Confederation Line West LRT Extension (Stage 2) [Tunney's to Baseline/Moodie] | U/C
 

The NCC has rather suddenly called a press conference for 11 AM regarding the western LRT route options....

Really... I wonder if its bad or good...

Knowing the previous stances of the NCC it wont be good, but it could be that them and the City have come to an agreement that costs a few hundred million more to bury it all and allow the 'barrier' to the waterfront to continue to be the parkway. :hell:

One of the city hall reporters says the people around city hall don't appear to know what they are planning to announce...

That makes me less optimistic than I was the first time. I am guessing it will be either "no" or some sort of a list of conditions.

Ever since Kristmanson came into the picture, the NCC has been completely silent on the issue with Kristmanson dodging the question ever time it came up. I wonder what's about to happen... with municipal election season over, but federal election season just ramping up, it's an interesting time.

The other thing is we seem to have entered an era of what John Baird wants in Ottawa, John Baird gets. He has remaned parkways, given a chunk of land to the hospital etc..

We have had a couple LRT elections now (city and provincial). I am wondering if there has been some reading the tea leaves and they have felt they better put this issue to bed in some form.

Basically it is sounding like they want the city to use a route through Rochester Field.

Reading the tweets as they come in. Basically the NCC is telling the city to look into the Rochester field alignment which the city has previously stated would cost millions more.
This picture shows the city's routing vs the NCC's routing: https://twitter.com/mpearson78/statu...29646349447168

NCC is also open to "deep tunnel" along the SJAM alignment

Apparently the NCC is claiming the two options cost the same. Not exactly sure how.

Interesting that on the federal side, no politicians present. Just a bunch of bureaucrats.

Probably because none of the local CPC MPs want their names attached to this either way. If their constituents complain about the outcome they can point to the "arm's length" NCC to assert blame.

That has always been my preferred alignment, with a station on Richmond at Maplelawn/Denbury Ave. Dominion Station is useless in my opinion as a transit hub because you can't send buses down there. Having a station anchoring the far end of Westboro Village can establish a strong pedestrian corridor along Richmond with a spur at McRae towards Westboro Station. It may cost millions more, but in terms of city building it is a logical and smarter approach.

The city really botched up the estimates for this option, I almost think they were trying to sabotage it by putting a significantly higher cost to it.

Probably because the NCC's version of the CPR routing is to sink it well into the water table, thus its costs would rise, bringing it to the same cost as a Rochester-Richmond routing.

Basically David Reevely figured it out: They cost about the same if the route runs along the surface on Byron corridor.

I suspect some people in the neighbourhood may take issue with that idea. They like the "linear park" (aka city owned dog bathroom facility)

Putting a surface route through the Byron would be difficult to do without level crossings. Putting in level crossings would constrain capacity & speed and is not desirable.

I still firmly believe the Richmond Underground route is ideal, and I think Watson needs to take advantage of the upcoming federal election to push for a federal cabinet override of the NCC.

I'd go a couple more steps than that.

Rochester Field should be developed as a TOD around the station.

I'd move Westboro Station westwards to Churchill (east side) so that Westboro Station actually lines up with Westboro's main cross street and where the station would have gone were it not designed with an access ramp. Besides making the station more central to Westboro, it would also allow the new station to be built without interfering with the operation of the current station until very late in the conversion process.

The current Westboro Station property could then be incorporated into the redevelopment of the Health Canada property to its north, with its two bridges serving as accesses.

The extra distance between the new Westboro Station and Tunney's Pasture would now permit the addition of a station at Island Park Drive, the last major cross street in the area, and one which would better serve the condo craze in the Island Park-Richmond/Wellington area.

It does seem that way.

Wasn't the purpose of that "linear park" a long-identified rapid transit corridor that was never built?

It can be done without any grade crossings, but requires a few things:

1) Either a tunnel or an elevated guideway would be necessary at Rochester Field, allowing it to cross Richmond Road, over or under the Richmond/Fraser intersection, before settling to the surface.

2) To allow for a surface alignment (lowest cost), closures would be required at all of Westminster, Windermere, Wavell, Redwood, Lockhart and Ancaster Avenues (i.e. forced onto Byron - must access Richmond Road at Woodroffe or at an edge). One or two pedestrian overpasses could be built though to maintain pedestrian access across.

3) It would need to descend underneath Woodroffe Avenue, likely in a open-air depressed alignment with an overpass (perhaps incorporating a below-grade station), as that road cannot be closed off.

4) A bored tunnel would be ideal (no property acquisition required) to rejoin at Lincoln Fields, descending into the tunnel before Richardson Avenue and rejoining just before the current Transitway station. A cut-and-cover tunnel or elevated guideway would require property acquisition or major road closures, and a surface alignment would be too problematic there.

5) The linear park is, on average, 22 metres wide. That would easily allow for a bicycle/pedestrian pathway, and some greenspace, at both the Byron and Richmond ends, except perhaps in the vicinity of the stations.

http://www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca/property-ma...ansit-corridor

Here's a quick map I made showing pedestrian crossings of the Parkway in the area...

https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8665/...4df85b63_b.jpg

edit:

Legend
Blue Crosswalk icons - protected pedestrian crossings
Blue dotted line - measures distance between New Orchard and Lanark Ave crossings
Yellow Diamond - Partial Crossings and Richmond and Carling (have to walk to an intersection to cross)
Yellow Cars - Intersection Crossing with unprotected merge lane crossing

I don't remember reading anything about the station locations. I don't think the NCC brought that up.

I'm impartial on the alignment in that area but I find the NCC's reasoning hypocritical. That talk about protecting access to the shoreline when there's a 4 lane highway already impeding access is pretty rich. And converting the Byron linear park to surface LRT just removes someone else's green space. The NCC's grass is sacred though.

Hard to believe the NCC considers an access point every kilometer (or more) as 'unimpeded continuous access'.