Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The whole bus situation could be remedied, at least in part and temporarily, but turning the Transitway into, well, a Transitway.

Subways and LRTs don't have train cars that hop on and off the line before or after running through outlying low-density suburban single-use "neighbourhoods". Why does the Busway? Get rid of the local and "express" routes and treat the Transitway like a subway of buses that happens to not be underground.

What's the point of that? You'll basically end up with a "train" which you are paying someone 70k a year to drive each car, and gets in the way of people and other surface vehicles. In the course of 10 years, the money that could have been invested in infrastructure would vaporize in salaries and upkeep without even expanding the system.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

What's the point of that? You'll basically end up with a "train" which you are paying someone 70k a year to drive each car, and gets in the way of people and other surface vehicles. In the course of 10 years, the money that could have been invested in infrastructure would vaporize in salaries and upkeep without even expanding the system.

There is one major thing I would change though - extensions beyond the current plan should be pushed up so that they begin once the western extension to Baseline is done. The first extension afterward I think should be Bayshore to Lincoln Fields, in fact, I'd seriously consider adding it to Phase 2 and defer the SW Transitway extension, building it as rail from the outset.

After that is done, I'd incrementally add suburban extensions - probably Orleans first, then Kanata then Barrhaven - before extending the N-S line beyond the airport.

[blackjagger]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

There is one major thing I would change though - extensions beyond the current plan should be pushed up so that they begin once the western extension to Baseline is done. The first extension afterward I think should be Bayshore to Lincoln Fields, in fact, I'd seriously consider adding it to Phase 2 and defer the SW Transitway extension, building it as rail from the outset.

After that is done, I'd incrementally add suburban extensions - probably Orleans first, then Kanata then Barrhaven - before extending the N-S line beyond the airport.

Barrhaven last eh. Just wait Barrhaven Town Center is going to have 7500 people living it in with 12 storey towers any day now. Well one can dream. I agree with your phasing. Though I wonder if a Carling /Montreal rd street car should be planned before crossing the greenbelt, strictly based on a density or new users basis.

Cheers,

Josh

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

What's the point of that? You'll basically end up with a "train" which you are paying someone 70k a year to drive each car, and gets in the way of people and other surface vehicles. In the course of 10 years, the money that could have been invested in infrastructure would vaporize in salaries and upkeep without even expanding the system.

We're spending that amount ANYWAY. We may as well spend it on a rational system that doesn't force passengers to toddle back and forth up and down Albert and Slater for two hours every evening, looking for "their" bus.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There is an interesting discussion going on the Calgary board also illustrating that LRT is not the reliability panacea that everybody assumes. There are a number of people there discussing the frequency of delays on the C-Train. It is not encouraging as many are saying that delays occur regularly for a wide range of reasons. If something happens anywhere on a C-Train line, every train stops, maybe for 5 minutes, or maybe even for 30 minutes as was mentioned there.

I like Calgary, but they do do some strange things there, too. I think they've got way too few switches/crossovers (and so, it looks like, will we) and they seem too willing to shut the system down rather than navigate around problems on one track only or provide a short-range shuttle around problems, at least initially. For all the expense we're apparently going to put into this, we should be able to have switches on either side of each station so that problems can be bypassed on the other track.

Interestingly though, that conversation confirms something I've long maintained: red lights downtown are not much of an issue in practice because timings have been optimized for the C-Train.

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

We're spending that amount ANYWAY. We may as well spend it on a rational system that doesn't force passengers to toddle back and forth up and down Albert and Slater for two hours every evening, looking for "their" bus.

Due to the delay in getting around to converting the Transitway, we'll probably see this by the time the 'original' Transitway era draws to an end anyway.

One thing they have to figure out is how to charge higher fares to cross the Greenbelt. Express buses are amongst the worst performing financially despite people being charged higher fares. If they makes changes that remove that source of revenue, they'll have an even worse time keeping the system running.

[MalcolmTucker]

Powered switches are expensive 1, require a fair amount of land, and it is really hard to maintain schedules around a problem. Better to stand pat and wait to get everything going at once when a problem clears. If there is an accident usually it would block both lines. The only problem beyond that is switching in incredibly cold weather, switching problems happen to both lines at once as switches are integrated.

[RTWAP]

I wonder if Watson will end up going with a 'Tunnel Later' option.

• Build the downtown portion at street level, with station capacities for 2 or 3 car trains.
• Build the eastern portion as per the plan (6 car station capacities)
• Build the western portion to Bayview (6-car) and divert down the O-Train cut to Carling (maybe 6-car?) before looping up to Carling and running in the median to Lincoln Fields (2-car or 3-car stations).

