Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

If we got rid of the on-street parking a streetcar ROW could easily fit on Rideau Street; however it would have trouble continuing onto Montreal.

Why? Montreal is as wider or wider than Rideau.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Then why not do that?

Oh, Ottawa has done that. They are called Transitways.

And they are just as susceptible to being shut down - idiot service delivery vehicles, protests, weather, bus breakdowns - as forced-lane street rail transit is.

And the supposed "flexibility" of buses led Ottawa to funnel dozens of local routes onto what should have been the trunk transitway. Advantage: rail.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Why? Montreal is as wider or wider than Rideau.

Isn't Montreal through the older part of Vanier narrower than uptown Rideau?

[Mille Sabords]

The Rideau-Montreal Rd corridor has too much transit demand for a surface tram. That corridor is our next subway line, in my opinion. While the Confederation Line would retain a longer-haul commuter role, the Rideau-Montreal line would cement mode shift for the very dense and populous neighbourhoods along the line and feed them right into the core, and set the stage for those streets to consolidate some more with mixed-use buildings all along.

But, I also like the idea of streetcars. Very much. Lots of the original streetcar streets should get them again - Laurier, Bank, Somerset, Bronson, Preston, Beechwood, Main, Elgin - we'd have to reconstitute a network that makes sense for the "pedestrian city".

As a regular transit user, I'm often frustrated by cars slowing down the buses on Bank Street. Cars should be banned from streets with core bus routes at rush hour. As for on-street parking, I actually think it plays a good role in being a buffer between pedestrians on the sidewalk and moving traffic on the street. I wouldn't want to be walking on a sidewalk a few inches away from speeding traffic.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Isn't Montreal through the older part of Vanier narrower than uptown Rideau?

If it is, it's by inches at most. In either case, they are wider than many of the downtown street segments in Toronto which are served by street railways. And in any event, they make rolling stock in all kinds of sizes these days; the train that will fit on the "narrowest" part of a not-very-narrow Montreal-Rideau corridor will fit anywhere else along that RoW.

Meh, it's all academic anyway: the only way to get access to rail transit in Ottawa if you live in a central neighbourhood is to move to Orleans.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Mille Sabords

The Rideau-Montreal Rd corridor has too much transit demand for a surface tram. That corridor is our next subway line, in my opinion.

Not in your lifetime or mine. Rail transit in Ottawa for the rest of this century will be about extending ever more tenuous arms, on ever flimsier political and economic grounds, to the farther and farther suburbs. Stittsville will have LRT decades before Vanier or the Glebe do.

As it stands, the Rideau-Montreal corridor has about 16 kilopassengers a (week)day, if OC Transpo's garbage statistics are to be believed. OC Transpo is proving to be very poor at moving them by bus. I'd at least like to see some firm, early commitment to some bus priority measures (NOT Bus Crappid Transit) along that corridor, but I know that TPMs, like everything else transit-related, will be doled out to the suburbs first, leaving central neighbourhoods behind, again.

As a regular transit user, I'm often frustrated by cars slowing down the buses on Bank Street. Cars should be banned from streets with core bus routes at rush hour.

I am a non-driver, and I wouldn't go that far. But the city DOES need to start aggressively enforcing the rules. Mr. Bad Parker and Mrs. I Was Only Making A Delivery... you get towed. Mr. Box-Blocker — Lord in heaven, what is with Ottawa drivers and box-blocking? — here's a ticket, have a nice day.

But these problems only became problems for the city when suburban commuters got inconvenienced on the Transitway. It's daily life on the downtown locals, but I have yet to see a single enforcement action, ever, in more than 20 years in this town.

As for on-street parking, I actually think it plays a good role in being a buffer between pedestrians on the sidewalk and moving traffic on the street. I wouldn't want to be walking on a sidewalk a few inches away from speeding traffic.

Me neither, and where possible, streetside parking is an excellent traffic calmer and sidewalk-ensafener. But if transit must take priority over parking, so be it. There's lots of side streets next to those main traffic corridors.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

If it is, it's by inches at most. In either case, they are wider than many of the downtown street segments in Toronto which are served by street railways. And in any event, they make rolling stock in all kinds of sizes these days; the train that will fit on the "narrowest" part of a not-very-narrow Montreal-Rideau corridor will fit anywhere else along that RoW.

Obviously **a streetcar** could fit; I was doubting whether or not a separated streetcar ROW like Spadina in Toronto could fit on Montreal Road while still retaining one traffic lane per direction.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Obviously **a streetcar** could fit; I was doubting whether or not a separated streetcar ROW like Spadina in Toronto could fit on Montreal Road while still retaining one traffic lane per direction.

It would have to be a king style streetcar where little stop signs go out and passengers board from the sidewalk. Personally I don't like those.

It seems like people keep looking for elaborate and expensive solutions to a problem that could be solved with more consistent bus lanes (and better enforcement of various bylaws.)

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It would have to be a king style streetcar where little stop signs go out and passengers board from the sidewalk. Personally I don't like those.

