As is so often the case in this country, we don't need to innovate to be orders of magnitude better than we are now. "Let's just do the obvious stuff we know works" remains the simplest way to huge improvements.
That we cannot even successfully copy known-good solutions speaks pretty poorly of our society :\
For sure, we don't need to blaze a new trail for so many things.
I think our limitations are patchy, we are having no problem implementing modern metro systems for example. I'd say it's got to do with the industry and the people!
Transit planning needs to be done on a basis that examines trip origins and destinations by all modes, both current trips and likely future ones, as the city develops and transit itself supports shifts in residence and employment location. The reality that nobody currently takes any transit, let alone GO to make a certain trip, as a reason to not plan to support it, is something that Metrolinx should be deeply ashamed of. No different than saying subway ridership will not increase from 1953, when it opens in 1954.
I think the software DB wanted to implement is from IVU and also included in the IVU.rail software suite (https://www.ivu.com/solutions/highlights/ivurail). Current customers include DB, SBB, Trenitalia and Via Rail (seems like there is a solution to operating this software in Canada).
I wouldn't be surprised if it was. As I mentioned in the article, its easy for people to manufacture roadblocks if they fundamentally want to block things.
DB only operates around 100 times more trains than Gotransit and via rail on a daily basis( 392 vs over 40 000). 1000 times is more the goal in German politics. In German the funding is missing not visions. I just had my friend visiting, whos lives in Canada. It's overall sad to see Canada ability in creating train oder bicycle infrastructure. I hope all the best.
Great article covering some really disappointing news. I was so excited for the improvements to the barrie line. I moved to toronto thinking an easy way to get back and forth from my hometown was just around the corner. Are fast frequent and two way trains still on the table or will I have to continue to time my train home with the commuter trains?
Fast and *semi* frequent trains are still the plan, and the province *has* committed to at least 15 minute bidirectional in the medium term.
I think for Barrie you can expect 30 minute service and counter peak service in the next few years, which in my eyes for a relatively long line (and so fairly long journeys) is pretty good (many lines in London run roughly half hourly).
I think the difference is while 15 would be the sort of minimum service on an electric network, it'll be more like the best service on a diesel one.
I despise Metrolinx with a passion, but cancelling this DB outsourcing is fair. The government shouldn’t be hiring so many expensive consultants for stuff, especially for things that are core parts of its mandate. Consultants burn money and ruin everything. If that sort of expertise is important to Metrolinx, then that sort of expertise should be added in-house. All these external contracts are also open to all sorts of shady shenanigans. Metrolinx has been planning its own expansion for decades, why is a massive consortium needed to tell us how to do it? And let’s not forget the recent study that Toronto’s transit expansion projects were blowing their budgets because of excessive studies and over-design, and the recommendation that Toronto should YOLO more of their transit projects. Just do some minimal studies, do the construction, and use the cost savings from fewer studies to fund all the extra construction needed to fix problems.
Outsourcing when you have no local experts (or let's be honest, on-continent experts) in running a modern electric rail system (the American systems are deeply flawed!) makes sense. Metrolinx *hasn't existed* for decades! Just because this went badly (in large part because of Metrolinx) does not mean the premise didn't make sense!
Sure, an argument could be made in favour of it, but we just had a research study telling us to stop over-designing transit projects, and many projects in Canada and elsewhere (like CAHSR) have been shown to have an unhealthy reliance on external consultants, and, honestly, everything that Verster touched was a little questionable. So cleaning out all the consultants from Metrolinx also sounds entirely reasonable to me. Looking up things on Steve Munro’s website, it looks like GO has been running repeated studies on electrification since 1992. Instead of paying consultants to make yet another study about an electrical future that may never exist, we should spend the money to actually electrify something. We can learn by making our own mistakes. Europe’s systems weren’t built fully-formed. They were built through incremental improvements after all.
I don't disagree with some of this, but *just electrifying* and not learning from people who run a railway in a sensible way would likely leave us with many of the same problems - just with electric trains!
NIMYISM, and analysis paralysis seem to be deeply woven into our local fabric.
Also, David Miller, the mayor behind TransitCity, was on TVO last week talking about what an absolute failure PPPs are - The Eglinton Crosstown being the most glaring casualty of such an arrangement.
