The future of Ottawa's Transit

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I'm surprised the weirdo babbling on about "flying ships" at the end got so much airtime.

It was almost worth it to have everybody laugh at him at the end.

Regarding the somewhat divergent conversation topics at the discussion tables...some of the leaders are better than others at keeping participants on track. That being said, it's important to let people vent to a certain degree.

Who was leading your table?

[waterloowarrior]

2006 census - mode of travel to work

2001 City of Ottawa - 20.8%
2006 City of Ottawa - 21.9%

transit use is increasing, which is good news. 30% is the goal though... (not sure exactly what measure they are using)

2001 Ottawa-Hull CMA - 18.5%
2006 Ottawa-Gatineau CMA - 19.4%

2001 Ontario side - 20.1%
2006 Ontario side - 21.2%

2001 Quebec Side - 13.9%
2006 Quebec Side - 14.4%

[waterloowarrior]

Ottawa, Gatineau restart joint transit study
Jake RupertOttawa Citizen
Tuesday, March 04, 2008

With the future of mass transit in Ottawa to be settled over the next year, municipal officials and bureaucrats on both sides of the Ottawa River must try to integrate what seem likely to be very different systems.

Last year, Gatineau approved a $195-million bus rapid transit network that will make transitways and dedicated bus lanes the backbone of its system.


Under that plan, Gatineau buses will continue to cross the river into downtown Ottawa.

Ottawa is moving to get transit of any kind off downtown streets.

Earlier this week, city officials put forward four options for transit. All are anchored by a downtown tunnel, and the leading contender would make light-rail the backbone of Ottawa's system.

Ottawa's deputy city manager for transit, planning and the environment, Nancy Schepers, says the two cities are restarting a study that had been put on hold after Ottawa City Council killed the previous light-rail plan in 2006 and went back to the drawing board.

The preliminary work for the study is done, Ms. Schepers said, and the National Capital Commission, which will lead it, will now hire a consultant to find the best and most cost-effective ways to link the transit systems.

She says she hopes there will be concrete, practical options to choose from at about the same time as Ottawa makes its final decision on a new mass-transit network.

"We have been working with them quite closely," Ms. Schepers said. "It's in all of our interests to have an efficient, reliable network that works for both areas."

Ms. Schepers said the options to link the systems were plentiful.

She said Gatineau riders could transfer to Ottawa's system on either side of the river if the Ontario city opted for a light-rail system; links using bridges or even more tunnels could be found; or the current status quo could be continued.

Céline Gauthier, spokeswoman for Gatineau's transit company, said all options would be considered, but her company was committed to its new system.

"We have our own needs and our own project that is real and being done," she said. "We don't know how it will connect yet, and that's the goal of the study."

To help settle on a plan and work out other transit issues, the cities are looking at establishing a joint committee of politicians and bureaucrats.

In Ottawa, Rideau-Rockcliffe Councillor Jacques Legendre is leading the charge to have the cities work more collaboratively.

Ms. Schepers said she wasn't opposed to a joint committee, but how decisions get made and how they will be incorporated into each city's governance process still must be ironed out.

© Ottawa Citizen 2008

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=aebbb154-8059-43a9-800a-2bc3a8c73b82&k=50194

[TransitZilla]

I had both David Jeanes and David Gladstone at my table. It was... interesting.

David Jeanes was extremely anti-bus (to be expected, and I don't think anyone is arguing for a bus or bus/LRT tunnel). His preference seemed to be for option 3, with the Bowesville-Greenboro section as DLRT, not BRT.

I suppose a case can be made for that- I was OK with it at the time but after thinking about it more, you would end up with a double-transfer trip into downtown from Riverside South- one at Bowesville to the diesel O-Train and one at Bayview. Another guy was suggesting bringing the diesel O-Train downtown along Sparks to Bank, but I'm not sure how workable that is.

Jeanes is also opposed to the Bowesville site as a maintenance yard location and seemed to think the St-Laurent location made more sense (I think I agree given that the east-west line will be far busier).

Right now, I'm sort of stuck between options 3 and 4. I don't know if 3 has a lot going for it other than lower capital costs, though, and 4 is cheaper in the long run, would have greater future capacity, would probably be more reliable and eliminates the Riverside South double-transfer problem that the DRT-to-Bowesville option has. Option 4, however, does have more of a directional imbalance in the tunnel (with 4,000 more per hour from the west), and if Gatineau riders were to enter the tunnel from the west (which is the most logical choice), it would make it even worse.

