Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[Dado]

Originally Posted by 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.

I'm not relying on people to switch to less crowded stations; I'm just relying on them to use the closest station. If you replace Downtown East with stations at Bank and Elgin, you will effectively split the volumes at Downtown East in two.

Travel time is unlikely to get longer once we factor in the off-train pedestrian commute

[...]

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.

Yes, imagine that: anxiety that the system is being poorly designed. I do wonder why we might have that anxiety? It's not like any transit infrastructure Ottawa has designed before has been poorly designed, after all.

Originally Posted by McC

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

Not really: he's relying on the claim that it was covered in the initial environmental assessment, but he has already intervened in at least three ways to fix problems that got through that assessment: the routing and depth of the tunnel west of the canal, the location of Rideau Station, and the location of the east tunnel portal, which in turn changed Campus from being an underground to an above ground station.

Once you've invalidated part of an environmental assessment, you've invalidated the entire thing, unless you come up with some pretty compelling reasons why it's wrong in only those specific areas and no other (which we haven't had). If it was wrong on the above three points - and one of them is very significant - then how do we know it's not wrong on other issues, like the number of stations?

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Dado

Yes, imagine that: anxiety that the system is being poorly designed. I do wonder why we might have that anxiety? It's not like any transit infrastructure Ottawa has designed before has been poorly designed, after all. ?

Touché. I guess if any of you wins next week's Lotto Max we can count on funding for a third downtown station then .

[Uhuniau]

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).

A tram loop does nothing to get a rider from one city-central neighbourhood to another, apart from trips between Hull and downtown Ottawa.

And of course, having that many buses in front of Parliament looks ridiculous.

Why does it look ridiculous? I don't see the ridiculosity, I seriously don't.

Cf.:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaro...nster-2298.pdf

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 their streetcars - wait for it - cross downtown. The routes don't end abruptly at Yonge Street, like our downtown routes increasingly do at (near) the canal.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

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)

I don't think that "statistic" is even wrong.

[Chris-R]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

A tram loop does nothing to get a rider from one city-central neighbourhood to another, apart from trips between Hull and downtown Ottawa.



Why does it look ridiculous? I don't see the ridiculosity, I seriously don't.

Cf.:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaro...nster-2298.pdf



And their streetcars - wait for it - cross downtown. The routes don't end abruptly at Yonge Street, like our downtown routes increasingly do at (near) the canal.

The TTC did try to split the 501 Queen street car for a brief period in 2009 but wisely chose not to continue with the it in the face of opposition and a lack of a performance increase. I wish we'd have done the same (return it to normal).

[lrt's friend]

Has route splitting really solved the problem? I was on Montreal Road in Vanier on Saturday and passed two Route 12 articulated buses that were back to back, acting like a train. Bunching is an age old problem. The solution is to make sure that the service is frequent enough that bunching does not cause major service gaps and when gaps do occur to be prepared to add an extra bus in.

[McC]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Has route splitting really solved the problem? I was on Montreal Road in Vanier on Saturday and passed two Route 12 articulated buses that were back to back, acting like a train. Bunching is an age old problem. The solution is to make sure that the service is frequent enough that bunching does not cause major service gaps and when gaps do occur to be prepared to add an extra bus in.

I never ride the 2, but I walk on Somerset-Wellington-Richmond very often, and based on my observation of the 2s that pass me, it seems to be running much better than in the past -- they seem both more frequent and more evenly spaced. (they also seem to be better compared to my observations -- much less frequent, admittedly -- of service up and down Bank St, which still seems to bunch and gap severely).

But from what I hear, in this place and elsewhere, service on the 12 is as bad or worse (which, as I understand it, is what caused most of the problems for the old 2 on the west side).

If this is the case, better service on the 2 for the west side was bought at the price of poorer service on Rideau-Montreal; unfortunate and I wouldn't be surprised at all.

If only we'd stuck with the Holt plan, implemented as funding became available, revised and updated as needs required (rather than thrown out completely after a spell, as every Capital Plan has been), the whole Montreal-Rideau-Wellington-Richmond corridor would be served a by a subway, decades old.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Has route splitting really solved the problem? I was on Montreal Road in Vanier on Saturday and passed two Route 12 articulated buses that were back to back, acting like a train. Bunching is an age old problem. The solution is to make sure that the service is frequent enough that bunching does not cause major service gaps and when gaps do occur to be prepared to add an extra bus in.

