Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Franky

Oh stop, my ribs! It's a $4B loan (unless or until they tank). We (the city) don't have enough money to keep libraries open, but we have millions to spend on extra stations on an even bigger boondoggle! I suppose if you're planning a boondoggle, what an extra billion or two between friends?

Remember John Baird's billion dollar boondoggle commercials. What is the tally up to so far?

I also wish to point out that we are now entering the deepest recession since the Great Depression with no end in sight. A lot of public infrastructure was lost during the Depression because we couldn't afford to maintain it. It was also a time, when expansion of public infrastructure came to a standstill except those projects that were built by men on relief. I just don't know where the money is going to come from to build this project. Once the current infrastructure money is spent on buses and bus Transitways (in the case of Ottawa), the feds are going to have to rein in spending in order to make sure the deficit doesn't get totally out of hand. This will apply whether the economy rebounds or not. We had our chance to build LRT and we chose to not to do it. It is going to be harder under the current circumstances to build something much, much bigger. I wouldn't count on 2017.

It appears that there is a lot of pressure on City Council to find funding, and the timeline is short, before things start to get further delayed. The money has to be found by early spring according to one councillor on the radio today. If my memory serves me correctly, the original deadline for getting funding commitments is now about to pass. What ever became of the business plan that was supposed to be developed justifying the funding commitments?

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It is getting hot in here. Such passionate discussion.

Is there only one consulting company who plan these transit systems? It seems to be the same company is involved in every study. Now the same company again doing the Interprovincial transit study. It is quite clear that they love designing systems that require more and more transfers to get anywhere. By the time they are done, I will be able to walk to my office faster than using transit. Of course, that will be after I am retired, so it won't matter any more.

Wasn't there a public consultation this evening? Where is the discussion on that? Surely somebody went!

A lot of consulting and engineering companies are being consolidated... if you look at this list, a lot of the companies have been acquired or have acquired other companies..

http://www.cutaactu.ca/en/consultants

MMM Group recently bought McCormick Rankin and EcoPlans. AECOM acquired Totten Sims Hubicki Associates, Gartner Lee, Earthtech and many other companies. Stantec, IBI Group and Hatch Mott Macdonald also made a number of acquisitions.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It is getting hot in here. Such passionate discussion.

Is there only one consulting company who plan these transit systems? It seems to be the same company is involved in every study. Now the same company again doing the Interprovincial transit study. It is quite clear that they love designing systems that require more and more transfers to get anywhere. By the time they are done, I will be able to walk to my office faster than using transit. Of course, that will be after I am retired, so it won't matter any more.

Wasn't there a public consultation this evening? Where is the discussion on that? Surely somebody went!

It was very educational, I avoided speaking to Delcan employees and got some good information. I speak to Delcan and flip out because of all the lies they spew.

The most interesting stuff I learnt was about the geology of Ottawa. I asked about the cut&cover option and got the party line - too disruptive. Probed a little further - how do you build the stations without disrupting the surface? You blast away at the rock. bulldoze out the rubble, pin and mesh the ceiling and advance - typical mining operation, labour intensive and risky. Is it more expensive I ask - don't know. It's been discussed here before, but this person confirmed, the boring machines don;t work in sand, so either they dig exclusively in rock (going way below the surface) or they cut&cover the section in sand. So, if you have to cut&cover the sand section and the canal is a problem because in part of a sewer pipe that runs along it's length "2 to 3 m below the bottom" and the stations will be cut and cover, why not just do a shallow cut&cover tunnel? Good question, why don't you write it down and submit it?

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It appears that there is a lot of pressure on City Council to find funding, and the timeline is short, before things start to get further delayed. The money has to be found by early spring according to one councillor on the radio today. If my memory serves me correctly, the original deadline for getting funding commitments is now about to pass. What ever became of the business plan that was supposed to be developed justifying the funding commitments?

