Chief William Commanda Bridge (Prince of Wales Bridge) | Closed for Winter

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by silvergate

Well getting suburban cars out of the urban core would open up a lot of space for better bike lanes, bus routes, and pedestrian friendly streets. It's an unfortunate fact of life that subways are 1) prohibitively expensive and 2) Ottawa has little to no real options for raising revenues to build them anyways. The best way I can think of to promote better mobility in the core is tolls for entering designated areas, which many people on here doubt would work.
Perhaps the City should try and break the stigma on busses, to drive up ridership numbers, and beyond that building a solid movement for better transit in the core.

The "stigma" isn't the problem.

It's too many overcrowded buses (WHERE ARE THE DAMN ARTICS??!?!?)

It's the unwillingness to start installing transit-preferential signals at intersections, a technology that's existed for two decades.

And above all, it's a city that's run by the suburbs - and now, always will be.

There will never, ever, be real rapid transit in old urban neighbourhoods. This is now baked into the city's forms and institutions.

Real transit is for the suburbs. Urban peasants, enjoy your overcrowded 40-foot buses.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

That sounds like a huge number, but we can phase it out. Start with Billings to Rideau Centre. 2 Billion maybe. That's not too bad. If we take the Liberals transit promise for cash, 15 billion for the whole of Ontario outside the GTA, Ottawa's share would be 2 billion. 1 billion for Stage II of the overbuilt commuter rail and 1 billion for Phase I of the Bank Street subway.

No. Rideau-Montreal is by far the more pressing need.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

It's the unwillingness to start installing transit-preferential signals at intersections, a technology that's existed for two decades.

This one boggles me massively. It's such a cheap technology, makes a huge difference to transit travel times, and there's a huge number of intersections that are already flagged for this treatment in the TMP... so, why isn't it happening?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

No. Rideau-Montreal is by far the more pressing need.

Bank Street is the most continuous commercial street in Ottawa.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The "stigma" isn't the problem.

It's too many overcrowded buses (WHERE ARE THE DAMN ARTICS??!?!?)

It's the unwillingness to start installing transit-preferential signals at intersections, a technology that's existed for two decades.

And above all, it's a city that's run by the suburbs - and now, always will be.

There will never, ever, be real rapid transit in old urban neighbourhoods. This is now baked into the city's forms and institutions.

Real transit is for the suburbs. Urban peasants, enjoy your overcrowded 40-foot buses.

The problem is not the lack of articulated buses, it is providing frequent service on main routes in central parts of the city. 15 minute frequency is not good enough especially when bunching occurs due to traffic congestion and you end up waiting 30 minutes. Experiencing these kinds of delays makes you think twice about using transit especially if a transfer is required. It is time to offer guaranteed 10 minute frequency on the most important routes.

We also need to forget about the urban/suburban divide. It is a reality that the majority live in post-war suburbs (inside and outside the Greenbelt) and suburbanites also help generate transit riders for the central part of the network. For example, the southeast Transitway gets its most passengers at South Keys/Greenboro, not at more central locations. Forget people in the suburbs, and you have to cut service everywhere.

Concerning the lack of urban rapid transit, that is the choice we have made when we decided to convert the Transitways to LRT. I was not applauding that decision because that was drawing money away from LRT on Montreal Road and Carling Avenue and potentially elsewhere. Before everybody gets up in arms, the fact of the matter is that we don't have the money to do both and most here are supportive of the Transitway conversion. Now that we have chosen the conversion route, we need to go full speed ahead and convert as much of the Transitways as possible, otherwise, we have the worst of both worlds.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The problem is not the lack of articulated buses, it is providing frequent service on main routes in central parts of the city. 15 minute frequency is not good enough especially when bunching occurs due to traffic congestion and you end up waiting 30 minutes. Experiencing these kinds of delays makes you think twice about using transit especially if a transfer is required. It is time to offer guaranteed 10 minute frequency on the most important routes.

We also need to forget about the urban/suburban divide. It is a reality that the majority live in post-war suburbs (inside and outside the Greenbelt) and suburbanites also help generate transit riders for the central part of the network. For example, the southeast Transitway gets its most passengers at South Keys/Greenboro, not at more central locations. Forget people in the suburbs, and you have to cut service everywhere.

Concerning the lack of urban rapid transit, that is the choice we have made when we decided to convert the Transitways to LRT. I was not applauding that decision because that was drawing money away from LRT on Montreal Road and Carling Avenue and potentially elsewhere. Before everybody gets up in arms, the fact of the matter is that we don't have the money to do both and most here are supportive of the Transitway conversion. Now that we have chosen the conversion route, we need to go full speed ahead and convert as much of the Transitways as possible, otherwise, we have the worst of both worlds.

