Future Transit System Ideas - Ottawa/Gatineau | Fantasy

[Capital Shaun]

A tram/LRT between Aylmer and at least downtown Hull would be a good idea but I doubt the current batch of politicians are capable of it. Look at the Rapibus, Gatineau just converted an existing rail right of way into a clone of the Transitway.

[lrt's friend]

What about the old Hull electric/CPR Right of Way? Does it still exist? It ran from Hull right though Aylmer and to the Chateau Laurier via the Interprovincial Bridge. Could this be recreated? I know that when they were revamping the bridge at Confederation Square, they found the old Hull Electric streetcar turnaround next to the Chateau Laurier.

[Acajack]

Does anyone really think Gatineau would pick a rail-based technology for linking Aylmer to the transit system when it has already hitched its wagon to BRT and Rapibus (whether it was a good choice or not)?

[eemy]

I think that is why this is only a dream.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Does anyone really think Gatineau would pick a rail-based technology for linking Aylmer to the transit system when it has already hitched its wagon to BRT and Rapibus (whether it was a good choice or not)?

I think so, especially considering the fact that they plan to eventually make it LRT (déjà vu...). Space is also a problem in Aylmer unless you build it on Des Allumettières (their current idea/plan) which has a small catchment radius (poorly-connected streets) and what little there is within that is at a density which can hardly support a local bus, let alone BRT. Even if they did build it there, the problem of space is even worse when you get to the Gatineau Park, since they'd have to dynamite again, closing down a major artery for weeks, partially rebuild the bridge over the creek AND completely redo the roundabout section. If well done, it will attract relatively few people and probably piss commuters off more than anything since the two other roads to Ottawa will be tied up for weeks on end.
What's worse is that they're planning to create a new centre of employment and commerce along des Allumettières, despite being unwalkable from anywhere in Aylmer (or anywhere, really) and doomed to perpetually being on the fringe of the city because of the new Urban Boundary. The problem here is that it would effectively kill Principale, the revitalizing heart of Aylmer and the only reason they're putting jobs there is because it's to be served by the Rapibus. What I propose is that they build a tram/LRT along the main artery of Aylmer and bring the jobs to the centre of the town on the ruins of the dying mall and stripmalls and their sea of parking lots so the existing businesses and the future jobs can benefit from eachother and add life instead of draining it to the outskirts.

I think I've got a very strong argument against the n and I'm taking this further: I'm actually drafting a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, arranging a meeting with my municipal councillor and, if that works out, I'll seek the support of the APICA, the business association of Aylmer. Whatever bridge needs crossing, I'll cross then, but I've got a plan as for what I'll do for the moment.


The only thing more dangerous than a determined person is a determined person with a lot of time on his hands.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Space is also a problem in Aylmer unless you build it on Des Allumettières (their current idea/plan) which has a small catchment radius (poorly-connected streets) .

How exactly does a rail-based system take up less space than BRT?

Originally Posted by Aylmer

and what little there is within that is at a density which can hardly support a local bus, let alone BRT. .

BRT is actually better for serving lower density areas than any rail-based system I'd say.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Acajack

How exactly does a rail-based system take up less space than BRT?

According to the American Public Transportation Association standards, a BRT ROW should be about 6 metres (18 feet) wide per direction or an absolute minimum of 5 metres. However, LRT can run on a ROW of 3 metres even with a canetary, or about half the space. Without the canetary, it can be as small as 2.6m of ROW (this according to the City of Hamilton documents).

BRT is actually better for serving lower density areas than any rail-based system I'd say

You're quite right, which is why my proposal has rail going through the denser centre of Aylmer as well as other dense neighbourhoods like Val-Tétreau instead of going through the Plateau and North Aylmer, as the BRT proposal would.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

According to the American Public Transportation Association standards, a BRT ROW should be about 6 metres (18 feet) wide per direction or an absolute minimum of 5 metres. However, LRT can run on a ROW of 3 metres even with a canetary, or about half the space. Without the canetary, it can be as small as 2.6m of ROW (this according to the City of Hamilton documents).




You're quite right, which is why my proposal has rail going through the denser centre of Aylmer as well as other dense neighbourhoods like Val-Tétreau instead of going through the Plateau and North Aylmer, as the BRT proposal would.

Ideally, you would have two lines: one to the north serving North Aylmer and Le Plateau (and also Wrightville and that part of Hull) and the other to the south along the Aylmer Road and Alexandre-Taché.

I am not thrilled with the rumoured alignment along les Allumettières, but it may be that we will not have the money or political will to do more than one corridor. So if Allumettières it is, hopefully once the line is in the Aylmer area it will swing south (maybe along the mothballed Autoroute Deschênes corridor) to move it closer to the historic centre of the community.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Acajack

How exactly does a rail-based system take up less space than BRT?

