Love how he uses Calgary as an example, considering they built their LRT when they had less than half the population of Ottawa today and they are now waiting on funds to build a tunnel to replace the surface route. You know, capacity issues when your City reaches 1 million+. Your allowed to be apposed to something, but don't pull outdated arguments from a project completed in totally different circumstances.
IMO, Richmond is the best place to place the line. It is a straighter alignment and serves a pre-war urban stretch, an area that is vibrant desirable with good density today and plenty of TOD potential. Station locations were the same an all City reports, no matter the alignment, so there is not much of a difference if it is built on the Byron Strip or under the ORP. If anything, ORP is better due to lesser disruptions to the life in the area.
Dominion Station is not at the absolute best location, but by building a proper rapid transit stations that people want to use (as opposed to a bust stop) and proper way finding, it could be an integral part of the community. And with a few towers already their, the heart of Westboro a stone's throw away and plenty of TOD potential also (Rogers comes to mind), it's not half bad.
Cleary will serve a few existing condo buildings and again has good TOD portential.
New Orchard will serve a few existing condo/apartment towers and potential TODs where car dealerships stand now.
As for Carling; people seem to be forgetting other major problems with the route such as the orphaned Tunney's, where thousands work and thousands more will live/work in the future, the awkward 90 degree turns at Bayview and Carling (no way would they ever have turned the train further west of Bayview; to expensive), the orphaned Trillium line (bad enough people will have to transfer at Bayview, but at least it will be a destination with offices and maybe an NHL arena and STO), but not a whole lot of people will travel from the south end to Carling and get off.
Carling should get "lrt classic" at some point, but rapid transit is not necessary.
In conclusion, I think this is a fine compromise.
Last edited by J.OT13; Mar 7, 2015 at 5:29 PM.
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