Interprovincial bridge crossing discussion

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I'm sorry to hear that you don't like this particular aspect of reality.


However, it isn't just a "car thing":

When transit is made more enjoyable and convenient, demand is induced because it's easier, not because they have some innate preference for public transit.
If you had free, unlimited cell phone coverage, you would use it more than you would otherwise.
If you had an orange juice faucet, your demand for orange juice would be induced because it would be easier.

And if you could get from Gatineau to south of Ottawa in a free tunnel passage, people would do it much more than they currently need or want to.

You get the idea.


Induced demand isn't about what people's preferences, but about cost: monetary cost, cost in time, cost in stress, etc. People take their cars because it's less costly than the alternatives, just as people would take alternatives if it were easier than taking their car, as it is in a good number of cities.

The problem, as underlined in my post with the picture of the elephant, is that car infrastructure quickly becomes ineffective, unlike public transit or active transportation infrastructure and, as we have shown in the past sixty years, there is not enough money or space available in the world to spend our way out of this problem.

So no matter what we do, demand will be induced or discouraged, so we have to chose wisely what choices we make in order to not paint ourselves into a very expensive, very congested corner.

Transportation isn't the same as an orange juice fountain. And its a poor comparison to compare a number of things that are free to a form of transportation which is not free.

Transportation is determined by many factors such as job location, housing affordability, and desirability and location of schools and things.

The idea that highways shouldn't be built because people will actually use them is stupid. The demand for auto travel has a limit to its elasticity, and building a highway is not the same as building a perpetual motion machine for transportation demand.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

Transportation isn't the same as an orange juice fountain. And its a poor comparison to compare a number of things that are free to a form of transportation which is not free.

Transportation is determined by many factors such as job location, housing affordability, and desirability and location of schools and things.

I disagree: Nothing comes without a cost.
Orange juice certainly isn't free, but it can be subsidised in such a way that it may seem free in terms of direct costs, but is just as expensive in terms of indirect costs.
In the same way, car travel has few direct costs, but is expensive in indirect costs and subsidies and public transport costs $3.55 on the surface, but requires much fewer subsidies.


Choices are determined by the perceived cost:

Water has a lower total cost (direct+indirect) than orange juice :let's say $0.5/L vs. $3/L.
So, when you are paying the real cost for them, most people will have water rather than OJ.

However, with the orange juice faucet program, we subsidize OJ $2.90 through taxes and indirect societal costs. 50¢ for water, 10¢ for delicious, refreshing OJ.
Now, when you want to get something to drink, you would go for OJ because it 'costs less' even though, at the end of the day, you're paying the same amount, just in a different, indirect way.

In the same way, automobile infrastructure is heavily subsidised in a variety of different ways and has fewer direct costs, and public transportation has higher direct costs, but fewer indirect costs.

All this to say that the orange juice faucet is a very good example of how making something less visibly costly (in money, in this case, but in time and convenience in the case of a free car tunnel) might cause you to think that something does indeed cost you less and will determine your choices.

The idea that highways shouldn't be built because people will actually use them is stupid. The demand for auto travel has a limit to its elasticity, and building a highway is not the same as building a perpetual motion machine for transportation demand.

Well, if the OJ example stands to reason (and I have seen no evidence to believe otherwise), then it would be an equally unreasonable decision to deny people OJ faucets if they would be used (I certainly would).

Unlike OJ demand (which stops once your stomach is full) however, transportation demand has a virtually unlimited growth potential because it will determine future growth patterns. If it becomes easy to live in Gatineau and work in Confederation Heights, there may be a limit to the elasticity of the demand of the individuals who already live there, but it will also cause development along the transportation axes, providing fodder for consistent growth in transportation demand.

So I disagree with your point: in a context of population growth and mobility, there is no practical limit to the growth in demand.

So if an increase in supply begets increases in demand which will outgrow the finite supply, would it not be more ridiculous to make that first move, knowing that it will start us on this vicious cycle?

