Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[McC]

Originally Posted by McC

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.

From the Star today

Toronto transit: A tough fight lies ahead
Municipal leaders agree we need to ease gridlock, but not with their sources of cash: Pick somebody else’s pocket, they say.

By: Royson James City Columnist, Published on Fri Apr 05 2013

On the surface, it is a hugely supportive letter, coming as it does from Mayor Hazel McCallion and the municipal leaders of the large urban areas of the province.

Speaking for 67 per cent of the province’s population, the letter says most of the right things. Ontario big city mayors are “united on the need for new revenue to invest in roads and transit.” Past action has been inadequate and the result is jammed transit and clogged highways. “We need it fixed.”

Then, a cautionary note: The mayors “support tools that are fair and reasonable.” Hmmm.

Finally, “Ontario’s big city mayors do not support adding a ‘transit tax’ to the already overburdened property tax bill.”

In the end, like everybody else, our municipal leaders agree we need to ease gridlock, spend more money, raise new revenues to the tune of about $2 billion a year for a quarter century, and we must start now.

But, like everybody else, don’t touch my most important pool of cash. Pick somebody else’s pocket.

This mindset presents the toughest challenge for those who would ease encroaching congestion in the Toronto region. They must convince everyone that if the pain is spread out wisely and widely, easing gridlock will be sustainable and tolerable.

The list of taxes and tolls and fees — Metrolinx calls them a suite of investment tools — tried to do just that. But by narrowing the list to 11, the agency has already bowed to politics.

Missing from the list is the vehicle registration tax. It’s simple to collect and administer as it is collected when one renews one’s licence. It’s been done before. The revenue is stable. It has a direct link to the purpose of the revenue. Yet, it was dropped from the long list.

Metrolinx offers up explanations, but the overriding reason is that Toronto’s experience with this revenue tool has poisoned that source. Former mayor David Miller implemented it and used it to fund general revenues. Mayor Rob Ford’s first action was to rescind it. Now, nobody wants to return to that well — even to the point of proposing other measures that drivers may consider more punitive.

In case you missed them the “short list” of revenue tools includes: payroll tax, parking space levy, one-time property tax hike, road tolls, sales tax hike, transit fare hike, gas tax, development charges and a car tax that dings drivers for every kilometre travelled.

That last one could yield $1.6 billion a year, but don’t start the rioting yet. The technology is not near ready; neither is the populace. Just what are we ready to embrace?

The Toronto board of trade says yes to sales tax and road tolls and parking fees. Not surprisingly, a payroll tax was missing from its list. Meanwhile, NDP leader Andrea Horwath is against taxes on citizens (stop the presses!) but welcomes taxes on corporations.

Toronto Transit Alliance welcomed the possibility of a 1-per-cent sales tax, which they interpreted to be at the top of the hierarchy. They are not running to embrace the transit fare increase. Neither is TTC Chair Karen Stintz, a big advocate of new revenue tools. Stintz also doesn’t like the idea of a parking space levy, though it could yield $1.4 billion a year.

The mayor of Toronto? He likes none of the above. But a casino would do the trick, he says, retching at the thought of taxes. A mega casino would yield at most $100 million a year in Toronto’s wildest dreams — chump change in the universe we’re orbiting here.

The optimist must believe that if we set aside all the “No’s” and concentrate on the areas where we can say “Yes,” the region might cobble together enough tools to effect a fix.

One area of consensus is a 1 per cent hike in sales tax. Revenue would total $1.4 billion a year in the GTA and Hamilton.

Who might object with enough clout to stop this? Just the very entity that has the sole power to grant it — the federal government.

Rats! We thought we were making progress.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: [email protected]

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2013/04/05/toronto_transit_a_tough_fight_lies_ahead.html

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by McC

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.

That is why I added a couple concessions to sweeten the pot - some to roads + elimination of rural transit property taxes.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by 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.

HST on Ottawa's behalf?

Huh?

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

HST on Ottawa's behalf?

Huh?

I'm going to guess that the idea is that the Province increase the HST by a percentage point within the City of Ottawa, with the resulting revenues going to the City.

I don't know what, if any, legal and administrative changes need to be made to the system to allow that to happen, but it likely wouldn't be too hard to implement in practise.

All HST collectors (i.e. businesses) will have a postal code associated with them, so the Province just has to order those collectors with Ottawa postal codes to collect one more percentage point and send the resulting revenues to the City. In effect, that's what happens between provinces since it is in fact the feds that operate the system.


