The majority of express routes come from Orleans and Kanata. I think the eventual plan should be to get rid of suburb-->downtown express routes but just run their local portions to and from the nearest LRT stop in the a.m. and p.m. peak hours. This won't happen for a number of years, but before we can do this we need a downtown LRT tunnel for the trains to run. Mixing LRT with traffic on the surface is completely counter-productive and will eventually result in the same downtown congestion that we see now. In the meantime, the NS LRT should be built with a double-tracked downtown tunnel (or 2 single tunnels depending on construction costs). I don't see a problem with having the express buses continuing to go downtown until there is another viable option for these people. Why should they have to start switching just before downtown when the 95/96/97 routes do not and it is the express passengers that are paying the most to ride the bus. We're going to lose some ridership from the burbs if we make these people start switching buses. There may be more willing to switch to a train but it must have at least 5 minute headways (or better) to make this work.

We have already been experimenting with feeder routes versus express routes in the east and southeast. We need to analyze the results of those experiments before widely replacing express routes. If there was a loss of ridership of 25%, we are looking at a disastrous result, if we made feeder routes the norm in this city.

There is another consideration. What are the implications of transferring large number of people to trunk bus routes as far as service speed is concerned? My observation is that express buses often stop less frequently on their way to downtown than the 90 series routes. Also, we have let the 90 series routes become very crowded and I have noticed that very crowded buses run slower, simply because it is slower to load and unload passengers at each stop. People struggle to get around other standing passengers.

Perhaps the answer here will be two classes of routes on the Transitway if we do away with expresses. The regular 95 that will stop at every stop along the Transitway and a 95E that would only stop at say, Hurdman, on the way to downtown from Orleans. Both would run very frequently with the 95E perhaps not running at night or on weekends, depending passenger loads. Of course, if we convert to LRT, it will not be possible to have express trains without at least having a third track.

Again, we better be very careful about so-called 'efficiency gains' from moving to a hub and spoke model. We have to make sure that the resulting transfer delays and the possible overcrowding slow downs that I just mentioned are avoided or made up with better designed and more frequent feeder routes. One further worry. There will be a great temptation to cutback on those feeder routes if they are not running full. For example, a particular express route may now run full on a 20 minute headway. We may increase that to 10 minute headway in order to make up for the inconvenience of the extra transfer when the new hub and spoke system is implemented. The buses will only run half full but the intension is to get people to and from downtown just as fast. In a few years, the original justification is slowly forgotten, and new council may look for efficiencies and that feeder route will likely be gradually cut back to 20 minute headways again. The longterm result is slower service with the transfer delays becoming quite significant and probably at some unpleasant suburban location.

I also strongly oppose major transfer stations near downtown, the FOTO Bayview and Hurdman station model. Besides the cost of building those stations, we also have to be concerned about the efficiency of transferring that many passengers so close to downtown, transferring full buses to other even more full buses or trains. We are likely creating a 'cattle car' situation with people packed in, in order to get downtown. This will make transit much less attractive.

I agree with you. Tranfer points in the middle of nowhere (Hurdman) or with no real place to go (Bayview) are no way to build a transit system. A hub, as its name implies, is where you find a concentration of activities and that's why it makes the most sense to have transit lines converging at those points.

Union Station is a perfect transit hub, as the Collenette report correctly suggested. Doing it cheap for the sake of saving money will add to the system's dysfunction. Either you want transit to work or you don't. You can't be half-pregnant.

Union station doesn't connect to anything so it wouldn't be an effective hub. An awesome access point, yes, but that's about it. Perhaps in the distant future it could connect to a Rideau street LRT or Gatineau-bond LRT but that's pie in the sky at the moment.

Based on the very preliminary network concepts from the updated TMP it looks like staff is favouring conversion of the Transitway from Baseline to Blair stations via downtown should the LRT tunnel be chosen. This would push the transfer stations further from downtown.

I hope not, at least not early on. Let's put our early LRT dollars into new rapid transit routes. One obvious one is to Orleans South. Another would be a cross-town link bypassing downtown. Laying track on the Transitway simply services existing transit riders with minimal chances of gaining new riders. The O-Train was such a success because it created a transit link that didn't previous exist. A fast link via the Innes corridor would do the same.

well, it comes back to the question of major transfer stations at Hurdman and Bayview...you can do that for $100M and risk losing ridership or put that money into transitway conversion (you wouldn't have to construct massive stations at Baseline or Blair...they're already there).

I have always favoured keeping the Transitway open through downtown if a LRT tunnel is built. One major transit route through downtown is not enough.

that scenario is reflected in the LRT+BRT tunnel network concept in the preliminary TMP....it might work but only if express buses were restricted to surface operation through the CBD. ...and you would have to convert the bus fleet to hybrids

Well, I was thinking of keeping the present surface route for buses, and only run LRT through the tunnel.

