The future of Ottawa's Transit

[Justin10000]

Originally Posted by Franky

Franky says: "expect a 10% tax increase" just for public transit on your property taxes for the next 25 years.

Justin says live with it. You want a great transit city, you have to pay for it. Nothing is free.

[Richard Eade]

Well, the earliest the #2 and #3 routes wil be split is late December.

It seems that OC Transpo spent the last two weeks booking all of their route changes for September. They are now locked in.

I think it is interesting that OC Transpo waited until the last possible minute to present their TransPlan 2008. It was a 'limited time offer'. The Transit Committee had to either accept the plan when it was presented to them or they would miss the opportunity. Maybe the Councilors should insist that the next TransPlan be ready a minimum of one month before the cut-off date. Just so they can make changes if they feel it is necessary.

The Transportation Committee has now asked Staff to come up with alternatives to their original Waller/Nicholas Loop plan by October. (It turns out that October is the cut-off for the December changes so don't expect any #2 or #3 splitting in December either if one of the presented options isn't immediately acceptable.)

[Richard Eade]

Currently the going financing rate for approved Transit Projects is:

1/3 Fed.
1/3 Prov.
1/3 Munic.

100% Taxpayers.

[Richard Eade]

To re-cap the transit planning so far:

- I am very sure that the political will is for a tunnel.
- OC Transpo appears to be ambivolent as to whether the tunnel is filled with buses or trains. (There might be a slight edge for buses since that is what they know best and are set up to handle but the politicians won't hear this.)
- The majority of Counciolrs are for trains in the tunnel.
- Staff has picked up on the political will and are steering things toward rail.
- The 'plan' being implemented, if Staff get their way, will be very similar to the MRC/Delcan report, if not exactly that. (A possible exception will be the running of the twin 6m tunnels under only Slater or Albert.)
- The train will, unless the snowball can survive Hell, run along the Parkway. This will cost the City BIG bucks in on-going costs.
- The secondary routes presented in the fall will be an LRT along Carling, and a BRT along Baseline. Perhaps the Montreal LRT will be mentioned. It is doubtful that a Bank LRT will come to light.
- The secondary routes will be low on the priority scale. Grade separated suburban Transitways will be at a higher priority.
- The order of building will be Tunnel, east to Blair, west to Baseline, then south to Riverside South. It is possible that some of the suburban Transitways will also be built at the same time as the tunnel or rail conversions

That's what I am reading from the situation at this time.
Anyone else feel the same?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

To re-cap the transit planning so far:

- I am very sure that the political will is for a tunnel.
- OC Transpo appears to be ambivolent as to whether the tunnel is filled with buses or trains. (There might be a slight edge for buses since that is what they know best and are set up to handle but the politicians won't hear this.)
- The majority of Counciolrs are for trains in the tunnel.
- Staff has picked up on the political will and are steering things toward rail.
- The 'plan' being implemented, if Staff get their way, will be very similar to the MRC/Delcan report, if not exactly that. (A possible exception will be the running of the twin 6m tunnels under only Slater or Albert.)
- The train will, unless the snowball can survive Hell, run along the Parkway. This will cost the City BIG bucks in on-going costs.
- The secondary routes presented in the fall will be an LRT along Carling, and a BRT along Baseline. Perhaps the Montreal LRT will be mentioned. It is doubtful that a Bank LRT will come to light.
- The secondary routes will be low on the priority scale. Grade separated suburban Transitways will be at a higher priority.
- The order of building will be Tunnel, east to Blair, west to Baseline, then south to Riverside South. It is possible that some of the suburban Transitways will also be built at the same time as the tunnel or rail conversions

That's what I am reading from the situation at this time.
Anyone else feel the same?

This is exactly how I see the situation evolving. I do hope that they can move the Baseline BRT up the priority list a bit, to give an alternative fast cross-town transit link and to move more transit traffic away from downtown.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Currently the going financing rate for approved Transit Projects is:

1/3 Fed.
1/3 Prov.
1/3 Munic.

100% Taxpayers.

Which is still the most idiotic thing ever, because nobody is ultimately responsible for the service.

