Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Do these currently all run on Rideau Street?

Until they STUPIDLY moved the 5 and 16 to the bridge, all but the 85 ran on Rideau.

I fully support having the local routes from the west running on the Mackenzie King Bridge for various reasons; without getting into the whole Rideau expansion conversation, it might A. Bring Cadillac Fairview to make some sort of financial contribution to the project and B. Get a good chunk of the buses off Rideau Street.

Absolutely not. Rideau Street is straight and simple. The route to/from the bridge to/from the east is not. Swervy is bad for bus transit. (Why bus-a-holic Ottawa doesn't get that is beyond me.)

The hub is Rideau. And there need to be buses that transit through Rideau without originating or terminating there. There should not be a big jesus seam in the transit system downtown. Toronto streetcars cross the downtown core, as do many Montreal buses. It's sensible. It's sane. And, naturally, in Ottawa, the MORONS are doing the exact opposite.

As for the STO, 3 words; DOWNTOWN TRAM LOOP

No dinky-toy transit, please.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

On Rideau Street: 8, 9, 12, 18, 90s late night (buses would need to replace trains to the suburbs from about 1 am to 5 am for maintenance purposes)

On Mackenzie King Bridge: 2, 4, 6, 16, 85

Could go on either unless the routes are split: 1, 5, 7, 14

This is pure idiocy. To transfer from half the downtown routes to the other half, you'd have to cut the equivalent of four blocks through the dismal Rideau Centre? To get from the Montreal/Rideau corridor to the CBD you'd have to transfer either to the LRT or to a bus at the upper level?

What is with this town of splitters? Does NO ONE realize the value of seamless local downtown transit that doesn't stop cold at the friggin' canal?

[J.OT13]

Any one of you been on Rideau Street in summer? Walking on Rideau when it's already 30+ degrees next to a wall of 20+ diesel buses spewing scorching toxic gases is sort of inhospitable, especially for what is likely our most well-known non-governmental street. That is why I support the Tram loop (as well as connecting the National Museums and possibly bring life to Sparks). And of course, having that many buses in front of Parliament looks ridiculous.

As for Montreal and Toronto; Toronto has a... wait for it; STREETCAR system for local Downtown service (not that I'm suggesting to re-implement the whole system from the 50s, just the loop). And Montreal, they have multiple subway lines downtown and in central island, so they have way fewer buses than what we will have after the LRT tunnel is built.

[acottawa]

Besides the cost issue and the delay to the whole system of adding another stop, I can't really figure out who would use a 4th station at confederation square most of the time. A few times a year (Nov 11, July 1) it would be used to get people to a major event, some NAC users might take transit (but with parking cheap and traffic light downtown at night there probably isn't a huge incentive). If your're heading to Elgin anywhere south of about cooper then the campus station is closer than Confederation Square (same is true for people going to the canal). People keep saying that tourists would use it, but there are hardly any destinations where confederation square would be the closest station. It would probably end up like the museum station in Toronto, which is one of the least used stations on the line.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Any one of you been on Rideau Street in summer? Walking on Rideau when it's already 30+ degrees next to a wall of 20+ diesel buses spewing scorching toxic gases is sort of inhospitable, especially for what is likely our most well-known non-governmental street. That is why I support the Tram loop (as well as connecting the National Museums and possibly bring life to Sparks). And of course, having that many buses in front of Parliament looks ridiculous.

As for Montreal and Toronto; Toronto has a... wait for it; STREETCAR system for local Downtown service (not that I'm suggesting to re-implement the whole system from the 50s, just the loop). And Montreal, they have multiple subway lines downtown and in central island, so they have way fewer buses than what we will have after the LRT tunnel is built.

Many on here also want a northeast-south subway from Montreal Road to Bank Street. Of course, that would be very expensive, but it would get even more buses off the street.

[J.OT13]

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/un...035/story.html

Good point from Chernushenko;

“Yes, more people (would be) close to it, but one more stop might just feel like, ‘Didn’t this train just start accelerating?’” he said Wednesday. “The density isn’t there that you would find in Tokyo and Toronto and others where there are that many people getting on at all those stops.”

