Blocking the Metro to the F1 Race is Dangerous

This is just wrong on so many levels. "Ligne jaune" (yellow metro line) is the way the vast majority of spectators will get to Montreal's F1 race tomorrow. To get to the yellow metro line from Montreal, you'd use the Berri-UQAM station. To advocate that people should congregate in protest at the bottom of the station (the yellow line is under the other two lines at the station), in a very confined area, adjacent to a track powered with a deadly electric rail, is at best ill though out, at worse completely immoral. The platform will be jammed packed with race fans, continuous fed with a never-ending flow down the stairs from the other lines and the station above. 

I've been on strike working in the public sector. I get that being annoying jerks is part of the process. And thousands and thousands of fellow citizens within earshot is understandably appealing. But the platform of the yellow line on race day? No.

The other call to action at the adjacent-to-the-station, and above ground, Place Emilie Gamelin, is far better. People can get noticed without fear of third rail electrocution. Smoke and tear gas will dissipate. And if the police start arresting protesters, it is fairly easy to leave (and come back). There certainly won't be as many people passing by (changing from the green and orange lines doesn't require going above ground), but it is exponentially safer (call for blood notwithstanding).

Now, although I'm a New Brunskwicker, I'm also a huge F1 fan. So I'm not exactly neutral. However, there is a difference between being a jerk and annoying in order to get the population and their elected representatives to give in and give them their cost of living raise (or in the student's case, keep tuition increases at the rate of inflation) and protesting the Formula 1 because you are against the Formula 1. Stay on message. The message is tuition.

Oh and by the way, on average, people who graduate from university pollute far more than people who don't. The reason? Their salaries are far higher, on average, than those who don't. The more money you spend, usually, the more you pollute. You could even argue that delaying purchases of cars and houses is a good thing, environmentally. 

Follow the Rules on Subway!

Do Not Lean on the Door!

Don't you hate it when people ignore the rules? "Don't lean on the door"! How hard is that to understand?

What is next, people eating on the DC subway?

Photo stolen from here. 

Dubai Metro at 763km/hr !

This is the most awesome video ever (assuming you are a public transportation geek and tired of looking at people)!



A while back I embeded some other cool public transportation videos, but Google Video closed down! Perhaps that is the best feature of a subway: relative permanency.

This is what can happen when you don't build a subway (Detroit only has a uni-directional people mover).  :)

Ottawa light rail tunnel: a 1.2 billion dollar mistake

Dear citizens of Ottawa,

The transit tunnel under downtown, and the conversion of much of the transitway to light rail, is a costly mistake. Here is why:

Demand

-Has the federal government said they are going to hire a bunch of new people downtown? At Tunney's Pasture? No. The Trudeau-Mulroney days are over people. Many civil servants will retire, they wont be replaced. And in this age of the Internet, the logic of costly office space in the nation's capital is iffy at best. At the very least, federal politicians might be inclined to transfer jobs to Gatineau, instead of just sending giant equalization cheques to Quebec (presumably, workers would follow their jobs and move to the cheaper Quebec side, increasing the province of Quebec's tax base). 

Supply

-There are 4 lanes each on Albert and Slater. Four! Even when you give up one lane for parking and one for turning left, that is still two available lanes. Does rail have more capacity than two lanes? Their is congestion getting downtown, but crossing downtown, thanks to synchronized lights, and the four lanes, is relatively quick. There is bus congestion. Yes. But that can be managed with cutting down on the number of routes going downtown. Sucks for the people who will have to transfer, but EVERYBODY will have to transfer if we build light rail.

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

Destination

-If people are going downtown, get them to their destination, not four floors underground! Sacrificing a trip underground makes sense if you save time on the entire journey. But if you do the math, workers downtown won't! The people who would benefit, are the folk NOT going downtown. But we could improve their lives by having a cross downtown express bus route, fully taking advantage of the synchronized lights. 1.2 billion dollar expenditure not required.

Jobs

-Obviously, digging the tunnel is a massive job creator. However, once the tunnel is done, so are the jobs. Bus driving, however, is a low skill job for life.

Opportunity cost

-Spending money 1.2 billion dollars on the east-west light rail conversion means not spending it elsewhere. A north-south subway under Bank street (to Hull?), for example. Or perhaps lower property taxes, so all those retired civil servants don't all have to move to Aylmer.

