The future of Ottawa's Transit

[osbort]

Originally Posted by Rathgrith

Unless Ottawa goes through the same thing Paris did in the early 1800's, its not going to happen.

late 1800's, during the second empire

[Dado]

These French military planners were so silly... the way to keep a population under control isn't by making wide boulevards that the state can send the troops down. So silly. These French planners should have anticipated American suburbia. The way to keep a population down is to shove them into subdivisions with only a few accesses into each neighbourhood "cell" (the terminology is fitting). Then all the state (or occupying power) has to do is post a couple of tanks and APCs along with a section of troops manning a few MG positions at the access points. Thousands of people held down by a few dozen troops - positively brilliant! The populace can plot all they like behind their sound walls but if you control the arterial roads by making strong points at the access points and intersections it'll do them no good. Anyone hopping the soundwalls to get out of the subdivision is an easy target in the virtual shooting gallery of a suburban arterial. They can't even coordinate (err, coördinate) an attack with people in adjacent subdivisions because 1) they don't know them and 2) they can't communicate with them anyway.



P.S. I think people are confusing early 1800s with the 1790s...

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by Dado

... No way would an at-grade alignment across Rochester Field be acceptable to the locals and coming in at Cleary would require climbing up from the grade of the parkway corridor to remain "at grade" anyway, so staying low in both cases is clearly preferable.

I never did think the Rochester field was a good idea; it might be the easiest, but not the best route.

Right now the City is making plans to tear up and rebuild Churchill from Scott south to Richmond. Since there are going to be shovels there, why not simply dig another 5m down and bury prefab tunnel segments under the new road. This would provide a clean route from the Scott Trench to a station under Churchill at Richmond. This is very close to the new towers and would encourage the Westboro area to remain a pedestrian destination.

The station would be very shallow and the side of the street would decide which platform you descend to. The tunnel would then continue south under Churchill and west under Danforth/Byron, rising to the surface.



It seems to me that if we are digging up that street any way, we might as well make use of it.

Of course, I wish they had done the same to Bank while they had it dug up. In the three years of turmoil, we could have had a tunnel from Wellington to the 417 at a reasonable cost.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

I'll provide the guillotine.

Me and my Gendarmes will round up City Council and make sure the guillotine is in perfect working condition.

[Rathgrith]

Originally Posted by osbort

late 1800's, during the second empire

Well, at least I knew it was 1800 something. My first guess was the 1790's with Napoleon I. But I figured that would have been to early before the industrial revolution. I was somewhat close at least.



Given that so many buildings on Bank Street are now catching on fire. Maybe we could start remodeling Ottawa...

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I never did think the Rochester field was a good idea; it might be the easiest, but not the best route.

Right now the City is making plans to tear up and rebuild Churchill from Scott south to Richmond. Since there are going to be shovels there, why not simply dig another 5m down and bury prefab tunnel segments under the new road. This would provide a clean route from the Scott Trench to a station under Churchill at Richmond. This is very close to the new towers and would encourage the Westboro area to remain a pedestrian destination.

The station would be very shallow and the side of the street would decide which platform you descend to. The tunnel would then continue south under Churchill and west under Danforth/Byron, rising to the surface.



It seems to me that if we are digging up that street any way, we might as well make use of it.

Of course, I wish they had done the same to Bank while they had it dug up. In the three years of turmoil, we could have had a tunnel from Wellington to the 417 at a reasonable cost.

Those are a couple of awfully sharp curves to be putting on your main 'rapid' transit line to connect the suburbs to downtown.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Those are a couple of awfully sharp curves to be putting on your main 'rapid' transit line to connect the suburbs to downtown.

Not more than the planned Hurdman station!

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Those are a couple of awfully sharp curves to be putting on your main 'rapid' transit line to connect the suburbs to downtown.

I was thinking the same thing. Both curves as drawn are about 50 m radius. I can get the Scott curve up to 100 m radius by cutting under the Weight Watchers Executive parking lot on the SE corner at Churchill but the Danforth curve will be no more than 60 m without going under existing buildings. The Rochester Field alignment would have one curve of about 200 m radius (at the Richmond/Fraser end) and another much greater than that (i.e. 500 m from the end of the trench to the field itself) along with a lot less arc to go around as well.