[NOWINYOW]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

No:

I stand by my previous assessment.

It's short-sighted to not provide full traffic through the tunnel, as it is short-sighted for it to come back to grade south of Murray.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by NOWINYOW

I stand by my previous assessment.

It's short-sighted to not provide full traffic through the tunnel, as it is short-sighted for it to come back to grade south of Murray.

I'd be curious as to why you maintain your first point.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I disagree: Nothing comes without a cost.
Orange juice certainly isn't free, but it can be subsidised in such a way that it may seem free in terms of direct costs, but is just as expensive in terms of indirect costs.
In the same way, car travel has few direct costs, but is expensive in indirect costs and subsidies and public transport costs $3.55 on the surface, but requires much fewer subsidies.


Choices are determined by the perceived cost:

Water has a lower total cost (direct+indirect) than orange juice :let's say $0.5/L vs. $3/L.
So, when you are paying the real cost for them, most people will have water rather than OJ.

However, with the orange juice faucet program, we subsidize OJ $2.90 through taxes and indirect societal costs. 50¢ for water, 10¢ for delicious, refreshing OJ.
Now, when you want to get something to drink, you would go for OJ because it 'costs less' even though, at the end of the day, you're paying the same amount, just in a different, indirect way.

In the same way, automobile infrastructure is heavily subsidised in a variety of different ways and has fewer direct costs, and public transportation has higher direct costs, but fewer indirect costs.

All this to say that the orange juice faucet is a very good example of how making something less visibly costly (in money, in this case, but in time and convenience in the case of a free car tunnel) might cause you to think that something does indeed cost you less and will determine your choices.




Well, if the OJ example stands to reason (and I have seen no evidence to believe otherwise), then it would be an equally unreasonable decision to deny people OJ faucets if they would be used (I certainly would).

Unlike OJ demand (which stops once your stomach is full) however, transportation demand has a virtually unlimited growth potential because it will determine future growth patterns. If it becomes easy to live in Gatineau and work in Confederation Heights, there may be a limit to the elasticity of the demand of the individuals who already live there, but it will also cause development along the transportation axes, providing fodder for consistent growth in transportation demand.

So I disagree with your point: in a context of population growth and mobility, there is no practical limit to the growth in demand.

So if an increase in supply begets increases in demand which will outgrow the finite supply, would it not be more ridiculous to make that first move, knowing that it will start us on this vicious cycle?

OH MY GOD!? So we could live somewhere we want and work somewhere we want too!? So what you are saying is: we could actually enjoy our time on this rock as long as we have sufficient service.

In general, I am going to make the assumption that a person is not going to chose to have a long commute unless their are choices that are more desirable than a long commute. Let's say a person loses their job, and has to take a job further away then their previous vocation and has a spouse that still works closely. If there isn't sufficient transportation service this option wouldn't be possible. But having the transportation service available makes this option viable, which is a net benefit to the person who needs it. The concept of transportation demand is generally comprised of similar scenarios. Most people don't chose to commute because they want to, but because it satisfies other needs with the least amount of disadvantages.

The theoretically idea of demand induction is probably correct, however in practice it's easy to forget WHY people need transportation service. It's not a perpetual motion machine, and a roadway doesn't spawn its own cars like a scene in a scifi movie.

Now off to enjoy some orange juice.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

No:

Yes.

I'm in support of a 4-lane tunnel as well. In theory, it should only be incrementally more expensive that a 2-lane tunnel, not double the cost, so we would be getting more capacity per construction dollar spent. And we do need a certain measure of capacity. As has been previously mentioned, trucks are not currently the only vehicles travelling directly from Gatineau to the Queensway via the indirect streets of Ottawa, in fact they are the minority. If we can get those cars of the streets as well, we would have a much more pleasant downtown experience for everyone, which is the entire point of this exercise.

