Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Dado

Over $4.5B, including vehicles. I know because I went out and calculated it over a year ago based on the early TMP documentation. It might be closer to $5B now with the refinements they've been doing to the tunnel plan.

That also excludes a bunch of BRT corridors, like March Road in Kanata, Blair Road, Baseline Road, new buses and it included conversion of the SE Transitway (rather than the O-Train) and LRT on the Hospital-Cumberland corridor. If you were to follow the TMP's "post-2031" network exactly, it would cost more still.

Do you/anyone have a link to the new cost estimates? I keep reading the number gets bigger and bigger in the paper, but it doesn't pinpoint exactly why/where. The numbers I have a from the public consultation when LRT was chosen over BRT and LRT (option 4) came in at about $4M all-in.

[Dado]

I haven't spotted this on CBC or the Citizen yet, though CBC did run an item about this on the evening news. It's all a bit sensationalist since we all know that light rail won't be heading out this way until past 2031 according to the TMP and OP...


Another snag for LRT plan
NCC doesn't want to let city use Greenbelt land
By DEREK PUDDICOMBE, CITY HALL BUREAU
Last Updated: 29th September 2009, 5:16pm

The city’s multi-billion dollar plan to take light rail to the west end has taken another blow.

In an Aug. 14 letter to Nancy Schepers, the city’s deputy manager, the National Capital Commission’s executive director of capital planning, Francois Lapointe, said the city won’t be allowed to use NCC land north of Hwy. 417 to extend the west Transitway from Bayshore to Moodie Dr. The corridor is the city’s preferred route that it eventually intends to convert to light rail, as it is planning to do from Blair Rd. to Tunney’s Pasture.

Lapointe said the NCC was not involved in any of the development plans, as it is required to be, in the city’s selection of the preferred route.

“The NCC cannot accept the preliminary preferred option, or the remaining two options based on the analysis and information provided to date,” the letter says. “It should not be assumed that NCC property is available for new projects, but rather a thorough justification must be presented to demonstrate that all other options are not feasible. Cost alone may not be a sufficient reason to justify the use of NCC property over other potential options.”

Because the land the city has identified as its preferred option falls within the Greenbelt, any plan to amend the Greenbelt Master Plan requires a detailed review.

“The NCC strives to act as a responsible environmental steward of its lands,” said Lapointe. “It will seek to avoid first, then minimize and mitigate any environmental effects on its lands resulting from transit infrastructure proposals.”

The NCC is requesting the city go back to the drawing board to find a new preferred corridor and submit a “more detailed analysis and comparison of the different options.”

The city is also waiting to hear from the NCC for permission to use a section of the Ottawa River Pkwy. for light rail.

Bay Coun. Alex Cullen, who is also the chairman of the city’s Transit committee, said the letter had a “snippy” air to it, the city is going through the obligatory Environmental Assessment process that will ultimately determine the route and that light rail to the west isn’t in jeopardy.

“It’s premature to judge the outcome of the EA,” said Cullen. “I suggest the NCC keep their powder dry.”

One option for the city is to purchase land from the province’s Ministry of Transportation, but Cullen said the MTO wants to retain the land it already holds for any future expansion of the Queensway. [Haven't they done enough of that already? What more do they want to do?]

One west-end councillor is fuming he and his colleagues are only now being told about the letter.

“To say the least it’s a surprise,” said West Carleton-March Coun. Eli El-Chantiry. “If staff knew about this why didn’t they approach council.”

Schepers, who sent an e-mail to councillors Tuesday afternoon informing them of the issue, said the city is drafting a response to the NCC and will share the information with councillors.


--

Ah yes, our ever-reliable staff... how many times have NCC letters sat around now? But let's not be too harsh... they farmed this work out to consultants, McCormick Rankin, to be precise (that's John Bonsall's former place of employ after he left the RMOC, for those who don't follow these things too closely), and they're the ones who were supposed to be leading all the "stakeholder" involvement (it says so in their own. City Staff should never have even been in a position where they would be receiving such a letter; that's what talking to "stakeholders" is supposed to be about: to avoid such situations.

