Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Are these plans finalized yet or are they just... plans?

I really think there are too many stations and the city should hear about this and try to modify it. I would cut 2 in Orleans and 1 or 2 in that west-end expansion. It's not like the area WOULDN'T be served by LRT or anything... It would mean that the worst case scenario someone living at the intersection of Du Bois and Bilburry would have to walk 1km to Place d'Orleans station OR 700m to Orleans Blvd station... Is that too much to ask?

Less spending on useless stations = more money for further extensions.

How much money would 3 stations save?

Above ground? About 120 million. These are just EA studies, so nothing confirmed (in terms of station locations) yet.

[hwy418]

Originally Posted by Schattenjager

I disagree, I think there should be a station at Orleans Blvd since it would better serve students going to Cairine Wilson and St Matt's and the Convent Glen Shopping Plaza. Also, it would most likely help revitalize St Joseph Blvd.

Agree those are good transit generators, but they could be be served with feeder loops.

It will take more than an LRT station to resurrect St. Joseph Blvd. The City needs to stop approving hideous buildings like the "Garlic King" and do something about streetscaping to make it look more like a main street. A road diet or some on-street parking wouldn't hurt either.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Capital Shaun

Isn't La Cité's Orleans campus there?

I'd like to see a station near Jasmine between Blair & Montreal. There's guaranteed ridership from that area.

La Cité's Orleans campus is at Trim. I see your point about Jasmine station.

[MalcolmTucker]

Depends what the system's goal is. With trains as big as are planned, interlining into a 30,000 ppdph tunnel doesn't really mesh with stations that close in my mind. But the system has always had this weird hybrid of wanting to do neighbourhood style LRT feeding into a subway.

Since I can't open these at work - are they thinking of keeping an exclusive ROW with or without full grade separation?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Depends what the system's goal is. With trains as big as are planned, interlining into a 30,000 ppdph tunnel doesn't really mesh with stations that close in my mind. But the system has always had this weird hybrid of wanting to do neighbourhood style LRT feeding into a subway.

Since I can't open these at work - are they thinking of keeping an exclusive ROW with or without full grade separation?

Going through them quickly, I didn't see any indication of whether or not they plan on full grade separation.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

Are these plans finalized yet or are they just... plans?

This is basically the starting framework for the environmental assessment. The EA will look at various alternatives for alignment, station location, etc. In the end after various public meetings, technical analyses, etc they will have a recommended plan presented to the Transportation Committee and Council. That plan then can be used to develop detailed engineering drawings, purchase property, determine budget etc.

[1overcosc]

I'd have the following stations if I was king of the universe:
1) Jasmine
2) Montreal
3) Jeanne D'Arc
4) Place D'Orleans
5) Tenth Line
6) Trim

[rocketphish]

City won’t be ready to ask for new rail money till 2016

By David Reevely, OTTAWA CITIZEN January 29, 2014 7:01 PM

OTTAWA — The city won’t be ready to ask the provincial and federal governments for nearly $2 billion for its big rail plans for nearly two years, as it works to complete three major studies needed to make more detailed proposals.

City council approved a long-term transportation vision for Ottawa in the fall that included extending the O-Train to Riverside South (including a possible spur to the airport), one light-rail extension to both Baseline station and Bayshore mall, and another east to Place d’Orléans. But before anybody can go laying track, the city needs to do three much finer “environmental assessments” to work out the details of where stations should go and how tracks will cross roads and waterways and paths.

That work will produce better estimates of what it will all cost, and only then will the city be ready to make the case for big-time funding from the other governments.

The most complicated study, the one for an LRT line to Orléans, also needs to be combined with a study already underway on widening Hwy. 174 east into Prescott-Russell, because the two routes are to run right next to each other and it’s not clear how close they can be. Furthermore, the city intends to study options for extending a rail line all the way east to Trim Road so that the highway can be built to allow that sometime later.

“Prescott Russell has been advised of this requirement,” a report to city council’s transportation committee notes tersely. Politicians in the county east of Ottawa have been angered by what they see as the city’s foot-dragging on a road-widening they consider essential to their economy.

Studies for the O-Train extension south and the new spur off the western LRT line, to send trains to Bayshore, should take only about a year once the city hires consultants and gets them started. But the city’s planners have talked about all three projects as a package, intending to present them to the federal and provincial governments as a coherent plan rather than a collection of separate projects. That means asking for money, let alone getting a response, will likely take until 2016.