What surprises me, is how quick projects in other cities go. The Evergreen SkyTrain line, which was announced last year, is starting construction early 2010, and funding is in place. Transit City lines, announced in 2007, start construction this year. I'm still amazed how fast TO did their EAs.

The city is losing tremendous time for studies, studies that are actually mediocrely done. If after all the studies city staff has done, and the plan is basically the same, well it was a big waste of 3 years, and so far it is.

I said it and say it again, the problem with Ottawa is the lack of sense of urgency. Nothing's an issue, because it's part of the process, well it's usually the process that is the problem... sigh.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by Franky

Oh stop, my ribs! It's a $4B loan (unless or until they tank). We (the city) don't have enough money to keep libraries open, but we have millions to spend on extra stations on an even bigger boondoggle! I suppose if you're planning a boondoggle, what an extra billion or two between friends?

Yeah, bankrupt companies are known for repaying loans, aren't they?

A subway is not a boondoggle, it's the only sensible thing to do to make sure transit can be rapid and grow with the city. We'll be getting more tunnels, not fewer, as the city gets bigger. It's about moving peoplle, not private vehicles.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

What surprises me, is how quick projects in other cities go. The Evergreen SkyTrain line, which was announced last year, is starting construction early 2010, and funding is in place. Transit City lines, announced in 2007, start construction this year. I'm still amazed how fast TO did their EAs.

The city is losing tremendous time for studies, studies that are actually mediocrely done. If after all the studies city staff has done, and the plan is basically the same, well it was a big waste of 3 years, and so far it is.

I said it and say it again, the problem with Ottawa is the lack of sense of urgency. Nothing's an issue, because it's part of the process, well it's usually the process that is the problem... sigh.

Amen, brother. Process should be a way to get you there, quickly if needed, not a goal in itself, which it is in this city that is infected with the federal bureaucratic way of doing things by paranoia.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I also wish to point out that we are now entering the deepest recession since the Great Depression with no end in sight. A lot of public infrastructure was lost during the Depression because we couldn't afford to maintain it. It was also a time, when expansion of public infrastructure came to a standstill except those projects that were built by men on relief. I just don't know where the money is going to come from to build this project. Once the current infrastructure money is spent on buses and bus Transitways (in the case of Ottawa), the feds are going to have to rein in spending in order to make sure the deficit doesn't get totally out of hand. This will apply whether the economy rebounds or not. We had our chance to build LRT and we chose to not to do it. It is going to be harder under the current circumstances to build something much, much bigger. I wouldn't count on 2017.

It appears that there is a lot of pressure on City Council to find funding, and the timeline is short, before things start to get further delayed. The money has to be found by early spring according to one councillor on the radio today. If my memory serves me correctly, the original deadline for getting funding commitments is now about to pass. What ever became of the business plan that was supposed to be developed justifying the funding commitments?

My own take on this is that we're way too "shy" as a city and we should be demanding immediate money from senior levels of government to do this. The feds especially, if they want to go around the world proclaiming what a leader Canada is in environmental whatever, well the best place to show that is your national capital. Other cities certainly don't mince words about their transit needs. That's how they get things done. When dealing with a paranoid, defensive and reactive federal government, other cities just bully their way to the trough. What do we do? We do process. And we bicker, and self-doubt ourselves... do we REALLY need this? Really really? come on now, can't we all get along? you have a car dontcha Joe? you like to drive it? what's an extra 5 minutes in traffic? you can listen to the CBC longer!

F*ck that. We need our LRT, we need it now, we need more stations downtown, and we need to do whatever it takes to get this going, recession or no recession. Seeing how these bailout packages make a mockery of the concept of money, I consider it insulting that my tax dollars are magically available at a moment's notice to prop up two car companies who have no hope in hell to start selling more SUV's and monster pick-ups a month from now, but we can't get a 4th subway station because it costs too much.

Funding commitments? How about we stick a knife on the feds throat and keep pressing until they release the funding commitments.