The goal would be to have a functional interim backbone that could handle a significant portion of the transit load during the next build phase, when the tunnel is bored and the transitway from Bayview to Dominion is converted to LRT, and LRT from Dominion to Lincoln Fields is completed.

I betcha a system like that could be built for less than $1.8B. And then go back to the funding partners later for funds to convert the core to higher capacity.

Basically, it bugs me that they are budgeting hundreds of millions of dollars in road changes and additional busing costs to handle diverting all the transitway traffic to city streets. It's a nightmare. Better to put that money toward the secondary central LRT line (Carling) that is actually in the plan. That way the money provides a short-term and long-term benefit instead of being wasted.

It also gives the city some important redundancy in the core. Imagine if there was a structural problem in the tunnel that caused a closure for a few weeks? No service across the city. Heck, trains in the west wouldn't even be able to get back to the yards for servicing.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Man, you really should see a psychologist about your depressive attitude towards the LRT plan. It goes beyond transit — it is so clear that the whole bus situation is ruining downtown, that we are sacrificing the liveability of our core for the sake of getting in and out of it. it's about time something is being done about it, and that we start making reclaiming room for people and not vehicles, whether private or public. In my opinion, whatever your idea of an ideal transit plan is, the tunnel is a necessity. Anything in the outlying areas can be reconfigured in the future.

You know, any plan that places LRT downtown is going to start getting rid of buses to some degree. Even the tunnel plan still only gets rid of 50% of the buses and apparently all those STO buses will simply be moved to Albert and Slater street so there won't be much change there. Under the best of circumstances, that extra road space will not be allocated to pedestrians but to make room for more cars and trucks. You live in a fantasy land if you think that this is not going to be the outcome.

Furthermore, do you think my arguments about ridership and travel times are unreasonable? If you do not agree, let's hear a reasoned rebuttal. I will go further, with all the disruption to the Transitways during construction, a loss of ridership is not beyond the realm of possibilities.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by RTWAP

I wonder if Watson will end up going with a 'Tunnel Later' option.

• Build the downtown portion at street level, with station capacities for 2 or 3 car trains.
• Build the eastern portion as per the plan (6 car station capacities)
• Build the western portion to Bayview (6-car) and divert down the O-Train cut to Carling (maybe 6-car?) before looping up to Carling and running in the median to Lincoln Fields (2-car or 3-car stations).

The goal would be to have a functional interim backbone that could handle a significant portion of the transit load during the next build phase, when the tunnel is bored and the transitway from Bayview to Dominion is converted to LRT, and LRT from Dominion to Lincoln Fields is completed.

I betcha a system like that could be built for less than $1.8B. And then go back to the funding partners later for funds to convert the core to higher capacity.

Basically, it bugs me that they are budgeting hundreds of millions of dollars in road changes and additional busing costs to handle diverting all the transitway traffic to city streets. It's a nightmare. Better to put that money toward the secondary central LRT line (Carling) that is actually in the plan. That way the money provides a short-term and long-term benefit instead of being wasted.

It also gives the city some important redundancy in the core. Imagine if there was a structural problem in the tunnel that caused a closure for a few weeks? No service across the city. Heck, trains in the west wouldn't even be able to get back to the yards for servicing.

With the underfunding of the tunnel project a real possibility, an approach of this nature or something similar may become a necessity. The important thing, is that anything that is built must be permanent in nature and I support the concept of downtown redundancy. I have always thought that the lack of redundancy was a weakness of the tunnel plan as a second route through downtown will buy us considerable capacity for the future. Once we cut off the surface route east and west of downtown, we cannot replace it. I would like to see us build as much of the LRT backbone as quickly as possible with the available funding. It is too bad that so much of our focus in the last 4 years has been on some very expensive Transitway extensions instead of getting additional LRT routes and extensions planned and ready for construction.

I have never opposed the tunnel and we need to build it at some point in the not too distant future but if funding is inadequate, I would rather see us get as much track built as possible first.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

With the underfunding of the tunnel project a real possibility, an approach of this nature or something similar may become a necessity. The important thing, is that anything that is built must be permanent in nature and I support the concept of downtown redundancy. I have always thought that the lack of redundancy was a weakness of the tunnel plan as a second route through downtown will buy us considerable capacity for the future. Once we cut off the surface route east and west of downtown, we cannot replace it. I would like to see us build as much of the LRT backbone as quickly as possible with the available funding. It is too bad that so much of our focus in the last 4 years has been on some very expensive Transitway extensions instead of getting additional LRT routes and extensions planned and ready for construction.

