Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Dado

They only need to fool 13 people from a group of 24 who have been fooled many times before.


Something I never expect to read in a staff transit/transportation report:

"We received a large number of comments with respect to doing such-and-such during the consultation. As a result of the interest expressed in doing such-and-such, and, upon reflection and consideration of the rationales presented to us, we're including such-and-such in our recommendations."

Which is why I was extremely surprised about the Toronto Spadina subway extension. They actualy based the number of stations on how many stations the visitors at these meetings wanted.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by the capital urbanite

also from the report...pretty good reasons why a station can't go under the Rideau Centre

"Other alternative alignments and station designs were investigated and evaluated including one under the Rideau Centre aligned with Daly Street and another aligned with the existing Mackenzie Station. Both of these alternatives present a technical challenge because of the geotechnical conditions and the existing Rideau Centre or Mackenzie King Bridge structures, which are supported on piles. The TBM would have to pass through an array of piles while negotiating a grade differential as the curve and rise toward the south begins.

No TBM need go through here at all. They can take over some of the underground parkade of the Rideau Centre and make use of the opportunity presented by the building of the new convention centre to establish a RoW through there as well. But that of course would involve planning and stepping outside the silo mentality.

The construction of a station along either Daly or Mackenzie King would be challenging and costly as access from the station to the surface would be difficult to achieve.

Not if it was in an existing parkade.

Construction on either of these alignments increases the risk of creating long-term problems with settlement of Rideau Centre or Mackenzie Bridge.

Ditto.

The Mackenzie King alignment would also be immediately adjacent to the Department of National Defence Headquarters building which could once again raise security concerns that were expressed during the North-South LRT Project."

But those were addressed, right? So why would a tunnel and lots of soil around it present any greater risk to DND than LRT on the surface? Tunnels seem to be quite resilient to detonations inside them.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Using Google Earth, I get centre to centre distances of roughly:
LeBreton - DT-west = 835m
DT-west - DT-esat = 670m
DT-east - Rideau = 545m
Rideau - Campus = 1180m

This gives an average centre to centre distance of 807m.

If I calculate inter-station distances, based on 180m platforms:
LeBreton - DT-west = 655m
DT-west - DT-esat = 490m
DT-east - Rideau = 365m
Rideau - Campus = 1000m

Even using these numbers, I find the average inter-station distance to be 627m! Almost 100m more than the 535m that the City calculates! What math are they using?

Again, using Google Earth to measure the distances between the Toronto station's centres, I get:
Union - King = 370m
King - Queen = 380m
Queen - Dundas = 455m
Union - St. Andrew = 515m
St. Andrew - Osgoode = 310m

The average centre to centre distance is 406m. Half of the Ottawa spacing!

For Montreal:
Peel - McGill = 430m
McGill - Place des Arts = 500m
Place des Arts - Saint Laurent = 450m
Place d'Armes - Champ de Mars = 495m

Average centre to centre is 469m. Closer, but still almost 340m shorter than Ottawa's centre to centre spacing.

Well what if we leave out the big distance from the Rideau Station to Campus; then the average centre to centre distance is only 683m. This is still nowhere near the other two cities.

Leaving out LeBreton as well gets it down to 608 m, so even that's not the explanation. None of your station distances are less than the City's *average*. That's just not on. The closest I can get is by taking your inter-station distances and dropping Campus. That gives 503 m.

It occurs to me that when this gets to the EA phase where Ministerial approval is sought that this type of pretty basic miscalculation would be grounds for denying approval of the EA since the number of stations is being partly justified on the basis of incorrect information... perhaps a few people need to be reminded of this basic fact.

[Richard Eade]

Lets run through a little excersise:
Given that the acceleration/deceleration rate of a train is 1.34 m/s/s, and that the maximum speed of the train is held to 22.22 m/s (80 K/h) then how long does it take the train to leave one station and stop at the next?

At the rate of 1.34 m/s/s, it takes 368.5 m to reach 22.22 m/s, thus for any spacing wider than about 370x2 m the train will reach its top speed.

LeBreton to DT-west:
835m means the train will accelerate for 370 m, cruise for 95 m and then decelerate for 370 m.
16.6s accel + 4.3s cruise + 16.6s decel = 37.5 seconds

DT-west to DT-east:
670m means accelerating then decelerating for 335 metres each.
15.8s accel + 15.8s decel = 31.6 seconds

DT-east to Rideau:
545m means acceleration then deceleration for 272.5 metres each.
14.3s accel + 14.3s decel = 28.5 seconds

Rideau to Campus:
1180m means acceleration for 370m, cruise for 440m, then deceleration for 370m.
16.6s accel + 19.8s cruise + 16.6s decel = 53.0 seconds

If I assume a worst case station dwell time of 15 seconds for each of DT-west, DT-east, and Rideau, the total travel time from leaving LeBreton to arriving at Campus is 195.6 seconds. Three and a quarter minutes. This does not concider any slowing of the train due to the curves.