[p_xavier]

I never could stand David Jeanes, for me he represents what's wrong with Ottawa. A tunnel is "too grand" for this city. A 1.2M with one of the highest transit usage in Canada nonetheless. His ego still can't take that the city is not going forward with his pet projects.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2009/02/27/8550466-sun.html

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

What surprises me, is how quick projects in other cities go. The Evergreen SkyTrain line, which was announced last year, is starting construction early 2010, and funding is in place. Transit City lines, announced in 2007, start construction this year. I'm still amazed how fast TO did their EAs.

The city is losing tremendous time for studies, studies that are actually mediocrely done. If after all the studies city staff has done, and the plan is basically the same, well it was a big waste of 3 years, and so far it is.

I said it and say it again, the problem with Ottawa is the lack of sense of urgency. Nothing's an issue, because it's part of the process, well it's usually the process that is the problem... sigh.

I couldn't agree with you more.

There was a sense of urgency in 2006, and it was getting the ball rolling. I agree it wasn't the perfect plan, but it was a start of bigger and greater things and it was going to build momentum, and that momentum would have built a downtown tunnel eventually anyways.

What has happened since was quite predictable. We went far beyond fixing the original plan, instead we started second guessing everything. Multi-year delays were inevitable and as we change priorities completely, this is going to extend to several years. No other city with a successful rapid transit network would do this. When projects of this significance get cancelled, there is a major setback.

What was the worst of all is that we turfed both our original plan and our champion of LRT. If we had grudgingly kept going with the original plan and got rid of Chiarelli, we could have changed directions for future phases, and still maintained some degree of momentum. Calgary got rid of their pro-LRT mayor as well, but construction was already underway, so momentum was maintained.

I know I have been a bit of a doomsayer here, but my predictions have been coming true time and again and I am really sad about it.

Unfortunately, when you cancel plans and also change priorities, this is the outcome. This is what happens when you let politics get too mixed up with planning.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

I never could stand David Jeanes, for me he represents what's wrong with Ottawa. A tunnel is "too grand" for this city. A 1.2M with one of the highest transit usage in Canada nonetheless. His ego still can't take that the city is not going forward with his pet projects.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2009/02/27/8550466-sun.html

I agree with you d_jeffrey. Personally, I think people like that are the "last kick of the dying mule" - and the mule is the stuffy, conservative, afraid-of-its-shadow little Ottawa that existed in the 1980's. People like that have a willing ear in the media because the media is programmed to split an issue between a pro camp and a con camp. Sometimes, true leadership at city hall just means keeping a steady hand on the wheel and know that where they're going is the right place to go.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

I never could stand David Jeanes, for me he represents what's wrong with Ottawa. A tunnel is "too grand" for this city. A 1.2M with one of the highest transit usage in Canada nonetheless. His ego still can't take that the city is not going forward with his pet projects.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2009/02/27/8550466-sun.html

Again, I agree with you totally. David Jeanes, as a rail advocate, has ironically been a major factor in preventing rail transit from becoming operational in this city. He and his fellow rail lobbyists have felt that they have the only plan that will bring rail transit to Ottawa and when it was not going to happen, they have attempted to block everybody else's ideas.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I know I have been a bit of a doomsayer here, but my predictions have been coming true time and again and I am really sad about it.

Unfortunately, when you cancel plans and also change priorities, this is the outcome. This is what happens when you let politics get too mixed up with planning.

Don't get me wrong, I was always for the construction of the Bayview to Riverside South LRT section. I just found that the surface route section was innapropriate, and it was still showed that it wasn't. While the ridership to Riverside South is low, and wasn't appropriate for LRT in the first place, I knew that the legal fees would certainly be higher than cancelling the whole project, for the city at least.

