The future of Ottawa's Transit

[Cre47]

More bad news for transit users.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2008/07/02/6046146.html

[Dado]

Originally Posted by citizen j

The choice to build a BRT system without a real core connection rather than an LRT system was made back in the mid to late 70s -- a time when reliable, predictable Provincial capital funding was in place. Was this a mistake? Your argument is compelling. Ottawa wasn't nearly as large then as it is now, and passenger numbers were lower. But the city wasn't static. Planners and politicians knew it would continue to grow. And the arguments put forward back in the 70s for building a "more affordable" system amounted to a deferred expenditure that the city is still dealing with, and now without the same kind of funding reliability (Provincial funding seems to be a matter of political whim rather than policy these days). It was never going to get cheaper to solve the downtown problem.

In real terms, I'm not sure that tunnelling now is more expensive then back in the 80s. Technology and techniques have improved since then. We really didn't need the capacity then either and you can only buy that capacity at the expense of something else - like a broader network. You look at Edmonton and Calgary and it's pretty clear that Calgary made the better choice by taking roughly the same amount of money and building a much bigger system by sacrificing a tunnel. Calgary has a problem now (though not like ours, and lengthening platforms will help a lot), but they also have a lot more ridership than Edmonton.

Everyone on here knows I have no great love of BRT, but as far as things go the failure of the Transitway "vision" or philosophy was not at its outset but what happened about 10 years ago when the downtown started to become a problem. The problem was foreseen and a solution - convert to light rail when a tunnel was required - was even in the original documents. It was accepted as part of the "outside-in" system build-out that sooner or later the downtown would have to be addressed, but it never came, in part because those who created the system couldn't part with it - to this day John Bonsall still shows up to argue for keeping it as BRT even though he knows it was supposed to be converted by now. So instead of planning to transition from BRT to LRT and beginning work on a tunnel, the focus for "solving" the system's problems shifted to governance and the commission came to an end while many of the people responsible for the system jumped into consultancy. We did well to even get the O-Train but the subsequent distraction of the N-S LRT meant that the downtown problem careered out of control. We are now at a point where the timeframe may not even allow us to build a tunnel - we may actually have to build a stop-gap surface LRT line.

Of course all that does call into question the original decision. I tend to think that we should have gone with LRT downtown on the surface, LRT on the Scott St CPR alignment (it would have been easy and much cheaper than blasting) and through to Baseline. In the east it would have been straight forward to build LRT on the Southeast Transitway alignment out of Hurdman by following the rail corridors. However, BRT from Hurdman to Blair was probably the right decision because it was simpler to phase in along the Queensway, and likewise from Queensway Station to Bayshore (though the Britannia corridor should have been considered for LRT too). Only once enough of the east and west busways were in place would conversion of them be considered.

[citizen j]

Originally Posted by Cre47

More bad news for transit users.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2008/07/02/6046146.html

Well, that's one way to solve the capacity problem. Discourage new riders.

[Rathgrith]

Originally Posted by citizen j

Well, that's one way to solve the capacity problem. Discourage new riders.

OC Transpo isn't losing riders. More people will just start jumping into the rear doors when the fares rise.

[citizen j]

^Ha.

[adam-machiavelli]

...or the provincial government could start providing real funding to public transit like the pre-Harris regime days.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Dado

to this day John Bonsall still shows up to argue for keeping it as BRT even though he knows it was supposed to be converted by now

Here's a fun anecdote:

In the 80's I attended a nursery school that was run by John's wife. I'm not sure how he managed to influence the decor of the place, but the walls were covered (if not plastered) with posters of English buses. I was quite amused when I was old enough to make the connection.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

Haha, I didn't even notice that, from last Monday's metro newspaper:

http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/comment/article/73267

I agree. If we decide to become like Toronto, though I hope we don't, we will need a metro system. An automated metro makes so much sense as the next step after BRT. LRT is a waste of money.

An oval tunnel, which was unfortunately NOT studied by Delcan, would allow us to cover the next 50 years of transportation needs. Why would we want a solution that will require another dig in 25 years? LRT makes no sense.

[c_speed3108]

Alright here we go...

Lets get started...

City takes first step in tunnel project

Engineering firm assembling team to study proposed downtown light rail project

By DEREK PUDDICOMBE, Sun Media

The city has hired an engineering firm to begin working out the best route for a downtown light rail tunnel.

Delcan Corporation, an engineering, management and technology consulting firm, will immediately begin assembling a team of engineers, planners, architects and other specialists to work on the project, a part of the City of Ottawa's new long-term transit plan. Included in the team of experts will be Halcrow Group, a firm based in London, England.

Nancy Schepers, the deputy city manager for planning, transit and the environment, said in a memo today that Halcrow has worked on similar projects in Britain, Scotland, Portugal, Italy, Hong Kong and the Philippines. Halcrow will be the tunnel planning and design experts for the project.

Schepers said the city's rapid bus transitway network has reached capacity.

