Algonquin College Centrepointe | Proposed
http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/...appId=__7IP964
Proposed Development The City of Ottawa has offered the subject lands to Algonguin College as part of a transaction agreement that would allow the College to expand over Woodroffe with a Centre for Construction Trades and Building Sciences (CCTBS) facility. The facility will be built to a LEED Platinum standard by incorporating specific energy, atmosphere, water, indoor environmental quality, land-use and environmentally friendly materials objectives. Once constructed, the facility will be used to teach such building techniques to College students. The CCTBS building will consist of three or four floors above ground and have an area of approximately 14,864 m2 (160,000 ft2). One storey (approx. 5,481 m2) of the proposed building will accommodate high bay shops that will be visible from Woodroffe, while the remaining storeys (approx. 3,112.15 m2) will be occupied by classrooms. Although the Site Plan submitted in support of this application shows additional buildings, this application is only for the Algonquin CCTBS Building component. No new parking is being proposed as a result of this development. The proposed development will rely heavily on the existing transit station and existing parking available at designated areas throughout the campus. As part this development, the CCTBS will be integrated with a realigned and grade separated (buried) transit station that will accommodate buses and light rail. The redevelopment of the transit station supports the Official Plan vision as well as recently prepared mixed-use development concept for the Centrepointe area. The Site Plan will also accommodate the extension of Navaho Drive and College Avenue as signalized intersections crossing Woodroffe Avenue to the north and south of the site plan area. A glass pedestrian bridge is envisioned above Woodroffe Avenue connecting the existing buildings east of Woodroffe to the CCTBS building and transitway. Each of these associated but independent municipal projects are subject to various studies and processes that will be considered as part of any approval of the CCTBS site plan. http://wwuploads.googlepages.com/algonquin3d.jpg http://wwuploads.googlepages.com/algonquinsection.jpg http://wwuploads.googlepages.com/Algonquin_siteplan.jpg |
Not bad, but the underground station worries me...It feels like St. Laurent all over again...
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It doesn't look like a hub befitting a light rail terminus. I can't see this as a place where people transfer between trains and buses. Maybe they're planning another terminal farther down with more space to do this properly? There isn't even a way for a bus to turn around.
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I'm pretty sure buses continue all the way to LF. But I agree with both of you...not too keen on another bus tunnel.
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I love the underground station idea. Keeps you out of the rain and snow better than the others do.
As for the rail/ bus thing, I imagine it will be a while before that becomes an issue and I also suspect by that point you might see right through to Barrhaven all at once. If not, they can simply put the buses further down... |
I can see the underground station if it was a purely LRT station, but not as a shared bus/train station. The rendering just doesn't make sense.
If this were to be an LRT terminus as per the plan, there has to be room for the train to switch tracks, or configure some sort of centre platform separate from the bus platforms. Also, if Baseline Road is supposed to become a transit priority route as indicated in the plan (which looks like it uses Navaho Drive to dip down to the station) there needs to be some sort of correspondence between the two routes and a way for buses to go from one to another. http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_co...twork_en-1.jpg |
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http://REade.fileave.com/BaselineSta...ne-phase-4.jpg Note that the baseline BRT jogs south to Baseline Station. This is not accounted for in the proposal. The new proposal shows no transit crossing the bus/LRT line. The current bus flow through Baseline Station is shown by the yellow (Transitway), blue and red lines in the following picture. I have separated the east of Baseline Station (red) and the west of Baseline Station (blue) routes for clarity (I hope). http://REade.fileave.com/BaselineSta...affic-flow.jpg Notice that the buses from/to Baseline, east of the station travel on Navaho. To the west, buses use Woodroffe to get to Baseline Road. From the future transit plans already presented, it appears as if that arrangement will continue. Then, just to muddy the waters (and add more colours:rolleyes: ), I added a green line to represent the new station and route. I would like to see this built only for rail. Since there is only an accepted plan to build the Building Sciences (BS) building, then there would still be room on the surface to have the equivalent of the current Station above the train station. This would allow for transfers between the two systems. The buses could mostly follow the new roads (black lines). However, I have also added a fushia line. This represents where I would like to see the blue line accessing Baseline Road to the west. This would give better access to the new buildings and the folks of Centre Point. It would also make use of an existing intersection and off-load the transit from the Woodroffe/Baseline intersection. Note that I have also continued the green line south of the station. In my mind, this is the train route. I am not keen on building it to be a separated bus route and then later paying to convert it to rail. It should just be built as rail from the start. While that is happening, the buses can continue to use Woodroffe and the new ground level bus station (powder blue line). I did find the proposed site plan interesting though. http://REade.fileave.com/BaselineSta...-Site-plan.jpg I expect that the future development area of the ‘old’ campus will be for a large building. With the main labs (machine shop, wood working, etc.) out of the old ‘A’ building, it could be torn down and the space added to the future development area. Personaly, with all of the parking lots and empty space on the old campus, I don't think that the college should have been given the land, but that is water under the bridge. Speaking of bridges, is that bridge really going to be an almost 50 metre span? |
I don't think that the new Algonquin Station is well thought out in its present presentation.
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As part this development, the CCTBS will be integrated with a realigned and grade separated (buried) transit station that will accommodate buses and light rail. The redevelopment of the transit station supports the Official Plan vision as well as recently prepared mixed-use development concept for the Centrepointe area. The Site Plan will also accommodate the extension of Navaho Drive and College Avenue as signalized intersections crossing Woodroffe Avenue to the north and south of the site plan area. A glass pedestrian bridge is envisioned above Woodroffe Avenue connecting the existing buildings east of Woodroffe to the CCTBS building and transitway. Each of these associated but independent municipal projects are subject to various studies and processes that will be considered as part of any approval of the CCTBS site plan.