But perhaps most importantly, a 4-lane tunnel also provides a large margin of safety for a constricted passageway designed to carry trucks. A vehicle breakdown in one direction of a 2-lane tunnel would cause gridlock, whereas a breakdown in a 4-lane tunnel provides the ability for traffic to keep flowing (albeit more slowly) but more importantly it provides a means for emergency vehicles to access the breakdown.

And although it would lengthen the pay-back time I'm not even sure that we should be tolling the tunnel as the objective isn't to provide a faster route which people would be willing to pay for, it's to get traffic off the streets. Without an alternative non-tolled route, such a measure would be enormously unpopular.

[waterloowarrior]

I think the removal of truck, commuter and intercity traffic from surface streets will outweigh the negatives of shifting/induced demand. You can always manage auto demand through measures like better transit, HOV lanes, and tolls. Better transportation links and integration of Ottawa and Gatineau should be promoted. Transit connections to employment in Gatineau would be significantly improved.

[J.OT13]

Even if we're starting to think a little bigger, we still fall short when it comes to building for future capacity. We sort of build for today and maybe 10-15 years from now.

You look at the Convention Centre, yes it's nearly three times the size of the old one, and yes it's very nice, but we continue to fall behind. Our building competes with Edmonton and Calgary, yet smaller than Québec City and soon be one upped by Winnipeg. Note that the initial Congress Centre was deemed too small within 10 years of construction.

Same could be said with the Downtown Subway; initial plans called for 180m platforms. It was then cut down to 150m and we will now end up with 120 meter platforms, shorter than Edmonton's. On top of that, the initial capacity will be of 10,700 which is pretty much todays transit volume through downtown.

A fully support a tunnel, but if it's going to be a 2 lane truck only tunnel, I predict big problems within a decade or so.

[NOWINYOW]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I'd be curious as to why you maintain your first point.

Truck traffic is heavy through this area. Private vehicular traffic is as well. Each will only continue to grow in volume over the years. There is no real discussion about another bridge, so this tunnel is the only improvement we can expect to see for the next dozen or so years. I can state with 100 per cent accuracy that the volume of traffic will increase between Gatineau and Ottawa.

There are no real plans to consolidate public transportation between the two cities. Not that it would make a big difference in this corridor.

Reducing the overall traffic in that area could open up current road use for more pedestrian use.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

In general, I am going to make the assumption that a person is not going to chose to have a long commute unless their are choices that are more desirable than a long commute. Let's say a person loses their job, and has to take a job further away then their previous vocation and has a spouse that still works closely. If there isn't sufficient transportation service this option wouldn't be possible. But having the transportation service available makes this option viable, which is a net benefit to the person who needs it. The concept of transportation demand is generally comprised of similar scenarios. Most people don't chose to commute because they want to, but because it satisfies other needs with the least amount of disadvantages.

The theoretically idea of demand induction is probably correct, however in practice it's easy to forget WHY people need transportation service. It's not a perpetual motion machine, and a roadway doesn't spawn its own cars like a scene in a scifi movie.

Now off to enjoy some orange juice.

I know, right? After I finished that post, I had myself several tall glasses of cold, cold orange juice

Ok, so I'm not sure I completely understand your point:

- Long commutes are not desirable
- Transportation permits long commutes
- That ones up opportunities for people

This actually touches on a very important point: I believe that the whole point of the city is to access opportunities (economic, social, personal or otherwise) to improve your life which wouldn't have otherwise been made available.
Following that idea, a city which provides a high degree of mobility at low cost (cost in money, time, health, etc.) in order to access all those opportunities in every corner of the region is a successful city.

So your points are entirely valid, but permit me to reformulate them:

There are opportunities in every part of the city which have the potential to benefit us. However, in order to access them, we need to have mobility and that mobility has a cost (you mentioned time). We always want to have the least costly mobility because the more we save on that, the more we can spend on other things like more consumer goods (money) or more leisure (time).