Here are the pertinent slides from the 25 June open house:

The corridors they looked at. For some reason the MTO's useless northeast quadrant parclo goes unmolested (just put in a frikkin traffic light and a left turn), even though it introduces significant detouring to alignment options or adds the expense of multiple underpasses in the midst of low-lying land occupied by stormwater ponds.




This time they're using red, yellow and green circles for the evaluation criteria. I guess those semi-circle things are now out of favour. I can't stand these charts - they're made out to be objective but in reality they're not. Every time there's a new study they change the criteria and there's no explanation as to how they weight the various elements to get their colour coding.




And here is the infamous 'red corridor'.



Yep... I can kind of see why the NCC might be a bit peeved - Corkstown is to be relocated yet again. And isn't it nice how the MTO's parclo goes untouched but Greenbelt land, well, that's just there for the taking.

Anyway, looks like the City and the MTO are going to have to go with the Blue route in the median now... what's really stupid is that they have no intention of building a transitway west of Moodie in the next 20 odd years - they're going to use the bus lanes the MTO built, so the evaluation criterion of connecting to the future alignment on the north side is rather pointless.

[eternallyme]

Would the 417 median be suitable?

[Franky]

Dado, thanks for that excellent post. I was looking for that "red-corridor" item from the news but could not find it.

I suppose if they decide to dump the tunnel, they might consider extending to the arena (SBP) right away.

[lrt's friend]

Why would the city extend rapid transit to SBP? That would require some agreement with SBP to locate a station there and hopefully share the parking lot. This is beyond the capacity of the city to come up with such an agreement or build a station at a reasonable cost.

The NCC clearly has a message here. Forget about the Ottawa River Parkway unless the city can prove that all alternatives simply won't work. I do think that the NCC as stewards of the Greenbelt is a bit hypocritical after they kicked a farmer off his land of a number of generations and then sold the property off for big box developments along Innes Road.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Why would the city extend rapid transit to SBP? That would require some agreement with SBP to locate a station there and hopefully share the parking lot. This is beyond the capacity of the city to come up with such an agreement or build a station at a reasonable cost.

The NCC clearly has a message here. Forget about the Ottawa River Parkway unless the city can prove that all alternatives simply won't work. I do think that the NCC as stewards of the Greenbelt is a bit hypocritical after they kicked a farmer off his land of a number of generations and then sold the property off for big box developments along Innes Road.

Well, why not? BRT is to go to Arena.
Terry Fox to Arena BRT $41,678,507,00 - 3100 m
Station at Campeau - $1M
Station at SBP - $5M

Yes, the ORP message makes sense - I never liked the option anyway.

That's how the NCC generates money - expropriate and sell.

Here's the news blurb:
Transit plan hits snag on NCC land
City told it shouldn’t assume it can use slice of Greenbelt in west-side extension
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Transit+plan+hits+snag+land/2048155/story.html

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Why would the city extend rapid transit to SBP? That would require some agreement with SBP to locate a station there and hopefully share the parking lot. This is beyond the capacity of the city to come up with such an agreement or build a station at a reasonable cost.

Get into a sole-source agreement to build and operate a soccer stadium, or something. I gather there's interest and that something like that is happening somewhere else in the city...

The NCC clearly has a message here. Forget about the Ottawa River Parkway unless the city can prove that all alternatives simply won't work.

That is definitely the more interesting subtext here. The media are getting all excited about this Moodie thing but the real message is directed at the City with respect to the ORP and the forthcoming study on that section.

[lrt's friend]

Hmmm. No discussion of the Bayshore Transitway problems.

Why are express buses getting delayed? Are there design problems at Bayshore station?

Now, we are talking about bypassing Bayshore station for many buses. This does not bode well for the attempts to implement hub and spoke, some of which have just been implemented at Bayshore. What is the value of hub and spoke when we can't efficiently run trunk line transit through the transfer station?