Disclaimor: A former Ottawa resident, I now live in Moncton. Apart from the promised 600 million dollar federal subsidy, I have nothing to gain or lose from this project.

My previous musings on the subject:
-Ottawa Light Rail Proposal: Single bus line would be cheaper.

Lindsay Lohan Jail Next To Freeway

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The irony of Lindsay Lohan's jail is that it is located next to a free-way. She of course is in jail at Lynwood's Century Regional Detention Centre for violating her parole conditions related to her drinking and driving conviction.The freeway also incorporates a public transportation line, a reminder of the options you need to think about when drinking. The north-south line, below street grade, appears to be only for merchandise (to and from the port of Long Beach).

Here is the east-west line (just north of the jail, in the highway median, above city street grade). The station is located about 1 km west of the jail (Imperial/Wilmington station), at the intersection of the Blue and Green Lines.

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In the sky above the jail is the approach area for planes landing at LAX.

So to recap, a major freeway, a major freight line, a commuter line and the approach to one of the busiest airports in the world. As far as transportation in concerned, the jail is probably the noisiest location in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. That said, noise doesn't add straight up and she might not even hear it over the noise from inside the jail.



-Suburban Sprawl Sends Paris Hilton to Jail

Recommended LRT Connection at Don Mills Subway Station is a bad idea

A billion dollars down the drain .

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/sheppard_east_lrt/index.htm

http://www.toronto.ca/involved/projects/sheppard_east_lrt/pdf/2009-05-14_notice.pdf

We are recommending that the bus service on Sheppard Avenue East, east of Don Mills Road, be replaced with modern electrically-powered light rail vehicles operating in dedicated transit lanes, at street level in the centre of Sheppard Avenue East, separated from traffic.

Well, as you can see on the picture, that leaves a lot of residents and workers SOL. This is a bad project. It is expensive, and will be of no advantage over buses.

Géorgie: Poutine impliqué?

Est-ce que les manifestations contre le président de la Géorgie sont
le résultat d'un soulèvement populaire ou est-ce le résultat du
travail d'espions russes qui poussent le peuple géorgien dans le dos?
À première vu c'est un soulèvement populaire. Mais il y a des
exemples qui sème le doute. Par exemple, la Corée du Nord était
impliqué dans le mouvement étudiant de la Corée du sud et les États-
Unis (et le Vatican) dans les grèves de la Pologne lors de la période
communiste.
(photo de LeMonde sur iPhone)

Geocities is Dead, Will CBC be next?

Yahoo's new CEO is pulling the plug on Geocities. I went through the
stages of mourning and I'm now on acceptance. Geocities has been
replaced by blogs and social sites. I get it.

But if my sacred Geocities is already past due, what about other
sacred cows such as the CBC? With millions of Canadians posting videos
and text on the Internet, do we need the CBC?Want? Sure. But need, as
in spend a billion dollars a year? Not so sure.

Dito for Via Rail. Bus companies don't require subsidies and will get
you there just as fast. When you think about it, what is the point of
subsidised passenger rail in corridors that are served by uncongested
4 lane highways?

Illiminating Via would mean more passengers for the bus, therefore
increasing bus frequencies, making them more appealing. By the way,
bus ticket prices are regulated.

If you can cancel Geocities, time to re-examin all non-profitable
behind the time services.

Envoyé depuis mon iPhone / Sent from my iPhone.

No to High Speed Rail But Yes to Toilet Paper

Many people (including the Toronto Star) have been advocating High
Speed Rail between Montreal and Toronto.

Never mind that StatsCan figures Canada's population will essentially
stagnate over the next 20 years. Or that many Canadians in 2030 will
be retired and not in a hurry to get from A to B.

No, the main argument against a Canadian TGV is toilet paper. Toilet
paper? You see, Morocco is going to build a TGV. The thing is, the 30
million Moroccans don't use toilet paper. No bidet either. They use
their left hand!

I figure a Toronto-Montreal high spead train, with costs spread over
20 years, would each year cost Canadian taxpayers the equivalent of
their yearly toilet paper budget.

The French have bidets AND TGVs, you say? True. But Paris is covered
in dog poop. Ottawa cleans their streets and sidewalks every night.
But there is no high speed train to Montreal...

Priorites, people, priorities!

Envoyé depuis mon iPhone / Sent from my iPhone.

High Speed Rail = Higher Taxes. Any questions?

