Municipal Politics

[kcantor]

^
why aren’t we looking at brt? maybe for the same reason ottawa is converting brt to lrt?

Myth vs. Reality: Has Ottawa "BRT" Provided Light Rail-Type Service at Much Lower Cost?

www.lightrailnow.org

Ottawa converts bus rapid transit into light rail line - Railway Track and Structures

The light rail line will serve in upwards of 10,700 passengers per hour in each direction during peak travel times; Ottawa's population expected to increase 30 percent.

www.rtands.com

 

[TAS]

It's actually not good to know that Ottawa has had major problems with its LRT since opening - there's a call for a public inquiry.

Why the bumpy, two-year ride of Ottawa’s multibillion-dollar LRT system is sparking calls for a public inquiry

Two years ago, on a Monday in September, Ottawa’s shiny new $2-billion LRT system started running. The city held its breath, and the whole system ran ...

www.google.com

Just some additional info about the mess that is Edmonton Transit.

I think we are one of the few places where ridership actually declined after adding an LRT line.
In 2014, we reached our highest ridership of 89 million trips per year. In fall 2015 the metro line - 3 stops at $655 million - opened to NAIT. Projections were 13,200 additional riders per weekday. Fast forward to 2019, our ridership is down by more than 2 million trips per year. Adding insult to injury, our overall population increased by 100,000 people during that time, making the ridership drop even more concerning.

Now we are more than doubling that $655 million that we spent on metro line to add two new stops, less than 1 km of track, in Blatchford.

Back to 2018 - city concern was growing about this trending drop in ridership over the previous 4 years, especially since the cost to subsidize the service had jumped 250 per cent, from $54 million in 2000 to $191 million in 2018. Total cost of operating public transit went up by more than 200 per cent between 2000 and 2018, from $105 million to $327 million.

So the city conducted a transit audit and released the report in 2019 to determine why ridership was dropping.

Fixing the city's faltering transit system will be a challenge despite ongoing efforts to improve it, city auditor David Wiun said when presenting to council committee.

One of the biggest challenges is getting more people to take public transit, he said.

Safe, convenient, reliable and faster service will prompt more people to take the bus or LRT, Wiun said.

"Hopefully that will lead to increased ridership," Wiun said. "It won't be easy."

Hopefully?

He also said this - keep in mind this is 2019 before covid and the significant transition to working from home which is here to stay.

A number of factors may discourage people from taking transit, he said. Wiun cited Statistics Canada reports showing more and more people are working from home. "And if you lose some of those, it's going to be more challenging."

Bottom line - we added expensive lrt and population increased by 100,000 and ridership dropped. Ouch.
But with more lrt opening soon ($1.8 billion not including annual operating and subsidization costs) and with continued annual population growth, we should be back to 2014 ridership numbers at some point - hopefully.

 

[kcantor]

if those 100,000 didn’t have either lrt or transit connections to it from the homes they moved into, that’s a reason for more, not less, isn’t it?

even if the work from home bromide does hold true for 25% of the workforce, our population is still set to double in the near to medium future which means a lot larger not working from home cohort than existed pre-covid.

lastly, even if you work from home, that doesn’t mean you never leave your home for work related as well as personal trips elsewhere, many of which would still utilize good public transit.

 

[TAS]

Ok then. I guess we're good. No issues that we need to take a critical look at here. Full steam ahead!

 

[Platinum107]

I don't think anybody is denying that. Yes, building track will add riders. It damn well better. It's just ensuring the investment is worth the amount of ridership it will add is the issue. There must be targets we have set out for increased ridership that have been identified for the investment in valley line - anybody know?

Several candidates this election including some currently on council like Tim Cartmell have advocated the city consider bus rapid transit as well. If key areas or corridors of the city aren't currently being served while the west lrt is being built, why not look at this option?

BRT is in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver I believe. Why aren't we looking at that I wonder?

BRT is a good tool to link communities into a rapid-transit line with rapid-transit level service, but it itself being the trunk line has issues. Higher operating costs, lower ridership, little to no TOD, less economy of scale and operational efficiency (3 smaller internal combustion motors & 3 drivers vs.1 large electric motor & 1 driver) and, on top of it all, smaller vehicle life spans.

I don't think it should be out of the question to link communities and secondary corridors like Terwillegar, Callingwood, 137th Ave, etc. with a mode like BRT, but using it for main trunk lines to downtown doesn't make much sense for a city our size.

 

[Edmcowboy11]

Regarding a decline in LRT ridership, I'm curious how much of that was due to the elimination of the massive park n ride lot at Century Park?

 

[TAS]

It is truly a pivotal time where predicting what the new normal will look like is very difficult.

