VIA Rail network developments

[OTSkyline]

I think we're way overestimating the volume of connections between HSR and the Airport.

Does anything state that it needs to be separate station/tracks than the existing VIA? Our current VIA station is already sorta close to downtown but has great access to LRT, highway & we're looking at creating a dense hub or residential nearby. Would be a shame to build an HSR station in the boonies with little to no connection to anything.

Otherwise, I would say a station next to Greenboro would be optimal. On Line 2, next to transitway, Bank St, opportunity to densify South Keys and fairly in the middle of the City.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

I think we're way overestimating the volume of connections between HSR and the Airport.

Agreed. Almost no one would take the train from Toronto or Montreal to catch a flight at YOW.

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Does anything state that it needs to be separate station/tracks than the existing VIA? Our current VIA station is already sorta close to downtown but has great access to LRT, highway & we're looking at creating a dense hub or residential nearby. Would be a shame to build an HSR station in the boonies with little to no connection to anything.

There is no such requirement. It would strictly be to save time on the Toronto-Montreal trip.

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Otherwise, I would say a station next to Greenboro would be optimal. On Line 2, next to transitway, Bank St, opportunity to densify South Keys and fairly in the middle of the City.

Hardly optimal. It is the worst of both worlds. Greenboro has the poor vehicular access of a downtown station with the lack of surrounding density of a suburban station.

[DarthVader_1961]

Interesting video on our rail system…

If someone could embed this, I would appreciate it

https://youtu.be/JlDFUh0xkSc

• Video Link

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

I think we're way overestimating the volume of connections between HSR and the Airport.

Does anything state that it needs to be separate station/tracks than the existing VIA? Our current VIA station is already sorta close to downtown but has great access to LRT, highway & we're looking at creating a dense hub or residential nearby. Would be a shame to build an HSR station in the boonies with little to no connection to anything.

Both YYZ and YUL have issues with capacity, and have limited areas to expand. YOW can potentially capitalize on this instead of being threatened by HSR by offering direct flights to destinations not covered by either airport, or taking on peak travel capacity. Being less than an hour from Montreal or 3 hours from Toronto with a direct-to-airport link could be a game changer and possibly make YOW an alternate hub.

• Toronto’s Pearson airport says it’s imposing new limits on flights this March break and summer to reduce delays

• Montreal’s decades-long airport curse is about to get much worse

[lrt's friend]

HSR will remove a lot of short haul flights freeing up space in both Toronto and Montreal. YOW would also have fewer flights. Keep the station where it is.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Both YYZ and YUL have issues with capacity, and have limited areas to expand. YOW can potentially capitalize on this instead of being threatened by HSR by offering direct flights to destinations not covered by either airport, or taking on peak travel capacity. Being less than an hour from Montreal or 3 hours from Toronto with a direct-to-airport link could be a game changer and possibly make YOW an alternate hub.

This sort of strategy works best for discount airlines. I am not sure YOW's landing fees align with supporting discount airlines (Flair recently cited that as a reason for departing).

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

HSR will remove a lot of short haul flights freeing up space in both Toronto and Montreal. YOW would also have fewer flights. Keep the station where it is.

The only flights that will be reduced are the ones between Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. That's a drop in the bucket in the amount of traffic in YUL snd YYZ, hardly enough to "free up space".

Keeping the current station means slowing down HSR, adding a significant amount of time between a Toronto-Montreal run. Winding through the 30km or so tracks from Barrhaven to Mer Bleue at 50kph will easily add 20 to 30 minutes. HSR needs the ability to breeze through and stop for a few minutes in Ottawa and be quickly on its way to either Toronto or Montreal.

Having an HSR station in the city centre is actually not common, usually it's only when the city is the terminal destination. Certainly not in China, and in Europe the large cities have several stations, and if it is a en route destination the trains stop at a by-pass station for efficiency. They just have their stations interconnected with good public transit.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by acottawa

This sort of strategy works best for discount airlines. I am not sure YOW's landing fees align with supporting discount airlines (Flair recently cited that as a reason for departing).

Ottawa is just clueless to the concept of competitiveness, that's why the economy here is comatose.

[lrt's friend]

So Gare Centrale should also not be used because it is even more awkwardly located with trains continuing onto Quebec City. One of the advantages of rail is having the station in or close to downtown. Relocating to Greenboro or the airport with no direct train to downtown and a travel time of 30 to 50 minutes to downtown makes no sense.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

The only flights that will be reduced are the ones between Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. That's a drop in the bucket in the amount of traffic in YUL snd YYZ, hardly enough to "free up space".

Keeping the current station means slowing down HSR, adding a significant amount of time between a Toronto-Montreal run. Winding through the 30km or so tracks from Barrhaven to Mer Bleue at 50kph will easily add 20 to 30 minutes. HSR needs the ability to breeze through and stop for a few minutes in Ottawa and be quickly on its way to either Toronto or Montreal.