But let's get back to the Lowertown Tunnel.

We agree that demand would be induced if the tunnel was open to private vehicles.
So the same infrastructure now used by people going downtown (Nicolas/417 and Highway 5 and 50) would also see more traffic.
As we see every morning, a lot of this infrastructure is near, at, or over capacity.
So, by inducing more traffic than is currently desired and causing that traffic to back up other infrastructure, we increase the cost of mobility for the majority of trips.

So often, decreasing the cost of mobility for those 0.09% of trips can have the effect of increasing the cost of mobility for the other 99.01% and the question of whether or not that is worth it is something that we will have to ask ourselves.

And as I said before, you raise a hellava good point there and I hope my answer is satisfying.

[Aylmer]

My concerns is not that we will induce demand, but that we will induce demand in such a way that we will increase the cost of mobility for everyone.

With congestion-based pricing of the tunnel, we can make it free and easy for people to travel through on weekends and off-hours and prevent induction which will make it worse for everyone to get around. On a whole, this will vastly improve mobility and access to opportunities (like services, jobs, housing, etc.) without the aforementioned downsides.

For that to happen, we need to be able to dynamically adjust the cost of mobility for the 0.09% of cross-downtown traffic in order to make it less costly for everyone through the use of tolls:

During commuting hours, the price would be set high enough to prevent the addition of a gridlock-inducing amount of traffic to our current road network.
During the off-hours, access would be inexpensive or free, removing through-traffic from our downtown streets without causing traffic.

Pros:

+ more mobility
+ less traffic on downtown streets
+ no need for expensive infrastructure expansions demanded by induced congestion
+ partial return (however small) on the investment if a tunnel

Cons:

- it'll cost money if you want to take the tunnel at peak hours (though you can just take the way we take today instead...)

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by NOWINYOW

Truck traffic is heavy through this area. Private vehicular traffic is as well. Each will only continue to grow in volume over the years. There is no real discussion about another bridge, so this tunnel is the only improvement we can expect to see for the next dozen or so years. I can state with 100 per cent accuracy that the volume of traffic will increase between Gatineau and Ottawa.

There are no real plans to consolidate public transportation between the two cities. Not that it would make a big difference in this corridor.

Reducing the overall traffic in that area could open up current road use for more pedestrian use.

Well, as I mentioned, the traffic from Gatineau to non-core Ottawa and vice-versa is on then order of 2800 trips (including transit, passengers and other modes) per day according to the TRANS NCR Travel Trends Study. That has a lot of room to grow, considering that that, spread out during the day, 2800 is about 3 vehicles per minute. To put that in context, there are 43 170 trips from Gatineau to central Ottawa during the AM peak only.

Moreover, the 2011 Origin-Destination Survey reveals something which I personally found surprising in their Key Findings section (4.17) :

Generally, the distributions of trips – that is, the proportions of trips crossing the Ottawa River and the proportions that remain within each region – have been stable, with little variation over the years. However, it is important to note that the absolute volumes of person‐trips crossing the Ottawa River have dropped since 2005, although they are still higher than the 1995 volumes. This is true for both the AM and PM peak periods.  Overall, trip volumes have grown, from which it can be seen that more trips are staying within each region.

So there isn't a growing problem when you look at the numbers and building a tunnel to remove cross-downtown traffic would be comparable to swatting a fly very small fly with a very expensive and publicly-built jackhammer, so I don't think that these reasons stand to reason.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

6 moths ago there was enough traffic to be building a brand new bridge via Kettle Island. Truck traffic is only part of the problem. It's stupid to route long distance through traffic on Ottawa's Downtown local streets. With through traffic removed, think of all the bike lanes they could add.

It's pretty clear from the foregoing that you have not got the faintest idea of what you are talking about.

