HomeDiagramsDatabaseMapsForum About
     

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada > Ontario > Hamilton > Transportation & Infrastructure


Reply

 
Thread Tools Display Modes
     
     
  #2081  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2014, 11:58 PM
Dr Awesomesauce's Avatar
Dr Awesomesauce Dr Awesomesauce is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: BEYOND THE OUTER RIM
Posts: 5,889
^Another reason to invest in LRT. A 10-year life span? The typical LRT vehicle lasts three times as long.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2082  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2014, 12:55 PM
HillStreetBlues HillStreetBlues is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: KW/Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 995
Great news. Barton is in bad need of more larger buses. So is the B Line. Replacing forty-footers that are due for retirement with larger buses seems like a no-brainer: hopefully we hear more news like this in the near future.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2083  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2014, 7:24 PM
SteelTown's Avatar
SteelTown SteelTown is offline
It's Hammer Time
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Hamilton
Posts: 19,872
Matthew Van Dongen @Mattatthespec

Hamilton has hired a new transit director: David Dixon, formerly GM of the TTC. #HamOnt
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2084  
Old Posted Oct 28, 2014, 11:17 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelTown View Post
Matthew Van Dongen @Mattatthespec

Hamilton has hired a new transit director: David Dixon, formerly GM of the TTC. #HamOnt
Via Hamilton Transit:

City of Hamilton Hires a New Director of Transit

The City of Hamilton has announced today that David Dixon is the successful candidate for the Director of Transit position with the City of Hamilton.

David spent over 25 years with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), most recently in the role of General Manager/Chief Operating Officer, until the organization restructured in 2013. Mr. Dixon was responsible for all subway, streetcar and bus operations at Canada’s largest transit authority with an annual operating budget of $825 million, a multi-billion dollar 10-year capital budget and 11,000 employees.

David will join the City on Monday, November 3rd.

“I am pleased to welcome David to our team,” said Gerry Davis, General Manager of Public Works. “I am confident that his leadership qualities and related experience will continue to build upon Hamilton’s modern, reliable, and service-orientated public transportation program.”

David will be leading the transit group through a progressive transition towards achievement of the City’s corporate culture goals. This includes a number of important initiatives including a dedicated Human Resources Organizational Development Specialist to support senior staff as they work through culture changes within HSR.

The current Director of Transportation, Don Hull, will assist with the transition of the leadership role until he retires on November 14th, 2014. “We wish Don a very happy retirement after 18 years of dedicated service to the City of Hamilton,” Davis said.

Source: City of Hamilton



CBC Hamilton salts the press release with this bit of backstory:

Dixon was pushed to the top operations gig at the TTC during a culture shakeup in 2012, and had been with the organization for 25 years. Dixon spent 19 months in the role as COO, managing and maintaining subways, streetcars, buses and their facilities, before he was let go in 2013 as part of a shake-up of management. A National Post report said Dixon took over when the previous general manager, Gary Webster, was pushed out by Toronto city council for opposing Mayor Rob Ford's subway plan. The Post report, from last October, said Dixon was fired along with his deputy, Jim Teeple.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2085  
Old Posted Nov 13, 2014, 4:32 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Gas Tax Funding Fuels Transit Growth
(Government of Ontario, Nov 13 2014)

Ontario is providing $321.5 million in gas tax funding to 96 municipalities this year to help expand and improve public transit.

The Ontario Gas Tax Program helps municipalities increase accessibility, buy more transit vehicles, add more routes and extend hours of service, making it easier for people to use public transit. It will also help ease traffic congestion and reduce air pollution.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2086  
Old Posted Nov 13, 2014, 7:40 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
How sprawl, inadequate transit worsen unemployment
(Better Cities & Towns, Kaid Benfield, Nov 13 2014)

Recently laid-off workers who live far from job centers take longer to find replacement employment than do residents of neighborhoods more convenient to jobs by public transit or car. So says new, meticulously thorough research published by the U.S. Census.

It's easy to grasp why poorly planned, haphazard suburban sprawl is bad for the environment: disconnected, spread-out subdivisions eat up watersheds and wildlife habitat while forcing people to drive ever-longer distances to get things done. Public transportation becomes inconvenient at best, and totally inaccessible to many. Increased automobile dependence is why per-household carbon emissions are so much higher on the metropolitan fringe than in closer-in neighborhoods.