Agreed. We've made our bed with respect to the urban LRT issue.

All of the major streets, both the urban mainstreets (Bank, Rideau, Preston, Wellington/Richmond, Beechwood, etc.) and the major suburban retail arterials (St. Laurent, Carling, Merivale, Innes, etc.) need 10-minute service all day. The exception is Preston Street, IMO it's fine at 15 minutes because of Carling & Gladstone stations. Though, we need to focus on transit priority measures on these streets first, otherwise frequent service will just bunch up even more and not provide any actual increase in frequency.

Bunching is a chronic disease at OC Transpo. It's the biggest issue in the transit system aside from the Albert-Slater overload (which is getting fixed). Even on the grade separated parts of the Transitway, there's bunching. It's quite normal when waiting at a station like Bayview or Campus to have no buses at all for 3-4 minutes then all of a sudden two 95s, a 96, a 97, an 85, and two expresses all show up at the exact same time.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

No. Rideau-Montreal is by far the more pressing need.

If it wasn't for Lansdowne, I would agree.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Agreed. We've made our bed with respect to the urban LRT issue.

All of the major streets, both the urban mainstreets (Bank, Rideau, Preston, Wellington/Richmond, Beechwood, etc.) and the major suburban retail arterials (St. Laurent, Carling, Merivale, Innes, etc.) need 10-minute service all day. The exception is Preston Street, IMO it's fine at 15 minutes because of Carling & Gladstone stations. Though, we need to focus on transit priority measures on these streets first, otherwise frequent service will just bunch up even more and not provide any actual increase in frequency.

Bunching is a chronic disease at OC Transpo. It's the biggest issue in the transit system aside from the Albert-Slater overload (which is getting fixed). Even on the grade separated parts of the Transitway, there's bunching. It's quite normal when waiting at a station like Bayview or Campus to have no buses at all for 3-4 minutes then all of a sudden two 95s, a 96, a 97, an 85, and two expresses all show up at the exact same time.

I expect this is a problem in every city. Traffic screws up transit schedules everywhere.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I expect this is a problem in every city. Traffic screws up transit schedules everywhere.

Yes, it exists everywhere to an extent, but its worse in Ottawa than in other cities I've been to (including Toronto, Montreal, Kingston, London ON, Kitchener-Waterloo).

Transit priority measures are the key to solving this problem. We should emulate York Region. There, traffic lights are designed to fudge with the cycles to give buses more greens than normal when they're running late, and to have normal cycles when buses are on time. This speeds up late buses thus allowing them to catch back up to schedule, improving overall system reliability.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Bank Street is the most continuous commercial street in Ottawa.

Rideau-Montreal has the most bottlenecked and unreliable inner-city bus transit service. And the Montreal portion has significantly more potential for TOD redevelopment.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The problem is not the lack of articulated buses, it is providing frequent service on main routes in central parts of the city. 15 minute frequency is not good enough especially when bunching occurs due to traffic congestion and you end up waiting 30 minutes. Experiencing these kinds of delays makes you think twice about using transit especially if a transfer is required. It is time to offer guaranteed 10 minute frequency on the most important routes.

A good chunk of what throws these main routes off schedule is the dwell-time problem. That could be significantly amelioriated using POP service on artics, but OC Transpo refuses to do so, refuses to admit there's crowding or scheduling problems in the inner city, and keeps believing, like some superstition, that splitting more and more of those inner routes will magically solve the problem like so much pixie dust.

We also need to forget about the urban/suburban divide.

Why? OC Transpo and the city don't: they keep inflicting crappy service on older, central neighbourhoods.

Now that we have chosen the conversion route, we need to go full speed ahead and convert as much of the Transitways as possible, otherwise, we have the worst of both worlds.

And in the meantime, relatively easy and cheap improvements to inner-city service keep getting shunted to the backburner by transit planners and city bureaucrats who drive to work.

What is it going to take for inner-area residents to be heard?

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

What is it going to take for inner-area residents to be heard?

Put a sign outside your house that says "2500 busses a day! Please!"

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by silvergate

Put a sign outside your house that says "2500 busses a day! Please!"

I have said time and again to the various anti-bus and anti-LRT NIMBYs... you don't want 'em? I'll take 'em.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Well, saying that someone's opinion is a "fetish" (attributing it to the person's fixation as opposed to the merit of the idea) is in itself ad hominem

I didn't mean it that way - I'm sorry.

I applaud you if you're for pushing the project, but my advice would be is to keep the concept uncompromised (interprovincial urban transit) and open to where it might go or how it does it (grade separated or not). It is far easier to sell it as a pie-in-the-sky concept that can be altered or watered down later rather than an easy and convenient solution that has an achilles heel in compromise (like the old NSLRT plan).