So i read your piece on Montreal and i like to talk about air conditioning a station noy in YUL but here in Toronto. The new Ontario line is not planning on either heating or cooling the stations. However this can be done for practically free. Since the only major expense of Geo-thermal HVAC is the digging. And that is already been taken care of. The equipment cost about 20k a year to operate per station.
So unless a politician can strong arm Metrolinx to fix this we will against freeze in the winter and cook in the summer.
We do not freeze or cook on the existing subway, and these stations *will* have better ventilation, so I think things will be OK. I agree active cooling would be nice.
Toronto a bigger transit expansion than Sydney since 2014, really? Sydney built or is building 3 new Metro lines, 4 separate significant light rail lines, a huge BRT project and a regional rail extension plus upgrading a bunch of signalling, an entire system-wide accessibility upgrade and some massive TOD precinct transformations. All this on the back of the Airport Line for the 2000 Olympics and first orbital line (Chatswood-Epping) in the mid-2000s. Sydney already did their version of GO Expansion decades ago.
Toronto a bigger transit expansion than Sydney since 2014, really? Sydney built or is building 3 new Metro lines, 3 separate significant light rail lines, a huge BRT project and a regional rail extension plus upgrading a bunch of signalling, an entire system-wide accessibility upgrade and some massive TOD precinct transformations.
Both cities are building a similar amount of new metro lines (much of Sydneys is not net new) - I see the airport line as something which should have been a conventional Sydney trains line, but Toronto is *also* doing a number of metro extensions, Toronto is building more light rail (4 lines), Toronto is building more BRT (several different independent BRT systems), Toronto is building more TOD, *and* Toronto is doing a network wide upgrade of GO.
80 years or so ago there was a "Can-Do" spirit in our country. Identify an objective, come up with a plan, roll up yar sleeves ... and get it done. This mindset largely reflected that in rural communities where there usually wasn't time or money to waste. In modern-day Canada, by contrast, public administration is typified by endemic, unaccountable, profligate, serial, pathetic incompetence.
As is so often the case in this country, we don't need to innovate to be orders of magnitude better than we are now. "Let's just do the obvious stuff we know works" remains the simplest way to huge improvements.
That we cannot even successfully copy known-good solutions speaks pretty poorly of our society :\
For sure, we don't need to blaze a new trail for so many things.
I think our limitations are patchy, we are having no problem implementing modern metro systems for example. I'd say it's got to do with the industry and the people!
Transit planning needs to be done on a basis that examines trip origins and destinations by all modes, both current trips and likely future ones, as the city develops and transit itself supports shifts in residence and employment location. The reality that nobody currently takes any transit, let alone GO to make a certain trip, as a reason to not plan to support it, is something that Metrolinx should be deeply ashamed of. No different than saying subway ridership will not increase from 1953, when it opens in 1954.
For sure, this is a big problem. There is a lack of *imagination*.
I think the software DB wanted to implement is from IVU and also included in the IVU.rail software suite (https://www.ivu.com/solutions/highlights/ivurail). Current customers include DB, SBB, Trenitalia and Via Rail (seems like there is a solution to operating this software in Canada).
I wouldn't be surprised if it was. As I mentioned in the article, its easy for people to manufacture roadblocks if they fundamentally want to block things.
DB only operates around 100 times more trains than Gotransit and via rail on a daily basis( 392 vs over 40 000). 1000 times is more the goal in German politics. In German the funding is missing not visions. I just had my friend visiting, whos lives in Canada. It's overall sad to see Canada ability in creating train oder bicycle infrastructure. I hope all the best.
Montreal is creating some world class bike infra!
100x is still a lot haha!
Great article covering some really disappointing news. I was so excited for the improvements to the barrie line. I moved to toronto thinking an easy way to get back and forth from my hometown was just around the corner. Are fast frequent and two way trains still on the table or will I have to continue to time my train home with the commuter trains?
Fast and *semi* frequent trains are still the plan, and the province *has* committed to at least 15 minute bidirectional in the medium term.
I think for Barrie you can expect 30 minute service and counter peak service in the next few years, which in my eyes for a relatively long line (and so fairly long journeys) is pretty good (many lines in London run roughly half hourly).
I think the difference is while 15 would be the sort of minimum service on an electric network, it'll be more like the best service on a diesel one.
So you’re saying those of us on the Barrie line are cooked.
Sigh
Not cooked no? As I mentioned later on improvements are already on the way, we can just expect things slower than we would have hoped.