If the city can get the ball rolling on with Siemens and start construction in the next year, that will be an amazing rebound. But I have my doubts on that.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Mille Sabords

My own take on this is that we're way too "shy" as a city and we should be demanding immediate money from senior levels of government to do this. The feds especially, if they want to go around the world proclaiming what a leader Canada is in environmental whatever, well the best place to show that is your national capital. Other cities certainly don't mince words about their transit needs. That's how they get things done. When dealing with a paranoid, defensive and reactive federal government, other cities just bully their way to the trough. What do we do? We do process. And we bicker, and self-doubt ourselves... do we REALLY need this? Really really? come on now, can't we all get along? you have a car dontcha Joe? you like to drive it? what's an extra 5 minutes in traffic? you can listen to the CBC longer!

F*ck that. We need our LRT, we need it now, we need more stations downtown, and we need to do whatever it takes to get this going, recession or no recession. Seeing how these bailout packages make a mockery of the concept of money, I consider it insulting that my tax dollars are magically available at a moment's notice to prop up two car companies who have no hope in hell to start selling more SUV's and monster pick-ups a month from now, but we can't get a 4th subway station because it costs too much.

Funding commitments? How about we stick a knife on the feds throat and keep pressing until they release the funding commitments.

I have said this for the last 2 years. We no longer have a champion for rail transit. Larry O'Brien has been so weak as mayor, that he can never fulfill that role. With a rail champion, we would be aggressively persuing funding and our liklihood of getting it would be much higher. We have had both John Baird and Dalton Maguinty begging the city for a proposal that they can fund, yet to no avail. There has and is money available but we haven't had the leadership at city hall to get the job done.

Who do you think is going to stick that knife at the throat of the feds? At the present time, sadly nobody.

I will add one more thing. The city has to start cooperating with the other levels of government if it hopes to receive financial support on its projects. The fact that the city blatantly cancelled the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge as a rail and road bridge and prevented the widening of the Queensway to Rockland, both supported by the premier, has not helped getting additional funding for transit. There is a direct link between these things and we need to stop playing games.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

Don't get me wrong, I was always for the construction of the Bayview to Riverside South LRT section. I just found that the surface route section was innapropriate, and it was still showed that it wasn't. While the ridership to Riverside South is low, and wasn't appropriate for LRT in the first place, I knew that the legal fees would certainly be higher than cancelling the whole project, for the city at least.

If the city can get the ball rolling on with Siemens and start construction in the next year, that will be an amazing rebound. But I have my doubts on that.

I know why you have been saying what you have been saying, and although I have disagreed many times, I am actually more sympathetic with your ideals than you can imagine. All I have wanted is a practical way to get moving on LRT and actually provide a benefit to a significant number of existing and potential customers. I thought this was going to happen in 2006 but I was wrong. My main concern now is that the current plan is so expensive that we will not have the finances to actually get a decent portion of it built, and that the easy parts are bus based.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

I never could stand David Jeanes, for me he represents what's wrong with Ottawa. A tunnel is "too grand" for this city. A 1.2M with one of the highest transit usage in Canada nonetheless. His ego still can't take that the city is not going forward with his pet projects.

http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndRegion/2009/02/27/8550466-sun.html

Well it's true that the tunnel and stations are going to be a lot deeper than originally envisaged, which is one of the reasons that the number of stations is being cut back. The presenter from Delcan was practically bragging that station access points at the surface could be blocks away because the stations were so deep and that this would make up for the reduction in station numbers. It'll be three flights of escalators just to access them.

The basic assumption that people were working with was a tunnel under one of the streets, most likely Queen (bored or cut and cover), with cut and cover stations. But what we saw last night was that these stations are so deep that they'll have to be mined out of the bedrock from within the tunnel. It also means that station construction will be difficult to start before the tunnel has been bored through first - a fact that just compounds delays because the station excavation will itself will likely take longer as well as being started later. Not too surprisingly all this is going to cost more.

And in the article, David Jeanes doesn't say that a tunnel is too grand for Ottawa - the Sun says that he said the *scope* of the project is too grand and given the above that's probably what he's referring to. The pricetag of the tunnel project has indeed started to go up from the approximately $450M estimate from the MTF to $500M in the TMP to now upwards of $600M. That difference is going to start cutting into what else can be done elsewhere.