More hidden, though, are the economic consequences of sprawl, such as rising costs for the construction and maintenance of extended infrastructure and the burdens of increased transportation costs on household budgets.

More hidden still are the economic consequences of households being located at long distances, inadequately served by public transit, from job centers. For the employed, it means longer and more inconvenient commutes. But, for the unemployed, in too many cases it means you can't get to the job you need at all because you can't afford the costs of car ownership and inadequate public transit simply doesn't connect you to where you need to go.

This works both ways: people living on the fringe can't conveniently get to jobs in the center or in a suburb. People living in the center can't get to hard-to-reach suburban jobs. In other words, both housing sprawl and job sprawl cause problems. In the academic literature, this is referred to as "spatial mismatch" of job-seekers and job-providers. The oft-cited remedy is "jobs-housing balance," or adequate affordable housing located near jobs that residents need, reachable by public transit.

This has long made intuitive sense, but now there's proof: Angie Schmitt, writing in Streetsblog USA, reports that a thorough new study by researchers at the US Census Bureau, the Comptroller of the Currency, and Harvard University confirms that "geographic barriers to employment -- sprawl, suburban zoning, poor transit - do indeed depress employment levels."

I took a look at the study report, which was published earlier this year by the Census Bureau's Center for Economic Studies. More specifically, the research looked at a sample of 247,000 Midwestern lower-income "workers who have experienced an involuntary job displacement" because of mass layoffs, and how long they remained unemployed. The researchers also used local travel data to model commute times by both car and transit to job centers from neighborhoods where the displaced workers' residences were located. They found a significant relationship between the displaced workers' relative accessibility to job centers and the duration of unemployment.



Read it in full here.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2087  
Old Posted Nov 25, 2014, 3:06 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Thanks to mattgrande for pulling together this visualization of current HSR schedule data. You can really see the intensified burst of activity in the afternoon rush and the gulf between that level of service and the rest of the day. (H/T RTH)
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2088  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2014, 2:51 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Council faces torpid HSR
(CATCH Hamilton, Nov 24 2014)

The new city council inherits the slowest growing transit system in the province which has recorded drops in ridership in four of the last seven years. Councillors are arriving with lots of election promises to improve the HSR but also saddled with a quarter-century tradition of refusing to increase transit funding.

Yearly provincial surveys put Hamilton far behind other large municipalities in ridership growth with only a 3.1 percent gain in the last eight years. In the same 2006-2013 period, Brampton recorded over 90 percent growth, Durham and Waterloo regions over 50 percent, and even St. Catharines climbed nearly 11 percent despite the latter city losing population.

Mississauga is up 25 percent since 2006 and earlier this month opened the first segment of a $460 million bus rapid transit (BRT) system that will cover 18 km by its completion in 2017. Both the federal and provincial governments provided some financing, but nearly 70 percent is being covered by Mississauga residents who are already obtaining faster annual transit growth than Hamilton has achieved over the last seven.

There’s a similar picture of high velocity transit growth in Waterloo Region where last year the Grand River Transit system passed Hamilton despite being nearly seven and a half million passengers behind the HSR in 2006. Overall GRT ridership has doubled since 1999 and it exceeded 22 million in 2013 while the HSR managed only 21.8 million – even fewer passenger trips than it transported in 2011.

Waterloo has also gone through the LRT-BRT debate, but settled it earlier this year and confirmed the build decision in last month’s municipal election. In a contest focused on the LRT, regional chair Ken Seiling won nearly 2.5 times as many votes as an anti-LRT businessman. New mayors were elected in open races in both Kitchener and Waterloo with both in favour of LRT, while in Cambridge the anti-LRT mayor was re-elected but two regional councillors holding the same position were defeated.

The story was the same in Ottawa where Mayor Jim Watson won over three-quarters of the votes cast after seeking a “very strong mandate” to move ahead with an additional LRT line. Ottawa Transpo carried nearly 98 million riders last year, a decline of 8 million after a $20 million budget cut in 2011 but still six million more than 2006.

In Canadian cities under two million population, a September release by the Canadian Urban Transit Association says transit use is growing by seven percent a year. "While ridership continues its upward trend on average across the entire country, there was a marked increase in smaller cities across Canada" said CUTA President and CEO Michael Roschlau.


Read it in full here.






