Comment 104945

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted September 29, 2014 at 13:28:50

What especially annoys me about the current debate is the unjustified claim that Hamilton's B-line would take many years to plan and build, even once a decision has been made.

Just this weekend the Spec article on LRT claimed it would take "8 to 12 years" to build once approved!

This is far longer than other cities take ... why would Hamilton's system be any different?

To take just one example, let's look at the timeline of Dijon (France)'s two LRT lines. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tramway_de_...

  1. May 2008: Council votes to investigate building two rapid transit lines because the current bus network has insufficient growth potential. They then compared three technologies (LRT on rails, Express bus, LRT on tires).

  2. November 2008: they decide on LRT on rails.

  3. November 2009: they complete public consultation to identify problems and improve the plans, and formally launch the project.

  4. October 2010: construction begins.

  5. September 2012: the first line begins operation.

  6. December 2012: the second line beings operation.

Note that this is less than four years from preliminary studies to operation of the first line. (And construction of the first line took only 23 months.)

We've been studying this project for seven years and some people are now claiming it would be a further 12 years before it actually opens!

This is crazy: they think we will take about 20 years to build one line, when Dijon built two lines in only four years!

(Note that the total budget was 400 million euros, for 20km of lines ... again much cheaper than the estimate for Hamilton's B-line. It should be able to do it for much less!)

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-09-29 13:34:25

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