VIA Rail network developments

[GradualFuture]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I do hope the parking lots get redeveloped with hotels, residential and offices. Make it a mini Downtown, where travelers can stay as soon as they arrive. Strange no hotels have ever been built directly connected to the station.

Amen. Between development like these and the LRT it would make the VIA rail station not feel like such a separated entity from the city itself. Its exciting to picture the east side of Ottawa becoming more of a continuous fabric with the downtown core.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by GradualFuture

Amen. Between development like these and the LRT it would make the VIA rail station not feel like such a separated entity from the city itself. Its exciting to picture the east side of Ottawa becoming more of a continuous fabric with the downtown core.

Agreed, and when you look a the surrounding area, there is a chance it could look drastically different by the time HSR is here. It's unfortunate that the VIA station is in such close proximity to the 417 and Riverside Dr. (major arterial) which limits a bit of land-use potential. But even then, consider the nearby parcels that could be (re)developed over the next two decades:

- Pickering Pl.
- Tremblay / St. Laurent
- Empty lots along Terminal Ave. at Trainyards
- Parcels on Terminal Ave. west of Riverside Dr.
- NCC lands at Hurdman
- RCMP campus
- Baseball stadium (hope this one stays)
- Numerous lots along Coventry Rd. (believe there is already a multi-tower proposal)
- Potential St. Laurent shopping centre mixed-use dev.

Along with the Rideau River active transportation bridge refurbishment coming soon, and with proposed developments on Robinson Ave. across the river, and with Line 1 already being there (10 min between downtown and the VIA station), I think there is huge potential to extend the urban fabric across this area.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Swiss Rail facilitates parking. It seems like a normal thing in train stations.

https://www.sbb.ch/en/tickets-offers/private-transport/car-parking.html

Normal doesn't have any bearing on whether something is good or bad. You don't determine that by comparing to other places; you just need to look at the benefits and drawbacks. Their system may be good overall and that could be one of the few flaws meaning not something to emulate. And of course that's without considering the amount or format of parking (underground, surface, etc.) and the cost.

[rdaner]

On UT this article is apparently leaking the winner:

https://www.noovo.info/video/un-projet-de-tgv-entre-quebec-et-toronto-bientot-lance.html

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Swiss Rail facilitates parking. It seems like a normal thing in train stations.

https://www.sbb.ch/en/tickets-offers/private-transport/car-parking.html

Is it normal? I’m struggling to think of many major rail terminals with significant parking onsite. Even in the bigger Canadian and US cities. I think it’s more common to take transit or a cab/uber, at least to stations in urban areas.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Is it normal? I’m struggling to think of many major rail terminals with significant parking onsite. Even in the bigger Canadian and US cities. I think it’s more common to take transit or a cab/uber, at least to stations in urban areas.

I would hardly consider Ottawa’s station as “urban”

Avignon TGV or Rome Tiburtina are probably the closest Ottawa analogies I can think of in Europe. Both have large parking facilities.

Rome Termini has parking. Most German stations have parking facilities endorsed by DB, including Munich for example.

https://www.bahnhof.de/en/muenchen-hbf/parking-spaces

And Berlin

https://www.bahnhof.de/en/berlin-hauptbahnhof/parking-spaces

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Normal doesn't have any bearing on whether something is good or bad. You don't determine that by comparing to other places; you just need to look at the benefits and drawbacks. Their system may be good overall and that could be one of the few flaws meaning not something to emulate. And of course that's without considering the amount or format of parking (underground, surface, etc.) and the cost.

This is a lot of the problem Ottawa has is they don’t look to other examples and see what best practices are. Everything has to be a made in Ottawa solution and it often doesn’t work (see Confederation Line fiasco, Busway nonsense, cornfield hockey arena, etc.)

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by acottawa

This is a lot of the problem Ottawa has is they don’t look to other examples and see what best practices are. Everything has to be a made in Ottawa solution and it often doesn’t work (see Confederation Line fiasco, Busway nonsense, cornfield hockey arena, etc.)

You totally misread the point. There's nothing wrong with looking at other places for best practices. In fact it's good if some correctly. But correctly means looking at the practices in other places to see what the benefits and drawbacks are. You look to places that have solved problems that you're struggling with for instance and see what solution(s) they found. You don't just use the fact that another place is doing something as justification for doing it yourself. You look at what benefits or drawbacks resulted from a place using that practice and promote or reject the practice based of the observed result. You point to a place and say, "Hey look. That place does that practice, and the result is _________. So perhaps we can use that practice to achieve that result as well." And of course, you make sure the relation between the practice and result is actually causal rather than correlative.

But your reply seemed to suggest that Ottawa should do something merely because other places do it without pointing to the specific benefits and drawbacks that resulted. You just mentioned that it was common without demonstrating in any way that the practice is good let along "best". Yet in our case in NA, we have countless examples of parking near... everything. So we obviously don't need examples from other continents to understand the benefits and drawbacks of parking lots in prominent locations. In other words, you have to establish that something actually is a best practice and why, not just that it's a practice. And that's the case whether or not the practice is common.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by phil235

Is it normal? I’m struggling to think of many major rail terminals with significant parking onsite. Even in the bigger Canadian and US cities. I think it’s more common to take transit or a cab/uber, at least to stations in urban areas.

It's fairly common in Europe from what I've seen. You're definitely not going to get acres (or any) surface parking, but off the top of my head, St. Pancras Int'l (London) and Gare du Nord (Paris) both have decently sizeable overground and underground parking structures, respectively. In both cases they house numerous rental car agencies. They are definitely not the primary means that most people use to access the stations, however.

I think our VIA station needs to maintain some parking but it should be consolidated into a small parking structure rather than multiple surface lots as is currently the case.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

But your reply seemed to suggest that Ottawa should do something merely because other places do it without pointing to the specific benefits and drawbacks that resulted. You just mentioned that it was common without demonstrating in any way that the practice is good let along "best". Yet in our case in NA, we have countless examples of parking near... everything. So we obviously don't need examples from other continents to understand the benefits and drawbacks of parking lots in prominent locations. In other words, you have to establish that something actually is a best practice and why, not just that it's a practice. And that's the case whether or not the practice is common.

As I said, Ottawa has created a lot of problems for itself by disregarding best practices and thinking it has some brilliant made in Ottawa solution. To me there needs to be some pretty convincing evidence to disregard best (or as you say just normal) practices, particularly given Ottawa's terrible track record.

Station parking is a common practice around the world and a near universal practice for suburban stations such as Ottawa's.

[lrt's friend]

Tremblay Road station is both suburban and industrial. It is surrounded by highways, and transit yards. It may be on Line 1 but is hardly a transit hub. So the choice would be very indirect transit or $50 for Uber/taxi? I don't even see the immediate area being particularly attractive for developers. So, is our goal, to make intercity rail less attractive to the public? VIA has already implemented parking fees. That alone is effective in getting people to consider alternatives. That is enough. Parking structures are very expensive and until there economic reason to fund that, the status quo is fine. This is not downtown and won't ever be. It has been 60 years with LeBreton and look at how little has been accomplished right next to downtown. We can't compare with Union in Toronto or Gare Centrale which are both in the centre of the urban fabric.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by acottawa

As I said, Ottawa has created a lot of problems for itself by disregarding best practices and thinking it has some brilliant made in Ottawa solution. To me there needs to be some pretty convincing evidence to disregard best (or as you say just normal) practices, particularly given Ottawa's terrible track record.

Station parking is a common practice around the world and a near universal practice for suburban stations such as Ottawa's.

This needs to be on plaque in Ottawa's council chamber. We need to consider what Ottawa is rather than copy completely different situations but man we would be so much better off following almost anyone else on these things.

[7empest]

I agree with the sentiment to improve the local transit and accessibility to the Via Rail station and less focus on parking lots.

[Acajack]

Ottawa Station currently has about 300 surface parking spaces. I would assume that if it becomes a higher-volume TGV station it will have at least as many if not more parking spaces, though probably in a multi-level structure. Let's hope.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by acottawa

As I said, Ottawa has created a lot of problems for itself by disregarding best practices and thinking it has some brilliant made in Ottawa solution. To me there needs to be some pretty convincing evidence to disregard best (or as you say just normal) practices, particularly given Ottawa's terrible track record.

Station parking is a common practice around the world and a near universal practice for suburban stations such as Ottawa's.

There is indeed pretty convincing evidence for the downsides of using land in prominent locations for parking rather than more productive purposes. Particularly if it's in any way subsidized (which in NA it usually is). Which is why people object to it in the first place. There would need to be exceptionally convincing counter-evidence to offset that, aka, a lot more than "it's common". Because it's common can just mean that it's a common problem.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

There is indeed pretty convincing evidence for the downsides of using land in prominent locations for parking rather than more productive purposes. Particularly if it's in any way subsidized (which in NA it usually is). Which is why people object to it in the first place. There would need to be exceptionally convincing counter-evidence to offset that, aka, a lot more than "it's common". Because it's common can just mean that it's a common problem.

Is Ottawa station a prominent location? Is Ottawa airport a prominent location? Is downtown Ottawa a prominent location? Which has no parking? Which should have no parking? We better be careful in what we hope for. What about people coming from rural areas where there is no transit? Will they sometimes want/need to go to all three locations?

[7empest]

I don't think anyone is saying no parking, of course there will be some. It's that it shouldn't be the main focus. Instead we should improve the integration with the local transit system.

It's unfortunate that the old Central train station is what it is and maybe that can be remedied somehow, but in the meantime we should continue to improve the local transit connections to Tremblay and Fallowfield stations.

[LRTeverywhere]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I don't even see the immediate area being particularly attractive for developers.

Well there is the lands immediately next to the station being actively redevoloped, theres that massive rezoning at Coventry and Belfast, Trainyards, while slow seems to still be planning to redevolop the areas to the south. And Via has been apprehensive to let us build a bridge through the area because of their potential redevolopment plans.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by 7empest

It's unfortunate that the old Central train station is what it is and maybe that can be remedied somehow, .

Unfortunate for sure but I don't think so. In terms of downtown Ottawa Union Station, that train left the station long ago.

They'll definitely use Montréal Centrale and Toronto Union for this project, but there the railway corridors are still intact. There are no such corridors left to and from downtown Ottawa.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 7empest

I don't think anyone is saying no parking, of course there will be some. It's that it shouldn't be the main focus. Instead we should improve the integration with the local transit system.

It's unfortunate that the old Central train station is what it is and maybe that can be remedied somehow, but in the meantime we should continue to improve the local transit connections to Tremblay and Fallowfield stations.

There is a transit station right next to the train station. It would be nice if the connection was covered, but other than that I can’t see how the station could be more integrated.