New light-rail system takes shape
By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN June 26, 2013 8:11 PM
OTTAWA — In a briefing Wednesday afternoon, OC Transpo revealed big plans for the light-rail line that’s now in the early stages of construction.
New names all around
When the new light-rail system opens in 2018, say goodbye to Tunney’s Pasture, LeBreton and Campus transit stations. Train, don’t let the door hit you on the caboose. Ottawa’s transit planners are working on fixing confusing and obsolete station names as they get ready for what they hope will be a “world-class” transit experience, one that’s pleasant to use and, above all, simple.
That means finding names that tell more of a story about where they are, said planner Pat Scrimgeour in a Wednesday afternoon briefing. Riders “need to know where they are as a train pulls into the station,” he said. Destination screens on buses should be comprehensible in an instant, even to people who aren’t that familiar with Ottawa.
Tunney’s Pasture is becoming the snappier Tunney’s, which is also slightly more bilingual. LeBreton is at LeBreton Flats, which is OK, but it’s not at LeBreton Street, and anyway that rail station is to have an aboriginal theme, so a name is being worked out with the Algonquins of Ontario (but isn’t settled yet).
The dull Downtown West label for the system’s western underground station, which has been used in planning, is to become the dull but more informative Kent. Downtown East is becoming Parliament/Parlement.
East of downtown, Campus station is becoming uOttawa. “We have several campuses in Ottawa,” Scrimgeour explained, and eventually the very same line is supposed to serve both the University of Ottawa and Algonquin College. They fooled around with variations of “University of Ottawa,” but they were all redundant or less clear than the university’s own preference.
And farther east, the fiasco of the Train station station will end when it’s renamed Tremblay. The confusing name was set to get even worse as the same station featured both Via trains and the city’s light rail.
Naming the whole line
The city’s been calling the new LRT the “Confederation Line” during planning but that’s up for grabs. We’ll need a name both for the overall system (something as generic as Toronto’s “subway” or Montreal’s “métro,” or a little more locally distinctive like Calgary’s “C-Train”) and the multiple individual lines Ottawa expects to build.
Should the lines be given colours? Numbers? Fancier names like Vancouver’s Millennium, Canada and Evergreen lines? That’s to be decided.
Advertising
OC Transpo is ruling out advertising on the outsides of trains. It just doesn’t bring in enough money ($200,000 a year at the most, according to estimates, and probably less) to justify the trouble of applying and removing the “wrap” ads that bring in the most. They do surprising damage to doors and window gaskets and with the city in a complex contract with the Rideau Transit Group to maintain the trains, having the contractor be forced to contend with problems created at the city’s behest is too much of a pain.
Interior advertising at stations is about as lucrative and poses fewer problems, so OC Transpo intends to allow it, but not for the first five years the rail system operates. The space reserved for ads will instead be used for information on how to use the trains and other public-service messages aimed at establishing a new transit culture in Ottawa. That means the kind of things riders in long-established subways are used to, like walking left and standing right on escalators.
Riders have strong habits, explained OC Transpo’s customer-service chief David Pepper, who prides himself on being a habitual transit user. “Sometimes when we’re asked to change those habits, we’re resistant.”
Retail in stations
Places will be reserved for retailers but there’s a global decline in stores inside train stations, with many of them closing up for good. The intent is to keep locations for kiosk-based vendors, ones that might be open only at rush hours — dry-cleaning operations in the mornings, flower-sellers in the evenings. Nobody knows for sure what retailing will look like in five years, so this should allow some flexibility, OC Transpo figures.
Designs of trains
The basic shape of the trains the city’s buying, Alstom’s Citadis Spirit model, isn’t up for grabs but the interior configuration is flexible. The city’s aiming for an uncluttered interior with a simple colour scheme and eight spots per train where seats fold up to make way for wheelchairs, bikes or other cargo when trains aren’t crowded.
How to have your say
Many of these matters have to be settled at a transit commission meeting Aug. 21 so Alstom can start building the trains to Ottawa’s specifications and the control systems can be programmed with the right names (which has to be done very early).
First, the city’s transit commission has to approve the general outline of the plan, which it’s slated to do at a meeting July 3 where the public can speak. Between then and its August meeting, the city plans consultations online (including with recordings of the new station names to see how they sound), through leaflets, and possibly in local public meetings.
dreevely@ottawacitizen.com
ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa
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