Kanata LRT EA - Bayshore to Palladium

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

A train within 5 km for 70% of the population is not good enough. In my case, I already live within 5 km of the Trillium Line but almost never use it and the bus system is being designed to bypass it in our part of the city (for good reason).

Not only is that not good enough, that "measure" is arbitrary and meaningless, which, naturally, means it's been fetishized by the Watson Party.

In the meantime, transit within the older urban core continues to suffer while the elected officials at best wring their hands, or, more often, just look the other way.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We are buying up corridors in the suburbs for rail or rapid transit. The problem is that the cost of 100% grade separation is prohibitive that far in the periphery of the city for the number of passengers involved. A further problem is that for high quality transit to be fully integrated into an improved suburban design, BRT is not the ideal either. So what do you do? There is no question that there is no need for 100m trains every 3 minutes in these locations. Yet, isn't that the plan for service to Trim Road?

So do we run buses which is not the ideal to improve suburban design or do we run a shorter streetcar in a semi-segregated right of way, which adds another transfer?

Beyond the Confederation Line, we will not be running 100m trains every 3 minutes on any route, not even on Bank-Rideau-Montreal Road.

The final question, will potential competition against the Confederation Line prevent us from building any more rail lines? This kind of thinking, which will inevitably come up, will prevent us from growing ridership and modal share. Are we developing a mentality that it is fully segregated 'metro' service or bus service? That is a mistake.

A train within 5 km for 70% of the population is not good enough. In my case, I already live within 5 km of the Trillium Line but almost never use it and the bus system is being designed to bypass it in our part of the city (for good reason).

The current Confederation Line (and by extension phase 2) is a fully segregated metro. Having the line surface through the suburbs could have negative scheduling effects on the rest of the line (car accident at an intersection, traffic lights not working, stalled vehicle on the track...) The current system must stay grade separated from start to finish.

The argument for Trim (not the City's but mine) is that it has huge potential for a high density, mixed use development, in addition to a high number of park-and-ride spaces (sell the land with the condition parking garage structures are built for park-and-ride services). Same with the Corel Centre.

What I'm implying is that the suburbs should never get more than the one rail line each. Only exception might be the south, with the Algonquin branch headed down to Barrhaven and the Bowesville further into Riverside South. Both lines would never connect in my vision however, both would interline in the DOTT (for a total of four lines; Kanata, Barrhaven, Riverside South, Airport).

Might as well get all of this done while we're at it, but the next priority should be (and should have been for a while) a full blown subway for the Bank-Rideau-Montreal corridor along with a proper downtown connection to Gatineau (Aylmer and Buckingham lines would meet in a new downtown tunnel).

[roger1818]

I posted this in the LeBreton Flats 2.0 (RendezVous LeBreton) thread, but the discussion probably belongs here.

Originally Posted by roger1818

If the city doesn't know what the plans are for the CTC, why the push to extend the LRT to it?

[PHrenetic]

Good Day....an FYI ; from councilor Shad Quadri website re: Kanata LRT EA Study Open House :

https://shadqadri.com/2017/05/12/kanata-lrt-ea-study-open-house-2/

Quote:

I would like to advise residents that an Open House regarding the Kanata Light Rail Transit (LRT) Environmental Assessment (EA) Study will be held on Monday June 5th.
An EA is conducted prior to all large projects within the City of Ottawa to ensure that the area being built or developed on will not be negatively impacted by the construction.

The Open House will take place from 5:30-8:30 PM at the Kanata Recreation Complex, Hall A (100 Charlie Rogers Way).

UnQuote.

EnJoy!

[PHrenetic]

Good Day....
follow-up article from OttawaCommunityNews on the June 5 open house...

https://www.ottawacommunitynews.com/what...use-to-offer-first-look-at-kanata-plans/

EnJoy.

[lrt's friend]

“It doesn’t look like it’s feasible,” the councillor said. “LRT is not meant to go to every place. It’s to be a spine, then you need to have good connections to the other places.”

Of course, this is not how things work in Europe. The attitude in Europe is that rail transit should go to as many places as possible.

With 21,000 jobs currently at the Kanata North Business Park, 'connections' will simply perpetuate car use. If we want this to be a major employment destination, a transfer at both ends of a trip is not going to cut it and that is exactly what most workers will experience with our transit plan. I expect that the Kanata North Business Park has the second highest concentration of jobs after downtown in the whole city. If this is not justification for a direct connection to our rapid transit network without a transfer connection, I do not know what is. Furthermore, a rail connection will automatically encourage diversification of the area. More retail and high density residential.

