Rural Commuter Rail

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I've updated my map of the MOOSE system.

Nicely done. Just one observation. The Phase 2 LRT now will extend to Moodie in the west.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Charles5

Nicely done. Just one observation. The Phase 2 LRT now will extend to Moodie in the west.

Good point. I've updated that.

[Charles5]

@OCCheetos

How difficult would it be to add a circle around each station with an 800m radius. That is the area that MOOSE is considering as development land. I think in some cases that would encompass an entire town (like Maxville or Casselman) while in others it would be isolated from everything else (like where you've put Navan at the moment).

I realize that the stations can move around a bit, but this would just give a sense of the scale of what the PPR model would look like.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Charles5

@OCCheetos

How difficult would it be to add a circle around each station with an 800m radius. That is the area that MOOSE is considering as development land. I think in some cases that would encompass an entire town (like Maxville or Casselman) while in others it would be isolated from everything else (like where you've put Navan at the moment).

I realize that the stations can move around a bit, but this would just give a sense of the scale of what the PPR model would look like.

I would doubt the stations would be in towns. The announced site at Morrison's Quarry seems to be the model. Existing towns would be pretty limiting in terms of development opportunity.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Charles5

I notice that the small inset map, bottom right of the network map on your website, has the Confederation Line LRT included on it, but for some reason the Trillium Line has been omitted. Is there a reason why you would choose to show one line and not the other?

Because the trillium line has to go (or be severely constrained) to serve the "national interest"

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Charles5

@OCCheetos

How difficult would it be to add a circle around each station with an 800m radius. That is the area that MOOSE is considering as development land. I think in some cases that would encompass an entire town (like Maxville or Casselman) while in others it would be isolated from everything else (like where you've put Navan at the moment).

I realize that the stations can move around a bit, but this would just give a sense of the scale of what the PPR model would look like.

Unfortunately there's no circle tool, so it has to be done by hand. I've added some for the south eastern portion of the Alexandria branch, but it'll take some time to get through all of them. Keep in mind that since it is done by hand, it isn't entirely a perfect 800m radius circle.

Originally Posted by acottawa

I would doubt the stations would be in towns. The announced site at Morrison's Quarry seems to be the model. Existing towns would be pretty limiting in terms of development opportunity.

I believe Morrison's Quarry corresponds to the Farm Point station on the map. There would be another station further towards Wakefield. A lot of the station names correspond to street names, so I'd guess that they'd be built perpendicular to the road and would be kind of like the Milliken GO Station in Toronto. (At least for the stops in Gatineau and western Ottawa)

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I believe Morrison's Quarry corresponds to the Farm Point station on the map. There would be another station further towards Wakefield. A lot of the station names correspond to street names, so I'd guess that they'd be built perpendicular to the road and would be kind of like the Milliken GO Station in Toronto. (At least for the stops in Gatineau and western Ottawa)

There may be a station near Wakefield, but it would be pretty silly to put these in existing towns. You would only get money from those who voluntarily sign up to provide money (and statscan says there are only 55 commuters from La Pêche in Ottawa) and the densities are very low. Moose needs to pack as many people into subdivsions near stations as possible.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There may be a station near Wakefield, but it would be pretty silly to put these in existing towns. You would only get money from those who voluntarily sign up to provide money (and statscan says there are only 55 commuters from La Pêche in Ottawa) and the densities are very low. Moose needs to pack as many people into subdivsions near stations as possible.

Specifically speaking about Wakefield, there are a very small number of places (probably only one actually) where a station could be built and it would probably be where the steam train would have used to stop. Otherwise, they'd have to cut the line short at Farm Point (which isn't very far away from Wakefield anyway, relatively speaking).

In other towns, if you look on the map it looks like there are lots of areas right in their general areas where new developments could in theory be built. So, stations would likely be as close to those towns as possible.




@Charles5 I added the circles around all of the stations except for the few that are located directly inside Ottawa/Gatineau.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by acottawa

(and statscan says there are only 55 commuters from La Pêche in Ottawa) .

You're looking at the wrong table there. There are 55 people in Ottawa who work in La Peche. Going the other way around there are about 1000 people in La Peche who work in Ottawa and another 1000 from La Peche who work in Gatineau.

The numbers still don't support a train in my opinion, but need to be sure we're using as accurate as data as possible in our arguments.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Charles5

I notice that the small inset map, bottom right of the network map on your website, has the Confederation Line LRT included on it, but for some reason the Trillium Line has been omitted. Is there a reason why you would choose to show one line and not the other?

Because in Moose's plan, they will take over full control of the Trillium Line from Bayview to Greensboro, thus the line won't exist anymore. Stage 2 isn't drawn on the map, but if it was, Greensboro would also have been drawn as a transfer point.

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Now it has the Confederation Line and Trillium Line (as well as their extensions), the rough locations of where each MOOSE station would be, as well as some other extra info (other abandoned railway corridors, as well as a visual representation of what the Pembroke commuter line would have looked like).

One mistake you have. Joseph has pretty much admitted that Barrhaven station would be located near McKenna Casey Dr, not at the current Fallowfield station (that is why they use the name Barrhaven not Fallowfield).

You have also added stations that will no longer exist under Moose control, like Walkley, Mooney's Bay, Carling and Gladstone.