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The presented information is, I would guess, more of a 'block diagram'. It basically shows that a buried Transitway station would be included and it's general position. What I am suggesting is part of a future step: Taking into account the transit system which must be accommodated by the station. I am suggesting that in order to get two bus lines crossing (the west-east BRT and the south-west Transitway) as well as including a terminus for the LRT line (which I hope will be extended south), there could be a need to have two levels. One for trains and one for buses. |
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staff report on the Algonquin College Transitway station
it explains some of the phasing and cost info |
ALGONQUIN COLLEGE EXPANSION - CENTREPOINTE October 28th, 2008
Overview of Phasing and Timelines Note: to be read in conjunction with corresponding phasing diagrams PHASE 1 (Temporary Transit plan) - Scheduled for Completion by August 2011 Stage 1A – October 2008-March 2009 (5 months) Existing Baseline station http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...s/image019.gif Stage 1B – April 2009 - September 2009 (6 months)
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...s/image021.gif Stage 1C – August 2009 -August 2011 (24 months)
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...s/image023.gif PHASE 2 (Interim Transit plan) - Scheduled for Completion between 2013-2015 Stage 2A – August 2011-2013
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...s/image025.jpg Stage 2B - August 2013-2015
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...s/image027.gif PHASE 3 (Longterm Transit plan) 2016 onwards Stage 3 - 2016 onwards
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...s/image029.gif |
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Any way, if I add up the unique items, the cost is 'only' about $134M - not the $185M. Could some one else take a look and let me know if I'm reading it wrong? |
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That would be a nice contract to get... $50M extra from adding errors. Great design too - students will have to climb/ascend the equivalent of 3 storeys to get to the pedestrian overpass from the depths of the tunnel. |
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At the Joint meeting of the Transportation and Transit Committees, at about 00:10 (after 14.5 hours of meeting), the committees passed the plan so they will be recommending Council accept it as is. That's $185M to move the station 30m and put a few hundred metres of the Transitway under ground. I think that the Councillors just don't understand anything technical so they rely on Staff to guide them. Unfortunately, Staff are not as consciencious as required at times. In this case, Staff had been told that the numbers made no sense, so they re-formatted the tables to make it 'look simpler', but it does not look as if they actually reviewed the numbers. In the new tables, the numbers still didn't add up but after midnight the Councillors didn't notice. (Although, I doubt that Councillors would add up columns of numbers at any other time either. They just assume that the addition is correct.) It would be nice to get ahold of the presentation that staff gave to the Councillors that evening. |
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Notice also that it does not appear to take into consideration of the proposed Baseline BRT which will be entering from Navaho. I don't know if the height of the bridge will be that much of a problem. Since the transfer station is under College Ave., it is likely that most students will continue to cross Woodroffe at the intersection. It is a much shorter route. |
Why are we spending so much to accomplish so little? To support intensification around the station? I fail to understand the merits of letting intensification cost the taxpayer so much money.
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There was a Concept plan for the Centrepointe Town Centre (CTC) developed in 2006-7 through a series of 5 public workshops. The resulting plan was approved by Council Nov. 14, 2007. Also at that time, Council voted to give some land to Algonquin College for their Construction and Building Sciences Building (BSB). Also, Council voted to give $5M (gross) toward a pedestrian bridge across Woodroffe, between the new BSB and the old ‘C’ Building. Council, in principle, agreed that the new BSB should be tightly integrated with the Baseline Transit Station. Then Staff went wild: Quote:
http://REade.fileave.com/BaselineSta...Transition.jpg Notice the differences: the transit station is not on the surface; a building has been removed to create a new "public Focal Point" instead of the one which was on the Main Street; the park has shrunk. But don’t worry: Quote:
Any way, Algonquin got the land under the current station so we need to move by spring 2009. So we are building a temporary station – which will be built to permanent standards, according to staff when questioned by Wilkinson about the cost, because it will be there until 2013. This will be a $6.35M temporary surface station. Things get worse from there. The temporary station will need to be removed by 2013 because it will be built on land which Staff has also deemed as Algonquin’s. This is so that there can be Algonquin buildings on both sides of the final station, thus ‘integrating’ it. Algonquin expects that they will need to build their Health Sciences Building starting in 2013. We need to have our new tunnel and station by then to vacate their land. Oh, and Algonquin didn’t like having the surface transit station, as depicted in the approved plan, so it must be buried. Algonquin was given the surface and air rights above the tunnel so they could have a courtyard. This courtyard will replace the “Public Focal Point” of the approved plan. (Also, since this is a larger area and park-like, the public park has been shrunk.) An extra cost for burying the Transitway is that the Pinecrest Creek (SWM) must be buried under the new tunnel. I have to assume that it will still be high enough to flow. At the Meeting on Wednesday, Councillor Chiarelli brought in a couple of people from the Community Association who stated that they were in favour of burying the busway. In fact, that is what is getting buried – the busway. The four lanes of bus Transitway will run through the tunnel adjacent to the new BSB, but will not stop there: The transfer stop is planned to be at, and under, College Avenue. This will be a station similar to what exists at Westboro Station with local buses on the bridge and the Transitway below. As far as integrating the station and buildings: There will be no more direct access from the buildings to the station than there is at Billings Bridge. Although the buildings will have doors on the courtyard side of the building. All for the low, low price of $185M! |
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This, to their credit, could be put down to the fact that they end up spending a lot of time on councillors requests for information or other related info. My advice is to try and verify and cross reference information provided in many cases by City Staff. In almost all cases they are not willingly passing on providing false information..... |
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