Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I think for one it'll make it hella less scary to be on those narrow platforms when you don't fear falling five feet onto an electrified rail. I doubt it'll lead to people just wandering onto the tracks as a train's pulling in any more than they do in the 50+ cities with low-floor LRT.

Are there any cities that run a rapid transit lines using low floor LRTs?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Are there any cities that run a rapid transit lines using low floor LRTs?

In operation? Not that I know of. There is one U/C in Tel Aviv, though. It's actually very similar to the Confederation Line. I think it's even using the same trains, too.

[Aylmer]

Full systems? Not that I can think of - I think Ottawa's a first (and potentially a trendsetter) in that regard. However, cities like Barcelona, Nice, Seattle, The Hague and Boston all have some underground or elevated stations for their low-floor LRT.

This isn't a great picture - Spui (in the Hague) is quite a striking station in person:




Here's another:

[eemy]

Are those wood floors?!

[ACmodels]

I thought the downtown stations will have a glass barrier along the platform?

Like this?

[Aylmer]

Yessir! They're really quite nice. I would have wished for warm, wood-and-steel stations like they first had in the renderings:

[Kitchissippi]

We don't have to look that far for an example of a low platformed station, Toronto has a few subterranean streetcar stations. I just hope ours won't be as ugly.

Queens Quay

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Do they still run freight trains on the line?

Freight occasionally runs from Walkley Diamond past Greenboro to the NRC facility, but rarely. Freight also crossed Walkley Diamond regularly.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I think they chose light rail technology because at the time the city was dead set on building the west extension on the current east bound ORP lanes. They refused to acknowledge the NCC's opposition to the half backed idea. The O'Brien era plan called for some cheap, half assed system beyond phase I.

Thanks for the explanation. Too bad though, in the decades it will take to get to phase 7 a light metro would have been a better solution (more capacity, no need for drivers, more comfortable for passengers, etc). Just once I would like to see Ottawa follow normal best practices when it comes to transit and not try to come up with some new scheme that may or may not be a good idea.

[JCL]

Originally Posted by McC

Except for where it crosses other train tracks. (It also had a level pedestrian crossing until this past fall)

That would be the Brookfield Crossing, which was decommissioned on August 20th (according to signs posted).

Here's a video I shot a while back.
• Video Link

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

We don't have to look that far for an example of a low platformed station, Toronto has a few subterranean streetcar stations. I just hope ours won't be as ugly.

That is the only "mainline" underground stop for Toronto streetcars, the other 3 are all line terminuses and look significantly different. That stop is known for being particularly ugly, and due to its proximity to the terminus of the line, underused. The underground tunnel for the streetcars is well lit unlike subway tunnels however, which means its quite cool to ride through it.. (especially if you sit at the back of the streetcar and look backwards) The station is also only a single level with no concourse, which means it has a track level pedestrian crossing to get between the two platforms.

Toronto is also going to be getting a bunch of underground low platform stations with the opening of the Eglinton LRT, which has 14 new underground stops.

[TMA-1]

Then and now. There was so much difference in the right side of the frame I gave up and used left and bottom only.



ottawa trainyards 2008 (L) 2014 (R) by southfacing, on Flickr

[eemy]

St. Clair West is technically not a terminal station for the streetcar. It is, however, still in a loop configuration.

[lrt's friend]

They chose light rail over light metro for a number of reasons. Typically, light metros use third rail technology, which might not work well in this climate with large parts of the network planned to be exposed to the elements, ie snow and ice. Also, light rail offered more flexibility for expanding network. We might want to integrate and connect a Carling streetcar. This would allow it. Also, once you reached the suburbs, it may be desired to not have a fully grade separated right of way. This may be the plan for an eventual full extension southward, to South Orleans and Kanata.

For the same reasons, low floor is being chosen to allow for surface operations without high station platforms. Also, the plan to eventually integrate LRT with suburban main streets make low floor trains more desirable. We have to remember that low floor LRT is newer technology. Most cities that have legacy lines have committed themselves to high floor trains and are in no position to change all their stations. I am sure Calgary would have chosen low floor trains if they were starting now.

I am not sure about differences in comfort. I have been on light rail and metros and as far as I am concerned, a rail car is a rail car. Regardless, the differences between light rail and metros are becoming increasingly blurred in almost every respect.

