Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[DarkArconio]

The construction of phase two between lincoln fields and baseline will be very disruptive to the network, with few candidates for replacement bus lanes like on the 417 in the east. Anything that'll relieve network pressure towards baseline will be very helpful. Let's hope we get the money!

[1overcosc]

Its probably possible to keep the Transitway open as far as Highway 417 or even Iris during LRT construction (by building on a different alignment than current Transitway), then divert buses onto 417/Iris & Woodroffe to Baseline. The LRT route will likely have to be deviate from the current ROW anyway due to turn radius issues. Otherwise, the diversion will have to be Carling & Woodroffe. Given that Carling is way wider than it has to be, converting a pair of lanes to bus lanes is easy. Not so sure about Woodroffe.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SF Thomas

Wynne actually mentioned funding the second phase of Ottawa LRT during the debate specifically. This was in response to Hudak discussing funding for Toronto's subway expansion claiming he was leaving out the rest of the province when it came to mass transit funding.

The original question was from a person asking about the rest of the province having to pay for Toronto's transit. Much as I'd like more funding for other parts of the province the GTA actually does have the biggest chunk of the population and pays the most in taxes so I think the question was a bit ignorant.

The question wasn't ignorant. The GTHA represents 51% of the population and should not be getting 100% (or thereabouts) funding for transit (as per Hudak's platform).

In the past, this has always been an issue. While the Province reluctantly gave 600 million for phase 1 of the Confederation Line, they were showering the GTHA with billions upon billions of dollars.

The current Liberal plan addresses the issue of unfairness. I did the calculations yesterday and the 15 billion GTHA/14 billion Rest of Ontario (ROO) is dead on when considering per capita funding.

Note that Ottawa's fair share of the 14 billion ROO would be 2 billion.

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Note that Ottawa's fair share of the 14 billion ROO would be 2 billion.

$975 million for Stage 2, $1.025 B for everything else. Do we have any indication of what a truck tunnel will cost?

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by gjhall

$975 million for Stage 2, $1.025 B for everything else. Do we have any indication of what a truck tunnel will cost?

this pro-tunnel site estimates $500-700 million

http://www.ssd-ottawa.ca/tunnel-alternatives

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

this pro-tunnel site estimates $500-700 million

http://www.ssd-ottawa.ca/tunnel-alternatives

Isn't this strange when the suggestion of a bus tunnel was quickly discarded and considered not affordable?

[DarkArconio]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Isn't this strange when the suggestion of a bus tunnel was quickly discarded and considered not affordable?

An underground bus tunnel and underground bus stations are two different things, we'd need the stations. Also the bus tunnel would be significantly longer than the truck tunnel. Definitely more expensive than the current tunnel is costing.

[J.OT13]

Bus tunnel vs. rail tunnel and bridge vs. truck tunnel are two different conversations.

Rail tunnel has a much cheaper capital and operational cost than a bus tunnel. It also provides a much greater capacity to grow.

When talking about truck traffic, a bridge would be a mid-term solution, spreading the problem in multiple parts of town. 10-20 years down the line, truck traffic will have returned to 2014 levels downtown and add a new problem in the old east end. A tunnel however, will get rid of 100% (or pretty damn close) of interprovincial truck traffic.

That said, isn't the 29 billion fund for transit only? My biggest fear is that the Province pledges 2 billion for Stage 2 and then the Feds turn around and say we don't need their billion dollar share. If that happens, we basically lose a billion dollars.

[Beedok]

Wouldn't the tunnel fill up in 10-20 years too and then start spilling onto the street again?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by DarkArconio

An underground bus tunnel and underground bus stations are two different things, we'd need the stations. Also the bus tunnel would be significantly longer than the truck tunnel. Definitely more expensive than the current tunnel is costing.

Yes, there are stations, but stations are needed regardless of whether we are dealing with trains or buses. Is the truck tunnel really that much shorter? Seems to me that it will have to go from near the M-C bridge to near the Nicholas interchange. Possibly, a lot of buildings to have to go under.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Wouldn't the tunnel fill up in 10-20 years too and then start spilling onto the street again?

