The future of Hamilton's public transit

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by movingtohamilton

The future of Hamilton's public transit is......bleak.

That's what happens when people elect idiot politicians.

[mattgrande]

Originally Posted by scootaround

City Council voted down Section F, the section which would have studied eliminating Area Rating.

I don't have much hope in these Councilors and the Mayor for voting it down. Especially when their excuse is that they were promised to not touch it 'til next term in return for supporting the LRT.

And Fred Eisenberger lost my support tonight. We need people who will stand up for transit fairness whether it was off-limits as part of a deal or not.

Voted down looking into eliminating area rating. Fucking maddening. The elections can't come soon enough.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

Voted down looking into eliminating area rating. Fucking maddening. The elections can't come soon enough.

All the elections are going to do is see the same people get elected. There may be a couple of changes through people moving on to other levels like Skelley but the core will stay the same.

[mishap]

Originally Posted by mattgrande

Voted down looking into eliminating area rating. Fucking maddening. The elections can't come soon enough.

And right after that, the HSR (ATU) and city workers (CUPE) contracts will expire. If this is anything like last time, council will refuse to discuss the contracts before elections, saying it's for the next council. That might mean something if it hadn't been the city that set the contract length, and it will be pretty much the same council on the other side of elections.

It's one thing to follow the Province and the feds with the blame-your-predecessor trick, but when you are your own predecessor...

[BriniaSona]

Originally Posted by movingtohamilton

The future of Hamilton's public transit is......bleak.

Perfect, time to buy the car I can't afford and ditch that nasty Bus I take every day.

[thistleclub]

Province should take over TTC and other cities’ transit systems, says Toronto Region Board of Trade
(Toronto Star, Ben Spurr, Nov 27 2017)

Is it time for cities to hand over the responsibility for public transit to the province?

The Toronto Region Board of Trade thinks so. In a report released Monday, the business advocacy group argues municipalities in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor should upload the entirety of their public transit systems to a new, powerful body created by the province.

The release of the report follows the unveiling of the Ontario Progressive Conservative election platform on Saturday, in which leader Patrick Brown pledged to take over the TTC subway system if elected next June, but leave the bus and streetcar network under local control.

The board’s proposal goes much further than that and is sure to spark controversy among local leaders across the region. But the report’s authors argue that consolidating the planning, construction and operation of transit into a single provincial body would benefit transit riders and municipal governments by reducing the risk of politics interfering in the delivery of evidence-based projects and freeing up cities to spend resources on other priorities.

“The existing, fragmented transit development and operating model is not meeting the needs of taxpayers, the business community, and transit users,” the report states.

Including GO Transit, there are 12 separate transit operators between Durham and Waterloo, and the report asserts that creating an overarching agency “would provide the vision, scale and resources to finally provide the world-class transit system that the corridor needs.”

The report’s authors contend that the new organization, which they’ve nicknamed Superlinx in a play on Metrolinx, the existing provincial transit agency for the GTHA, would solve multiple problems that have plagued the region’s transportation plans for decades….

The report estimates it could take between two and four years to complete the upload.

Read it in full here.

+

Via TBoT: Superlinx: An Uploading Strategy for a Modern Provincial Transit Authority

[markbarbera]

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Province should take over TTC and other cities’ transit systems, says Toronto Region Board of Trade
(Toronto Star, Ben Spurr, Nov 27 2017)

Is it time for cities to hand over the responsibility for public transit to the province?

The Toronto Region Board of Trade thinks so. In a report released Monday, the business advocacy group argues municipalities in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor should upload the entirety of their public transit systems to a new, powerful body created by the province.

The release of the report follows the unveiling of the Ontario Progressive Conservative election platform on Saturday, in which leader Patrick Brown pledged to take over the TTC subway system if elected next June, but leave the bus and streetcar network under local control.

The board’s proposal goes much further than that and is sure to spark controversy among local leaders across the region. But the report’s authors argue that consolidating the planning, construction and operation of transit into a single provincial body would benefit transit riders and municipal governments by reducing the risk of politics interfering in the delivery of evidence-based projects and freeing up cities to spend resources on other priorities.

“The existing, fragmented transit development and operating model is not meeting the needs of taxpayers, the business community, and transit users,” the report states.

Including GO Transit, there are 12 separate transit operators between Durham and Waterloo, and the report asserts that creating an overarching agency “would provide the vision, scale and resources to finally provide the world-class transit system that the corridor needs.”

