Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

In the short term, but over time the SIS will reduce the drug-user population by providing a transition point into treatment, plus it will reduce many of the ancillary problems associated with drug use. Switzerland has achieved amazing results with SIS programs.

This is the 21st century, we can fix the problem through a social focus. The old "war on drugs" approach has been nothing but an expensive failure and it's good we're moving past it.

That's great, I hope over the long term these programs reduce drug use and mental illness. In the meantime, the police and bylaw allow open air drug markets to flourish in front of the Market's homeless shelters, which draw crime and violence to the area. It certainly doesn't help help an addict trying to get help of they are forced to run a gauntlet of dealers to get to the shelter where they need to sleep.

[1overcosc]

^ A good way to achieve that is to build transitional housing/shelters away from the market (but still in a location where services are accessible). The John Howard Society's new transitional housing project out in Mechanicsville is a good example.

[roger1818]

One of the big problems with Rideau is traffic. There aren't many downtown east/west corridors that cross the canal and go somewhere useful on both ends.

[Aylmer]

Although it's been closed to automobile traffic for months now and traffic's no worse than it was before. In fact, I might say the opposite; During the summer, my job has be standing out by the Chateau Laurier for hours every day and when Rideau closed, I found that traffic actually improved on Wellington.

I actually hope that, come 2018, they keep Rideau bus-only and take advantage of the much-reduced traffic to widen the sidewalks, plant trees and make Rideau into a pleasant place to be rather than a traffic-clogged road that, as it would seem, we're better without.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I don't know if you can blame the landlords. They are presumably trying to locate good tenants that will pay more money. The problem is that good tenants don't want to be close to the open-air drug markets police and bylaw continue to tolerate.

Where is this "open-air drug market"?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by bikegypsy

In my opinion, the key to an upgraded Rideau street is a properly developed King Edward, and the key to that is the infamous truck tunnel.

And the key to that is $2-billion which no one has, and which would be better spent on other things anyway.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by bikegypsy

King Edward is basically a slow moving highway and could be transformed into an elegant boulevard lined with hotels and condos. This won't deal with the problems of the homeless directly but they will find a new area on its fringes.

That ship sailed when the city rebuilt King Edward to make it even more friendly to fast-moving automotive vehicles inbound from the Quebec side, with the addition of some phenomenally bad public art as the one sop to prettyism.

It will be 50 years before there's anything on the scale of that rebuild. King Edward will not be an elegant avenue during this century.

[lrt's friend]

As long as King Edward feeds into an expressway, it will never be a pedestrian friendly boulevard. it is designed for cars and trucks, not people. It will take a lot to change this and we have just finished 'improving' it a few years ago. Our only hope is that a lot of residential development takes place on King Edward, which will bring it back to life, but is it a sufficiently desirable area to promote dense residential development?

To me, it is the rear end of the market, a place to avoid except as a transportation route.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I actually hope that, come 2018, they keep Rideau bus-only and take advantage of the much-reduced traffic to widen the sidewalks, plant trees and make Rideau into a pleasant place to be rather than a traffic-clogged road that, as it would seem, we're better without.

Lets hope. However, with one LRT entrance feeding directly into the market and the other feeding directly into the Rideau Centre, the need for people to walk on Rideau will be even further reduced. As a result it might end up turning into a cross town highway, like Maisonneuve in Hull, with those getting off buses running into the nearest entrance and using the overhead walkway if necessary.

[Aylmer]

There isn't a direct entrance into the Market - the closest one will be at Rideau/William and will be the main transfer point for all East-end buses [cue Uhuniau] as well as Gatineau-bound buses (for the foreseeable future at least). It will ensure a steady supply of people waiting around on Rideau at all hours.

I agree with you that that isn't enough to make an interesting street, however. If Rideau remains a paved, uninviting arterial, then people will wait there only if strictly necessary. But the fact that a lot of people will still have to be on Rideau is exactly the kind of good base we can build on to make an excellent street. All we'd need is to not give people a reason to avoid Rideau; tasteful design, sufficient pedestrian space, street-facing stores and patios, street trees, good lighting, etc.