No, that is a bad idea. It will be like Albert/Slater, only under ground.

What SHOULD happen is a transit tunnel solely for LRT and keeping the at-grade transitway. Since most buses terminate at MacKenzie King Bridge or Hurdman, you could then have shared track and expand outward to the Innes corridor.

And those existing transit riders are getting mighty fed up with the current debacle downtown. Why should people who have "done their time" be forced to wait still longer for improvements to their transit service? What do existing riders have to do to get their service improved? Stop using it?

Besides that, I'm curious as to how a new east end LRT corridor will get to the tunnel without converting the Hurdman-Laurier Transitway. Let's have a realistic look at the options:

1) Dual-running of LRT and buses

Definitely expensive, operationally dumb on such a busy corridor from LRT perspective and would give busway people silly ideas about dual-use tunnels downtown. Furthermore, to have a realistic chance of making this work, the number of bus routes has to be reduced to better leverage the capacity of the buses going through and to reduce platform confusion, especially in the afternoon. This would mean limiting to 90 series routes and modified express routes that go to a Park & Ride (i.e. instead of 10 routes numbered 20-29 that head to various parts of Orleans there would only be a #20 that went direct to Place d'Orleans, a #30 direct to Trim, etc.). From there people would board their local feeder bus (or drive home). In other words, bus-bus transfers.

2) Extend tunnel all the way to Hurdman (probably under the Canal to minimize disruption) or Lees area with new bridge

Operationally, it would work. But this is costly, not least because it might involve tunnelling through landfill sites. It also leaves the surface busway in place and eliminates the opportunity for better integration of transit at the UoO.

3) Convert this section to light rail exclusively

From an LRT perspective, this is equivalent to a full length tunnel but at much reduced cost. It sets up the rest of the network for LRT as well. But it leaves a glaring problem: what to do about the buses. I see three ways out of this:

3a) FotO-style transfer facilities

This requires largish transfer facilities, and at a point late in the (inbound) journey that might have ridership impacts. Those facilities would become a bit redundant once LRT is expanded further outwards. On the other hand, they wouldn't necessarily need to be all that expensive - they just need a lot of bus platforms. It's a better option than what we have, but not great either.

3b) Convert the Transitway to Blair, Baseline, Bayshore, possibly SE TW.

Transfers would be far earlier in the journey - at or near the edge of the Greenbelt for those from outside the Greenbelt, and at the Transitway itself for those within the Greenbelt (just like the current feeder network). This would not require extensive transfer facilities at Bayview and Hurdman.

3c) Find some other permanent or semi-permanent route into downtown Ottawa for buses.

This would entail doing something on Nicolas Street or King Edward. The former is probably too busy in both directions (at least until an east-end bridge is in place) and the latter would destroy the pedestrian environment around the UoO if it was anything more than temporary (i.e. duration of conversion).


We really have painted ourselves into a corner in this city because of our excessive enthusiasm for BRT. Now that we are at the point where it is becoming inadequate downtown and it is clear that staff (and council) have no idea how to get out of it. And yet we have a tunnel EA that is going to look at bus-only and bus-rail as well as rail-only because the unwillingness to let go of what has become an inefficient farce is too strong. Prior to that, we came up with a TMP that didn't address the glaring bottleneck and then wasted years on an LRT project that wouldn't do anything about it either.

I don't know why some people freak out at the concept of the 90-series routes using the tunnel. Let's say these routes were not buses but replace them with "trams-on-wheels", which are auto-guided rubber-tired hybrid vehicles. There could be 2 tram routes (Orleans-Fallowfield & Airport-Kanata) and an LRT (Hurdman-Riverside South) using the tunnel.

The looming problem I see is that after spending on a tunnel and an extended O-Train line to the south, there won't be any money for anything else for at least a couple of decades. This is a hard sell for people looking for a little relief in the east-west routes, and a pure LRT tunnel will be viewed as an expensive white elephant for years until other LRT routes or extensions are planned. Allowing trams-on-wheels in a tunnel presents a medium term solution that takes advantage of all the investment in Transitway infrastructure.

I just think people freak about the costs involved and the lack of advantages of a BRT/LRT tunnel, besides catering again to the suburban living.

I know that councillors and non-transit riders seem to think that the East-West commuters need an LRT to speed up their commute but that is far from the truth. Once out of the CBD, commutes to Kanata and Orleans are surprizingly short considering the distances travelled. We need something going South that will service a new corridor and take a few buses off of the downtown transitway. I'm sure that transit experts can think of a few ways to get a few buses out of downtown and putting the passengers on an Airport-Hurdman O-Train. Not only will it free up a bit of space at rush hour but it will also increase transit ridership.....not to mention being the first step towards a modern transit system.