The report’s authors contend that the new organization, which they’ve nicknamed Superlinx in a play on Metrolinx, the existing provincial transit agency for the GTHA, would solve multiple problems that have plagued the region’s transportation plans for decades….

The report estimates it could take between two and four years to complete the upload.

Read it in full here.

+

Via TBoT: Superlinx: An Uploading Strategy for a Modern Provincial Transit Authority

Really.
Bad.
Idea.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Province should take over TTC and other cities’ transit systems, says Toronto Region Board of Trade
(Toronto Star, Ben Spurr, Nov 27 2017)

Is it time for cities to hand over the responsibility for public transit to the province?

The Toronto Region Board of Trade thinks so. In a report released Monday, the business advocacy group argues municipalities in the Toronto-Waterloo corridor should upload the entirety of their public transit systems to a new, powerful body created by the province.

The release of the report follows the unveiling of the Ontario Progressive Conservative election platform on Saturday, in which leader Patrick Brown pledged to take over the TTC subway system if elected next June, but leave the bus and streetcar network under local control.

The board’s proposal goes much further than that and is sure to spark controversy among local leaders across the region. But the report’s authors argue that consolidating the planning, construction and operation of transit into a single provincial body would benefit transit riders and municipal governments by reducing the risk of politics interfering in the delivery of evidence-based projects and freeing up cities to spend resources on other priorities.

“The existing, fragmented transit development and operating model is not meeting the needs of taxpayers, the business community, and transit users,” the report states.

Including GO Transit, there are 12 separate transit operators between Durham and Waterloo, and the report asserts that creating an overarching agency “would provide the vision, scale and resources to finally provide the world-class transit system that the corridor needs.”

The report’s authors contend that the new organization, which they’ve nicknamed Superlinx in a play on Metrolinx, the existing provincial transit agency for the GTHA, would solve multiple problems that have plagued the region’s transportation plans for decades….

The report estimates it could take between two and four years to complete the upload.

Read it in full here.

+

Via TBoT: Superlinx: An Uploading Strategy for a Modern Provincial Transit Authority

It isn't the worst thing they could do. GO has fare zones, and if that was applied to the whole system instead of what is in place, a person living in Toronto could effectively take Bus, Subway or Train to their destination, all for the same fare.

YRT forced GO to abandon it's Yonge route. You had local and express service. Now, with YRT/VIVA, you have local, and pseudo express service.

Originally Posted by markbarbera

Really.
Bad.
Idea.

Seems to have worked well for GO.

[TheRitsman]

I have been arguing this for a year or so now. Ever since learning more about transit systems and how the transit of southern Ontario works, I have been saying the province should take control. Essentially the municipality has control over whether it wants to be a part of the transit network or not, which should not be a choice.

The fact that from one city to the next may just not work on transit is extremely stupid. A place like Burlington can just put no money into transit, and then to get from Hamilton to a job in Burlington or vice-versa is essentially impossible or a garbage time. This reduces the mobility of people without cars, especially those in low income, further increasing their difficulty of moving up the wealth ladder.

If done properly a provincial wide transit network could be one of the leading examples of how to do public transit in North America. Giving it 30 damn years to catch up course because of how much a joke the current system is.

[lachlanholmes]

Who's ready for another 13 hour LRT meeting?

https://www.thepublicrecord.ca/2017/...rt-operations/

[thistleclub]

The province downloaded transit to the municipalities 20 years ago as part of its municipal restructuring exercise. And less than a decade later, the province created an agency, Metrolinx (fka Greater Toronto Transportation Authority) whose mandate was to create a longterm strategic plan for an integrated, multi-modal, regional transportation system across the GTHA. Among the challenges identified in its defining document, The Big Move, released nine years ago this month:

DISCONNECTED AND VARIED TRANSIT SERVICES
The GTHA’s public transit system is currently comprised of nine separately-governed local transit agencies and one regional transit provider. This patchwork of systems is poorly integrated, making travel across boundaries by public transit an inconvenient, frustrating, unattractive and costly option for many travellers. Given that one out of every four trips in the GTHA crosses a regional boundary, these arrangements need to change if transit is to attract a larger share of trips. Transit use in the GTHA is also highly variable, with much higher transit ridership in the City of Toronto than in the surrounding regions.

