Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[MalcolmTucker]

I have to wonder if the volume of passengers transfering is the issue for the future, would eliminating fare checks for boarding increase volumes enough to keep things flowing? Right now bus volume is an issue, but won't the bottleneck once conversion happens be clearing all those passengers through one door (per bus)?

[OttawaSteve]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

So that is my current thinking about Hurdman Station: Do you think it would help the bus flow into and out of the station?

Very impressive. Something I've wondered about is what Hurdman might look like if it were to be designed today, in the same spot, from the ground up. What could be done differently to maximize throughput? But here we're talking realistically about what could be done to modify the existing configuration.

The biggest problem right now as I see it is congestion on the westbound platform that backs up and affects the south/east intersection. This is worst, in my experience, at around 4:00 pm, when a large number of local trips from the east and south terminate at Hurdman, right at the same time that a huge number of rush hour trips originate at the Hurdman layup headed for points west -- all of these need to clear that east intersection and serve the westbound platform.

The eastbound platform has its problems too, but not on the scale of the westbound platform.

I can see a couple of possible modifications:

1) completely reconfigure the stop arrangements on the platforms themselves to maximize use of space and reduce weaving and bunching. Each platform currently has three separate 'areas', utilized as follows:

WESTBOUND:
- at the far west end, a stop served only by westbound express buses
- midway, the main stop for all regular westbound service
- at the east end, an extremely small and crowded 'off only' area for all service from the east and south terminating at Hurdman

whereas EASTBOUND stops are arranged strictly by destination:
- at the far east end, a stop for routes headed south to Billings and beyond
- midway, a stop for Alta Vista, Industrial, the hospitals
- at the far west end, a very heavily used stop for routes headed to St-Laurent and beyond, as well as an unofficial off-only area for eastbound routes terminating at Hurdman

(The practical reason for this arrangement is that Billings-bound buses need to be closest to the curb at the east end of the platform in order to carry on straight through the crossover intersection.)

Both of these configurations seem to have the unfortunate effect of maximizing bunching at the tail end of the platform while underutilizing the top end. When you clog up the tail end of the platform, it clogs up the adjacent crossover intersection.

Westbound, I'd suggest eliminating the westbound express stop and having all service serve the flag at the far west end of the platform. Eastbound, I'd combine the two westernmost stops. In both cases I'd consider implementing curbside barriers and designated 180-foot platforms, similar to what's been done downtown.

2) a new contraflow lane and loop along the far north side of the station, to be used by eastbound and southbound locals originating in the layup and entering service at Hurdman (i.e. routes 4, 9, 106, 111, 114, 118, 121, 124-9, 140, 146, 148, 149):



This reduces the total amount of traffic through both crossover intersections and the number of buses trying to navigate their way around the south side of the platform. This might require a reconfiguration of the layup, and I'm not sure how nicely this would play with the idea of a new eastbound exit at Industrial Avenue.

P.S. you can tell a lot about traffic patterns through the station by looking at the darkening of the pavement in the above image... but it might be worth coming up with some actual numbers of buses per stop/direction per hour.

[lrt's friend]

The O-Train expansion proposal is a sensible one. One major consideration is not to make electrification and dual tracking more difficult.

I have heard so many ideas suggesting extension of the O-Train but in the end, this will create further problems down the road and a looming major shutdown with no adequate alternatives.

We are already seeing how temporary the O-Train infrastructure is and how much rehabilitation is needed. Further investment now beyond maintaining what we already have and to meet existing (growing) demand is all that makes sense.

Beyond that, we need a permanent solution and that means electrification and dual tracking.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The O-Train expansion proposal is a sensible one. One major consideration is not to make electrification and dual tracking more difficult.

I have heard so many ideas suggesting extension of the O-Train but in the end, this will create further problems down the road and a looming major shutdown with no adequate alternatives.