You, like the NCC, are conflating two quite separate and distinct traffic issues into one. One issue is interprovincial truck traffic going through downtown Ottawa. The other issue is ongoing growth in interprovincial traffic. Truck traffic isn't "part" of the problem: it's a whole separate problem, and a pretty major one for the people living in downtown Ottawa.

Kettle Island was selected because it's a compromise between addressing each of these problems separately. The major axis of truck travel demand is between Alta Vista in Ottawa and North Hull in Gatineau - i.e. right through downtown Ottawa. The further a crossing is placed from that axis, the less truck traffic such a crossing would syphon off from downtown Ottawa. At the same time, the growth in general interprovincial traffic is away from downtown, so the closer a new crossing is placed to downtown Ottawa the less well it serves that growth. That's how we got Kettle Island: it did neither well, but it's really the only option if only one option is your only option.

Long distance interprovincial travel through downtown Ottawa is more myth than reality, and even less so now that A50 is in place to Montreal. The vast bulk of interprovincial travel in the Ottawa area is local, be it truck or car. It's not like Maniwaki is some massive metropolis with its own pairwise travel demand with Toronto needing to go through Ottawa.

The obvious conclusion for any thinking person is that the two problems require two separate solutions. The truck traffic issue requires an efficient way to bypass downtown streets while not creating an out-of-the-way route. The growth in other traffic requires a new crossing further to the east.

That would be dumb. Buses can run just as quickly in mixed traffic so long as the level of service isn't degradation, which it isn't on the MC Bridge.

Might as well plan for their eventual conversion to rail transit now by removing them from general service. Doing so also means the transit lanes can run together on one side of the bridge if need be.

I'm very much thinking that a smart thing to do would be to plan for an LRT tunnel spur from the LRT tunnel at Rideau St to the M-C Bridge and to build it at the same time as the truck tunnel, in which case setting aside dedicated lanes on the M-C Bridge becomes a necessity, and far from "dumb". That's also another reason not to build a four lane expressway tunnel - because you're going to impinge on the ability to build an LRT tunnel in the same corridor.

There doesn't seem to be any lane restrictions on this six lane bridge, and I have always figured Copenghagen to be a sane place. Maybe you don't?
http://goo.gl/maps/iYwkA

Relevance? That bridge appears to be a bypass of the whole city, whereas the M-C Bridge is oriented towards the downtown itself.

Then don't build interchanges. Most interchanges are 2km apart anyways, which is less than the entire length of the tunnel.

You don't get it, do you? If a tunnel is built to four lanes like you suggest, then there would be pressure to add interchanges to serve all the car traffic you've just finished funnelling into it. But keep it as a two lane tunnel and its primary function is clearly that of a truck bypass.

As for interchange spacing, it's a lot less than a spacing of 2 km for the stretch of the Queensway between the Vanier Pkwy and Parkdale.

Canada is a first world country. We shouldn't be shy about having first world infrastructure.

So where are all our high speed railways, urban railways and cycleways? Why is it that until the Vancouver Olympics I couldn't get off a plane and take a train into the city centre of any Canadian city, and still can't for any city other than Vancouver?

Originally Posted by sonysnob

I am sick of hearing of induced demand.

If demand is indeed induced, it's because peoples preference is auto travel and not its alternatives.

Go to the Netherlands. Take a look around. See all the people cycling. And see all the cycle paths they're cycling on. Then go to the Dutch-speaking part of the similarly flat and densely populated Belgium, and see how much fewer people are cycling, along with how there is far less cycling infrastructure.

There's pretty clearly a relationship between the type of transportation infrastructure we build and the type of transportation demand we end up getting.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I know, right? After I finished that post, I had myself several tall glasses of cold, cold orange juice

Ok, so I'm not sure I completely understand your point:

- Long commutes are not desirable
- Transportation permits long commutes
- That ones up opportunities for people

This actually touches on a very important point: I believe that the whole point of the city is to access opportunities (economic, social, personal or otherwise) to improve your life which wouldn't have otherwise been made available.
Following that idea, a city which provides a high degree of mobility at low cost (cost in money, time, health, etc.) in order to access all those opportunities in every corner of the region is a successful city.