So you're right that a lot of people waiting for buses does not automatically make Rideau a great street, but it's something that can be easily harnessed to make it into one.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

There isn't a direct entrance into the Market - the closest one will be at Rideau/William

It may not be in the middle of the market, but the entrance on the William pedestrian walkway (near Rideau) will provide a direct, unobstructed path into the Market. I would even consider that stretch of William an extension of "The Market."

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Lets hope. However, with one LRT entrance feeding directly into the market and the other feeding directly into the Rideau Centre, the need for people to walk on Rideau will be even further reduced. As a result it might end up turning into a cross town highway, like Maisonneuve in Hull, with those getting off buses running into the nearest entrance and using the overhead walkway if necessary.

Ulgh, let's hope not. The mess of federal buildings in downtown Hull is ugly, depressing, and confusing as hell. Last time I went there (to renew my passport) I spent so long trying to figure out where to get the damn bus to take me back to Ottawa that I just gave up and walked to Lebreton to get a bus there.

[rocketphish]

Construction Update
Week of December 19

This week, guideway activities include the installation of the traction power sub station east of Hurdman Station; the 6th to be installed along the alignment. Architectural works have begun in Lyon Station with masonry, curbs and formwork. In addition, construction of secondary buildings advances at Bayview, Lees, Hurdman and Cyrville stations.

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Ancillary building foundation work-Bayview Station

West Stations

Tunney’s Pasture Station: Station foundation work advances; crews complete caissons installation and begin excavation.

Bayview Station: This week, station activities include foundation construction, work on the elevator and escalator pits, the ancillary building, mud slab, as well as the installation of grade beams and duct banks.

Pimisi Station: Crews pour platform, track and structural slabs, waterproof walls, install duct banks and backfill through the end of the month.

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Parliament Station cavern column work

Central Stations

Lyon Station cavern: Architectural works are ongoing with formwork and dowel installation for the stairs and escalator areas, as well as curbs and masonry. In the west transition, rebar is installed on the concourse wall and arch, and conduit work takes place.

Lyon Station west entrance: Construction of the integrated entrance advances; crews form and pour concrete for the adit, and install rebar and formwork for the station walls and beams. Rock removals are ongoing at the east vent shaft.

Lyon Station east entrance: This week, crews continue installing masonry at the entrance. Rebar and concrete pours also occur for the ground floor slabs and beams. At the HVAC shaft, rock removal and chipping are ongoing through December.

Parliament Station cavern: The station continues to take shape with ongoing concrete work, including rebar installation and deck pours, in addition to forming the arch. Crews continue pouring starter walls and cleaning the invert in the running tunnel.

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Parliament Station east entrance rock removal

Parliament Station west entrance: Crews complete parapets on the station’s head house and continue glazing and masonry. Rock removals are ongoing at the east vent shaft walls.

Rideau Station cavern: Station construction advances with final work on walls, formwork assembly and waterproofing of the station arch in preparation of final concrete lining in the new year.

Rideau Station west entrance: Entrance construction progresses 24/7, including excavation, waterproofing, and rebar and formwork for slabs. Rock removals and the installation of rock bolts occur at the HVAC shaft.

Rideau Station east entrance: Concrete work advances at the east entrance and includes waterproofing, rebar installation and pours of slabs, inside walls, escalator pits and the structural beam and concourse stairs. Crews also continue installing falsework for the mid-level slabs.

Rideau Street is now open to bus traffic and taxis.

uOttawa Station: Concrete work for footings and walls advances at the station. Crews also form stairs, continue underground mechanical and electrical work, and waterproof and backfill at the north side of the station.

East Portal: Ramp work is ongoing and includes the next phase of whaler beam installation, work on the mud slab and concrete work, including rebar installation for the raft slab, during the daytime and overnight.

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Structural steel installation+roof work on ancillary building-Hurdman Station

East Stations

Lees Station: Station construction progresses with micro-piling activities, grading and excavation for the auxiliary building.

Hurdman Station: Crews install masonry and structural steel, and continue glazing and suspended slab construction. Framing and mechanical and electrical work are also ongoing. Porcelain panels and ceiling installation occur at the bus operators’ building.

Tremblay Station: This week, station activities include work on the roof, parapets, and elevators. Crews paint inside the interior rooms and continue mechanical rough-ins.