Meanwhile, we'll have no expansion of transit capacity downtown for a decade and we'll continue to hemorrhage money in bus jams. The irony of the situation in Ottawa is that a decade or so ago going with a tunnel would have been the smart move since it would be coming online just when it was needed. Now, we can barely afford to wait for one. We really should be looking at an interim surface LRT to deal with present problem while we proceed to build a tunnel for the future.

[Acajack]

The problem really comes from the top. A lot of people on Ottawa city council (and this includes the very top) deep down have the view that “worthy” people all have cars and drive anyway, as evidenced by their *rush* to resolve the recent transit strike.

Sure, the negatives get pushed along the way a little bit by the people on city council and by the other pressure points (public opinion, certain members of the media, etc.) that are in favour of the transit plan, but as soon as there’s a bump in the road, they have a good excuse to dilly-dally and delay things even more.

There are just too many people with decision-making power in Ottawa whose heart just isn’t in it.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Dado

Well it's true that the tunnel and stations are going to be a lot deeper than originally envisaged, which is one of the reasons that the number of stations is being cut back. The presenter from Delcan was practically bragging that station access points at the surface could be blocks away because the stations were so deep and that this would make up for the reduction in station numbers. It'll be three flights of escalators just to access them.

This is what Frankie was complaining about. Why are they going with a tunnel so deep anyways? To pay twice the costs, with less stations, to prevent disruption on 2km? May I remind them that the original LRT plan was even more disruptive? It's the best example of being enamored with a process.

The costs of the Notre-Dame highway in MTL doubled, because the engineers decided the new model would be nicer, and damn the price! The minister was furious, and blasted them through the media.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by Dado

And in the article, David Jeanes doesn't say that a tunnel is too grand for Ottawa - the Sun says that he said the *scope* of the project is too grand and given the above that's probably what he's referring to. The pricetag of the tunnel project has indeed started to go up from the approximately $450M estimate from the MTF to $500M in the TMP to now upwards of $600M. That difference is going to start cutting into what else can be done elsewhere.

The way I read the article, he was rambling on about how our project now seems to be on the "grander scale of Montreal or Toronto's subway" and that we're too small a burgh to dream that big, how dare we.

If he had been focused on details like tunnel depth or other technical matters on which he may have expertise, I think the comment would not have come off as a sneer to Ottawa's so-called "grand ambitions". It would've been constructive input.

I'm much more inclined to pay attention to an argument about tunnel depth and construction technique, than to someone starting off with telling me that my city doesn't deserve to think so big in the first place.

[Mille Sabords]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The fact that the city blatantly cancelled the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge as a rail and road bridge and prevented the widening of the Queensway to Rockland, both supported by the premier, has not helped getting additional funding for transit.

I agree with you on the Strandherd bridge, but not on the highway to Rockland. The City has never wanted a highway to Rockland, why would it? To help Rockland suck people and tax money out of us? If you're getting mugged in a dark suburban parking lot, are you going to turn around and give your attacker a better knife?

I'm glad the city took a stand on the highway to Rockland. Ottawa doesn't need it. Ottawa owns it, after the province downloaded it (this used to be Hwy 17, remember?). Why would we use tax dollars to widen a highway out to the city limits? Not only does it not serve any purpose for Ottawa, it also reinforces the pattern of driving and exurban sprawl we're trying to reverse.

McGuinty was promising that highway as a prop to his Liberal candidate in that riding. It was a typical good ol'd days type of pork barrelling rural politics, which in itself is astonishing because that riding has a lot more people who would have to put up with all the extra Rockland traffic on the 174 if the highway ever gets twinned.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Franky

I don't have to do stairs or escalator or elevator rides to get to transit, I just walk on.

...after watching your bus crawl through 2 blocks of traffic in 10 minutes. So convenient!