Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[waterloowarrior]

http://www.merx.com/English/SUPPLIER_Men...ge=&hcode=NelOv%2bCTgW6wZkRVVJG4hg%3d%3d
RFQ - Professional Engineering Services - Hurdman Station Improvements

The City of Ottawa, Infrastructure Services Department is seeking proposals to provide professional engineering services to conduct a Detail Design for the Hurdman Station Improvements



anyone know what's planned?

[AuxTown]

from www.ctvottawa.ca

Mayor O'Brien confident Federal light rail funding is on the way
Updated: Fri May. 07 2010 7:16:44 AM

ctvottawa.ca

Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien is confident the Federal Government's share of light rail funding is coming soon.


Mayor O'Brien had informal talks with Federal Transport Minister John Baird Thursday at a run on Parliament Hill in support of the Petawawa Military Family Resource Centre.


"Both he and I are highly confident that things are moving ahead" said O'Brien.


The Ontario Government committed its share of $600,000 late last year. The Federal share is expected to be the same.


In January, Baird had said an announcement was coming soon.


"He explained to me some of the issues that he is dealing with inside his process" said the Mayor; he wouldn't expand though on what those "issues" may be.


The funding is crucial for the $2.1 billion dollar light rail project to move forward.


Mayor O'Brien hopes the Federal Government will make an announcement before the end of next month.

Should be some very interesting announcements soon! I'm starting to get skeptical that I'll ever see light rail in my lifetime though....this is taking soooooo long.

[Richard Eade]

I have been told that the Business Case for the DOTT will be released to the public in a week or two. It should be interestng reading.

[Cre47]

$42 Million contract has being accorded to Excavation Loiselle for the Rapibus section between the Gatineau River and Montee Paiement. Work will start this June. A tunnel will be built under the Greber and Maloney intersection. Doesn't seem to be the case for the other intersections, although a tunnel might be needed at the Paiement intersection especially if the Kettle Island Bridge will be the choice, but the way things are going, there will be at least several years between the completion of the Rapibus and a new bridge to Ottawa.

[waterloowarrior]

west transitway extension presentation - SW transitway to pinecrest
http://alexcullen.ca/EAs/PCG1-pres-23Apr10.pdf

final report on west transitway extension - bayshore to moodie
http://alexcullen.ca/AECERA/Final_AECERA_report_Feb10.pdf

[Richard Eade]

The DOTT Business Case and Benefit Case have been released:

Business Case
http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/media/pdf/Final%20DOTT%20Business%20Case.pdf

The Benefits of Light Rail
http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/media/pdf/The%20Benefits%20of%20Light%20Rail%20-%20Web.pdf

[Cre47]

I hope they rethink the 2031 date for the Moodie and Eagleson portion. Even with the other portions built, they would be still at risk of major delays (despite the designated lane) caused by ijncidents like what happen Tuesday which shut the 417 completely from Eagleson to Terry Fox.

[waterloowarrior]

new website also http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/en/

• Video Link

[eemy]

I don't even remotely expect this, but it would be nice if the city hired a separate architect to design each station like they did in Montreal. It's nice to see all this information consolidated like that and makes it seem a little more like a reality.

[Ciemny]

I do not see this happening, if Watson gets in I am assuming he will do everything in his power to trim the fat off the plan, he already stated as much. I know he is only one vote but if we get new faces at the council table we might again have a vote on what to do, at least there is no contract this time.

If Cullen gets in he will justify any cost increases as long as this is built.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Ciemny

I do not see this happening, if Watson gets in I am assuming he will do everything in his power to trim the fat off the plan, he already stated as much. I know he is only one vote but if we get new faces at the council table we might again have a vote on what to do, at least there is no contract this time.

If Cullen gets in he will justify any cost increases as long as this is built.