YEARS OF UNDER-INVESTMENT
The GTHA transportation system has not kept pace with population growth. Construction of rapid transit, which averaged approximately 135 kilometres per decade from the 1960s to the 1980s, all but ground to a halt over the past two decades… The roads, highways, subways, streetcars, buses and regional rail services in the GTHA are being pushed to their limits, and customers are suffering with crowding and poor reliability. The current system does not offer the traveller a high level of customer service or assurance that they can get where they need to go on time and comfortably.

[thistleclub]

Province is willing to let city run LRT – but also recommends against the idea
(Hamilton Spectator, Matthew Van Dongen, Nov 27 2017)

The province is leaving the door open for Hamilton to run a planned new LRT line – but it's also strongly recommending council abandon the idea.

Nearly three months ago, city council got on board with a vocal local union campaign to ask the province to reconsider its plan to contract out operations and maintenance of a $1-billion, 14-kilometre LRT line proposed for Hamilton.

The late request temporarily derailed Metrolinx' plans to put out a tender request for consortiums interested in designing, building and running the project.

The province and the transit agency have been mulling the city's request ever since, leaving LRT supporters increasingly worried the delay would prevent an RFP award before the looming June Ontario election.

But Metrolinx president Phil Verster has replied to the city's request in a letter dated Nov. 24 that will be considered at a Friday meeting at city hall.

In the letter, Verster appeals to council to stick to the plan and allow a tender process for completely private operations.

"I strongly recommend that the project continue to be delivered using the DBFOM (design-build-finance-operate-maintain) model," he writes.

"However, if the City decides it is not willing to proceed with this model, Metrolinx is prepared to remove operations from the current procurement and work with the City."

But Metrolinx warns the city would have to take on a list of potentially onerous responsibilities and legal requirements as part of an operations agreement.

Council also has to make its choice by Jan. 24 of next year. That gives the city about two months, less the Christmas break, to evaluate the ramifications of such an agreement.

[durandy]

Raisethehammer points out it may take a 2/3 vote to reconsider the past support for the existing procurement model. But given that it was almost unanimous support for the ATU motion last time, that might be a possibility. Question is whether the last few weeks of bad HSR news will have an impact. My thinking is that both the ATU and Council are masters at making bad news sound not so bad, so with a room full of ATU blue shirts cheering everytime anyone voices support for the union, they'll undoubtedly come out of the meeting thinking the HSR is the optimal choice to operate the LRT. The result, 5 month delay, reissue RFQ, and maybe enough discord as the budgetary impacts are known that Patrick Brown decides the support just isn't there.

[thistleclub]

Via StatsCan: Commuters using sustainable transportation in census metropolitan areas

In the Greater Golden Horseshoe CMAs as a whole, excluding Toronto, 25.0% of commuters used sustainable transportation as their main mode of commuting in 2016. Carpooling was the most common, followed distantly by public transit and active transportation (i.e., walking or cycling)… Hamilton had the highest proportion of commuters using sustainable transportation (27.8%), and the highest use of public transit (9.8%).

That's the CMA figure. Considered alone, Hamilton's proportion of working commuters using public transit was 11%. Of those commuting to work within Hamilton, 12.2% used public transit.

Adoption varies by age.

15-24: 21.1% (22.6% of workers 15-24 commuting within Hamilton)
25-44: 11.2% (12.7% of workers 25-44 commuting within Hamilton)
45-64: 7.7% (8.2% of workers 45-64 commuting within Hamilton)
65+: 5.8% (5.9% of workers 65+ commuting within Hamilton)

Source: Statistics Canada, 2016 Census of Population, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 98-400-X2016329.

[drpgq]

Hamilton becoming a city of commuters

https://www.thespec.com/news-story/7...-of-commuters/

f the unending daily ribbon of red brake lights on the highway wasn't enough of a clue, the latest census numbers provide confirmation.

Hamilton's transformation into a city of commuters continues at an alarming clip.

One of every three Hamilton workers now commute to jobs outside the city. For men, the rate is nearly 40 per cent.

Both rates are significantly higher than the rest of the province. About one in four Ontario workers commute to jobs in another city, and for men in Ontario, the rate is 29 per cent.

A decade ago, the number of Hamilton workers commuting to jobs outside the city was 30 per cent overall and 35 per cent for men.

"This reflects people coming to Hamilton for cheap housing and yet still maintaining economic links outside Hamilton," said Wayne Lewchuk, a McMaster University labour studies professor.