I don't think that will happen anytime soon. Although the tunnel will only have 2 lanes (one lane in each direction), it will be built for truck traffic exclusively.

Currently there are 50,000 vehicles total using King Edward for interprovincial purposes, 2,600 of those are trucks. Divide that by 6 lanes, that's a rough "capacity" of 8,300 per lane, or 16,600 for two lanes (as per the proposed tunnel). Throw in the added capacity presented by eliminating all traffic lights and turns; you get more than enough capacity for decades to come.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes, there are stations, but stations are needed regardless of whether we are dealing with trains or buses. Is the truck tunnel really that much shorter? Seems to me that it will have to go from near the M-C bridge to near the Nicholas interchange. Possibly, a lot of buildings to have to go under.

The following quote makes a parallel between the Dalhousie Street truck tunnel, the Confederation Line subway and the Andy Haden tunnel. The difference in length, if the City opts for the Dalhousie option, is 700 meters (2.5 km vs. 1.8 km).

Cost - Ottawa LRT example

There are other cost comparisons that can be made based on the recently completed decision-making process for Ottawa's downtown transit tunnel.

In December of 2012 the winning construction consortium was announced and a presentation made to City council. This included an update on construction costs which contained the following cost breakdown chart indicating that the cost to construct the tunnel (~2.5km) and stations had been revised downwards from earlier estimates to 681m$

It is unclear from the presentation if the 'stations' referred to are the 3 stations in the tunnel or all 13 of the LRT stations. If for the moment we assume it is only the 3 downtown underground stations and if we assume those are 50m$ each, then the cost for the tunnel itself would be in the order of 530m$.

The report goes on to say that the excavation of the tunnel and underground stations is estimated to involve the removal of 380,000m3 of rock and debris. By way of comparison, a Macdonald-Cartier bridge access tunnel could be estimated to involve a volume of rock = 1.7km (long) * 13m wide * 8m high = 150,000 m3 or less than half of what is involved in the LRT tunnel construction. Consequently we can expect that the cost of the bridge access tunnel should be less than the cost of the LRT tunnel.

Several years earlier while alternatives of constructing a bus or LRT based system were being debated, there was an analysis of the potential costs of a bus based tunnel. This bus tunnel would be similar in nature to the one being proposed here to access the Macdonald-Cartier bridge in terms of number of lanes and the needs to accommodate heavy vehicles, ventilation etc. The chart below is extracted from the study report written at that time (2009). Our comparison here is to T2 BRT (Tunnel 2: Bus Rapid Transit). This 2.5km bus tunnel (if the cost of the underground stations was not counted) was estimated at 600m$ (including a 50% cost contingency). Scaling this to a 1.8 km tunnel as proposed here yields a cost estimate of 432m$ once again within the same scale as the 1.1B$ to 1.4B$ estimated (in 2013) for a new inter-provincial bridge project.

http://www.ssd-ottawa.ca/tunnel-alternatives/m-c-bridge-access-tunnel

[waterloowarrior]

‏@jchianello 23s
Tim Hudak on phase 2 of Ottawa LRT: "No, we can't afford it." So there it is #ottawa. #onpoli

[JM1]

I hope the study allows for the possibility of a three or four lane tunnel as well. I also hope it considers a car and truck tunnel.

Narrowing studies too much is a waste of time and money -- the point of a study is to consider possibilities.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes, there are stations, but stations are needed regardless of whether we are dealing with trains or buses. Is the truck tunnel really that much shorter? Seems to me that it will have to go from near the M-C bridge to near the Nicholas interchange. Possibly, a lot of buildings to have to go under.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

‏@jchianello 23s
Tim Hudak on phase 2 of Ottawa LRT: "No, we can't afford it." So there it is #ottawa. #onpoli

A disappointing consequence of a bankrupt province.