__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan

Last edited by thistleclub; Feb 6, 2015 at 8:52 PM.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2089  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2014, 3:30 PM
Beedok Beedok is offline
Exiled Hamiltonian Gal
 
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 6,801
Nice Y axis truncation on the Hamilton vs. Mississauga. (Yes, Hamilton has issues, but that graph is still misleading.)
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2090  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2014, 4:00 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beedok View Post
Nice Y axis truncation on the Hamilton vs. Mississauga. (Yes, Hamilton has issues, but that graph is still misleading.)
Flawed, but the outlier was included to show that the two transit services logged similar ridership not that long ago.

Brampton has made historic ridership stats far more readily than Mississauga, so I haven't been able to string together a graph comparable to the other two.

Will see if I can't work up a 20-year dataset. Until then, I've replaced the Mississauga graph with a clean 10-year sample.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2091  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2014, 6:01 PM
lucasmascotto's Avatar
lucasmascotto lucasmascotto is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Hamilton
Posts: 356
Absenteeism among bus drivers affects routes
Vacation, illness and stress time off mean some scheduled rides scrapped
The Hamilton Spectator (Friday, November 28, 2014)
By: Matthew Van Dongen

The HSR is struggling to put enough buses on the road with an increasing number of drivers off work to deal with illness and stress.

The absenteeism rate among the city's 442 regular bus drivers is around 14 per cent, said HSR director David Dixon. That includes vacation days.

The "surprisingly high" number of missing operators — more than 60 on some days — is contributing to more buses being late or unable to hit the road at all in the last couple months. Statistics provided to The Spectator show HSR buses missed about 140 hours of scheduled service from Nov. 3 to 19, on about 80 routes.

"We're struggling in some cases to meet service. Not a lot, relative to our overall numbers, but even missing 30 minutes is not good and missing a whole peak (period) is worse," Dixon said, noting HSR buses operate about 2,500 scheduled hours per weekday.

The newly hired director said he's just begun to examine the reasons behind the scramble to fill driver's seats in the city's 221 buses but added "absenteeism would factor into that."

Transit union president Eric Tuck confirmed more drivers are off now than normal. He said he thought missed service has been more of a problem in the last two months. Tuck blamed a number of factors for the driver crunch, including seasonal illness, poor scheduling of on-call drivers and an overall need for more hires.

But, he added, more operators are also off work because of stress, and he doesn't think it's a coincidence service complaints and assaults on bus drivers are on the rise.

"It kind of snowballs, right? You have a (driver) shortage, and then you have more drivers working more hours to cover the gap, dealing with more upset passengers," said Tuck, who argued an increasing number of drivers are spending up to 60 hours a week on the bus.

"People are breaking. It's not just buses that break down."

The last year has been a tumultuous one for drivers and riders alike.

The HSR lost its two top managers in the midst of dealing with the fallout from employee complaints about a toxic workplace and sexual harassment.

The number of attacks on bus drivers — such as spitting, pushing and threats — has nearly doubled over last year to 37, while complaints about buses speeding by would-be passengers at stops are poised to top 200 for the second year in a row.

On the upside, the HSR was cheered for releasing real-time data this year that will make it easier for passengers to track buses by smartphone.

Dixon said he's recently responded to customer complaints about buses that didn't show up.

"We will improve," he said, but added some missed service is inevitable at any transit operation, whether due to absences, traffic collisions or vehicle breakdowns. Some incidents are also more serious than others.

The HSR recorded missed service due to a lack of drivers on 79 occasions earlier this month, but Dixon is more concerned about 14 of those incidents that lasted longer than three hours each.

The most commonly pulled buses, accounting for about 40 missed hours, were those providing "extra service" on routes that see a flood of secondary school students at certain times of the day. That bus service comes with a warning that it can be changed or cancelled without notice.

Buses were also missing in action frequently on the busy B-line, King Street and University routes, with other repeated problems on Barton and the A-line up the Mountain.

On the upside, the HSR didn't miss a single service hour between Nov. 12 and 16. In the worst case, the transit provider missed 30 hours of service on Nov. 11, including 13 hours alone on the University line.

Dixon said he'll take a comprehensive look at workforce planning within the HSR, including scheduling issues, absenteeism and an expected wave of driver retirements.