Lets say that a layout like the following were used:



This configuration has an extra station downdown and provides access at Mackenzie-King and Waller. Centre to centre station spacing are:
LeBreton (not shown) - Bay = 780m
Bay - Bank = 550m
Bank - Confusion Square = 560m
Confederation Square - Mackenzie-King = 540m
Mackenzie-King to Campus = 705m

Using the same assumptions above of an acceleration/deceleration rate of 1.34m/s/s, max speed of 22.22 m/s, and dwell times of 15 seconds, the travel time from departure of LeBreton to the arrival at Campus is 213.3 seconds.

My route takes 17.7 seconds longer but has an extra station downtown. This time difference is almost entirely due to the dwell at the new station. Only 2.7 seconds are due to the shorter average distance between stations. Given this small time difference, and the fact that downtown is THE destination for most people, is there really an argument that the system will no longer be rapid if an extra station is added?

[Dado]

Nicely done, Richard!

One could even make the plausible argument that the extra station reduces the dwell time at the other stations from ~20 to ~15 seconds.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Who cares if the bus garage is directly connected to the Transitway? What are our priorities? Buses or passengers?

No buses means no passengers. Industrial can get busy, possibly delaying buses. Availability of the transitway would provide a second high-quality access route.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Likewise, why build the Transitway so close to LRT through the trainyards? The employees of the hospital complex and associated facilities deserve better service than they get today. I have spent a lot of time at the General Hospital lately and it is amazing that the main transit connection is only between Hurdman and Elmvale. Hospitals are 24 hour facilities and are perfect candidates for being on a rapid transit line.

If you knew the area, you would realize that the via train station creates a barrier so that a tunnel or bridge would/will be needed to access the station. This single-point access makes the the distance to the Wal-mart 500m and almost 1km to the about to be build phase II.

The AVTC, as planned has a dedicated bus lane on it also, so the hospital will be served by that on top of the already adequate dedicated bus route. I would like some real stats about 24 hour access and will be interested to know how many nurses (visiting hours are limited) will take a late night bus to work because it's on the transitway and not a dedicated bus. What's interesting is that nobody seems to know beyond speculation what the actual numbers might be.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

And yes, I do believe in 'Build it and people will come'. That is exactly what happened with the O-Train. We are a timid bunch assuming that any new rapid transit service is bound to fail.

The O-Train was a loss leader to convince the city buy the expensive stuff. A shuttle bus would have better ridership numbers if the tracks had been paved over. In fact, the cheap o-Train line isn't even adequate and will have to be double-tracked at great expense. The trains are in disrepair (2 of 3 failed 6 years in). It's just smoke and mirrors.

Speaking of "build it and they will come", our baseball stadium is not being used either. We must still pay for maintenance and interest payments on it though.

Also, I wonder why we will be building a BRT system when we are converting everything to LRT. What a waste of money.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by Dado

Nicely done, Richard!

One could even make the plausible argument that the extra station reduces the dwell time at the other stations from ~20 to ~15 seconds.

Well, it is true that with the recommended stations at Lyon (DT-west), O'Connor (DT-east), and Rideau, the Lyon station is really not going to be the big destination station; the vast majority of commuting workers will be getting off of the trains in the O'Connor and Rideau Stations. If the current OC Transpo numbers hold up, that is almost 10,000 people per hour per direction passing through two stations.

I find it interesting that Staff say that our stations will have multiple accesses and that will make it all OK. I wonder how many people two escalators can move per hour. The stations might have several accesses through buildings to the street, but that is from the mezzanine; the platforms will have two escalators to get people to those mezzanines.

(Can anyone verify Staff's claim that Toronto's and Montreal's stations only have a single escalator from the platform of their deepest stations?)

Once a rider gets on the escalator, there will be the delay of the escalator ride and then another as the crowds are forced to funnel through the building doors to the street. Think of how long it takes to get a few hunderd people out of a building during a fire drill: Now think of up to 10,000 people per hour trying to flow through the main doors of any building downtown. (If you want to see how obsurd the Staff plan is, now add in a huge number of bus riders to the narrow sidewalks of Rideau Street. Think of how 125,000 people from Canada Day are going to flow into the Rideau and O'Connor Stations.)