Although Ottawa is about the same size as Toronto and Montreal were when they built their subways, Ottawa's downtown density will never catch up due to height restrictions. Ridership will likely be more balanced than most other cities since our employment isn't as centralized (jobs spread around around Booth, Tunney's, Train yards, soon St-Laurent, O-train Confederation... so maybe 15-20% of jobs downtown)

[adam-machiavelli]

Here in Edmonton, its business district which is about as wide as Ottawa's has three stations and even though it does decelerate right after accelerating from leaving the previous station, overall the trains zip through downtown in about 5 minutes. I think building three stations in Ottawa's downtown (excluding Rideau Centre station -a move to the east that which I support!) makes sense for long term planning.

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Because to keep the project in its budget envelope is a huge objective given the misgivings of other levels of government as it stands. Lots has already been cut to reduce costs. There doesn't seem to be much more low hanging fruit.

The real problem is the ridiculous concern about keeping the project in a shrinking budget envelope. The funding commitment for this project came three years ago, yet we are still talking about a 2.1 billion dollar project, as though there is no such thing as inflation.

Because of how we are going to amortize the payments over several decades, I think it's really important that someone plays straight and gives us a benchmark year against which to compare the cost.

I also think we should lose the rhetoric about cutting things to "keep it in the budget" when what is actually happening is that we are cutting things to make a cheaper system in real value terms. This might not be the wrong thing to do, but it should be clear that that is what we are doing.

[Chris-R]

Originally Posted by Ottawan

The real problem is the ridiculous concern about keeping the project in a shrinking budget envelope. The funding commitment for this project came three years ago, yet we are still talking about a 2.1 billion dollar project, as though there is no such thing as inflation.

Because of how we are going to amortize the payments over several decades, I think it's really important that someone plays straight and gives us a benchmark year against which to compare the cost.

I also think we should lose the rhetoric about cutting things to "keep it in the budget" when what is actually happening is that we are cutting things to make a cheaper system in real value terms. This might not be the wrong thing to do, but it should be clear that that is what we are doing.

The decision to stick with the 2.1 billion number probably has as much to do with the size of the type that can fit on the Sun's front page as anything else. Once the project is under way (if it happens at all), it's probably likely that we can float some of the costs upward with inflation. Until then (and as obnoxious as it is), there is just too much opposition at ready to risk it. It also speaks of a certain level of political fear (or cowardice) he's got with both the pro and con sides of things. With both able to use the truth to paint a negative picture (that can result in scandal), I'm unsurprised we're getting the fuzzier, less accurate, and evasive discussion here.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Besides the cost issue and the delay to the whole system of adding another stop, I can't really figure out who would use a 4th station at confederation square most of the time.

How about City Hall?

But it's not just about that one stop. It's also about the fact that the Downtown East station is going to be very heavily used AND the fact that we have no station well placed to deal with transferring with buses running on Bank Street (though I suppose one could use Rideau Station for some of that). The vast majority of people working in downtown Ottawa will be using the Downtown East station since the West station is at the western edge of the major employment area. Make no mistake: the Downtown East station is going to be very busy and so too will be the sidewalks and crosswalks that are closest to it because pretty much everyone using the current Metcalfe and Bank platforms along with a fair number using the Kent platforms will be using it.

If we add a third station west of the canal, we would also end up repositioning the other two, so we would then have a station at Bank Street too. Together, the Bank and Elgin stations would share the load that would otherwise be accounted for by the Downtown East station alone.


Every previous study has always had at least three downtown stations west of the canal. That's how many the 1988 bus tunnel study had, it's how many the Mayor's Task Force recommended and it's how many the N-S LRT EA had for LRT which were split, as now, between Albert and Slater; there were also another four BRT platforms in each direction.

[lrt's friend]

What about the Court House, Place Bell, the replacement for the Lorne Building, the new building going next to the old Friday's Roast Beef House. Also, any third station west of the canal would have two entrances and the second entrance would be at Metcalfe Street serving many more destinations.

I think Dado has a point. It isn't only about walking distance. We have to be concerned about passenger congestion.