The average number of sick days taken by city workers last year was close to 10, but half of municipal employees took only one or two days.

A breakdown of sick days for the HSR wasn't immediately available.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2092  
Old Posted Nov 28, 2014, 7:18 PM
matt602's Avatar
matt602 matt602 is offline
Hammer'd
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Hamilton, ON
Posts: 4,751
The new director seems to be looking into numbers in areas that probably haven't been touched in years. I'm glad to see him getting his hands dirty, theres lots of work to do clearly. Definitely need more butts in those seats.
__________________
"Above all, Hamilton must learn to think like a city, not a suburban hybrid where residents drive everywhere. What makes Hamilton interesting is the fact it's a city. The sprawl that surrounds it, which can be found all over North America, is running out of time."
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2093  
Old Posted Nov 29, 2014, 3:30 PM
Berklon's Avatar
Berklon Berklon is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Hamilton (The Brooklyn of Canada)
Posts: 3,042
Quote:
Absenteeism among bus drivers affects routes
Vacation, illness and stress time off mean some scheduled rides scrapped
That might explain why at least once a week my scheduled bus going home from downtown never shows up. Really annoying.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2094  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2014, 8:10 PM
LikeHamilton's Avatar
LikeHamilton LikeHamilton is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 2,701
For December 8th Public Works Meeting

Quote:
RECOMMENDATION
That the 2015 Capital budget submission for the purchase of twenty-four forty-foot Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Conventional Transit (HSR) buses including nineteen replacement buses, and five previously approved expansion buses in the total amountof $13,070,000 from NOVA bus be pre-approved and funded from the following
sources: Federal Gas Tax - $3,000,000, HSR Vehicle Replacement Reserves - $10,070,000.
Quote:
It is necessary for the Vendor (NOVA) to receive a Purchase Order as soon as possible to ensure delivery of the buses to the City in Q2/3 2015.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2095  
Old Posted Dec 3, 2014, 8:20 PM
LikeHamilton's Avatar
LikeHamilton LikeHamilton is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 2,701
Another item in December 8th Public Works Meeting

Quote:
RECOMMENDATION
That the upset limit of $1,000,000 (approved in Report PW11079e) for the award of a contract with Enseicom for the design, supply and installation of A & B Line Station Stops - Shelters and Amenities be increased to an upset limit of $1,400,000 funded from the Metrolinx Quick Wins Reserve #108047 and charged to Project ID 530138400
Quote:
Council on June 25, 2014, directed the General Manager, Public Works, to negotiate with Enseicom Inc., and pending negotiations, award the contract for the design, supply and installation of A & B Line Station Stops – Shelters and Amenities with an upset limit of one million dollars ($1,000,000). As such staff have negotiated with Enseicom Inc., and in order to bring the submission in line with the design typologies and ensure that all 12 locations will proceed at this time, the overall project scope and estimate of one million dollars ($1,000,000) is being recommended to be expanded to approximately one million four hundred thousand dollars ($1,400,000).

This increase in budget will ensure that all 12 locations including the Mountain Transit Center (MTC) Park and Ride lot will proceed, rather than a total of only 9 locations. The ability to complete all 12 locations rather than only 9 allows for synergies and cost efficiencies and avoids the requirement to re-issue another Request for Pre- Qualifications (RFPQ) for the remainder above one million dollars ($1,000,000).

It should be noted that phase 1 and 2 falls within the $1 million and includes the prototype location of the Mountain Transit Centre and up to 8 additional locations, but in order to complete the entire estimated roll out of all 12 locations including the MTC, phase 3 would need to proceed and therefore this request of a fund transfer is required.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2096  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2014, 2:25 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Are complete streets losing steam at Hamilton city hall?
(CBC Hamilton, Samantha Craggs, Dec 10 2014)

Complete streets were the buzzwords during the last term of council.

Councillors voted in favour of a transit lane running from Mary to Dundurn Streets in downtown Hamilton. They approved a $1.6-million, three-year pilot project to put bidirectional bicycle lanes on part of Cannon Street. They approved a pedestrian mobility plan pledging wider sidewalks, more shade trees and another amenities on new streets that would encourage more people to walk instead of drive.

But as almost the first order of business, several councillors are pushing a vote Wednesday aimed at killing the downtown bus lane. Is that accelerated vote a sign the momentum toward complete streets has ended?