There is no estimate of what the studies will cost. The airport authority will pay half the cost of studying the price of its potential O-Train spur, the report says.

The whole next stage of the rail plan is expected to cost $3 billion; the city’s intention is to start construction as soon as possible after the first phase, through downtown, is complete in 2018.

[email protected]

ottawacitizen.com/greaterottawa
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/City+ready+rail+money+till+2016/9446204/story.html

[lrt's friend]

The planned station immediately east of Place d'Orléans is of strategic importance. This would be at Centrum Boulevard, which is an area that attempts are being made to create a more traditional downtown for Orléans. It is already the site of the Shenkman Arts Centre and the East Ottawa Service Centre, the former Cumberland City Hall. This is an area with good potential for intensification, which will never occur if a station is not located there.

If we want the Orléans extension to have minimal intensification and mostly accessed by Park n Ride lots, then build a minimal numbers of stations. If you want to change the face of Orléans, maximize intensification, access and ridership, then the stations need to be closer together.

It is time to think outside the box if we want to move beyond traditional suburban concepts. I applaud closer stations as I did with the original North-South route design for Riverside South and Barrhaven.

One of the advantages of electric LRT is faster acceleration allowing the system to still function efficiently with closer stations. If we were using heavy rail diesel Go Trains, then yes, stations would need to be farther apart.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The planned station immediately east of Place d'Orléans is of strategic importance. This would be at Centrum Boulevard, which is an area that attempts are being made to create a more traditional downtown for Orléans. It is already the site of the Shenkman Arts Centre and the East Ottawa Service Centre, the former Cumberland City Hall. This is an area with good potential for intensification, which will never occur if a station is not located there.

If we want the Orléans extension to have minimal intensification and mostly accessed by Park n Ride lots, then build a minimal numbers of stations. If you want to change the face of Orléans, maximize intensification, access and ridership, then the stations need to be closer together.

It is time to think outside the box if we want to move beyond traditional suburban concepts. I applaud closer stations as I did with the original North-South route design for Riverside South and Barrhaven.

One of the advantages of electric LRT is faster acceleration allowing the system to still function efficiently with closer stations. If we were using heavy rail diesel Go Trains, then yes, stations would need to be farther apart.

Yes, but some of those stations (i.e. Orleans Blvd) have little to no intensification potential. I certainly would not compromise the number of stations in the city to encourage a slight change in suburban culture.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Yes, but some of those stations (i.e. Orleans Blvd) have little to no intensification potential. I certainly would not compromise the number of stations in the city to encourage a slight change in suburban culture.

I am doing a study of Orléans development, and there is quite a bit of lower income housing on Orléans Boulevard that would be within walking distance. It is not only about intensification but also about serving the public.

[Aylmer]

We should also note that the distance between Jeanne D'Arc and Orleans Blvd. is almost as far as that between Parliament Hill and the Museum of Nature.

That said, if there were to be so many stations, I wouldn't build very elaborate ones: just a basic, platform and shelter station should do for 'local' stations like Jasmine and Orleans Blvd.

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

La Cité's Orleans campus is at Trim.

You are correct. In that case I question the usefulness of the station between 10th Line & Trim unless there's some major development planned for there that I don't know about.

[Capital Shaun]

Orleans goes from 3 TransitWay stops to 7 LRT stations to fill in all the gaps in the current system. But inside the Greenbelt, no additional station between Blair & Montreal despite it being over 3km between the two. I don't see the city's logic here.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Capital Shaun

You are correct. In that case I question the usefulness of the station between 10th Line & Trim unless there's some major development planned for there that I don't know about.

hwy418 mentioned a big Brigil project in the area. I only know the one around Trim. That said, there is only about 2 km between Tenth Line and Trim so people would not have to walk more than one kilometer to a station.

To respond to Aylmer's comment, there is more to having too many stations than just cost. It also slows down the system, making it a less than ideal solution to commuting, so we must only build stations that can generate significant ridership

lrt's friend, I completely agree that rapid transit exists to serve the public, but again, we must build stations that will attract maximum ridership. Suburbs should have fewer stations in key areas that offer density and park and rides (in the form of parking garages to maximize space for intensification). The rest of Orleans, or any other suburb for that matter, can be served with supplemental bus transit that will carry people to the rapid transit stations.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Seems to me under the bridge would be the best solution; best pedestrian access, easier to install stairs/elevators and the bridge itself can act as a roof to the station.

