Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[waterloowarrior]

Two councillors want tunnel decision deferred


BY JAKE RUPERT , THE OTTAWA CITIZENMAY 6, 2009 5:06 PM


OTTAWA — Two city councillors on the municipality’s transit committee have tabled motions to defer approval of a potential downtown subway route to look at accommodating the wishes of businesses who are lobbying against the path city planning staff are recommending.

Business leaders want the route to be changed to more of a straight route down Albert Street across downtown and for more study to be done to look at the economic impacts of the recommended route on the Rideau Centre and other hubs.

The committee is scheduled to endorse a route today.

But Kitchissippi Councillor Christine Leadman, one of only two councillors to vote against the city’s light-rail rapid-transit plan last year, wants a decision on a tunnel route deferred until a detailed costing is completed, and a second route more to the liking of the business leaders is developed and costed.

Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bedard has also tabled a motion that would defer the decision until a host of issues relating to economic development are addressed.

This is the first serious internal city hall political challenge to the municipality’s proposed downtown subway/light-rail project.

City council is slated to debate final approval of the route next week.

Planning staff recommend twin tunnels starting on the downtown edge of LeBreton Flats, roughly at Albert Street, running under the road to roughly Kent Street, then angling northward and cross downtown under streets and buildings and under Confederation Square.

They will then go under the canal to roughly Rideau Street and Sussex Drive, loop south under more streets and buildings before lining up under Nicholas Street, passing the University of Ottawa campus before popping back to the surface on the existing transitway near Lees Station.

Five large, 180-metre-ling stations are recommended. One, above ground on LeBreton Flats. The four others, underground between Bay and Lyon streets, O'Connor and Metcalfe streets, near Rideau Street and Sussex Drive, and at the university.

The tunnel is to anchor the city's planned multi-billion-dollar rapid-transit, light-rail network, which was approved by a 22-to-two council vote last year.

Construction of the network is to start with the tunnel, which would be 3.2-kilometres long, and an east-west, 12.5-kilometre transit line from Blair Road to Tunney's Pasture along the current transitway and through the tunnel at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

[waterloowarrior]

may 6 presentation to council
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/transit_tunnel/06mar09_en.pdf

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Franky

Seems the URL has changed it's got "getinvolved" in the path now:
http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consul...ed/op_1/segments/09_tunnel_const_en.html

Doesn't help finding stuff though and it's very bad for discussion groups.

Funny... I wonder if it was there last night... before I asked them about it

[waterloowarrior]

Transit committee endorses downtown tunnel route
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Transit+committee+endorses+downtown+tunnel+route/1570322/story.html

BY JAKE RUPERT, THE OTTAWA CITIZENMAY 6, 2009 8:44 PMBE THE FIRST TO POST A COMMENT


OTTAWA – By a vote of five to one, elected officials on the city’s transit committee endorsed city staff’s recommended downtown subway route Wednesday night despite a heavy business lobby against the move.

If given final approval by city council at the end of the month, the plan is for a 3.2-kilometre route that starts under Albert Street at LeBreton Flats, angles north at Kent Street to Rideau Street and Sussex Drive, then curves south past the University of Ottawa and ends near Lees Station.

Business leaders in the city’s core want the route changed to more of a straight line down Albert Street across downtown and across the MacKenzie King Bridge, or at least for the decision to be deferred until more study on the economic impacts of the recommended route and the practicality of their suggestion is done.

But a majority of councillors felt that after years of planning, study, and undoing plans, it’s time to get the estimated $1.4-billion Phase 1 of the city’s new rapid transit plan rolling.

The price tag is the big external political challenge as the city is asking the provincial and federal governments to pay for a third of the project each. Detailed cost estimates on the project aren’t done yet, but planning officials are confident of their estimate.

“No red flags have been raised,” said deputy city manager Nancy Schepers.

This is the first serious internal city hall political challenge to the municipality’s proposed project.

City staff studied a number of different routes for the subway, including the one the business leaders want, before making a recommendation. Despite this and detailed explanations of the operating, financial, engineering, and practical problems of the business leaders wishes, two city councillors brought motions to defer approval of the potential downtown subway route.

Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bédard eventually withdrew his motion after city staff agreed to look at several concerns raised by business leaders in the Rideau Centre/Byward Market area.

Another by Kitchissippi Councillor Christine Leadman, one of only two councillors to vote against the city’s light-rail rapid-transit plan last year, was rejected by a vote of six to two. Her move to have city staff fully study the alignment the business leaders were lobbying for also failed.