High speed rail means higher income or sales taxes. If you don't believe me, check out the tax rates of countries that have high speed rail. What follows is a February 26th editorial in the Toronto Star , and my comments. 

The governments of Ontario, Quebec and Canada are moving forward – albeit in slow motion – on a high-speed rail link.

If the $3 million feasibility study announced this week has a familiar ring to it, that's because Premier Dalton McGuinty keeps proclaiming it in old railway hotels: nine months ago at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City and 13 months ago at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa, both times alongside his Quebec counterpart, Jean Charest.

Back then, McGuinty mused: "This has been talked about for quite some time, but every once in a while there's an idea whose time actually comes." Comes and goes, actually.

High-speed rail has been coming to the Windsor-Quebec corridor for the past 35 years, which is when the first report was submitted – followed by 15 more studies. The latest iteration will essentially review and update the previous ones, notably the $18 billion pricetag from a 1995 study – about $24 billion in today's dollars.

For all the stops and starts, times have truly changed: The price of oil is destined to have us over a barrel again in no time, and there is growing pressure to curb carbon emissions. About 60 per cent of the country's population resides in the Windsor-Quebec corridor, where highways are rapidly turning into parking lots and airports are plagued by delays. The idea of halving the rail travel time from Toronto to Montreal to two hours on an electrified right-of-way is improving with age.

So how does cutting travel time cut carbon emissions? Explain that to me please. And apart from a very few long weekends (when trains would be full anyway), the highway from Montreal to Toronto is clear sailing. Halving travel time is great, working five times as many hours to pay for your ticket (vs. bus or regular train), not so much.

The rise of private-public partnerships also makes the daunting pricetag easier for taxpayers to digest, especially if built in stages. High-speed rail has proven profitable in Europe, and studies have shown there is high potential demand in the Montreal-Toronto leg.

Profitable to whom? There is no rail line outside the UK that is profitable. If some lines generate a small operating profit, they are completely overshadowed by the debt required to build the line and buy the trains. 

We may already be paying a heavy price for the past year of intergovernmental foot-dragging on high-speed rail. Quebec waited many months before tendering the latest feasibility study, which is only now getting underway. Were it shovel-ready by now, this infrastructure project would provide a timely economic stimulus. Regardless, high-speed rail stands on its own merits and is long overdue.

McGuinty worries that "the Prime Minister is not as much of a fan on this score," and indeed federal cabinet ministers have been unenthusiastic. After so many years and so many studies, this project needs strong leadership at all levels. If Canada continues to hesitate over high-speed rail, it risks being left in the dust.

Who drives the buses that transit on the 401? Who flies the planes? Where are the buses made and where are the planes maintained? Ditto for the current trains, which would presumably be replaced by the high speed trains. 

I love high speed trains. But I also love Ferraris and Lamborghinies. If you want to take a high speed train, use the tax savings of not having Canadian high speed rail and go to Europe, Japan or Shanghai.

And remember, even if you are a student and don't pay taxes, higher rail ticket prices will mean less choice, not more. 

The Auto Industry Only Bemefits Ontario

Canada's auto industry is one giant wealth transfer to Ontario. And
now tax dollars, collected in part from massive duty on European and
Asian cars, will be directed at Ontario manufactures!

Enough! What have Magna, GMC and Ford done for non-Ontario Canada?
Nothing? They have been taking our money and all we have to show for
it is crappy cars.

Let Ontarians go back to farming if they have to, but don't give them
my money.

Envoyé depuis mon iPhone / Sent from my iPhone.

Ottawa Light Rail Proposal: Single bus line would be cheaper.

Light rail solution: 4 billion dollars.
My solution: 0 dollars.

You decide.

Dear Ottawa,

Yes, there is a bus congestion problem downtown. Solution: on the transitway, have one bus line instead of 50. Yes, the whole point of the transitway is to enable users to go from A to B without transferring. But that is not going to happen with light rail either.

Light rail isn't going to be faster. You do need fewer drivers and the theoretical passenger capacity goes up slightly. But that is it. Is that worth 4 billion dollars?

And the American experience has taught us that the capacity doesn't go up because the frequency of the trains is lower (see Baltimore). The convenience is also lower, because instead of a bus every 2 minutes, you have a train every 15 minutes.

Comfort on the vehicles might go up, but having to wait 14 minutes at minus 25 will cut into that equation...