[Mister F]

Too bad they're not routing the line along Richmond instead of the Parkway. It's a fairly dense street with lots of room for infill. Sure it would cost more but the Parkway route completely bypasses an urban neighbourhood and misses out on ridership opportunities.

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by Mister F

Too bad they're not routing the line along Richmond instead of the Parkway. It's a fairly dense street with lots of room for infill. Sure it would cost more but the Parkway route completely bypasses an urban neighbourhood and misses out on ridership opportunities.

At its furthest, Richmond Road is about 250m from the Transitway/Parkway. Anyone not willing to walk that far to public transit are unlikely to take it in the first place. I'm sure there are (and will continue to be) quite frequent buses running South from Westboro Station to take passengers into the neighbourhood. Isn't that the whole point of the project, to run a high frequency, high volume train out from downtown as the hub and to have numerous local buses as spokes to take people closer to destination if needed. There are so many things which would be ideal (Richmond Subway, Byron corridor, Rideau Street tunnel, trains to suburbs outside Greenbelt) but it's just too expensive. First we fix downtown and we can use our existing Transitway corridor as a cheap (relatively) way to get people to their transfer station.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

At its furthest, Richmond Road is about 250m from the Transitway/Parkway. Anyone not willing to walk that far to public transit are unlikely to take it in the first place.

True, but there aren't any stations between Lincoln Fields and Dominion, so walking up to the Parkway won't do you any good!

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

Isn't that the whole point of the project, to run a high frequency, high volume train out from downtown as the hub and to have numerous local buses as spokes to take people closer to destination if needed.

Yes, but rapid transit works best when it goes through dense neighbourhoods, not around them. Routing the LRT along Richmond/Byron between Lincoln Fields and Dominion would reduce duplication with the buses on Richmond. Plus it would encourage intensification, another one of the points of the project. I understand why they're choosing the Parkway route, it's cheaper and probably a bit faster, I just think it's a missed opportunity.

[Cre47]

View of Denley on the decision of the Committee for not voting in favor of an independant commission as well as other OC problems.

Originally Posted by Randall Denley

Ottawa city councillors were fuming this week over a consultant's suggestion that some other group of people could do a better job of running OC Transpo.

Sure, councillors have been fighting for years over how to expand the system, customer satisfaction is low, on-time performance is mediocre, taxpayer subsidy is high and fares are going up at triple the rate of inflation. Other than that, they're doing a good job.

Councillors kept pressing the consultants to explain why an independent transit commission would be an improvement. Unfortunately, there is really no delicate way to say, "Because you're incompetent."

If we replaced a group of people who are mostly concerned with their own wards with people who understand the big picture and even know something about transit, there is just a chance the latter group could do a better job. Councillors don't see this at all. Most have done the job of managing transit badly for so long that they think they are experts.

What the consultant didn't fully appreciate is that most Ottawa city councillors would rather sever a limb than give up their control over transit. Of all the services they micromanage, it's their favourite. If a financially unproductive bus route is cancelled and four people complain, councillors think they are doing their jobs by restoring the route. If they can create transit improvements in their wards at the expense of some greater need elsewhere, it's a splendid achievement.

Councillors also took great umbrage at the consultant's suggestion that there is no shared vision for how our transit system should be expanded.

Have they forgotten that there is a war looming this fall over whether the priority is extending busways deeper into the suburbs or serving the area inside the Greenbelt with rail?

Councillors were right to say that they should be responsible for transit because they are responsible for raising the money to pay for it. That doesn't necessarily imply a transit decision-making group composed entirely of city councillors.

Had councillors not been so blinded by the criticism of their competence, they would have seen that there is some value in re-examining how transit decisions are made. If the public is to spend $4 billion expanding transit, it must be done on a rational basis, not a purely political one. That seems difficult for this council to achieve. Having some people at the table with non-political, expert perspectives could only benefit the process.

The greatest value of a transit commission would be that it could do something that a committee of city council cannot, and that's bring together all the key players from Ottawa, Gatineau and the National Capital Commission. These three ought to be partners in providing transit to what is really one city on two sides of a provincial divide. This would involve a bit of mind-stretching for politicians, who are really only interested in their side of the river.

