Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

info is online
http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/

49m cars

So we'll start with 2 car trains? Doesn’t give us a whole lot of room to expand service without lengthening the platforms (still 150 meters in the subway, right?).

So if one 98 meter train fits 600 people, a 147 meter train will fit 900? Still pretty good, still beat Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver (once we are at full length).

[McC]

am I missing something here?

HOW DO WE MEET THE CHALLENGE?
- A state-of-the-art light rail system with a capacity to grow to 24,000 riders per hour in each direction.

and

SPACE TO GROW
The Alstom Citadis offers a scalable solution that meets our needs today and thirty years into the future....
30 vehicles will enter service on opening day—a peak capacity of 10,700 passengers per hour in each direction.
With a projected 25 additional vehicles in service in 2031, the system could move over 18,000 passengers per hour in each direction.

wouldn't they need 50 additional vehicles, not 25, almost all running, to meet the projected capacity requirement?

[Aylmer]

I wonder what's been done in the way of passive design. I like a lot of them, but I just wonder how they'll feel in winter, in windstorms, in rain...

And could they have made the underground stations any blander? I hope those aren't final. Maybe they'll decorate them à la Montreal, with each one being unique.

[McC]

<yelling and shaking fists> GAH! Tunney's Pasture is not in Westboro, any recognizable part of Westboro is nearly 2 kilometres away; Hintonburg, Mechanicsville and Champlain Park are the other local neighourhoods that will be served by this station!!!! <yelling and shaking fists>

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I wonder what's been done in the way of passive design. I like a lot of them, but I just wonder how they'll feel in winter, in windstorms, in rain...

And could they have made the underground stations any blander? I hope those aren't final. Maybe they'll decorate them à la Montreal, with each one being unique.

Maybe they didn't add the art yet?

On another note, I'm glad to see it won't be cut and cover. It will make it way easier for other buildings (PdV D, Re Hotel, Rideau expansion) to get built with minimal impact.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I wonder what's been done in the way of passive design. I like a lot of them, but I just wonder how they'll feel in winter, in windstorms, in rain...

In blistering summer heat.

If it's cold, put on clothes. If you're already clothed, put on more clothes. If it's wet, put on wet-weather clothes.

There is only so much clothes you can legally take off in public.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I wonder what's been done in the way of passive design. I like a lot of them, but I just wonder how they'll feel in winter, in windstorms, in rain...

And could they have made the underground stations any blander? I hope those aren't final. Maybe they'll decorate them à la Montreal, with each one being unique.

I hope they will, too.

Eventually.

But this business of budgeting public art in with capital works is bunk, and should stop. Spend money on the functional part. Pretty can wait, as long as ugly isn't built into the design.

[J.OT13]

I agree, Le Breton is a bit of a disapointement. I thought the city's rensition was awesome.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Why are they showing 4 rails per track on the renderings? Is this to accommodate different gauges?

They may be derails. You see that a lot on bridges on mainline railways. In the event of a derailment, it prevents the train from tipping over - the extra rails basically 'trap' the wheels.

Originally Posted by J.OT13

So we'll start with 2 car trains? Doesn’t give us a whole lot of room to expand service without lengthening the platforms (still 150 meters in the subway, right?).

So if one 98 meter train fits 600 people, a 147 meter train will fit 900? Still pretty good, still beat Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver (once we are at full length).

Well I'm wondering about that too. The long-standing impression I had was that we were designing for a heretofore "typical" 4-car train of 120 m (4x30 m LRVs). But now there's no point in designing for 120 m stations - either 150 m for the future or 100 m for now.

I would point out though that these ~100 m trains are roughly the same as what Calgary is finally going to get when they lengthen their system for 4-car (4x25 m) trains. We could run these things on the surface without issue since even the shortest block - Bay-Lyon - is well over 100 m in length.

I do think it is a good idea though to use fewer longer railcars since we avoid the wasted space of the endcabs.