Other things we discussed:
-there was consensus that a bus or LRT-based east-west route that does not go through downtown is still needed. Baseline/Heron was the preferred option. This provides a connection between the southwest and southeast transitways and provides some redundancy in the system.
-to allow the above to happen, there was agreement that a bus connection between Baseline and Lincoln Fields should be maintained.
-a priority should be placed on the Hospital corridor. The facilitator mentioned that this has been mentioned frequently.
-one option we came up with would be to leave the transitway from Hurdman-Blair as BRT, and have the LRT run from Hurdman to Blair&Innes via the hospital corridor. This would do a couple things:
1)allow for a east-west route from Kanata-Bayshore-SW Transitway-Baseline/Heron-SE Transitway-Hurdman-Orleans
2)allow for continued operation on the Transitway from Hurdman-Blair- also no construction impacts during conversion
3)provide for a connection from Orleans to the hospitals- Orleans-Alta Vista is the largest travel demand line in 2031 not pointing downtown.

David Gladstone was pretty quiet, but was extremely negative when he did speak. His biggest problem was the lack of use of the PoW bridge to Gatineau.
It seems that will be addressed by another study, but I can see 2 options:
1)Gatineau buses come across the river on an existing bridge (or the PoW bridge converted to bus- not sure if this is possible) and drop passengers at Bayview.
2)ELRT extended into Gatineau via PoW bridge and feeds into tunnel.
Extending the Diesel O-Train doesn't make much sense because you end up with another double-transfer for Rapibus customers: one at Montcalm station to the O-Train, and another at Bayview to LRT.

All in all, it is a pretty good plan and it was a good discussion. I'm looking forward to seeing more detail on the grey arrows (Ms. Schepers said this is coming).

A critical question to the success of the network will be how the off-peak local routes in Orleans, Barrhaven and Kanata are structured. In the peak hour, a rider from Orleans would probably take a direct bus to Blair and the LRT from there. One transfer, 2 minute LRT headway, no big deal. But off-peak, if the rider has to take the LRT to Blair, then a bus to Jeanne d'Arc, then a local bus to get home, that's a tough sell.

[Kitchissippi]

I forget his name. I didn't expect much of a discussion, really, but it was interesting how much consensus there was despite the divergent views.

One thing that amused me is seeing some of the same staff who ten years ago insisted that a tunnel was not necessary therefore they were not going to study it. Now the tables have turned and somehow the tune is nothing but a tunnel will work.

[lrt's friend]

1. Why are none of the options showing some future LRT link with the PoW bridge? It would simplify thing so much if Gatineau residents could transfer from the Rapidbus line to the LRT going to Ottawa and it might just use the same track going into the tunnel.

I don't think Ottawans should have to pay for laying track across the POW bridge, nor the rail cars to provide service to Quebec residents. As it was correctly pointed out tonight that there is a need and it would be nice to get STO buses off of Ottawa streets, but I doubt that this will happen unless Gatineau wants to pay their share for rail connectivity and this may need some federal intervention and financial support.

I was surprised by the number of people commenting that the network was not extensive enough within the Greenbelt providing better access to the hospitals and other employment areas.

Most in our group supported #4 but one suggested that we didn't need a tunnel at all and we could get away with a transit loop between downtown Hull and Ottawa with rapid transit ending at both sides of the loop on either side of downtown.

The consultant in our group also admitted that when considering the extra transfer, the net time saving by switching to rail with a tunnel will be 2 to 3 minutes, not the 15 minutes (round trip considered) that Larry O'Brien has been quoted in the media. Are there other ways to speed up service?

It's frustrating to see some people going to these things to complain about their bus route. Or saying how construction is going to be such a disruption.

This is legitimate concern that needs to be carefully considered when planning for implementation. We just have to make sure that this does not become a deal breaker.

I also spoke with Diane Holmes and when I commented on the upcoming mine field of setting priorities, she agreed with me. Her main concern has been the lack of consistent federal or provincial transit funding. I agreed with her on that.

Alex Cullen still seems to be prioritizing Transitway improvements before the shovel goes in the ground for the tunnel which has to be a bit of a concern if funding is limited.

[lrt's friend]

A critical question to the success of the network will be how the off-peak local routes in Orleans, Barrhaven and Kanata are structured. In the peak hour, a rider from Orleans would probably take a direct bus to Blair and the LRT from there. One transfer, 2 minute LRT headway, no big deal. But off-peak, if the rider has to take the LRT to Blair, then a bus to Jeanne d'Arc, then a local bus to get home, that's a tough sell.

That has been a concern of mine too. The city has to realize that even in off-peak hours, local routes have to go to the end of rail or we could lose a significant amount of ridership because of too many transfers.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

That has been a concern of mine too. The city has to realize that even in off-peak hours, local routes have to go to the end of rail or we could lose a significant amount of ridership because of too many transfers.

Yes, and I wonder if the projected operating costs have taken that into account.

[Kitchissippi]

A few routes already go from Blair and end up in Place d'Orleans after going through Orleans. All the routes into Orleans could basically structured that way. Imagine scrapping all the 130s, and running the 30-series all day at varying frequencies. Personally I prefer having the same routes running all day everyday rather than having specialized routes run at different times of day or week. Presently it's too much information to retain and turns people off from using transit away from their memorized habits.

