The future of Hamilton's public transit

[SteelTown]

What a waste of time and money.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

While we're at it, let's resuscitate the skytrain proposal from 1979. I just love reliving these bungled boondoggles over and over again.

For the record, I want LRT. I just don't want to suffer through another decade of bs...

[thistleclub]

• As a BRT option would be developed within the limitations of the King-Main St. corridor (B-line BRT) and Upper James St. corridor (A-line BRT), an initial priority of any work should focus on determining the technical feasibility of having fully separated bus lanes with platform-level boarding. The Task Force is not convinced any form of transit that runs in mixed traffic will deliver appropriate benefits to the people and businesses of Hamilton.
• The Province should confirm if the BRT projects can be implemented within the next two years…
• Undertake a business case for the BRTs and priority bus options to get refined benefits and costs estimates.

Recommendation seems to put the cart before the horse (business case would precede both technical studies and provincial investment, one imagines), and ambitious to imagine "implementing" a 15km B-Line and 17km A-Line within two years.

Bold of them to essentially argue for dedicating the West 5th access to BRT, though.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

I've always been against BRT. The infrastructure required - stations, platforms, bus lanes, etc. - is also very expensive and seems to not attract significant increases in ridership and investment. To me it's either splash out on east-west LRT or add more buses to the route without the infrastructure.

It's but one example off the top of my head, but ask Ottawa how it feels about their massive Transitway investment 40 years ago. Regret, I believe, is the most common sentiment among city officials still around from that era.

[TheRitsman]

https://canada.constructconnect.com/...r-hamilton-lrt

LIUNA solicits McKenna’s support for Hamilton LRT

Top LIUNA executive Joe Mancinelli has told Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Catherine McKenna that the federal government should support shovel-ready projects like Hamilton’s proposed LRT build as it prepares plans to kick-start the national economy into a post-COVID-19 recovery.

The conversation took place April 2, a week before Ontario Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney announced she has asked Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario (IO) to review recommendations recently issued by the Hamilton Transportation Task Force.

The task force report keeps the LRT proposal on the table as a preferred option along with a second proposal, for BRT (bus rapid transit) along the same corridor. Mulroney had scuttled the LRT in December citing escalating costs and a month later she appointed the five-member task force with a mandate to recommend how best to spend $1 billion in provincial funds to improve transportation in Hamilton.

“I had a discussion with federal minister McKenna on this very issue about working on a recovery stimulus program,” said Mancinelli, international vice-president for the Labourers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA).

“When this is over they would like to have a number of shovel-ready projects ready to go,” he said, noting their discussion of the Hamilton project. “That could get off the ground anywhere between four to six months. That would be an excellent stimulus project for that municipality…and not only for the province but the country in general.”

The project’s original budget, announced in 2014, was for $1 billion but Mulroney said in her December cancellation announcement it had recently been costed at $5.5 billion including various operating and maintenance costs.

The federal government has never committed to funding the project but in a statement to the Daily Commercial News McKenna’s press secretary indicated the matter is under review.

“Minister McKenna has been in regular contact with Minister Mulroney in Ontario — including again last week after the task force report came out — and we will examine the province’s recommendations and consider their funding requests on an expedited basis,” said Chantalle Aubertin.

In her statement announcing that the report would be reviewed by IO and Metrolinx, Mulroney said, “I am pleased that we are one step closer to ensuring that the province’s commitment of $1 billion in capital funding is invested in realistic and affordable transportation projects in Hamilton.”

The task force, chaired by former Liberal MP Tony Valeri, said its general recommendation is to invest the $1 billion in higher-order intra-city transit “to bring substantial benefits to the current and future residents and businesses of the City of Hamilton.”

Both the LRT project and BRT are higher-order projects that would address the city’s transportation needs in view of current and future demand and congestion, the report explained.

“The LRT option on the B-Line could include the original project scope (if additional capital funding is identified) or a truncated version of the original project as a first phase provided the benefits meet or exceed the benefits of the original project and exceed the benefits of projects on the preliminary list of recommendations.”