This has been my complaint all along. We are building a downtown-centric LRT network as jobs move to the suburbs. The Kanata plan is a perfect example. It is designed to move Kanata residents to downtown. It is not designed to move Ottawa residents to Kanata jobs. It is not designed to effectively move Ottawa residents to most suburban employment areas. Furthermore, we continue to build suburban employment areas that have very little transit.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day....
follow-up article from OttawaCommunityNews on the June 5 open house...

https://www.ottawacommunitynews.com/what...use-to-offer-first-look-at-kanata-plans/

EnJoy.

The councillor said she’d like to see a station in the Greenbelt to serve Wesley Clover Parks in Nepean.

And she'll likely get it.

She'll get an LRT station to serve grass and trees and shrubs and squirrels and groundhogs before there is a single mass-transit station anywhere near the Glebe or Old Ottawa South or Vanier or New Edinburgh or Lowertown East.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The councillor said she’d like to see a station in the Greenbelt to serve Wesley Clover Parks in Nepean.

And she'll likely get it.

She'll get an LRT station to serve grass and trees and shrubs and squirrels and groundhogs before there is a single mass-transit station anywhere near the Glebe or Old Ottawa South or Vanier or New Edinburgh or Lowertown East.

While obviously a stupid, awful stop for a station on its own merits... it might make sense to plan for a possible future station at the Renfrew subdivision. That subdivision could be a future commuter line from North Kanata to Via Station (and reverse), or it could serve as some other transit corridor we haven't thought of yet. That is, once the City stops being so obsessed with LRT expansion as the only way to forward.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

While obviously a stupid, awful stop for a station on its own merits... it might make sense to plan for a possible future station at the Renfrew subdivision. That subdivision could be a future commuter line from North Kanata to Via Station (and reverse), or it could serve as some other transit corridor we haven't thought of yet. That is, once the City stops being so obsessed with LRT expansion as the only way to forward.

Sorry, this is not allowed. This may compete with the Confederation Line for passengers.

The reports emphasize that we need a spine route. Everybody else has to take the bus and transfer to it.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

“It doesn’t look like it’s feasible,” the councillor said. “LRT is not meant to go to every place. It’s to be a spine, then you need to have good connections to the other places.”

Of course, this is not how things work in Europe. The attitude in Europe is that rail transit should go to as many places as possible.

With 21,000 jobs currently at the Kanata North Business Park, 'connections' will simply perpetuate car use. If we want this to be a major employment destination, a transfer at both ends of a trip is not going to cut it and that is exactly what most workers will experience with our transit plan. I expect that the Kanata North Business Park has the second highest concentration of jobs after downtown in the whole city. If this is not justification for a direct connection to our rapid transit network without a transfer connection, I do not know what is. Furthermore, a rail connection will automatically encourage diversification of the area. More retail and high density residential.

This has been my complaint all along. We are building a downtown-centric LRT network as jobs move to the suburbs. The Kanata plan is a perfect example. It is designed to move Kanata residents to downtown. It is not designed to move Ottawa residents to Kanata jobs. It is not designed to effectively move Ottawa residents to most suburban employment areas. Furthermore, we continue to build suburban employment areas that have very little transit.

Is this still true? I feel like in the past two years the share of employment downtown is increasing.

In any event the Kanata North park would be hard to serve by LRT, and would have near-zero ridership outside of rush hours. Probably best to service it with feeder buses out of Eagleson.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Is this still true? I feel like in the past two years the share of employment downtown is increasing.

In any event the Kanata North park would be hard to serve by LRT, and would have near-zero ridership outside of rush hours. Probably best to service it with feeder buses out of Eagleson.

As I pointed out, there is an opportunity to make the Kanata North Park (and immediate area) a more diverse area. It already is a major employment node.

It is going to be difficult to make the planned LRT route an employment node in other parts of Kanata.

It is just like our stupid plan to end the Trillium Line at Bayview. Downtown is not going to suddenly move to Bayview. It may improve over time, but it will still not be downtown.

Building a bus Transitway to Kanata North (with a bus every half hour after 6pm and on weekends) will leave it as a car oriented employment wasteland.

Sorry, that is way I see it.

[lrt's friend]

Part of the problem we are experiencing is that we have spread the city out too much east-west. It is impossible to serve all the key locations with one rail line and it will be too expensive to build a second one and we cannot build spurs all over the place and provide adequate service on each spur. Too many years of bad planning without rapid transit in mind. As with most North American cities, the 60s and 70s were a time when everything based around the car and around the whims of local municipal politicians who were trying to build their own little kingdoms.

[FFX-ME]

It's because of that blasted greenbelt. Maybe that proposed station in the greenbelt will eventually lead to development there rather than in the outskirts of Kanata.