I can't say I favour this on a city-by-city basis, since it will inevitably lead to some additional idiocy along the borders, but you certainly could apply the idea province-wide and have the additional revenues collected in each municipality go to that municipality. I recall some discussion of doing just this when the feds dropped the rates a few years ago, but it went nowhere. Where two-tier municipalities exist, it would probably be best to send the revenue to the upper-tier municipality.

Just out of academic interest, it would be interesting to know just how much HST is being collected in each municipality, both in absolute and per capita.

[Kitchissippi]

The new Alstom Coradia LINT 41 trains to replace the O-Train fleet is supposed to be delivered next month. Anyone know how they will arrive? Do they ship these to Montreal and then roll them down the rails, or do they get piggy-backed on to freight trains?

[McC]

Originally Posted by Dado

I'm going to guess that the idea is that the Province increase the HST by a percentage point within the City of Ottawa, with the resulting revenues going to the City.

I don't know what, if any, legal and administrative changes need to be made to the system to allow that to happen, but it likely wouldn't be too hard to implement in practise.

Basically, yes, only implementation would be a bit more involved. I might even be missing a few steps here, but the City would have to ask the Province to ask the Federal Government to make such a change to the HST in Ontario. The Province would have to negotiate with the feds to increase the HST by x%, and the Feds would have to amend the legislation (and likely the Province as well). Then the portion of the HST revenues transferred from the Feds to the Province corresponding to the x% collected in the Ottawa area would then be transferred from the province to the City.

[DarkArconio]

They might also get shipped to halifax and rolled down the rails from there. I saw some of our new double decker buses driving to Ottawa when I was driving down to Halifax last summer.

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

The new Alstom Coradia LINT 41 trains to replace the O-Train fleet is supposed to be delivered next month. Anyone know how they will arrive? Do they ship these to Montreal and then roll them down the rails, or do they get piggy-backed on to freight trains?

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

The new Alstom Coradia LINT 41 trains to replace the O-Train fleet is supposed to be delivered next month. Anyone know how they will arrive? Do they ship these to Montreal and then roll them down the rails, or do they get piggy-backed on to freight trains?

The Talents were just pushed along the line by a locomotive from Montreal:

• Video Link

It would probably be too much trouble to place them on flatcars in Montreal and then have to find a crane to remove them from the flatcars here in Ottawa.

Who knows, maybe the Alstoms will be stored in the yard next to the rail removal train for the Beachburg Sub.

[McC]

The Rennes metro, which you may have read me gushing about in the past*, is is getting underway with it's LigneB (featuring some very cool, fully automated, pneumatic, new CityVal** technology), and I thought I'd share the website for the project:
http://www.metro-rennes-metropole.fr/
(NB: all in French)

of special interest for regulars on this thread, is the Forum section, where folk discuss the project and ask questions the same we do here, and, wait for it, the Rennes Métropole regional government actually responds to questions? check it out!
http://www.rennes-metropole.fr/forum/vie...405&sid=b8ee456267e9ef7aba291a63ec324afb


* this is a city with a metro population of 385K that will shortly have TWO fully-automated light metro lines, bringing pretty much the entire city within less than a kilometre of a station.
** like the Skytrain on rubber tyres.

[Dado]

This afternoon into my inbox arrived an email from the City of Ottawa concerning the second open house for the "Western Light Rail Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment Study":

Public Open House #2

Thursday, April 25, 2013
Jean Pigott Hall
City Hall
110 Laurier Avenue West
6:30 to 9 p.m., presentation: 7:30 p.m.

Ok, great, the open house (and the ONLY one) is at City Hall rather than somewhere - anywhere - in the study area.

Part of the email included the following paragraph:

"Consultation
This Open House will provide an overview of the study progress to-date, including the alternative corridors and their evaluation. Your participation in the study is important."

Well isn't that nice... it's like two years behind schedule (the second Open House, that is) and there's been an interim report which itself hasn't been presented at an open house anyway.

Also in the email was a link to the page on the City of Ottawa website:

http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-con...ht-rail-transit-environmental-assessment


The statement of work went to Transit Committee in June 2009 (!). Granted, the study didn't start right after that, but we're still looking at upwards of four years for this study. I think the First World War was shorter.

