Local transit in central Ottawa

[jleiper]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

I actually don't doubt that lots of the planners and politicians at City Hall take transit / bike / walk. But most of our roads (And the LRT) aren't directly designed by the City, they are designed and influenced by consultants... and the offices of consultants all offer free parking in offices outside the downtown... I'd be surprised if even 10 % of them take transit.

Heh. Now THAT is a point well-taken. I've had some gobsmacking conversations with some of the consultants.

[Multi-modal]

One more comment while Mr. Leiper is checking this thread. In regards to Carling transit priority. I hope the City spends the adequate resources to truly integrate carling transit, the trillium line, and the new hospital. That is an opportunity that should not be missed. I think to do it properly you really need to look at a rebuild of the carling bridge over the o-train, build carling transit (eastbound and westbound) in its ultimate median location, and shift the train station under carling. I haven't seen the city really looking at this, and i hope the hospital kicks them to get it done.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by jleiper

All legitimate questions. We are seeing the implementation of bus priority on Baseline and Carling, and I know just around the corner from me on Holland we have bus slip lanes and priority signals. It's happening, but it's not fast.

The priority signals for Laurier are a life-and-limb safety measure. Going through there pretty much every day, I can say it's a very welcome improvement to safety - I'm personally experiencing far fewer near-right-hooks.

And, on Laurier, the volume of bikes at peak is around 80% of motor vehicle traffic. There is a very good reason to want to protect those riders.

It would be an exaggeration to say that bike priority lights are showing up everywhere. We have them on our very busy downtown bike corridors because they protect lives. Otherwise, they're pretty scarce. I've been trying to get some in my ward as a pilot project to no avail.

All in all, while I personally would like to see more done on connecting our network of segregated bike infrastructure, the City's approach to encouraging active and mass transit is the right one. Change is slow, but as I watch the transit measures on Carling take shape (as one example), and the safety improvements being made to our busiest bike corridors, I can't deny that the direction is the right one.

Hi Mr. Leiper,

Speaking of priority lights, I've observed something in Québec City (La Grande Allée in particular) that I think could make our roads safer and move traffic in a more efficient way.

Light cycles in that city give everyone their individual priority; for example, pedestrians from all four corners get their turn at the same time, giving them complete freedom to cross without having to worry about cars turning right or left (no right turns at red lights might be required in urban settings).

Cars then have priority; N/S, followed by E/W, which facilitates right or left turns as no pedestrians or cyclists can cross at the same time. This would do wonders in downtown Ottawa where dozens of people cross, sometimes even a few seconds after their priority times out, resulting in only one vehicle out of a few that can actually make the turn during the light cycle. This also sometimes causes near misses between cars and both cyclists and pedestrians alike.

Of course implementing this in Ottawa might require a third priority run for cyclists only at intersections with bike lanes.

Although everyone would have to wait longer at a red light, this would make the streets much safer for ALL users and traffic could flow with greater ease.

[lrt's friend]

I can't get from my house in Hintonburg to Lansdowne in anything approaching a reasonable timeframe.

I am glad you have said this since my experience of trying to get to the Civic Hospital from Alta Vista has been that it is an almost impossible journey. And given the fact that my mother made a similar journey back in the 40s every day when these areas were on the outskirts suggests that our transit system has lost a lot of its cross-connectivity. There have been modest improvements recently but it is hard to believe that when I was at Carleton, old Route 6 (now 56) ran every 10 minutes during the daytime from Tunney's Pasture and across Carling and through the Glebe. The repeated cuts to what was a transfer route made it a useless shell that was on the verge of total abandonment. I hope we can put some resources back into this route so that Carling - Bank chasm can be bridged again to give easier access to the Glebe, Lansdowne, Billings Bridge and beyond.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I get your point. And I do think the city is somewhat trying. There are things the city could do though to improve transparency.

1) Release ridership numbers for each route. I don't know if council gets this. But the average voter does not. And should.

2) Start a serious effort on ways to improve local bus service. I may disagree with Uhuniau on higher order transit. But he's absolutely right on the state of local busing. There is no thought given at all to transit priority on busier corridors.