Some things I noticed after looking closely at the map:
Navan isn't situated along the rail corridor, and Quyon is nowhere near the rail corridor. I'm also a bit surprised that Carp and Dunrobin don't have stops planned.

Those are intentional features. The plan isn't to serve existing populations but to serve new communities that haven't been built yet.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by roger1818

One mistake you have. Joseph has pretty much admitted that Barrhaven station would be located near McKenna Casey Dr, not at the current Fallowfield station (that is why they use the name Barrhaven not Fallowfield).

You're right about that. I've corrected it on the map.

You have also added stations that will no longer exist under Moose control, like Walkley, Mooney's Bay, Carling and Gladstone.

Do you have a source for that other than MOOSE's outdated and inaccurate map?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Do you have a source for that other than MOOSE's outdated and inaccurate map?

No. Just the map, but considering it shows all of the Stage 1 Confederation Line stations, and Joseph hasn't denied it when I brought it up in the past, I am guessing it to be true.

It makes sense since the heavy commuter rail vehicles they want to use are slow to start and stop, so stops that are too frequent don't work well, so the only way they can keep the same frequency as the more nimble Lint is to decrease the number of stops. If you look at the GO train, stations on the same line don't seem to be less than about 2km apart.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Moose would need pretty much 100% use of OC Transpo, so I am not clear why there would be a discount.

To be fair, since Moose want to take over operation of the Trillium Line north of Greensboro, there would be some quid pro quo as OC Transpo customers would be able to use Moose at least between Greensboro and Bayview.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Charles5

You're looking at the wrong table there. There are 55 people in Ottawa who work in La Peche. Going the other way around there are about 1000 people in La Peche who work in Ottawa and another 1000 from La Peche who work in Gatineau.

my bad

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

To be fair, since Moose want to take over operation of the Trillium Line north of Greensboro, there would be some quid pro quo as OC Transpo customers would be able to use Moose at least between Greensboro and Bayview.

If they are going to make all of those stops (and considering many of these routes are going to be well over an hour they might not want to make a lot of stops). Still, that is maybe 5% of employment in Ottawa? Other destinations (including downtown) would require a transfer. In contrast, STO and the rural partner routes serve downtown directly so a significant number require no transfers at all.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

If they are going to make all of those stops (and considering many of these routes are going to be well over an hour they might not want to make a lot of stops). Still, that is maybe 5% of employment in Ottawa? Other destinations (including downtown) would require a transfer. In contrast, STO and the rural partner routes serve downtown directly so a significant number require no transfers at all.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say. What I was saying is Carleton Students would be able to transfer from OC Transpo to Moose at Bayview or Greensboro. Similarly, people living along the Stage 2 South extension would be able to transfer from the Trillium Line to Moose at Greensboro to get to Bayview. I don't think OC Transpo riders can transfer to the rural bus lines without a fee though.

OTOH, OC Transpo would have to re-instate bus service to serve the other stations that Moose would be abandoning.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say. What I was saying is Carleton Students would be able to transfer from OC Transpo to Moose at Bayview or Greensboro. Similarly, people living along the Stage 2 South extension would be able to transfer from the Trillium Line to Moose at Greensboro to get to Bayview. I don't think OC Transpo riders can transfer to the rural bus lines without a fee though.

I imagine that there might be some people who would also want to use MOOSE for "tourism"-related reasons. After all, there are some pretty nice places to visit along MOOSE's proposed routes. (Wakefield, Chelsea, Gatineau Park, Fitzroy, Arnprior, Smiths Falls, etc.). Anyone who would want to visit any of these places who don't own a car would be able to take OC transpo to their nearest MOOSE stop and then transfer there.

Probably not as big as the number of Carleton students, but still something to think a little about.

OTOH, OC Transpo would have to re-instate bus service to serve the other stations that Moose would be abandoning.

Those stations are all already served well by buses, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. (Other than a north to south bus service?)

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

(Other than a north to south bus service?)

Exactly.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to say. What I was saying is Carleton Students would be able to transfer from OC Transpo to Moose at Bayview or Greensboro. Similarly, people living along the Stage 2 South extension would be able to transfer from the Trillium Line to Moose at Greensboro to get to Bayview. I don't think OC Transpo riders can transfer to the rural bus lines without a fee though.

OTOH, OC Transpo would have to re-instate bus service to serve the other stations that Moose would be abandoning.

Sorry, I misunderstood, I thought you were suggesting that moose would pick up all of the lost service.

[Charles5]

Sometimes the debate on this forum seems to suggest that if we can’t have rail then we are condemned to have everyone driving around in their cars. I would suggest that we need to look at this not as an all or a nothing scenario but a scalable one. As population increases we need to look at the best method of moving people around. To illustrate that, I’ve done up a quick example below showing how different methods of transportation could be utilized as commuters increase by an order of magnitude.

Please don’t read too much into the actual numbers, it’s just a representative example.

#commuters per hour along a corridor | mode(s) of transportation
2 | individual cars
20 | carpooling and individual cars
200 | buses, carpooling, and individual cars
2,000 | train, buses, carpooling and individual cars
20,000 | hyperloops, hovercraft, teleporting, etc, etc, etc…

In my previous arguments, I simply suggest that we are not anywhere near close to the point where a train would make sense. In a lot of cases I believe that we are sitting at the tipping point to have regional bus services.