robmausser
Senior Member
I wonder if London will eventually get jealous of Kitcheners LRT and think they made the wrong choice with BRT.
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London Rapid Transit (In-Design)
- Thread starter Midtown Urbanist
- Start date
kEiThZ
Superstar
With any luck, and the development the LRT is attracting KWC will develop into a nicer town than London and catch up in size.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Are you saying KWC is smaller in population than London?
doady
Senior Member
I think he is referring to the development and size of the downtown(s). Downtown Kitchener isn't quite on the same level as downtown London.
robmausser
Senior Member
If we are comparing Greater Areas they are pretty similar
KWC is 535,154
London Greater Area is 532,984
However KWC has an advantage that most of the population is along a north/southish strip, which makes a single LRT line more attractive.
Londons population is more dense downtown but then spread out in all directions. Making LRT less attractive.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I was talking about just their cities.
London could use several lines, but due to many reasons, likely nothing will be done for a few decades.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
Kitchener is by far the smallest metro in North America with a rail based transit system and even then the only reason it (barely) works is because the city is very linearly set up along King Street.
London is a long, long way off from LRT. Setting up the original BRT plan would have provided some extremely strong levels of transit service for such a small city. Now that they highest ridership wing has been cancelled it's much less effective.. but the downtown loop should still be generally useful, even if the two BRT lines that are constructed are going to be pretty low ridership.
London is a long, long way off from LRT. Setting up the original BRT plan would have provided some extremely strong levels of transit service for such a small city. Now that they highest ridership wing has been cancelled it's much less effective.. but the downtown loop should still be generally useful, even if the two BRT lines that are constructed are going to be pretty low ridership.
robmausser
Senior Member
I wonder if there could be some advantages to running an LRT along rail corridor lands beside existing track in London for more express service like they did in Kitchener with the ION LRT.
Looking at the map there are several places where this could be possible. Especially south, thats a very limited used spur line like the Waterloo Spur, and the current routing of the BRT really doesnt go through anywhere particularly special, just a neighbourhood.
I routed off the rail line through downtown because its kinda tight there with the VIA station and all, and you want the LRT to serve downtown. But perhaps a parallel express service could be setup along the rail corridor, just stopping at the train station, if there was room.
Looking at the map there are several places where this could be possible. Especially south, thats a very limited used spur line like the Waterloo Spur, and the current routing of the BRT really doesnt go through anywhere particularly special, just a neighbourhood.
I routed off the rail line through downtown because its kinda tight there with the VIA station and all, and you want the LRT to serve downtown. But perhaps a parallel express service could be setup along the rail corridor, just stopping at the train station, if there was room.
micheal_can
Senior Member
The south leg you speak of is through a low density and industrial area. Not very good for most people.
robmausser
Senior Member
And the portion that its on already is just a bunch of houses. Extremely low density. Not very good either and has the disadvantage that it goes through about 10 signaled intersections. Might as well express past that to the hospital and then down commissioners to a dense area.
Haljackey
Active Member
London's mayor wants to make London's bus fleet the first all-electric network in Canada. Might take 10 or more years.
There are hopes that provincial/federal money London left on the table from cancelled BRT routes might help cover this. Over $100 million of funding up for grabs was left out by the decision not to build the full proposed BRT network. Might be used to cover extra cost for buses or charging infrastructure.
lfpress.com
There are hopes that provincial/federal money London left on the table from cancelled BRT routes might help cover this. Over $100 million of funding up for grabs was left out by the decision not to build the full proposed BRT network. Might be used to cover extra cost for buses or charging infrastructure.
Electrifying transit vow jolts London mayor's State of the City audience
Mayor Ed Holder’s surprise pledge to make London Transit’s bus fleet all-electric will need political support and cash to make it happen — and both will hinge…
lfpress.com
Johnny Au
Senior Member
London could have an express bus service to St. Thomas to the south as a successor to Northlink and it can be called the Jumbo (after the famous circus elephant (that was probably the largest African elephant in recorded history) that made the word "jumbo" enter the English language as a synonym for "very large"; said elephant died in St. Thomas amid a railway accident there).
Statue of Jumbo the Elephant in St. Thomas
Statue of Jumbo the Elephant in St. Thomas
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
Indianapolis just became the first city in the US to have a 100% battery powered BRT line. 2 more are in the works and they too will be battery. The advantage of battery {besides zero emissions} is that they have far faster acceleration than standard diesel or natural gas buses as well as being much quieter. Due to being battery they also avoid the initial costs, maintenance, and visual pollution of catenary powered trolleys and don't suffer from the jerky starts that effect trolleys.
II think this would be a great idea for London.
II think this would be a great idea for London.
drum118
Superstar
Its also the first system to have extra chargers installed along the route on BYD dime, considering the chargers were at the end only.
It will be a long time before LRT gets off the ground when council can't support an BRT system at the expense of single drivers in London.
The day LRV's can run 100% on battery with no overhead will be a day to end pollution of overhead wires. Same goes for hydro wires and not allowing cable companies to use poles to string their system.
Sadly, the downtown needs major redevelopment to bring people back to it and stop this urban sprawl to the point you can put in high order transit without opposition.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Has there been any discussion at all of bringing Presto to operators like LTC? Rough as implementation was in Ottawa, I think there's a ton of value in bringing a fare card that's used by most of the large transit services in the province down to smaller operators in London, Kingston, Windor, etc. It's strange to me that there are transit services in Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Barrie, etc. that don't have Presto but connect to GO. I think London could probably ask for and receive some assistance from the province implementing Presto.
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