[Richard Eade]

Why not leave the 'spine' as an east-west line and do it the same way that we do with the Trillium Line; build a separate north-south line in Kanata (Stittsville to Kanata North). Kanata gets better transit and if people want to change direction, they can transfer to the west-east 'spine'. A transfer between frequent train lines is not usually a big deal for people - assuming the transfer station is reasonable.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Why not leave the 'spine' as an east-west line and do it the same way that we do with the Trillium Line; build a separate north-south line in Kanata (Stittsville to Kanata North). Kanata gets better transit and if people want to change direction, they can transfer to the west-east 'spine'. A transfer between frequent train lines is not usually a big deal for people - assuming the transfer station is reasonable.

There was a comment about using the cross-town rail line which opens up access to the Kanata north business park to a broad stretch of the city.

I doubt the degree of usefulness of a within Kanata LRT line when almost everybody uses cars within the community. It would also be a tougher sell than the proposed Transitway, which at least allows buses from various parts of Kanata to use it reducing the need to transfer. It also does not address my concern that a transfer is still needed in Kanata and again somewhere else in the city. Two transfers is not going to generate much ridership.

[SF Thomas]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Why not leave the 'spine' as an east-west line and do it the same way that we do with the Trillium Line; build a separate north-south line in Kanata (Stittsville to Kanata North). Kanata gets better transit and if people want to change direction, they can transfer to the west-east 'spine'. A transfer between frequent train lines is not usually a big deal for people - assuming the transfer station is reasonable.

Population density and a lack of other destinations easily accessible by walking most likely.

Kanata and Stittsville are just too suburban and there aren't enough parts that have the urban density to justify the cost of the N/S LRT line. The E/W one makes some sense getting people to and from central Ottawa (within the Greenbelt), and as a feeder line for local buses. (Not to mention that for the money spent and people served it would make more sense to add a new rail line in central Ottawa instead...)

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

“It doesn’t look like it’s feasible,” the councillor said. “LRT is not meant to go to every place. It’s to be a spine, then you need to have good connections to the other places.”

Of course, this is not how things work in Europe. The attitude in Europe is that rail transit should go to as many places as possible.

With 21,000 jobs currently at the Kanata North Business Park, 'connections' will simply perpetuate car use. If we want this to be a major employment destination, a transfer at both ends of a trip is not going to cut it and that is exactly what most workers will experience with our transit plan. I expect that the Kanata North Business Park has the second highest concentration of jobs after downtown in the whole city. If this is not justification for a direct connection to our rapid transit network without a transfer connection, I do not know what is. Furthermore, a rail connection will automatically encourage diversification of the area. More retail and high density residential.

This has been my complaint all along. We are building a downtown-centric LRT network as jobs move to the suburbs. The Kanata plan is a perfect example. It is designed to move Kanata residents to downtown. It is not designed to move Ottawa residents to Kanata jobs. It is not designed to effectively move Ottawa residents to most suburban employment areas. Furthermore, we continue to build suburban employment areas that have very little transit.

Strange, because everyone else seems to think that the O-Train is suburban centric. I mean 6 stations in Kanata and 7 in Orleans. There will be way more stations per kilometer in those two suburbs than inside the greenbelt, not to mention 0 plans for the densest corridor in the city (Bank-Rideau-Montreal).

The vast majority of people who work at the Kanata North Business Park probably live in Kanata, so they can't actually take the LRT. And those who don't are driving against traffic anyway, so they won't chose the slower O-Train options.

In my mind, only Eagleson, Terry Fox and Palladium (and maybe the Tanger mall since there is a lot of room for development in the area) should get LRT stations. In Orleans, I would say Jeanne d'Arc, Place d'Orleans and Trim. Take the leftover money for a Woodroofe Station on Richmond Road, a Jasmine Crescent Station, realign the stations between Tunney's and Dominion to better serve the area and interlining the Trillium Line with the Confederation Line tunnel.

[SkeggsEggs]

Can't find the slideshow on the city website for the EA, but I did find it on Stittsville Central, I am on mobile so somebody else have to work some magic: https://stittsvillecentral.ca/notebook-k...-study-will-look-at-three-route-options/

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

In my mind, only Eagleson, Terry Fox and Palladium (and maybe the Tanger mall since there is a lot of room for development in the area) should get LRT stations. In Orleans, I would say Jeanne d'Arc, Place d'Orleans and Trim.

Perhaps... but if that's the route to go, at least making planning reservations for additional stations in the future, and don't seal off any possibilities.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Perhaps... but if that's the route to go, at least making planning reservations for additional stations in the future, and don't seal off any possibilities.

This I agree with. We have been good at eliminating future possibilities like connecting the Trillium Line to the Confederation Line.