Councillors have never understood that their role is to set policy and ensure that Transpo's managers are meeting goals, not to make day-to-day operating decisions. Councillors have been mostly content to measure Transpo's success by ridership and dollars spent.

Fortunately, Transpo director Alain Mercier is interested in telling the public how the bus company is really doing. He released the organization's first annual performance report this week. It gives a fairly full picture of Transpo's performance, and more is promised for next year. The best news for passengers is Transpo is proposing a 90-per-cent target for on-time performance. Only 76 per cent of its buses are on time now. Just having a target won't change that, but not having one guarantees no progress.

OC Transpo has also had a problem keeping its buses in good repair and on the road. Earlier this month, the city quietly took maintenance of the buses away from the city fleet department and handed it back to OC Transpo. At the same time, the head of fleet services left city employment.

This action is far more significant than it seems, because it's an admission that the "centres of excellence" model that the whole bureaucracy is based on is flawed. "Centres of excellence" is one of those faux business arrangements where some city departments are "clients" and others are "service providers." The problem is, if the client isn't happy, there is nothing he can do about it.

Putting most of what's relevant to the operation of OC Transpo under Mercier's control is a major step toward accountability for our expensive public transit service. While councillors are busy protecting their turf, city staff are making actual improvements.

[Rathgrith]

Originally Posted by Mister F

True, but there aren't any stations between Lincoln Fields and Dominion, so walking up to the Parkway won't do you any good!


Yes, but rapid transit works best when it goes through dense neighbourhoods, not around them. Routing the LRT along Richmond/Byron between Lincoln Fields and Dominion would reduce duplication with the buses on Richmond. Plus it would encourage intensification, another one of the points of the project. I understand why they're choosing the Parkway route, it's cheaper and probably a bit faster, I just think it's a missed opportunity.

They'll probably build tunnel under Richmond in about another 30 years after they realize that it should have gone there.

[Cre47]

Originally Posted by City of Ottawa City Council Meeting Agenda 39

Moved by Councillor Wilkinson

Seconded by Councillor Desroches



WHEREAS the City uses fuel or oil based products such as asphalt in large amounts; and



WHEREAS the cost of fuel, asphalt and similar products have increased in price and forecasts are that these products will continue to have significant increases in price; and



WHEREAS a one cent increase in the cost of a litre of diesel fuel costs the City about $400,000; and



WHEREAS City reserves are low such that increases in fuel costs cannot be handled with existing funds; and



WHEREAS many other municipalities are taking measures to reduce fuel consumption and/or increase revenues to cover fuel costs; and



WHEREAS staff have already determined that there will need to be a reduction in the road resurfacing program due to the increase in asphalt costs; therefore be it



THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT an Eco-Driving policy be developed within 3 months to direct staff on the most fuel effective uses of City vehicles, including items such as planning the route, using air conditioning sparingly, proper tire inflation, driving within speed limits, not having jackrabbit starts and hard braking. Until the policy is finalized that staff be encouraged to use such fuel efficiency practises.



BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the City Manager direct staff to immediately undertake measures to reduce fuel usage and other use of petroleum based products by at least 25%, including but not limited to:



1) Transit Operations (subject to public consultation on route changes)

a) delays in operating and capital improvements

b) reducing route frequency on main routes by increasing rider loads

c) shortening, changing or cancelling routes with a low volume of ridership

d) changing or reducing school routes with low ridership

e) removing the least efficient buses from operations as a result of other changes

f) encouraging bus operators to make recommendations on improving route efficiencies.



2) Use of Railways - Quickly analysing potential rail links as outlined in the Mayor’s Task Force on Transportation so that bulk train service, which has a lower operating cost than buses, can be implemented as soon as possible.



3) General Operations - Developing a protocol that would permit employees to work from home part of the time, as is done by some private businesses and recommend a similar program to the federal government.



4) Police – putting more police on the street and revising patrol routes to reduce fuel usage and implementing the Auditor General’s recommendations on fleet.