"Without a tunnel, it is estimated that by 2031 we will require a total of 340 OC Transpo buses and 250 STO buses per hour, per direction during peak hours to accommodate ridership demand," Schepers said. "That translates into an articulated bus every 14 seconds through the core. As the downtown cannot handle this volume with continued on-street transit service, a grade separated tunnel to accommodate part or all transit service is required ..."


The Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT) study will consider main routes through the downtown, the role of Bayview and Hurdman OC Transpo stations as potential interim transfer points, opportunities for interprovincial linkages with the Outaouais and a potential connection to the Via Rail station.

The study is expected to take 20 months to complete.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

Alright here we go...

Lets get started...

Hey Richard Eade, how about sending Nancy Schepers and and CC a few others your oval tunnel idea to be included in the study? I'm sick of these Delcan botched studies.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Franky

I agree. If we decide to become like Toronto, though I hope we don't, we will need a metro system. An automated metro makes so much sense as the next step after BRT. LRT is a waste of money.

An oval tunnel, which was unfortunately NOT studied by Delcan, would allow us to cover the next 50 years of transportation needs. Why would we want a solution that will require another dig in 25 years? LRT makes no sense.

I don't follow what the shape of a tunnel has to do with long term transportation needs. I think we are also fooling ourselves if we think one route through downtown is all the city will ever need. Just on distance it is impractical no matter how much capacity we stuff into it.

As for the issue of automation....I am actually not a huge fan.

Why?

The system we have proposed...particularly if we go all the way out to the burbs is really too expensive to build. The transitway was the same way.

I would imagine that probably what will happen is the same thing that happened with the transitway. The core part of the transitway (minus downtown) was built to pretty high standards. As you get further out a few corners were cut to save a few bucks. This made it feasible to extend the system further and ultimately get more riders and serve a greater portion of the cities population.

So if history repeats itself with the rail system I would imagine thinks like expense overpasses will be, at least initially, left out in the suburbs. The streets in the suburbs do not suffer from the same congestion as downtown so full grade separation is not as important.

The trouble with a driverless system is that it corners us into having to grade separate every last inch of the system. This is also the reason LRT was chosen rather than heavier rail. LRT has exactly one decent advantage and that is that it can go some places heavy or heavier rail can not. This is due to turn radius as well is just practicality.

(other than that detail I say lets jump on the automated heavy rail bandwagon)

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

I
The trouble with a driverless system is that it corners us into having to grade separate every last inch of the system. This is also the reason LRT was chosen rather than heavier rail. LRT has exactly one decent advantage and that is that it can go some places heavy or heavier rail can not. This is due to turn radius as well is just practicality.

(other than that detail I say lets jump on the automated heavy rail bandwagon)

You do know that new metros use LRVs now, so that the turn radius thing is no longer true? You do also know that the city faces extremely high operating costs for the future eh?

If there's anything, history has shown up to cheapen infrastructure costs will make outrageous operating costs. Grade seperating in this case, is a GOOD THING.

[p_xavier]

Double post, was server issue earlier.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

I don't follow what the shape of a tunnel has to do with long term transportation needs. I think we are also fooling ourselves if we think one route through downtown is all the city will ever need. Just on distance it is impractical no matter how much capacity we stuff into it.

Tunnel shape relates to cost and usefulness.

An oval tunnel would allow a single bore big enough to hold the necessary bus lanes without a significant cost increase (as Richard Eade calculated). In the future, if we Torontofy the city core, a metro system can replace the bus lanes because there is enough space to accomodate them.

We can make our bus fleet hybrid ASAP reducing our bus GHG emissions by 40% in 2 years instead of in 8 to 10 years.

[p_xavier]

In a memo to city councillors, deputy city manager of transit, planning and environment Nancy Schepers said Delcan Corp., a large engineering firm had been hired to lead the study, and Halcrow Group, experts in tunnel planning and design will assist

Such a suprise, of course none of ex city of Ottawa engineers work for that firm, nor are there any apparence of conflicts of interests...

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Franky

Tunnel shape relates to cost and usefulness.

An oval tunnel would allow a single bore big enough to hold the necessary bus lanes without a significant cost increase (as Richard Eade calculated). In the future, if we Torontofy the city core, a metro system can replace the bus lanes because there is enough space to accomodate them.

We can make our bus fleet hybrid ASAP reducing our bus GHG emissions by 40% in 2 years instead of in 8 to 10 years.

There is not going to be buses in the tunnel so that is not a concern That much has been decided and voted on by council.

The current issues most surround routing, station locations and various technical issues involved in the building.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

You do know that new metros use LRVs now, so that the turn radius thing is no longer true? You do also know that the city faces extremely high operating costs for the future eh?

If there's anything, history has shown up to cheapen infrastructure costs will make outrageous operating costs. Grade seperating in this case, is a GOOD THING.

Don't get me wrong I agree with grade separating. As a general rule we definitely should grade separate.