Adding an extra station will distribute the crowds, allowing for smaller stations also, which should save on the per station costs. Putting that new station under Confederation Square allows it to have large grade-level areas for people to move once they have ascended from the depths.

[citizen j]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The latter is correct. I don't like the current plan. It is too oriented towards buses and too much of our money is being spent on Transitway extensions. The LRT that is presented does not deliver new service and will likely not generate new ridership. LRT as designed is reactive to deal with increasing ridership rather than generating new ridership itself. More buses feeding LRT over time will be the only reason for increasing ridership. Why can't we have LRT that actually will generate new ridership because it provides new service? This is a standard expectation in other cities building LRT or other new rail transit. The terminal LRT stations are too expensive and will in themselves prevent extension of LRT. The criteria for extension to the suburbs is ridiculous. I do like the tunnel concept as far as easing downtown transit congestion but I feel it is oversold as far as service improvement and extra capacity especially if we mostly take Albert/Slater out of service as a tranist corridor. The extra capacity during peak periods will come from making more people stand than today. This is why I make sarcastic comments about this aspect. It will not be more comfortable during peak periods when you are crammed in a crowded train.

Thanks for clarifying.
I'm also frustrated by the piecemeal approach to LRT expansion. And very good point about the terminal stations' cost -- it makes it harder to justify expansion since by extending the line, the old terminal's capacity becomes redundant. And while I agree that new service is key, Transitway conversion has to take place at some point, no? It seems sooner rather than later. And if so, what's the point in delaying the inevitable.

And yes, there needs to be one more station along the tunnel -- shift them a bit and squeeze one in near Wilbrod (or Seraphin Marion or whatever Wilbrod becomes once it hits the UofO campus). The station could easily be incorporated into the redevelopment of the parking lot at Waller and Stewart, as well as Phase II of the Desmarais block. And perhaps even the lot beside Arts Court where the old Police Headquarters was.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

(Can anyone verify Staff's claim that Toronto's and Montreal's stations only have a single escalator from the platform of their deepest stations?)

Of course not, anyone having used the systems know it's not true.

Go to metrodemontreal.com for detail information of every station, including numbers of escalators, stairs ect.

Just from the yellow line at the Berri-UQAM station, there are 4 sets of stairs to go through.

[waterloowarrior]

TTC has a list of escalators on their site... here's King station for example

http://www3.ttc.ca/Subway/Stations/King/station.jsp

you can get maps of the platforms at http://www.ttcrider.ca/station.php?frm_platform=king

[Richard Eade]

So are you two telling me that we can't trust the Staff who said "...it is noteworthy that each DOTT station will have at least two major accesses points from the platform level, providing increased coverage for each station compared to downtown stations found in Toronto and Montreal...."? Because when I read that statement, I get that our TWO accesses is an increase over Toronto and Montreal so they must have only ONE.

Either our City's Staff is wrong, or everyone else is. I'll just follow the Councillors lead and trust our Staff like a good sheep.

[citizen j]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

So are you two telling me that we can't trust the Staff who said "...it is noteworthy that each DOTT station will have at least two major accesses points from the platform level, providing increased coverage for each station compared to downtown stations found in Toronto and Montreal...."? Because when I read that statement, I get that our TWO accesses is an increase over Toronto and Montreal so they must have only ONE.

Either our City's Staff is wrong, or everyone else is. I'll just follow the Councillors lead and trust our Staff like a good sheep.

To address your question:

There are some Toronto subway stations that have only one access point (Wellesley is a downtown station and there is one entrance/exit). Others, including many downtown stations, have multiple access points but clustered at a single intersection, so that all passengers must enter and exit at a single point on the platform: Dundas, College, Museum among these. Others have multiple access points along the platform but still lead you back up to the surface around a single intersection: Queen's Park, St. Patrick, and Osgoode among these. There are perhaps only six stations downtown that have multiple street entrances. All the others have bottlenecks during peak hours. The TTC has had to open additional entrances at least two: Spadina and Broadview. Others have had or will have costly expansions to their platforms to increase capacity: Bloor and Union among them.

All this to answer your question with a Yes and a No. Depends on the station. Older ones tend to have the worst accessibility (and the narrowest platforms), since they were built when the city was smaller. Ottawa should keep this in mind.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Franky

The O-Train was a loss leader to convince the city buy the expensive stuff. A shuttle bus would have better ridership numbers if the tracks had been paved over. In fact, the cheap o-Train line isn't even adequate and will have to be double-tracked at great expense. The trains are in disrepair (2 of 3 failed 6 years in). It's just smoke and mirrors.

