I like how the smartmoves_team says they are going to share facts, and then they immediately give distorted facts along with opinion...

1) "A rough rule of thumb for considering light rail transit is a population of 900,000 people." There is no such thing as a rule of thumb when building light rail systems. There are cities all over the world, including North America, that have far less populations than 900,000 people. Here are just a few cities that have less than 900,000 people that have light rail systems...
Le Mans, France - population 148,169
Grenoble, France - population 156,107
Nottingham, UK - population 202,000 (metro -600,000)
Both Calgary and Edmonton had populations roughly the size of London's metro when they opened their LRT systems.

There are numerous cities across the world that are planning light rail systems for the near future that are London's size or smaller, including Kitchener/Waterloo.

2) "The Tri-Cities are in the 550,000 population range and hugely influenced by the Greater Toronto Area commuter shed." Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge CMA population according to the Canadian Census in 2006 was 451,235. London's CMA population in the same Census was 457,720. I am not sure why it matters that K/W is influenced by the GTA. I guess it is a good thing to be influenced by GTA because they have a large transit system. Who are London's planners influenced by? Teeswater, Ontario?

3) "It is entirely appropriate for them to be planning for light rail transit because they have a high growth rate. London, on the other hand, is just over 350,000 and experiences a very modest growth rate of about 1% to 2%per year." Chicken and egg. One of the main reasons this area has a higher growth rate is because they think ahead with regards to transportation planning. They built an excellent expressway system. We sat on our hands. They are close to having an excellent LRT system. We are sitting on our hands. I can't help but think that the same young, urban people London is talking about trying to attract to the city are much more attracted to K/W's progressive attitude. London just talks about wanting to attract these people. K/W actually acts.

4) "Full buildout within that area is expected to take from 50 to 75 years and an ultimate population of 675,000 people." This is a joke. Who can really predict what a city will grow to be? Did anyone years ago predict Kitchener having such a high growth? How about Calgary? Once we hit 675,000, does that mean we close the doors and let no one else in? Does this include the metro population?

5) "Secondly, the Tri-Cities, by their very geographical layout are 3 distinct nodes that need to be tied together and an LRT system is a practical means of doing that." Do their three cities need to be tied together and the areas of London don't need to be tied together? How about Hamilton? They are building two LRT lines in the city. One for North to South and the second East to West. London and it's silly transit system cannot figure this out. It's unbelievable that we still do not have express buses going North/South and East/West.

6) "Even though 'the math' doesn't seem to be there for a London LRT, we're not giving up." Really? You could have fooled me. It seems you are giving up. Instead of agreeing with people that want a great transit system, you are giving excuses why we can't take the same handouts that every other large Ontario city is receiving. I still cannot believe that a city would not want to take $500-$800 million dollars to build a world class transit system. Even if you want to build your crappy BRT system, why not build a world class one instead of a system of signal changes, queue jumps and gps?

I have called people that have done transportation plans for our city and talked to them about London's problems. It's funny that they agree with my assessments of London. They tell me that London's problem is that it does not go to governments with grand plans (like Kitchener did). If London woke up and planned a great system, they would for sure get the money to build it.

For example, let's say someone woke up at London Transit and City Hall and said "Hey, let's build a LRT line from the 401 to Masonville, with stops at 401, White Oaks, Southdale, Victoria Hospital, Downtown, Oxford, UWO and Masonville." At each station would be transit centres where you could park and ride, buy tickets, wait in heated shelters for trains. At each transit centre, there would be secondary feeder buses that bring people to stations. This system would cost multiple millions of dollars, but it could be paid for by the governments, just like the systems in Kitchener, Hamilton, Brampton, Mississauga, York Region, Ottawa and Toronto. It would actually get people out of their cars because it would be fast, convenient and fun to ride. It would give London something to be proud of.

I don't have a degree in transit planning, but I don't think you need a degree to figure out that our city is continuing in it's tradition of underachieving.

I too was going to reply to the smartMoves team response but GreatTallNorth2 has made most of the comments I might have made, I will say a few things though.....

Rough rules of thumb are meant to be used as a secondary check on calculations to ascertain reasonableness. They're a mathematical construct, not a policy tool. Even if this particular rule of thumb is a reasonable approximation, and I don't think it is (as evidenced by the number of cities who have successful LRT systems and populations far less than 900,000 persons), it should be said that the rule was certainly devised by traffic engineers who, by both training and inclination, have been, and remain, predisposed to asphalt and automobiles.

This is a document in circulation at City, and in the community at large, that encourages us to look at the interaction between transportation policies, planning and zoning protocols, and sound urban design principles for context in discussions about the future of our city. Entitled an Urban Structure Plan (USP), it charts a possible course through the minefield of silo-based policymaking at the city. (As an aside, it could also be noted that USP is most often used in some circles as an acronym for "Unique Selling Proposition" - an inference that should not be lost on any of us.)

This Urban Structure Plan is the source of much of the recent buzz around Light Rail Transit in London. But this is far from the most important part of it.

