Favourite and least favourite transit systems/stations

[Razor]

What an excellent thread idea!..It should get moved over to the main city discussions.I would love to see personal views and see pics of other worldwide metros..It's for only 2.2 km of 11.0 km of Light rail, but Ottawa will have a bonafide subway in about 6.0 years.As you can see, the stations will look class, but will need to be broken in a little once done....I would post pics of the progress, but I'm not allowed.

[Innsertnamehere]

I would consider Ottawas entire LRT to be a metro line, it'll be great for the city. I'm excited about it and I live 500km away haha.

[dleung]

Hard to rank because from what I've seen in Toronto, Montreal & Vancouver, each system has been designed to achieve different (though changing) objectives. By category is easy though.

trains: Toronto (new ones)>Vancouver>Montreal
stations: Montreal/Vancouver>Toronto
downtown coverage: Montreal>Toronto>Vancouver
suburban coverage: Vancouver>Toronto>Montreal
frequency: Vancouver/Toronto>Montreal
efficiency: Vancouver>Toronto>Montreal
reliability: Vancouver>Montreal>Toronto

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I would consider Ottawas entire LRT to be a metro line, it'll be great for the city. I'm excited about it and I live 500km away haha.

Ya good thing for this project and the hwy 417 widening through Dt. which are
offsetting the funk that Ottawa is currently in due to all the government cut backs.
I don't use it, but from what I understand the current bus transit way gets a lot of love here .A success by all accounts..From what I understand Winnipeg will be building one, so I hope it's successful there too.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by dleung

Hard to rank because from what I've seen in Toronto, Montreal & Vancouver, each system has been designed to achieve different (though changing) objectives. By category is easy though.

trains: Toronto (new ones)>Vancouver>Montreal
stations: Montreal/Vancouver>Toronto
downtown coverage: Montreal>Toronto>Vancouver
suburban coverage: Vancouver>Toronto>Montreal
frequency: Vancouver/Toronto>Montreal
efficiency: Vancouver>Toronto>Montreal
reliability: Vancouver>Montreal>Toronto

I wouldn't really consider Toronto or Montreal's suburban coverage better than Calgary's. I would, however, consider some of their suburban locations better than Calgary's

[1overcosc]

Ottawa's Transitway is pretty good, but it has a couple glaring weaknesses:
-lack of capacity downtown -- similar problem to Calgary
-stations often located away from populated areas--lots of stations in empty fields
-lack of continuous sections in the west--buses in that end of the city have to travel in mixed traffic to travel between unconnected Transitway segments

LRT conversion is going to fix most of these problems.

[1overcosc]

While Toronto's RT is in several ways inferior to Montreal's or Vancouver's, its local bus transit is hands-down the best in the country. Almost all routes run every 5-10 minutes even after midnight.

In many Canadian cities transit outside the RT network is really bad. Calgary & Ottawa come to mind--don't know enough about Montreal or Vancouver to comment.

[ue]

^ I don't think Vancouver does bad with buses from what I've heard. Edmonton seems to have a more useful bus system than Calgary.

[Chadillaccc]

I agree, Calgary's bus network is exceptionally bad for a municipality of 1.2 million. Nenshi is making expansion of the bus network a priority and things are improving already thankfully!

[caltrane74]

Can someone explain this to me.

Montreal daily ridership - 1.2 million
Montreal annual ridership - 176 million

Toronto daily ridership - 940,000
Toronto annual ridership - 318,000,000

This is strictly subway/RT.

[Jarrod]

I've only been on three systems in Canada: SkyTrain, C-Train and LRT. SkyTrain wins because of the frequency and the overall system being as extensive as it is.
C-Train is extensive, but I don't generally like the ride of it. I know it was built rapidly and at a certain cost, but to me it feels "cheap." I don't know if that will go over well here, but that's how I feel.
LRT in Edmonton is good and I respect that they went underground. I think that will work in it's advantage. With that expense they weren't able to build out as much as Calgary, but what they got was more of a quality ride. The worst station in the system is the University station, but I think that's because of geography more than anything.

[ue]

^ Agreed on all accounts (especially University Station, although I don't mind the aesthetics of it). Calgary's C-Train covers far more ground but feels noticeably cheaper. The stations themselves look a lot more generic and same-y, whereas each Edmonton LRT station has a bit of a different style from the other. The cheapness is most pronounced in the clusterfuck that is 7th Avenue. That being said, Edmonton looks keen on repeating Calgary's mistakes with the new low floor lines, at least for the downtown portion.

