Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by DarthVader_1961

Specific to Hurdman station.... Why did they choose an elevated approach?

Good Day...
Apparently it also had something to do with Hurdman area being a combo of - a grayfield area (former garbage disposal field as well), an NCC future development area, and alignment and elevation concerns for the guideway. I can see the greyfield concern - easier to sink firm caissons down to solid footings. The guideway elevation concerns, well, I don't know. and the NCC ? Don't start.
EnJoy.

[JM1]

I visited Blair station today. Two things struck me:

1. The station is very exposed. So it will cost a fortune to heat the floors. Does anyone know if RTG or the City (taxes) pay for the electric bill?

2. The track bed appears to be about eight to ten inches below the platform surface. Granted the tracks are probably three or four inches high. But it makes me wonder if the trains really are low floor trains. I was never a fan of low floor as I prefer a roomier vehicle, but I can see the advantages if the trains might also be used on street. But with a six to eight inch "low floor", I wonder if we have the worst of all worlds?

[eemy]

6-8 inches sounds about normal curb height to me.

[Kitchissippi]

"low floor" means it's about the same as a bus.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by JM1

2. The track bed appears to be about eight to ten inches below the platform surface. Granted the tracks are probably three or four inches high. But it makes me wonder if the trains really are low floor trains. I was never a fan of low floor as I prefer a roomier vehicle, but I can see the advantages if the trains might also be used on street. But with a six to eight inch "low floor", I wonder if we have the worst of all worlds?

Not trying to be a Debbie downer... but I'm hoping against hope the "low floor" aspect of this system is not going to be a major disappointment.

I mean we have this beautiful fully grade separated ROW... no apparent plans for any street access or usage... the whole thing just screams for a proper high floor subway system....

Fingers crossed

[Aylmer]

I agree that a high-floor subway has a very big-city vibe (in a post-war-ideal-city kind of way), but beyond that, I gather that it does not provide many significant benefits over low-floor rail in an Ottawa context.

I do find it puzzling that the City's plans do not take advantage of the principal benefits of low-floor, mainly its flexibility to run at-grade. I understand why they went for grade separation in the busy central neighbourhoods, but why do they insist that it not cross a tiny street like Iris at grade?
I suspect that they want to keep the door open to full automation at least on the Confederation Line. But I hope that the City proves to be less dogmatic in future lines (Trillium Line to Riverside South, Carling, Montreal Rd east of Vanier, etc.).

[JM1]

Does anyone know who pays for power and heating for the LRT over the duration of the contract... city or RTG?

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by JM1

1. The station is very exposed. So it will cost a fortune to heat the floors. Does anyone know if RTG or the City (taxes) pay for the electric bill?

Originally Posted by JM1

Does anyone know who pays for power and heating for the LRT over the duration of the contract... city or RTG?

RTG pays for it.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I agree that a high-floor subway has a very big-city vibe (in a post-war-ideal-city kind of way), but beyond that, I gather that it does not provide many significant benefits over low-floor rail in an Ottawa context.

I do find it puzzling that the City's plans do not take advantage of the principal benefits of low-floor, mainly its flexibility to run at-grade. I understand why they went for grade separation in the busy central neighbourhoods, but why do they insist that it not cross a tiny street like Iris at grade?
I suspect that they want to keep the door open to full automation at least on the Confederation Line. But I hope that the City proves to be less dogmatic in future lines (Trillium Line to Riverside South, Carling, Montreal Rd east of Vanier, etc.).

To build the Trillium Line properly right into Riverside South requires at-grade operation. This will allow for fully integration into the community as it is presently designed. Likewise, an extension into Barrhaven as originally designed also requires at-grade operations.

[Guideway]

I went to the east Rideau station today, and oh my, the hole is so much bigger then I thought! I tried my best to take some decent looking pictures, but with all the fences and bars this is the best I got.





I do recommend if you haven't been yet you should, it's worth the while! The picture doesn't show you really the scope/proportions and size of this massive hole.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

Not trying to be a Debbie downer... but I'm hoping against hope the "low floor" aspect of this system is not going to be a major disappointment.

I mean we have this beautiful fully grade separated ROW... no apparent plans for any street access or usage... the whole thing just screams for a proper high floor subway system....