So your points are entirely valid, but permit me to reformulate them:

There are opportunities in every part of the city which have the potential to benefit us. However, in order to access them, we need to have mobility and that mobility has a cost (you mentioned time). We always want to have the least costly mobility because the more we save on that, the more we can spend on other things like more consumer goods (money) or more leisure (time).


But let's get back to the Lowertown Tunnel.

We agree that demand would be induced if the tunnel was open to private vehicles.
So the same infrastructure now used by people going downtown (Nicolas/417 and Highway 5 and 50) would also see more traffic.
As we see every morning, a lot of this infrastructure is near, at, or over capacity.
So, by inducing more traffic than is currently desired and causing that traffic to back up other infrastructure, we increase the cost of mobility for the majority of trips.

So often, decreasing the cost of mobility for those 0.09% of trips can have the effect of increasing the cost of mobility for the other 99.01% and the question of whether or not that is worth it is something that we will have to ask ourselves.

And as I said before, you raise a hellava good point there and I hope my answer is satisfying.

For sure, the traffic obviously has to be there to make a downtown tunnel work. I am very surprised that so little of the traffic orginates from outside of the downtown cores. Particularly in the past when there wasn't any connectivity between Gatineau's major roads and those in south-western Quebec. Before the completion of A-50, any travel that originated on the Quebec side of the border that was destined for virtually any other point in Quebec would have need to have been funnelled through Downtown Ottawa. So little trips seems peculiar, particularly if the O-D study is more than a couple of years old.

Improving road connections is important. While transportation options such as Ottawa's confederation line are great additions to the city's overall mobility, such lines serve a limited scope of travel demand.

The biggest problem with the concept of demand induction is that it wasn't understood until quite recently, and therefore hasn't really been designed for. Alternatively, there are some good solutions such as road pricing to alleviate peak hour demands.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by Dado

It's pretty clear from the foregoing that you have not got the faintest idea of what you are talking about.

You, like the NCC, are conflating two quite separate and distinct traffic issues into one. One issue is interprovincial truck traffic going through downtown Ottawa. The other issue is ongoing growth in interprovincial traffic. Truck traffic isn't "part" of the problem: it's a whole separate problem, and a pretty major one for the people living in downtown Ottawa.

Kettle Island was selected because it's a compromise between addressing each of these problems separately. The major axis of truck travel demand is between Alta Vista in Ottawa and North Hull in Gatineau - i.e. right through downtown Ottawa. The further a crossing is placed from that axis, the less truck traffic such a crossing would syphon off from downtown Ottawa. At the same time, the growth in general interprovincial traffic is away from downtown, so the closer a new crossing is placed to downtown Ottawa the less well it serves that growth. That's how we got Kettle Island: it did neither well, but it's really the only option if only one option is your only option.

Long distance interprovincial travel through downtown Ottawa is more myth than reality, and even less so now that A50 is in place to Montreal. The vast bulk of interprovincial travel in the Ottawa area is local, be it truck or car. It's not like Maniwaki is some massive metropolis with its own pairwise travel demand with Toronto needing to go through Ottawa.

The obvious conclusion for any thinking person is that the two problems require two separate solutions. The truck traffic issue requires an efficient way to bypass downtown streets while not creating an out-of-the-way route. The growth in other traffic requires a new crossing further to the east.

As of six months ago, there isn't going to be a Kettle Island Bridge, and the truck tunnel is certainly going to cost north of 1 billion, so it would be stupid to ignore other trans-provincial traffic needs, just because the only solution isn't necessarily the best solution for all of the problems. It is unlikely they will be building both in the near-term.

Originally Posted by Dado

Might as well plan for their eventual conversion to rail transit now by removing them from general service. Doing so also means the transit lanes can run together on one side of the bridge if need be.