This is the bad publicity that I fear, which will be magnified 10 times, if we spend billions on LRT and it delivers slower service than today. We better make sure that doesn't happen. I have still not seen reports that outline the benefits of building LRT in the manner that we are planning. To me, that is unacceptable. There has to be more benefits beyond resolving downtown congestion, as that alone may not result in overall faster travel times for the average commuter.

I recall a Calgary contributor saying that this is not important, but I strongly disagree. People will notice and people will complain if service is slower, especially if enormous amounts of tax money are spent for what appears to be no benefit.

[waterloowarrior]

Isn't the problem that it's an orphan section of BRT (highway to the east and west). Eastbound traffic has to do a strange route, crossing the highway twice to use a short section of busway. In the Citizen online comments people are saying that the westbound route home is now faster.

[Cre47]

Reason why the city needs to deal with the Roman Avenue problem ASAP, this would help speed up the eastbound trips.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Hmmm. No discussion of the Bayshore Transitway problems.

Why are express buses getting delayed? Are there design problems at Bayshore station?

I don't live in Kanata, but...

The following link shows that, because the elevator at the new section of Bayshore station is not yet installed, a temporary STOP sign and crosswalk have been implemented, with the roadway narrowed to 2 lanes instead of four. This could be causing some of the issues, as it would be preventing express buses from passing the likes of the 96.

http://www.octranspo.com/mapscheds/Transitway/BAY_Accessible_Access.pdf

I think what needs to be kept in mind here is that the new Transitway will result in travel times being more consistent and reliable. Yes, some early morning trips (where there is no traffic on the Queensway) might be slowed down a bit by having to exit and get back on the Queensway, but I think most trips are better off.

As a former resident of Kanata in my youth, I can recall that on particularly bad weather days when Queensway traffic was at a crawl, my AM express bus would exit at Holly Acres, take it to Richmond, get back on the Queensway, exit again at Pinecrest, then get back on in an attempt to bypass traffic. I can tell you that it was not fast.

On days like that, people will be glad that the Transitway is there.

And that is even ignoring the added convenience of being able to, say, stop at Bayshore on your way back to Kanata and take the next express home (something I could never do at the time), or being able to transfer to a local route at Bayshore station- something not possible before.

Of course some people will never be happy...

[Dado]

Here's the Citizen article:


New leg of transitway actually slows bus trips

BY PATRICK DARE, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN SEPTEMBER 30, 2009


Additions to Ottawa's bus transitway system are supposed to make commuting faster, not slower. But the recent completion of a transitway section at Bayshore is having the opposite effect.

Starting this month, express buses from Kanata on their way downtown are getting off the Queensway at Holly Acres Road to transfer to a new section of the transitway between Bayshore and Pinecrest Road. At Bayshore transit station they are getting delayed in traffic line-ups with local buses.

Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson says riders are seeing delays of five to 10 minutes, enough to make them start talking about carpooling instead of riding transit. She says the problem is that the western leg of the transitway system is being built in sections, so the transit vehicles don't see significantly improved travel times.

"People are very frustrated with that. It's making people late for work," said Kanata South Councillor Peggy Feltmate. Transit committee chairman Alex Cullen acknowledges the problem and says the transit company may have to allow express buses to stay on the Queensway at certain times when that route is not congested, rather than travelling on the transitway.

"It's a work in progress," said Cullen, noting that the Bayshore section of the transitway was a $45-million project. Cullen says the utility of the transitway to residents of the west side will become clear in the years to come as the Queensway becomes more and more crowded.

Wilkinson says she will be meeting with Transpo's senior planner on Thursday and hopes to have a resolution to the problem arranged soon. On the city's east side, OC Transpo's changes in service are also causing some upset. Orléans Councillor Bob Monette says Transpo has fixed some problems with overcrowded buses by adding more 60-foot vehicles.

But he says riders can't understand why crowded express buses from Orléans are now stopping at Place d'Orléans shopping centre when there is no room for more passengers and there are other No. 95 buses that could carry people downtown. Monette says OC Transpo has promised to look into it.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen


--

The comments had lots of whining and little analysis, but there was this one:

Jane**

FYI the trip back to Kanata is indeed faster because you stay on the same side of the Queensway. The garbage in the AM is to get off at Bayshore drive around and then get back on at Pinecrest.

