LRT Stage 3

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Who would regularly walk 30 minutes to rapid transit? And that is the closest point. I live in the Bank Street corridor, but it is so difficult for me to get to the urban part of Bank Street. Yes, I can walk 30 or so minutes to South Keys and another 30 or so minutes from Dow's Lake, but is that really useable transit on our city's main Street?

That's not quite the point that I was trying to make. The fact that there's already a station within a 30 minute walk means that it's awfully close for a second parallel rapid transit service. You can do buses or even streetcars to provide transit on Bank and link it to rapid transit effectively. Those links already exist.

The only reason transit is slow and off schedule on Bank is traffic. If we got rid of the sacred on street parking you could provide efficient transit there by doing transit priority for far less than building a subway 2km from an existing rail line.

If Line 2 didn't exist my answer would be different, but since it does, a Bank St Subway is an expensive vanity project

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

It's not that I wouldn't love a Bank Street subway either, but if I got a cheque for 10 billion from Dougie, I'd be hard pressed to justify it when vast swaths of the city are a transit desert, as a Bank St Subway would be in that price range. I feel like we can get more bang for the buck elsewhere

Fair point. Or more bang for the buck spending it on improvements for buses in that corridor. But I do think that it makes a whole lot of sense to upgrade there - you would reap all-day rewards with basic improvements.

[lrt's friend]

Bank Street transit was a problem even back in the 1940s. Streetcars were blocked by traffic and streetcars blocked traffic. It was lose, lose. Buses were an improvement because they could move in and out of traffic or any obstacles. We can add more buses but the service will become more unreliable over time as we add more density. This is not good for business. If we really want to make Bank Ottawa's high street, a subway is the only way to go in the long run. I will not live to see it. As others have pointed out, rapid transit has run well around our old retail streets and most of our urban neighbourhoods. This will limit the potential of improving old urban Ottawa. What is around Hurdman? Nothing? What is around Bayview? Nothing. Maybe someday, but at least 10 years away. A lot of our transit stations are built around nothingness and fail to effectively serve existing residents. Not always, but station locations are often disappointing.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

That's not quite the point that I was trying to make. The fact that there's already a station within a 30 minute walk means that it's awfully close for a second parallel rapid transit service. You can do buses or even streetcars to provide transit on Bank and link it to rapid transit effectively. Those links already exist.

The only reason transit is slow and off schedule on Bank is traffic. If we got rid of the sacred on street parking you could provide efficient transit there by doing transit priority for far less than building a subway 2km from an existing rail line.

If Line 2 didn't exist my answer would be different, but since it does, a Bank St Subway is an expensive vanity project

The principal advocate for the Bank St. subway on here is also a large advocate for protecting street parking on Bank. Toronto is not Ottawa. The feds and Queen's Park will never sign up to spend billions on a Bank St subway, just because some Ottawa residents want to protect street parking in a rich area. The "War on the Car" nonsense works in Toronto. Ottawa doesn't have swing ridings for anybody to care about this.