Hamilton Hamilton Line B LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

who's to say that if the LRT is built, it will be well used?

There’s no evidence that it will run empty. It will be used “well enough”.

Central Hamilton has incredible potential for renewal as a densified, urban residentail centre with a moderate scale of height (ie something better than densification in tall condo towers) and a good set of amenities. It will have excellent connections to Toronto and much of the GTA. It adds an entire urban centre to the GTA, something we badly need to offload the crush in Toronto.

LRT will anchor and fuel that development in a way that BRT will not. It will thereby generate a tax base that doesn’t exist today. That is the rationale, and not the absolute passenger count.

If you look at KW, you can see the model. iOn was not built as a relief solution to an overcrowded bus network. Nor is it running at crush capacity. It’s not even that speedy a way to get across town. But if you look at how development has charged ahead, you see why iOn is a success. It too is used “well enough”. Peak passengers per hour may be useful in planning where Toronto places its higher order transit lines, but it’s not the sole criterion for placing LRT in smaller centres.

Hamilton has been down on its knees for a long time. This was totally the start of a fix for that. Ford simply doesn’t understand city building.

- Paul
 
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Can any of the home and business owners who had their land expropriated sue the province?

One of the worst losses was Martin's Bowling Alley. All for naught.


They can and you bet that they will.

However this provincial government recently changed the laws on how you can sue the province, its now a lot harder to sue the province and win.
 
Anyone know how much the Break Fee is?

Do the vendors receive the full Design + Bid fee or some fraction of that since we didn't let them get to the end of the process? I guess I'm wondering if we actually saved any money by terminating early or not; because if not then it was a blatantly political decision.

The terms seem to imply the 3 bidding teams will receive the full Design + Bid fee.
 
The need did not go away.

Hamilton could be a city of a million people in the Hamilton CMA in no time. The need for a livable commuter city within a 30 minute GO commute from Toronto is not going away. The need to get around the place you live is not going away. The last word has not been heard on this. There is an entire BLAST network which Hamilton has planned. A city of a million needs to get about. There is also this little elephant in the room called climate change.

I am a Toronto resident. Born and bred. I often drive because transit is useless in parts of this city. Line 5 will solve part of my transit gripes. The Ontario line plus line five solves all of mine. My story is repeated millions of times in southern Ontario. The current situation in Hamilton is not the end. It's only the situation today.

I'm with this 100%. Hamilton with the right policy direction and economic incentives, has the potential to grow drastically and become an alternative city to Toronto to live and do business with.

Toronto can't shoulder all the region's growth on it's own, and I was counting on Hamilton to play a big part in that. This begins with an LRT, if for no other reason than to begin a development boom in the lower city.

If the province doesn't have a plan to direct growth and investment into Hamilton in order for the city to bounce back as one of Canada's largest cities, then the government isn't doing it's job properly as stewards of our economy.

My understanding is that historically transit use was much higher as the lower city used to be a lot denser. Over the last 20 years the lower city has lost a ton of population as it shifted to the suburbs on the mountain and along with other factors resulted in significant drops in transit ridership.

Hamilton has potential to have great transit use, more than the rest of the 905. It just doesn’t right now.

Indeed. One just needs to take a look at the street grid of Hamilton's lower city. It is about as transit-friendly an urban fabric as you will find in North America.

Even the suburban Mountain has potential for high transit ridership thanks to it's arterial road network and residential lots that don't turn it's back to the street. It really is not all that different from Toronto.
 
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BRT won't be that bad for Hamilton. It's not like the B-line is super frequent today, with its 15 minute peak frequencies. BRT should allow that to come down to sub 5 minutes, and if you combo that with a vastly improved public realm, I could see it really turning a corner for the city and bringing (hopefully) similar amounts of revitalization and investment. Maybe get electric buses for it so its quieter and smoother like the LRT.

Bus lanes come and go but tracks are forever. Developers know this and respond accordingly, just look at Kitchener's transformation-in-progress after decades of downtown stagnation. That said however, it would be nice if things could work out for Hamilton as you envision.
 
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Just published from the Mayor of Hamilton.

 
It makes one wonder if this Whole thing was timed around the Toronto City Council meeting. Most of the seasoned media who follow the transit file were in Toronto for the TTC fare debate. Those folks were pretty quick to jump into the topic, but based on filings from colleagues.