You clearly know not of which you write.

The O-Train has been the cheapest piece of rapid transit infrastructure the RMOC/City of Ottawa has ever set up. It was less than $3.75M/km for everything - including a couple years' operation. The accusation that is usually levelled at the O-Train is that it was so cheap; the point of it was to demonstrate (coming out of the recession of the 90s in an era of budgetary constraint all around) that there are far cheaper ways of doing things than pricey busways but that point has long been lost. Now we speak of $200M stations without barely batting an eye. After all, what consultants want to work on something that's got so little cream to skim off? The O-Train's problem is that it's just not expensive enough. And to make it worse it doubled ridership expectations (must have been using a bus model), it gets 99% vs 70% reliability and the operating trains are always in service and not idling while the operator takes a break. No wonder it hasn't been extended anywhere - the more widespread its use the more embarrassing the rest of the system becomes in comparison.

I doubt a shuttle bus (bye-bye punctuality) would get the same ridership, but even if it could it would be a lot more expensive. The fuel use of a Talent is the same as an artic, but a Talent has thrice the capacity and a third of the operators. Along the line itself, even assuming a single-lane operation (no shoulders for parking dead buses), the stations would still need to be double-sided for buses. Paving a single lane road when one can't move equipment in alongside would also pose a challenge as everything would have to be backed in. The embankment/roadbed would have to be widened along much of the line. Drainage in the rock cut, which is already an issue, would have to be addressed. The bridge over the Rideau would have needed a whole new decking, barriers and a low speed limit. The tunnel would also be subject to a very low speed restriction due to its narrow width. Winter would have posed an interesting challenge for snow clearing. The O-Train line seldom needs clearing - even last year in our near-record snowfall it was cleared all of once south of Confederation and twice north of it, "clearing" being a bit of a misnomer since the actual work was just to move the snowbanks further from the tracks. The funny thing about frequently-used railways is that they are practically self-clearing when it comes to snow.

Double-tracking isn't need since all that needs be done is double the platform lengths and add in two more passing tracks for 7.5 min operation. Do that and capacity is increased fourfold and it would then have more capacity than there is realized ridership on the SE Transitway. With a little optimization, shortening of end-of-line dwell and increasing of the speed, the current 15 min schedule could be pushed down to 12 minutes (it currently takes 12 minutes to run the route, with a 3 minute scheduled turnaround - OC Transpo must have thought they were dealing with buses). Take the same measures for 7.5 min operation and you're down to 6 minutes. At that point you'll have a fivefold increase in capacity with platform lengthening - a capacity that exceeds current ridership coming in from Orleans. There's no need for expensive double-tracking - there never was except to compensate for the bus-induced scheduling problems of the N-S LRT.

As for the trains being in disrepair, that's largely due to OC Transpo letting things slide in anticipation of selling them. The problems have all been relatively minor - just akin to regular maintenance - the actual problems being non-working lifts at the repair facility and lack of a spare parts supply. Despite that we ran with only two trains for months without anyone being any of the wiser. Try that with your beloved buses and see how long you can go on for.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by the capital urbanite

also from the report...pretty good reasons why a station can't go under the Rideau Centre

"Other alternative alignments and station designs were investigated and evaluated including one under the Rideau Centre aligned with Daly Street and another aligned with the existing Mackenzie Station. Both of these alternatives present a technical challenge because of the geotechnical conditions and the existing Rideau Centre or Mackenzie King Bridge structures, which are supported on piles. The TBM would have to pass through an array of piles while negotiating a grade differential as the curve and rise toward the south begins. The construction of a station along either Daly or Mackenzie King would be challenging and costly as access from the station to the surface would be difficult to achieve. Construction on either of these alignments increases the risk of creating long-term problems with settlement of Rideau Centre or Mackenzie Bridge. The Mackenzie King alignment would also be immediately adjacent to the Department of National Defence Headquarters building which could once again raise security concerns that were expressed during the North-South LRT Project."

I love this one but it isn't April Fool's Day any more.



This diagram shows the depth to rock under the Rideau Centre: Notice the yellow/orange sections; they are the valley where the rock is quite deep. This is the section that requires the deepest piles to hold up the Rideau Centre.

The blue sections are where the bedrock is close to the surface so a tunnel would be completely within the rock and any piles would be safely above the tunnel.

I think that the above clearly shows that it would be preferrable, from a tunneling point of view, to go under the Mackenzie-King Bridge and not under the north end of the Rideau Centre.

