Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend
Ironically, in the very same issue of the The News EMC, there was an article on a transportation study for Alta Vista Drive and the very same Mr. Lark comments about the necessity of finding ways to restrict traffic on Alta Vista Drive. If Mr. Lark is opposed to rapid transit and cars, how exactly will people access the hospital complex in the future? The General is the closest hospital to my house and the most direct route is via Alta Vista Drive. Forget about transit, it is far too awkward and slow from this end of town.
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There is both a transit corridor (which makes no sense to anyone) and a road (part of the AVTC - Alta Vista Transportation Corridor) named "Hospital Link" which leads to much confusion.
Neither are needed for successful public transit. There better alternate routes. A simple connection to Alta-Vista drive at the Hospital Lands would suffice.
The Hospital Link (AVTC) does not improve traffic along Alta-Vista south of Smyth road. Intensive development of the Hospital Lands will in fact increase traffic along Alta-Vista Drive (south) and Smyth road whether the road is there or not.
This article (as submitted) was printed in Riverviews Newspaper (May or June edition)
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A Hospital Link Alternative
Or - How to save a community from heavy traffic and save the city 60 million dollars.
First we'll look at the city's plans, then look at the proposed alternative. The Hospital Link (shown as crosses in the picture below) is a portion of the Alta Vista Transportation Corridor (AVTC) as defined in the City's Official Plan (large dots). It will connect the General Hospital area to Riverside and the Transitway that flanks it with a tunnel under the Via Rail line, then a bridge over the Transitway and Riverside Drive (which will be realigned to accommodate the structures) then cut through along the bicycle path and wooded area that lines the Rideau River to connect with Riverside Drive at an intersection. It's obvious from the plan that the “Hospital Link” isn't about linking the Hospitals, but in fact simply the first phase of construction on the AVTC.
http://www.ottawa.ca/public_consult/...index_en.shtml
The city's Transportation Master Plan also contains a Transitway for Buses that would use the Hospital link alignment to connect Hurdman station to the East end of Ottawa (triangles). A volume of traffic from Orleans is scheduled to be routed from Innes along the Browning corridor continuing along Balena Park and hooking up to the infrastructure of the Hospital Link and on to the Transitway heading to Hurdman.
The AVTC has been planned since the days of superhighways and cheap gas. Times have changed. People are starting to understand that more and bigger roads into a small area don't make transit faster. They find themselves queued up on a stretch of highway idly waiting for the small downtown streets and limited parking areas already at capacity to clear and fill up. These bottlenecks don't change much and we get longer and longer rush “hours”.
Transit into the downtown section makes sense because it alleviates the need to park vehicles. Large numbers of passengers can be dropped off in relatively little time, using up little space on the crowded inner city streets.
The Alternate Transitway route doesn't cut through the quiet neighbourhood of Riverview Park. It would use an abandoned rail line that went to the train yards (short dashes). Starting at Innes, there is an unused railway bridge just east of St. Laurent. Then the alignment would take the existing St. Laurent underpass. It can be connected to the New Bus Depot, alleviating the load the depot will place on Industrial and speeding up access to the Transitway. Then it would go by the Train Yards which means that a busy transit link will bring patrons to the otherwise drive-to strip mall. The alignment would continue on Terminal Rd. and use the existing bridge to access Hurdman station and the existing Transitway. This alignment would save taxpayers a good $60 million in infrastructure destined for the Hospital Link. It would improve access to and from the new bus depot. It would provide transit bound customers to the Train Yards. The Alternate Transitway route would also avoid chopping up Riverview Park.
It is also possible to extend the Innes end of this alignment all the way to Walkley road (long dashes) which should eliminate the need for the AVTC completely.
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Alternate route 85 (in purple):