- Paul
 
If you look at KW, you can see the model. iOn was not built as a relief solution to an overcrowded bus network. Nor is it running at crush capacity. It’s not even that speedy a way to get across town. But if you look at how development has charged ahead, you see why iOn is a success. It too is used “well enough”. Peak passengers per hour may be useful in planning where Toronto places its higher order transit lines, but it’s not the sole criterion for placing LRT in smaller centres.

Hamilton has been down on its knees for a long time. This was totally the start of a fix for that. Ford simply doesn’t understand city building.

- Paul
That's not entirely true. While it's true that the main reasons for the project were reducing urban sprawl, and increasing density in the Central Transit Corridor, iON was also built to relieve the bus terminals, simplify the transit network, and decrease the number of vehicles travelling down the central transit corridor (the 7 used to run at peak frequencies of every 4 minutes, and the 200 every, 10). The removing of all those buses has significantly improved the atmosphere of downtown and definitely made the areas far quieter.

No brand new system should be designed to run at crush capacity for significant portions of the day (running trains at near-crush capacity while still having room to expand is different, see the Ontario Line, the Confederation Line, and potentially the Crosstown for the former), that's planning without any outlook.

iON, while it only gets like 22K PPD, still runs at crush capacities between some stations at regular intervals during the day. This is largely student-driven, however. Many are commuting from the google buildings or other downtown businesses to their apartments near UW, travelling from classes at UW/Laurier to their homes in Uptown, or travelling to/from high school (KCI, CHCI, St. Mary's, and ECI are all within a reasonable distance from iON).

A one-way trip is 50 minutes roundtrip, and this can likely decrease to 40 minutes with ATO, signal priority re-timing, and increasing the speed limits on some curves and separated sections. Regardless, 50 minutes isn't even that bad. Sure, it's slower than Line 2, but it's significantly faster and more reliable than the 200 or 7 ever were. It's also significantly faster than the bus in a lot of sections. Getting to uptown from UW used to take like 15-20 minutes, it now takes less than 4. Getting between uptown and downtown used to take as much as 15 minutes, it now takes 5.

What our system is lacking is integration. GRT and Keolis don't seem to schedule their vehicles considering transfers, and this makes taking the transit system very frustrating, especially when the wait for another bus is 30 minutes or more. The lack of bus loops/shelters makes finding connecting routes confusing, frustrating, and occasionally dangerous. The poor design of some stops creates a dangerous situation for walkers and trains. Finally, the lack of viable drop-off areas at some stations is a turn-off for a lot of users. Simply planning something like short term parking with a waiting area at a few stations (conestoga mall, Northfield, Fairview Mall, Block Line, and Mill), even if they're just a small siding next to the road, would have been really useful.

iON has succeeded in bringing development because it's useful for those living near it. If your system only warrants the use of drunk people on a Friday night, then the system will fail to get people out of their cars and on transit. It'll also fail to attract people to nearby developments. It has to be a viable form of transportation in order to succeed, speed, reliability, comfort, and integration and all.
 
This is not the end. It's only the end of the beginning.

Since it's pretty clear by now that the justification for cancelling was completely bunk and that the province has no intention to explain their numbers, you have to wonder what was the actual reason behind it. This comment I found in The Star is one possible theory which I hadn't considered till now:

"I think it will eventually emerge that the cancellation was actually due to pressure from Conservative-connected businesses in downtown Hamilton who didn't like the LRT, and that the province had to invent a cover story. You read it here first."
 
No brand new system should be designed to run at crush capacity for significant portions of the day (running trains at near-crush capacity while still having room to expand is different, see the Ontario Line, the Confederation Line, and potentially the Crosstown for the former), that's planning without any outlook.

Conversion to LRT was needed with Confederation Line. It was at crush load and still will be. Even after Phase 2, it will still be at crush load.
Ion Line, on the other hand, seems to not be at crush load, and likely won't be for some time.

Hamilton LRT will not be at crush load when built. It will,however spur growth where it is needed, and make it a more livable city.

Ottawa should have gone with something like a subway type car. Hamilton's and Ion's are fine with LRVs.
 

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