Sue Ramsay, general manager of the Hamilton-Halton Construction Association, a long-time LRT supporter, said her association was not surprised that LRT was among the recommendations given that the project has been under development since 2008 and has gone through cost-benefit analyses by many organizations.

“Given the recent announcement by federal Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna that Ottawa is planning to spend billions of dollars on shovel-ready infrastructure projects, we’re hopeful that the Hamilton LRT could be one of those projects,” said Ramsay.

Between the options, the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce sides with LRT.

“After thorough analysis, we’re sure that decision-makers will concur that Hamilton’s long-planned LRT will deliver the most substantial long-term economic benefits for our city,” a chamber release stated.

“The judgment of LRT versus BRT was rendered many years ago after much debate…BRT does not have the same development impact or value uplift as LRT and is not as well-suited for urban environments.”

Mancinelli has said LIUNA would consider financial support for the 14-kilometre, 17-stop project.

“A lot of folks have looked at this project as a rail project and gotten stuck on it as a transportation investment,” he remarked. “This is a huge economic investment. Along the LRT line there are over 20 major developments that are projects, plus the opportunity to dig up the line and replace the infrastructure underneath, the sewers, fibreoptics.

“This is a huge economic development play and that is why we have been very supportive of the LRT.”

[ScreamingViking]

Keep kicking that can....

Ask for the N/S BRT too though. Will make the whole package more sale-able to the suburban #Hamont types.

[thistleclub]

Hopefully the feds step in with operational funding to support municipal transit services running at a loss during their fare-free period (and, thereafter, at a loss as quarter-capacity loads are needed in order to support distancing protocols).

[LikeHamilton]

Flamborough HSR Bus Service Cost Now Split Between Waterdown and Hamilton Ratepayers

The Public Record By Joey Coleman, Editor | May 4, 2020

Hamilton City Council unanimously approved splitting the area-rated cost of local HSR bus service in Waterdown between ratepayers in Waterdown and ratepayers in the former City of Hamilton (Wards 1 – 8 and 14).

With the change, the $538,000 annual operating cost of the 18-Waterdown HSR bus route is funded 68.8% by Waterdown ratepayers and 31.2% by Hamilton ratepayers for approximately $370,000 and $168,000 respectively.

The report submitted to City Council recommending the change states “Ward 15 is benefiting from the change in the split of Route 18-Waterdown, which now allocates the Burlington Portion of the route to Hamilton, which was previously allocated to Waterdown.”

The rest of the article

https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/2020/...on-ratepayers/

[mattgrande]

That makes absolutely no sense. Can we just get rid of area rating already?

[Markus83]

https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilto...surrected.html

[ChildishGavino]

I fear the Province will put the kibosh on the idea regardless of where the funding comes from.

[thistleclub]

Should Hamilton replace empty bus routes with ride-hailing services like Uber?
(Hamilton Spectator, Matthew Van Dongen, Sept 9 2020)

The province says Hamilton must look at swapping empty buses for Uber-like “microtransit” in order to access more emergency COVID cash for transit.

Microtransit often refers to partnerships with private transportation providers like Uber that offer flexible transit routes, ride-sharing capability and on-demand service via smartphone apps.

It’s not yet clear how or where such a service might be used in Hamilton — especially since the local bus drivers’ union has first dibs on any new transit service in the city. But at least one private “on-demand” transit company, Via, is already lobbying the city.

As first reported in the Toronto Star, Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney wrote to several cities last month to confirm a COVID cash infusion for transit agencies — including $17 million for Hamilton — but also to set conditions on any further bailout funding after September.

Hamilton’s letter, posted online ahead of a Wednesday meeting, requires the city to review its “lowest performing bus routes” to see if microtransit is a better fit. It also references looming discussions about regional “fare integration” and new “governance structures.”

The HSR is still “unsure” what the conditions means for its service and is awaiting details from the province, said spokesperson Amanda Kinnaird. Council had already cut 19,000 hours of “underperforming” bus service in March before the pandemic hit.

A Ministry of Transportation spokesperson said via email that Ontario will work with cities “to evaluate low-volume routes” and determine whether microtransit options would be more affordable in a post-COVID world of lower ridership.


