Hamilton Hamilton Line B LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

urbancog said:
Since 2013, City of Hamilton has enforced a moratorium on cutting any of its roads for 5 years after reconstruction - good asset management. As the LRT work involves full reconstruction of the streets it touches, this will have triggered the need to replace a lot of old infrastructure in that's been in the ground for decades so there's no need to cur the road within 5 years. Hence the large scale of the utility works for the project.

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I didn't know this, because apparently the city doesn't follow this. I know Cannon was cut right after it was completed.
 
Hamilton’s LRT must be breaking records for most renders!

At least the ‘Most Differing Renders for One Project’ record.

We’ve had three different maps, and now a 5th LRV render!

Now that I point this out, the City’s gonna start calling it ‘Record Breaking’ in its PR materials.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
It would be nice if they still built the Frid Street extension. It's weird that this 'innovation' district is split into two areas. Maybe the provincial funding for the maintenance yard includes that. It would make sense as it would give employees of the maintenance yard access to the facility from both Aberdeen and Main Street.

Also, they just posted this on their instagram.

www.metrolinx.com

Hamilton LRT Virtual Event

Virtual Open House November 30, 2023
www.metrolinx.com

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It seems a lot of people who ‘attended’ this open house share my sentiments regarding the cost vs transit benefits:

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My big wish is this would have been resurrected as a Canada Line sized (rolling stock/stations/cut and cover) line that actually would have sped up travel time and kept operating costs low. Surrey-Langley have a population similar to Hamilton and between them are getting a 16km Skytrain extension that will make it so they have 20km total with 12 stations. (though I do feel like Hamilton will need more stations with its dense core and more developed nature compared to Langley)

But this is all water under the rail bridge.
 
Again, I would actually argue that this is less about fast transit and more about city building. Metrolinx/Gov of Ontario are pretty clear that the main point of these LRT projects are to spur development and replace aging infrastructure. It's not a rapid transit system like a subway, think of it more analogous to a tram line in a medium sized european city.
 
TheHonestMaple said:
Again, I would actually argue that this is less about fast transit and more about city building. Metrolinx/Gov of Ontario are pretty clear that the main point of these LRT projects are to spur development and replace aging infrastructure. It's not a rapid transit system like a subway, think of it more analogous to a tram line in a medium sized european city.
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Exactly. Hamilton's B-Line isn't actually that slow. McMaster to Eastgate in 30 minutes is kind of very decent. Even with a fully grade separated Metro we'd likely see a 25 minute trip end to end, which isn't worth the insane increase in cost. The issue in Hamilton has never been the speed of the transit east/west during non-traffic times of day.

The Hamilton LRT accomplishes a few things:

1) Improves reliability as buses won't have to fight with traffic. This could have also been largely resolved with bus lanes which has been the argument of some, but misses the remaining items;

2) Increased capacity. The B-Line bus is over capacity during peak times. LRT will simply solve this by tripling (or more) the capacity.

3) Half the cost of LRT is Ontario/Feds paying for Hamilton's failing infrastructure. Hamilton might be one of the cities in Canada with the largest infrastructure deficit.

4) investment tool, bringing economic and real estate vitality back to Hamilton. It will cement the city's recovered from its collapse in the later half of the 20th century. It will also provide additional property taxes through redevelopment that will help Hamilton not fall into a deficit hole again.

5) Culture change. Hamilton is build for the car. That will start to break down, both now, but especially in 20-30 years when we continue to gain residents who choose to drive because of uncomfortable buses. Removing Hamilton's internationally notorious 4 lane single direction roads from its core and replacing it with an LRT tram line will completely change the entire vibe and culture of the city. Sure people will continue to drive their lifted F350 Super Duties with truck nuts, but the rest of us will be laughing as we pass them in traffic on the LRT.
 
a fully grade separated subway would be looking at a travel time of around 22 minutes - over 30% faster than the LRT.