3) There's identification of corridors for BRT or LRT. But there's no identification of priority transit corridors for anything less. Corridors like Montreal/Rideau should be targeted for Transit priority. It's nuts that bike lanes are being prioritized there. Was that decision the ward councillors or the planners who came up with that?

It's not nuts that bike lanes have priority, when we can see the craziness that is keeping on-street parking on major & busy streets like Montreal & Bank.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Why we start with Billings to Rideau, and extend to Cummings Bridge and under Montreal as part of stage 2. Montreal Road also has solid potential for intensification; strip malls and parking lots between River Road and and Cyr Avenue, parking lots around Granville, huge potential near St-Laurent...

Strip malls?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by jleiper

I don't get those numbers as a matter of course, but OC is good about providing them on request. If there's a dataset you're looking for, email your councillor!

Or, a supposedly open government, of a supposedly open city, could start publishing the stuff routinely, without having to be begged to do so?

I don't think it's fair to say that there is "no thought given at all" to transit priority on the non-BRT corridors. Real money is being spent on it.

Where? I've not seen a single example in the old city of Ottawa or Vanier.

I'd have to defer to the councillors downtown and in Vanier to answer about Montreal and Rideau. No project like that moves forward without modelling. Transit is the priority in the city, and normally the impact of any project is well-understood before proceeding.

Except transit is no longer the priority on Montreal Road. The preferred design adds cycling infrastructure at the very deliberate expense of slowing down some of the slowest urban buses anywhere.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Strip malls?

Seriously? I guess it depends on your definition.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.43297...2!8i6656?dcr=0

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.43374...2!8i6656?dcr=0

https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.43472...2!8i6656?dcr=0

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Hi Mr. Leiper,

Speaking of priority lights, I've observed something in Québec City (La Grande Allée in particular) that I think could make our roads safer and move traffic in a more efficient way.

Light cycles in that city give everyone their individual priority; for example, pedestrians from all four corners get their turn at the same time, giving them complete freedom to cross without having to worry about cars turning right or left (no right turns at red lights might be required in urban settings).

Cars then have priority; N/S, followed by E/W, which facilitates right or left turns as no pedestrians or cyclists can cross at the same time. This would do wonders in downtown Ottawa where dozens of people cross, sometimes even a few seconds after their priority times out, resulting in only one vehicle out of a few that can actually make the turn during the light cycle. This also sometimes causes near misses between cars and both cyclists and pedestrians alike.

Of course implementing this in Ottawa might require a third priority run for cyclists only at intersections with bike lanes.

Although everyone would have to wait longer at a red light, this would make the streets much safer for ALL users and traffic could flow with greater ease.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with this approach. A pedestrian is slow enough as it is.

I would not wait for longer cycles before the traffic light says it's my turn, especially if the actual road looks like it's safe to cross.

If anything, make those "cross" buttons do something useful, like change the lights to indicate that it's the pedestrian's turn as soon as possible after hitting it.

Another idea, is to explicitly indicate that pedestrians can cross onto the median island while cars are turning left, and the cars that would cross the pedestrian's path have a red light.

If these measures make a little slower for cars, so be it, as cars are generally a lot faster at getting to the destinations than walking anyway.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Strip malls?

I thought strip malls were "dense core neighbourhoods" now?

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I thought strip malls were "dense core neighbourhoods" now?

Good Day.

nah - they're "shared public recreation and gathering space" !!

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Jeez, I go overseas to work for a few months and I come back to find my Councillor is now on the same forum as me.

[J.OT13]

We'll try and move the conversation. Can be hard sometimes when conversation overlap.

Originally Posted by roger1818

It depends what type of destination Blair becomes over time. Will the mall recover or will the area become primarily residential with local services? If the later, I'm not convinced that having intersect at Blair is significantly better than intersecting at the future Montreal Rd. Station. Either way it could continue on to South Orleans.

Blair is already a fairly significant employment hub, with offices south of the Queensway, CSEC and CSIS. The advantage of turning it south to serve Blair would be to also serve La Cité, the only major institution not currently served by rapid transit (main campus, not Trim).