We are already seeing how temporary the O-Train infrastructure is and how much rehabilitation is needed. Further investment now beyond maintaining what we already have and to meet existing (growing) demand is all that makes sense.

Beyond that, we need a permanent solution and that means electrification and dual tracking.

The problem with that is that it makes any future extensions much, much more expensive into areas with fairly low ridership...so they couldn't come until much later.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by OttawaSteve

Very impressive. Something I've wondered about is what Hurdman might look like if it were to be designed today, in the same spot, from the ground up. What could be done differently to maximize throughput?

In some ways I think one of the biggest missed opportunities with the entire Transitway concept was not running the entire thing on a counterflow basis.

Hurdman would be quite functional with counterflow running since the only crossing would be that of eastbound-to-southbound buses crossing the track of westbound buses.

Downtown, Slater and Albert would operate as quasi two-way streets, but with buses going in the opposite direction on the opposite side of the street (i.e. the blocks between Slater and Albert would function as one big island platform). The number of conflicts with other road users would be much reduced by dint of not having other road users travelling in the same direction as the buses.

Other stations along the system would be basic island stations with just one elevator, one stairwell, etc. Moreover, conversion to rail would be easier because the stations would not present a question of how to deal with them.

For the running ways themselves, instead of having two largely unused shoulders on either side there could be a single raised or sunken wide lane (e.g. 4-5 m, the combined width of the shoulders at present) in the centre so as to both separate the two directions while providing a single location to store snow and dead buses. Again for conversion, one direction could be converted to rail while buses that formerly used that side could use the centre lane along with some of those knock-down flexible bollards as lane dividers in the interim.

For all the claims of the BRT types that BRT is "flexible", the truth of the matter is that when they implemented its ultimate form here in Ottawa - the bus transitway - they were far less than flexible in its design. There was some flexibility in roll-out (e.g. using the Parkway, dedicated lanes on freeways and expressways) but once they got to building actual infrastructure, flexibility went out the door and what we got instead was an expensive piece of transit infrastructure designed by highway engineers.

[Richard Eade]

I agree that putting the buses on the left (counter-flow) has lots of benefits for operating stations; they become central platform stations. However, there would likely still need to be two elevators at each station to account for one being 'out of service'. Currently a patron, when confronted by a dead elevator on their side, can hop on the next bus to the next station where they change sides to return to the original station, but on the opposite side - hoping that that elevator is working. Somewhat inconvenient and time wasting, but do-able. Having a single elevator on a central platform would make the station inaccessible for those who need an elevator.

Another thing to think about is whether Hurdman would function well if the buses were counter-flowed. Just because the buses would no longer need to cross (or at least not as much) doesn’t mean that there would be no bus jams. I was once told that new stations shouldn’t be designed with central platforms lest we recreate the mess at Hurdman Station; I happily replied that we should not create future stations with side platforms lest we recreate the mess of the Mackenzie King Station. That Transitway station planner has not talked to me since, but I think my point was a valid one; it is not so much whether a station has central or side platforms that matters, but a much more holistic combination of the stations design, capacity and utilization of that station. I think that OttawaSteve has a point about needing to re-arrange the stops at Hurdman. Not having the buses cross may not be sufficient to ensure a smooth flowing station at Hurdman.

When I brought up the idea of a contra-flow Transitway segment to a City planner, it was pointed out that Montreal is in the process of removing their contra-flow bus lanes for public safety; it turns out that people crossing the lanes do not look in the correct direction for approaching buses. This would, undoubtedly be the answer to the suggestion that buses should travel in the ‘wrong’ direction along Albert and Slater downtown; people will get hit.

For short Transitway segments, far away from the public, I think it could be a benefit to have the buses travel on the left. Having the entire Transitway contra-flow, even in populated areas might be a hazard.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

The problem with that is that it makes any future extensions much, much more expensive into areas with fairly low ridership...so they couldn't come until much later.