[caltrane74]

Originally Posted by casper

The airport link will also likely be a premium service. I would be surprised if it is included in the same fare structure as the subway system.

It won't be, its part of Metrolinx (Province) not TTC (City)

If and when the line is electrified, say 10 years from now, they may adjust the cost structure so it can serve as an alternate downtown relief line from the west. The line will have internal connections to the TTC Subway at Union (obviously) and at Dundas West Subway (Bloor). With electrification, service frequency can also be expanded.

[Chadillaccc]

No worries, we will have a subway too in due time. Two of them actually It would be nice if we had done it right on the first go, but I'm kinda glad they went for expansiveness over expensiveness, or else it wouldn't be expanded out far enough that I (and 200 000 others) would be able to make use of it on a daily basis. I actually like the 7th Avenue Stations since the redevelopment, I never saw the old ones. Also, none of the stations outside of the core are the same look, except for those on the Northeast Line from Zoo to Rundle.

[ue]

^ The newer downtown stations look pretty good, but it's the same design all throughout 7th Avenue. Every downtown Edmonton LRT station has a unique look to it, except Central and Churchill, which are pretty similar.

The suburban stations aren't exact carbon copies of each other no, but they can have very little variation. It's less of an issue with the newest stations and now that many older stations are being renovated, this is also becoming less of an issue.

[Chadillaccc]

The redevelopment of 7th Avenue won a national urban design award and got shortlisted for the New/Old category in the 2012 World Architecture Festival in Singapore, so I guess they did something right. They are all the same/very similar (Fourth Street, City Hall, and Kerby all have their nice little variances), but I think the design is clean, modern, and timeless so that's why I like them. Only a couple examples of very little variation exist outside of downtown.

[ue]

Well, you mentioned the NE line, so there's that. The South line is also a bit generic, especially between Chinook and Southland (Stampede was also very similar to NE stations before the rebuilt, if I recall correctly). I'm less familiar with the NW line and I know the new West line has a good variation in station design (as all recent stations and rebuilds do).

7th Ave Stations do look nice, don't need an award to tell me that . But when you see it for 5 stations in a row, it can get boring, that's all.

[Chadillaccc]

In the south, it's just Heritage, Anderson, and Southland that are sorta similar. Both Stampede Stations are completely dissimilar, and don't look anything like any other stations on the system (by necessity, getting tens of thousands of people an hour walking through them during stampede and hockey games). So yes, as I said "a couple of examples".. 3 stations in the south, and 5 stations in the north east. Out of 45 stations, that's not that bad.

[ue]

Chinook Station until the rebuild is complete is also very similar to neighbouring stations. Stampede was rebuilt in 2011 but IIRC it wasn't all that unique beforehand. Someone else may have a better handle on that specific case, though.

Even still, 8 (arguably 9) stations, plus 5 downtown stations...that's a lot of similarity. And we haven't even touched the NW line, where it looks like University and Banff Trail are pretty similar in design as well.

In Edmonton, the only ones that are very similar in design are Central and Churchill, and Stadium and Coliseum (all part of the original 1978 line).

Calgary has the benefit of hastily building its LRT system to three (now four) corners of the city and has been rewarded with high traffic volumes and great acclaim, but it is by no means a perfect system. In Edmonton, people often rag on how small our system is, but there have been benefits to building more slowly.

[Chadillaccc]

You are incorrect on several counts.

1.The "stampede station" you are referring to being rebuilt in 2011 is actually called Erlton-Stampede Station, and it was not rebuilt. It was modified to accommodate 4-car trains, just as all stations are doing/have done. The stationhouse itself has been the exact same since 1981, try looking it up.

2. The Chinook Station reconstruction has been complete and open for over 6 months, hence why I didn't mention it.

3. Have you ever seen University or Banff Trail Stations? One is an island platform with a subustantial stationhouse with heated interior and overpass walkway, the other is a side-loading platform with mere shelters to shield people from the elements, not similar in any way. I travel through both every single day.

University: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...on_Calgary.jpg
Banff Trail: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2629/3...4bf3d42b_o.jpg


4. I understand that Edmonton only has a few similar stations. Edmonton also has only 1/3 of the amount of stations that the Ctrain does...


Why do you keep this thought process going on if you don't actually know? The only reason I am responding is to correct misinformation. Just do a bit of research first.