Now, people coming from the west are not going to want to transfer to a Bank Street bus at the Rideau Centre. This is not normal passenger behaviour to want to back track. You always think you have missed the first bus when you do that.

It is a good thing that the tunnel will not be open in 2017. It may prove very quickly how inadequate 3 downtown stations are for major events and to disperse large crowds. It will be very embarrassing if buses have to supplement LRT on Canada Day.

We have to very careful that we do not have problems that the Toronto subway has at the Bloor and Yonge station. We can't have that from day one. It will only get worse.

When comparing with Edmonton, we must realize that Ottawa has higher ridership and our tunnel plan is designed to serve most of the city. Only central neighbourhoods would retain downtown bus service unlike Edmonton, where the whole west end is still served by bus service and those folks do not transfer to the current LRT set up.

A big thumb's down from me for a downtown tram loop. As pointed out, this is dinky toy transit as it really would only serve the tourist trade and a few others. I think it would be very problematic to expect Rapid Bus to feed into a tram loop. How many transfers do we expect people to make to get to their destination especially if the destination is not downtown Ottawa? A tram loop actually becomes a barrier to transit integration between Ottawa and Gatineau. Our goal should be more direct cross river transit routes.

[MalcolmTucker]

In my non-learned opinion, it is likely much cheaper to increase passenger throughput at an existing station, than count on additional passengers going to another station (assuming a station is not designed with the baseline to pass through at least a 125 m train every 2 minutes). Since a station has to be able to evacuate a full train in it plus platform standees in a certain amount of time (no idea on this number), I doubt any station even baseline design will be the bottleneck for capacity.

If there are passenger clearing difficulties, it will be due to trains being full, and an extra station makes that problem worse by increasing travel time, and increasing the cost by requiring more trains to provide the same level of service.

As for thinking people will switch stations to go to less crowded ones in appreciable numbers, if crowds acted rationally that might be true, but I wouldn't count on it. Even if it was true, if the stations aren't designed to be choke points in the first place, this won't be a problem.

Stations in Toronto are crowded because passenger throughput is too low because of train capacity, not because of too few stations. Less stations would help a fair bit actually. If queen and king streetcars are replaced by a subway, I would argue it makes sense to close one of the couplet stations on both the yonge and university lines, even if it is unlikely to be politically tenable.

Back to Ottawa, thinking you need an extra station due to capacity reasons I think represents the anxiety that the system is being poorly designed. Hopefully in this respect one can ignore the potential problem due to safety codes causing minimum design standards.

[lrt's friend]

I think there a limits to safety codes. Perhaps platform designs require a train load of passengers to be cleared from the platform in a certain period of time. But Dado was also talking about when these passengers arrive at the sidewalk. No sidewalk in downtown Ottawa can handle 1,000 passengers all at the same time. Also, on Canada Day, what happens if 3 or more train loads of passengers decide to go to the Downtown East station all at the same time after the fire works. Not inconceivable. What will we do, limit passengers entering the station? As it stands, the distant between stations means that almost everybody will go to the closest station. With the Transitway, you could walk to the next station to avoid congestion because it was only a block or two. I know I did that. Most are not going to walk all the way to Lyon Street if travelling east.

[McC]

Tha Mayor responds, and fairly thoroughly at that, I must admit.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion...240/story.html

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I think there a limits to safety codes. Perhaps platform designs require a train load of passengers to be cleared from the platform in a certain period of time. But Dado was also talking about when these passengers arrive at the sidewalk. No sidewalk in downtown Ottawa can handle 1,000 passengers all at the same time. Also, on Canada Day, what happens if 3 or more train loads of passengers decide to go to the Downtown East station all at the same time after the fire works. Not inconceivable. What will we do, limit passengers entering the station? As it stands, the distant between stations means that almost everybody will go to the closest station. With the Transitway, you could walk to the next station to avoid congestion because it was only a block or two. I know I did that. Most are not going to walk all the way to Lyon Street if travelling east.

