a handful of local transit projects to go ahead in applications for senior government funding, leaving some to wonder how much of the $500-million BRT plan will fall to the wayside.

www.cbc.ca