I despise Metrolinx with a passion, but cancelling this DB outsourcing is fair. The government shouldn’t be hiring so many expensive consultants for stuff, especially for things that are core parts of its mandate. Consultants burn money and ruin everything. If that sort of expertise is important to Metrolinx, then that sort of expertise should be added in-house. All these external contracts are also open to all sorts of shady shenanigans. Metrolinx has been planning its own expansion for decades, why is a massive consortium needed to tell us how to do it? And let’s not forget the recent study that Toronto’s transit expansion projects were blowing their budgets because of excessive studies and over-design, and the recommendation that Toronto should YOLO more of their transit projects. Just do some minimal studies, do the construction, and use the cost savings from fewer studies to fund all the extra construction needed to fix problems.
Outsourcing when you have no local experts (or let's be honest, on-continent experts) in running a modern electric rail system (the American systems are deeply flawed!) makes sense. Metrolinx *hasn't existed* for decades! Just because this went badly (in large part because of Metrolinx) does not mean the premise didn't make sense!
Sure, an argument could be made in favour of it, but we just had a research study telling us to stop over-designing transit projects, and many projects in Canada and elsewhere (like CAHSR) have been shown to have an unhealthy reliance on external consultants, and, honestly, everything that Verster touched was a little questionable. So cleaning out all the consultants from Metrolinx also sounds entirely reasonable to me. Looking up things on Steve Munro’s website, it looks like GO has been running repeated studies on electrification since 1992. Instead of paying consultants to make yet another study about an electrical future that may never exist, we should spend the money to actually electrify something. We can learn by making our own mistakes. Europe’s systems weren’t built fully-formed. They were built through incremental improvements after all.
I don't disagree with some of this, but *just electrifying* and not learning from people who run a railway in a sensible way would likely leave us with many of the same problems - just with electric trains!
We're still going to need to use Alston for Operations and Maintenance.
NIMYISM, and analysis paralysis seem to be deeply woven into our local fabric.
Also, David Miller, the mayor behind TransitCity, was on TVO last week talking about what an absolute failure PPPs are - The Eglinton Crosstown being the most glaring casualty of such an arrangement.
I think David Miller is very hit and miss. He also has suggested lopping huges chunks of the Ontario Line because theres apparently "no demand"
So i read your piece on Montreal and i like to talk about air conditioning a station noy in YUL but here in Toronto. The new Ontario line is not planning on either heating or cooling the stations. However this can be done for practically free. Since the only major expense of Geo-thermal HVAC is the digging. And that is already been taken care of. The equipment cost about 20k a year to operate per station.
So unless a politician can strong arm Metrolinx to fix this we will against freeze in the winter and cook in the summer.
We do not freeze or cook on the existing subway, and these stations *will* have better ventilation, so I think things will be OK. I agree active cooling would be nice.
Toronto a bigger transit expansion than Sydney since 2014, really? Sydney built or is building 3 new Metro lines, 4 separate significant light rail lines, a huge BRT project and a regional rail extension plus upgrading a bunch of signalling, an entire system-wide accessibility upgrade and some massive TOD precinct transformations. All this on the back of the Airport Line for the 2000 Olympics and first orbital line (Chatswood-Epping) in the mid-2000s. Sydney already did their version of GO Expansion decades ago.
Toronto a bigger transit expansion than Sydney since 2014, really? Sydney built or is building 3 new Metro lines, 3 separate significant light rail lines, a huge BRT project and a regional rail extension plus upgrading a bunch of signalling, an entire system-wide accessibility upgrade and some massive TOD precinct transformations.
Yes.
Both cities are building a similar amount of new metro lines (much of Sydneys is not net new) - I see the airport line as something which should have been a conventional Sydney trains line, but Toronto is *also* doing a number of metro extensions, Toronto is building more light rail (4 lines), Toronto is building more BRT (several different independent BRT systems), Toronto is building more TOD, *and* Toronto is doing a network wide upgrade of GO.
80 years or so ago there was a "Can-Do" spirit in our country. Identify an objective, come up with a plan, roll up yar sleeves ... and get it done. This mindset largely reflected that in rural communities where there usually wasn't time or money to waste. In modern-day Canada, by contrast, public administration is typified by endemic, unaccountable, profligate, serial, pathetic incompetence.
There are a lot of problems, but we need a solutions oriented mindset. We can fix things.