My point was simply that sometimes in order to get these things built it becomes necessary to cut a few corners to save a few bucks. If the transitway didn't fudge the grade separation thing a bit, it likely would not go half as far as it does now. Heck we don't even have grade separation in most of downtown.

We saw the same thing with the NSLRT project - it is the quality vs distance problem. I think the main problem with the transitway and the NSLRT project is that cut corners in the wrong areas of the system.

If the transitway was grade separated downtown, we would not yet be at capacity - although we would not have tons of breathing room. It is clear now on the transitway...we don't often see significant tie-ups around U of O (except for those which are a result of issues further down the line), yet this area carries the same number of bus (roughly) as Albert and Slater do.

On the flip side...look at the buses running along the 174 out to Orleans. It is hard to imagine that we would gain much if anything by converting that to a grade separated transitway. Possible a bit around the interchanges...otherwise the bus can technically travel faster on the highway than it can on a transitway.


Operating costs...I can't disagree with you there....driverless is certainly cheaper but we do have to be careful. A good amount of this money will likely be in the form of long term debt financing so a higher building cost does equal a high cost over the term of the debt. We are already achieving a fair saving going from buses to trains. The captial vs operating cost issue comes up all the time, on all types of project. It really just depends on the terms of the issue as to what one is better.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

If the transitway was grade separated downtown, we would not yet be at capacity - although we would not have tons of breathing room. It is clear now on the transitway... we don't often see significant tie-ups around U of O (except for those which are a result of issues further down the line), yet this area carries the same number of bus (roughly) as Albert and Slater do.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. Go take a look at Tunney's Pasture Station, westbound, in the afternoon peak period. I've seen buses queueing on the Transitway east of Holland at times, and it can't really be because of problems downtown. Once a queue has started, it takes on a life of its own because express bus drivers still have to stop and check if there are passengers to pick up, and since they can't see far enough ahead to determine if their part of the platform is clear, they queue (it also wouldn't be "fair" to potentially overtake another express bus waiting for the same space). The problems aren't yet critical, though they do cause dwell times to sometimes exceed 45 s, but it does show what happens even at a Transitway station once there is high enough passenger volumes at a station given the express bus system we have. Since the downtown stops are all busier than Tunney's Pasture, there would be problems there too if they were underground in a tunnel.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

There is not going to be buses in the tunnel so that is not a concern That much has been decided and voted on by council.

Bad decisions can be reversed, sometimes by a new council.

[lrt's friend]

Don't get me wrong I agree with grade separating. As a general rule we definitely should grade separate.

My point was simply that sometimes in order to get these things built it becomes necessary to cut a few corners to save a few bucks. If the transitway didn't fudge the grade separation thing a bit, it likely would not go half as far as it does now. Heck we don't even have grade separation in most of downtown.

We saw the same thing with the NSLRT project - it is the quality vs distance problem. I think the main problem with the transitway and the NSLRT project is that cut corners in the wrong areas of the system.

If the transitway was grade separated downtown, we would not yet be at capacity - although we would not have tons of breathing room. It is clear now on the transitway...we don't often see significant tie-ups around U of O (except for those which are a result of issues further down the line), yet this area carries the same number of bus (roughly) as Albert and Slater do.

On the flip side...look at the buses running along the 174 out to Orleans. It is hard to imagine that we would gain much if anything by converting that to a grade separated transitway. Possible a bit around the interchanges...otherwise the bus can technically travel faster on the highway than it can on a transitway.


Operating costs...I can't disagree with you there....driverless is certainly cheaper but we do have to be careful. A good amount of this money will likely be in the form of long term debt financing so a higher building cost does equal a high cost over the term of the debt. We are already achieving a fair saving going from buses to trains. The captial vs operating cost issue comes up all the time, on all types of project. It really just depends on the terms of the issue as to what one is better.

I have to totally agree.

Going to a metro system requiring total grade separation will limit the flexibility that we need in order to drive rapid transit out to where people want to go and where people expect it to go within a reasonable capital budget. Even as it stands with a LRT system proposed, it is hard to imagine where the funding is going to come from, let alone an even higher cost of building a light metro.

We have already seen that there is a great reluctance to use the Byron corridor because it will add $500M to the capital cost, yet a light metro will almost certainly require that route, as a highly fenced metro along the Ottawa River Parkway will be deemed unacceptable by most neighbouring residents and the NCC. So, there are considerations beyond just grade separation that will drive up the capital cost of a metro system when we are forced to build more of the route below grade for aestetic reasons.

I also think the lower operating cost of a metro is overblown. It will be lower of course because there would be no driver but there will still be significant operating cost savings of running a 4 car LRT train with one driver as compared with the equivalent of articulated or regular buses. I have seen the operating cost of the Calgary C-Train which is much lower than our bus based Transitway.

As most of you have noticed, the O-Train again was reduced to 30 minutes service today, the second time in a couple of weeks. This really demonstrates the temporary nature of the O-Train as designed and its inadequacy in the long-term.