Funny how we did a ridership study that expected more than 40,000 daily ridership on the North-South route and we blow almost $100 million to produce nothing but it is too expensive to extend rapid transit southward in any sort of rational way 15 years down the road. We would rather blow another $100 million on some temporary solution (we keep spending on the O-Train and now we are expecting another major investment) and then spend another $1 billion or more to rip it all up and do it over again when the population reaches 150,000. Meanwhile, we are spending hundreds of millions on road expansions which will make transit even less competitive in the long-term.

Part of the problem with low ridership is because we have offered lousy service all along.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Funny how we did a ridership study that expected more than 40,000 daily ridership on the North-South route and we blow almost $100 million to produce nothing but it is too expensive to extend rapid transit southward in any sort of rational way 15 years down the road. We would rather blow another $100 million on some temporary solution (we keep spending on the O-Train and now we are expecting another major investment) and then spend another $1 billion or more to rip it all up and do it over again when the population reaches 150,000. Meanwhile, we are spending hundreds of millions on road expansions which will make transit even less competitive in the long-term.

Part of the problem with low ridership is because we have offered lousy service all along.

40,000? Ridership on the east-west route is over 200,000 daily, more than five times that. Heck, the 95 alone probably has significantly more than 40,000 a day using it. Your plan would not provide any relief or improvements on the main spine of the system.

[Dado]

The ~40,000 number was based on having the line go all the way through to Barrhaven from the UoO as of 2011 (i.e. now). Given the way growth has panned out and is now expected to pan out (which was itself predicted before the recent announcements of federal gov't retrenchment), we would not be anticipating that level of ridership until later. Some of that ridership may well have been downtown-only (i.e. short trip) ridership and inter-university ridership as opposed to ridership originating in RS and Barrhaven. Reading through the business case, it's clear that a lot of the total ridership was actually expected to come by way of the parts already served by the O-Train: from Bayview to Carleton and Confederation. Some of this we could grab today simply by adding a station in at Gladstone.


If we had had any sense, we would have extended the O-Train north to Hull, south to Riverside South and southwest to Barrhaven Town Centre (via the VIA line and the then-unbuilt Southwest Transitway corridor) on 7.5 minute service north of Confederation and 15 min service to RS and Barrhaven along with improvements to the station platforms to allow them to handle doubled-up trainsets. That would have hit our 40,000 ridership target without a lot of trouble or expense and cut down on the daily mess of OC Transpo buses crossing into Hull while allowing us to turn our attention to the real transit problem: downtown.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

40,000? Ridership on the east-west route is over 200,000 daily, more than five times that. Heck, the 95 alone probably has significantly more than 40,000 a day using it. Your plan would not provide any relief or improvements on the main spine of the system.

I think that this comparison is irrelevant to the discussion. We were discussing the long-term expansion of the O-Train. Is it necessary to get into this north-south versus east-west debate again? It is clear that the bulk of our money is going to be invested for an east-west route regardless.

The ~40,000 number was based on having the line go all the way through to Barrhaven from the UoO as of 2011 (i.e. now). Given the way growth has panned out and is now expected to pan out (which was itself predicted before the recent announcements of federal gov't retrenchment), we would not be anticipating that level of ridership until later. Some of that ridership may well have been downtown-only (i.e. short trip) ridership and inter-university ridership as opposed to ridership originating in RS and Barrhaven. Reading through the business case, it's clear that a lot of the total ridership was actually expected to come by way of the parts already served by the O-Train: from Bayview to Carleton and Confederation. Some of this we could grab today simply by adding a station in at Gladstone.


If we had had any sense, we would have extended the O-Train north to Hull, south to Riverside South and southwest to Barrhaven Town Centre (via the VIA line and the then-unbuilt Southwest Transitway corridor) on 7.5 minute service north of Confederation and 15 min service to RS and Barrhaven along with improvements to the station platforms to allow them to handle doubled-up trainsets. That would have hit our 40,000 ridership target without a lot of trouble or expense and cut down on the daily mess of OC Transpo buses crossing into Hull while allowing us to turn our attention to the real transit problem: downtown.