Yet a vote for Cullen would mean stagnating this city's urban development even more.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

Yet a vote for Cullen would mean stagnating this city's urban development even more.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

But then, there's the choice of voting for Larry

[jk1982]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

But then, there's the choice of voting for Larry

Meh I think Ottawa needs to get away from the establish line of failure of our mayors and just vote in someone else until it works. As for this transit route, it seems to consistently come up every election year... just build it or something already, though personally i would prefer to have two/four tunnels running through the core, one for STO and their rapibus, one for the OCTranspo Transitway routes, one for a LRT and than one for suburban..

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Cre47

I hope they rethink the 2031 date for the Moodie and Eagleson portion. Even with the other portions built, they would be still at risk of major delays (despite the designated lane) caused by ijncidents like what happen Tuesday which shut the 417 completely from Eagleson to Terry Fox.

Don't worry, they will.

The next councill will hit the reset button, so planning will start all over again in the mid 2010s.

Then the council elected in 2018 will do the same.

The 2031 date will become 2068, but the 2068 election will see another council elected that wants to push the reset button.

There's only one button.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Ciemny

I do not see this happening, if Watson gets in I am assuming he will do everything in his power to trim the fat off the plan, he already stated as much. I know he is only one vote but if we get new faces at the council table we might again have a vote on what to do, at least there is no contract this time.

If Cullen gets in he will justify any cost increases as long as this is built.

I think there are a few differences this time around: 1) the current plan was approved by a large margin on council, unlike the last one which was approved by one vote 2) Jim Watson doesn't seem to be focussing on this, unlike O'Brien, who had a downtown tunnel as one of his key promises) and hasn't really presented his own plan 3) I think the downtown tunnel makes more sense to your average voter than the Barrhaven streetcar did 4) Most "alternative" proposals floating around are lacking in technical feasibility, so even a mayor who wins on an anti-tunnel platform would still have to deal with the engineers 5) after the nonsensical statements Watson made on terrorism and the tunnel, his advisors may want to steer him away from the issue.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think there are a few differences this time around: 1) the current plan was approved by a large margin on council, unlike the last one which was approved by one vote 2) Jim Watson doesn't seem to be focussing on this, unlike O'Brien, who had a downtown tunnel as one of his key promises) and hasn't really presented his own plan 3) I think the downtown tunnel makes more sense to your average voter than the Barrhaven streetcar did 4) Most "alternative" proposals floating around are lacking in technical feasibility, so even a mayor who wins on an anti-tunnel platform would still have to deal with the engineers 5) after the nonsensical statements Watson made on terrorism and the tunnel, his advisors may want to steer him away from the issue.

Point 1 is incorrect. The previous plan was also approved by a substantial majority, going by memory, something like 15 to 7.

On Point 2 and 5, Jim Watson is well advised to steer away from LRT debate as much as possible since a specific alternative plan will give Cullen and O'Brien something concrete to target. In reality, economics will determine whether the tunnel will get built or not. The mayor and City Council will react on this basis.

On Point 3, the average voter simply does not care anymore since they don't believe that the city can successfully implement light rail.

Point 4 is an obvious statement.

[rakerman]

Two new reports show that Ottawa's Light Rail Project will generate $3 billion in economic stimulus and create 20,000 person-years of employment during construction alone.

Business Case (PDF)

Transforming Our Nation's Capital: The Benefits of Light Rail (PDF)

from Ottawa Citizen - The Case For Light Rail - May 14, 2010

[lrt's friend]

I have read 'The Benefits of Light Rail' document and it is pretty slick, but I don't buy it.

The ridership growth and time savings just are not realistic. I say this because there are limits to the amount of employment growth that can occur downtown and let's face it, this LRT plan focuses our transit plan on downtown even more so than in the past. Our employment growth will take place mostly away from the LRT line in the future.

The time savings is simply BS. The main time delays in my case occur right within our community and I am sure this is the case elsewhere in the city. Convoluted routing that has arisen over years of decisions that merged bus routes for greater efficiency has slowed down service. Future plans to streamline the route network are not going to speed things up as walking time is a factor in your commuting time. Remember, sidewalks are not always cleared promptly during the winter for those longer walks to the bus stop if you are lucky enough even to have sidewalks as most of our community does not. Not exactly a selling point for the new transit network.