At least one councillor says that tide seems to be turning, and election feedback is part of the sway. Others say they are hearing growing frustration at the focus and are getting pressure to act on that feedback.

Coun. Chad Collins, one of the most vocal councillors on killing the lane, says he heard while campaigning in Ward 5 during this fall’s election that constituents were annoyed by the cost and inconvenience of downtown transit and bike lanes.

At least twice a day, he said, he heard from people who saw them as adding long minutes to their car commutes downtown, and taking precious dollars away from neighbourhood infrastructure projects.



Read it in full here.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2097  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2014, 5:06 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Council needs to read bus lane report
(Hamilton Spectator, Andrew Dreschel, Dec 10 2014)

Is Hamilton's new council composed mainly of knee-jerk reactionaries or cool-headed moderates?

Thanks to Councillor Chad Collins, we may very soon get a pretty good feel for that.

If he's as good as his word, Collins intends to introduce a motion at next week's council meeting to make the controversial King Street bus-only lane "nonenforceable," meaning it will be reopened to cars and trucks ASAP.

The problem is, public works isn't expected to provide council with a detailed report on how the one-year pilot project went until January.

That means Collins will basically be asking council to pass formal judgment on the transit experiment before the evidence is in….

Let's not forget that the purpose of the project is not just to test drive a modern transit service; it's to learn lessons for the eventual implementation of a light rail or bus rapid transit system, either of which would be a significant shift in the delivery and perceptions of public transportation

If councillors pull the plug before hearing comprehensive results of the experiment — the successes the failures, the potential, the pitfalls — they'll be sending a signal that, come what may, they prefer the status quo. It would be a premature stamp of disapproval that could very well scar other fact-finding rapid transit initiatives.

Read it in full here.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2098  
Old Posted Dec 10, 2014, 7:18 PM
SteelTown's Avatar
SteelTown SteelTown is offline
It's Hammer Time
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Hamilton
Posts: 19,872
It's rare but I agree with Dreschel.
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2099  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2014, 4:19 PM
thistleclub thistleclub is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 3,728
Mayor pitches plan to salvage bus-only lane
(Hamilton Spectator, Matthew Van Dongen, Dec 12 2014)

Mayor Fred Eisenberger is pitching a last-minute plan to salvage the much maligned bus-only lane on King Street by returning street parking and easing car traffic restrictions.

The controversial dedicated transit lane was supposed to be a one-year pilot project to test-drive how future rapid transit would work on the busy B-line corridor. But businesses and critics were infuriated to learn a report on whether to extend or end the experiment won't be available to council until next year.

Coun. Chad Collins plans to introduce a motion to end enforcement of the dedicated transit lane this month, effectively ending bus priority along the three-kilometre stretch from the downtown to almost Dundurn Street.

But the city's new mayor pitched his own counterproposal Friday, arguing "it doesn't make sense" to end a $300,000-plus experiment without the facts.

"I think there's an opportunity to salvage something worthwhile out of this exercise," said Eisenberger. "I think there have been positives and negatives to this, so my approach is how do we solve the negatives to make it all positive?"

Eisenberger is pitching:

• restricting bus priority primarily to rush hour on weekdays;

• allowing high occupancy vehicles in the lane along with buses;

• move the bus-only lane off the north curb west of Bay Street in order to restore some parking for businesses along that stretch.
__________________
"Where architectural imagination is absent, the case is hopeless." - Louis Sullivan
Reply With Quote
     
     
  #2100  
Old Posted Dec 12, 2014, 4:29 PM
HillStreetBlues HillStreetBlues is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: KW/Hamilton, Ontario
Posts: 995
Moving the transit lane off of the north lane is a great idea: the business owners have stated their preference to have street parking on their side of the street, and parked cars are a useful barrier between the sidewalk and fast-moving traffic.

As for reducing the hours in which the lane is restricted, and turning it into a carpool lane…I wish we were able to wait for some data to make decisions.
Reply With Quote
     
     
This discussion thread continues

Use the page links to the lower-right to go to the next page for additional posts
 
 
Reply

Go Back   SkyscraperPage Forum > Regional Sections > Canada > Ontario > Hamilton > Transportation & Infrastructure
Forum Jump


Thread Tools
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT. The time now is 5:50 AM.

     
SkyscraperPage.com - Archive - Privacy Statement - Top

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.