I have never opposed the tunnel and we need to build it at some point in the not too distant future but if funding is inadequate, I would rather see us get as much track built as possible first.

I'm with you on this.

I know the downtown problem is something that needs to be solved. But if the tunnel isn't needed right away, does it need to be built right away?

We know that we're going to have a fixed amount of money- the question is how do we maximize those dollars. What I'm interested in knowing is how many more km of track could we install if we opted for surface rail in phase 1 instead of a tunnel.

There's a trade-off there, for sure, but I think people would be interested in knowing what that trade-off is.

[MalcolmTucker]

The city has never been willing to let BRT take up enough road space, let alone enough for LRT. Ottawa's system at least you can say it won't be underbuilt! (even if it is pointless to build it low floor and require bigger stations with the way the system is designed, but c'est la vie)

[Ottawan]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I know the downtown problem is something that needs to be solved. But if the tunnel isn't needed right away, does it need to be built right away?

It was needed yesterday, that's why we're hoping it will be built sometime this decade.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Ottawan

It was needed yesterday, that's why we're hoping it will be built sometime this decade.

It is only needed yesterday if all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted. When we see something as simple as eliminating the MacKenzie-King bridge traffic signal has not occurred, it is clear that we are not serious about optimizing the downtown leg of the Transitway.

[Dado]

Does anyone know what caused the westbound bus jam downtown this afternoon?

In other news, the Canadian Urban Transit Association is meeting in Ottawa right now:

http://www.cutaactu.ca/en/annual_conference_2010

[lrt's friend]

yeah, I heard that there was great disappointment that John Baird did not announce the $600M federal contribution towards the transit project. It was also mentioned on the news this evening that construction of the tunnel will not begin until 2013. Why is it that the starting date keeps getting deferred?

[Dado]

In all honesty, I think John Baird would much rather hand a cheque over to Jim Watson and whoever replaces Alex Cullen as Transit Committee Chair than to hand one over to O'Brien and Cullen. Party differences notwithstanding, Watson and Baird generally seem to get along. Another point to remember is that the initial plan doesn't touch Baird's (and Watson's former) riding... but if Watson comes up with a plan to extend the initial system westwards rather than building a tunnel, that would be of much more interest to Baird.

The longer he puts it off, the closer it comes to being nearer to a new federal election as well.

Even if Jim Watson loses, the worst outcome for Baird is that he only has to hand the cheque over to one of Cullen and O'Brien...

In other words, Baird has every reason to wait until after the municipal election.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

yeah, I heard that there was great disappointment that John Baird did not announce the $600M federal contribution towards the transit project. It was also mentioned on the news this evening that construction of the tunnel will not begin until 2013. Why is it that the starting date keeps getting deferred?

With the time lines present in the documents above about the project, why would you start building before 2013? It shouldn't even take the six years 2013 would leave to finish the tunnel.

[OttawaSteve]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It is only needed yesterday if all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted. When we see something as simple as eliminating the MacKenzie-King bridge traffic signal has not occurred, it is clear that we are not serious about optimizing the downtown leg of the Transitway.

It's true. There are a number of quick fixes that would improve travel time and service reliability downtown. Eliminating the pedestrian crossing at Mackenzie King is one of them (for those not familiar, in addition to the crosswalk there is a sadly underutilized pedestrian underpass with elevators, escalators (!), and direct access to DND and Sears).

[lrt's friend]

In an interview yesterday, David Jeanes disagreed with the presented time in order to descend 10 to 12 storeys to the LRT platform. The predicted time has been presented as 2.5 minutes but David indicated that this is more likely to be 5 minutes. Mr. Jeanes also expressed concern about maintenance of escalators and elevators given the city's track record in Transitway stations. With an aging population, it is imperative that escalators and elevators be functional at all times when the platform is that much underground.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

In an interview yesterday, David Jeanes disagreed with the presented time in order to descend 10 to 12 storeys to the LRT platform. The predicted time has been presented as 2.5 minutes but David indicated that this is more likely to be 5 minutes. Mr. Jeanes also expressed concern about maintenance of escalators and elevators given the city's track record in Transitway stations. With an aging population, it is imperative that escalators and elevators be functional at all times when the platform is that much underground.

Apparently the longest escalator in North America is in a Washington Metro station, and it takes about 3 minutes to cover a vertical distance of 70m.

Perhaps Mr. Jeanes doesn't know what he's talking about.