SashaLemon
Active Member
How are you gonna convince Londoners to take the train with the lack of quality public transit in the city?
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London Rapid Transit (In-Design)
- Thread starter Midtown Urbanist
- Start date
How are you gonna convince Londoners to take the train with the lack of quality public transit in the city?
SashaLemon
Active Member
A sort of hub in London with mini lines going out of it would be very cool. It would also provide more passengers for a potential upgraded London - Toronto route. (And hopefully a future HSR/HFR line.)
kEiThZ
Superstar
You must be getting people mixed up. Read my posts. I'm critical of them not building LRT.
SashaLemon
Active Member
Oh I know. The LRT is needed.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I am talking 300+km/hr.Yes, it would need to be grade separated. But when they did it, the current equipment cannot do it.
I believe you brought up HSR, so I am just responding.
I am too, but unlike you, I understand why.
Haljackey
Active Member
The GO service to London is a joke and is hardly ever used. Who wants to spend 4-4.5 hours EACH way to Toronto and back? I'd much rather drive or take Via.
Regardless, the current BRT plan does not have a connection with the train station downtown which is a miss IMO. The Downtown Loop route should have incorporated this somehow, or the south gateway could have veered towards the station a bit before heading south on the Wellington Corridor.
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Regarding the next municipal election, I try to be a cautiously optimistic fellow but I cannot see any new routes greenlighted by the next council. At best we can hope the routes that are already approved get built as I am sure some anti-BRT councilors would love to reopen and nix them if elected..
kEiThZ
Superstar
I'm really curious who is using this. It takes way too long to even get to Kitchener.
Network effects. I don't get how any rapid transit will succeed without a filled out network. And I fear when it doesn't get the ridership they want, it'll be justification to avoid further investment. At this point, I'm just hoping that KWC and Hamilton grow faster than London.
Haljackey
Active Member
Next to no one uses the GO service. It's almost like the PCs put it in as a way to try and get votes from the London area last election (they failed, all of London went NDP again), and now they have a excuse to kill it showing that commuter trains aren't a viable option. It's bleeding money that could be utilized much better elsewhere.
Unlike most cities (even much smaller ones!), London does not have a central transit hub. There's no location that exists where you can hop off one bus and hop on another without crossing the street, walking a block, etc. The Downtown Loop route will help concentrate connections at the new BRT stops, but these are just stops and not stations.
Ideally London could have expanded the VIA train station to incorporate a transit hub. It's a good central location for people to switch buses, and obviously provides a convenient link to the rails for those wanting to hop off a bus and onto a train.
Lots of paved paradise that could have been utilized for a great BRT transit hub.
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micheal_can
Senior Member
The worst par is, the timing sucks if you want to commute as a 9-5er to Toronto for work. I really don't see who this benefits at all. And I am someone who would normally be wanting more rail projects...
Haljackey
Active Member
a 8 hour workday with a 8-9 hour commute on top of that? And add time to get to the train station in London and your office in Toronto and you're probably closer to 9.5 or 10 hours. 18 hour day means you have just 6 hours at home to do stuff and sleep.
The previous Liberal government wanted a HSR line from London to Toronto. That would have opened this kind of commute up a little, but its still a lot of hassle and expensive.
If HSR ever comes to London it better have a BRT connection. This guy actually had something nice to say about London on Youtube for once. Blurb starts about 10 mins in.
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London's 'frontrunner' mayoral candiate voted against the west leg of the BRT as councilor, mostly because he didn't like how the plan had the route running in mixed traffic for some of it. Gotta start somewhere buddy, geesh.
micheal_can
Senior Member
I do agree that it seems silly, but if you are going to attempt it, at least try to do it so it makes sense.
For instance, it could be an express train after Kitchener Station till Weston to allow for a connection to the UPX.
That and have it so that it does arrive with time for business people to be able to take advantage of it.
London will become a commuter city in all due time, so having the infrastructure set up for the first ones to kind of do it efficiently does make some sense.
I feel no HSR stops should be devoid of RT. That would be a failure of design and future planning.For instance, it would be expected that Kingston would be a stop for HSR going east. If the city does not want any RT built, then they get passed by.Same for London and Windsor (And Sarina if they go there.).
If it is at the end, that is fine, but if it is anywhere between reserved lanes, then it will be a mess, and that makes sense. Maybe they could ahve pushed it back to design to have that fixed. I feel politicians are quick to approve or deny something, but aren't willing to get something fixed to approve it. That needs to change at all levels of governments.
Haljackey
Active Member
The west leg had BRT running in mixed traffic right in the middle of the route, not at the end. The stretch on Wharncliffe you see here- the purple dashes- was the mixed traffic portion.
The route nixed-
While not the best, gotta start somewhere. Maybe in time that mixed traffic area could have been fixed up.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
He vastly underestimates the friction of International borders. Crossing the US-Canada border is not like going from Germany to Austria.
micheal_can
Senior Member
So get rid of the section west of the river. Keep the downtown loop, and send it up Richmond to Oxford. Or just do the one line first, and do it properly.The west leg had BRT running in mixed traffic right in the middle of the route, not at the end. The stretch on Wharncliffe you see here- the purple dashes- was the mixed traffic portion.
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The route nixed-
While not the best, gotta start somewhere. Maybe in time that mixed traffic area could have been fixed up.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
I love how London is now only building the two most useless BRT legs of the original plan, while the busiest corridors will continue to operate in mixed traffic. Just excellent planning all around.