An other way to reduce bus congestion without spending 4 billion dollars would be to have an express non stop service downtown. Thanks to the light synchronisation on Albert and Scott, even at rush hour, crossing downtown is actually quick. Most buses don't take advantage of the light synchronisation because they have to stop at the buss stops. But by having a transitway express line, all those transitway users who don't need to go downtown (Tuney's Pasture employees, University of Ottawa students, Altavista area employees, Algonquin College students, people going to the airport or to the Rideau Mall... ) would save time. The city would even save money as the bus usage would be more efficient. You would need fewer buses to serve the same number of passengers.

A light rail tunnel sounds like a good idea, but it might actually ad time to the downtown commute. Whereas buses are at street level, underground light rail stations would be deep under ground. Going underground could ad 4 minutes each way to the downtown commuter's journey.

If you absolutely want an infrastructure project, build a subway line under Bank Street from the Rideau canal to Hull.

Update (2008-05-22, 05:22): there ara actually 71 bus lines that use Albert and Slater:
3 8 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 43 45 50 51 55 57 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 73 76 77 82 84 85 86 87 88 94 95 96 97 124 129 156 172 176 178 180 182 221 231 232 261 262 263 283 603 693

Cars Crashing Sells Cars in Europe

English: "The safest ensemble in the world." -- "Eight models with 5 stars in the euro NCAP crash test." Ironically, filmed in the USA.

Sidewalk Ruins Driveway

Yes, I've just bought a new scanner/colour printer/colour fax/colour copier (Brother MFC-240C, $130 at Staples, USB cord not included). But if you think that scanning the local paper is bad, just be thankful I don't have your fax number, as I'd be faxing you clever blog posts I find on the Internet.

Nevertheless, I think the front page picture from the Friday May 25 edition of the Moncton Times and Transcript is blogworthy.

The picture is pretty self explanatory. The owners put in the driveway without consideration to an eventual sidewalk being put in (they assumed, wrongly, that it would be put on the other side of the street).

Suburban Sprawl Sends Paris Hilton to Jail

Paris Hilton* will be sent to jail for 45 days for driving with a suspended license. Her license was originally suspended for driving slightly drunk.

How many people get caught drunk driving in New York City, Paris Hilton's home town? Probably not that many. Had Hilton stayed in New York, she could have enjoyed her lifestyle without risking jail. Drunk driving is deadly and, frankly, going to jail is better then being seriously injured or dying.

But why do people drink and drive? It's not just selfish irresponsibility and alcohol impaired judgment. The logistics of clubbing 50 km away from home are surely a contributing factor. Whereas in urban areas you can stagger home, take a subway, bus or taxi, in sprawling suburban cities like LA, the options are limited. Even when you are rich, you don't want to spend a couple hundred dollars on cab fare (each way). Having a designated driver means you leave the club with the same person you arrived with (that's a downer).

Even in never ending suburbia like LA, you often can't leave your parked car for very long. So while you are nursing a hangover, having taken a cab home, your car maybe in the process of being towed, stolen or vandalised.

Drunk driving is one of the consequence of sprawl. Granted, it also happens allot in rural areas, but in suburban magacities like LA, you are more likely to involve Innocent drivers.

*Paris Hilton stars in the reality type series The Simple Life with Nicole Ritchie. She also has two home movies available on the Internet. The second video, of her taking a bath, was filmed by her boyfriend, the millionaire behind Girls Gone Wild. You could argue that Paris Hilton has done for High Speed Internet what Alyssa Milano did for the World Wide Web.

Four Times More Cities in Quebec Have a Subway Than in Ontario

Alright, so the title needs work. I was going to post this in French, but I figure most French speaking people this side of Paris know by now that in Quebec, even Laval has the subway.

And not some cheap imitation subway either (take that Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Scarborough). Heck no. We are talking the real deal here. The type of subway that makes absolutely no sense unless you amortise it over 100 years and include intangibles like being able to brag your better than Scarborough (actually, I think the real subway does go all the way to Scarborough, but for the sake of argument, let's pretends it ends in East York.)

Since the subways systems of Toronto (a city that now includes the aforementioned Scarborough), Calgary and Edmonton are each wholly in their respective cities (thanks to rather large area cities), Quebec can brag about being the only Canadian province with an inter-municipal subway system. Four by my count. Four! (Longueuil, Westmount, Montreal and now Laval). And all underground. That is where sofisticated people move around (take that Vancouver hicks).