5) Fire – reducing non-emergency use of fire vehicles such as taking a large vehicle and 4 firefighters to obtain food supplies during working hours rather than arranging for such purchases to be done on the way to work or by delivery.



6) Surface Operations – reviewing the use of vehicles and snow removal operations to reduce fuel consumption.



7) Vehicle Idling – remove the upper temperature limit on vehicles being permitted to idle and enforce on all City vehicles, including emergency vehicles.



BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that commencing in July, 2008 the City Manager report directly to Council on a monthly basis, on what measures have been undertaken and the fuel savings resulting from those measures.

I have no problem that the city should be looking ways to cut fuel usage by 25% but I have a problem with the possibility of cuts to transit particularly the one that cuts frequency on busier routes even if with more capacity on each bus - it will still have a higher risk for crush-load buses. Also, I don't like point 1A as well and ditto for 1C. Councillor Desroches has been quite persistent on cutting transit routes. He said the same thing in November when the slew of cuts were proposed before it ended up with the massive fare hike. I think he said the same thing in a paper earlier this year - don't know if it is the Ottawa South or Barrhaven paper.

For most of the other points in the motion outside the transit operations section, I agree though on those measures.

[lrt's friend]

In a time of rapidly increasing ridership, we should not be reducing route frequency or cancelling routes. Of course, we should always be considering improving the efficiency of routes, but the main driving force should be improving customer service. Increasing ridership should in itself increase passenger load and in many cases, we shouldn't be increasing route frequency until needed because of crowding, unless there is a strategic reason to do so earlier.

It is strange that Mr. Desrocher is advocating such transit cutbacks, while at the same time pushing for the extension of LRT further into his ward, and pushing for the construction of the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge, the widening of Limebank Road and Prince of Wales Drive. As if such things, don't cost a lot of money. But there again, there seems to be this odd differentiation between capital and operating budgets at City Hall as if the source of capital budgets does not also come from the taxpayer.

Perhaps, if Mr. Desrocher feels very strongly about such things, he should volunteer the cancellation of all transit service in his own ward first and then we will judge from that example whether it is wise to implement such measures more widely. I highly doubt that such action would ever receive approval from his own constituents.

[lrt's friend]

We need rail

The Ottawa Citizen


Tuesday, June 24, 2008


Re: Better bus business, June 22, and OC Transpo struggles with the cost of success, June 14.

While I share letter-writer Wallace Beaton's concerns with transit service in Ottawa and the committee vote against creating a transit commission, I don't see the solution as being a change to a transit commission.

Clearly, there is a major problem, when, as recently reported in the Citizen, ridership growth resulting from the increase in the cost of gas is seen as a problem instead of being welcomed.

The basic problem is that Ottawa's bus-oriented transit system is at capacity and more riders can't be accommodated by putting more buses on the road. Rideau, Slater, Albert, Bank, and Bronson simply don't have room for more buses.

Clearly, the problem isn't governance; it's the transit service managers refusing to address the capacity challenge along the lines Friends of the O-Train has been promoting for the past two years.

We need rail transit now across the Prince of Wales railway bridge, between the Fallowfield Road and Ottawa train stations and south of the Greenboro O-Train station, as a low-cost and effective way of adding substantial transit capacity without adding extra buses.

Adding to the urgency is the fact that the O-Train uses less than half the fuel per passenger compared with buses.

The Bayview-Greenboro O-Train rail transit service, which started in October 2001, daily demonstrates rider readiness to transfer to and from buses and to use a transit service that doesn't go downtown. O-Trains can easily carry bicycles and wheelchairs and have 99-per-cent schedule reliability.

The need is urgent, the technology is proven, the railway lines and trains are available, and the federal and Ontario governments have allocated funds -- all that is required is action from the City of Ottawa to accommodate the increased transit use which city, federal, and Ontario government policies all call for.

