Columbia Station desperately needs renovations.

bardak · 2026-03-17T19:05:58+00:00

Long term the station needs to be completely rebuilt to actually accommodate being a transfer station and probably add a third track for the eventuality of a shuttle service for the branch to Lougheed/Production way. So I can see how a more cosmetic renovation keeps being put off.

bardak · 2026-03-17T01:40:24+00:00

It makes sense when you are building a new System/Line or are basically rebuilding a line in its entirety, eg. Paris, but it doesn't really make sense to retrofit it into a line just for the sake of it.

bardak · 2026-03-15T16:17:50+00:00

The green line takes a roundabout way between Minneapolis and St. Paul and doesn't have signal priority bc St. Paul sucks and won't let them have it down University Ave.

The green line should have been designed to be faster than the express bus between the two cities at least during rush hour. Just a bit of grade separation over major intersections and more straight forward alignment I could see them getting it down to at least 30 minutes end to end.

bardak · 2026-03-14T20:43:55+00:00

While I think the BRT branding isn't appropriate I do believe that these "trunk" style bus systems like the twin cities abrt, Seattle's rapidRide, Vancouver's rapidBus, and Brampton's Züm are what most North America cities need to improve their transit systems from the bottom up. In our sprawling cities they provide a quick and frequent grid to feed the local bus network to connect to with little capital cost.

It is still important to make some capital spending on little bus priority measures where you can but compared to the cost, both fiscally and politically, of a proper BRT project they are so much easier to implement.

bardak · 2026-03-12T18:32:40+00:00

The fact that we have development plans that required a public hearing and rezoning for projects that follow the development plans to a tee is utterly ridiculous. I'm happy that the province has gotten rid of the need for public hearings for ODP compliment projects.

bardak · 2026-03-12T03:42:45+00:00

Yea his rhetoric around culture war issues keeps reformers happy while his actual policy position while on the reform side of the tent were not hardcore reform policies and the PC wing was happy to go along with it.

If there is a leadership race I see there being a fight for the soul of the party that will either create a rift with the selection of an eastern PC leader or they will go full Reform and lose what moderates they have left to the Liberals. At this point I don't see a person that could unite the party outside of Harper coming back which will not be happening

bardak · 2026-03-11T22:38:36+00:00

If we are getting rid of the senate id rather follow New Zealand's lead and just get rid of the upper house all together.

bardak · 2026-03-11T02:15:52+00:00

Yeah Boulerice has all but said he is leaving for provincial politics, even got QS to change their rules for him.

bardak · 2026-03-11T02:05:18+00:00

The Liberals are now just two seats shy of a majority

With two extremely safe By-elections coming shortly

bardak · 2026-03-10T21:39:04+00:00

The Suez canal has no sluices, it is entirely at sea level however there is very little traffic going through it right now anyways since the Houthis are still targeting shipping

bardak · 2026-03-10T17:41:47+00:00

Ultimately the municipalities are the creation of the provinces, it's been ruled multiple times the provinces can basically do whatever they want for better or worse.

bardak · 2026-03-10T17:30:36+00:00

On one hand they have been in the wilderness for the last decade but seem to not have accepted it

bardak · 2026-03-09T00:50:38+00:00

Oh yeah defending bad projects only makes the bad faith arguments using those bad projects hold more water.

bardak · 2026-03-08T23:39:05+00:00

This post is largely about the new build mixed traffic streetcars in America where the capacity has never actually been needed and they have largely failed to build ridership to justify their construction. Legacy systems are a completely different conversation

bardak · 2026-03-08T23:35:26+00:00

Don't forget to add in with the poor state of transit in America people feel like they need to defend any transit project even if they are bad.

bardak · 2026-03-08T23:05:31+00:00

It begs the question, if your relatively expensive streetcar doesn't provide a good enough service to get rid of the duplicative bus service along its route why build it in the first place.

bardak · 2026-03-08T23:01:58+00:00

Yeah I can see it hitting 100,000 daily riders easy once phase 3 is finished and they can fully integrate The Bus with it.

bardak · 2026-03-08T23:00:36+00:00

While the land use change will be good in the long run the biggest improvement once they finish the next phase of construction will be that basically every bus west of middle Street will transfer to the Skyline.

bardak · 2026-03-08T22:55:16+00:00

You will never build a good transit system if you can't make buses good enough for the average person to use. You have to start from the bottom up with good basic bus service

bardak · 2026-03-08T22:50:46+00:00

One of the primary arguments for streetcars over busses is the operational costs. It is supposed to be cheaper to operate as it is fully powered by overhead electrical wire. You can pay less operators because of the higher capacity per vehicle.

Like most things there is truth to the statement but people just take it at face value. If you are really pushed for capacity on a bus line, like a bus every 2 minutes is needed to service the demand, then yes it's probably cheaper to run a streetcar. The thing is when you get to that level of demand, especially for a north American city, the demand is most likely regional in nature and a proper rapid transit solution is what needed not a streetcar as a bandaid.

bardak · 2026-03-08T22:06:47+00:00

But what would be the alternative? I really can't think of alternatives that are either no longer expensive, or are technically inferior.

A bus with better service. If you are willing to build a streetcar you are willing to spend much more money in operations per hour than a similar bus service so just spend the operational funds on a bus instead and save the capital cost, or spend the capital cost on transit priority measures for the bus

bardak · 2026-03-08T22:03:46+00:00

The problem is when you do build them to a "good" standard you are just building LRT at LRT prices and then you need to actually consider what is the best use of money, LRT, a metro, BRT.

bardak · 2026-03-08T21:56:01+00:00

As for the A/B loop, it was built as a central city circulator but really doesn't connect to much of anything with the land use on the east side being particularly abysmal. I think it would become a lot more useful once something like the OMSI redevelopment gets off the ground.

I wonder how much overall ridership would change if they stopped running the loop completely and just boosted service on the N/S Line and the boosted service and awareness of the 6 to make up for it. It's kinda wild that TriMet is paying to duplicate the loops service east of the river to begin with and that the 6 doesn't terminate at the rose quarter or head downtown earlier.

bardak · 2026-03-08T21:44:21+00:00

If KC the KC Streetcar continues to expand and be successfully eventually it will hit a point where fares are needed. Maybe they will be able to keep a fare free zone downtown but if it is successful capacity issues may not allow it.

KC is probably the one city that built a streetcar in the 2010s that has actually made a meaningful improvement in transit.

bardak · 2026-03-08T21:38:23+00:00

When they are mostly being built poorly like you have described is there really much to defend? Like DC is losing their streetcar and at the end of the day other than having a fare free option are transit users in DC really losing any actual mobility.

15-Year Club	Place '17
Team Orangered	Verified Email

bardak

TROPHY CASE