Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend
It is not wise to compare with REM that also serves the far reaches of the suburbs. There is not much beyond the Brossard terminus
Ottawa's urban design is different because of the Greenbelt, but at least 400,000 now live beyond the Greenbelt today and much more in the future. That is 40% of the population and increasing. It is quite clear that Ottawa does not want to run all suburban buses to a rail head inside the Greenbelt. Blair is perfect example with many Orleans routes no longer reaching Blair. This guarantees lousy service.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by phil235
As you mentioned before, the way to serve those places is by commuter rail, as they are commuter rail distances from downtown. Since that ship has mostly sailed, I think the point being made is that service would be vastly improved by having single hubs in those places, rather than trying to serve them by LRT. You can give low density suburbs far superior service with transitways than you can by LRT.
The attempt to extend LRT to the farthest reaches of Ottawa where it is almost exclusively a commuter service is OC Transpo's biggest Achilles heel. Transitways would work great for basically everything outside the Greenbelt. If we could only let transit planners lead rather than politicians planning transit, that is what we would have.
|
The main difference I see between REM and the Ottawa O-train is that REM is automated which can greatly reduce operating costs. But REM doesn't stretch a long way from downtown the way commuter rail often does. Brossard station is only 12.5km as the crow flies from downtown, and the only reason it's on the far reaches of the suburbs is because Montreal's suburbs end so close to the city centre for a metro area that size. The furthest that REM will stretch from downtown is about 30km while commuter rail regularly stretches over twice that distance. For instance, Barrie which is served by GO's Barrie line is 85km from Union, Kitchener is 90km. Even in Montreal, its two furthest Exo lines stretch 45km from downtown.
I'd argue that the only setting that's really "ideal" for commuter rail is covering these type of long distances to serve satellite cities with big gaps in development between them and the major city. Places within the metro area where there is continuous development are almost always best served with a REM-type system, and the only reason conventional commuter rail often fills that role is due to cost since it's possible for it to use existing tracks. But even Greater Toronto recognized that a REM setup was better for immediate suburbs decades ago with the proposed GO ALRT which was basically REM before REM existed. In fact, that's how the technology for the Scarborough RT and Vancouver Skytrain originated.
A REM system is much more frequent, and uses lightweight EMUs which allows more stops without the same time penalty due to fast acceleration. Conventional commuter rail can use EMUs as well but not lightweight, metro-like ones since they aren't allowed on mainline rail tracks shared with conventional trains. The only real downside to REM/ALRT systems is the higher cost required to build all new, electrified, fully grade-separated track. But in this case, cheaper is just cheaper. It isn't better value. And once the infrastructure has been built, it allows for far better service since it isn't very expensive to run trains frequently.
Prev
Linear Mode