Leadman said she was against the route because there wasn’t enough information about how the tunnel would affect different areas it would run through, and the price wasn’t nailed down enough.

“We really don’t know what the impacts are going be to, and we have no idea of the cost,” she said.

Rideau-Rockcliffe Council Jacques Legendre summed up the majority of councillors feelings when he addressed Rideau Centre general manager Cindy Van Buskirk.

“I find your position a little astonishing,” he said. “This is a major city transforming facility that is coming to your front door, and you are not happy. I find this very hard to believe.”

Legendre said he thought the system and route developed by staff are “excellent” and he urged committee members to endorse it.

“We have a chance to get out of purgatory. Let’s move forward.”

Planning staff recommend twin tunnels with five large, 180-metre-long stations. One, above ground on LeBreton Flats. The four others, underground between Bay and Lyon streets, O’Connor and Metcalfe streets, near Rideau Street and Sussex Drive, and at the university.

Construction of the network city-wide network is to start with the tunnel, and an east-west, 12.5-kilometre transit line from Blair Road to Tunney’s Pasture along the current transitway and through the tunnel.

City officials have been meeting with their upper tier counterparts to discuss the project, but neither government has announced support. Two weeks ago, however, Mayor Larry O’Brien said he believed funding agreements with the governments would be announced this summer.

If everything goes ahead as planned necessary studies, including detailed geological testing, and costing projections on the tunnel are expected to be completed early next year, construction could begin as early as 2012, and you could be actually moving across downtown in a subway by 2016.

If approved by council next week, the city will put out a public call for groups that might want to partner with the municipality on developments along the transit corridor, which could potentially offset the cost of the project.

“I’ve been in contact with the business community, and I can tell you, they are quite interested,” said the city’s strategic project manager Rob MacKay on the possibility of finding partners.

How they voted:

Yes

Bay Councillor Alex Cullen

Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson

Osgoode Councillor Doug Thompson

Innes Councillor Rainer Bloess

Rideau-Rockcliffe Councillor Jacques Legendre

No

Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bédard

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

[Franky]

They are scared of being known as the council known for building nothing, but they may be known for creating a billion dollar boondoggle instead of something good for the city. Following in Zero's footsteps.

[lrt's friend]

The feds and the province better agree that this project is worthy of funding or LRT is dead for a generation in this city. No third chances. If this fails, it will be time to press the reset button on the mayor and the entire City Council at the next election.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The feds and the province better agree that this project is worthy of funding or LRT is dead for a generation in this city. No third chances.

I think the first proposal (N-S) would come back (in some form) avoiding the ~$200M lawsuit and providing NEW transit service. Cancelling the signed contract was a first big mistake. Or maybe a better form of public transit will be considered?

[Aylmer]

I wonder what trains the city will use...

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by AylmerOptimist

I wonder what trains the city will use...

I know you're an optimist, but this is Ottawa. I'm not going to believe or assume anything until I see the damn system under construction.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

I know you're an optimist, but this is Ottawa. I'm not going to believe or assume anything until I see the damn system under construction.

I just wonder what they are considering.

[p_xavier]

I just noticed that there's a "fare collection level" in the Recommended Platform Design. So that means POP is out for this, at least it will give faster boarding times.

Anyways, it shows how just sily it is to bore a tunnel that deep, when they could use cut and cover for such a short tunnel.

http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/transit_tunnel/interim/design_bil.pdf

[Rathgrith]

Originally Posted by Jamaican-Phoenix

I know you're an optimist, but this is Ottawa. I'm not going to believe or assume anything until I see the damn system under construction.

My level cynicism is the same as yours, I won't believe anything until I see a shovel in the ground.*



*Symbolic dirt tossing does not count.

[Zach6668]

I'm still relatively new when it comes to understanding urban engineering, development, transit systems, etc, but can anyone explain to me how much of an upgrade a tunnel like this would be over our current rapid transit system? Or even, how an ideal tunnel would be an upgrade in an ideal situation?

Coming from a smaller town in NW Ontario, the attitude there was basically people who took the bus were a lower form of life. It was pretty stupid, but the city was so spread out, with no real downtown center, that cars were basically mandatory, and the transit system's inefficiencies did nothing to help that.

I moved to Ottawa in the summer though, complete with my car, and moved into a rented condo in the Market. I love being able to walk everywhere, and use my car a fraction of the amount I did in Thunder Bay. I've even recently started taking the bus a little bit more, to get to and from things downtown, and used it to get to the airport last week, and then recently just took a trip to various places around the town, well outside of the downtown core (Algonquin College, South Keys), and found the system to be very efficient and got me where I needed to go rather effectively. I just felt like doing something alternative to driving.