[1overcosc]

It should be noted that everyone is saying the truck tunnel should be tolled, with trucks forced to use it by banning them from the other routes. If its tolled, it may raise a large chunk of the capital costs, thus not needing provincial funding.

As for Hudak, he's making a terrible decision. He's just asking for the Liberal candidates to use it as a wedge issue. It won't matter too much in Ottawa South or Ottawa West-Nepean (even thought the latter will benefit the most from Phase 2), but it will cost the PCs huge political capital in Orleans, where transportation & traffic are very high on people's minds. And that was their easiest chance of a gain in Ottawa.

In any case, all polls are pointing to a Liberal win. EKOS's most recent poll (from June 4th) even discusses a Liberal majority as a possible result, given that the last election, the Liberals were 1 seat shy of a majority with only a two-point lead in the popular vote, and now the Liberals have about a five point lead.

[DarkArconio]

Underground bus stations need passing lanes, so much larger caverns. Bus lanes are significantly wider than rail lines to, which exasperates the problem. I don't know figures, but the cost would undoubtedly higher than train stations. Also there are long term maintenance costs due to exhaust over an electric train tunnel.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

‏@jchianello 23s
Tim Hudak on phase 2 of Ottawa LRT: "No, we can't afford it." So there it is #ottawa. #onpoli

If "we" can't afford it in Ottawa, "we" can't afford it anywhere else in Ontario, either.

Meanwhile, this is disgusting:

http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/mayor-and-...n/ontario-progressive-conservative-party

I can scratch one party from consideration. I hope the PCs not only fail to make any inroads in Ottawa, they deserve to lose a seat or two (though that's unlikely.)

[MalcolmTucker]

$50 million dollars per station is low - I wouldn't be surprised if the broken out cost would be at least double.

[rocketphish]

Hudak says 'No' to funding Phase 2 of LRT in Ottawa

Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: June 5, 2014, Last Updated: June 5, 2014 11:25 AM EDT

For the first time since this provincial election began, Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak was clear about whether a PC government would fund the second phase of light rail in Ottawa — and the answer was a resounding “No.”

“No, we can’t afford it,” Hudak said simply when asked about the project at a campaign stop in Ottawa South on Thursday morning.

While Hudak has said that he wouldn’t yank back the $600 million already approved for the 12.5-kilometre section of LRT currently under construction — it will run from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair Station — the PC leader said he won’t support the $1 billion of funding needed from the province to extend rail to Orléans in the east, Bayshore in the west, and Riverside South (with a possible airport link).

It will be interesting to see how Hudak’s bold statement will play out politically for local PC candidates. The ridings of Ottawa-Orleans, Ottawa West-Nepean and Ottawa South would see rail extended into their ridings if Phase 2 of the LRT plan goes ahead. The PC candidates in all three ridings are in tight races with their Liberal counterparts. At an east-end Ottawa rally on Wednesday, Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne went to great pains to emphasize how her party was the only one that would support extending LRT in Ottawa (a point she also made during Tuesday night’s debate).

Mayor Jim Watson expressed his disappointment over Hudak’s announcement, arguing that the PC leader has been quick to support Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s “subways-subways-subways pledge,” while including nothing in Tory platform for transit expansion in Ottawa.

“There’s $2 billion in the platform of the PC party for Greater Toronto Area transit issues, and zero dollars for Ottawa,” Watson told reporters. “I think any reasonable person would say that is just not fair for the people of Ottawa.”

The LRT extension is planned for 2018 to 2023 and construction would ideally begin as soon as the first phase is completed in 2018. The city’s $3-billion plan calls for the cost to be split equally between the municipal, provincial and federal governments. Watson said that “the city has allocated its dollars” and is planning to submit funding requests in either late 2015 or early 2016.

Watson said that he would, of course, work with whomever’s elected.

“We know that the province has billions of dollars they spend on infrastructure and I find it very difficult to believe that local MPPs would not go and fight for our fair share for funding to get the system to go farther east, farther west and down south,” said Watson. “It just doesn’t make any sense that we would get no money.”

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http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/0606-elxn-lrt