I have to admit I never quite saw it like that. I've been going more for the 'food in the door' on which more can be built once the idea takes off than a 'pie-in-the-sky' that can be winnowed down. Without a doubt, my method has left it with an Achilles heel - I'm testing the waters now, but I hadn't really proposed the Alexandra Bridge scenario in any serious way, instead leaving the line with a rather inelegant detour through Bayview and a number of proposals for a 'Phase 2' to straighten it out.

But you have to understand that my main motivation is economic development in the west of Gatineau; currently, there is precious little infrastructure linking Aylmer with the rest of the metropolitan region. This means a difficult commute, but more than that, it means that Aylmer's businesses have very limited access to the metropolitan market, that the city has a difficulty time hosting small events (like meetings) or large events (conventions or festivals). Perhaps most importantly, it's difficult to justify job creation in the west end with both limited automotive infrastructure (few roads, even less parking) and poor transit.

Attractive, convenient and reliable transit along Chemin d'Aylmer is a way to not only drastically improve transit today (I'd estimate it would cut travel times in half at rush hour, even more when you count having to wait for the next bus because yours is too full to stop), but also equip Hull and Aylmer to be competitive going forward.

We can't just get by being bedroom suburbs anymore - our housing stock isn't the newest anymore, our malls aren't the biggest and our parking lots aren't the most spacious. If we continue to play the 'shiniest suburb' game, we're going to lose and indeed, we're already losing - the empty mall corridors and delocating stores can testify to that.
Arlington, Virginia realized the same thing decades ago when their malls and main streets could no longer keep up with the bigger and better in further-flung places. By investing in (very) high-capacity transit, good land-use policies and other incentives, Arlington turned its struggling commercial districts into vibrant corridors and its decaying mall parking lots into redeveloped destinations with offices, residents, businesses and a lot of life. THAT is a game we can win at. That's a future where Aylmer can thrive.

And we'll get there in a tram.

[ACmodels]

City seeks to convert Prince of Wales Bridge into pedestrian/cyclist bridge

Posted on 1/30/2015 1:46:00 PM by Alison Sandor

It looks like the idea of one day linking Ottawa and Gatineau by rail is dead.

The City of Ottawa has put out a call for proposals to turn the old Prince of Wales Bridge over the Ottawa River into a bridge reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.

The move would put an end to any light rail connection between the two cities, unless an extra structure is added to the track for the cyclists and pedestrians.

The 2013 City of Ottawa cycling plan outlined the idea of converting the bridge.

The goal would be to have it ready by 2019.

It's not clear how much the project would cost.

http://www.cfra.com/news/2015/01/30/...cyclist-bridge
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[silvergate]

Originally Posted by ACmodels

City seeks to convert Prince of Wales Bridge into pedestrian/cyclist bridge

Posted on 1/30/2015 1:46:00 PM by Alison Sandor

It looks like the idea of one day linking Ottawa and Gatineau by rail is dead.

The City of Ottawa has put out a call for proposals to turn the old Prince of Wales Bridge over the Ottawa River into a bridge reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.

The move would put an end to any light rail connection between the two cities, unless an extra structure is added to the track for the cyclists and pedestrians.

The 2013 City of Ottawa cycling plan outlined the idea of converting the bridge.

The goal would be to have it ready by 2019.

It's not clear how much the project would cost.

http://www.cfra.com/news/2015/01/30/...cyclist-bridge
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Well, if money is back by 2030 that's probably a better time to consider a rail link anyways.

[1overcosc]

The city's TMP does declare it wants the Trillium Line extended north to Montcalm (albeit it did not make the 'affordable' envelope), so the city will probably build this pathway in such a way that allows future transit use.

[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The city's TMP does declare it wants the Trillium Line extended north to Montcalm (albeit it did not make the 'affordable' envelope), so the city will probably build this pathway in such a way that allows future transit use.

I think it's a much better idea to restore the bridge to something used by pedestrians and cyclists for better connection across the river and to Lemieux. They would really need to reinforce the current bridge and build a new structure anyway for dual-track lines anyway, so instead they can build another structure adjacent to it that would be new and secure.

[ACmodels]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

The city's TMP does declare it wants the Trillium Line extended north to Montcalm (albeit it did not make the 'affordable' envelope), so the city will probably build this pathway in such a way that allows future transit use.

To Montclam? I thought they wanted it to go to Tach.

[Uhuniau]

Well, kiss REAL interprovincial transit goodbye, folks:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa...940839?cmp=rss