Quote:
Originally Posted by IRT_BMT_IND
A big goal of the O-Train was to reduce the extreme bus congestion in downtown Ottawa. Of course the pandemic and subsequent move to work-from-home was a huge black swan event. I do wonder if Ottawa would do it all again if they got the chance from today's perspective.
FWIW I also do think closing the Trillium line for years for an expansion and major rebuild but not electrifying it at the same time is typical Canadian cheapness, and there's a good chance it ends up getting closed again for electrification some time in the future.
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They cheaped out in so many ways.
1) Didn't electrify the Trillium Line. Not even with BEMU or Hydrail where this would have been the perfect application.
2) Didn't double track the Trillium Line when they were going to shut down service for a year anyway. And now it's turned out to be years more.
3) For only a little bit more could have built fully enclosed stations like the REM, with a fully automated rail system.
I won't even get into the whole trying to build a metro with a theoretical peak capacity of something like the Sheppard Subway using trams.
Sure. Ottawa got kind of a worse deal having to pitch in so much for its own rail network, compared to say the GTA. But there's some very obvious own goals that were driven entirely by the city's own decision-making.