Read it in full here.

Guessing that this would effectively eliminate most suburban bus routes.

[ChildishGavino]

as if the routes on the mountain & suburbs weren't bad enough

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by ChildishGavino

as if the routes on the mountain & suburbs weren't bad enough

This is something the province is trying to push on providers across the province. We'll see how it works out.

[matt602]

They're doing this in West Niagara (Grimsby, Pelham and Lincoln County) and they're thinking about expanding it to the rest of Niagara region. While it seems to work well there, this seems like a terrible idea in a built up city like Hamilton especially when their whole goal is to build conventional transit service across the city, not segregate and splinter it off. If they were proposing this for rural areas of the city not currently serviced by conventional transit, I'd be supportive.

I'm predicting that if this does end up happening, the routes that are eliminated will never return since the excuse will be "well if they couldn't even support a ride hailing service..."

[thistleclub]

Innisfil has been doing this since 2017, and yeah, it seems like it might be appropriate if your municipality was too small to support a conventional transit fleet (Innisfil did so to avoid spending $1M to create three routes). But it's predictably problematic. The Guardian reports:

The costs per ride vary, but on average passengers pay an average of CAD$5 (£3), with the city subsiding the rest. Trips outside subsidised areas receive a flat $6 discount.

Two years later, the Innisfil authorities argue that the project has been a success. Ridership is high – in 2018 there were 85,943 trips – and many residents have embraced the service.…

But beyond the excitement of essentially having subsidised taxi service, experts paint a more troubling picture of questionable economic and environmental sustainability. The city has now spent more on Uber than the traditional transit option it was considering, and has dramatically increased the number of cars on its roads, with worrying implications for air quality and the climate crisis.…

But success has come at an ironic cost to the town. Because Innisfil subsidises each ride, the more successful it is, the more the town pays to Uber. That figure is now projected to reach $1.2m for 2019 – more than the bus programme would have cost, and well above the $900,000 the city allocated. With ridership increasing each year, costs will only rise.

“If you operate a regular bus system, you have a much better idea of what those costs will look like five or 10 years from now,” said Christof Spieler, an urban planner and author of Trains, Buses, People. “But if you have a system with too many people using it, and you can’t afford to provide [the service], how will you handle that?”

In fact, the town has taken the extraordinary step of deterring people from using Uber too much, capping the number of rides a resident can take per month. For mall worker Arrega, who has been “working like crazy”, that often means exceeding the limit midway through the month, although the town allows riders to apply for an exemption. It has also increased the cost of a ride by $1.…

Spieler warns that what might work for more rural areas would be a disaster in denser cities.

“If you are a city government and if you’re finding that the [best option] for providing any kind of transit is subsidising Lyft and Uber, you have made some really bad decisions in planning your city,” he said.


The Innisfil experiment has also been covered by Bloomberg CityLab.

[SteelTown]

Roads, bridges and west harbour focus of Hamilton's $484M capital budget for 2021

blah blah blah....

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamil...dget-1.5850093

Here's how the money will be spent:

$192.9 million transit initiatives.
$114.2 million toward roads, bridges, sidewalks and traffic.
$39.7 million toward corporate, long-term care and recreation facilities.
$30.3 million toward housing initiatives.
$20.6 million toward parks, forestry and open space.
$13.9 million toward planning, economic development, tourism and culture.
$13.7 million toward outside boards and agencies.
$13.3 million toward fire and paramedic services.
$10.6 million toward central fleet vehicle and equipment replacement.
$9.0 million toward West Harbour strategic initiatives.
$8.0 million toward development charge exemptions.
$7.6 million toward information technology.
$6.5 million toward waste management initiatives.
$4.1 million toward other projects.

[SteelTown]

$193 million for transit? Where is all that money going towards? The bus barn?

[ShavedParmesanCheese]

Originally Posted by SteelTown

$193 million for transit? Where is all that money going towards? The bus barn?

Bus shelter installations? No big schemes, at least. It could also be going to fleet upgrades too, the stock from ~2007 is really showing it's age

[Innsertnamehere]

Looking at the budget, $140 million is for the bus garage.