Hurdman currently has 100 m radius curves on the east and west sides.

[lrt's friend]

CFRA is agitating for pressing the reset button on our transit plan yet again. After advocating killing the last plan, they now want to kill the current plan as well in favour of Andy Haydon's bus tunnel concept. Of course, all of CFRA nation follows like lost sheep. And so we attempt to do full circle and return to the 1980s. What we really need is progress, not going around and around in circles.

[osbort]

Originally Posted by Dado

These French military planners were so silly... the way to keep a population under control isn't by making wide boulevards that the state can send the troops down. So silly. These French planners should have anticipated American suburbia. The way to keep a population down is to shove them into subdivisions with only a few accesses into each neighbourhood "cell" (the terminology is fitting). Then all the state (or occupying power) has to do is post a couple of tanks and APCs along with a section of troops manning a few MG positions at the access points. Thousands of people held down by a few dozen troops - positively brilliant! The populace can plot all they like behind their sound walls but if you control the arterial roads by making strong points at the access points and intersections it'll do them no good. Anyone hopping the soundwalls to get out of the subdivision is an easy target in the virtual shooting gallery of a suburban arterial. They can't even coordinate (err, coördinate) an attack with people in adjacent subdivisions because 1) they don't know them and 2) they can't communicate with them anyway.



P.S. I think people are confusing early 1800s with the 1790s...

Haha I just wrote a 15 page paper on this. The french revolution happened in the 1790s (not much building going on there). The creation of most of Paris' wide streets, sewers, squares and sufficient water supply was completed by Napoleon III and his Prefect for the Seine, George Haussmann, between 1852 and 1870. The military aspects of their projects were in reaction to the revolution of 1848 and the fact that French politics were extremely volatile.

[Rathgrith]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

CFRA is agitating for pressing the reset button on our transit plan yet again. After advocating killing the last plan, they now want to kill the current plan as well in favour of Andy Haydon's bus tunnel concept. Of course, all of CFRA nation follows like lost sheep. And so we attempt to do full circle and return to the 1980s. What we really need is progress, not going around and around in circles.

1. Why the hell do you still listen to CFRA?
2. You know CFRA is the anus of the media spectrum? Everything that comes from their mouth is anything that could not be digested from other media outlets.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Rathgrith

1. Why the hell do you still listen to CFRA?
2. You know CFRA is the — of the media spectrum? Everything that comes from their mouth is anything that could not be digested from other media outlets.

You might be right but as 'Talk Radio' in Ottawa they do influence many voters and probably even the odd politician.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Those are a couple of awfully sharp curves to be putting on your main 'rapid' transit line to connect the suburbs to downtown.

The design has stations near each curve. Since LRT stops at every station, those curves will always be taken at low speed so the radius isn't a speed problem. It may be a noise problem if the flanges rub up against the rails. You know, that high pitched screech...

Edit: Sorry, That curve looked just like the Carling to Bayview from the Doucet-Leadman plan - it has stations at both curves.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Those are a couple of awfully sharp curves to be putting on your main 'rapid' transit line to connect the suburbs to downtown.

Those curves are 100m radius curves: The Delcan downtown alignments have curves of 50m radius except for the Cross-Country alignment which is a 70m radius curve. Also, the south curve is close to the Richmond/Churchill Station so speed will not be too fast for that one any way. The north curve might limit the top speed, but it shouldn't be too low because of the large radius of the curve.

The south curve does involve an expropriation:

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Franky

The design has stations near each curve. Since LRT stops at every station, those curves will always be taken at low speed so the radius isn't a speed problem. It may be a noise problem if the flanges rub up against the rails. You know, that high pitched screech...

Edit: Sorry, That curve looked just like the Carling to Bayview from the Doucet-Leadman plan - it has stations at both curves.

There is open areas at both Bayview and Carling in order to make the curves more gradual.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Those curves are 100m radius curves: The Delcan downtown alignments have curves of 50m radius except for the Cross-Country alignment which is a 70m radius curve. Also, the south curve is close to the Richmond/Churchill Station so speed will not be too fast for that one any way. The north curve might limit the top speed, but it shouldn't be too low because of the large radius of the curve.