The 12 already runs every 10 minutes during that period, and on the Rideau Street portion, the 14 provides significant additional service (and the 18 less often). Other than adding even more buses, there aren't any great solutions. But if the 2 continued from Blair to Bayshore, those buses would be bunched all the way to Bayshore as passenger flows would result in them keeping up with each other.

Yes, the subway along the inner city main corridors would be nice, but it would sure be expensive! (A south-to-east routing is more likely IMO, since Richmond/Wellington is within walking distance of the Transitway for the most part, although local ridership is still extremely high there with the 2)

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Why does it look ridiculous? I don't see the ridiculosity, I seriously don't.

Cf.:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/gettingaro...nster-2298.pdf

I have never been to London, but I am pretty sure that they don't have lineups of 10-15 buses during rush hour. Furthermore, their buses looks are a bit more presentable than the blue and white STO. I'm just not a fan of scorching toxic fumes in front of our Parliament buildings or Rideau Street for that matter.

The whole interprovincial transit connection, I find, is a very complicated issue due to a complete lack of joint planning since they took out the trams. I would be interested to hear other people’s ideas on interprovincial transit connections that don’t involve buses. Maybe a “dream” multibillion idea as well as a more conservative/realistic idea (but still no buses downtown).

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Has route splitting really solved the problem?

The 2 has definitely been improved - even during all the construction on Somerset it still ran quite reliably.

At about the same time, they also switched to using the 40' hybrids rather than artics. This has probably made the buses easier to drive around too.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Dado

The 2 has definitely been improved - even during all the construction on Somerset it still ran quite reliably.

At about the same time, they also switched to using the 40' hybrids rather than artics. This has probably made the buses easier to drive around too.

If they put those buses on the 12 as well, it would help save fuel. Instead, they throw them often on routes with fast/Transitway sections (i.e. 8, 86, 118) and on rare occasions even express routes where they are a total waste. A general rule is to keep them on routes with speeds no higher than 60 km/h.

Of course, the 12 would need a frequency increase to cover the size adjustment. Artics would still be needed during peak periods as well.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Has route splitting really solved the problem? I was on Montreal Road in Vanier on Saturday and passed two Route 12 articulated buses that were back to back, acting like a train. Bunching is an age old problem. The solution is to make sure that the service is frequent enough that bunching does not cause major service gaps and when gaps do occur to be prepared to add an extra bus in.

It has not solved the problem, no. Not on the western "2" end, either; trains of two or even three 2s on Richmond-Wellington are not unusual sights.

It didn't help when OC Transpo spent the first three post-split years slashing a cumulative total of 16% of the runs on the 12 compared to the pre-split 2, and re-allocating way too many artics to other routes, running a reduced schedule on reduced equipment, and then wondering why people were complaining about the service. The latest changes, to OC Transpo's teeny tiny credit, is more or less back to old, 2008 levels.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

The 12 already runs every 10 minutes during that period, and on the Rideau Street portion, the 14 provides significant additional service (and the 18 less often). Other than adding even more buses, there aren't any great solutions. But if the 2 continued from Blair to Bayshore, those buses would be bunched all the way to Bayshore as passenger flows would result in them keeping up with each other.

Either way, they are bunched.

Since splitting hasn't solved the bunching problem, unsplit, and find an actual solution to the bunching problem.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

If they put those buses on the 12 as well, it would help save fuel. Instead, they throw them often on routes with fast/Transitway sections (i.e. 8, 86, 118) and on rare occasions even express routes where they are a total waste. A general rule is to keep them on routes with speeds no higher than 60 km/h.

Of course, the 12 would need a frequency increase to cover the size adjustment. Artics would still be needed during peak periods as well.

40-footers cannot handle the load on the 12. Not during peaks. Not during off-peaks. Not during weekends. Sometimes not even late nights. The demand is too high and too unpredictable. This route demands artics. End of story.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I have never been to London, but I am pretty sure that they don't have lineups of 10-15 buses during rush hour. Furthermore, their buses looks are a bit more presentable than the blue and white STO.

I don't like STO's livery, either, but that's neither here nor there.

I'm just not a fan of scorching toxic fumes in front of our Parliament buildings or Rideau Street for that matter.

