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  #5321  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 3:22 PM
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One thing I heard the other night that I did sort of agree with was residents wondering why people from Barrhaven should be heading through Westboro at all to go downtown, though this was usually to launch into a demand to use Carling, or less frequently, Baseline.

When you look at the city as a whole, the "obvious" route to Barrhaven isn't via Westboro or Lincoln Fields but via the O-Train corridor to Confederation Heights and then down the VIA line to Barrhaven. That would relieve about half the potential traffic on the West LRT and remove most of the rationale for grade separation of either line.

In such a network, the busway/bus lanes from Barrhaven (Fallowfield) to Lincoln Fields would remain, while the West LRT would head west from Lincoln Fields to Bayshore and beyond. The core of the system would then be limited to between Bayview and Hurdman rather than Lincoln Fields and Hurdman.
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  #5322  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 4:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Dado View Post
The City has already compromised too much west of Cleary by proposing a tunnel under Richmond rather than a trench or surface line running adjacent to Richmond.
Compromise? Shouldn't the objectives of the residents and the city be one and the same? I think this sort of illustrates the distrust that the citizens have with the city government, and that if left to its own devices, city hall would just ram something ugly and mediocre through if people were not vigilant. Did Montreal completely cave in to having the Metro entirely underground? The truth is, the City of Ottawa completely lacks the courage and vision to move forward and do things right, whether it's public transit, the cycling network or sustainable suburban planning. It is all half-assed and reactionary to the initiatives of others — developers, the NCC, MTO etc. If you are going to provide options, at least show something from mediocre to grandiose, instead of "Cheap", "Cheaper", "Cheapest"" and "NFW", and then recommend "Cheaper" because it scores well in all aspects.
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  #5323  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 4:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Dado View Post
One thing I heard the other night that I did sort of agree with was residents wondering why people from Barrhaven should be heading through Westboro at all to go downtown, though this was usually to launch into a demand to use Carling, or less frequently, Baseline.

When you look at the city as a whole, the "obvious" route to Barrhaven isn't via Westboro or Lincoln Fields but via the O-Train corridor to Confederation Heights and then down the VIA line to Barrhaven. That would relieve about half the potential traffic on the West LRT and remove most of the rationale for grade separation of either line.

In such a network, the busway/bus lanes from Barrhaven (Fallowfield) to Lincoln Fields would remain, while the West LRT would head west from Lincoln Fields to Bayshore and beyond. The core of the system would then be limited to between Bayview and Hurdman rather than Lincoln Fields and Hurdman.
Just to understand fully, if I'm a passenger at Lincoln Fields or Bayshore, how do I get to Tunney's or Downtown?
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  #5324  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 5:05 PM
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Originally Posted by Kitchissippi View Post
Compromise? Shouldn't the objectives of the residents and the city be one and the same?
...
Well yes.

But the issue is that the objectives of the city and the majority most residents are the same while the objectives of local NIMBY residents differ from those of the overall city. The city needs to think of the transportation system overall rather than just the wants of NIMBYs in one neighbourhood. Perhaps the locals should be less biased and should think of the big picture rather than just their small area, but that's probably not realistic.
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  #5325  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 5:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Kitchissippi View Post
Compromise? Shouldn't the objectives of the residents and the city be one and the same?
Residents of where? Putting transit underground is only generally in the interests of local residents who don't take transit. All other city residents elsewhere, and those who take transit, are better served by transit that is open to the sky, readily accessible and less expensive to construct, thus making it more pleasant an experience and allowing more of it to be built. Economically, every metre you tunnel is about ten metres you could have gone on the surface. It doesn't take long before that starts adding up to a lot of foregone mileage.

Could we afford, for instance, to go to Bayshore if we weren't going to tunnel between Cleary and Lincoln Fields?


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Just to understand fully, if I'm a passenger at Lincoln Fields or Bayshore, how do I get to Tunney's or Downtown?
Just as they would now, by way of the Western LRT currently under consideration. The difference is where the West and Southwest arms of the system split apart: they would split at Bayview rather than at Lincoln Fields.
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  #5326  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 5:47 PM
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This story in the Citizen seems to be referring to the cost of option R-6 (discarded) which runs completely underground Richmond from Rochester Field and priced at $1.7 billion. The only difference between it and the preferred R-12 option seems to be the extra 800m of tunnel.

If I were to attempt to dissect the preferred option's cost of $900 million, even if I generously attribute 3/4 of it to tunnelling ($675 million for 1.6 kms which is overpriced for cut-and-cover), $50 million per station (4 stations = 200 million) and a paltry $25 million for the at grade section, the R-6 costing does not make sense. 900M +337.5M (50% more tunnel) = $1.2375B, not 1.7. Curious, there is no reason why a tunnel east of Cleary would cost twice as much to build than the rest.

