The answer for Hamilton: buses, not trains
LRT is inflexible, whereas a modern bus fleet can expand, contract as needed
Words and images evoke emotional responses far beyond rational thought. The train is a romantic image, sleek, unstoppable, modern. “I went by train” sounds so much better than “I went by bus.” The train implies a degree of social status beyond the bus. Even the fixed rail feels solid, secure. It can’t lead us astray. And some of them, we know, move twice as fast as buses and cars. And the train is probably still the right technology for the job of transporting many people between urban centers.
But a locomotive with multiple stops on a fixed rail through the centre of a city? NO.
The light-rail plan means spending a billion dollars to grandly disrupt traffic and commerce for five years. Downtown may not recover from such an upheaval.
And then what do we have? Five years from now, besides more debt?
Let’s compare rail with alternatives:
A train can be powered by diesel or electricity. A bus can be powered by diesel, electricity (directly or by battery), propane, biofuels, hydrogen, or natural gas.
(Note for those concerned with global warming: the energy required to transport six tonnes for 10 miles is the same no matter the vehicle; the variables are engine efficiency and friction and both trains and buses can run with electric motors.)
A train is not scalable. (An annoying modern word, but very salient in an age of such rapid change and flux). A bus system is infinitely scalable. Upwards, downwards, and sideways.
With the (relatively) easy changes of size of bus, routes, and schedules, the fixed and operating costs of a bus system can be changed to meet demand and revenue. This is not true for fixed rail. The route cannot be changed. The cost will remain the same if 100 people or one person gets on the 9:10 every morning.
A bus system can grow and change incrementally or dramatically. If a dramatic shift in population occurs
buses can adapt. A train cannot.
With buses a grid of intersecting units of transportation can develop, all directions, high and low capacity. The train will take you only from west to east and back, meanwhile disrupting all north/south traffic.
Buses turn corners and sweep around bends. Trains cannot. Getting across the 403 and into Westdale and West Hamilton will cause a grand mess. I suspect the train will isolate West Hamilton from Central Hamilton rather than connect them.
One billion dollars buys us one train line through town. Alternatively, it can buy us a flexible bus system, responding to demand throughout the region, plus new sewers, water, road repair, affordable housing.
Autonomous vehicles are nigh. The obvious place to introduce them is on a fixed straightforward route. This is already being done in several cities. Starting with a fixed route means extra sensors and other precautions can be put in place.
Once we get there the autonomous vehicles will allow enormous flexibility in size of vehicle dispatched, frequency, and route. And people will be able to connect to this through apps.
If we build a train we are stuck with that train. A train through town will have minimal impact (beyond a snarl of traffic finding its way around the train route) on private carbon emitting automobile usage. On the other
hand, a complex system of public and private and shared electric vehicles could have an impact.
The images on the city website for the proposed LRT are misleading. They show a sleek little train moving through an empty town, a few people standing around or crossing the street parallel to the train, no bicycles or trucks or taxis, and a total of two cars in eight images. This comes perilously close to false advertising.
The reality is far different. Snarled traffic on Main and King, snarled traffic on all parallel routes, including residential streets and roads running east/west. Pedestrians and bicycles and scooters trying to cross north to south. Avoidance of the downtown by the Mountain population. Even more trucks than today working their way through town on fewer lanes.
I admit visually an LRT is much more appealing than an oversized, two-feet-above-the-road, diesel belching city bus. But they don’t have to be designed that way.
I see some hand wringing about the millions already invested. But it is not lost money. Most was used to purchase still valuable properties. And the billion dollars is not free money, a “gift” from the province. It is our money and our debt.