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Originally Posted by Dado
The Wikipedia entry on Downtown Ottawa disagrees with you:
[Downtown Ottawa] is bordered by the Ottawa River to the north, the Rideau Canal to the east, Gloucester Street to the south and Bronson Avenue to the west. This area and the residential neighbourhood to the south are also known locally as 'Centretown'. |
Oh, sorry, I'll have to adjust my attitude then if Wikipedia says so.
Seriously. Gloucester Street to the south? The canal to the east? Sounds to me like whoever wrote that entry just looked at the OP and approximated the "Central Area" designation, which is not reflective of how Ottawans view the downtown core. As others have said, the Market is considered downtown. The greater downtown core would take up the whole area from Vanier to Chinatown and down to the Glebe, in lots of people's minds. Ask a Kanattite if they think the Glebe is "downtown", odds are they'll say yes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
Of course no one transfers between the two - it's inconvenient to do so. Take a hypothetical trip from Carleton Place to Montreal. Today, that requires a transfer in Ottawa (i.e. coaches don't go from Carleton Place to Montreal). Given the separation of the coach and train stations, few would opt to transfer from coach to train, but put them together and some may well do so. Or from Rockland to Toronto, which again requires a transfer in Ottawa. Some people would take a train one way and a coach the other, especially if it is a multi-leg trip. These are the kind of things that can start to develop because putting them together increases the number of options available to people to choose from. It's agglomeration economics.
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OK let me get this straight: we're going to plan this for the benefit of people from Carleton Place? All due respect, but... huh? Carleton Place, like many other municipalities outside Ottawa, have their own transit service. What's stopping them from running routes to Via station today? If there's enough of a market, it'll happen. This is not reading the issue correctly. The issue is:
- Who travels by coach? Where is it better for them to be when they arrive/depart?
- Who travels by train? etc.
- Are there transfers between coach and train? Who? To go where?
Intermodality, if needed, will flow from those answers. Right now, without doing any research, the pricing of coaches and trains suggests that coach service is used mostly by people who want or need to pay less, or need the hourly frequency. In both cases, being able to arrive at a location that is within walking distance of not only transit but also of an actual urban fabric with things in it, serves those passengers better.
Who travels by train? People with more money, more time (leisurely trips) or business people wanting to take it easy. The train also picks people up in a couple of little towns on the way to Montreal and Toronto, but our train service basically serves only two corridors. Unless we get a bullet train, it's practically a duplication of coach service, just more comfortable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
As for your contention that there is no benefit in combining them in one place, that's patently absurd. If absolutely nothing else, and ignoring the above paragraph, it would benefit taxi operators by decreasing the variability of rides. A smaller number of operators could serve everyone just as easily, freeing up taxi capacity for use elsewhere.
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I think you're running out of arguments. Do you know how long the waiting list is for taxi plates? Are cabbies complaining about being too busy? Are we planning the city for the benefit of taxi drivers, so they can get another monopoly like with the airport and jack everyone with their high rates? 'nuff said.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
An increased volume of ridership at one place would also increase the market potential for related services, like restaurants and hotels, through economies of scale.
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Oh yeah? You want to visit Ottawa and pay for a hotel room at Tremblay Road? Great way to see the sights. Check with the Hampton Inn and ask how many of their guests come off the train. I'd be shocked if it's more than the odd one. Unless the station is within an urban fabric, it doesn't spawn new uses. People don't want to be late. If they arrive by transit, they dash into the station and take the train or bus. If they walk to the station, they might stop on the way if it's right off the sidewalk and the quick stop doesn't delay them.
When they arrive at the station from another city, people want to get to their destination. If there's nothing around a station, there's no reason to linger. If there's an actual city fabric around the station, they get pulled into the city on foot as a way to get to their destination. If the journey to the destination is fun, or interesting, or allows you to pick things up on the way, then you will proceed on foot. Otherwise, if you arrive at a station lost in the middle of a sea of grass and parking, you move along. The economies of scale are not present at Tremblay Rd., they are on Catherine St.
For any economies of scale to materialize at Tremblay Rd., you would need (aside from a connected grid of streets and blocks) a lot more round-the-clock uses, starting with employment. There isn't enough either now or planned. Besides, with the suburban setup that Via station has and the size of its site, passengers won't stray away from the station to go check out whatever else might be around. Whatever they need, they'll get at the station.
Right behind the Catherine St. station, there is at least one small bed & breakfast. Bank street is a block east. The economies of scale are created by a number of different things, the station being just one of those.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
(and don't forget that the operators would want to operate coaches and trains out of the same place for the convenience of their customers).
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What convenience? When I take the Voyageur bus to Montreal I don't care where the Via train terminates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
Today, we have tour buses occupying space at the train station turnaround who could be using a co-located coach terminal instead. Again, there are benefits to combining these operations into one place that is served by transit. Ideally that place would be downtown somewhere but there are costs and obstacles to doing that.
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Tour buses respond to different patterns of travel. I know, I drove a tour bus as one of my summer jobs some time ago. They are completely unrelated to intercity service, be it train or bus. They monopolize their clientele and have their own circuits and schedules. They have their own parking at large hotels.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dado
A location around the escarpment would be far easier to serve with transit than a location on Catherine, and it is physically closer to everything downtown than Catherine. Plus it's actually possible to route rails to it, so even if you don't buy into the idea of it as a multi-modal hub, it's still better than the current train station location as a standalone site for a train station.
From the rail perspective, it can also be tied into services to/from Quebec, so it would be possible, for example, for the steam train to Wakefield to operate directly out of downtown Ottawa.
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A really good place for a bus terminal would be the site that was proposed for the Central Library (Albert at Lyon). You would have both rapid transit service, and a city fabric, to welcome people into the city.
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