Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Richmond/Byron looking likely http://t.co/WLUV1ytErv

It's the most direct route going thru dense, well established neighbourhood. This should have been the only option to begin with.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Richmond/Byron looking likely http://t.co/WLUV1ytErv

Sorry NIMBYs! If they need to use a more expensive route, they - and only they - should have to pay for it.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's the most direct route going thru dense, well established neighbourhood. This should have been the only option to begin with.

BUT - THE CHILDREN!!!!!

I feel like getting spitey and taking ALL OF THE TRANSIT away from Nimbyhoods.

[Radster]

Parkway Option = old way of thinking

Richmond/Byron Option = big city thinking

[agl]

Been awhile since I had checked up on the rapid transit projects going on down the road from Ottawa. From flipping back and forth between surface and underground for their Eglington LRT line, the tunnel boring machines are now in place to commence the trek east from Black Creek drive for 10 km (and possibly even longer) before surfacing on an exclusive right of way, eventually connecting with a newly converted LRT Scarborough line at Kennedy. All this for at least $6.7 billion ($4.9B for Eglington crosstown, $1.8B for Scarborough line conversion), more if they extend the underground portion all the way to Don Mills. This project on top of the subway line being extended to the thriving metropolis of Vaughnn via York University.

http://read.thestar.com/#!/article/515f469c93e8e4adcb0e8975

The article mentions 5,400 pph will board in a single direction at the busiest point by 2031 (seems a different type of ridership measurement than overall one way pph ridership figures I am used to seeing).
So with just the Scarborough line conversion portion of this project costing almost as much as our entire LRT project, our seemingly higher ridership projections, and the Ottawa Confederation line being the Core line for the city, anyone else out there thinking we're the little sibling getting nothing but ratty hand-me-downs from Big Brother? I am surprised they're not just shipping us the old Ride the Rocket subway cars they're replacing, though that would require us to upgrade our system to full subway, which would mean more money for Ottawa's rapid transit system, and we can't have that.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited about us finally getting LRT, I just think there have been so many compromises put in place to get here, we're ending up with a much less robust system than we really need. Argh.

[Beedok]

The eglington LRT is buried the whole way isn't it? Obviously it's going to be more expensive.

[agl]

Originally Posted by Beedok

The eglington LRT is buried the whole way isn't it? Obviously it's going to be more expensive.

I think you may be missing my point. Metrolinx is dropping $1.8 billion dollars to convert (and extend) an already grade separated Scarborough line to LRT, just so commuters don't have an extra transfer during their daily commute. We're spending just over the same amount of money - with funding from the province and the Feds at $600 million each as if the total cost was $1.8 billion instead of $2.1B per the 1/3 funding split - to build our main trunk line with a missing downtown station, narrow and less than ideal platform lengths, multiple transfers for commuters for the foreseeable future, and clear messages from both higher levels of gov't when they first announced the funding not to come back for more $ for a long long time. Sure the population of Toronto is larger than Ottawa and they should presumably get more $ for their transit projects, but shouldn't that funding be based on ridership projections? I don't know the ridership projections for the Scarborough portion of the LRT, but I would be greatly surprised if they came anywhere close to half of what the Confederation line's will be on opening day.

[Beedok]

Okay, I did misunderstand things a bit, however for that front, isn't Toronto growing faster and suffering from a much worse transit deficit than Ottawa?

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by agl

I think you may be missing my point. Metrolinx is dropping $1.8 billion dollars to convert (and extend) an already grade separated Scarborough line to LRT, just so commuters don't have an extra transfer during their daily commute.

The SRT is due for upgrades/replacement either way so the conversion to LRT isn't just to remove the transfer. It makes much more sense than upgrading to new cars and signalling.

[agl]

I'm not saying they should not convert and extend the Scarborough rapid transit line, if economically it makes sense. My issues are more with how they decide to fund transit projects and to what amounts they fund them. Yes, Toronto is bigger and is growing at a faster rate than Ottawa, I completely agree. The city requires a more extensive rapid transit network than Ottawa, and older systems need to be upgraded as required. But when I see a whack of money thrown at a Scarborough rapid transit line with current ridership of 40,000 per day (source: Wikipedia, if there are more accurate #s out there, I'd happily accept them), and we're getting nickel and dimed on replacing a downtown bus transit line that already has ridership levels much much higher than that, well, it makes me grumpy. Perhaps the upgrade and extension of the Scarborough line will yield ridership levels far exceeding Ottawa's Confederatoin Line, but I'll most likely still be grumpy because we'll have 2 crammed downtown stations here in Ottawa within 10 years of the new line being in operation.

Anyway, as they say, the train has already left the station on this, and as I've said before, I am grateful the city is finally taking action to try and resolve the downtown transit congestion after years of dithering. Just a case of sour grapes here, move along.

[Beedok]

Ottawa is also getting general funding from the Province and Federal level, whereas Metrolninx projects are being funded entirerly within the regions benefiting, so Ottawa is the one properly getting help while the GTHA is having to pay for everything from it's own economy.