[lrt's friend]

I got worried when our group brought up the issue of eco-footprint of the various types of transit technology. I tried to end it with a comment that by moving more people to transit, we are helping the environment. As it stood, the group was sometimes more interested in academic discussion than the practical issues of building a transit system. What is the 25 year projected price of diesel or electricity? Isn't that like trying to predict the stock market, interest rate trends and the value of the dollar? A little frustrating.

[p_xavier]

Now I know why David Gladstone was also looking up for journalists, he still doesn't have anything nice to say:

From today's Metro:

"“The feds and the province have said they will only cough up money if the city has a sound business case,” he said “We didn’t have a sound case with the last one and this new plan is of the same nature.” Public open houses into
the four transit options continue this week."

What I found funny about the whole thing, is that many city employees don't even believe in alternatives they are proposing.

[the capital urbanite]

...from a article in today's Sun....here we go again

"But [Councillor] Hunter said there is no need to get rid of buses along the east-west corridor because there is enough room to accommodate both modes of rapid transit.

"I would like to see a rail system built into the roadbed so you can run buses as well as light rail," he said.

Hunter said it doesn't make sense and would be too expensive to twin the current O-Train line. Instead, Hunters says the city should build a line that starts at Hurdman Station, near the University of Ottawa, and connects to the South Keys station, where the O-Train line now ends.

Kanata-North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson said none of the rapid transit options address the needs of her constituents.

"All we get are buses," she said, adding that light rail reaching into Kanata would be a better option."

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by the capital urbanite

Kanata-North Coun. Marianne Wilkinson said none of the rapid transit options address the needs of her constituents.

"All we get are buses," she said, adding that light rail reaching into Kanata would be a better option."

IMO, having LRT transfer stations and ending at Fallowfield, Montréal, and Eagleson would minimize complaints from the suburbs' councillors. It would also make all routes local. I know it would be more expensive, but these people are emotional, and sometimes there's a need to make them quiet.


The CFRA poll also show a enormous favor towards option 4, with more than 70% of the votes. It's at least good news.

[eemy]

And down the tube we go.

[c_speed3108]

That was one thing I was wondering...there is over 800 million in BRT construction in that plan. You would have to think for 800 million we could get surface rail pretty close to at least most of there burbs....

I really don't see spending all this money on BRT's, when the long term plan is rail. If we like rail now lets stop building BRT's and build rail. Even if we can't extend things quiet as far I still think we would be better off.

[Ciemny]

Christ, this is the type of petty political "my ward first, screw you all" attitude that was part of the reason the last plan died. Wilkinson better keep her mouth shut if she knows what good for the city...which she may not.

Give her LRT to Kanata...and watch Orleans and Barrhaven councillors vote the plan down. I think this is why none of the suburbs are getting LRT (at least my opinion) not to favour one suburb cause everyone one else would gang up on them since their wards were not benefiting. Preschool kids can be tought more common sense then some of our councillors. Unfortunatelly it is us who voted for them.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

Whaaa? You just said it yourself, it's the tracks that are expensive! 5M$ for a km instead of 1.2M$ for electrification! I don't understand your point?

Because you apparently don't understand what is written. Read it again. Then again just to make sure you get it.

"All told, $5M/km on a prepared roadbed is quite a reasonable estimate for double track elrt infrastructure."

See that? "double track elrt infrastructure". That's everything. Not "double tracks". Not "two sets of rails". That's everything required to turn a prepared roadbed into a double track elrt line. INCLUDING ELECTRIFICATION. For the love of God, read things properly next time!

So, to you.

[Kitchissippi]

Those councillors are just forgetting that this part of the exercise is about solving the central part of the puzzle. Agree with it and everything else is possible. Their bit of rapid transit in the suburbs will no longer work without this part first.

I agree, though, that instead of building more BRTs, we could complete the LRT system first to each of the town centres (Terry Fox, Place d'Orleans, Barrhaven and later Riverside South) so that each of those areas would get developed better. It would also lessen the amount of vehicles crossing the Greenbelt.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

2001 City of Ottawa - 20.8%
2006 City of Ottawa - 21.9%

transit use is increasing, which is good news. 30% is the goal though... (not sure exactly what measure they are using)

From the 2003 TMP: "30% of motorized person-trips in the afternoon peak hour by transit in 2021"

I would assume that these journey-to-work figures are 24 hours. Definitely great to see it continuing to climb though.

[lrt's friend]

This all comes back to building a plan that is 'possible'. We can't build LRT to every far flung suburb all at once. That would cost $7B or whatever. This is all going to come back to building one route and only one route first and that first route better clearly provide some benefits over what we are doing today and as has been pointed out to us repeatedly, that means 'substantial' new ridership. If not, it won't even get done.