I'm very much thinking that a smart thing to do would be to plan for an LRT tunnel spur from the LRT tunnel at Rideau St to the M-C Bridge and to build it at the same time as the truck tunnel, in which case setting aside dedicated lanes on the M-C Bridge becomes a necessity, and far from "dumb". That's also another reason not to build a four lane expressway tunnel - because you're going to impinge on the ability to build an LRT tunnel in the same corridor.

The odds of adding a rail line to the existing MC bridge are probably slim to none, and to use your words is a "dumb" suggestion. The MC Bridge uses a steel arch design with only two girders and a network of webbing. Such a bridge design has a tendency to vibrate with heavy loading and would likely need considerable strengthening or replacement to handle any sort of rail service. Nice try though.

A better candidate for rail service conversion would be the Alexandria Bridge. It was constructed as a rail bridge, and could handle the loading. It would probably need some rehabilitative work and strengthening of its own, considering its close to 100 years old. It's also a downtown to downtown connection unlike the MC Bridge. Depending on its condition, there may be a long term replacement strategy for this bridge though too.

See as Gatineau has just built a new dedicated BRT system along a former rail alignment, that city seems unlikely to be building any sort of LRT system at this time.

Originally Posted by Dado

Relevance? That bridge appears to be a bypass of the whole city, whereas the M-C Bridge is oriented towards the downtown itself.

I'll admit I was cherry picking to prove my point. I was hoping though that you would zoom out and notice that Copenhagen's downtown freeway network is at least as dense as pretty well any other Canadian City, even though it is often viewed as an anti-car mecca by those from North America.

Originally Posted by Dado

You don't get it, do you? If a tunnel is built to four lanes like you suggest, then there would be pressure to add interchanges to serve all the car traffic you've just finished funnelling into it. But keep it as a two lane tunnel and its primary function is clearly that of a truck bypass.

As for interchange spacing, it's a lot less than a spacing of 2 km for the stretch of the Queensway between the Vanier Pkwy and Parkdale.

And those interchanges create turbulence adding delay to motorists. Interchange spacing that close is not desirable, and wouldn't be necessary on a tunnel. This is a stupid argument.

Originally Posted by Dado

So where are all our high speed railways, urban railways and cycleways? Why is it that until the Vancouver Olympics I couldn't get off a plane and take a train into the city centre of any Canadian city, and still can't for any city other than Vancouver?

You will be able to in Toronto soon, and I think Montreal is working on it as well? What does this have to do with the downtown tunnel? I'll answer for you, nothing.

Originally Posted by Dado

Go to the Netherlands. Take a look around. See all the people cycling. And see all the cycle paths they're cycling on. Then go to the Dutch-speaking part of the similarly flat and densely populated Belgium, and see how much fewer people are cycling, along with how there is far less cycling infrastructure.

There's pretty clearly a relationship between the type of transportation infrastructure we build and the type of transportation demand we end up getting.

You realize that the dominant mode of transportation in the Netherlands is still the private automobile, by far right? It's probably unrealistic to expect that type of cycling adaptation in other areas if for no other reason than it would take decades for their to be such a cultural shift.

The Dutch are still actively building and widening their motorway network despite the use of bicycles for some trips. In fact, the Dutch motorway network is one of the densest in Europe

On the flip side, carpool lanes and HOT are almost non-existent in any part of the world outside of North America. So it's not just Europe that has creative solutions to traffic congestion.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

The biggest problem with the concept of demand induction is that it wasn't understood until quite recently, and therefore hasn't really been designed for. Alternatively, there are some good solutions such as road pricing to alleviate peak hour demands.

Induced demand has actually been documented and studies since the 1960's, but, like telling someone dying of thrust not to drink the salt water, its been slow to gain a foothold in the minds of the public and public officials.