Here's the PDF of the alleged Study timeline, from the time of the first open house in November 2010:

http://ottawa.ca/sites/ottawa.ca/files/migrated/files/con056435.pdf

Apparently, the second open house was supposed to be in March 2011, the third in June 2011 and the fourth in October 2011, at which point the Study portion was supposed to have been largely finished. It was then to proceed to the Environmental Assessment phase in January 2012 with a final open house at that time and a final report completed by the summer of 2012. We only got the interim report last June at about the time the entire process was supposed to have been finished.

If we suppose that from now on the schedule will be maintained (I know, I know, but work with me here), we've got another 9 months to go in the Planning study and a further 6 in the Environmental Assessment... bringing us to early summer 2014, a full two years behind schedule for something that was only supposed to take ~26 months to begin with.

[McC]

http://metronews.ca/news/ottawa/637816/refined-routes-to-be-presented-at-western-lrt-open-house/#

April 17, 2013
“Refined routes” to be presented at Western LRT open house
By Alex Boutilier

The Sir John A. MacDonald Parkway is out for a planned westward expansion of Ottawa’s light rail system, but Kitchissippi Coun. Katherine Hobbs said newly “refined routes” will go a long way to satisfying residents concerned about light rail on Richmond Road and Byron Avenue.

Hobbs said Wednesday the proposal, which would run a light rail corridor from Tunney’s Pasture to Baseline Station by way of the recently re-christened parkway, will not be one of the “refined options” presented at an open house for the proposed LRT expansion next Thursday.

“That route I don’t think is going to come down as one of the refined routes, only because it’s just not feasible to do the whole route on the parkway,” Hobbs said Wednesday.

“No, that complete parkway route is not (considered).”

Hobbs did not want to get into the specifics of any of the “refined routes,” saying affected community groups and the NCC still need to be briefed before next week’s open house. She did say, however, the city took to heart concerns from neighbouring residents about losing green space and changing the character of the neighbourhood.

“The city worked really hard over this past year to honour that direction and to look at ways to provide this needed rail service without disrupting neighbourhoods,” Hobbs said, adding she thinks residents will be “amazed” by the refined proposals.

The open house will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Ottawa City Hall, with a staff presentation at 7:30 p.m.

[Kitchissippi]

The majority of NIMBYs are in McKellar Park between Golden and Rowanwood. As long as the LRT is not in their sight line or sniffing distance, the rest of the community should be OK with it. There are a lot of residents west of Rowanwood that would love rapid transit access, plus there is huge redevelopment potential in the older mid-rise apartment blocks and car lots. I'm hoping for what has been discussed here for years, a trenched/bermed route beside the parkway, and then a cut-and-cover along Byron west of Cleary. The linear park could even be widened by narrowing down Byron and given a nice proper edge. Currently the curbless shoulder and part of the grass just gets used as free parking, which I doubt would be allowed if there was an LRT station there.

[waterloowarrior]

New routes for western LRT bypass McKellar Park
NCC staff back options running near Macdonald Parkway but not on it

BY DAVID REEVELY, OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 18, 2013 9:20 PM

OTTAWA — The city is set to reveal two new possible western light-rail line routes meant to appease both the National Capital Commission and residents of McKellar Park who don’t want trains splitting their neighbourhood.

The routes will join two already-public proposals on how the city’s light rail line might be extended west from Tunney’s Pasture to Baseline station once the first phase is built through downtown. They make clear the city’s planners have given up on running trains along the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, and have completely rejected Carling Avenue as a possible rail route.



Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/routes+western+bypass+McKellar+Park/8263735/story.html#ixzz2Qs9cTPe4

[Dado]

Got to love these people: the two "new" routes follow the former CPR corridor, but since the RMOC allowed it to be sold off by the NCC without buying it they would now have to tunnel along it to make use of it.

Long term planning, Ottawa-style.

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

The majority of NIMBYs are in McKellar Park between Golden and Rowanwood. As long as the LRT is not in their sight line or sniffing distance, the rest of the community should be OK with it. There are a lot of residents west of Rowanwood that would love rapid transit access, plus there is huge redevelopment potential in the older mid-rise apartment blocks and car lots. I'm hoping for what has been discussed here for years, a trenched/bermed route beside the parkway, and then a cut-and-cover along Byron west of Cleary. The linear park could even be widened by narrowing down Byron and given a nice proper edge. Currently the curbless shoulder and part of the grass just gets used as free parking, which I doubt would be allowed if there was an LRT station there.

I agree with the assessment of the NIMBYs. There's not too many west of Cleary/Rowanwood who are going to get upset by a line along Richmond/Byron.