Having an HSR station in the city centre is actually not common, usually it's only when the city is the terminal destination. Certainly not in China, and in Europe the large cities have several stations, and if it is a en route destination the trains stop at a by-pass station for efficiency. They just have their stations interconnected with good public transit.

I agree that there are good reasons to find an alternate routing through Ottawa, but connecting to the airport is not one of them.

The main advantage of the current station is great transit and road connectivity, but it has a slow approach for the train.

A Greenboro station would have average transit and poor road connectivity but would have a faster approach.

A fantasy station in a new airport terminal would be that much further from the city centre, making it even less competitive to flying. It would also require:

1. The airport authority to invest in a new terminal
2. The province to invest in a new bypass that would connect to the new terminal
3. The city to invest in a new transit line to the new terminal.

I can't see money being found for all of that, especially when you end up with a station at an even worse location.

[FrostyMug]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

So Gare Centrale should also not be used because it is even more awkwardly located with trains continuing onto Quebec City. One of the advantages of rail is having the station in or close to downtown. Relocating to Greenboro or the airport with no direct train to downtown and a travel time of 30 to 50 minutes to downtown makes no sense.

Totally agree. There have been many posts regarding the need to have efficient and quick travel between the airport and downtown Ottawa. If we're suddenly going to put high speed rail far out into the suburbs it completely contradicts that argument. HSR should be the replacement for most air travel in the corridor. The people traveling for the most part aren't going to the suburbs. Tourists and business travelers will for the most part want to be downtown. While I'd love to see the old train station across from the Chateau restored as a rail link I think Tremblay can be made to work without hugely slowing down the route and at far less cost than running rail all the way to the old station. The distance from Fallowfield to Tremblay is not that far in the scale of the entire line. So the train runs at a lower speed for that short stretch. What will it add to the overall time of the route? A couple minutes? It could be elevated through the suburban areas to gain some speed and remove level crossings (which should be done either way.)

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by FrostyMug

Totally agree. There have been many posts regarding the need to have efficient and quick travel between the airport and downtown Ottawa. If we're suddenly going to put high speed rail far out into the suburbs it completely contradicts that argument. HSR should be the replacement for most air travel in the corridor. The people traveling for the most part aren't going to the suburbs. Tourists and business travelers will for the most part want to be downtown. While I'd love to see the old train station across from the Chateau restored as a rail link I think Tremblay can be made to work without hugely slowing down the route and at far less cost than running rail all the way to the old station. The distance from Fallowfield to Tremblay is not that far in the scale of the entire line. So the train runs at a lower speed for that short stretch. What will it add to the overall time of the route? A couple minutes? It could be elevated through the suburban areas to gain some speed and remove level crossings (which should be done either way.)

I think it is thinking like this that will cause this project to fail. To be even remotely plausible as something people want to take it needs to get from Montreal to Toronto in under 3 hours. A 20 minute trip from Tremblay to Fallowfield uses 10 percemt of the time budget to cover 1-2% of the distance. An elevated track through all of Ottawa will use a good chunk of the money budget.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Both YYZ and YUL have issues with capacity, and have limited areas to expand. YOW can potentially capitalize on this instead of being threatened by HSR by offering direct flights to destinations not covered by either airport, or taking on peak travel capacity. Being less than an hour from Montreal or 3 hours from Toronto with a direct-to-airport link could be a game changer and possibly make YOW an alternate hub.

• Toronto’s Pearson airport says it’s imposing new limits on flights this March break and summer to reduce delays

• Montreal’s decades-long airport curse is about to get much worse

Can't see your Montreal story, but your Pearson one is talking about restriction at peak holiday season. Most of those travelers have zero interest in taking a flight from Ottawa. The demand for those flights would probably move to Hamilton. Likewise, Montreal traffic could more easily move to St-Hubert as their reliever airport than YOW.

YOW is more likely to lose customers to YUL than gain customers with HSR. Slots will get consolidated and airlines will simply fly fewer frequencies to more destinations with larger airplanes.

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think it is thinking like this that will cause this project to fail. To be even remotely plausible as something people want to take it needs to get from Montreal to Toronto in under 3 hours. A 20 minute trip from Tremblay to Fallowfield uses 10 percemt of the time budget to cover 1-2% of the distance. An elevated track through all of Ottawa will use a good chunk of the money budget.

The good thing about a private developer is that the private sector is more resistant to scope creep of this sort, which politicians will always inject into most publicly run projects.

On this project, there's literally only one airport that most seem to care about: YUL. If they line gets to Quebec City, maybe YQB will be a suburban station. I would bet money there will be no moving the principal station in Ottawa from what is there now. Unless the developer somehow gets a whole lot of land that they can develop around the station harvest extra value. Can't see that at Greenboro.