I agree wholeheartedly with the solutions you brought up like congestion pricing, but it would have to be implemented on day one because as hard as it might be for some to wrap their minds around induced demand for new roads, understanding the opposite concept of "Disappearing Traffic" is even more challenging.

For sure, the traffic obviously has to be there to make a downtown tunnel work. I am very surprised that so little of the traffic orginates from outside of the downtown cores. Particularly in the past when there wasn't any connectivity between Gatineau's major roads and those in south-western Quebec. Before the completion of A-50, any travel that originated on the Quebec side of the border that was destined for virtually any other point in Quebec would have need to have been funnelled through Downtown Ottawa. So little trips seems peculiar, particularly if the O-D study is more than a couple of years old.

Improving road connections is important. While transportation options such as Ottawa's confederation line are great additions to the city's overall mobility, such lines serve a limited scope of travel demand

The truth is, people don't really get out of the city all that much - you might go to Montréal or Toronto once a month, if that and most other non-core trips (big-box shopping, activities, events, etc.) only occur on occasion and off-peak when there is plenty of unused capacity on downtown roads. A toll tunnel would improve mobility somewhat, but only because non-peak downtown streets are not very costly in time as it is.


As I've said before, I strongly believe that the ability to access opportunities is the purpose of the city and if we want to continue to take advantage of them, we will have to find a way to improve mobility for all. If we want to improve mobility in the region and actually reduce congestion (also contributing to improved mobility), we have to invest massively in public transportation and active transportation so that people have options as to how they get around: more choice usually begets better choices as we see (or don't see) with industries like telecom.

That way, people who want to drive will have the space to do so and people who don't will have that option.

This is not only important so that we can have more time, more flexibility and more freedom, but it's essential to the very idea of the city itself that we think a little deeper and make the right decisions about mobility so that everyone can get around painlessly.

[Aylmer]

We always have to be on the lookout for things blown out of proportion or out of context - we all have our ideas about how things might be, but if we never take the time to do a little fact-checking, we end up not making decisions based on how things are. Like here - we were lead to believe that there was a great deal of growing cross-downtown traffic that would require a lot of expensive infrastructure like extra lanes, interchanges and so forth, but by digging a little, we find something else entirely.

All too often, complexes issues like mobility, traffic and urban planning are lost in a sea of impressions, half-truths and easy solutions which end up being very counterproductive. But that's a very long post for another time.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

The Dutch are still actively building and widening their motorway network despite the use of bicycles for some trips. In fact, the Dutch motorway network is one of the densest in North America.

For accuracy's sake, it would be important to note that only 100km of highway have been built in the past 25 years, 26 if which were built in the major urban centers, though their population grew by 1.5 million.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Alright, I would agree that, if through-traffic were a problem, the tunnel should attempt to alleviate that, so it's important to look at the numbers:
In 2011, the number of trips from Gatineau to parts of Ottawa outside of downtown (and vice-versa) or to other cities was so small, that it isn't even measured by the Origin-Destination Survey's desire lines. To give you an idea, it's just shy of 0.09% of Ottawa's automobile trips.

So, the numbers tell us that it isn't much of a problem.

Do you have a source for these numbers? Even if Downtown Ottawa is defined as everywhere inside the greenbelt, I find it very hard to believe that Gatineau is such a low source of daily trips. .09% would be what 3-400 trips a day? I would think there way more than that just to Kanata daily. I would also say the 416 and 417 towards Montreal would each see well over that as well.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Do you have a source for these numbers? Even if Downtown Ottawa is defined as everywhere inside the greenbelt, I find it very hard to believe that Gatineau is such a low source of daily trips. .09% would be what 3-400 trips a day? I would think there way more than that just to Kanata daily. I would also say the 416 and 417 towards Montreal would each see well over that as well.

It's actually about 2800 trips.

You can find the survey here: http://www.ncr-trans-rcn.ca/surveys/o-d-survey/o-d-survey-2011/