Ottawa will be getting a lot of road space back from the transitway, much cheaper solution would be wider sidewalks that take advantage of that. Plus, for a couple days a year the city can close some lanes or full roads.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

A big thumb's down from me for a downtown tram loop. As pointed out, this is dinky toy transit as it really would only serve the tourist trade and a few others. I think it would be very problematic to expect Rapid Bus to feed into a tram loop. How many transfers do we expect people to make to get to their destination especially if the destination is not downtown Ottawa? A tram loop actually becomes a barrier to transit integration between Ottawa and Gatineau. Our goal should be more direct cross river transit routes.

I'll admit that I'm looking at the loop as a relatively cheap alternative to interprovincial transit. What I would realy like to see (if we had the ressorces) would be converting the Rapi Bus to LRT and extend it to downtown Hull (subway) with stations at Chaudière, Place du Portage and the Museum of Civilization It would then cross (tunnel or existing bridge) to the National Art Gallery (I'm debating whether or not it should have a station since the ridership would be very low and have no potential for intesification) then terminate on a seprate platform at Rideau. As for the east end, the STO lrt would cross a new Aviation Parkway bridge with a surface station at the Aviation Miseum, continu south with station at Montfort and La Cité Collégial and terminate at Blair or poorly used Cyrville.

BTW, I would not use the POW bridge since I beleive it should be used for comuter rail to Chelsea/Wakfield.


If this still dosent work, I would be very intrested to hear your idea

[McC]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

What I would realy like to see (if we had the ressorces) would be converting the Rapi Bus to LRT and extend it to downtown Hull (subway) with stations at Chaudière, Place du Portage and the Museum of Civilization It would then cross (tunnel or existing bridge) to the National Art Gallery (I'm debating whether or not it should have a station since the ridership would be very low and have no potential for intesification) then terminate on a seprate platform at Rideau.

It's a fantasy, but I think the Gallery station would be very important (even if less so for STO riders), it would let people take the subway with the transfer at Rideau to the Natinal Gallery, Notre Dame Basilica and Bruyères Hospital among other destinations.

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by McC

It's a fantasy, but I think the Gallery station would be very important (even if less so for STO riders), it would let people take the subway with the transfer at Rideau to the Natinal Gallery, Notre Dame Basilica and Bruyères Hospital among other destinations.

National Gallery station would also be useful for employees at DFAIT, NRCan, and whatever is at the old city hall these days. Plus, I would argue there is plenty of room for intensification in the area, there remain many many many surface parking lots in the North Market area; easily enough for a couple thousand more homes and a hundred or two more businesses.

[eternallyme]

If there are three stations, the transfers become much more convenient:

Western core station (at Lyon/Bay Streets) - nearly seamless transfer to 4

Central core station (at Bank Street) - nearly seamless transfers to 1, 2 and 7

Eastern core station (at Elgin Street) - nearly seamless transfers to 5 and 14

Rideau Centre/Lower Town station - nearly seamless transfers to 8/loop, 9, 12 and 18 (plus EB 1 and 7)

Any of the three west of the canal would provide good connections to the 16 and 85, which would basically parallel the LRT. Bus-to-bus transfers could be provided at Mackenzie King Bridge.

With two stations, train-to-bus transfers are practically forgotten in the mix!

[McC]

Originally Posted by gjhall

National Gallery station would also be useful for employees at DFAIT, NRCan, and whatever is at the old city hall these days. Plus, I would argue there is plenty of room for intensification in the area, there remain many many many surface parking lots in the North Market area; easily enough for a couple thousand more homes and a hundred or two more businesses.

Nit: NRC - National Research Council, not Natural Resources Canada.

Speaking of development lots in the area:
I've always wanted to build a new horseshoe shaped building on the parking lot behind the Basilica, using the same materials, and done in the contemporary Haussmann style that a lot Parsian infills have used since the 90s; it would be called Cour Notre Dame, and it would be an extension of the Market courtyards with cafés and boutiques. It would also have 2-3 levels of public parkade to replace and then some the parking lost (people parking in lots at the edges of Lowertown like this means less traffic in the market)
Unfortunately it was recently extended as a surface lot, I think indefinitely...