David Gladstone,

Ottawa

Founder, Friends of the O-Train

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

There is something not quite right about Mr. Gladstone's argument as presented. First, the transit service managers don't have the authority to implement what Mr. Gladstone is proposing. It is our politicians who make those decisions. He should know better. Second, he makes reference to the downtown capacity problem, yet the specific examples of using existing rail lines does not really address that problem. I realize that FOTO was also advocating a high frequency surface LRT through downtown, but no reference is made to that fact in Mr. Gladstone's letter, rendering his letter illogical. Of course, many have already dismissed the FOTO downtown proposal because of its requirement that virtually everybody would be required to transfer to reach downtown.

[lrt's friend]

Transit in trouble
The Ottawa Citizen


Monday, June 23, 2008


With the price of gas hovering in the stratosphere, public transit has never been more important. In fact, it has become so vital that Ottawa City Council might even do something about it.

Thirty years ago the Transitway was cutting-edge. It was perfect for a city that wasn't big enough to warrant the enormous spending associated with light rail, and yet it provided rapid transit. It could travel at high speed on bus-only corridors while negotiating the traffic on Slater and Albert streets.

However, the Transitway becomes flawed as the city becomes larger. First, it is labour intensive. Buses just don't hold as many people as a train so many drivers are needed to move a limited number of passengers. Since labour usually makes up much of the cost of private and public operations, the Transitway is an economic problem for the city.

All this comes as commuters are flocking to transit. Ridership is increasing year over year between four and seven per cent. Meanwhile, OC Transpo is woefully unprepared for an onslaught of riders. According to a recently released report by management consultant Oliver Wyman, customer satisfaction is plummeting. So too is employee satisfaction. Mr. Wyman also notes deteriorating financial performance and low performance when compared to other systems. As well, OC Transpo has governance confusion.

And let's not forget that rising ridership means a greater subsidy by the property taxpayer. About 50 per cent of the cost of carrying passengers is covered by the city.

What is apparent from the Wyman report and the circumstances surrounding petroleum and ridership is that OC Transpo is quickly approaching a crisis.

Commuters are putting more demands on a faulty system that leaves them asking for more. What should be an organization primed and ready to rise to the challenge of a society moving to mass transit, is in fact an organization with morale problems. And then, of course, there is the lack of a modern light-rail system. OC Transpo is already leaving passengers at some of its stations because the buses are full. What happens if the rise in the price of gas is permanent? As well, the Transitway is almost at bus capacity in the Albert and Slater corridors. The city can add buses to the fleet to meet rising demand but will they just get caught in an enormous traffic jam in Ottawa's core?

OC Transpo is not nimble enough to deal with a rapidly changing world it will serve. With high labour costs, customer dissatisfaction, low morale, capacity problems, and huge public subsidies about to grow even larger, OC Transpo is in trouble.

City council, for the most part, has treated transit with a cursory glance at budget time and then let it run by itself. Those days are ending fast.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

We should be moving on light rail much faster than we are. Why do we have to build the downtown tunnel first, if another portion can be completed sooner? As long as we don't end up delaying the tunnel. As it stands, we could see a 50% ridership increase before LRT is operating, making congestion and cost issues much, much worse.

Unfortunately, quick action on rail is almost impossible, partially for political reasons (we cannot prioritize any portion of the cancelled plan) and also because so much study still needs to be done. It is because of this, that certain councillors fear that the current proposed plan will end up being a mainly a bus expansion plan. Action on improving and extending the Transitways is not dependent on a complicated and expensive downtown tunnel and may receive priority out of necessity to get some action on transit.

[Cre47]

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=cda776e7-d793-4b73-b302-2adc2e9067b4

[lrt's friend]

Close roads in a one-day trial
Richard Bercuson
Citizen Special


Thursday, June 26, 2008



CREDIT: Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen
A pedestrian overpass on Highway 174 in the east end. Columnist Richard Bercuson suggests closing a number of roads to cars from the east end for a day to discover if commuters could find alternate ways to work.

There is only one surefire way to discover if this city's denizens are up to the task of ditching their cars.

Create a crisis.

This is reminiscent of a bygone era. John Snobelen, the first of many ignominious provincial education ministers in the Mike Harris regime, once declared that the solution to education issues was to create a crisis. And he did. Just inventing the crisis became the crisis.