"We've all heard stories of people who abandon the Toronto real estate market for Hamilton, but they don't necessarily abandon their Toronto jobs."

The census data certainly shows Hamilton has become a popular living destination for migrants from elsewhere in Ontario.

Within the past year, 15,315 people moved to Hamilton from elsewhere in Ontario, a jump of 22 per cent from a decade ago. In the past five years, more than 46,000 people have moved to Hamilton from elsewhere in the province.

Overall, nearly 22,000 people moved to Hamilton from elsewhere within the past year, including nearly 4,700 people from outside Canada. That's an increase of 33 per cent from a decade ago.

[drpgq]

DRESCHEL: Councillors should say no to HSR running LRT

https://www.thespec.com/opinion-stor...r-running-lrt/

The good thing about the cancellation of Friday's special LRT meeting is it might give councillors a chance to consult their courage instead of their fears.

Believe me, some need to.

When councillors voted in August to ask the province to let city-owned Hamilton Street Railway run the $1 billion light rail system instead of a private company, a good handful parked their qualms and beliefs and went along with the prevailing union pressures and fear-mongering about privatization.

The result was the project was delayed for another four months. Combine that with the two months lost over the environmental assessment report and LRT is already six months behind its original timelines, which can't help but create uncertainty about the project as election season draws ever closer.

So if this gets privatized and the LRT replaces a bunch of HST buses, will a lot of bus drivers and maintenance workers be laid off? I seem to remember a plan to use those buses somewhere else, but knowing how council usually treats the HSR, I'm skeptical that they won't just use the opportunity to downsize the HSR somewhat.

[markbarbera]

Originally Posted by drpgq

So if this gets privatized and the LRT replaces a bunch of HST buses, will a lot of bus drivers and maintenance workers be laid off? I seem to remember a plan to use those buses somewhere else, but knowing how council usually treats the HSR, I'm skeptical that they won't just use the opportunity to downsize the HSR somewhat.

Valid concern. The bigger concern I have is that once the LRT is running, it will be replacing the HSR routes that have the highest ridership. When it displaces the HSR buses on this route, it will also displace the fares collected from these routes. The revenue that HSR collects from fares on the B-line, King, Delaware, University will now go to whatever privately owned conglomerate will run the LRT.

The HSR is running on a starvation budget as it is. Allowing a private consortium to run the LRT and remove the HSR's largest fare generating route will hobble the HSR even more than it is now

[JoeyColeman]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

Valid concern. The bigger concern I have is that once the LRT is running, it will be replacing the HSR routes that have the highest ridership. When it displaces the HSR buses on this route, it will also displace the fares collected from these routes. The revenue that HSR collects from fares on the B-line, King, Delaware, University will now go to whatever privately owned conglomerate will run the LRT.

The HSR is running on a starvation budget as it is. Allowing a private consortium to run the LRT and remove the HSR's largest fare generating route will hobble the HSR even more than it is now

The HSR does not make profit on any route. The 1-King is the closest to break even, requiring a much smaller subsidy than other routes.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Putting LRT in the hands of the HSR scares the holy hell outta me...

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by markbarbera

Valid concern. The bigger concern I have is that once the LRT is running, it will be replacing the HSR routes that have the highest ridership. When it displaces the HSR buses on this route, it will also displace the fares collected from these routes. The revenue that HSR collects from fares on the B-line, King, Delaware, University will now go to whatever privately owned conglomerate will run the LRT.

The HSR is running on a starvation budget as it is. Allowing a private consortium to run the LRT and remove the HSR's largest fare generating route will hobble the HSR even more than it is now

It's a complicated issue.

There will be a lot of users transferring from bus routes, paying their fares to HSR fareboxes, but then if the reverse trip begins on the LRT the fare payment happens on the rail vehicle.

How the HSR redeploys some of the existing buses in the corridor introduces more complexity. How will that change farebox revenue? Will there be differences in operating costs?

The HSR bus network is likely to change as well, not just to coordinate and link service better with the B-Line but hopefully to start providing improved service around the city (perhaps some express service for example along the other future rapid transit corridors).

The outcome depends on the fare sharing arrangement, the evolution of the whole network, and the overall impact on transit trips. If transit use starts to rise again, it would go a long way toward making everybody happy... or at least satisfied (but this is also going to take a REAL COMMITMENT from a city council that has a poor history of showing any kind of commitment to executing transit plans)