The inbound journey involves getting off the 417 at Holly Acres, stopping at the light there, going under the 417, entering Bayshore and then, once near Pinecrest, taking a sharp left onto the ramp, stopping at Pinecrest, turning right onto Pinecrest and then heading onto the 417 again on the 270° parclo ramp. That compares to just staying on the 417 all the way through.

In my mind, that would be enough to explain it all, but the article had this line near the beginning: "At Bayshore transit station they are getting delayed in traffic line-ups with local buses."

This calls for an early morning site visit. Looking at OC Transpo's website, all the express buses go through the Transitway portion of the station, as does the #96. The #97 is still on the main local platform, as is, surprisingly, the #101. The genuinely local buses are all on the local platform and there is only one 'oddball' on the Transitway stop - the #181, which goes as far as Pinecrest on the new Transitway and gets off there. There are two reverse-commute buses, the #167 and the #182, but they're going the other way. There's nothing here with odd bus routing in the station to be causing delays.

My best guess is that the article author is making stuff up with that line and that the delay is simply from the extra distance and stopping at both ends.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Hmmm. No discussion of the Bayshore Transitway problems.

Did you also notice that the City didn't have any great announcement of this section opening up? Where was O'Brien? Where was Alex with the speech? Where were the local senior pols Baird and Watson whose governments kicked in some of the money for this? In Calgary the mayor drives a train through a ribbon at the new end-of-line station when opening up a new bit of track. Ditto for Edmonton - the last one had Rona Ambrose in attendance for Pete's sake. So even our own officials don't feel any great desire to celebrate new bits of the Transitway opening up.

[osbort]

I take an express bus on this route every day from Bells Corners and I have not experienced a line up of buses at Bayshore station. The author is making that up. The strange configuration at Pinecrest is slowing it down, but it is still much faster than being in traffic from Moodie Dr. to Queensway Station. Traffic on the Queensway on this section is at a standstill every morning, so, a separate roadway is much faster: even on the small section where the bus travels on the Queensway as buses travel in the lane for the Woodroffe offramp the entire time.

[Cre47]

I was at Bayshore this morning and looking from the south side of the mall, really noticeable was the parking lot on the eastbound 417 (barely 10-15 km/h at best sometimes completely stopped) with the buses zooming by. I would estimate a good 5-minute gain versus should they have stayed on the 417. Should they finally deal with the portion east of Pinecrest soon, it would be much helpful when the traffic is not as heavy as the usual morning parking lot.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Cre47

I was at Bayshore this morning and looking from the south side of the mall, really noticeable was the parking lot on the eastbound 417 (barely 10-15 km/h at best sometimes completely stopped) with the buses zooming by. I would estimate a good 5-minute gain versus should they have stayed on the 417.

I was there around noon. The eastbound platform is a bit cramped right next to the main door, but otherwise there's enough room further along. The layout doesn't allow people to see buses approaching from either direction while inside - the best place is actually in the overhead walkway.

I think most of the "it takes longer" stuff is compared to lighter summer traffic on the 417.

Should they finally deal with the portion east of Pinecrest soon, it would be much helpful when the traffic is not as heavy as the usual morning parking lot.

It's not going to happen for years and years. It's in Phase 2 of the TMP, coming after LRT goes to Baseline. By the time it gets to the front of the line, hopefully sanity will have prevailed and it will be made as LRT instead. Also by that time the Pinecrest bus garage will have been closed so any rationale for razing houses on Roman Ave will be gone; if they can't figure out a way to get a bus or LRT transitway through there, even with grade separation, given all the land that will be available they are beyond hope. Oh yes - the NCC already agreed to a corridor there years ago.

[bikegypsy]

Ottawa Sun, October 5


"Just when Ottawans thought the city was moving ahead with a state-of-the-art, multi-billion dollar light rail transit system, yet another option is being put on the table.