I wouldn't even do cut-and-cover west of Cleary: just put it in a shallow cutting. There's nothing wrong with having the tracks four feet below grade rather than twenty or none.

The line could also straddle the park - one track along each side of it to minimize disruption to the park.

Finally, I'd take advantage of all these earthworks to relocate Richmond Rd slightly to the north. The front of the Lord Richardson building in particular looks a bit ridiculous right now but could easily benefit from redesigning Richmond Road to have direct frontage on the building itself. It looks like it should front the street but it doesn't... I wonder if that partly explains the difficulty in maintaining tenants in the ground floor?

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

New routes for western LRT bypass McKellar Park
NCC staff back options running near Macdonald Parkway but not on it

BY DAVID REEVELY, OTTAWA CITIZEN APRIL 18, 2013 9:20 PM

OTTAWA — The city is set to reveal two new possible western light-rail line routes meant to appease both the National Capital Commission and residents of McKellar Park who don’t want trains splitting their neighbourhood.

"The NCC’s staff can live with all four of the possibilities that remain, and are expected to tell the NCC board so on Tuesday, Hobbs said, though the board has the final say on that agency’s position. Having stations close to the Ottawa River where there are currently none is a selling point for the NCC; so is the possibility of having the city build new crossings of the parkway."

New crossings of the parkway to where exactly? It's not like we have any kind of amenities along the waterfront to cross over to.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

"The NCC’s staff can live with all four of the possibilities that remain, and are expected to tell the NCC board so on Tuesday, Hobbs said, though the board has the final say on that agency’s position. Having stations close to the Ottawa River where there are currently none is a selling point for the NCC; so is the possibility of having the city build new crossings of the parkway."

New crossings of the parkway to where exactly? It's not like we have any kind of amenities along the waterfront to cross over to.

Nevertheless, people do cross over it, as evidenced by the informal footpaths you find crossing the parkway.

Right now, people cross in the vicinity of Cleary and at Rochester Field at the two ends of the stretch. There's also a gate from the townhouse condominium complex along Richmond that would likely have to be served, and possibly another from Skead @ Mansfield. A crossing in the vicinity of the Dominion Station replacement, wherever it is, would also be warranted to provide better access to Westboro Beach.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

New crossings of the parkway to where exactly? It's not like we have any kind of amenities along the waterfront to cross over to.

TO THE GRASS! Come and gaze in wonder at Ottawa's world-class vibrating grass!

[McC]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

New crossings of the parkway to where exactly? It's not like we have any kind of amenities along the waterfront to cross over to.

The paths and picnic areas (as well as the Beach, like Dado said, with its licensed, Newport-run canteen) are all "amenities" too, and they could all benefit from better* connections southward. Granted these aren't particularly "urban" amenities, but the fact is that a lot of people probably prefer it that way. Personally, I'd like to see a better mix of the two, but I'm used to being outvoted.

* more of them, better marked, signed and landscaped; e.g., the 2010 Hintonburg-Mechanicsville Neighbourhood Plan (http://is.gd/0NXDF5) called for some kind of special paving/signage/etc., for distinct wayfinding along Parkdale from the Experimental Farm all the way to the River to show people at all points in between how close and accessible these amenities are. It would be great if the same was done all along the River. dotto for the Transit stations; e.g., it would be hard to make Dominion Station and the "new" stretch of Richmond in Westboro any more disconnected from each other given that they're only a couple of blocks apart; although the City tried really, really hard.

[monkeybongo]

I'm assuming that Rochester field option is out is out because 3 out of the 4 options are at Cleary.

Is there any main benefits for the 2 new options? Cost savings or less impact to the neighbours?

[Dado]

Originally Posted by monkeybongo

I'm assuming that Rochester field option is out is out because 3 out of the 4 options are at Cleary.

Maybe, but it's still in the running as it doesn't require any NCC land (technically it does, but Ottawa is supposed to buy Rochester Field from the NCC anyway).

Is there any main benefits for the 2 new options? Cost savings or less impact to the neighbours?

I don't see any cost savings, and even on impacts it's dubious since it will be tunnelling under existing houses on the former CPR corridor between Cleary and Woodroffe, so we're not looking at a simple cut-and-cover tunnel but rather a bored tunnel*. It will have less visual impact, but that's about it.


*Frankly, it would probably be cheaper to expropriate and demolish the houses than tunnel under them, though that would certainly be more impact... but then the City was considering doing just that along Roman Ave for the West Transitway to Pinecrest.