As usual, it depends.

If the transit RoW is entirely separated from the road system (e.g. à la Transitway or Rapibus) then a BRT system needs to have some shoulder room for it to function reliably. For reference, the approximate standard of the Transitway is 4 m per bus lane and 2.5 m per shoulder, coming out to 13 m. By contrast, a rail system basically just needs enough space for the tracks and wherever the catenary is installed, and that total can be quite small in places where the catenary can be supported off things like trench walls or other supports outside the RoW.

On street, things are a bit different. The buses no longer need their shoulders since they have access to the adjacent regular traffic lanes, but the bus lanes still need to be pretty wide if high speed running is the goal. Trains, not having lateral movement issues, don't need as much space, though they might still need some buffer zone to avoid having others intrude into their space. Catenary can likely be dealt with as part of the usual street light infrastructure. I would note that on-street LRT in which the tracks are laid in some kind of driveable surface but are otherwise separated from the rest of the street might become rather tempting to cyclists (smooth surface with infrequent vehicle passage whose lateral movements are restrained), so some other kind of cycling treatment might be advisable.

The biggest challenge in all cases are stations and the amount of space they can take up.

[Kitchissippi]

Rather than duplicate an expensive transit ROW along the river, it would be far more economical to hook up to Ottawa's rapid transit system via a rail bridge across the Deschênes Rapids. Of course this would require an integrated transit strategy between Ottawa and Gatineau, something that remains a dream at the moment.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Rather than duplicate an expensive transit ROW along the river, it would be far more economical to hook up to Ottawa's rapid transit system via a rail bridge across the Deschênes Rapids. Of course this would require an integrated transit strategy between Ottawa and Gatineau, something that remains a dream at the moment.

Interesting proposal. I am not sure a bridge over the rapids would be less expensive though. Any thoughts?

Also, the bridge itself and (most likely) its approaches will serve no one as no one lives there. From a passenger catchment perspective that's all lost kilometrage (metric version of mileage - sounds ok in French). Whereas if you run your ROW through populated areas you have potential riders all along it.

[Aylmer]

Actually, the rapids are very shallow and narrow, making a bridge an interesting prospect. There are even a couple of islands in between. I've always thought there should be a bike bridge there.

Transit across the bridge is actually a very interesting idea: I toyed with the idea for an eventual extension of an eventual 'Plateau' line (Sparks- Taché- Saint-Raymond- Plateau- Vanier- Lincoln Fields), but never as the route for an Aylmer line. It would cost less and would provide easier integration with the Ottawa system, but it would also reduce connectivity to the rest of Gatineau...

Interesting nonetheless...

[Kitchissippi]

I would think a bridge across the Deschênes Rapids would be quite cheap to build as it is really shallow. Practically all the land between the river shore and Lincoln Fields is also owned by the NCC, and depending on their future inclination (they once proposed a parkway bridge here) it would require some convincing. An electric railway would be an easier sell than something potentially open to traffic.

Such a corridor opens up entirely new possibilities, such as a shortcut between Aylmer to Kanata's offices or DND's (old Nortel) campus, as well as Algonquin College, but all in all, I would imagine it would be a faster way to downtown Ottawa.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I would think a bridge across the Deschênes Rapids would be quite cheap to build as it is really shallow. Practically all the land between the river shore and Lincoln Fields is also owned by the NCC, and depending on their future inclination

Silly Kitchissippi; NCC waterfront land is for beautiful, vibrant, exciting, world-class green space.

And cars.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Interesting proposal. I am not sure a bridge over the rapids would be less expensive though. Any thoughts?

Also, the bridge itself and (most likely) its approaches will serve no one as no one lives there. From a passenger catchment perspective that's all lost kilometrage (metric version of mileage - sounds ok in French). Whereas if you run your ROW through populated areas you have potential riders all along it.

This is much like the argument against using the rail ROW on the Ottawa side. We could have provided commuter rail, or even some form of LRT on the existing rail lines and then reached downtown via the O-Train line connecting to a downtown tunnel. It probably would have been cheaper. And it would have served the outskirts just fine, but it would miss a lot of denser regions inside the greenbelt.

Sometimes solving half the problem cheaply is the bad thing to do, because it means solving the other half will be a separate project and therefore very expensive. It really comes down to identifying what your goals are for the entire system and sticking to them. You can't really improv a transit system one requirement or opportunity at a time.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Actually, the rapids are very shallow and narrow, making a bridge an interesting prospect. There are even a couple of islands in between. I've always thought there should be a bike bridge there.