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St-Laurent Station: Construction progresses at the station with plenum steel and ceiling hanger installation, work on cladding around elevator walls and painting in interior rooms.

Cyrville Station: Crews continue glazing, and installation of metal composite panels and windscreen walls. Porcelain panels are also installed on the auxiliary building.

Blair Station: This week, crews install composite and porcelain panels and also work on the soffit. Construction of the bus operators’ building advances with mechanical rough-ins and final ceiling and bloc wall work.

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Excavation and reinforcement-running tunnel west of Rideau Station

Tunnel Excavation and Support

Excavation and reinforcements are ongoing in anticipation of a breakthrough in the coming weeks in the running tunnel west of Rideau Station.

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Trackwork activities near Hurdman Station

Guideway

Tunney’s Pasture Station to West Portal: The western portion of the guideway continues to take shape with ongoing dowel drilling for crossover tracks and removals of the sidewalk and parapet walls just west and east of Bayview Bridge.

Mann Avenue Bridge: Bridge reconstruction advances with concrete work for the bridge’s parapets and wing walls through December. Overnight bracket installation is expected to occur this week.

Mann Avenue Bridge to Blair Station: Crews continue trackwork activities, including dowel drilling, near Hurdman Station and install the traction power sub station east of Hurdman Station. Vehicle testing, including dynamic testing, is ongoing along the guideway between Cyrville and Blair stations.

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Backfilling, rebar installation and construction of walls at Pimisi Station

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Upcoming Construction Activities

In the coming weeks, the following construction activities are scheduled to occur:

• Pimisi Station structural steel istallation.
• Lyon Station west vent shaft work resumes.
• Last section of running tunnel mining, from east of Parliament Station to west of Rideau Station will be completed.
• Ongoing overnight work at the Rideau Station west and east entrances, and at the East Portal.
• Structural steel installation at uOttawa Station.
• Installation of the traction power sub station on the guideway west of Lees Station.
• Fencing installation on guideway just west of Tremblay Station.
• Overhead Catenary System energized in phases for ongoing vehicle testing from Belfast Yard and Blair Station.

http://www.ligneconfederationline.ca/construction/construction-update-104/

[rocketphish]

Construction Update
Weeks of December 26 and January 2

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Hurdman Station ancillary building and steel installation

From all of us on the O-Train Confederation Line project, we would like to wish you a warm and safe holiday season.

Construction activities will continue on the O-Train Confederation Line over the holidays. As you make your way around the nation’s capital, please remember to stay off active construction sites and the guideway.

Regularly scheduled construction updates will resume in the New Year; stay on-track with us and follow the progress of this incredible project that will transform our nation’s capital. Until then, here are some fast facts and exciting construction milestones for 2017:

• All 13 O-Train Confederation Line stations are currently under construction, with Blair, Cyrville, St-Laurent and Tremblay stations substantially completed by mid-2017, with just final works remaining.
• The last section of running tunnel mining, from east of Parliament Station to west of Rideau Station, will be completed.
• Vehicle testing has begun on the guideway from Belfast Yard to Blair Station, and will be ongoing in phases until 2018.
• Five of the nine traction power sub-stations have been installed along the guideway, from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair stations.
• More than 34,000 roadheader picks have been used to mine the 2.5-kilometre tunnel.
• Approximately 6.5 kilometres of track has been installed at the Belfast Yard Maintenance, Storage and Administration Facility and approximately 11 kilometres along the guideway.

Here are some progress photos taken this month from various sites.


Excavation in running tunnel west of Rideau Station ongoing


Parliament Station cavern column work


Tunney's Pasture Station caissons+backfilling


Hurdman Station ancillary building and steel installation


uOttawa Station backfilling, wall and footing construction progress

http://www.ligneconfederationline.ca/construction/construction-update-105/

[rocketphish]

Sorry for the massive images, folks... that's what they gave us this week.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As long as King Edward feeds into an expressway, it will never be a pedestrian friendly boulevard. it is designed for cars and trucks, not people. It will take a lot to change this and we have just finished 'improving' it a few years ago. Our only hope is that a lot of residential development takes place on King Edward, which will bring it back to life, but is it a sufficiently desirable area to promote dense residential development?

To me, it is the rear end of the market, a place to avoid except as a transportation route.