Initial indications have the tunnel ending between the University of Ottawa and Lees Station. What about the Alta Vista Parkway corridor? It is to connect into Nicholas Street. Can the Transitway be redirected there or conversely, the tunnel emerge onto that corridor? A bridge over the Rideau River could easily connect onto the existing SE Transitway or to Hurdman Station.

I would now strongly recommend that everyone here read the LRT and Transit in Ottawa portions of the "Growing Up Ottawa" thread...

Nit: that was Urbandale's proposal; the 1988 Delcan study surfaced in the area just south of Laurier.

I take it you'd put the portal south of Lees where Nicholas would go if it were extended southwards? That looks like it would save about 300 m on what would have been about 1800 m of 'extra' tunnel (c.t. Laurier area portal). There may still be landfill issues in the Lees area as well (there's a landfill somewhere there but I don't know where - it may be much further east under that parking lot on the point). The option is worth looking into, but the expense might not be justifiable.

As to redirecting the Transitway, I'm going to assume that the tunnel portal is on the northwest approaches to Lees Station (as per Urbandale) near the underpass of the Queensway offramp so that buses would have to be redirected from the Transitway at the Lees/Robinson Ave Transitway ramp? They could go around on Lees and across your new bridge to Hurdman. It would work, if a little on the roundabout side of things for buses so I can't see it being a permanent set-up.

I wonder though what would happen in the long term with that bridge. Since it is a road bridge in the Alta Vista corridor it would be awfully tempting to use it for regular traffic in the future. On the other hand, IF the Alta Vista - Nicholas connector is going to be built anyway, then making use of it for buses while the downtown is sorted out would make sense, but that's true of a conversion as well with a tunnel portal in the Laurier area (which would be less costly than a portal nearer Lees Station). I think it's a very good idea for making the transition less disruptive (assuming it would be built anyway), but as a permanent solution for rerouting buses into downtown I don't think it would be suitable unless it was also combined with a new overpass of Lees Ave, a new overpass of the Queensway beside the existing Nicholas overpass, a new overpass of the Queensway-Nicholas offramp, and a longer tunnel with a portal near Lees Station. It seems like quite the expense to maintain buses on Slater and Albert...

results of today's joint transit/transportation committee meeting
 

motion to be sent to next week's council meeting....basically saying that the city should ask the feds and province for more money and if they say "no" to go back on bended knee and beg.

"That the Joint Transportation and Transit Committee recommend Council:

1. Receive this report on the review of the Urbandale LRT Network proposal;

2. Whereas the Urbandale Report, the Report of the Mayor’s Transportation Task Force, the current Transportation Master Plan (TMP) and the current review of the TMP provides the basis for a go forward strategy on public transit; and

Whereas the go forward strategy will require, for some elements, further planning and Environmental Assessments and some other elements of the strategy have already completed the required Environmental Assessments and planning approvals and are ready to be implemented should funding be in place; and

Whereas it is clear that to fund key transit improvements such as completing the Transitway as per Council’s approved strategic direction, the construction of the downtown transit tunnel, implementation of rapid transit using the Cumberland Transitway alignment and the implementation of LRT to the City’s south-eastern growth areas will require a further investment by the Federal and Provincial Governments; and

Whereas the Federal Government has announced ‘The Building Canada Infrastructure Plan’, a new funding source that is designed to provide funding for key national priorities of core national highways, water, wastewater, green energy and public transit; and

Whereas it is estimated that $1.876 Billion will be available to fund key national priorities in Ontario;

Therefore be it Resolved that the previously allocated funding for the North-South LRT Project, (200-Fed/200-Prov/200-Mun) and any new transit funding from the recently announced Building Canada Plan be allocated to the following projects:

· Completing the Transitway as per Council’s approved Strategic Direction
· Construction of the Downtown Transit Tunnel
·Implementation of rapid transit using the Cumberland Transitway alignment
·Implementation of the LRT to the City’s south-eastern growth area.

Further be it resolved that the projects in this strategic plan be implemented as the approvals (Environmental Assessment or otherwise) are obtained and with the concurrence of funding partners;

And further be it resolved that the City communicate to the Province of Ontario and the Federal Government that these projects are City Council’s priority projects for transit funding under the National priorities section of the Building Canada Plan;

And Further be it resolved that the approved priorities be communicated to all Federal and Provincial Representatives and the appropriate Federal and Provincial Staff.

3. Direct staff to enter into discussions with the Federal and Provincial agencies on funding for these priority transit projects;

4. Direct staff to report back on the status of these negotiations, funding availability and financial implications."


can it be done? If everybody triples their share of the burden (600/600/600) the entire list could be completed.

(how the heck did a Cumberland Transitway get in there?!)

CFRA
:tup::tup: