VIA Rail network developments

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

And Casselman and Alexandria as well that will otherwise lose all service?

Isn't the plan for Via to continue to serve those places, along with your Brockvilles, Kingstons, Bellevilles etc.

As for luggage, current struggles of the bus network aside, I think that it is quite realistic for people to use line 1. Most people are used to going with carry-on for any trip less than 5 days or so as it is, which makes it pretty easy to use transit.

I'm still optimistic that we will see the system stabilize before HSR is built. Mostly because I don't think we will have a choice.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Back when VIA first starting planning the project in-house as a conventional rail project there were planned stations in Smiths Falls, Sharbot Lake, and Tweed, and they held some town hall type events in the local communities to discuss these plans. At one point VIA was open to adding stops in Havelock & Perth as well. They did caution locals that these stations would likely only have very ceremonial levels of service: only 1 or 2 trains a day and no train would stop more than once between Peterborough & Ottawa so you'd have no ability to travel locally within the corridor.

But the newer plan seems to forgo local stops entirely (other than maybe Smiths Falls). On the one hand, these communities are VERY small (Sharbot Lake, for example, has a population of about 300) so it seems a bit ridiculous to serve them. Although with only 1 train a day and using a skip-stop model to ensure no single trip stops more than once between Toronto & Ottawa the impact on travel times is minimal.

But on the other hand.. the former rail corridor in this area no longer exists. It was ripped up between Havelock & Perth quite some time ago and has since been built over in every village it passes through. Restoring the line on its exact former route means a lot of demolition. Sharbot Lake, especially.. you'd have to destroy its doctors office, dentist office, post office, grocery store, and the village's main park, in order to restore the railway ROW. I presume the plan will be to build a new ROW through the area instead. But even that is tricky because the area is full of cottages and protected wetlands.. not to mention indigenous land claims.

The original HFR concept had a lot of holes and throwing the planning over to the private sector was probably a good idea, but VIA was smart to try to get ahead of the inevitable controversies by proposing stations in the area right at the beginning to get the locals on board.

If the corridor is gone, and even if it'st here it would need a lot of grade seperation, why not avoid the turn south to Smith Falls and cut a new path further north through Missippi Mills and then through the forest to Peterbourgh with maybe something like the plan above giving options to even bypass that. The country may need a lot of grading work but avoiding expensive land aquisition might be a good trade off?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

If the corridor is gone, and even if it'st here it would need a lot of grade seperation, why not avoid the turn south to Smith Falls and cut a new path further north through Missippi Mills and then through the forest to Peterbourgh with maybe something like the plan above giving options to even bypass that. The country may need a lot of grading work but avoiding expensive land aquisition might be a good trade off?

That's what I'm thinking they'll do. The original ROW, aside from being built over in the villages, is also way too curvy for 300km/h service - they'd have to do much straightening of it that it's basically building a new corridor anyway.

There's a hydro corridor that goes from Ottawa to the Darlington nuclear plant. You could basically build the train underneath it. It's almost a perfectly straight line in the rural bits:



You're not serving Fallowfield with that route, but you could have a station in Kanata. That's probably a more attractive suburban station location anyway.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It is all about giving options and letting everybody determine what is best for them. Every major airport offers long-term parking. Airports and intercity rail stations serve large catchment areas. Not everybody is effectively served by transit/Uber/taxis . We need to serve a broad portion of the population. It is not about subsidies. It is about serving the public who may wish to use the service. Not everybody who drives wants to deal with downtown Montreal or Toronto traffic or the 401. All I have been saying is don't block out a portion of the market for the sake of one or two condo towers in a less attractive location.

To be clear I never suggested that no parking should be included. Just that it shouldn't be surface parking and should be market rate pricing. They should build whatever structure would be large enough for the typical number of people willing to pay for parking at the market rate.

That said, I'm not sure who couldn't be served effectively by taxis or ride share but who could be served by private car. Because Taxis and rideshare use the same cars, vans and SUVs on the same roads as the vehicles that people own. Well, other than perhaps someone who needs the entire interior volume of a van and couldn't spare room for the taxi or rideshare driver. But hey if someone wants to pay for market rate parking then all the power to 'em.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by phil235

Isn't the plan for Via to continue to serve those places, along with your Brockvilles, Kingstons, Bellevilles etc.

All of the Corridor operations are being privatized and handed over to the consortium that will develop HSR. There will probably be some minimal service guarantees in there. But it's not necessarily going to be like what is there now. It would, for example, make sense to build that Kingston hub, so that there aren't two competing services for major city travelers.

Originally Posted by phil235

As for luggage, current struggles of the bus network aside, I think that it is quite realistic for people to use line 1. Most people are used to going with carry-on for any trip less than 5 days or so as it is, which makes it pretty easy to use transit.

When you use HSR in most places, suitcases aren't as common as you'd think. And usually many of those that have a suitcase are getting on or off at an airport HSR station. A lot of the travel is day trip or overnight for a meeting, where an overnight bag will be enough. Think of a U of O student going home to Toronto for the weekend. Highly unlikely they'd pack a suitcase. Also, with more frequencies, these passengers get more broadly distributed through the day, so you won't end up with large groups of passengers with suitcases getting on at a time.

Originally Posted by phil235

I'm still optimistic that we will see the system stabilize before HSR is built. Mostly because I don't think we will have a choice.

HSR won't even have a shovel in the ground before Stage 2 is finished. Heck, Stage 3 could be finished before HSR enters service. There is time to stabilize OC Transpo. And it may be time to discuss Stage 3 in the context of integration and how that works in the West end. Whether at Fallowfield or somewhere in Kanata if they use that hydro corridor.

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

You're not serving Fallowfield with that route, but you could have a station in Kanata. That's probably a more attractive suburban station location anyway.

Even better. And they could plan it so that Stage 3 results in a Kanata terminus at the HSR station.

[vtecyo]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That's what I'm thinking they'll do. The original ROW, aside from being built over in the villages, is also way too curvy for 300km/h service - they'd have to do much straightening of it that it's basically building a new corridor anyway.

There's a hydro corridor that goes from Ottawa to the Darlington nuclear plant. You could basically build the train underneath it. It's almost a perfectly straight line in the rural bits:



You're not serving Fallowfield with that route, but you could have a station in Kanata. That's probably a more attractive suburban station location anyway.

It looks to me like restoring the old line down to Peterborough would still be much less expensive, even if significant straitening of the route is required.

The old line runs through an area that's relatively flat and easily accessible during construction - unlike the power line corridor - which is much more hilly and remote, and also crosses many wetlands. They'd either have to divert it as much as the southern route, or build a huge number of embankments and bridges. Either way - it seems like it's going to cheaper and easier to stick to the old line.

Because of this - expect the Smiths Falls to Peterborough segment to be the slowest segment of the line, no matter how they approach it.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by vtecyo

It looks to me like restoring the old line down to Peterborough would still be much less expensive, even if significant straitening of the route is required.

The old line runs through an area that's relatively flat and easily accessible during construction - unlike the power line corridor - which is much more hilly and remote, and also crosses many wetlands. They'd either have to divert it as much as the southern route, or build a huge number of embankments and bridges. Either way - it seems like it's going to cheaper and easier to stick to the old line.

Because of this - expect the Smiths Falls to Peterborough segment to be the slowest segment of the line, no matter how they approach it.

That's the problem. It has to be the fastest, otherwise the plan doesn't work.

As for accessibility of the route for construction - if they were able to get in there to build the hydro line, they can get in there to put tracks down.

[lrt's friend]

We are not building a rail line that maximizes the distance through shield country. We can't follow a hydro corridor without tunneling through Precambrian rock, likely at many locations.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

It may be suburban in terms of the current style of development in the area but that's not the main thing I was referring to. In common usage, the term suburban can refer to either development style (lower density, auto-orientation, etc.) or location (away from the central city and/or a separate municipality).

In this case, the station isn't 100% suburban in that it isn't very far from downtown and the inner city so it's suburban in one sense but not the other. For it to be totally suburban, it would need to be suburban in both style and location. It's possible to have even more extreme combinations such as a place that is suburban in nature but right downtown or places that are pockets of urban far out near the periphery. But not even these extremes would be 100% one or the other so the station certainly isn't. Fortunately the current development style is less important than the location in terms of future planning since the the development style of an area can be changed much more easily.

I have never heard the need to be another municipality to use the word suburban, particularly in an Ottawa context where suburban development starts a few km from downtown and the municipality goes well into the wilderness. It is only relatively close to downtown if you are driving in light traffic (hence this whole discussion) or the Confederation Line happens to be running. It is an hour walk to the Rideau Centre, mostly on desolate paths. No train passenger is going to walk to or from the station the way they would in Toronto or Montreal.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We are not building a rail line that maximizes the distance through shield country. We can't follow a hydro corridor without tunneling through Precambrian rock, likely at many locations.

That hydro corridor is much better suited than you'd think. I've actually hiked along part of it before. There's a huge strip of land (easily 100m-200m) that is cleared of trees, largely drained of swamps, and much of the grade has been softened with embankments to accommodate the service road underneath it. The course through Addington & Frontenac counties passes mostly on a high ridge (= easy grading). And of course, it's already owned by the province.

If one is building 300-320 km/h HSR level service, it would be easier to build that route than try to straighten the old Havelock corridor to meet HSR standards, where you'd be truly starting from scratch, more or less. The need to be very straight is one of the biggest things that drives up HSR costs, and this route already has that for some 200km.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That's what I'm thinking they'll do. The original ROW, aside from being built over in the villages, is also way too curvy for 300km/h service - they'd have to do much straightening of it that it's basically building a new corridor anyway.

There's a hydro corridor that goes from Ottawa to the Darlington nuclear plant. You could basically build the train underneath it. It's almost a perfectly straight line in the rural bits:



You're not serving Fallowfield with that route, but you could have a station in Kanata. That's probably a more attractive suburban station location anyway.

You have Kingston bus on your profile pic. Why do you want to bypass it?

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I have never heard the need to be another municipality to use the word suburban, particularly in an Ottawa context where suburban development starts a few km from downtown and the municipality goes well into the wilderness. It is only relatively close to downtown if you are driving in light traffic (hence this whole discussion) or the Confederation Line happens to be running. It is an hour walk to the Rideau Centre, mostly on desolate paths. No train passenger is going to walk to or from the station the way they would in Toronto or Montreal.

I never said something needed to be another municipality to be called suburban. I said the exact opposite which is that there are several different ways the term is used and mentioned that as being just one of them. In other words, there isn't one singular meaning or required condition. That's why I specifically and/or a separate municipality. But I explained the way I was using the term very clearly so if you missed it on first glance you can always re-read. And if you want an example of the various ways people use the term, there's a thread in the international city discussions section called "Is the meaning of urban and suburban relative?" where many people define how they use and understand both terms.

In terms of the actual station, the relevant thing is how the station and area could look under future plans, not how it looks today. I don't understand why that's such a difficult concept. Whether or not anyone would walk to the station now isn't relevant to whether or not the area could or should receive denser development and more pedestrian-friendly design in the future. If there's something that would prevent such changes then by all means explain that.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

In terms of the actual station, the relevant thing is how the station and area could look under future plans, not how it looks today. I don't understand why that's such a difficult concept. Whether or not anyone would walk to the station now isn't relevant to whether or not the area could or should receive denser development and more pedestrian-friendly design in the future. If there's something that would prevent such changes then by all means explain that.

But there are no plausible future plans that would fundamentally change the suburban character of the station. The 10 lane highway is not going anywhere. The giant front lawn is highly unlikely to go anywhere. The giant big box district is very busy and unlikely to go anywhere. The 1950s neighborhood to the east is unlikely to go anywhere. The wasteland to the West of the station is unlikely to go anywhere. Phil mentioned a few potential condo projects within a few km, but none of those will change the suburban character of the area and the station.

I suppose the Feds could dump an enormous amount of money into the area to urbanize it: build a new station, bury the tracks, bury the LRT, bury or elevate the highway, move a whole bunch of federal offices, etc. but that seems unlikely and it isn’t even clear it is desireable.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

You have Kingston bus on your profile pic. Why do you want to bypass it?

As much as I would like HSR to Kingston, the northern route makes more sense for an Ottawa-Toronto HSR corridor. Kingston isn't that big of a city and there's a lot of extra kilometres associated with the Lakeshore route.

Improved regional rail service throughout Southern Ontario, forming a network that connects the smaller cities to Toronto & Ottawa and to each other, is a better solution for Kingston. The eventual goal should be something like the UK's Intercity 125 system.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

That hydro corridor is much better suited than you'd think. I've actually hiked along part of it before. There's a huge strip of land (easily 100m-200m) that is cleared of trees, largely drained of swamps, and much of the grade has been softened with embankments to accommodate the service road underneath it. The course through Addington & Frontenac counties passes mostly on a high ridge (= easy grading). And of course, it's already owned by the province.

Hydro corridors aren't necessarily on land owned by the province, they just have a right of way to run transmission lines through them.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Hydro corridors aren't necessarily on land owned by the province, they just have a right of way to run transmission lines through them.

This one already is mostly provincially owned, although it is leased in the agricultural areas closer to the cities.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

That said, I'm not sure who couldn't be served effectively by taxis or ride share but who could be served by private car. Because Taxis and rideshare use the same cars, vans and SUVs on the same roads as the vehicles that people own. Well, other than perhaps someone who needs the entire interior volume of a van and couldn't spare room for the taxi or rideshare driver. But hey if someone wants to pay for market rate parking then all the power to 'em.

Taxis and ride shares aren’t free. How much it costs all depends where in the city you’re coming from. For me in Stittsville a taxi would be over $60 (probably over $80 or more now) and an Uber would be over $30, each way, so if I’m only going to be away for a day or two, it’s worth the $20 a day for parking. There is also a need for short term parking for those wanting to drop off or pick family and friends from the train.