If the redesign and rebuild had been done with a view towards making it a true urban boulevard, it could have attracted complementary development. However, the basic form and function is still that of a traffic sewer, so unless the city really ups its game at demanding high-quality ground-level development on any of the many redevelopable properties along King Eddy, any new development will be slow in coming and essentially suburban garbage.

It will not be the urban boulevard it once was, before the NCC and the traffic engineers helped destroy it, in the lifetimes of anyone alive today.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Lets hope. However, with one LRT entrance feeding directly into the market and the other feeding directly into the Rideau Centre, the need for people to walk on Rideau will be even further reduced. As a result it might end up turning into a cross town highway, like Maisonneuve in Hull, with those getting off buses running into the nearest entrance and using the overhead walkway if necessary.

It could be a people- and pedestrian-oriented street if the city would do what most downtown transit users seem to want, which is to have local buses use Rideau as a single hub for all local routes in the core.

But the city is hell-bent on not doing that, distributing the termini for local buses all over creation, and buying into the NCC's anti-bus-fetishism on Wellington Street. That view of the Parliament Buildings is for cars.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

It could be a people- and pedestrian-oriented street if the city would do what most downtown transit users seem to want, which is to have local buses use Rideau as a single hub for all local routes in the core.

But the city is hell-bent on not doing that, distributing the termini for local buses all over creation, and buying into the NCC's anti-bus-fetishism on Wellington Street. That view of the Parliament Buildings is for cars.

The problem is that too many buses are now terminating downtown to allow for a single terminus. The old approach of having every bus run 'through' downtown prevented this problem but they have determined that service reliability was being negatively affected. This is the dilemma. And there is no money for a proper downtown bus terminal that many cities have.

I still like the idea of a downtown circulator streetcar (with frequent service) that would also connect all the local central bus routes together as well connect all the downtown points of interest on both sides of the river.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The problem is that too many buses are now terminating downtown to allow for a single terminus. The old approach of having every bus run 'through' downtown prevented this problem but they have determined that service reliability was being negatively affected. This is the dilemma.

The "dilemma" is resolved by no longer viewing schedule adherence by the vehicle itself as the only measure of reliability (and that, only during morning rush hour!).

And there is no money for a proper downtown bus terminal that many cities have.

If there is money for road projects that costs multiples of $10-million, there is money for a simple series of comfortable, passenger-centred shelters on Rideau Street to act as a single downtown hub for all local routes and for transferring to the LRT station immediately underneath.

I still like the idea of a downtown circulator streetcar (with frequent service) that would also connect all the local central bus routes together as well connect all the downtown points of interest on both sides of the river.

Why not just connect the local routes all to one another at a single stop, and that on Rideau Street, just as was the case before the 2008 "service improvements" that split the former 2 and 3 and moved the 5 and 16 to the upper level?

I am not sure what such a circulator would accomplish. It would do nothing to solve the problem which is lousy connectivity within the core (not just the CBD), and would suffer the same problems as existing bus routes within the core UNLESS the two municipalities are willing to piss off a lot of drivers by sacrificing road space and road time for transit. If there is that willingness, then let's start by doing that sacrifice for existing bus lines first, and see how it goes.

The problem is that service between the business-fun downtown and the old streetcar suburbs, as well as between those older residential districts, is suffering, and the city not only refuses to do anything about it, they refuse to concede that there are even any problems, and through terminus-splitting, route-splitting, and bus "removal" (read "car enhancement"), they are actively making things worse.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As long as King Edward feeds into an expressway, it will never be a pedestrian friendly boulevard.

Agreed. Until Gatineau decides to rip up Hwy 5 and the Macdonald-Cartier Bridge is torn down (or at least reduced to a more manageable 2-4 lanes). The "truck tunnel" might help, but I can't see that going anywhere. An alternate bridge would provide temporary relief, but in the long run people will find other reasons to use all that capacity to the downtown core.

Our only hope is that a lot of residential development takes place on King Edward, which will bring it back to life, but is it a sufficiently desirable area to promote dense residential development?

I can't see a developer wanting to invest in a residences near a highway like King Edward. Even if they did, it would likely back onto King Edward with a big wall to hide the blight. Regardless, it wouldn't do anything for the real problem, the traffic, so no thank you.