Every time I bring up transit/rail here, everyone gets so pessimistic about it. Having the option to take rail is so underrated and I don’t think anyone really understands the potential. The excuse usually is “no one will use it” and “no one wants to pay for that, where will the funding come from? My taxes”.
We won’t know until we actually try. To me there is no point to ask “what if?” And then snuff things out in protest. I really want to see some change to public transport and something like this could be the start.
It’s hard to advocate for because everybody would ideally want to go from planning right to completion and success in 2 years, but large scale infrastructure plans don’t happen like that. I think we are catching on slowly, though.
I find rail more comfortable than bus and it is cheaper to run at high frequency. The main downside is flexibility (you basically need to close the route to fix the tracks, or if something is blocking them) but overall I find it much better, especially with grade separation.
This would be really good for WestJet particularly so that they can effectively expand their operation across both cities without needing to have so many unprofitable short haul connections.
The scheme RMTransit suggested at the end where the Alberta Government maintains the right-of-way infrastructure while both public and private operators can run high speed services on it, would be a classic Alberta move and might make it popular and competitive price-wise.
This year it was very apparent that the League is focused on making the most money for the stadium and the League, over the players, fans or anyone else.
The bars in downtown of every major Canadian city are where it’s really at these days.
There really should be a Hamilton Hornets, Saskatoon Sasquatches, Laval Legumes, Halifax Helicopters. With more Canadian teams in the league then we’d have more of a chance too in terms of who matches up. Often times a pair of the Oilers, Flames, Jets, Canucks and Jets get pitted against each other by the quarter finals that really reduce the chance of a Canadian team winning often to 1/4 teams like this year. USA is where the money is though, sigh.
@ImplyingImplications@paige thanks, I’ve been hanging out on masto/peertube for a while and only just got around to exploring Lemmy. Hope they integrate with each other more in future.
I initially thought this was going to be another “immigrants bad” post that have been popping up everywhere, but was pleasantly surprised it’s the opposite. It’s a very well researched and articulated video, by an immigrant, about how Canada’s small population affects its ability to have nice things and do good things, but growing our population has exposed a lot of poor policies and outdated systems.
It covers the housing crisis but also says that’s just one thing in the spotlight. Canada has more than one issue that population growth is exposing. The government wants 100 million Canadians but the systems in place are struggling to maintain 40 million. We either make a lot of political changes so our population can match our land size, or we stay a tiny, sparsely populated country.
I know it's a Thameslink train in the thumbnail but I can't make out the station. It's definitely on the Bedford-Brighton line between Luton and London.
Why not both? Or train then subway? Or train then electric scooters for the last mine? I imagine in city specifically the coverage from trains alone is pretty poor.
The dwellings and amenities within a 15 minutes walk, bike or other mode from a transit stop is important, and of course if you can have both buses, trains and other micromobility that’s ideal.
This video mainly discusses how routes over a certain threshold of ridership would be better and more cheaply served over the long run by vehicles that sit between rails rather than buses.
Creating bike infrastructure is the quickest, cheapest per ton way to reduce carbon emissions, if your place isn’t somewhere that wants to consider public transit.
TL:DW; Trains have better per-rider capex and opex costs. Despite train sets being more expensive than buses and station/railway infrastructure that might cost more than busways, trains and railway infrastructure last far longer, require fewer drivers or sometimes none per vehicle, structures, tunnels and bridges are relatively fixed costs that don’t need to be significantly more to support more riders.
@Rentlar are train tunnels cheaper than bus tunnels? The ones that get built tend to be because single lane traffic tunnels are rare (and dangerous) and the are a larger bore than a train tunnel.
The requirements for a train tunnel are different than for a bus tunnel, which “may” be cheaper depending on what you compare to. Usually a bus tunnel will need to also accommodate diesel and gas(petrol) burning vehicles which increases ventilation requirements significantly. A train tunnel might be electric only or have diesel engines running through it. A train tunnel will need to meet the accepted standard rail vehicle envelope of the region or the isolated rapid transit system, same with road vehicles, but since the latter includes taller trucks, the height clearance would be necessarily higher than buses.
Single line width rail tunnels are used, but dual lane tunnels are the choice for some new passenger rail projects for the speed of being able to bore them even if it is more expensive.
Kinda. They are about the same speed, comparing the Scarborough Subway single TBM vs. the Eglinton Crosstown are both purpoted to travel 10m to 15m per day. Even if the speed of the smaller TBMs is a bit faster, the design of having one tunnel vs. two tunnels would be different. Costs of tunneling might vary greatly by project, accounting for each locations’ ground conditions and existing infrastructure to navigate around. So I concede that I could be wrong about the price in the general case when comparing 1 big vs. 2 small machines.
If I remember correctly, bus rapid transit, when fully implemented, can have better value for cities, especially those in poorer countries where the upfront investment for large infrastructure is too high. It can move a lot of people with large articulated buses that run at very high frequency. They don’t need tracks and allow the line to run even if one bus is down (a major drawback for rail transportation). Anyway, always good to spread the very real advantages of urban rail transportation.
Yes. Absolutely there are some good advantages, and no doubt the upfront costs are signficant. The argument in this video is that over the life of a subway, train or LRT service that since buses have to be replaced many times over one train’s lifespan.
To add to this topic a little. (I posted about this in one of my posts talking about urban decline in north america cities).
North america cities and urban centers are not “family focused”. Instead we have a urban sprawl issues, where as families grow in size they are forced (with limited choice) to move into a single family home outside of urban centers.
This then creates a feed back loop into more mothers and fathers now having to commute back into cities where they work, causing more traffic and potentially dangerous roads and streets in said cities.
This issues IMO is deeply rooted in what’s know in the “missing middle” of housing. This all boils down to poor zoning choices by cities and governments. North america housing usually only comes down to two choices, a condo unit, or a single family home.
Have you even noticed how if you are looking for a three bedroom unit for your family in an urban center it’s usually impossible to find? Or how a single family home in the suburbs is more competitively priced with a larger square footage compared?
Here are some great video that talk about some of these points in greater detail.
@RM_Transit thank you for sharing your work with us on the Fediverse! This video brings hope, and without hope the movement to bring better transit to our cities has little to work with.
video.canadiancivil.com
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