Confederation Line West LRT Extension (Stage 2) [Tunney's to Baseline/Moodie] | U/C

[Dado]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

MOU...the city and NCC will also resolve the Rochester Field OMB appeal and 2/3rds of that land will be changed to General Urban in the Official Plan
http://www.ncc-ccn.gc.ca/sites/defau...g_group_en.pdf

Nice little windfall for the NCC, there. That will certainly pay off well for them.

Not only to they get some Westboro condo windfall, they get some LRT TOD windfall as well.

Originally Posted by eternallyme

I still don't think the NIMBY's will like it too much...maybe best to move the route out of their community entirely? Such would be a lot more expensive though. One way to do it is a dedicated tax on homes in that community, so they - and only they - pay for the Cadillac costs.

The amount of nimby opposition may be somewhat overstated. For one, both Kitchissippi and I live in the area, and we both support it. Then there's the comments on this post from the WCA in which a number of people actually come out against the nimby position, on the nimbys' own site.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Dado

The amount of nimby opposition may be somewhat overstated. For one, both Kitchissippi and I live in the area, and we both support it.

Exactly. Just because some car-loving curmudgeons in McKellar Park are vocal about their opinion on this does not paint the community against it. I for one specifically live here because of the walkability and the superior access to transit and cycling facilities that is second to no other place in the city in my opinion.

It's like Americans assuming we all like Justin Bieber because we're Canadians.

[MoreTrains]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

It's like Americans assuming we all like Justin Bieber because we're Canadians.

Wait! I dont have to like him? Thank God you told me! I thought we were all screwed for life!!!

[Richard Eade]

So now that the City and NCC have come to their decision on where the LRT should go, here are some thoughts:
• The NCC gets a nice uplift in property value for their Rochester Field.
• The train will run from the isolated Dominion Station to the isolated Cleary Station.
• The Parkway will need to be shut down during the re-alignment and tunnel construction.
• Richmond Road will be four-laned to accommodate the buses for two years; but the road will remain four-lanes after the train starts.
• More properties will need to be expropriated to get the train out to under Richmond Road than the original plan.

Apparently the ‘south option’ that was looked at was essentially the same cost but temporarily disrupted the Byron Linear Park. (The deciding factor, according to Kent Kirkpatrick on CFRA, was that the linear park could not be disturbed – even temporarily – even if it was to wind up being better than it is now.) It sounds as if any option of putting the train under City owned streets was not looked at; it was either the parkway or the linear park.

As I said, this looks to me to be a poor compromise based on unreasonable limitations. And I don't think the construction mitigation (e.g., moving the buses onto a widened Richmond Road) has been properly included in the costing.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Unfortunately, there is overlap of the existing parkway and the re-aligned parkway; so there will need to be a shut-down for part of the time

Looks to me like it wouldn't be hard to stage construction with temporary parkway lanes. Take the two westbound lanes, paint a yellow line down the middle, and problem is mostly solved.

[1overcosc]

Doesn't the city already plan on widening Richmond to 4 lanes in the future?

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Doesn't the city already plan on widening Richmond to 4 lanes in the future?

The current TMP shown an ultimate plan to widen the stretch of Richmond Road between the 417 and Greenbank, but not the part between Carling and Golden. And no widening of Richmond Road is in the Affordable Plan.

What I am suggesting is that, like Scott and Albert were widened to accommodate buses, Richmond and Churchill will likely be widened to take the bus traffic while the parkway is being re-aligned. Thus, the Byron Linear park will be more negatively affected by all of the construction and the (likely) two years of heavy bus use on a widened Richmond. I also don't think that Richmond will be returned to its current 2/3 lanes after the buses are replaced by the train; so it will then be a busier 4-lane arterial.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the people who petitioned against having the train buried under the edge of the park/road shoulder really thought things through.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Doesn't the city already plan on widening Richmond to 4 lanes in the future?

Ssshhhh!

Yep, while it's not currently in the TMP, the TMP does nevertheless "reserve" the Byron linear corridor for widening to 4 lanes.

Moreover, west of Cleary, it's quite likely that the very work to create a tunnel under Richmond for the LRT will itself create a defacto 4-lane Richmond Rd by the time they're done.

Richard is right - the people who demanded - and got - the City to bury the line under Richmond a few years ago never thought it through. The best way to inoculate the corridor against widening Richmond was always to run LRT in the open just south of Richmond, be it at grade or in a shallow cutting.

[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Doesn't the city already plan on widening Richmond to 4 lanes in the future?

What? Why do they plan on doing that?

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

The current TMP shown an ultimate plan to widen the stretch of Richmond Road between the 417 and Greenbank, but not the part between Carling and Golden. And no widening of Richmond Road is in the Affordable Plan.

What I am suggesting is that, like Scott and Albert were widened to accommodate buses, Richmond and Churchill will likely be widened to take the bus traffic while the parkway is being re-aligned. Thus, the Byron Linear park will be more negatively affected by all of the construction and the (likely) two years of heavy bus use on a widened Richmond. I also don't think that Richmond will be returned to its current 2/3 lanes after the buses are replaced by the train; so it will then be a busier 4-lane arterial.

Unfortunately, I don't think that the people who petitioned against having the train buried under the edge of the park/road shoulder really thought things through.

The only buses running on Richmond Road for the most part are Route 2, and that is unlikely to change.

[1overcosc]

They may not have to shut down the parkway, depending on how construction staging goes.

[Mikeed]

I can't imagine them shutting down the parkway- it's about a 1km stretch under realignment. The western bound lane can have a yellow strip painted down it or, since it's being demo'd after the realignment, can be widened slightly and a temp. concrete barriers can be dropped down the part that's handling the the diversion of the eastbound lane.