The Urban Structure Plan makes the connection between transit viability and urban form and density, and encourages us to think about identifying important transit corridors and nodes NOW. With such a template in hand, we could use planning policies and zoning regulations, and bonusing, and the full range of sticks and carrots available for use by the City, to influence how urban build-out occurs and to drive the higher densities required for transit viability to these transit corridors.

The Urban Structure Plan also makes the argument (of primary importance in this particular burg) that this type of development of the urban form of the city is not only a matter of livability and sustainability but is an economic development tool as well. We need only look at any larger city anywhere that has functional transit nodes servicing a BRT/LRT system to see that private sector investment is drawn to these areas.

The Urban Structure Plan (as a concept document) has been referred to the Transportation Master Planning process. I'm not sure it has been welcomed by those in charge with open arms or an open mind. And that's not only a shame but potentially a crime.

I would encourage the moderators of this forum to make the document available.

Oh, and one more thing.... I couldn't agree more with GreatTallNorth2 that the current London Transit service improvements does not a Bus Rapid Transit system make.

I don't know where this idea of 900,000 people being the "rule of thumb" to support LRT came from - I've always heard that 500,000 is the magic number in North America, and 100,000 is the magic number in Europe. Given that we'll have European-level gas prices sometime within the next 10 years, and who knows what prices after that, I expect that public demand for higher-order transit will come much sooner rather than later.

BRT is definitely a good interim measure between now and 2020, but it should not be our end goal. There's a good chance that we'll need an electrified transit system (rail or trollies) by 2030, unless someone manages to figure out how to scale up biodiesel production to replace all of our current and future petroleum diesel needs.

I also don't understand what's preventing LTC from running simple express buses along major arterial roads now until BRT is ready. We don't need to wait for the new TMP to do this.

I plan to attend the November 10th meeting and the November 18th meeting as well. I do not think that the population provided for the K/W region and the London matters. The truth is we have St.Thomas, Strathroy, Port Stanley, St. Mary's and perhaps even Stratford that London could connect with and become a regional hub. Bombardier has train systems that could between these centres and also be run inside London as well. We could even jump even father ahead of K/W and pay homage to Sir Adam Beck by going directly to electric rail.

Quite frankly, promoting commuter rail between London and St. Thomas is something that should not be looked at until after London has an in-city light rail system. No London taxpayer is going to support building a rail system for St. Thomas commuters to come to London when we don't have the transit system we need for our city. Laying track and building stations in small cities outside of London makes no sense at this point as that money would be better invested in our local transit system

Having said that, I love the idea of a train from London to Port Stanley, with a stop in St. Thomas, but more from a tourism point of view.

Hi All! There seems to be some confusion over what LTC is proposing in their Long-term Transit Growth Strategy. Here are some links to the actual plan:
http://www.ltconline.ca/Pubs/Long%20Ter ... 202008.pdf
http://www.ltconline.ca/Pubs/GrowthStrategy.pdf

While a dedicated "bus only" lane along the major corridors would be ideal, there are some instances where providing a lane would not be possible physically and where the "softer" priority enhancements such as queue jumps and signal priority may be all we can do. However, the statement that LTC is not pursuing dedicated bus lanes is incorrect.

Also, although the document is titled the Long-term Transit Growth Strategy, there are some shorter term aspects to the plan that can be phased in much sooner.

Hey everyone, it looks like the smartmoves team actually consists of Tom Gosnell and Paul Van Merbergen. A smart move for progressive Londoners might be to move down the 401 to K/W.

Hey GreatTallNorth2, I'm with you.
I've been ranting about LRT on another thread, but i didn't realize that KW is getting provincial funding. And the smartmoves team is responding to this thread by getting all defensive that someone's trashing their buses and showing us the growth limitations that London has imposed on itself due to being so far behind KW in innovative thinking.
So we have allowed KW to surpass us in population growth and so many other categories and we want to talk about buses because we'll never catch up?
How do we get growth? Get jobs, get investment, get people, make the city look like a good place grow.
If you're a big company and you want to locate a satellite office or headqurters or what have you and you visit KW with it's highways and LRT then you come to London, you think oh this is a hick town and KW is a small city. I'll locate in the small city.

What about an LRT link from the Airport to downtown linking with a high-speed rail station. That will attract investment and grow the numbers at the airport and the train station which will in turn grow the city. The other option is shrinking.

Hi John. It's basically impossible to get London transit planners to "see the light". Trust me, I have tried for many years. I called John Ford, one of the planners at London Transit, and asked him why we are not doing what Waterloo is doing. I asked him why we would not want the money the Feds and province is handing out to Waterloo for LRT. His response? He said that he was happy with London's plan. Imagine this: governments will pay $750 million to build a world class system for us and we say "we're happy" with our plans for a BRT system that isn't really a BRT system.

London must fire all of it's transit planners and we must elect transit friendly politicians in the next election.

Smartmoves Team wrote.. providing them a "transit advantage" by allowing them to trigger traffic signal changes.



I do not agree with this concept. You can't move city traffic smoothly at present and you want to add buses into the mix controlling signals. The head traffic dude told me at last nights meeting that we have a Chev Not a Cadillac system at present controlling traffic lights. It's time to put monies into system that will work to moving all traffic efficiently.