UPDATE: I don't know if the city's costing included Westboro station or any of the work at Iris.

Last edited by Kitchissippi; Apr 27, 2013 at 6:00 PM.
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  #5327  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 6:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Kitchissippi View Post
This story in the Citizen seems to be referring to the cost of option R-6 (discarded) which runs completely underground Richmond from Rochester Field and priced at $1.7 billion. The only difference between it and the preferred R-12 option seems to be the extra 800m of tunnel.

If I were to attempt to dissect the preferred option's cost of $900 million, even if I generously attribute 3/4 of it to tunnelling ($675 million for 1.6 kms which is overpriced for cut-and-cover), $50 million per station (4 stations = 200 million) and a paltry $25 million for the at grade section, the R-6 costing does not make sense. 900M +337.5M (50% more tunnel) = $1.2375B, not 1.7. Curious, there is no reason why a tunnel east of Cleary would cost twice as much to build than the rest.

UPDATE: I don't know if the city's costing included Westboro station or any of the work at Iris.
From what the Delcan guy said at the open house, tunnelling in this section is more expensive because of the high water table. That option also included Cleary and Dominion as underground stations, which cost more like $150M. Obviously, these could be made open air pit stations to save that $, but that wasn't in that costing.
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  #5328  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 6:05 PM
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Just as they would now, by way of the Western LRT currently under consideration. The difference is where the West and Southwest arms of the system split apart: they would split at Bayview rather than at Lincoln Fields.
Got ya, didn't realize you were proposing an "and" rather than an "instead of" option.
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  #5329  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 6:13 PM
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Originally Posted by gjhall View Post
From what the Delcan guy said at the open house, tunnelling in this section is more expensive because of the high water table. That option also included Cleary and Dominion as underground stations, which cost more like $150M. Obviously, these could be made open air pit stations to save that $, but that wasn't in that costing.
Come on. $800 million for less than a kilometre? Someone's pencil was not sharpened that day.
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  #5330  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 6:19 PM
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Originally Posted by Dado View Post
Residents of where? Putting transit underground is only generally in the interests of local residents who don't take transit. All other city residents elsewhere, and those who take transit, are better served by transit that is open to the sky, readily accessible and less expensive to construct, thus making it more pleasant an experience and allowing more of it to be built. Economically, every metre you tunnel is about ten metres you could have gone on the surface. It doesn't take long before that starts adding up to a lot of foregone mileage.

Could we afford, for instance, to go to Bayshore if we weren't going to tunnel between Cleary and Lincoln Fields?
It would've been nice if the city proposed these sort of alternate options right off the bat -- i.e. show people options such as:

* LRT under Richmond all the way from Tunneys to Lincoln Fields, with no $ left for the rest of the city, OR
* build LRT above ground all the way from Tunneys to Stittsville and Barrhaven, OR
* (some other options in between those 2)

Then it won't just be the Richmond NIMBYs pressuring the city against the Richmond LRT. Kanata/Stittsville and Barrhaven folks could also be pushing for the other options where we'd get more track for everybody.
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  #5331  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 7:07 PM
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All this reminds me of the time when governments used to regulate airfares and hired their own "experts" so they could tell the airlines what to charge. It resulted in inconsistent and high airfares into the early 1980s (the small bonus being that the airlines all tried to compete with better service and food since they could not charge any different from others doing the same route). In short, government should get out of the costing, concetrate on critical to nice-to-have parameters and find some other way to have industry work out the options and pricing, and then choose from them.

I think a lot of money was wasted on the legwork for the Confederation Line. There were at least a couple rounds of tunnel and station designs, only to be all trashed and replaced by the details proposed by RTS. Compared to other systems it's OK but not great value for the money — if you are going to wave $2.1 billion in the air and say "who wants to do exactly this?", what company would offer to do it for less or offer what in their opinion would be a better plan?
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  #5332  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 7:15 PM
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I think that looking at the list of final richmond options, it seems clear the city decided on a plan and then tweaked the other plans so as to raise their estimated prices, which are probably also high-balled.
The 'rochester field' option does not need to be underground the whole way, and for the portion where richmond is 4 laned the cover could either be absent or cheaper (something not strong enough to support cars but people and grass, extending the linear park).
But the city probably doesn't want to use the rochester field for transit, they want to up-zone it upon acquiring it from the NCC, and then sell it to condo developers. A property with a train running through it, not near it, would be much less valuable.
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  #5333  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 7:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Kitchissippi View Post
UPDATE: I don't know if the city's costing included Westboro station or any of the work at Iris.
My expectation is that the estimated cost is only for the described work: Basically, for the run from Tunney’s Pasture Station to Lincoln Fields Station; so nothing south of Lincoln Fields but 'yes' to Westboro and Dominion Stations. The descriptions omit any talk of re-configuring Lincoln Fields Station so I would not expect any of that cost either.