If the NCC and the city continue to work together I can't see why the parkway can't be used to to handle bus diversions. It's conceivable, but unlikely- the eastbound lanes could be used as a transit way and the westbound could handle road traffic. I think this is a hint at what the NCC has for a long term vision of a realignment of the whole parkway.

[JM1]

I can't believe the expense they will go to to bury the LRT along the parkway. Save that money and spend it on a Montreal road buried LRT!

Why can't the East End get the same benefits as the West End?

Originally Posted by Mikeed

I can't imagine them shutting down the parkway- it's about a 1km stretch under realignment. The western bound lane can have a yellow strip painted down it or, since it's being demo'd after the realignment, can be widened slightly and a temp. concrete barriers can be dropped down the part that's handling the the diversion of the eastbound lane.

If the NCC and the city continue to work together I can't see why the parkway can't be used to to handle bus diversions. It's conceivable, but unlikely- the eastbound lanes could be used as a transit way and the westbound could handle road traffic. I think this is a hint at what the NCC has for a long term vision of a realignment of the whole parkway.

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by JM1

I can't believe the expense they will go to to bury the LRT along the parkway. Save that money and spend it on a Montreal road buried LRT!

Why can't the East End get the same benefits as the West End?

Because this doesn't sound just like the planned eastern route? A train alongside a freeway?

[Dado]

Ultimately, they're going to have to divert the buses off the Parkway unless they plan to run them down an extension of Scott or run them around via Churchill or Island Park.

The issue arises when they convert the Dominion-Westboro segment as their conversion method relies on booting the buses off the transitway.

They've got an extra constraint on transit service due to this new plan, in addition to the one above:

When they build this [unnecessary] tunnel, they have to reduce the Parkway to just the current westbound (north) carriageway, whereas in the City's previous plans, this was not the case. Given the lack of better options, they'll probably still run the buses through here, but it will likely cause delays as traffic narrows to one lane that would not have arisen with any of the previous plans.

On about every count, this deal is worse for the City.


An interesting aside, and something I had long suspected, which I can now confirm from the diagrams, is that the bottom of the trench at the Roosevelt pedestrian overpass is very nearly the same elevation (+/- 60 m) as the ground along the entire Dominion-Cleary segment. This tunnel will dip below the Ottawa River, which means it will have to be fitted with pumps to remove any water that enters it.

[DarkArconio]

I suspect that buses will be diverted to the parkway from tunny's pasture during conversion of the transit way. It's the best available corridor. The section from Lincoln fields to baseline/Bayshore will be much trickier, with woodroffe, carling, Richmond, and/or queen ways widenings required I would guess.

[Mikeed]

The buses could easily be diverted through Tunney's straight down goldenrod to where the transfer loop will exist phase one. It makes perfect sense.

Considering that the entire westbound lanes (of the realignment) will be ripped up post construction I can imagine them doing a temporary road allowing the parkway to keep moving past this 1km realignment.

If I was planning the diversions I would seriously consider using the eastbound lanes of the parkway as a diversion of the transit way from Lincoln fields- close it to all traffic but busses, running east in one lane and west in the other. Unless it's required by law you wouldn't even need to repaint the lanes- just control access. It would function just as a transit way does now, by definition "Professional driver on a closed course".

The eastbound lanes could then be used for traffic as a contraflow lane or put a line of concrete barriers down the middle and use it for two way traffic- these kind of diversions happen all the time when twinning highways. But, since the reverse peak flow traffic volumes don't really require it, it would make sense to just have it function as a contraflow lane. Police could easily shut down the parkway in the afternoon and reverse the flow from inbound in the morning to outbound in the evening. There are only ~5 access points.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by DarkArconio

I suspect that buses will be diverted to the parkway from tunny's pasture during conversion of the transit way. It's the best available corridor. The section from Lincoln fields to baseline/Bayshore will be much trickier, with woodroffe, carling, Richmond, and/or queen ways widenings required I would guess.

They could build the LRT in a new corridor through the Pinecrest Creek lands, thus allowing the Lincoln Fields-Iris transitway to operate unaffected through construction. This would require a new crossing of Highway 417 for the LRT (as opposed to converting the existing underpass). From there buses could run down Iris and Woodroffe to Baseline.

This would also allow Lincoln Fields-Pinecrest bus service to operate completely unmolested, as it currently uses the 417 between the Transitway road and Pinecrest. It would likely then involve shutting down the Pinecrest-Bayshore Transitway segment for conversion and moving those buses back onto the 417. As this segment of the 417 is currently 6-lane with a planned widening to 8-lane this could work out just like the current 174-Nicholas widening arrangement.

These disruptions will probably be a lot less intense than the delays faced by Phase 2. For those coming in from the west it probably will have minimal problems. Those coming in from the south (Baseline/Nepean/Barrhaven) will have more issues.

[Buggys]

How about not molesting Pinecrest Creek more than it has already, and accept that disrupted traffic is a fair price to pay for transportation upgrades in the area.

[Dado]

No way should we be sinking more money into another Hwy 417 underpass at Pinecrest Creek.

The one we've got is already four lanes wide, plus two platforms, also a lane wide each. Considering further that the station can be relocated to the south (so that Iris can be closed as a station), there's more than enough width down there to accommodate both LRT construction and BRT.

If anything, I wonder if the car-loving NCC might not seize the opportunity to create a connection from the Queensway to the SJAM Parkway, which by that time will be happily free of buses and visible transit users.