And how would this day be complete without pointing out that somewhere the likes of Andy Haydon and John Bonsall whose actions have held Ottawa back in the rapid transit area for over three decades are finally going to be faced with this?:


http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/images/stations/blair/03e.jpg

[J.OT13]

Why is there a Downtown West entrance in the Podium building? Isn't that thing coming down? But I like the design of the subway stations; clean, modern, simple.
Although the platform ceilings seems a little low, platform itself a little tight. Riminds me of a modern version of TO's downtown subway stations.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Dado

They may be derails. You see that a lot on bridges on mainline railways. In the event of a derailment, it prevents the train from tipping over - the extra rails basically 'trap' the wheels.




Well I'm wondering about that too. The long-standing impression I had was that we were designing for a heretofore "typical" 4-car train of 120 m (4x30 m LRVs). But now there's no point in designing for 120 m stations - either 150 m for the future or 100 m for now.

I do think it is a good idea though to use fewer longer railcars since we avoid the wasted space of the endcabs.



And how would this day be complete without pointing out that somewhere the likes of Andy Haydon and John Bonsall whose actions have held Ottawa back in the rapid transit area for over three decades are finally going to be faced with this?:

You can always order future cars in different lengths to add up to the needed length.

[Dado]

http://www.ottawalightrail.ca/images/stations/downtown_east/08.jpg

I guess we won't be seeing *that* poster in any future station now that the Museum of Civilization's focus has been changed...

[J.OT13]

Also prefered the city's Campus Station.

[toaster]

Will all stations have permanent employees (like at Toronto Subway stations, or the Metro stations in Montreal) to buy tokens? or will it all be electronic?

[McC]

I *love* how that first image of "New Bayview" shows the same miserly sidewalk on the Albert St viaduct; for veracity, that hatchback should be kicking up some serious wake, soaking the man in the suit with tasty puddlewater.

[Deez]

Regardless of the platform lengths, I'm a little concerned about capacity. Here are some of the city's numbers from the 2008 TMP update:



This shows 2006 transit demand into the downtown. The opening-day capacity per direction (10,700) only slightly more than peak demand 6 years ago? What gives?

[Dado]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

You can always order future cars in different lengths to add up to the needed length.

Yes, you could, but this is Ottawa we're talking about here. Suggest that to them and you'd never hear the end of a long litany of whining about how difficult it would be to manage trainsets in the yard and whatnot to ensure that there were always enough of both vehicle lengths around. And lots of use of the word "flexibility" in the sense that they wouldn't have enough of it to just put together trains randomly. Oh and let's not forget how it might slightly change the positions along the platforms where doors would line up depending on which direction or configuration the train was in. Can't have that.

This is the same city after all that, when it recently decided to increase capacity on the O-Train line, decided it had to buy six new vehicles to double the fleet rather than just buying three even though the two vehicle types would not be joined together.

Yep... not going to happen.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Deez

Regardless of the platform lengths, I'm a little concerned about capacity. Here are some of the city's numbers from the 2008 TMP update:



This shows 2006 transit demand into the downtown. The opening-day capacity per direction (10,700) only slightly more than peak demand 6 years ago? What gives?

Honestly, I don't know what numbers to trust when it comes to the City/OC Transpo/RMOC and pphpd.

The "10,000 pphpd" number has been kicking around since the early 1990s as an achieved capacity of the BRT system (ultimate source seems to be our eternal friend, John Bonsall), yet the background info for the 2003 TMP pegged the 2002 number at about 7000* at Campus.

Then just four years later it has risen to 10,200? That's almost a 50% increase!

"What gives?" is quite right. Maybe we should sick the auditor on them.


If the 2002 number of 7000 was correct, then we're probably good to go with 10,700 for some time. But if the 2006 number is correct, then we've got a problem from day one.


*Even this number is debatable: the same data showed that there were 5300 peak period riders inbound to Hurdman from the East Transitway and 2200 from the Southeast Transitway, meaning that at Hurdman some 500 of those 7500 combined didn't head downtown but elsewhere. Possible, yes. Plausible? Meh.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by toaster

Will all stations have permanent employees (like at Toronto Subway stations, or the Metro stations in Montreal) to buy tokens? or will it all be electronic?

By 2017, maybe Presto will be working

[McC]

I certainly hope that the "Planned Scott Street Widening" under Keeping Ottawa Moving is a typo, and that they mean Albert St (there is no planned widening of Scott St that I've ever heard of).