Assuming that this is correct, much of the “money left over for other transit projects” will be used for rebuilding Lincoln Fields Station and getting the trains from Lincoln Fields to Baseline Station. Therefore, I think that it is somewhat disingenuous to be presenting the sub-section costs as the price of the LRT's extension from Tunney’s Pasture to Baseline. I think that when the true, complete, cost is finally available, some people are going to be shocked.

On the other hand; if the costs are for the entire length of the western extension, then an additional $800M for tunneling the extra 800 metres is a bit ridiculous. Remember, a good chunk of the estimated $900M for the recommended plan would be used for the stretch between Lincoln Fields and Baseline, including the grade separation at Iris. This would make the cost of the recommended tunneling between Cleary and Lincoln Fields Stations an even smaller portion of that estimated cost. Also keep in mind that the presented estimates have been inflated by a 40% contingency on top of a ±25% buffer.

[For reference, the 250 metres of the 5-lane wide (2x bus lanes + 2x rail lanes + central platform width) and the two bridge structures at Baseline Station came in at about $36M, I believe. That tunnel was built using shallow Cut & Cover in clay and did not require any rock removal or special treatment for water; but lots of steel piles were driven in.]
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  #5334  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 7:18 PM
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I'm quite sure I read in the city's presentation posted online that the cost is for the whole length from tunney's to baseline.
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  #5335  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 7:49 PM
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I took a walk through that corridor this afternoon. Some of my observations:

* The water table indeed appears to be higher at Rochester Field. That cannot easily be tunnelled too deep without cost inflation - i.e. cannot even clear Richmond Road.

* An elevated guideway through that area, across Richmond and Fraser, then into a cut-and-cover tunnel along Richmond would be a "compromise" option that protects all access to the river, and only results in a short section of the park being impacted. The best option overall would be an at-grade routing, but that would result in operational issues (Richmond Road would need to be elevated to cross the LRT). The only access point lost is at Westminster (since it is unlikely the LRT can go all the way from elevated to into the tunnel in that short distance).

* Woodroffe Avenue is a much better location for a station than Cleary and New Orchard. The relatively low densities and community opposition in McKellar Park is more conducive to a station at Woodroffe as well, and the spacing would be no different than between Westboro and Tunney's Pasture (Route 2 would provide high-frequency local bus service as well).

* Deviating into Carlingwood would be difficult. The entire deviation would need to be underground, likely in a bored tunnel, which is even more expensive. The downside is the only direct transfer opportunities would likely be Route 16 at Tunney's Pasture or Routes 16/85 at Lincoln Fields, which can be really slow especially from the east or requiring a backtrack.

* Most likely, Byron would need to be used as a detour routing for Richmond, which would need to be closed for extended periods in the cut-and-cover process.

* What would be the cost of that (elevated through Rochester Field, cut-and-cover under Richmond the rest of the way)?
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  #5336  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 7:52 PM
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Originally Posted by DarkArconio View Post
I'm quite sure I read in the city's presentation posted online that the cost is for the whole length from tunney's to baseline.
And yet, at the Open House the other evening, the consultants said that they have not decided what needs to be done at Iris. It is possible that they simply estimated a cost for the most expensive option, but then why don't the descriptions include anything about that?

As I said, it is possible that the estimated prices include the reconfiguring of Lincoln Fields Station, the 2.7 km conversion to rail from Lincoln Fields to Baseline, the addition of a new bus roadway from Lincoln Fields Station to the 417, the closing and dismantling of the Queensway Station, the addition of the new N-W bus ramp and associated 417 modifications, the realignment of the Pinecrest Creek, the grade separation of Iris Street, the construction of a new below-grade Iris Station, and the construction of the final Baseline Station.

However, that work would likely account for about 40% of the $900M estimated cost. If the remaining $540M or so also includes rebuilding the Westboro and Dominion Stations, then the recommended run between Dominion and Lincoln Fields Stations (including almost two kilometres of tunnel) will cost less than $500M. How would it be possible for an additional kilometre of tunneling to add $800M?

The presentation might say that the cost is for the whole length, but that makes the numbers even more confusing.
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  #5337  
Old Posted Apr 27, 2013, 8:31 PM
DarkArconio DarkArconio is offline
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I agree, I think it makes these prices looked at least somewhat cooked up. Though perhaps the water table issues really do magnify the costs that much. If this is an engineering rather than political challenge, then perhaps the NCC would be more flexible given an additional crossing of the lrt alignment along skeed st.