[agl]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Ottawa is also getting general funding from the Province and Federal level, whereas Metrolninx projects are being funded entirerly within the regions benefiting, so Ottawa is the one properly getting help while the GTHA is having to pay for everything from it's own economy.

According to the Metrolinx website, the province is giving $9.5 billion dollars towards 5 major projects in the Greater Toronto area, including the Eglinton-Scarborough crosstown line. With the feds only chipping in $300 million for these Toronto transit projects under Metrolinx, I'm obviously well off in thinking major projects in our fair cities generally benefit from 1/3 funding share by both the province and the feds; every project seems to have its own funding formula. Suffice to say, the province is paying for a fair chunk of the Eglinton-Scarborough line, though I would be the first to admit most of the province's tax revenue comes from the greater Toronto area.

http://www.metrolinx.com/en/regionalplanning/funding/overview_funding_region.aspx

[lrt's friend]

First, Toronto traffic issues are much worse than in Ottawa.

Second, Ottawa paid a political penalty for cancelling the first project.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Second, Ottawa paid a political penalty for cancelling the first project.

Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.

[adam-machiavelli]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.

Excuse me. Surely you must be joking!

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

First, Toronto traffic issues are much worse than in Ottawa.

Second, Ottawa paid a political penalty for cancelling the first project.

Third, Ottawa is still part of Ontario. If the Government of Toronto doesn't want to give Ottawa the same per-capita deal on transit funding as Downtown Ontario gest, then maybe Ottawa needs to stop being part of Ontario.

[McC]

Mooooooom it's not faaaaiiiiir!!!

we want nice things but we're unwilling to pay for them ourselves, so we don't really want the nice things, that's all there is to it. Would the Province collect HST on Ottawa's behalf? We don't know, we've never asked, because the City doesn't actually want to be responsible. City Hall always wins when it's always the NCC's fault, the Province's fault.

[McC]

and some quotes to exactly that effect published yesterday in Chianello column:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/ottawa...+could+Kathleen+Wynne/8213410/story.html

...
Transit in the Toronto region, for example, “will need tens of billions of dollars over the next 20 years,” Wynne said. “Our whole provincial budget each year is about $125 billion ... We need to find dedicated revenue for these projects, because the money cannot be found elsewhere.”

Whether that new money will come in the form of a toll road, a congestion tax, or even a regional sales tax is still to be decided.

Indeed, the provincial agency Metrolinx, which is responsible for transportation in Toronto and the surrounding area (not to mention Ottawa’s transit smart-card program, Presto), will be coming out with its own recommendations on how to fix traffic in the province’s capital in June. The premier said she doesn’t want to pre-empt that report.

But already Metrolinx’s suggestions are landing like lead.

The agency floated a short-list of ideas earlier this month, and a recent poll shows that 51 per cent of Torontonians are against any money-raising measure. Only a third of respondents were in favour, according to a Forum Research poll, while 16 per cent didn’t know what to think.

And it’s not like Ottawa is warming up to the idea, either. It’s true that Wynne’s plan is aimed chiefly at fixing a Toronto problem, but we certainly have our own traffic issues that increased transit investment would improve. (Extend the LRT to the west AND the east, anyone? Or how about rail to the airport?)

But Councillor Diane Deans, who chairs Ottawa’s transit commission, has already said she’s not interested in any new levies in Ottawa, preferring instead that the provincial government use its taxation powers to raise money for municipalities’ transit systems.

Deans told the Citizen’s David Reevely that she doesn’t “think we’re ready” for even the most timid step of letting solo drivers use high-occupancy vehicle lanes for a fee. It’s hard to know what exactly we’re waiting for to enact this minor measure — Toronto-grade traffic chaos? -- but the point is, Wynne has quite the sales job ahead of her to convince taxpayers they need to shell out more bucks.
...

[eternallyme]

Could a municipal referendum be introduced? Perhaps a vote on a one-cent sales tax devoted to transportation over a 20 year period.

Some highlights of the proposal:

* Such would likely bring in about $7 billion over 20 years (the entire province would, after inflation and growth, bring in about $700 billion, divided by 12 for the retail sales in Ottawa and 8 for the rate of 1%).

* Funds LRT extensions to Kanata, Barrhaven and Orleans, as well as a north-south corridor.

* Funds an immediate 10% increase in bus service, including east-west crosstown BRT corridors.

* Funds new road construction and forwarding long-term projects

* Municipal opt-ins also exist in neighbouring municipalities, as separate votes, to allow for transit service to be introduced there.

* Eliminates all rural transit property taxes (rural Ottawa would only pay the sales tax) to make amenable to rural residents.

[McC]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Could a municipal referendum be introduced?

Theoretically, but which Ottawa-area politician would do it? and if we could invent one, Frankenstein like, who would put the question to the people, the referendum would fail. Remember, this is the City that understand best how governments work of any in the country, yet we bought into Larry O'Brien's silly fantasies and empty-headed promises and elected him with a huge mandate; and I don't think that we have matured appreciably since then.

I wouldn't even bet money that Toronto would approve such a ballot initiative, and they've spent the last three years painfully coming to the realization that they may have to pay for the things they want.