It seems like people keep looking for elaborate and expensive solutions to a problem that could be solved with more consistent bus lanes (and better enforcement of various bylaws.)

I agree. If Montreal road had 24/7 bus lanes (with transit priority traffic signaling) it would go a long way in improving bus service. Just have a few underused sacred parking spaces in the way.

[1overcosc]

Uptown Rideau is just wide enough that a Spadina style streetcar ROW could fit if Rideau was reduced to one car lane per direction with no turn lanes. I don't think Montreal is wide enough for that to work.

It's always possible to turn a road into a streetcar ROW by simply closing it to cars (like 8th Ave in Calgary or the planned future King Street in Toronto), but in a city like Ottawa where the limited number of river/canal crossings mean traffic has to funnel onto a handful of roads, that can't really work.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Uptown Rideau is just wide enough that a Spadina style streetcar ROW could fit if Rideau was reduced to one car lane per direction with no turn lanes. I don't think Montreal is wide enough for that to work.

It's always possible to turn a road into a streetcar ROW by simply closing it to cars (like 8th Ave in Calgary or the planned future King Street in Toronto), but in a city like Ottawa where the limited number of river/canal crossings mean traffic has to funnel onto a handful of roads, that can't really work.

I don't think there is room for platforms in either section while also maintaining a road. The Spadina streetcar takes up almost 10m at stations. That would take up almost the entire road on rideau (at least past nelson).

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Streetcars have a number of benefits over buses:
1) Smoother ride (generally an advantage of all trains over all motor vehicles)
2) Increased capacity
3) Electric, meaning quieter, cleaner, and faster acceleration (this will likely change in the coming decades as buses become electric too)
4) Being "fixed" infrastructure which means it can shape a city more

There's also the infamous "rail bias".

1) Having ridden buses and taken rail all over the country (including Greyhound vs. Via) and I really never noticed. Now you do get the occasional bad driver on buses, but that's a training issue. Also rail is much more likely to get those horrid squeeling noises (even the new Toronto subways suffer from that).
2) I can see that for a full metro, but at the streetcar level? I think I saw some Hamilton studies that showed maybe a 10% difference. And that was not accounting for double decker buses, which are a lot more common than double decker streetcars. Also the 32 Eglinton in Toronto manages ~49K passengers without dedicated lanes, while the 35 Jane and 36 Finch West are apparently not far behind. That's busier than ever streetcar in Toronto apart from the 504 King. Vancouver's 99 B-Line has over 50K daily passengers. Obviously you don't want that level of crowding, but considering those bus routes are surviving at similar volumes to the Line 4 subway in Toronto I'd say it's clear buses can handle anything short of what needs a full metro.
3) Electric buses are a thing around the world. Hybrid buses that can switch over when wires are available also exist.
4) Proper bus infrastructure akin to the Barrhaven bus lanes is just as fixed as a streetcar (and municipalities have torn up streetcars in many cities, including Ottawa, so aren't really that fixed).

Also there might be a 'rail bias', but buses can solve the 'last mile' problem (or at least shorten it significantly).

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Then why not do that?

Oh, Ottawa has done that. They are called Transitways.

Now, Ottawa has shut down some of those bus lanes to build a LRT. For a few years, Transit sucks while the LRT is laid down. By going with Street Cars/LRT first, and bypassing the BRT, you prevent those growing pains.

The "big" part is the pain of switching when the time comes.

No, the transitway is a very different concept. The transitway is more akin to a bus version of a metro or a bus only highway than a bus version of a dedicated lane streetcar. Transit built into the existing streetscape than the transitways.

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

And the supposed "flexibility" of buses led Ottawa to funnel dozens of local routes onto what should have been the trunk transitway. Advantage: rail.

Well, OC transpo sees ~100 million annual passengers with it's bus system to Calgary's ~110 million annual passengers with one of North America's most impressive light rail networks. And OC Transpo is mostly limited to the Ontario side's ~950K people, while Calgary's transit serves a municipality of ~1.2 million. So Ottawa's buses are at least neck and neck, if not out preforming the model LRT network in Canada.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It would have to be a king style streetcar where little stop signs go out and passengers board from the sidewalk. Personally I don't like those.

It seems like people keep looking for elaborate and expensive solutions to a problem that could be solved with more consistent bus lanes (and better enforcement of various bylaws.)

That would solve the existing problem.

It will do nothing, though, for long-term city-building on the east side of town. There is no vision there, no support, no nothing, while investment pours into centretown, the Market, the Glebe, and the western burgs.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Uptown Rideau is just wide enough that a Spadina style streetcar ROW could fit if Rideau was reduced to one car lane per direction with no turn lanes. I don't think Montreal is wide enough for that to work.

Where? Are? People? Getting? The? Insane? Idea? That? Montreal? Road? Is? Narrow?

It isn't.

There are four lanes at the narrowest part of Montreal Road. Four generous lanes. Montreal Road is not "narrow" except by comparison to six- and eight-lane suburban car sewers.