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Recall that at present the long-plans have an ideological lock in of a split of BRT (or LRT) out of Blair southbound. It has been that way for a considerable long time now. Not that I am commenting on the validity of that plan, but I am commenting on the lock-in mindset that we have all seen at play in this stuff to date. Uhuniau and roger1818 are proposing - totally validly and properly and realistically, that that plan should be re-evaluated especially if we ever get to the consideration of a Rideau/Montreal Rd. rapid link. roger1818 brings up that basically that plan should properly be brought forward for re-evaluation now, before the planning of a second eastern branch gets too much furthur advanced, and locks in a Blair station oriented branching .vs. a Montreal Rd. / St. Joseph Blvd. / 147 station oriented branching. IE - recall that Steven Blais and other eastern councillors are pushing for that planning for a second, southern, east-end transit link branch be moved up, with consideration to making it LRT straight off, rather than BRT.
Basically - revisit the original basis of assumptions for planning the eastern second branch.
Which to me is way real and way right for this moment in planning time.
Elsewise any Rideau/Montreal link will probably be regarded as being locked into going to Blair.

For Your Consideration.

No doubt they will build the south Orleans branch before anything under Bank/Rideau/Montreal, but what was proposed by lrt's freind is a good solution for a second eastern line when we start having capacity issues.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

No doubt they will build the south Orleans branch before anything under Bank/Rideau/Montreal, but what was proposed by lrt's freind is a good solution for a second eastern line when we start having capacity issues.

Having capacity issues on the future Phase II Orleans LRT line shouldn't be a prerequisite to doing something to fix the capacity, reliability, and speed issues that are plaguing bus transit in the eastern core, especially the Montreal-Rideau corridor.

But instead, we are about to have a "solution" inflicted on that axis - the Montreal Road rebuild - which will actually make things worse, not better.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Having capacity issues on the future Phase II Orleans LRT line shouldn't be a prerequisite to doing something to fix the capacity, reliability, and speed issues that are plaguing bus transit in the eastern core, especially the Montreal-Rideau corridor.

But instead, we are about to have a "solution" inflicted on that axis - the Montreal Road rebuild - which will actually make things worse, not better.

Rebuild or not, there's a significant design constraint with the Montreal corridor.

I wonder if there's value in building BRT along the MacArthur/Vanier Parkway/St Patrick's corridor. It's a longer way around, but there's enough space to build something that would provide rapid service for Vanier residents as both the St Patrick's bridge and all of those roads have enough space to add dedicated all-day bus lanes. This would be in addition to Montreal Rd bus service.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Rebuild or not, there's a significant design constraint with the Montreal corridor.

Which the city has voluntarily decided to make worse.

I wonder if there's value in building BRT along the MacArthur/Vanier Parkway/St Patrick's corridor. It's a longer way around, but there's enough space to build something that would provide rapid service for Vanier residents as both the St Patrick's bridge and all of those roads have enough space to add dedicated all-day bus lanes. This would be in addition to Montreal Rd bus service.

I'm not entirely sure that would accomplish a whole lot.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Rebuild or not, there's a significant design constraint with the Montreal corridor.

I wonder if there's value in building BRT along the MacArthur/Vanier Parkway/St Patrick's corridor. It's a longer way around, but there's enough space to build something that would provide rapid service for Vanier residents as both the St Patrick's bridge and all of those roads have enough space to add dedicated all-day bus lanes. This would be in addition to Montreal Rd bus service.

After the Confederation Line, we need to start building along our urban corridors, not on roundabout routes. We are no longer focusing on commuters and even when we are considering commuters, we need direct routes.


If we use MacArthur, where do we go beyond that? Surely, not to St. Laurent, when there are unserved employment districts to the northeast. If we are going towards Vanier, redevelopment of Montreal Road needs to be a priority.


If we look at Toronto, they are either building direct corridors (for suburban commuters) or right along urban streets. The benefits are obvious as rapid transit focused on retail streets gives those streets a shot in the arm. Working around them, directs development at suburban hubs and continues to allow those urban spines to whither.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Rebuild or not, there's a significant design constraint with the Montreal corridor.