The LRT has been promised a 30-minute travel time, which is indeed quite quick for what is really a street-running tram (~26km/h). I'm not certain true journey times will be that quick, to be honest.
 
innsertnamehere said:
a fully grade separated subway would be looking at a travel time of around 22 minutes - over 30% faster than the LRT.

The LRT has been promised a 30-minute travel time, which is indeed quite quick for what is really a street-running tram (~26km/h). I'm not certain true journey times will be that quick, to be honest.
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Pre-boarding fare payment will speed up boardings which should allow for a decent speed. Along with some kind of TSP which was confirmed at the most recent public meeting.
 
NoahB said:
My big wish is this would have been resurrected as a Canada Line sized (rolling stock/stations/cut and cover) line that actually would have sped up travel time and kept operating costs low.
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Any sort of grade-separated metro is several orders of magnitude more costly to run than a surface-level LRT.

Dan
 
Chris R. said:
Pre-boarding fare payment will speed up boardings which should allow for a decent speed. Along with some kind of TSP which was confirmed at the most recent public meeting.
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Indeed - but Metrolinx is expecting average speeds on Finch to be closer to 20-21km/h, which suggests a run time of ~37 minutes for Hamilton.

Kitchener runs it's 19km route in 40 minutes, or about 28km/h, but that is with extended sections of grade-exclusive runs in rail corridors - roughly 30% of the line runs off-street. I'd be surprised if the Hamilton LRT can achieve an average speed of 26km/h.
 
innsertnamehere said:
I'd be surprised if the Hamilton LRT can achieve an average speed of 26km/h.
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Many European tramways in private lanes get up to average speeds like this without difficulty. The only thing that might actually be a setback is stop spacing and 'operational rules' like you see on the downtown streetcar network in Toronto.
 
I'm confused, The Hamilton Spectator put out an extremely critical article today about how construction on the LRT likely won't start until 2025. yet at the public meeting just last week, Metrolinx stated construction WOULD start in 2024 for major utility relocation. The Spec article seems to base their entire assumptions upon a single vague sentence that Abdul Shaikh about procurement. The Spec seems to be interpreting that construction on the LRT can't start until the two way conversion of main. That is completely illogical as the two projects are mostly unrelated. In the same article they admit that construction can happen simultaneously according to Abdul Shaikh himself.

We seem to be getting so much bad information about this project and it's causing so much confusion. Also, The Hamilton Spectator has always been so biased against the project. In fact I feel like they almost have some role in the delay of the project my misinforming citizens and councillors at that time.

I'm so tired of this 😩
 
TheHonestMaple said:
The Hamilton Spectator put out an extremely critical article today about how construction on the LRT likely won't start until 2025. yet at the public meeting just last week, Metrolinx stated construction WOULD start in 2024 for major utility relocation.
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2024 work will largely be the relocation of utilities/pipelines owned by private organizations (e.g. Bell, Union Gas, etc.) that can do it at this time. A couple of projects were completed as part of the former iteration. These are generally “enabling works” and for some, are often overlooked.

2025 is the likely start date of any work by the contractor of the first package that is to be awarded by Metorlinx/IO.

FWIW, the City has started replacement/relocation of a watermain at King/Sherman so work has “started.”
 
My understanding is that Package 1 is a simpler package that simply relates to moving public and private utilities which will start in 2024, while major construction works will be part of package 2 which requires a more lengthy RFP/RFQ process, and so package 2 will be awarded and begin in 2025. The spec article seems to make that sound like a delay, but I understand it moreso as a change to how to process will work. In a single package P3 all work "begins" at the same time. We will likely see the road ripped up in multiple areas during 2024 for continued utility relocation. To be fair MX has been coy with talking about dates or timelines, likely because of Crosstown and more generally not having the estimated time-frames yet. The timeframe likely has a lot to do with budget. Lower budget means slower construction since labour is one of the most expensive parts of a project. 500 people working on it for $60,000/year each would cost $150m, if you double that to 1000 employees working on the project over 4 years it's almost a quarter billion dollars on just employees.
 
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