It's always possible to turn a road into a streetcar ROW by simply closing it to cars (like 8th Ave in Calgary or the planned future King Street in Toronto), but in a city like Ottawa where the limited number of river/canal crossings mean traffic has to funnel onto a handful of roads, that can't really work.

And yet, there wasn't complete chaos when all of Rideau Street was closed.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Beedok

4) Proper bus infrastructure akin to the Barrhaven bus lanes is just as fixed as a streetcar (and municipalities have torn up streetcars in many cities, including Ottawa, so aren't really that fixed).

The lanes, like the Transitway, might be "fixed", but — and this is the really important part — the bus routes are not.

You do not get city-building with bus lanes and transitways.

Also there might be a 'rail bias', but buses can solve the 'last mile' problem (or at least shorten it significantly).

Yes. But the geniuses at OC Transpo are about to compound that problem in the core by splitting routes that have no business being split. Crosstown local trips will end up having two "last miles", one on either side of the Rideau Centre.

No, the transitway is a very different concept. The transitway is more akin to a bus version of a metro or a bus only highway than a bus version of a dedicated lane streetcar.

It WOULD be, if it had a limited number of truly mass-transit routes. But it immediately fails to be once it becomes a funnel to get single-seat coddled-ass suburban "expresses" in and out of the core at rush hours. That turns what could be true bus rapid transit into bus crappid transit.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I don't think there is room for platforms in either section while also maintaining a road. The Spadina streetcar takes up almost 10m at stations. That would take up almost the entire road on rideau (at least past nelson).

That's why it's the old-school downtown streetcars in Toronto that would be my model for streetcars in central Ottawa, four or five centuries from now, after the LRT extensions to Stittsville, Kingston, Peterborough, and Montreal, and not Spadina, which has a much more generous RoW to work with.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

That's why it's the old-school downtown streetcars in Toronto that would be my model for streetcars in central Ottawa, four or five centuries from now, after the LRT extensions to Stittsville, Kingston, Peterborough, and Montreal, and not Spadina, which has a much more generous RoW to work with.

Toronto-style streetcars have all the problems you complain about on east end buses but worse. They're prone to bunching, they are easily blocked, they're re-routed and cancelled all the time with no notice and the bunching causes huge congestion on the lead car and on the sidewalk. They also have the added problem of boarding across a lane of traffic and being helpless if there is an obstacle.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Toronto-style streetcars have all the problems you complain about on east end buses but worse. They're prone to bunching, they are easily blocked, they're re-routed and cancelled all the time with no notice and the bunching causes huge congestion on the lead car and on the sidewalk. They also have the added problem of boarding across a lane of traffic and being helpless if there is an obstacle.

Exactly! Toronto's legacy streetcars are a relic of the late 19th century that were preserved because they became part of the city's identity. The issues that you present is exactly the reasons why most North American cities turfed streetcars in the mid 20th century. Streetcars in mixed traffic do not provide effective public transit.

When I visited Poland in 2015, where streetcars are extensively used, in most locations they run in exclusive right of ways. They do run in mixed traffic but generally that only occurs when the street design offers no alternative. That is kept to a minimum.

[lrt's friend]

It WOULD be, if it had a limited number of truly mass-transit routes. But it immediately fails to be once it becomes a funnel to get single-seat coddled-ass suburban "expresses" in and out of the core at rush hours. That turns what could be true bus rapid transit into bus crappid transit.

You have a lot to learn on how to design effective transit. The benefit of busways is that you can keep the number of transfers to a reasonable level and eliminate the last mile issue. We saw how Rapibus offered only trunk line service when it first opened and ended up delivering worse service.

[Beedok]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The lanes, like the Transitway, might be "fixed", but — and this is the really important part — the bus routes are not.

You do not get city-building with bus lanes and transitways.

Parts of the routes are fixed. You know there will be buses. Frequency is variable, but a city could slash Streetcar frequencies in areas too. Replacing rubber tires with rails doesn't suddenly make TOD spring up. Calgary has had a bit more success in that department, but Edmonton doesn't really have loads of ToD (at least not in the NE end). Meanwhile Ottawa does have some developments, like the Minto Metropole or a bunch of towers in Kanata, sitting beside the transitways.

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Yes. But the geniuses at OC Transpo are about to compound that problem in the core by splitting routes that have no business being split. Crosstown local trips will end up having two "last miles", one on either side of the Rideau Centre.

That's not a flaw of buses. Rail doesn't fix terrible ideas (Scarborough Subway line for instance...).

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

It WOULD be, if it had a limited number of truly mass-transit routes. But it immediately fails to be once it becomes a funnel to get single-seat coddled-ass suburban "expresses" in and out of the core at rush hours. That turns what could be true bus rapid transit into bus crappid transit.

I'm really not sure what the complaint is here. That large amounts of buses provide express service? The transitway system is almost 100% in the suburbs to begin with. Some routes just serve outer suburbs better than inner suburbs. (I guess it's more like commuter rail than a subway system, but that's true of Calgary's LRT, and Edmonton's is basicaly half and half.)