The south curve does involve an expropriation:

I've been measuring this again and again and while it is larger than the 50 m I thought it was it's still not 100 m. I'd guess 90, maybe 95 m. The reason I said 50-60 m is because that's the radius I could get without running into significant geological problems. The alignment you've got places it underneath a rather steep slope. You've got part of it cutting underneath the parking lot of the dry cleaners at the top of the hill (NW corner at Byron and Churchill). Granted, it would be much lower than that but the problem is digging it in the first place - you'll have an entire slope to stabilize somehow. The Byron (former tramway) embankment would also have to be stabilized to dig under it.

I see what you're trying to do but it's not going to come cheap or easy. Any savings from pre-dropping cut and cover sections into Churchill are going to disappear trying to get that curve into Danforth.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There is open areas at both Bayview and Carling in order to make the curves more gradual.

Well not at Bayview. What you think is an open area is subject to a redevelopment application with condos. It's on land formerly owned by the NCC (and before them, CPR or CNR) but they put it up for sale, fully expecting the City to buy it as part of the N-S LRT project since it would provide a nice, smooth, 500 m radius curve. They were urged to by certain rail advocates whom you dislike but the City declined because, you know, what did a bunch of rail advocates know about railways anyway? So the land was bought by the City Centre owners. At any rate, the approved N-S LRT plan that you do like called for the curve to go through the current O-Train platform at Bayview climbing a 4-5% grade on a much sharper 50 m curve rather than the ~2% grade afforded by the land the City refused to buy. Talk about a screeching alignment - uphill and sharp all at once.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Dado

Well not at Bayview. What you think is an open area is subject to a redevelopment application with condos. It's on land formerly owned by the NCC (and before them, CPR or CNR) but they put it up for sale, fully expecting the City to buy it as part of the N-S LRT project since it would provide a nice, smooth, 500 m radius curve. They were urged to by certain rail advocates whom you dislike but the City declined because, you know, what did a bunch of rail advocates know about railways anyway? So the land was bought by the City Centre owners. At any rate, the approved N-S LRT plan that you do like called for the curve to go through the current O-Train platform at Bayview climbing a 4-5% grade on a much sharper 50 m curve rather than the ~2% grade afforded by the land the City refused to buy. Talk about a screeching alignment - uphill and sharp all at once.

Well, it seems that the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing at the city. One can imagine when the NCC gets involved, there is even less coordination.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by Dado

I've been measuring this again and again and while it is larger than the 50 m I thought it was it's still not 100 m. I'd guess 90, maybe 95 m. The reason I said 50-60 m is because that's the radius I could get without running into significant geological problems. The alignment you've got places it underneath a rather steep slope. You've got part of it cutting underneath the parking lot of the dry cleaners at the top of the hill (NW corner at Byron and Churchill). Granted, it would be much lower than that but the problem is digging it in the first place - you'll have an entire slope to stabilize somehow. The Byron (former tramway) embankment would also have to be stabilized to dig under it.

I see what you're trying to do but it's not going to come cheap or easy. Any savings from pre-dropping cut and cover sections into Churchill are going to disappear trying to get that curve into Danforth.

Yes, the tightest curve is probably going to be a little less than 100m radius; you are right.

How much would it cost to expropriate the Drycleaner too? If the building weren't there, then it would be cheaper to work under that hill. Could a steel wall be pounded in along the working line to shore up the hill and save the building? I don't know what is holding up the edge of that hill now, do you?

Any idea what is in the other building on Danforth, behind the drycleaner? It's marked with an X on my picture. I don't think it would cost too much to expropriate it.

If the tunnel north of Richmond could be done economically while other work was being done, then I'm thinking about maybe $10M-15M for the south section. On second thought, the train will need to be under Byron for a bit so that becomes a bit more expensive. I don't know how the cost would compare to running the train in a trench through the Rochester Field (which would probably be covered for a park), and a new structure to get it to the south of Richmond Road. Going through the Rochester Field also moves the station to the north of the future high-density development north of Richmond. This is a bit out of the way for the Westboro shopping district.

It comes down to a choice of which is more important, commuters to downtown, or connecting pedestrian spaces. This is not the only area which will be a compromise, as most of the transit system will be, but it is an area where a solution with a slightly higher price might be better able to satisfy both sides. Think about the cost being amortized over 100 years.

[eemy]

Out of curiousity, what's the curve on the Yonge-University Line before and after Union Stn?