Transit across the bridge is actually a very interesting idea: I toyed with the idea for an eventual extension of an eventual 'Plateau' line (Sparks- Taché- Saint-Raymond- Plateau- Vanier- Lincoln Fields), but never as the route for an Aylmer line. It would cost less and would provide easier integration with the Ottawa system, but it would also reduce connectivity to the rest of Gatineau...

Interesting nonetheless...

It's an interesting idea. That crossing site always gets discarded because the road connections don't work on the Ottawa side very well. But that's not a concern for transit. Link up to Lincoln Fields and let people transfer west, south, east, whatever.

[Aylmer]

What I did during my more severe periods of procrastination:



Warning: very large image.


67km of new track,
122 stations,
7 lines,
2 regional tram-train lines,
2 new bridges
Maximum distance of less than 2km from a station for the entire city.

If only...

At Portland's 10M/km for tracks, stations and cars and including the price of the new bridges, it could be done for about $1B, but we'd need to bring Jean Drapeau back from the dead and I don't know how much that'd cost.

[McC]

XKCD connects "The Subways of North America"
http://xkcd.com/1196/large/

(perhaps inspired by Mark Ovenden's World Metro Map http://www.flickr.com/photos/anniemo...1428/lightbox/)

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Honestly, I wish we would say "tough cookies" to the suburbs and keep expensive light-rail in the inner city. A part of me would love to convert the existing O-Train to Ottawa's second (and north-south) LRT line, terminating at the airport, but another part of me would love to double-track it as-is for the purposes of commuter rail. Essentially, I have two similar versions of an "ideal" transit plan:

Option 1

"Tough cookies" for the areas outside of the Greenbelt with regards to LRT.

Use existing segregation of Transitway and O-Train to create two LRT lines initially (E-W Confederation Line, and N-S <enter name here> Line). Confederation Line would run from Blair in the East, to Bayshore in the West and Baseline just south of there. the N-S Line would run from Rideau (or Hurdman?) to the airport along the existing O-Train right of way. Expansion and addition would happen on major arteries such as Carling, Baseline, Rideau/Montreal/St. Laurent, and ultimately, an LRT under Bank Street from downtown (or Hurdman?) to Billings Bridge. This plan would keep LRT strictly within the Greenbelt and a lot of routes would be facilitated by converted transitway and O-Train.

For the suburbs, since it is overwhelmingly a commuter system, I would establish a form of commuter rail similar to the following:

http://www.mobilityottawaoutaouais.com/

Spurs would have to be created for Kanata-Stittsville and Orleans, but the trains would function in two fashions; an express train ( stopping in two stations in the suburbs before making a beeline for the last two stations I would have, which would be Hurdman and the Train Station) and a collector train that stops in various places along the way. This way, one filters/spreads out the commuters who are just trying to get downtown and predominantly live in the outer-city suburbs. For example:

Kanata-Stittsville Express: Starts in Stittsville centre with a stop or two to be determined in Kanata (Kanata North would have its own spur), and stops in Hurdman and the Train Station for transfer onto mainline LRT. Perhaps a stop at Confederation station for transfer north and from the west.

Kanata-Stittsville Collector: Starts in Stittsville centre with a stop or two to be determined in Kanata, with stops at Moodie, Greenbank, Woodroffe, Merivale, Confederation, Billings Bridge, Hurdman, Train Station.

This would be the format and foundation of rail and transit for the satellite suburbs, whereas additional lines can be made to go further as hoped for in the mOOse commuter rail plan. I would also push for an LRT "city loop" in the sense of having an LRT line as a central city bypass from Bayshore to St. Laurent, using either Baseline/Heron/Walkley/St. Laurent, or VMH/Hunt Club/Hawthorne/Russell/St. Laurent, or both.


Option 2

Similar to above, but the existing O-Train tracks are preserved. This adds more flexibility to the proposed commuter lines by allowing transit from Quebec (via Prince of Wales Bridge and rails alongside Rapibus) and more creative commuter rail routes, especially to the south past Leitrim. It also balances out travel from east and west, turning Bayview into the major west-central transfer station, with Hurdman/Train Station serving that function in the east.



Basically, I just really want to see expensive LRT reserved for the city within the Greenbelt (where it is warranted) and an efficient, appropriate, affordable form of commuter rail that connects the suburbs with the central city, ultimately meaning that only one transfer would ever be required. With the express trains, it will likely be faster than taking a car as it gets you roughly to where you need to go, without overcrowding and causing transit traffic jams, let alone car traffic jams.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

(E-W Confederation Line, and N-S <enter name here> Line).

<enter name here>

MacDonald-Cartier Line, connecting the MacDonald Cartier Airport with the Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway (and then turns East to Downtown Ottawa).