Now, I work from home, so maybe the system isn't as good during rush hour, or whatever, but I'm wondering still, how much of an improvement would this tunnel be, or would the ideal tunnel be to our city?

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Zach6668

I'm still relatively new when it comes to understanding urban engineering, development, transit systems, etc, but can anyone explain to me how much of an upgrade a tunnel like this would be over our current rapid transit system? Or even, how an ideal tunnel would be an upgrade in an ideal situation?

Coming from a smaller town in NW Ontario, the attitude there was basically people who took the bus were a lower form of life. It was pretty stupid, but the city was so spread out, with no real downtown center, that cars were basically mandatory, and the transit system's inefficiencies did nothing to help that.

I moved to Ottawa in the summer though, complete with my car, and moved into a rented condo in the Market. I love being able to walk everywhere, and use my car a fraction of the amount I did in Thunder Bay. I've even recently started taking the bus a little bit more, to get to and from things downtown, and used it to get to the airport last week, and then recently just took a trip to various places around the town, well outside of the downtown core (Algonquin College, South Keys), and found the system to be very efficient and got me where I needed to go rather effectively. I just felt like doing something alternative to driving.

Now, I work from home, so maybe the system isn't as good during rush hour, or whatever, but I'm wondering still, how much of an improvement would this tunnel be, or would the ideal tunnel be to our city?

That's a really complicated question. At it's simplest, a bus tunnel would help eliminate a very significant source of congestion downtown, though I'm not sure it would be as much as one might think.

The tunnel proposed here though, is an LRT tunnel, which includes with it a radical transformation in the structure of rapid transit in the city, so improvements downtown will be confounded somewhat by transfers outside of downtown. The major benefit is that it would help create the framework for future improvements. The current system really is approaching the limit of its effectiveness and will have to be changed eventually; when that change happens, there will have to be a big investment, with relatively little in the way of improvements (basically the situation Ottawa is facing now with the proposed changes), which naturally makes no one all that happy, but is probably necessary.

[Suzie]

Originally Posted by Zach6668

I'm still relatively new when it comes to understanding urban engineering, development, transit systems, etc, but can anyone explain to me how much of an upgrade a tunnel like this would be over our current rapid transit system? Or even, how an ideal tunnel would be an upgrade in an ideal situation?

Coming from a smaller town in NW Ontario, the attitude there was basically people who took the bus were a lower form of life. It was pretty stupid, but the city was so spread out, with no real downtown center, that cars were basically mandatory, and the transit system's inefficiencies did nothing to help that.

I moved to Ottawa in the summer though, complete with my car, and moved into a rented condo in the Market. I love being able to walk everywhere, and use my car a fraction of the amount I did in Thunder Bay. I've even recently started taking the bus a little bit more, to get to and from things downtown, and used it to get to the airport last week, and then recently just took a trip to various places around the town, well outside of the downtown core (Algonquin College, South Keys), and found the system to be very efficient and got me where I needed to go rather effectively. I just felt like doing something alternative to driving.

Now, I work from home, so maybe the system isn't as good during rush hour, or whatever, but I'm wondering still, how much of an improvement would this tunnel be, or would the ideal tunnel be to our city?

As compared to the current situation, the tunnel won’t be much of an upgrade. For downtown users, the trip inside the transit vehicle will definitely be faster, but this will be offset by an increase in the time spent walking because of the reduction in the number of stations downtown and their location deep underground. People hate time spent walking more than time spent inside a transit vehicle (unless of course the transit vehicle is severely overcrowded). The conversion to rail will result in longer waiting times (service frequencies will be lower) and more transfers.

The push for a tunnel is driven by other factors:

- The first factor is the desire to placate the Downtown Business Coalition. The Coalition includes a handful of hotels that are located on Albert and Slater. These hotels believe that the Transitway buses (which move 200,000+ people each day and are the lifeline of downtown) are hurting their business (the buses are “unsightly” and interfere with the few dozen guests who arrive by car, taxi or tour bus each day). There are also other businesses that like to use the two streets as parking lots for their delivery trucks and their customers.