In fact, from a February 19, 2009, presentation, here is what Delcan was showing:



This shows the piles which a Rideau Street Station would need to cut and under-pin. These are all the black lines in the valley which extend through the proposed tunnels.



This second diagram shows that a tunnel under the south end of the Rideau Centre or the Mackenzie-King Bridge is under the level that the pile are driven to. There would be a lot less work to bore the tunnels under this area.

Oh, and there is no "grade differential" to negotiate since the tunnel is to stay deep to be in the bedrock until almost the Campus Station.

Does Staff just not understand the contradictions, or are they trying to 'pull a fast one'?

[waterloowarrior]

I think Franky was referring to the operating costs... Cost recovery of the O-Train is 36%

http://www.tc.gc.ca/programs/environment/utsp/otrainlightrailproject2008.htm

[rodionx]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

This configuration has an extra station downdown and provides access at Mackenzie-King and Waller. Centre to centre station spacing are:
LeBreton (not shown) - Bay = 780m
Bay - Bank = 550m
Bank - Confusion Square = 560m
Confederation Square - Mackenzie-King = 540m
Mackenzie-King to Campus = 705m

That map illustrates one reason why the city might have dispensed with the Bank street station: the Bay street station in this scenario would be half empty, while the Bank street station would be absolutely packed. The Confederation Square station would probably be underutilized as well, as it's on the other edge of the CBD. If they moved the outer stations a block further in, to Lyon and Metcalfe, they would take some of the pressure off the Bank Street Station, but only because they were practically on top of it. It would be like one long station with three platforms. Looking at this, it makes sense to pull the station in the middle and let the commuters distribute themselves half to the east and half to the west.

[waterloowarrior]

edit: here's a map of 2031 employment from the '08 delcan report

[eemy]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

I think Franky was referring to the operating costs... Cost recovery of the O-Train is 36%

http://www.tc.gc.ca/programs/environment/utsp/otrainlightrailproject2008.htm

That's not too bad for North America.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by citizen j

To address your question:

All this to answer your question with a Yes and a No. Depends on the station. Older ones tend to have the worst accessibility (and the narrowest platforms), since they were built when the city was smaller. Ottawa should keep this in mind.

They all need to be updated to at least 2 entrances for emergency purposes.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

I think Franky was referring to the operating costs... Cost recovery of the O-Train is 36%

http://www.tc.gc.ca/programs/environment/utsp/otrainlightrailproject2008.htm

See also:
http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/trc/2004/07-21/ACS2004-TUP-TRN-0009.htm
and
http://www.tc.gc.ca/programs/environment/utsp/otrainlightrailproject.htm

Basically, it looks like the City can't add or didn't bother to try too hard - they just fed a mishmash of old and new data to Transport Canada for the update. Revenues have apparently doubled to $2M but the recovery ratio hasn't moved since 2004, because it was already in the 36% range in 2004. That doesn't make any sense at all because there is no way that costs have increased by as much as revenue (a derivative of ridership), and, as below, there are reasons costs should now be lower as well.

Much of the cause of the relatively low cost recovery is the overhead costs being spread out over a small fleet - after all, there's 1/3 vehicle redundancy where a 1/6-1/8 is more typical. Insurance also seems to have been a relatively high number; this has probably come down as the system proved itself and now that the city owns the vehicles rather than leases them it can self-insure.

As I said the 36% recovery is from 2004; ridership has increased since then so the recovery rate would be higher. Moreover, the 36% includes - get this - property taxes on the RoW along with the lease of the CP yard. With property taxes and lease removed the rate is 39%. At the time, these two amounted to some $400,000 combined; unfortunately they aren't broken down further but it gives an idea of the ridiculous amount of money that railways have to fork over to municipalities for the pleasure of getting absolutely nothing in return. Anyway, given the higher ridership and removing the property taxes (since they're just flowing in a circle if they are still paid), the recovery rate today is well into the 40s. That places it at or above the system average.

Another aspect, not mentionned in either page, is that the cost of the feeder services are imputed into the operating cost of the O-Train. This is arguably a legitimate way of doing things - it maintains comparability with expresses for instance - but unfortunately it is not done for any other bus route (like the #95), probably because doing so would be terribly complicated. For example, if I take the #151 and then transfer to the #95, the recovery rate of each is measured separately - the poor recovery rate of the #151 is not factored into that of #95, whereas with the O-Train it would be for routes like the #146. According to the OC Transpo logic then, the only service that people transfer to/from is the O-Train.