Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[Deez]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

I'm saying that, because of the government of Ontario projections of when a Subway is needed. Basically, what is being constructed right now IS a metro. Deez, you said it yourself that it's rapid transit.

I'm not criticizing you......

My point was to show the wide variation in opinions between people that know transit. We'll never be able to reach a consensus, so there's no point looking for one.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Franky

The numbers are based on the "Billion Dollar Boondoggle". $780M for the tunnel with 3 stations. See page 139 of "Transportation Master Plan Infrastructure Requirement Study"

The tunnel would have to be bored deep below the Ottawa River and go through huge grade changes. It's possible, but it's going to cost more than what you quote. Plus you assume that STO is cool with spending the capital for emissionless buses.

I may have both attended and written letters. How many hundreds of different people e-mailed?

" * Over four hundred citizens at the Open Houses
* Nearly five hundred people participated in the Mayor Streeter Surveys
* In excess of 1,200 individual written submissions were received by the City
* Almost 10,500 hits to the transit portion of Ottawa.ca"

http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/beyond_2020/tmp/transit/phase2/consultations_en.html

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Deez

http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/technical_information.html#costs

"Total system development costs to date: $548 M"

http://www.octranspo.com/mapscheds/Transitway/Transitway_25/Tway_Memories_Background.htm

"South Keys Transitway Station opens June 23. On November 3, the 31 km of Transitway, that was first approved in 1978, is completed at a cost of $420 million"

The difference is not so great...

These numbers are very misleading because they don't account for inflation. A system built 25 years ago would look cheap until you convert to current dollars. Unless they were built the exact same year?

Combining a few posts... How did you simulate it? Do you have access to software? I'd be interested to look at your simulation. Why do you think Carling did so poorly?

Page 170 of the Delcan study @2031: Bus only - $485,367,300.00, Rail (option 4) - $433,807,500.00

Rail is 89% the cost of buses according to the study. 10% looks like a margin of error to me on these predicted costs.

[Aylmer]

But you have to count in the attractiveness factor: buses are not sexy. Trains are.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Suzie

I agree with you that a ridership loss of that magnitude (25%) would not occur. But can we agree that the BRT/tunnel option would obtain a higher ridership than the LRT option because of fewer transfers and higher frequencies?

Agreed, but only initially. I know we disagree on when the capacity threshold will be reached, but there will come a point when there will have to be a shift to hub and spoke BRT, at which point the bus option will suffer the same ridership loss.

With regard to East-West streets, I still think that there is quite a bit of potential:

- Prohibiting parking during peaks on Queen Street would free up two lanes of traffic.

- Prohibiting parking during peaks on Albert and Slater would provide much needed breathing room for buses, and cars that are turning into parking lots.

- Opening up Sparks Street during peaks would provide two additional lanes of traffic (again, though, this would not be necessary if you did other things).

- Putting all bus traffic onto the Mackenzie King Bridge and prohibiting all other traffic from using it would mean that buses would no longer be interfered with by cars, trucks and taxis on that busy stretch.

- Buses can use Lyon and Elgin to travel north-south in order to join up with Wellington and the Mackenzie King Bridge. I acknowledge that Elgin would be the weakest link, along with Waller on the other side of the Canal.

- Extending Laurier to Scott would reduce traffic on Albert and Slater noticeably, and allow the City to put in place more stringent restrictions against right turns.

Further, long-term forecasts predict that auto traffic into the downtown core will decline, not increase. From a traffic flow perspective (i.e., ignoring politics), I think it would work when combined with other things (e.g., better fare collection, all-door boarding and more downtown stations) and serving the South with the Southeast Transitway corridor. And perhaps by 2031 tolling will become acceptable and there will be a cordon toll around downtown Ottawa. This would further reduce auto traffic and help buses.

Aside from the political impossibility of implementing those measures, I still think the real problem with using those streets is not their EW capacity, but the interaction of buses having to negotiate extra left and right turns on Elgin. Furthermore, my understanding is that the problem with the MacKenzie King Bridge area is not only that they share a lane with traffic, but also that they run into a signal with a long phase length at Nicholas (and then again at Laurier).

Ottawa has significantly higher ridership (measured in modal share of commute trips) than similar-sized Canadian cities. Using Census data, Ottawa-Gatineau is 24% higher than Calgary, 18% higher than Vancouver (25% higher if Abbotsford is included) and 100% higher than Edmonton. Ottawa-Gatineau is closer to Toronto and Montreal than to those three cities. And, as I noted previously, the proportion of commuters who drive to work in Ottawa-Gatineau is lower than any of those five cities.

From my perspective, Ottawa’s biggest mistake was not the decision to go with a BRT system but the failure to optimize it and the lack of integration with the STO.

I'd be interested in seeing comparisons of 24hr transit use or off-peak transit use. No doubt Ottawa is higher than Calgary and Edmonton, but I'm not so sure about Vancouver.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Deez

The tunnel would have to be bored deep below the Ottawa River and go through huge grade changes. It's possible, but it's going to cost more than what you quote. Plus you assume that STO is cool with spending the capital for emissionless buses.