Our transportation woes, particularly out east, require a little more creativity. For instance, a rumour was, um, floated recently that Capital Councillor Clive Doucet had been investigating water taxis for the Rideau Canal.

It apparently came about when talk gurgled to the surface about another pedestrian bridge over the canal, somewhere between the Pretoria and Bank Street bridges. This is a subject for another time.

Anyway, not such a far-fetched idea, says I who suggested it in a column a few years back. Except the column was tongue-in-cheek and not for a moment did I think anyone would consider it a sane thought.

However, what it does indicate is that people in a pinch are not without imagination.

So then, let's sally forth with an experiment, a softer word than crisis, which will merely be the perceived result.

The purpose is to determine if the eastern half of Ottawa could survive a single day with limited use of our cars. The debate salvos over light rail and mass transit are giving me a headache. No one has proven that light rail beyond Blair Road would work. In fact, no one has proven light rail would work anywhere, let alone a tunnel and the price tag.

Yet we acknowledge that the current transit system is wonky, tired and inefficient, in effect a 21st-century modern capital city anachronism.

How about we try something completely different: For one day this summer, shut down a few roads.

Begin with closing Highway 174 from Trim Road to the 417, then 417, too, from Walkley to Nicholas.

Establish one lane for buses and taxis. Use another lane for car pools with occupancy no less than three people per vehicle, inflatable dummies not included.

Nab yellow school buses just in case (employment for off-season drivers).

Drop the one-way bus fare to $2, return fare $3 (affordability).

Lower the highway speed limit to 60 km/h (energy efficient).

Raid the Ottawa police stolen bicycle warehouse and rent them out for $5 for the day plus a $20 deposit (cardiovascular exercise). For that day, employers must provide either bike storage or locks (positive employer-employee relations).

From Place d'Orléans, turn St. Joseph Boulevard then Montreal Road up to the river into a bus- or bike-only route. The parkway will remain for cars since it's scenic, civilized and slow. But to ensure the latter two, have the RCMP Musical Ride patrol it in spots (promotes Canadian and equine culture).

Even water taxis could be employed on the canal from Dows Lake to the National Arts Centre (supports not-so-daffy councillor-columnist fantasies).

At 8 p.m., everything would revert to normal.

What we would learn is that, although in an artificial state of chaos, the city would continue to function. People would find a way to get to work or go about their business.

We learned as much from the 1998 ice storm, as close to a calamitous situation as Ottawa has seen. Yet it was a paltry distant cousin of places beset by hurricanes, twisters, floods, or earthquakes. Ottawa has been spared so we're content to carry on oblivious to nature's wrath simply because we can.

But what if gas reaches $2.50 per litre? What if no decision is ever reached on how to deal with mass transit, or the city falls into a financial funk too steep to afford any massive improvements?

We will have two choices. Continue to drive, albeit less perhaps, and cut back on most everything else, plummeting ourselves into economic turmoil. Or we could drum up alternatives.

I harken back to a visit I made to a buddy in Wilmington, North Carolina, some years ago, months after it had been decimated by two large hurricanes.

Many roads remained blocked by debris or under water. This in a region with a sweeping income disparity and lousy transit system. Somehow, people got around. Workers went to work, students got to school, shoppers shopped.

Makes you wonder.

Richard Bercuson is an Ottawa writer and teacher.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

Those same questions keep going through my mind.

[Cre47]

Article on a transit link to CHEO and the General Hospital

Transit planners want link between hospitals, Hurdman Station
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, June 26, 2008

OTTAWA - City transit staff say it's time to get serious about building a link connecting the rapid transit system with the hospital grounds around the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the Ottawa Hospital's General site.

In a report to discussed by elected officials on city council's transit committee next week, transit planners say the need for such a link, which would run from roughly Hurdman Transitway tation through the hospital grounds and to the Blair station, partly on the Alta Vista transportation corridor, will become acute in the next 10 to 20 years. For this reason, they say it's time to start finding the best and most cost-effective way of making the link.