Considering that we are already exceeding 12,000 riders with the existing O-Train that captures few downtown passengers, a Barrhaven to downtown service would easily achieve 40,000 passengers if not much more. Routing to Hull does not address primary demand, which is to go downtown and would reduce ridership numbers on the route.

When you consider that the city already owns the right of way all the way to Barrhaven Town Centre, we have the plans, and soon a bridge over the Rideau River to accomodate it, why would we make changes? Then we truly lose much of our $100 million investment to date. Also, by branching the route at Confederation, we compromise service frequency on the existing route to Greenboro. We increase frequency in 2014 just to take it away again? Furthermore, while the original North-South route serviced both Barrhaven and Riverside South with the same track, to provide the same level of service on split routes would require more trains. In off-peak hours, we would probably want to offer 15 minute service but a split route would require double the trains or we would have to cut service to every 30 minutes on the outer legs. This is clearly ridiculous because the current southern terminal at Greenboro would be affected by this reduction in service. This seems pointless given our long-term objectives. Furthermore, we end up having to service more kilometers of track either through maintenance costs or rent from Via Rail. We would almost certainly be limited in our choices of trains if we were to share track with Via Rail trains, which will also be given priority whether on schedule or not. This will affect the reliability of service through to Barrhaven and interruptions in service would be inevitable to accomodate Via Rail. Since we are using a single track and timed passing of trains is very important for safety reasons, this will affect the reliability of service on the entire O-Train network.

Then we have to consider service to the airport. Do we want to do this someday? How much branching can we have and still offer a decent level of service? Three branches on a single track line seems to be really pushing it without a serious compromise on service frequency on one or more branches.

Finally, has the Via Rail line been costed and will track upgrades be needed? Certainly signalling would have to be upgraded and at the very least passing tracks added. But is the track suitable or will it have to be replaced as was the case with the O-Train? If so, how will this impact Via Rail service to Ottawa?

[MalcolmTucker]

Since the O-Train isn't FRA compliant, unless the replacement vehicles are tendered to be so, there is no chance of it ever operating on the VIA track.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Since the O-Train isn't FRA compliant, unless the replacement vehicles are tendered to be so, there is no chance of it ever operating on the VIA track.

Why is it that I regularly have to point out that the Mayor's Task Force on Transportation was headed by none other than former federal Transport Minister David Collenette who had the audacity to actually meet with officials at Transport Canada rather than speculate as to what they might do?

It turns out that far from there being "no chance it ever operating on the VIA track" that there is in fact a very high chance of it being able to do so. Indeed, an O-Train vehicle was even present at VIA Fallowfield for the funding announcement.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by MountainView

Great idea! Too bad we live 100 years behind Japan...

Oh, we've narrowed the gap to 100 years?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

5 - The existing Transitway platform would be bulldozed and the land converted to parkland.

Right, because if there's one thing Ottawa needs around its transit stations, it's more grass and trees.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I get upset with comments like this. One of the things that makes Ottawa beautiful is its green space. I have heard compliments time and again from visitors about our green space. It is what makes Ottawa unique. A lot of money was spent by the federal government in the 1950s assembling land on key corridors and the Greenbelt. It got rid of a lot of eyesores and gave back shorelines to the citizens of Ottawa and Canada as a whole.

No one comes to Ottawa to look at the goddamn grass.

No one.

We forget what was there before. Rideau Falls was once encircled with industry. Railyards existed on Lebreton Flats and even at one time next to Dow's Lake.

And?

That does not upset me.

Cottages and boat houses that were often no more than shacks once lined the Rideau Canal, Rideau River and Ottawa River.

Are you assuming they would still have been "shacks" by now?

At one point the NCC considered much of the city centre - including the Glebe - to be "shacks", too.

A massive pulp and paper mill faced the back of Parliament Hill in my lifetime.