No, it doesn't cross the river, it feeds the 6-lane M-C bridge.

Just the red line is tunnel with a cut & cover (maybe, Richard Eade? said it was sand - couldn't find a geological survey) connection to Nicholas and the transitway towards Lees Ave. Station.


Didn't STO get an ultimatum for quiet buses or bus idling? They comply or they don't do business.

Originally Posted by Deez

" * Over four hundred citizens at the Open Houses
* Nearly five hundred people participated in the Mayor Streeter Surveys
* In excess of 1,200 individual written submissions were received by the City
* Almost 10,500 hits to the transit portion of Ottawa.ca"

http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/beyond_2020/tmp/transit/phase2/consultations_en.html

So somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people voiced some opinion. It's probably not enough for a valid survey?

[Franky]

Originally Posted by AylmerOptimist

But you have to count in the attractiveness factor: buses are not sexy. Trains are.

Do you buy a lot of AXE deodorant?

[waterloowarrior]

Why we pay for transit, and Toronto doesn't
Thanks to amalgamation, Ottawa is too big to qualify for the provincial transit funding that has been routed to the Golden Horseshoe, writes Patrick Dare.

Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, November 27, 2008

OTTAWA-If you run a city that wants a lot of provincial money for transit projects, it pays to be small.

While Ottawa is nervously eyeing major borrowing to pay its share of a big new transit plan, transit builders in the Golden Horseshoe are pushing ahead with billions worth of transit with no contribution from area taxpayers - because parts of those projects cross municipal boundaries.

In June 2007, Dalton McGuinty announced the province would spend $11.5 billion on transit in the Toronto-Hamilton region and said he is counting on the federal government to pay the remaining $6 billion.

So far, the federal money is nowhere in sight and Metrolinx, the provincial agency overseeing construction of transit in the Toronto-Hamilton area, has been burning up the provincial money to get projects going.

In all, Metrolinx has $50 billion worth of transit projects in a plan called The Big Move; 1,150 kilometres of new transit lines aimed at doubling the number of transit trips taken each year in a region of six million residents.

The chairman of Metrolinx says the provincial money should carry the expansion for seven years and a $6-billion federal contribution would cover another three. Beyond that, financing is uncertain. Rob MacIsaac is planning to meet federal ministers in the next two weeks to seek support for the $6-billion contribution.

Mr. MacIsaac acknowledged the McGuinty government's generous treatment, saying there is no plan to try to get money out of the municipalities served by the transit systems. However, he said, the transit extensions and stations constructed in the municipalities may be "bare bones," and he expects the municipalities may want to enhance them on their own.

"It's fair to say the premier's initial entrée was a generous one," said Mr. MacIsaac. "That's the commitment that the premier made two summers ago. We're implementing the premier's instructions."

Some observers have proposed that the Toronto region look at alternative sources of money, such as tolls on roads or tax levies for transit, but Mr. MacIsaac said: "We have enough funding to last us for seven years and hopefully 10. We think people deserve to see some results before we start a discussion of new revenue sources."

Metrolinx is to report in 2013 on its financial options. Meanwhile, Mr. MacIsaac says building more transit is an ideal way to "prime the pump of the economy."

Ontario Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said Thursday that the Metrolinx transit projects are two-thirds funded by the provincial government because they cross municipal boundaries. Mr. Bradley said other transit projects in the Toronto area, such as the Spadina subway expansion in Toronto itself and a Mississauga bus-system expansion, are one-third paid for by the municipalities involved because they stay within city borders.

The Metrolinx projects planned for the Toronto-Hamilton region include:

. an expanded Union Station in downtown Toronto to handle improved GO Transit to outlying communities;

. rail to Pearson Airport;

. improved busing for communities outside Toronto;

. light-rail in parts of Toronto;

. subway extensions outside Toronto to Vaughan and Richmond Hill; and

. 7,500 kilometres of walking and cycling lanes.

Ottawa's master transportation plan, being debated today calls for:

. $4.7 billion worth of public-transit projects and $2.1 billion worth of roads (all in 2007 dollars);

. converting some of the bus-only Transitway to light rail;

. building a tunnel downtown to clear away the transit bottlenecks on Albert and Slater streets

. building more bus Transitway, mostly in the suburbs.

Thanks to amalgamation, Ottawa is four times the geographical size of Toronto, so none of the projects comes close to a city border unless you count the Ottawa River.

The first phase involves building the tunnel, converting the Transitway between Blair Station and Tunney's Pasture to rail, buying the rail vehicles and building some additional legs to the bus Transitway. That stage, to be built between now and 2021, would cost $2.1 billion (taking inflation into account). The city is counting on the provincial and federal governments to each pay one-third of the cost.

The city's share would be $700 million, including $590 million of debt.

City treasurer Marian Simulik has assured council that Ottawa can afford it. The city, according to its financial guidelines, should not allow debt servicing costs to exceed 7.5 per cent of its revenues and the city's debt currently runs about five per cent.