[ACmodels]

Maybe by the time we build the bank street subway the trains we might use would be light metro technology

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

They chose light rail over light metro for a number of reasons. Typically, light metros use third rail technology, which might not work well in this climate with large parts of the network planned to be exposed to the elements, ie snow and ice. Also, light rail offered more flexibility for expanding network. We might want to integrate and connect a Carling streetcar. This would allow it. Also, once you reached the suburbs, it may be desired to not have a fully grade separated right of way. This may be the plan for an eventual full extension southward, to South Orleans and Kanata.

For the same reasons, low floor is being chosen to allow for surface operations without high station platforms. Also, the plan to eventually integrate LRT with suburban main streets make low floor trains more desirable. We have to remember that low floor LRT is newer technology. Most cities that have legacy lines have committed themselves to high floor trains and are in no position to change all their stations. I am sure Calgary would have chosen low floor trains if they were starting now.

I am not sure about differences in comfort. I have been on light rail and metros and as far as I am concerned, a rail car is a rail car. Regardless, the differences between light rail and metros are becoming increasingly blurred in almost every respect.

I find trams are much more cramped than light metro type systems (for comparable lengths and widths). The low floor design means wheel wells take up a big part of the cabin and seats have to be placed in an awkward way. They also have a lot of joint that takes up space and subject some passengers to a less comfortable ride. Also, driver-based systems tend to be less comfortable than driverless systems (Vancouver, Copenhagen, Docklands, etc) because the computer can control acceleration and braking with exact precision.

I'm not sure the system is being designed with the kind of flexibility to offer the flexible service you're describing. While it is possible to have 3, 4 or 5 lines sharing the same platform (German S-Bahn trains do this) they tend to use long, wide platforms. The short, narrow platforms Ottawa is building are suitable for a constant flow (people get off the platform when the next train arrives). If people have to wait on the platform for multiple trains to go by until their destination comes up it will get overcrowded pretty quickly in rush hour.

I think my main point though is that Ottawa is always doing things nobody else does. While cities all over North America were building LRTs, Ottawa had to be "innovative" and spent billions on BRT only to have to replace significant portions less than 20 years later. The trillium line uses rural German rail cars (still painted DB colours) for a mass transit type function. They aren't used for that function anywhere else. There are dozens of uses of the Alstom Citadis, none are being used for a "metro like" function - they're trams and are used as such in most places; other cities use light metro type technologies or just a straight up metro for the type of service Ottawa is building. The end result of course is that Ottawa ends up spending more for comparable levels of service and therefore lags behind.

[Aylmer]

Why can't metro-grade LRT become driverless in the future?
And for all its shininess, light metro isn't everything; Vancouver's Canada Line currently has a capacity of about 6000 pphpd and a theoretical capacity of 10 000 (versus the 26 000 of our lowly 'trams').

As for width, subways aren't always as wide as Toronto's: Montreal is exactly the same width as the Citadis LRVs, but no one questions whether it might be a streetcar or not.

I just don't know if LRT is a meaningful designation when it describes low-floor, high-floor, low-capacity, high-capacity, short distance, long distance, grade-separated and mixed-traffic systems. At some point, it just means so many things that it becomes meaningless. So sure, our system is LRT, but it's undeniably high-capacity, fully grade-separated and has high frequencies. According to any reasonable definition, that's a metro.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Why can't metro-grade LRT become driverless in the future?

I'm not too sure what you mean by metro-grade but I think it might have something to do with needing a driver to avoid potential accidents if your train interacts with vehicle traffic in any way, therefore requiring human judgement for safety concerns. Such as crossing a street or being mixed with regular traffic.

Not too sure if that input helped...

[eemy]

The problem is that a lot of these things mean different things to different people. Arguably, all light rail means is that the trains are lighter and less robust (that is, at least, what it originally referred to, to the best of my knowledge). This obviously has nothing whatsoever to do with factors affecting the quality of a transit line.

The only factors that should be considered are train capacity and frequency (and perhaps also service hours). If line A runs at 15 minute frequencies and line B at 5 minute frequencies, but without full grade separation, which is the higher order of transit?

The nice thing about thinking only in terms of capacity and frequencies is that those are both quantitative values, which allows some statistical analysis. Consider a statistic - I'll call it average daily capacity - which is a measure of how many people could be carried on an average day at 100% capacity (people per day instead of pphpd); you could use this to compare two lines, or even two networks. You could use it as a service level tool to understand how service level varies between different areas or at different times. You could even use it to compare across modes, BRT vs. urban rail vs. commuter rail. It is agnostic of the implementation, which it really should be. A neutral analysis shouldn't care how people are moved, just how effectively they are moved.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Done!