And?

Sure, we built roads along those corridors but we have also built walking paths and bike trails as well. It has made these corridors accessible to as many people as possible.

As many car-driving ones, yes.

It has also opened up vistas towards downtown that would be destroyed if we allowed development, likely high rise to encroach on these corridors.

Vistas such as?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

My proposal for the Queensway/Iris area.
5 - The existing bus ramps would be eliminated and converted to parkland.

Parks, parks, parks, parks, parks.

Let's level every building in the city of Ottawa, grass them over, and connect all the grass with trains. Best Transit System Ever! Welcome to Ottawa! Marvel at the grass!

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There is so much talk on this board about eliminating federal green space whether the Ottawa River Parkway, the Central Experimental Farm or parts of the Greenbelt. These are valuable assets to the city. Then I look at one of the satellite views of the area of Baseline Transit Station and what do I see but acres of parking lots. This is where intensification needs to occur.

What is "valuable" about the bloody "Green" belt?

Also, while our LRT plan flounders and takes forever to get started, what do we see? $200 million for the Queensway, almost that much again for widening of Prince of Wales Drive. How much was spent to widen Limebank and Riverside? Then we build the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge without rail transit and spend a pile of money on that. And the Queensway expansion in Kanata and twinning Highway 7 to Carleton Place. This just demonstrates that no matter what is said, roads are still the first priority and transit will never be competitive in this city. We are content with building Ottawa of tomorrow based on the car as the basis of transportation. Imagine if the majority of the money being expended to widen roads was invested in rapid transit? People would be switching to transit in droves. As it stands, widened roads just makes transit less and less competitive.

Ottawa's road fixation, and its "Green" belt fixation, are two sides of the same kind.

Pave the bloody Greenbelt. Perhaps that way there'd be less auto-oriented suburban Kanataleanshaven banality to build six-lane roads to and from.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I also agree with Dado's comment that the plan for the area north of Carlingwood is needlessly destructive. This isn''t SimCity; we can't simply just ignore things that are there because we imagine it as a redevelopment area.

Yeah, who do you think you are, the NCC?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Dado

For all the claims of the BRT types that BRT is "flexible", the truth of the matter is that when they implemented its ultimate form here in Ottawa - the bus transitway - they were far less than flexible in its design. There was some flexibility in roll-out (e.g. using the Parkway, dedicated lanes on freeways and expressways) but once they got to building actual infrastructure, flexibility went out the door and what we got instead was an expensive piece of transit infrastructure designed by highway engineers.

"Flexibility" is the Achilles heel of B"R"T as a city-building exercise.

When the transit managers and politicians can always dick around with the routes and route structure, in the name of "flexibility", there isn't the permanence that would change land usage, pedestrian flows, etc., and induce transit-oriented development.

B"R"T is a giant waste of time and money in any city larger than Ottawa already was when it chose to head down this failed path.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Dado

Why is it that I regularly have to point out that the Mayor's Task Force on Transportation was headed by none other than former federal Transport Minister David Collenette who had the audacity to actually meet with officials at Transport Canada rather than speculate as to what they might do?

It turns out that far from there being "no chance it ever operating on the VIA track" that there is in fact a very high chance of it being able to do so. Indeed, an O-Train vehicle was even present at VIA Fallowfield for the funding announcement.

Unless they have FRA compliant vehicles, the VIA line would have to be closed to all other traffic during the time it would be used for O-Train. With compliant vehicles you would still need to put in place signaling, and negoatiate for access that wouldn't disrupt a VIA train, even if it was off its scheduel. Building new dedicated track or tracks in the same corridor would be much more practical for running a transit service that is anymore frequent than every half an hour.

Just because something can be done (like the diesel lrv trials on the CPR line in south Calgary feeding the south LRT in 1996 http://www.barp.ca/bus/alberta/ct/regiosprinter.html ) doesn't mean it is practical or desireable.