If city council will issue the debt, the next question is whether the provincial and federal governments will agree to their shares. So far, federal Transport Minister John Baird, the senior minister for the region, seems keen to ask for more money from the federal government once the city decides on its plan.

Mr. Bradley said Thursday that Ottawa is to be commended for its long-term plan, saying public transit is "obviously the wave of the future" for environmental and financial reasons. His cabinet colleague, Ottawa West-Nepean MPP Jim Watson, has been cooler, this week sending a letter to Mayor Larry O'Brien questioning the financial soundness of the plan.

Councillor Peter Hume says Ottawa has not done a good job of approaching the federal and provincial governments to ask for funding. A motion from Mr. Hume that the city swiftly make its transit-funding requests of the province and the federal government was approved on Wednesday.

Councillor Alex Cullen, chairman of the transit committee, says it's time that Queen's Park recognize that Ottawa is the second-largest city in Ontario and needs a good public transit system.

© Ottawa Citizen 2008

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Franky

These numbers are very misleading because they don't account for inflation. A system built 25 years ago would look cheap until you convert to current dollars. Unless they were built the exact same year?

It's true that they do not count for inflation, but they were constructed incrementally at about the same rate so it's a relatively moot point. If anything, it's makes the Transitway look better because the figure quoted is only up until 1996 whereas Calgary is to present day.

Combining a few posts... How did you simulate it? Do you have access to software? I'd be interested to look at your simulation. Why do you think Carling did so poorly?

I used the City's (actually the TRANS committee's) travel demand model in EMME. This model forms the basis for all transportation planning in the City. It was recently redeveloped to state-of-the-art standard and calibrated to the 2005 OD survey by a consulting firm in NYC. If you search the old thread, you'll find what I posted some time in late April or early May.

I suspect the reason the Carling alignment did poorly was because of the extra distance and the forced transfer. Before you jump and say this is evidence that a bus based system is optimal: the model was configured such that the downtown portion was not capacity constrained.

Page 170 of the Delcan study @2031: Bus only - $485,367,300.00, Rail (option 4) - $433,807,500.00

Rail is 89% the cost of buses according to the study. 10% looks like a margin of error to me on these predicted costs.

50M$ is not a margin of error...especially when there are fixed costs to both that are the same regarless of option to water things down (ie. new transitway segments, etc.).

Using those numbers, I believe somebody calculated the payback period for the rail option to be in the area of 30 years.


Anyway, this is my final word on this topic. I've wasted far too much time on an argument that cannot be won by either side.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by Franky

So somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people voiced some opinion. It's probably not enough for a valid survey?

margin of error is 2.6% according to my calculations (95% confidence level... population is the entire city of Ottawa)

edit: obviously it's not a random sample, but in general 1200 people is enough people for a valid survey, 500-1000 is also still good.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

margin of error is 2.6% according to my calculations (95% confidence level... population is the entire city of Ottawa)

It's not a random sample. Based on councillor ignorance, a plebiscite might be ill-advised. There should be a real answer to this, backed up by real numbers.
Why isn't Andy Haydon's report available?

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Deez

Aside from the political impossibility of implementing those measures, I still think the real problem with using those streets is not their EW capacity, but the interaction of buses having to negotiate extra left and right turns on Elgin. Furthermore, my understanding is that the problem with the MacKenzie King Bridge area is not only that they share a lane with traffic, but also that they run into a signal with a long phase length at Nicholas (and then again at Laurier).

I recall reading a city study looking into possibilities for diverting some of the capacity downtown onto other streets, and the issue with respect to turning on Elgin was one of the primary restrictions. I might try to pull it up at some point, but I know the study has been done. The additional capacity from using alternate streets was shockingly minimal as I recall. Hardly a solution to the problem in any case.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Franky

Do you buy a lot of AXE deodorant?

No, I don't...

Raport?

[Franky]

Originally Posted by AylmerOptimist

No, I don't...

Raport?

Cause you get hoards of women flocking to you if you wear it (according to advertising). You keep saying "trains are sexy", but it doesn't seem to translate into quantifiable ridership increases, just like AXE deodorant doesn't really attract women. It's just sold that way.

[Aylmer]

But axe does smell better than gas emissions in the morn'n

[Franky]

Originally Posted by AylmerOptimist

But axe does smell better than gas emissions in the morn'n

Very true. Rail doesn't fix that though, local buses are still needed.

[Aylmer]

But it does remove the need for express buses.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by AylmerOptimist

But it does remove the need for express buses.

Would it be just as fast?

[p_xavier]

In all of that, I'm glad that city council voted to look into alternatives, namely using Carling as the first RT LRT line, and converting the SE Transitway.

And Deez, EMME has some issues for transit planning, I discussed that with the VP of the company. It may be why ridership was higher on the Transitway branch. The software takes demand like cars and cargo, while transit is not exactly the same. HASTUS is much better, as it was made from scratch as a transit planner; I wonder what results it would give. For sure, there would be a rail stub going to Westboro.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Franky

Would it be just as fast?

Zipping along rails does seem considerably faster than sitting in traffic, yes.