Also at cleary, rather than building a full buried station under richmond, we could build just a covered under the linear bark, as proposed at new orchard, which would presumably also lower the cost.

The key takeaway at this point seems to be that we need to get much harder numbers and engineering analyses of the rochester field - cleary corridors, since that's where the major conflicts appear to be.

As a side note, I would add that I think decreasing the number of stations from 3 to 2 between westboro and lincoln fields wouldn't be a good move, but probably a greater study of shifting the stations locations to cheaper and/or more useful locations would be useful (ex. rochester field instead of dominion).
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  #5338  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2013, 8:05 PM
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RE: LRT. You clearly don't understand my point. It doens't matter where they run. What matters is where they shouldn't run. i.e. in beautiful capital greenspace?
Greenspace is crap.

Greenspace is wasted space.

This city, and the NCC, have a total greenspace fetish that leads to massive economic and energy inefficients, bad planning decisions, and a deterioriated environment.

The few hundred linear metres, times, what, a couple tens of horizontal metres, of blessed g.d. stupid greenspace that would have to be given up near the stupid four-lane Carway is worth the price.

Worth it economically. Worth it environmentally. Worth it from a planning standpoint.

No one in Nanaimo or North Sydney or Noranda gives a flying flap about this, so the NCC can take the "capital for all Canadians" crap and shove it.

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Plant shrubs and grass? You honestly think that's it? If it wasn't for the NCC, there wouldn't be places to plant shrubs and grass. The City of Ottawa would have paved it and approved condos. The only large "park" in the downtown area owned by the City is Lansdowne Park.
Good. Downtown has no shortage of greenspace, and Lansdowne never was, nor should be, a "park" in the sense of pointless stupid grass and shrubs. Think Fenway Park.

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I'm glad they have the right to say no. The City of Ottawa will always need a higher level of government to keep them in check and to stop them from ruining this city any more.
The ruination comes from the NCC and the OMB. Let the city run itself.

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These "heritage buildings" are on Sussex Drive, a ceremonial route that many people Ottawans and Canadians alike will use.
"use" for what? The RCMP motorcade escorting the PM to and from 24 Sussex? The GG, once every five years, riding a carriage from his/her installation ceremony?

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The last thing we want visitors, both national and international, to see are turn of the century "working-class" homes. The less of those we see, the better.
What, the brutalist trophy buildings that the feds built or approved along sussex - Lester B., those anus-ugly embassies - are an improvement?

[/quote]The NCC is the only government entity in Ottawa (municipal, provincial, federal) that actually gives a damn about how this city looks[/quote]

Also the only government entity that is accountable to NO ONE. Their idea of aesthetics is grass, four-lane "drives", and hideous brutalistic federal architecture.

Abolish the NCC. Abolish, abolish, abolish, abolish, abolish, abolish.

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and how it is perceived by people coming here for the first time. The City approves some of the ugliest buildings
As does the NCC: Lester B, the National Arts Centre, Confederation Heights, Tunney's Pasture, the Hull office complexes, etc., etc., etc.

ABOLISH ABOLISH ABOLISH ABOLISH ABOLISH.
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  #5339  
Old Posted Apr 28, 2013, 10:35 PM
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I'll put some literal perspective on what Uhuniau (is pronouncing that any easier than writing it?) wrote, most of which I agree with.

The Glebe green wasteland. First time visitors may see this view. Believe me when I say ALL of Ottawa looks like this save for the Market and north of Somerset. 'Course, one chooses one's propaganda moments. No winter shots in this thread!


ottawa 9034 by southfacing, on Flickr




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Originally Posted by Uhuniau View Post
Greenspace is crap.

Greenspace is wasted space.

{snip}


This city, and the NCC, have a total greenspace fetish that leads to massive economic and energy inefficients, bad planning decisions, and a deterioriated environment.

ABOLISH ABOLISH ABOLISH ABOLISH ABOLISH.
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  #5340  
Old Posted Apr 29, 2013, 4:21 AM
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What a concrete jungle!

Seriously, the closest thing to that description in the photo is the acres of asphalt surrounding Lansdowne - the imaginary 'green park' the residents wanted so desperately to save.

Anyway, that's off-topic for this thread. Simply put, the NCC is dead wrong on this call. The city can no longer tolerate having an unelected bureaucracy calling the shots while ignoring the fact that people live and work in this city and have transportation needs that have to be met.

The NCC is designing a city for tourists to visit, gawk at Parliament and then leave, while ignoring basic needs of the 1 million that make it a 'city'. That they're still working in 2013 to keep the bad planning of 1955 alive (like Ottawa was founded for its parkways and empty greenspace) is ridiculous and costly.
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