Canadian Transit Thread II

[SteelTown]

The bus barn already cost $331 million, and because of inflation, it's over budget. So, a little patch of green roof is sufficient for now.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

You would have thought this day and age such a large roof would need to be green.


Like the TTC Streetcar building south of Eastern Ave.
source: https://cdn.skyrisecities.com

basically the only buildings with that extensive of green roofs are TTC properties. Literally every other large-scale industrial property just uses "white" roofs which do pretty much the same thing for the urban heat island effect and cost a fraction as much. They don't look as good in photos though so

[GeneralLeeTPHLS]

Wow, that's a great investment for HSR.

I've heard Mississauga Transit (MiWay) has been deferring construction of anew bus garage/barn, which means they're limited on service growth, despite the growth of ridership over the last 5 years...it's actually busier than prior to the pandemic AFAIK.

That being said, Miway isn't funded well (surprise, surprise), so it's reflected in the service.

[Innsertnamehere]

The Hamilton one is great too as it's actually in the lower city, where most service hours are. Right now the only bus garage is up by the airport, far away from where most buses run. It creates a lot of "deadheading" costs for buses entering and exiting service.

Hamilton is also absolutely maxed out on bus capacity - they can't grow their peak hour service levels until the garage is finished. This year they are introducing a bunch of new services, but only in off-peak times when they have buses they can actually run.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

You would have thought this day and age such a large roof would need to be green.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

basically the only buildings with that extensive of green roofs are TTC properties. Literally every other large-scale industrial property just uses "white" roofs which do pretty much the same thing for the urban heat island effect and cost a fraction as much. They don't look as good in photos though so

Solar would be a far better use for most of these large roofs. Especially for a large bus barn that will eventually have a lot of electric buses.

[ssiguy]

London & St.Thomas are FINALLY getting a transit connection operated by Voyago. It will start April 8 and run 7 days a week and cost $5. No doubt this was due to the new Amazon Centre and coming VW plants but is is long overdue.

[Truenorth00]

Give Reece some support:

https://twitter.com/YIMBYLAND/status...c_j0i8P5Q&s=19

No. I don't care that it's a shallow Twitter poll.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

basically the only buildings with that extensive of green roofs are TTC properties. Literally every other large-scale industrial property just uses "white" roofs which do pretty much the same thing for the urban heat island effect and cost a fraction as much. They don't look as good in photos though so

Green roofs have UHI reduction benefits, yes, but that's not their only purpose. Depending on the type, they also provide insulation in the winter, reduce rainwater run off, absorb ambient noise, and provide food for certain pollinators. They're different things that are often built for different reasons that each have their pros and cons. They aren't just different ways of doing the same thing.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

You would have thought this day and age such a large roof would need to be green.

Not everyone has a transit money printing machine like Toronto and the GTA. The rest of us have to pay for capital projects/transit lines.

Meanwhile in Ottawa. Some good news. Trillium Line 2 closed in 2020, was supposed to re-open in 2022.

Originally Posted by AuxTown

Doubling down on spring
The head of OC Transpo says she's confident the north-south Trillium Line LRT will be open before the summer. CTV's Jackie Perez reports.

March 18, 2024 7:00 p.m. EDT

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video/c288...ium%3Dsharebar

Positive news here!

Also, on the BEB progress. We're getting two models to reduce the risk of fleet decimation in case of issues with one model or the other.

Originally Posted by rocketphish

No Plan B needed for electric buses, OC Transpo chief assures councillors
Ottawa set to split its e-bus purchase between 2 makers to ensure reliability

Elyse Skura · CBC News
Posted: Mar 18, 2024 3:48 PM EDT | Last Updated: 1 hour ago

Ottawa is behind on procuring enough buses to electrify its fleet, but the head of OC Transpo says there's no need for a backup plan to replace its aging diesel-powered fleet.

The city has committed to go fully electric by 2036, meaning it will need to phase out its 750 diesel-powered buses.

So far, its electric fleet totals four vehicles.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...lors-1.7147441

And, in transit cut news, we'll have 738 buses left. Comparing to our closest counterparts, Calgary has 1100 buses, while Edmonton has 953 buses. Calgary does have a larger population and ridership, but Edmonton has a similar population and far lower ridership. Both are much smaller than Ottawa geographically.

Originally Posted by rocketphish

OC Transpo selling more than 110 city buses
The 2023 budget called for a fleet reduction resulting in a savings $4.4 million.

Staff Reporter, Ottawa Citizen
Published Mar 18, 2024 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 1 minute read



Buses by the dozens are parked in a field near Manotick, the remnants of OC Transpo’s 2023 decision to get rid of 117 buses in its fleet.

The buses are being temporarily stored at the Manotick Yard on Rideau Road as they await resale, according to the city.

The 2023 budget called for a fleet reduction to 738 from 855 buses and resulted in a savings $4.4 million, according to the budget documents.

The 117 buses selected for disposal were either beyond their service life or had not yet received their mid-life maintenance upgrade.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...110-city-buses

[Nouvellecosse]

Those double deck buses will make for some nice camper conversions!

[J.OT13]

• Video Link

[Doady]

System                      2019  2023 Recovery
Brampton Transit            31.9  40.9 128%
Grand River Transit         22.0  26.4 120%
MiWay                       41.4  44.7 108%
Durham Region Transit       11.1  10.6  95%
Hamilton Street Railway     21.6  19.1  88%
Toronto Transit Commission 525.5 396.3  75%
London Transit Commission   24.6  18.4  75%
OC Transpo                  97.5  64.2  66%

[Innsertnamehere]

What's YRT at? I'm almost scared to ask.

[DirectionNorth]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

What's YRT at? I'm almost scared to ask.

No year-end figures, but here's a graph from September:

[J.OT13]

RailFans Canada has a new live cam set-up at Ottawa's Bayview Station:

• Video Link

They are always looking for new people to host these rail cams around the country.

[Doady]

I couldn't find revenue ridership (linked trips) for YRT, but there were 21.7 million boardings (unlinked trips) on the system in 2019 and 21.5 million in 2023, so around 99% recovery.

YRT was struggling for many years even before the pandemic, and its riders are much more reliant on the TTC than riders in Brampton and Mississauga, so don't expect much more growth until the fare integration with the TTC. The boundary along Steeles Avenue has always been the biggest barrier for YRT, aside from their own incompetence.

On the flipside, expect MiWay ridership to drop significantly in 2025 with the opening of the Hurontario LRT. Hurontario represents around 13% of boardings on the system, so the revenue ridership will drop around 9%. MiWay ridership has grown consistently by 1 million each year since 2013, so ridership could reach 45.7 million in 2024 and then drop to 42.5 million in 2025. This will free up many buses to deal with the overcrowding in the other corridors, and perhaps delay the construction of the third bus garage a few more years.

Another system having a lot of trouble with overcrowding is Transit Windsor, which had recovered 118% of pre-pandemic ridership as of March 2023. All the new riders are post-secondary students with the U-Pass, so the system is not getting extra fare revenue to add service and alleviate overcrowding.