I wonder if there's value in building BRT along the MacArthur/Vanier Parkway/St Patrick's corridor. It's a longer way around, but there's enough space to build something that would provide rapid service for Vanier residents as both the St Patrick's bridge and all of those roads have enough space to add dedicated all-day bus lanes. This would be in addition to Montreal Rd bus service.

Good Day.

Granted, yes, there is a design (space, congestion) constraint on the corridor, especially on the Cummings bridge to St.Laurent Blvd stretch. Given that......
They SEEM to be deliberately and consciously designing in a bus-transit accommodation bottleneck - to the point where even the nickle-and-dime intro of an extra minute here and a minute there that we have had over the years to this point will be far surpassed by the enormous delays that are to come with the 'new' design. (Nope.... seems to me that they are giving inappropriate priority to cyclists at the cost of buses - incorrectly.) Given their massive failures elsewhere to get bus corridors right, I have absolutely NO confidence that they will get this one right - and this is a PRIMARY bus corridor, a main line, as is the 11 on the other side, which we have seen how they are culling and killing that line (seems to be a common thread here !).

As to your suggestion of the St.Patrick/VanierParkway/McArthurAve. corridor - not bad. Certainly the VP can accommodate a bus priority lane (not necessarily exclusive, but...), with jump lanes already existing at most intersections, and if we move the bicycle lanes to Donald (where they should be !), then McArthur has the space for bus priority or exclusive lanes.
(An inset at this moment... this suggestion would not really remove any load from the 12 - that is a different origin-destination pool.)
The only killer is (as always) the NCC. They hate making changes to accommodate transit in many ways. An example..... those jump queue lanes I mentioned earlier.... are not bus jump queue lanes now, and have not been for a LONG time (even though they seem to have been designed as such originally). They are general traffic lanes, and they cause an ocean of accidents, collisions, and near-misses galore when they re-merge on the other side. They NEED to be set to bus-only lanes for everybody's protection - yet they still exist as general traffic.
IE: accommodating bus priority in this corridor would actually improve traffic (car, bus, bicycle, and ped) overall. IE: that would make enormous sense. IE: it cain't be dun !

IMHO.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Which the city has voluntarily decided to make worse.



I'm not entirely sure that would accomplish a whole lot.

I mean if you made the 9 a "Rapid" route with dedicated bus lanes and signal priority, you'd have fast service for New Edinburgh/Vanier residents to Byward Market and the opposite direction to Hurdman, and it might beat the pokey buses travelling on Rideau/Montreal to the Rideau Centre from the corner of Vanier Pkwy and Montreal Rd, as long as you shorten it not to go all the way up to Sussex. You could run another rapid route from Rideau up to St Patrick, across and then down the parkway to Mc Arthur and have faster service through Vanier to St Laurent on one end and Rideau on the other. If you ran bus lanes up St Laurent all the way to Montreal Rd, you could also have a "rapid" service from the Montfort to the St Laurent mall. All this could be done in a few years with a relatively small capital budget.

Longer term would be some sort of subway along the Montreal/Rideau corridor, but we'd probably have to hit the 2 million metro population mark before that becomes a reality. Even then, the Rideau river crossing is going to be a challenge, as the line would have to run Soviet metro style deep, resulting in stations that are a long way down from the surface and thus very expensive.

[CityTech]

Here's what should be done on Rideau-Montreal. It's realistic and affordable.

1) Dedicated bus lanes, all day every day, in both directions. I don't care if this means scrapping bike lanes. Cyclists can go somewhere else.
2) Transit priority measures at every intersection
3) Maximize the value of 2) with optimal stop placement (immediately following an intersection; near side is impossible to sync with traffic lights as it requires predicting dwell time, an inherently unpredictable thing)
4) Use of 60 foot buses. No 40-footers (too short) or double deckers (too long to load, problematic on corridors like Rideau-Montreal where there are lots of stops and people getting on and off in healthy numbers at all of them)
5) Experiment with limited-stop express buses (like the Rocket buses in Toronto or the iExpress in Kitchener) on the route. I'm uncertain if they'll have much value (lots of people making short trips, and they'll end up getting stuck behind local buses anyway) but it's worth a test.