The Uncertain Future Facing Calgary Transit Post COVID — Every Day Tourist

Transit Planner Neil McKendrick share his thoughts on the uncertain future facing Calgary Transit post COVID and what it means for future projects.

everydaytourist.ca

Neil McKendrick is a retired transit planner with the City of Calgary and not surprisingly an advocate for transit services.

Yet here was his final thought outlined in the article above regarding future transit ridership, work from home, continued growth of shopping online etc

“Given these realities, investing billions right now to construct the Green Line and the millions of new dollars required to operate it each year is a huge gamble. Maybe it would be prudent to pause this project.” says Neil McKendrick.

So having some politicians, current councillors and members of the public asking for a pause is certainly not out in left field when a transit planner and advocate himself has doubts and uncertainties.

 

[Gronk!]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1444013100458381312

 

[Edmonchuk]

So having some politicians, current councillors and members of the public asking for a pause is certainly not out in left field when a transit planner and advocate himself has doubts and uncertainties.

Hey TAS,

Maybe you should read this over again? Because I can't believe we are arguing about this again...

The History of the Funding of Edmonton's LRT: The 1990s

If Edmonton’s LRT is ever going to charge forward, it might be helpful to look back and see what has pushed it ahead in the past. Here’s the first in a series of po…

edmontonjournal.com

 

[ChazYEG]

Hey TAS,

Maybe you should read this over again? Because I can't believe we are arguing about this again...

The History of the Funding of Edmonton's LRT: The 1990s

If Edmonton’s LRT is ever going to charge forward, it might be helpful to look back and see what has pushed it ahead in the past. Here’s the first in a series of po…

edmontonjournal.com

I honestly give up...
Every single time, it's the same thing... You should as well... He won't be convinced and has made up his mind against the expansion and is just looking for someone that's minimally relevant to support his position.

It happens...

 

[occidentalcapital]

Without new LRT, we'd be even further behind. Ridership down at 50 million would be my guess. Build the LRT, build it now, build it to every quadrant of the City. That is the only real and practical way to create transit ridership growth. Buses don't cut it, sorry, but that's just the facts out there. No one wants to take a bus unless they have to.

 

[TAS]

Now you're all ganging up on me

The costs scare me big time along with our ridership drop off between 2014-2019 where we were supposed to gain 3.5 million in ridership but actually lost 2.1 million after the $665 million metro line opened in 2015, but I absolutely hope our LRT investment does what it's intended to do. It's important for many reasons that it does.

I was a journalism grad from MacEwan and worked in the industry for 6 years before moving on to wellness. Sometimes I do like to make counterpoints and share minimally relevant facts or news stories if I can find them as part of engagement in important discussions on our city's future, and not to purposely annoy anybody.

 

[thommyjo]

I think, and hope, that the difference between the metro and Valley is that the metro line really didn't add a lot. A macewan stop....that most students didn't need cause they either took the train and walked from capital stations or drove/bussed already.

And then a mess of 2 other stops haha.

SE Valley and W Valley should be game changers vs small expansions. I would be shocked to not see ridership jump by tens of millions in the next 5 years. So many more employment hubs and residential corners are being added to the network.

In my mind, the LRT is needed because its an alternative to cars. No one is stressing about building roads, even though major cities all of the world are banning them, taxing them, and seeking to eliminate them.

Id say we should be a lot more scared about not having a city that can operate without cars for the majority of citizens in 30 years.

Maybe we'll never get there...but its the global trend and arguably the ethical direction.

We need to start taxing cars to pay for transit. Thats where the revenue shortfalls can be made up.

 

[ChazYEG]

Now you're all ganging up on me

The costs scare me big time along with our ridership drop off between 2014-2019 where we were supposed to gain 3.5 million in ridership but actually lost 2.1 million after the $665 million metro line opened in 2015, but I absolutely hope our LRT investment does what it's intended to do. It's important for many reasons that it does.

I was a journalism grad from MacEwan and worked in the industry for 6 years before moving on to wellness. Sometimes I do like to make counterpoints and share minimally relevant facts or news stories if I can find them as part of engagement in important discussions on our city's future, and not to purposely annoy anybody.

The thing with the Metro line is that it had major reliability issues from the get go, which also impacted the Capital Line big time, creating a bas reputation, especially for those new immigrants and students that could've made ridership go up, or at least stay stable.
As anecdotal as it is, I see it Inside the Brazilian community a lot: people who got here circa 2013/14 and got so disappointed that whenever people ask about needing a car when moving here, the answer is always "you absolutely NEED one! Because transit sucks, LRT is always slow/broken... Bla bla blah".
And then the newer generation of Brazilian immigrants and students usually runs away from transit and move to the burbs right off the bat.

 

[Windermere]

A reminder that we will also be "electing" senators during the municipal election. The protest vote is Duncan Kinney, who I'll be voting for just to stick it to Jason Kenney.

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