(03-12-2022, 05:00 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(03-12-2022, 01:14 PM)the_conestoga_guy Wrote: I personally think that Victoria North/Highland would be better served by installing BRT corridors with proper traffic signal priority measures than by adding LRT. I'm no traffic planner, but I think the benefits that could be achieved by moving our buses more efficiently along these corridors would be more meaningful than losing right-of-way space to an LRT and squishing the local bus routes into the remaining single lane with personal vehicles. Then maybe after 50-75 years or so, we could revisit the corridor and install a raised platform for an LRT or equivalent if necessitated.
Of course, this is (probably) moot until the new highway 7 is installed. I can't see the Region giving up road space in this corridor to transit projects until that happens. In the short term, I think the priority should be to efficiently move buses through the congested stretch of Victoria, in and out of the transit terminal once it's built.
Contrary to the beliefs of regional engineers there is no reason that a bus cannot use an LRT right of way. Many many cities do this.
This only works if you're only using the tram right of way for a couple of blocks in between stops. It gets dicey, though the shorter your tram headways gets or the longer the bus uses the tracks, for basically the same reasons that bus bunch becomes a progressively bigger problem as bus headways drop below the 10 minute mark.
An example of where it could help is if the 204 had no stops downtown and just used the tracks to do it's zig-zag from Victoria St N over to Queen to get to Highland. However, as anybody who has ever been on am iXpress bus knows, if there is a car crash along it's route, or if it has snowed more than a little bit, even if it's *scheduled* to use the track 1 minute after the tram went past, it's highly likely that it's going to get in the way of next tram 9 minutes later. And given that those tracks are not plowed they'd probably make the bus even slower than if it used the road instead.
In general, it's just not a good idea.
BTW, which ones are these "many. many cities"?