Yes, it would be ideal for passengers, for the comfort, and for ease of transfers, which is exactly why the city will frig this up, too, just as they frigged up the original configuration of Lincoln Fields.

They do not care about passenger interests or amenities. Never have, and never will.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by hwy418

Agree those are good transit generators, but they could be be served with feeder loops.

It will take more than an LRT station to resurrect St. Joseph Blvd. The City needs to stop approving hideous buildings like the "Garlic King" and do something about streetscaping to make it look more like a main street. A road diet or some on-street parking wouldn't hurt either.

The only thing that makes a street look like a main street, is that the buidings abut the street. No setbacks. No stupid open space. No front parking lot.

Anything less than that, is not a main street. It is at best a main drag. Ottawa loves main drags. Ottawa loves all kinds of suburban crap.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

It's actually 8 stations east of Blair (counting Montreal Road). Stage 2 showed the ORT extended to Place d'Orleans with 4 stations, but the EA includes studying an extension to Trim, adding 3 stations.

The EA adds up to 1 station per 0.6 km, way too many stations.

Compare it to the current Confederation Line, 1 station per 0.92 km or the western extension (Tunney's to LF), 1 station per 1.13 km in a mostly high density, urban area.

The City has it upside down; there should be more stations per km in the urban area than suburban, not the other way around. On top of that, they are considering eliminating one of the new western stations between Dominion and LF to afford the NCC's Parkway demands.

If I was to be the sole decider on station location, here is what I would do;

1) Montreal
2) Jeanne d'Arc
3) Place d'Orleans
4) Tenth Line
5) Trim

I would eliminate Orleans Boulevard as it has 0 intensification potential. It's a fully developed low density area. No clue what's between 10th Line and trim but it has no business being there.

While Orleans Boulevard in and of itself doesn't have a lot of intensification potential, it does have a lot of bus feeder potential from points south. True, one could divert the buses to Jeanne d'Arc, but in a way you're better off with Orleans Blvd since it isn't an interchange. Still, if it had to go, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

I'd also consolidate the two at Place d'Orleans and Centrum by shifting the station further east to bring it close to Centrum. Ya, that means we lose the investment in the pedestrian overpass and the island bus station, but then again we sacrificed Baseline Station and we're going to do the same to Hurdman and Blair. Perhaps the ped bridge can be moved to tie into the pathway between Willow Ave and Borland Dr. I might even be sympathetic to leaving a station at the current Place d'Orleans station location if it weren't for the lame development going on north of the 174 which completely blows a golden TOD opportunity.

And I really don't see the point of one between Tenth Line and Trim - stations at both those cross streets should suffice.

Originally Posted by McC

It's the pits, and it isn't new either, check out the gazillion stations that were planned in Riverside South in the old NSLRT. The one that gets me most is the massive Our Lady of the Condos project, only 500metres from the line but it will be almost a kilometre from the nearest station (because of the ridiculous gap between Tunney's and Westboro. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: push Westboro to Churchill -- call it Winston-Churchill -- drop in a station at Island Park -- Sam-Champlain, maybe? -- and push Dominion to Richmond and Rochester Field and then all of the western stations are about the same 800-1000m distance apart).

Hey, that's my idea (except the names - going west Island Park, Westboro, Kitchissippi). I even sent in a comment to the public consultation urging them to do this.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Since I can't open these at work - are they thinking of keeping an exclusive ROW with or without full grade separation?

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Going through them quickly, I didn't see any indication of whether or not they plan on full grade separation.

You don't need to look through the document to answer the question; just look at the corridor it's going into.

It's in an expressway corridor passing through interchanges where cross streets go over the expressway on overpasses.

It will be grade-separated by sheer necessity of the corridor.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

To respond to Aylmer's comment, there is more to having too many stations than just cost. It also slows down the system, making it a less than ideal solution to commuting, so we must only build stations that can generate significant ridership

I calculated that every station costs about 30s in deceleration, acceleration to 70km/h and dwell time). I completely agree that we can't be throwing stops around willy-nilly, but for 30s, we should at least examine whether it would it would be worth it.