And before you say people from Kanata/Stittsville will use Fallowfield instead, that depends on your destination. If you’re traveling west, definitely! However, when traveling east, not all trains travel to Fallowfield, and even if both of your trains do, unless traffic is bad, both take about the same amount of time to get to, and since the train takes about 20 minutes to get from Fallowfield to Tremblay, so often you are better catching it at Tremblay to save that 20 minutes

I do remember once taking the train to Montreal in a snow storm and traffic was horrible in all directions. I was taking a cab and looking at google maps to make a last minute decision at the 416 interchange to go to Fallowfield and only just barely catching the train. Then again I also remember parking my car at Tremblay 5 minutes before my train and I didn’t even have a reservation yet (I did have a biz pack voucher though).

[rocketphish]

City of Ottawa must prepare for high-speed rail
Where should the station go? Neither the NCC nor Ottawa City Hall has plans for where to put a high-speed rail hub.

Barry Padolsky, Ottawa Citizen
Published Nov 14, 2024 • Last updated 3 hours ago • 3 minute read



After decades of dreaming and hesitation, the federal government finally appears committed to building a high-speed passenger rail line linking Ottawa to Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City and Windsor.

In October, Transport Minister Anita Anand announced that an international consortium has been selected to realize this $80-billion infrastructure project — a 21st-century transportation backbone for Canada’s Quebec-Windsor corridor, home to half of Canada’s 40 million citizens.

With Canada’s population expected to soar to between 56 and 74 million by 2068, the government clearly hopes that building a “ribbon of steel” will significantly reduce the nation’s carbon footprint by offering the corridor’s millions of travellers a tempting alternative to highway gridlock and uncomfortable Air Canada seats.

The nation’s capital is strategically positioned to benefit from this visionary infrastructure investment — but are we ready?

The future high-speed passenger service (speeds up to 300 km/hr) will demand an exclusive and appropriately engineered track alignment into Ottawa. It will need an Ottawa Station located in an urban “sweet spot” that will be a magnet for the capital’s growing population, estimated to reach at least 2.3 million by 2067.

Where should this new capital gateway be located? The existing Via Rail station on Tremblay Road should not be taken for granted: its suburban location was a mid-20th century urban planning chess move, chosen by prime minister Mackenzie King and his Parisian planner, Jacques Gréber, to purge the heart of the capital of its web of railways spreading from Ottawa’s historic downtown Union Station.

Will Via Rail and the winning consortium select the Tremblay Road station by default, with its rather meandering track alignment through Ottawa’s southern suburbs? If so, will the snail-mail speeds required by this alignment defeat the objective of a high-speed (three-hour) trip between Toronto and Montreal?

Or will the Via Rail team propose a new Via Rail station at Greenboro? Yes, Greenboro, where a Via Rail station would intersect with Ottawa’s Trillium line LRT station, permitting passengers to transfer southbound directly to Ottawa International Airport and northbound to the Confederation LRT line at Bayview Station.

A Greenboro Via Rail station would also magically permit the high-speed Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal service to exploit the geographic “shortcut” through the now-abandoned CNR freight yards and avoid the longer “meandering” alignment to the existing Tremblay Road station.

Or will the Via Rail team surprise us and propose reoccupying our historic, beautifully renovated Union Station as Ottawa’s new hauptbahnhof? This iconic landmark becomes vacant after 2031 when its current temporary user, the Senate of Canada, returns to Parliament Hill. A tunnel beneath the NCC-owned Colonel By Drive could bring high-speed passenger rail directly to the heart of the capital (like other cities with high-speed rail stations).

A casual look at the NCC’s Plan for Canada’s Capital (2017-2067) and Ottawa’s latest Official Plan (2022) reveals that neither plan has a proactive vision for integrating a significant high-speed rail transit hub.

With 2.1 million passengers using the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal route (2023) and twice that amount forecast by 2067, it is time to revisit our official plans and actively provide guidance to the Via Rail team on how to integrate high-speed rail into the capital.

How about a national capital high-speed rail task force, led by the NCC, the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau, OC Transpo, the Ottawa Airport Authority, and business/community stakeholders? Ottawa should get ready for high-speed rail — even if it still remains a dream.

Barry Padolsky is an Ottawa architect, urban designer and heritage consultant.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/padolsky-city-of-ottawa-must-prepare-for-high-speed-rail

[roger1818]

Interesting. Greenboro wouldn't have a direct connection to the airport, but it would be easy to double track between South Keys and Greenboro to allow the airport trains to be extended.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

[B]City of Ottawa must prepare for high-speed rail
Where should the station go? Neither the NCC nor Ottawa City Hall has plans for where to put a high-speed rail hub.

My version of that fantasy :