[FrostyMug]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think it is thinking like this that will cause this project to fail. To be even remotely plausible as something people want to take it needs to get from Montreal to Toronto in under 3 hours. A 20 minute trip from Tremblay to Fallowfield uses 10 percemt of the time budget to cover 1-2% of the distance. An elevated track through all of Ottawa will use a good chunk of the money budget.

I'll agree that it's thinking like this that will cause the project to fail.

I don't believe for one second that a 20 minute trip from Fallowfield to Tremblay is acceptable. Perhaps my 1 to 2 minutes was poorly stated but I would expect that stretch with improvements to be 5? minutes in duration. No level crossings, new/better track, no yard conflict with CN lines. It's not going to run at 300kph but it's certainly going/has to be a lot faster than now. More to the point if you can't resolve that small problem in little old Ottawa how will it be overcome in much larger Montreal and the GTA. The point is the actual performance cannot remain the same and no one should expect it to.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by FrostyMug

I'll agree that it's thinking like this that will cause the project to fail.

I don't believe for one second that a 20 minute trip from Fallowfield to Tremblay is acceptable. Perhaps my 1 to 2 minutes was poorly stated but I would expect that stretch with improvements to be 5? minutes in duration. No level crossings, new/better track, no yard conflict with CN lines. It's not going to run at 300kph but it's certainly going/has to be a lot faster than now. More to the point if you can't resolve that small problem in little old Ottawa how will it be overcome in much larger Montreal and the GTA. The point is the actual performance cannot remain the same and no one should expect it to.

None of that will require the line to be elevated from Fallowfield to Ottawa. It's already mostly grade separated. A few more grade separations and a bit of trenching would probably speed up things a few minutes.

Keep in mind that when designing this route and deciding where to spend money, they designers are going to optimize dollars vs. time saved. If they have to spend $500M to save 5 mins in one place vs. $100M to save 2 mins vs. a billion to save 25 mins, they are probably going to pick the latter. Where improvements on the Fallowfield-Tremblay stretch stack up in their list of potential investments is hard to say.

[Richard Eade]

VIA’s current timing between Fallowfield and Ottawa Station varies between 24 minutes (mid-afternoon) and 17 minutes.(last train, after 10pm). The travel time gets better as the evening wears on – presumably because road traffic is lighter, so there is less worry at road crossings. Many of the crossings are grade separated, but there are some that would need separating.

Rebuilding the existing corridor will not be cheap. Currently it is only single-track, and a lot of the infrastructure is old. For example, the bridge over Prince of Wales and the one over the Rideau River will need to be replaced completely. This means shutting down existing train service while things are rebuilt. If a new bridge were built to the Airport, then current service could continue until the new station opened.

Also, if a new corridor is being chosen from Toronto up. It is possible that it might not be easy to connect to the existing track. And, how much of that existing track is already owned by VIA?

There is nothing to say that there can't be two stations. One for local trains (Tremblay) and one for high-speed trains (airport).

[Admiral Nelson]

It would be a real shame if we shortchanged Ottawa by moving HFR/HSR to yet another station even further away from downtown. The advantage of direct LRT access for everyone along the future Line 1/Line 3 is huge, to me at any rate.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The good thing about a private developer is that the private sector is more resistant to scope creep of this sort, which politicians will always inject into most publicly run projects.

On this project, there's literally only one airport that most seem to care about: YUL. If they line gets to Quebec City, maybe YQB will be a suburban station. I would bet money there will be no moving the principal station in Ottawa from what is there now. Unless the developer somehow gets a whole lot of land that they can develop around the station harvest extra value. Can't see that at Greenboro.

It isn’t about airport access, it is about time and budget. If Greenboro can save 10-15 minutes and/or billions of dollars there is a strong incentive to do it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It isn’t about airport access, it is about time and budget. If Greenboro can save 10-15 minutes and/or billions of dollars there is a strong incentive to do it.

I wasn't suggesting, it's about the airport. Just saying there's only one airport in this project that's a priority to serve.

As for Greenboro, sure, if there's a case the developer will pursue it. I just can't see the case though. Especially when the travel time that determines the market is door-to-door, not just how long is spent on the train itself. And moving to Greenboro simply trades time on the train for time on transit and another transfer to get downtown.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I wasn't suggesting, it's about the airport. Just saying there's only one airport in this project that's a priority to serve.

As for Greenboro, sure, if there's a case the developer will pursue it. I just can't see the case though. Especially when the travel time that determines the market is door-to-door, not just how long is spent on the train itself. And moving to Greenboro simply trades time on the train for time on transit and another transfer to get downtown.

The proponents are going to be after the 40 flights a day between Toronto and Montreal. Making Ottawa bureaucrats spend an extra 10 minutes getting to the station is going to be pretty far down the list.