I don't like STF's either. So let's get rid of the damn cars.

I would be interested to hear other people’s ideas on interprovincial transit connections that don’t involve buses. Maybe a “dream” multibillion idea as well as a more conservative/realistic idea (but still no buses downtown).

First step: extend the damn O-train to Hull.

If we can't do that, we may as well not bother.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Touché. I guess if any of you wins next week's Lotto Max we can count on funding for a third downtown station then .

Come to think of it, I probably would - if I bothered to buy lottery tickets, which I don't.


Funnily enough, the only reason we're short this money is because then-Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson along with his boss, Premier Dalton McGuinty, also representing an Ottawa riding, decided to commit only $600M rather than the $700M that would have been a third of the cost.

The Feds then followed suite a few months later, likewise only committing $600M, leaving the City to fund the other $900M.

Little wonder then that Watson is so determined to shut down discussion on this topic, since it is in no small part one of his own making.

[McC]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

If they put those buses on the 12 as well, it would help save fuel. Instead, they throw them often on routes with fast/Transitway sections (i.e. 8, 86, 118) and on rare occasions even express routes where they are a total waste. A general rule is to keep them on routes with speeds no higher than 60 km/h.

The period may have passed, but OC Transpo announced that they would be cycling the Hybrids throughout the system to try them on each type of route, in as many conditions as possible, so they could accumulate some very Ottawa-specific performance data to complement the manufacturers specs. So even though it seems counter-intuitive to run them on routes where we "know" that hybrid performance is sub-optimal, it gives OC Transpo real comparisons of how much better (or not) the hybrids perform on "optimal" routes. E.g., because of our weather, our hybrids may not perform as well on those local urban routes as the manufacturer would predict (in fact I think the experience to date confirms this to be true), but that comparison is less relevant than how they compare to (a) traditional diesels on those same routes, and (b) the hybrids deployed on different kinds of routes.

As I said though, the period for this testing may have passed and now they might just be inefficiently deploying their fleet for a host of other reasons (incompetence, maintenance schedules, etc)

[lrt's friend]

So it has been said. Our LRT line will be busiest in North America on opening day. I hope nothing goes wrong.

So much for all this nonsense about there not being enough ridership to run trains to Orleans. What this is suggesting is that we are already behind the 8 ball and we should have a second line running into downtown.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

So it has been said. Our LRT line will be busiest in North America on opening day. I hope nothing goes wrong.

So much for all this nonsense about there not being enough ridership to run trains to Orleans. What this is suggesting is that we are already behind the 8 ball and we should have a second line running into downtown.

I will say this much: in retrospect, the north-south line should have been built from Bayview to Barrhaven and would have provided an excellent supplement to the planned route. However, the downtown street-running section would have been a disaster waiting to happen, running LRT in mixed traffic.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

I will say this much: in retrospect, the north-south line should have been built from Bayview to Barrhaven and would have provided an excellent supplement to the planned route. However, the downtown street-running section would have been a disaster waiting to happen, running LRT in mixed traffic.

You would never run it in true 'mixed' traffic but I know what you are saying. What should have happened is that you run the trains in an exclusive left lane and the buses in an exclusive right lane. The bus lane would only be exclusive during peak periods. Local traffic would use the remaining lanes. You would simply close the MacKenzie King bridge to regular traffic. It isn't used much anyways except for transit and you have two other bridges close by that are better used.

Now that we know that this will be the busiest LRT system in North America from day one, the original plan of having surface rail on Albert and Slater would have taken the pressure off a tunnel that is going beyond normal useage. There will be problems with the tunnel. It is inevitable. And how do we move people when there are problems? We won't. There is so little redundancy built into the plan that moving people will be next to impossible if a train breaks down on the LRT line. Don't kid yourself. It is going to happen.

As someone living in the south end, why should we be penalized with second class service and forced permanently to transfer either at Hurdman or Bayview? I know this is the way things appear to be going, but how will this make transit attractive particularly during off-peak hours? As it stands, neither route is a direct route towards downtown (look at a map) and both will require two transfers to reach a local neighbourhood. I can tell that this is not appealing in the least. Why would I use transit for my occasional trips downtown unless I expect problems finding parking? I won't. This plan will be too slow and too unreliable. Two transfers and then find out that you missed your local bus by 1 minute. No way. This is a prescription for permanently low ridership.