Raise the Hammer

This kind of thing is exactly why a team of residents started up a new Hamilton LRT citizen advocacy: Prevents our LRT from being screwed up. Advocate for the best social/economic benefits.

Even that National Post reporter that wrote about the Edmonton LRT disaster compliments LRTs found elsewhere.

Edmonton's example was a royal mess-up, with the flawed crossing gates.

Your link to the news article says:

Quoted From National Post

"I am a fervent — almost fanatical — supporter of public transit. I’ve taken pleasure trips to foreign cities largely to soak up the sublime efficiency of an S-Bahn or a New York City A-train. But lately I have trouble sleeping until I comfort myself with visions of the Metro Line LRT tracks being torn up, French résistance-style, so the tyrannical train can never, ever run again."

"But before designing a single new subway line or streetcar lane, be cognizant of one ironclad maxim; don’t let idiots build your transit."

Crossing gates that stay down for minutes is a terrible system for a new surface transit line. For surface LRTs in Ontario, traffic light transit priority integration is the proper way and is what planned -- not crossing gates. Waterloo and Ottawa aren't using those either. Those LRTs will open by 2018, and will provide the Ontario public the first taste of a modern surface LRT that is well-integrated into a traffic light system. Hamilton's system is somewhat lighter than the Calgary C-Train in that these are low-floor trains.

The closest similarity is roughly the Spadina streetcar route running new streetcars, except running much faster due to saner stop spacing, and proper integration of traffic signals with transit priority. So LRT vehicles can just breeze through green light, not holding up motorists for long (like a proper European transit priority system) rather than holding people back for 15 minutes (like screwed up Edmonton crossing gates in article). Also, unlike Spadina, there wouldn't be stops on both sides of the intersection (which also slows the Spadina streetcar down significantly). Compared to the nicer Euro style surface LRT systems, TTC's system has really screwed up stop spacing (slows down too much) and poor transit priority signalling (streetcars keep waiting at intersections).

Many of us are going to be staying on the ball, to help keep the City/Metrolinx accountable, in getting the best possibe LRT and gaining the best possible social/economic benefits.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2016-01-18 21:46:38