DirectionNorth
Active Member
At $250 million/km ($4.6 billion), I'm not convinced there aren't other routes that don't also need some kind of relief. If the cost came down, to say, $100 million/km ($1.8 billion), it would be worth the money.I'm not going to address the comparison to Line 1 downtown because it's self-evidently apples and steak. We are in the burbs. Still, for Finch, the case is much clearer; demand exists, and the trip generators are in place (straight along Finch). This is all conjecture though; further unlike Finch, most of the connections for this line don't exist yet. We have no idea what demand will be like to or from them.
here's my angle, it's nothing new. While on the one hand, I understand that this is meant for local trips, on the other we aren't exactly building a cheap Parisian tramway. This is going to cost a lot, and its worth asking if this is the best use of the money for rail transit specifically. As for determining the best mode... if this is to be for local travel, I'm not convinced there is enough demand to justify LRT over BRT. But if alot of demand is coming from connections, then both might fail at moving people quickly enough. The mode choice seems to be a recognition of that, but completely compromises the network utility that could exist for most subway riders. GO riders have a better prospect here I'll admit.
Rapid Transit here is a good idea, don't get me wrong; this simply doesn't seem the best way to do it for those nearby or city-wide. For instance, I am not sold on this being a great deal for connecting Malvern, but admittedly I am not from the area so I can't say for certain.
In brief... you/we need to look at the tradeoffs here. The province certainly has...
Maybe we need a thread for construction costs (do we have one?) - EWLRT, YNSE, SSE, OL ...
The business case says 3,700 PPHD. Which is high enough to probably justify rail, but it's never going to be Ottawa - this is about 60-70 TPH, which is mostly just expensive.Streetcars built Toronto, LRT can do the same thing for areas that need to grow while buses will not. PPL prefer steel rail over rubber wheels for a smoother ride. Then there is the operation cost for both systems with LRT winning so long it not underground.
With an LRT system, you can say headway is every 5 minutes using one LRV and ridership grows, you add a 2nd or 3rd car using one driver. A BRT cannot maintain a 5 minute headway as ridership increase, that you need to reduce the headway by adding more buses and drivers to the point headway could be less than a minute like the Ottawa BRT that where it is bumper to bumper at peak time and have seen it first hand..
Seen a number of systems in the US and you have to shake your head why an LRT was built in the first place when just a local bus was good enough in the first place. Ridership was non existing at all hours. Even a BRT would have been better.
One has to look at the orange line in LA that should be an LRT, but strong opposition kill the LRT plan.
GO RER may also change the calculus on this; the business case assumes 15 mins headways on Lakeshore East, but I'm almost certain it will be better than that, as will Sheppard East. This may decrease or increase demand, I'm not entirely sure.
Tangentially, this is why we need long-term planning that gives us a better set of assumptions to build transit cases off of and leaves space in design (see: Kennedy station)