05-14-2021, 11:45 AM
(05-14-2021, 11:10 AM)Bytor Wrote:(05-13-2021, 06:06 PM)ac3r Wrote: Perhaps. Could have saved hundred millions dollars and added a few more dozens of buses (or just articulated buses) to the 200/7 routes
No. Absolutely not. "Moar busses" is a stunningly ignorant thing to say about solving the overcrowding and delay issues that plagued the 200/7. We already had busses ever 3 minutes and 20 seconds during peak, and every 5 minutes outside of peak. There's only so many busses you can put on a busy route on congested streets and we were at that point.
It's not really an ignorant statement at all. Articulated BRT was considered and studied. An articulated bus can offer something like 80-85% of the capacity that Flexity Freedom LRVs do and they were the next strongest contender. We also did studies on monorails and subway systems. The LRT was obviously the preferred option because we got a lot of funding for it from the provincial and federal governments, and at a regional level, they considered that it would offer more economic benefits over BRT. We could have easily built a BRT network with both grade separation and signal priority without sacrificing much in terms of capacity and would gone with exactly that if we didn't get money from higher levels of government. As I said in another comment somewhere, the LRT was alluring as an economic engine, but our actual network isn't all that rapid.