For years city staff and councillors have been discussing a light rail transit (LRT) network, but in November councillors will be presented with a detailed plan that will offer them a choice between building a heavy rail transit (HRT) system or an LRT network.

Transit committee chairman and Bay Coun. Alex Cullen said that whatever electric rail technology council chooses will have a significant impact on the shape and feel of commuter rail in the city.

“These are options for council to choose,” said Cullen. “It will affect station design and the option for future growth.”

The revelation of another option doesn’t sit well with transportation committee chairwoman River Coun. Maria McRae, who supports rapid transit but is shocked to hear the city is considering HRT as an option because it’s something she has never heard staff mention.

McRae said the HRT option could change the rail debate.

“This is unbelievable. I am really sick and tired of this,” said McRae, who has a lot more questions now about the future of rail transit in Ottawa.

She wonders how HRT could affect existing projects that are being built to accommodate future rail transit.

“Can heavy rail cross the Strandherd-Earl Armstrong bridge?” asked McRae.

Cullen didn’t go into much detail because city staff are still fine tuning a report, but did suggest if council went ahead with HRT it could remove the need to use the Ottawa River Pkwy. as part of the rail route because an HRT system must be completely separate from the road network.

As part of the LRT option, the city has asked the National Capital Commission for permission to lay rail tracks along the parkway.

Removing the parkway option would shift the city’s focus to running a rail trench along Byron or Carling avenues.

Transportation committee vice-chairwoman and Kitchissippi Coun. Christine Leadman is angry and said she will do everything she can to stop HRT from barrelling down Byron Ave., which is in her ward.

“LRT, LRT, LRT, that’s all we’ve ever heard from staff,” said Leadman, who added Byron is too narrow and homes too close to the street to accommodate HRT. “This can’t get any worse.”

Cullen said HRT has benefits: It’s cheaper than LRT, has faster acceleration and can carry more passengers.

One thing Cullen is certain of is once both options are on the table, residents will want to have their say.

“We will have to take the step of having public consultations because of the nature of the choices,” he said."

[Ciemny]

How is HRT cvheaper then LRT if it needs its own specific rights of way and the technology is slightly different, this I do not understand. Is this even appropriate in Ottawa....maybe with our longer distances to the suburbs....could bring rail there sooner. Also what about headways..........

Seems like staff really really have a hate on for council or O'Brien if they came up with this plan this late, council isin't helping either. Unless they want to keep this "rapid transit" circus going untill the next election after which we might actually settle on something concrete.
Waterloo had the same corridor for 30 odd years and is getting LRT. We cannot even settle for the type of tech. to use. BRT, LRT, HRT, PRT..........flying baloons strapped to your waist.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Ciemny

How is HRT cvheaper then LRT if it needs its own specific rights of way and the technology is slightly different, this I do not understand. Is this even appropriate in Ottawa....maybe with our longer distances to the suburbs....could bring rail there sooner. Also what about headways..........

Seems like staff really really have a hate on for council or O'Brien if they came up with this plan this late, council isin't helping either. Unless they want to keep this "rapid transit" circus going untill the next election after which we might actually settle on something concrete.
Waterloo had the same corridor for 30 odd years and is getting LRT. We cannot even settle for the type of tech. to use. BRT, LRT, HRT, PRT..........flying baloons strapped to your waist.

Grade separated means a tunnel is necessary, so it may actually be Larry 0'Brien initiative.

[lrt's friend]

I always thought that heavy rail trains had slower acceleration.

When we talk about grade separation, does this mean that all level crossings have to eliminated? If so, does this not mean that we have to trash the North-South rail plan for south of Hunt Club that includes a number of level crossings.

If grade separation means no level crossings, how can this possibly be cheaper to build?

I also get concerned about trains carrying even more passengers. That just points to the likelihood of even less frequent service.

Do heavy rail trains also impact the curves that the trains can handle? Does this mean that Transitway conversion will involve greater costs?

Does this all just extend the debate before anything actually gets built?