There is an interesting discussion going on the Calgary board also illustrating that LRT is not the reliability panacea that everybody assumes. There are a number of people there discussing the frequency of delays on the C-Train. It is not encouraging as many are saying that delays occur regularly for a wide range of reasons. If something happens anywhere on a C-Train line, every train stops, maybe for 5 minutes, or maybe even for 30 minutes as was mentioned there.

The comments about household savings is interesting but also drivel. We all know you can save money if you used transit instead of buying a car. I just don't see how replacing the Transitway with LRT is going to make the transit network so much better that many people will make this choice. These are empty words in my opinion unless you buy a downtown condo. In that case, you will more likely walk than use transit anyways and even when you use transit, it will still more likely be a local bus instead of the extra deep LRT route.

We need to move forward in some manner but I remain a skeptic that the current plan is going to have the desired results.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have read 'The Benefits of Light Rail' document and it is pretty slick, but I don't buy it.

The ridership growth and time savings just are not realistic. I say this because there are limits to the amount of employment growth that can occur downtown and let's face it, this LRT plan focuses our transit plan on downtown even more so than in the past. Our employment growth will take place mostly away from the LRT line in the future.

The time savings is simply BS. The main time delays in my case occur right within our community and I am sure this is the case elsewhere in the city. Convoluted routing that has arisen over years of decisions that merged bus routes for greater efficiency has slowed down service. Future plans to streamline the route network are not going to speed things up as walking time is a factor in your commuting time. Remember, sidewalks are not always cleared promptly during the winter for those longer walks to the bus stop if you are lucky enough even to have sidewalks as most of our community does not. Not exactly a selling point for the new transit network.

There is an interesting discussion going on the Calgary board also illustrating that LRT is not the reliability panacea that everybody assumes. There are a number of people there discussing the frequency of delays on the C-Train. It is not encouraging as many are saying that delays occur regularly for a wide range of reasons. If something happens anywhere on a C-Train line, every train stops, maybe for 5 minutes, or maybe even for 30 minutes as was mentioned there.

The comments about household savings is interesting but also drivel. We all know you can save money if you used transit instead of buying a car. I just don't see how replacing the Transitway with LRT is going to make the transit network so much better that many people will make this choice. These are empty words in my opinion unless you buy a downtown condo. In that case, you will more likely walk than use transit anyways and even when you use transit, it will still more likely be a local bus instead of the extra deep LRT route.

We need to move forward in some manner but I remain a skeptic that the current plan is going to have the desired results.

Man, you really should see a psychologist about your depressive attitude towards the LRT plan. It goes beyond transit — it is so clear that the whole bus situation is ruining downtown, that we are sacrificing the liveability of our core for the sake of getting in and out of it. it's about time something is being done about it, and that we start making reclaiming room for people and not vehicles, whether private or public. In my opinion, whatever your idea of an ideal transit plan is, the tunnel is a necessity. Anything in the outlying areas can be reconfigured in the future.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Man, you really should see a psychologist about your depressive attitude towards the LRT plan. It goes beyond transit — it is so clear that the whole bus situation is ruining downtown, that we are sacrificing the liveability of our core for the sake of getting in and out of it. it's about time something is being done about it, and that we start making reclaiming room for people and not vehicles, whether private or public. In my opinion, whatever your idea of an ideal transit plan is, the tunnel is a necessity. Anything in the outlying areas can be reconfigured in the future.

The whole bus situation could be remedied, at least in part and temporarily, but turning the Transitway into, well, a Transitway.

Subways and LRTs don't have train cars that hop on and off the line before or after running through outlying low-density suburban single-use "neighbourhoods". Why does the Busway? Get rid of the local and "express" routes and treat the Transitway like a subway of buses that happens to not be underground.