Fingers crossed

While a low floor metro isn't common, Ottawa isn't the only example of a fully grade separated low floor system. Seville Spain has a completely segregated system using CAF Urbos, and every station has platform screen doors to boot. Vienna's U6 is also low floor, as it used to be a tram line like Boston's green line. In the case of Seville, I can only guess they only wanted to maintain one vehicle type between their metro and street level tram system. In Vienna's case, the cost of turning the entire line high floor was too expensive

There is also around a dozen or so *almost* metro systems that use low floor vehicles with some level crossings, like Seattle, Boston, and a number of German cities

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Guideway

I went to the east Rideau station today, and oh my, the hole is so much bigger then I thought! I tried my best to take some decent looking pictures, but with all the fences and bars this is the best I got.

Well, the station is going to be almost 7 stories below ground. Imagine the hole with the original planned depth before they changed the location of the tunnel, it would have been almost double that.

[Guideway]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Well, the station is going to be almost 7 stories below ground. Imagine the hole with the original planned depth before they changed the location of the tunnel, it would have been almost double that.

Those are a lot of stairs/escalators to go up and down!

[1overcosc]

Rideau is by far the deepest of the 3 tunnel stations. Parliament & Lyon are much shallower.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I agree that a high-floor subway has a very big-city vibe (in a post-war-ideal-city kind of way), but beyond that, I gather that it does not provide many significant benefits over low-floor rail in an Ottawa context.

I do find it puzzling that the City's plans do not take advantage of the principal benefits of low-floor, mainly its flexibility to run at-grade. I understand why they went for grade separation in the busy central neighbourhoods, but why do they insist that it not cross a tiny street like Iris at grade?
I suspect that they want to keep the door open to full automation at least on the Confederation Line. But I hope that the City proves to be less dogmatic in future lines (Trillium Line to Riverside South, Carling, Montreal Rd east of Vanier, etc.).

Given that there will not be LRT on Montreal Road, or in any other older part of the city, except where it is incidental to moving suburbanites in and out of downtown on weekdays, for at least another century, that is utterly academic.

[MalcolmTucker]

Well, there is the lower maintenance, lower complexity aspect of high floor. At this point though, high floor LRT is becoming as specialized a product as heavy rail or automated guideway transit- only Calgary, Edmonton and Frankfurt seem to be sticking with the mode. Fortunately there isn't really any design cost as long as you buy in a reasonable volume.

A 100m-120m train isn't going to be street friendly, no matter what you try. The stations might be moreso, but with that length they wouldn't fit in somewhat normal offset intersection boxes, so there is likely to be property impacts, not just removal of parking or advanced greens.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Well, there is the lower maintenance, lower complexity aspect of high floor. At this point though, high floor LRT is becoming as specialized a product as heavy rail or automated guideway transit- only Calgary, Edmonton and Frankfurt seem to be sticking with the mode. Fortunately there isn't really any design cost as long as you buy in a reasonable volume.

A 100m-120m train isn't going to be street friendly, no matter what you try. The stations might be moreso, but with that length they wouldn't fit in somewhat normal offset intersection boxes, so there is likely to be property impacts, not just removal of parking or advanced greens.

I think there's another reason too. There aren't a lot of choices out there for high-floor LRV's anymore. Since streetcars are now just short LRVs, most manufacturers have switched over completely to low floor models. The biggest high-floor maker Siemens (used by Calgary and Edmonton) was automatically disqualified over the whole lawsuit thing. Any new system these days is going to end up using low-floor by default, unless you go heavy rail.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

I think there's another reason too. There aren't a lot of choices out there for high-floor LRV's anymore. Since streetcars are now just short LRVs, most manufacturers have switched over completely to low floor models. The biggest high-floor maker Siemens (used by Calgary and Edmonton) was automatically disqualified over the whole lawsuit thing. Any new system these days is going to end up using low-floor by default, unless you go heavy rail.

Most light metro systems (Skytrain and Canada line in Vancouver, Docklands in London) are high floor.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Most light metro systems (Skytrain and Canada line in Vancouver, Docklands in London) are high floor.

Both the DLR and the Skytrain predate the low-floor movement, so it's hard to compare. The Canada Line doesn't count, as it's a heavy-rail train with two cars.

The one issue I see with those systems is vendor lock. If you choose Bombardier (Skytrain), VAL, or Anselo Breda, you're stuck with them forever, whereas in our case there's nothing technically preventing us to switching to Bombardier or CAF or even Siemens 30 years from now when the trains need replacing.

[kmcamp]

It's also all kind of moot now, since it's far too late to change now. But the Vienna U6 experience would at least indicate it's quite possible to succeed at this kind of system