- The second factor has to do with capacity. The Transitway system, as currently operated, is at capacity in the downtown core during rush hour and cannot meet future increases in demand. The obvious way to add capacity, albeit at significant cost, is to build a tunnel. There are other options of course. In particular, Ottawa could decide to run its bus rapid transit system more efficiently. For example, it could emulate the TransMilenio system in Bogota (Columbia), which is probably the most advanced and efficient bus rapid transit system on the planet. Unlike in Ottawa, the system in Bogota is set up so that buses load and unload their passengers as quickly as possible. For example, people pay before they get on the bus (i.e., as they enter the station), the stations have multiple platforms (e.g., different platforms to serve regular routes versus limited-stop, express routes) with a proper amount of space between them, the platforms are at the same height as the floor of the buses (so it’s easy for people, included those in wheelchairs, to get on and off), the articulated buses each have four wide doors (two in the front and two in the back) and there are passing lanes at each station (the busy downtown and Mackenzie King bridge stations in Ottawa don’t have passing lanes). This greatly increases capacity (i.e., to the levels provided by underground subways), yet costs very little. But we are not smart enough to do this in Ottawa.

- The third factor relates to monument-building. Politicians and other very important people like building gold-plated monuments no matter what the cost. They will regard the construction of a tunnel as their legacy to future generations. Construction companies are only too happy to lobby for and build these monuments.

[ikerrin]

Originally Posted by Suzie

As compared to the current situation, the tunnel won’t be much of an upgrade. For downtown users, the trip inside the transit vehicle will definitely be faster, but this will be offset by an increase in the time spent walking because of the reduction in the number of stations downtown and their location deep underground.

The more I think of it, the less I think that we will have an issue. Mainly, its because I just can't imagine that we will loose a lot of bus service downtown. Without buses, Slater and Albert would be ghost streets. My suspicion is that at some point we will find a new way to add capacity there. I bet it will come in the form of an an enhanced #2 and #85 route running ever 5 or 10 minutes.

Plus, I wouldn't be surprised to see an inter-provincial transit system growing to use the Slater and Albert capacity that will be freed up by the subway. We might even see a street-car system emerge.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Suzie

- The third factor relates to monument-building. Politicians and other very important people like building gold-plated monuments no matter what the cost. They will regard the construction of a tunnel as their legacy to future generations. Construction companies are only too happy to lobby for and build these monuments.

You mean like the Transitway itself? With all its unnecessary trenching, grade-separations and pricey stations - unnecessary because had we gone with light rail from the outset much of it would not be needed - the Transitway is a 'gold-plated' monument built with little regard to cost as a legacy to future generations. Insanely, it took a recession and an NDP government of all things to bring some fiscal sense to the monument-building by saying 'No' to the ultimate in gold-plated Transitway extravagance, a massive twin bus tunnel project comprising four subterranean lanes in total. The legacy aspect is clear: just look how emotional Andy Haydon gets when 'his' Transitway is to be converted. Or that John Bonsall finds a need to come back to Ottawa years after he left to also defend 'his' Transitway from conversion to light rail. They're both still disappointed that their legacy is incomplete as it is missing its tunnel. With no bus tunnel on the horizon, the latter of the two went on to work with one of the major consultation companies involved in transitway construction and promoted the concept in places like Brisbane, Australia, which now gets bus jams just like in Ottawa.


So the current tunnel project is just following the well-trodden path established by the Transitway project in monument-building.

[waterloowarrior]

So much negativity lately (in the media as well) While there are some tweaks that can be made and modifications that I'd prefer (less road/bus, more rail), I can't wait to see how this project transforms our city

I hope when it comes down to the final vote, people will throw their support behind the plan! It would disappointing if we had another cancelled transit plan.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

So much negativity lately (in the media as well) While there are some tweaks that can be made and modifications that I'd prefer (less road/bus, more rail), I can't wait to see how this project transforms our city

I hope when it comes down to the final vote, people will throw their support behind the plan! It would disappointing if we had another cancelled transit plan.

A vote will not kill this plan. It will be out of control costs that prevent funding from the upper levels of government. I hope I'm wrong.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ Your not wrong. The estimate for the tunnel is way low, especially for the stations they want to build.

I wouldn't be surprised if the route is switched to a shallow cut and cover in the end under either Albert or Slater to help shave a bunch of cost off the implementation.

Hopefully in the end they take the politics out of the situation, and issue an RFP that asks for a certain number of stations, on a system that can handle a certain number of people per direction per hour. That way, all your potential bidders can do all the cost analysis for you, instead of prejudging the best solution. Who knows, you could get bids with automated trains, some with conventional LRT.

When your basically starting from scratch, it makes sense to go in eyes open. Why is council even making these decisions?