Over the years, building on the corridor has been a contentious issue for those living in the area. If the study goes ahead, it will take a couple of years to complete.

Transit Committee report
http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/tc/2008/07-02/ACS2008-PTE-PLA-0122.htm

[Richard Eade]

Assuming that the Transitway will come from Hurdman along the Altavista Corridor, what do you think of this route to get to Blair Station?



It makes use of discontinued rail line corridors which might be able to be re-activated for LRT service: Including the existing underpass at the 417. All of the existing large roads are not affected. However, it does make use of Bantree and would require the expropriation of (or tunnelling under) the scrap yard at the east of Bantree. Since this would be Brownland, it shouldn't be too hard to run a transitway across it. Perhaps it could even be used as a light service yard or garage. I think that the Bantree lanes could be moved to side streets with minimum disruption. The property just to the east of the 417 underpass is already City property (1951 Cyrville).

The red line is the main one for this exercise, but the blue lines offer future expansion potential. There is a line up to the Train Yards shopping area and one which goes directly to the growth area of Orleans. The red line provides a station at the Museum and the main Innes shopping area to promote all-day travel. (Yes, the museum might move, but it would likely be replaced with a high density development.)

I think this is the type of line which could be more economically built as rail right from the start. I know that the plan seems to be using BRT for this line, at least for the foreseeable number of years, but if this is built as rail - using existing facilities - then it could take the main passenger load from Orleans during conversion of the northern route (if that was required).

So; what do you think? Good idea, or bad idea?

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Assuming that the Transitway will come from Hurdman along the Altavista Corridor, what do you think of this route to get to Blair Station?



The red line is the main one for this exercise, but the blue lines offer future expansion potential. There is a line up to the Train Yards shopping area and one which goes directly to the growth area of Orleans.

The line to the northwest should actually be used to access a light rail maintenance and storage facility to be built in that large triangle of green-coloured land backing onto Trainyards Drive between Belfast and Industrial. There's also a corridor (former siding) just north of Coronation Ave that could provide fairly decent access to Hurdman from such a maintenance facility for trains heading to the other lines, though it would require crossing Industrial and then Alta Vista and Riverside but given that such crossings would be in advance of and following peak periods it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Such a site would also be accessible by regular freight rail for LRV delivery by restoring some track beyond the museum.

The red line provides a station at the Museum and the main Innes shopping area to promote all-day travel. (Yes, the museum might move, but it would likely be replaced with a high density development.)

I can see what you're doing with the detour off the Innes-VIA corridor to the museum, but I'm not convinced the detouring is actually worth it because of the extra distance and curves. I think the Museum and/or City could probably restore/acquire a few streetcars (like the one that's being worked on right now at OC Transpo and maybe a TTC CLRV as an example of recent Canadian technology) to provide a shuttle service from a station at Innes to the museum as part of a "working exhibit" of Science & Technology - and it could be done virtually direct to the front door of the museum as well.

I think this is the type of line which could be more economically built as rail right from the start. I know that the plan seems to be using BRT for this line, at least for the foreseeable number of years, but if this is built as rail - using existing facilities - then it could take the main passenger load from Orleans during conversion of the northern route (if that was required).

I agree with you on this. The hospitals should be served by rail and the station integrated into the hospitals in a way that even the relatively successful integration of BRT at the Riverside can't achieve.

One thing I hadn't thought of was to head north of Innes from the end of the Browning corridor; I had tended to imagine a more southerly routing but it looks like going north would be easier (swing north and go under St. Laurent, where there would be a station just to the east), then cross the former rail line, probably at grade (since it would only be used for LRV delivery and the aforementionned streetcars to the Museum it could go at grade, and at grade would facilitate using it to access the LRV yard as well). Innes would have to be shuffled to the south a bit east of the former rail overpass. From a point somewhere around Bantree the line would rise slightly to swing over Innes near the VIA overpass. After that, it can either continue rising to go over the VIA tracks or it could cross the VIA tracks at grade (I don't think the number and duration of possible VIA train passages is likely to cause too much of a problem). Beyond there, it's down the former CPR line under the 417 and on out to the Cumberland Transitway.