A subway transports as many people as a six lane highway. Ironically, the Quebec government is building a six lane highway to Laval. The problem is, the population of the greater Montreal isn't increasing. More transportation for the same amount of taxpayers.

Still, as a citizen of Moncton, I'm jealous. I want a subway to. Heck, I'd even settle for a Skytrain or Edmonton style light rail. Hey, maybe we can buy Montreal's monorail (the one at LaRonde, the Expo67 amusement park that still opens in the Summer). Too expensive? Pff, half of NewBrunswick's budget comes from the feds. We should get our fair share (not our fault if our harbour is clean, we shouldn't be penalised for that).

If I could end on a serious note. Coodos for the Quebec government's decision to stick with the same technology as the rest of the metro. The Scarborough Light Rail has proven disastrous. If you have ever climbed three stories (more like 6 really) only to have to walk them down 20 minutes later, you will understand that taking 3 modes of transportation is no fun at all, especially when one is underground and the other is high it the airs (Granted, getting downtown from Université de Montréal isn't that much fun either, even if it is all subway; a transfer is a transfer, all hail Ottawa's transitway).

Just Say No to Traffic Calming

Blast furnace suggests Hamilton needs traffic calming in order to prevent horrible pedestrian deaths such as the one he mentions. However, he is wrong.

Traffic calming, such as taking out a lane of traffic from each
direction, chicanes and rumble strips, and replacing some of the more
dangerous intersections with roundabouts.

All of these would force cars to slow down.

Yes, but it would make the road more dangerous. Cars would indeed slow down, but that is because the risks are higher. There is no net safety gain (but you do have slower cars).

Hamilton, like the city of Ottawa and kind of like the city of Oshawa, has a series of wide one way streets that allow you to get through downtown pretty quick. The street lights are synchronised to around 50 km/hr, the posted speed limit. During rush hour, they work very well. The problem is out of rush hour when the lights stay green for longer and there is no traffic preventing cars from drag racing between blocks.

Roundabouts do reduce the injury rate of other vehicle occupants at high risk intersections, but they increase the total number of collisions (most are minor) and also are MORE DANGEROUS for pedestrians. After spinning around the intersection, cars have to suddenly stop at a random white line in order to let pedestrians the chance to cross the street. Roundabouts are actually more appropriate on rural roads where speeds are high, traffic is lite and pedestrians are virtually non-existent.

The most appropriate solution to slow cars down is enforcement. If the city can't/wont pay for enough police, then Ontario should consider Alberta's solution of traffic cameras. Making the road more dangerous with "traffic calming" techniques is not the solution.

Subway and Nascar.

Nascar is coming to Montreal next summer. With the Formula One and Cart Series , the Nacsar Busch series is the third major race that will be held next Summer on l'Ile-Sainte-Hélène.

What is the attraction of the site, versus say Mosport in Clarington in the Greater Toronto Area?

Subway. Yes, as far as I know, it is the only non-street track to be accessible by subway.

Bus Driver School - Ecole du chauffeur d'autobus

Français suit.

Category: Public transportation


I just found this picture on the Shirley au Quebec blog. It reminds me of one of Bob Newhart's stand-up comedy skits*: "You run for the bus, the driver drives away. You stop, the driver stops. You run again and just befor you get to the door, the driver speeds away. This can go on for miles".

What do the bus drivers do for fun in Montreal?


------------------
FRANÇAIS

Catégorie: Transport en commun

Je viens de trouver cette photo sur le blog Shirley au Quebec . Ça me fait penser à un sketch de Bob Newhart: (traduction par moi) "tu cours pour l'autobus, le chauffeur part, t'arrête bien d'écourager, le chauffeur s'arrête aussi. Là tu pense, c'est ma journée. T'avance deux pas, l'autobus fait un saut de mouton. Tu te dépêches, t'arrive presque à la porte, vlan le chauffeur met le pied ça pédale. Ça continu de même pour des kilomètres."

Le passe temps favori des chauffeur d'autobus est maintenant interdit.

2800 Metros (Photos)

These are great slideshows with Flickr (click on the picture for location details):
Des diaporamas exceptionnels avec Flickr (cliquez sur la photo pour la localisation):

Metros around the world / Métros autour du monde

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Trains and trolleys / Trains et tramways

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Public transportation /Transport en commun

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Public Transit / Transport en commun (autre)

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Buses / Autobus

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Monorail

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Greece / La Grèce

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Venice / Venise

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