Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I don't know if I agree with you on that one. Many people will spend 10-15 minutes circling the parking lot to get a spot close to the door instead of parking in the outer edge of the parking lot and walk a minute or two.

True, but they will also accept a spot further afield, and not think it "far" to then waddle the equivalent of six blocks to the main entrance of the Walmart, when they won't settle for parking six blocks from the restaurant on Elgin Street or King West.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by roger1818

That is a very interesting chart! Thanks for sharing.

Getting back to the comment that originally started this debate:



If you look to our neighbours to the south, most cities have a very drivable downtown core and yet have done an even better job driving retail and entertainment entertainment to the suburbs. The big exception is NYC and their drivability is very poor (not intentionally but because of the sheer volume) and have very high transit usage, resulting in a very vibrant downtown.

Personally I think the move of retail and entertainment to the suburbs was not done because of poor drivability, but because businesses discovered that not only will their operating costs go down by moving to the suburbs, but their market share goes up by being closer to their market.

It was the opening of suburban malls (and later big box stores) that really drew people away from downtown. Westgate is considered Ottawas first shopping centre, opening in 1955 according to Wikipedia. Before that, downtown was the place to go for shopping.

That problem is not unique to Ottawa, or even big cities. That has been happening across Canada in any small city that a mall was built. Main Street has been shut down for decades.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

That problem is not unique to Ottawa, or even big cities. That has been happening across Canada in any small city that a mall was built. Main Street has been shut down for decades.

Isn't that what I said?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

70% within 5 km is a meaningless metric in planning terms, but judging by how often it gets repeated, is a resounding success as a bit of political marketing.

It certainly means nothing for people in whole districts of the Inner Urban Area who will also be two, three, four, five km from their nearest LRT station, and - this is and important point - for whom the LRT won't be a practical part of a transit trip in any event.

I don't see why it's meaningless. 5 km is about 15-20 mins on a bus (which typically average 15-20 km/h on a route). That does indeed tell you about how accessible the system is.

Now I would argue the standard that they are using is rather lax. And they should be referencing a standard which shows how much of the system is accessible on foot. Metrolinx is aiming for the 80% of the GTA to be within 2 km of rapid transit by 2040. That would put 80% of the GTA within walking distance of higher order transit.

By that metric, my rough estimate says pretty close to a quarter of Ottawa's population would fall within 2 km of an LRT station after Stage 2. I think that's pretty decent. For example, in the east end, everything south of Montreal Road to Innes would be roughly within 2 km of an LRT station.

The only way to really boost that number is to build something that cuts through the middle of the city. That's where the Baseline BRT will make a difference.

Arguing practicality as a metric is pointless. You will never have higher order transit lines that capture everyone. The reason LRT will not work for someone living in say New Edinburgh, is because they are too close to downtown to take advantage of it. It'd even be a stretch for them if the LRT was on Montreal Rd. But let's just say that they thought of Montreal Rd for LRT. That would be an absolutely terrible decision. The entire thing would have to tunnelled along Rideau and Montreal till at least St. Laurent. And it would it still be capacity and frequency limited because of the lack of grade separation and an exclusive ROW beyond St. Laurent. All with no evidence that total ridership would actually be higher or that the city would address it's most pressing issue of insane bus traffic through the core (and the high operational costs with BRT at this point). This would be about as dumb as the Scarborough Subway or original North-South LRT plan.

My only criticism of the city's plan is that Stage 2 has gone outside the greenbelt. This encourages sprawl in my opinion. Sort of like how the GO Train in the GTA has made 50km commutes completely normal. That aside, projects like the Baseline BRT will keep boosting coverage of the inner urban area. If they add another BRT on Hunt Club, most of the inner urban area will be within walking distance of higher order transit. And that would be fantastic.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

That problem is not unique to Ottawa, or even big cities. That has been happening across Canada in any small city that a mall was built. Main Street has been shut down for decades.

Agreed for the most part. But I actually don't understand this complaint in the context of Ottawa. For a city of its size, Ottawa's downtown is actually decently vibrant. Thanks to the Market and Elgin.

The real issue in Ottawa, similar to elsewhere, is not shopping and entertainment. It's housing. You want a vibrant downtown? You have to have people who live there. And in Ottawa, urban condo culture has only really arrived in the last decade or so. I expect we'll see a more vibrant downtown in Ottawa in the next decade or so. Between the Market on one end, LeBreton Flats on the other and Lansdowne in the south, Ottawa's core is actually well positioned to be a vibrant area. All that's needed is more residents in the core. And more residents who aren't just stacking up along Rideau or Bank. Hopefully, the LRT will help this redistribution along.

I'd also add that focusing on shopping is a fool's errands. Malls are dying. Amazon and eBay killed them. I expect we'll see some malls raised and their footprints redeveloped completely in the next decade. I'd put Gloucester Centre high on that list. Most of the malls that aren't on a higher order transit line are probably toast.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Personally I think the move of retail and entertainment to the suburbs was not done because of poor drivability, but because businesses discovered that not only will their operating costs go down by moving to the suburbs, but their market share goes up by being closer to their market.

It was the opening of suburban malls (and later big box stores) that really drew people away from downtown. Westgate is considered Ottawas first shopping centre, opening in 1955 according to Wikipedia. Before that, downtown was the place to go for shopping.

You're right about why retail moved. But I dispute your assertion that the big box stores moved people away from downtown. What has moved people away from downtown? People! Growth has largely gone to the suburbs, until the recent urban condo boom. So retail and entertainment has boomed in the burbs with that growth.

If Ottawa had more residents in the core, you'd see more retail in the core. And you'd see a more vibrant downtown. And the proof of this is how well the Rideau Centre is doing. It's survived the loss of anchor tenants, all while adding more high end retail. This is, in no small part, because more and more high disposable income residents are being added to their catchment area.

Compare the above to say St. Laurent. The quality of stores there is getting worse. They don't have many residents who are within walking distance. What they do have is lower income. And if people have to drive, their options include more than St. Laurent (Train Yards for example). St. Laurent is going to face a massive reckoning with the closure of Sears. Ditto for many other malls like St. Laurent. The saving grace for some of these malls is that they are on transit lines and it's easy to build condos in those massive parking lots they have. See the route Gloucester Centre is going.

My only beef with Ottawa is that the planners and politicians aren't doing more to speed this trend along. They should work with those mall owners to push redevelopment and add more housing to places that are or will be on higher order transit.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I don't see why it's meaningless. 5 km is about 15-20 mins on a bus (which typically average 15-20 km/h on a route). That does indeed tell you about how accessible the system is.

Not particularly, no.

How frequent are those buses? How reliable? How prone to getting bottlenecked? For a given origin-destination pair does it even make sense to use the LRT for part of the trip?

The metric is utterly meaningless.

Now I would argue the standard that they are using is rather lax. And they should be referencing a standard which shows how much of the system is accessible on foot.

That's more like it: a 5km naked radius is absolutely and utterly meaningless. There are GIS tools that can do a better job of analyzing proximity in human terms, vs. bare circles, but the City of Ottawa is allergic to them. Circles are better for politics.

By that metric, my rough estimate says pretty close to a quarter of Ottawa's population would fall within 2 km of an LRT station after Stage 2. I think that's pretty decent. For example, in the east end, everything south of Montreal Road to Innes would be roughly within 2 km of an LRT station.

Yet whole districts of the old city of Ottawa, as well as areas like Vanier - the urban areas - will not be within that 2km metric, either, and won't be any time this soon, because we are not building urban transit, just suburban transit. And not only is the city not doing anything to improve the bus system that provides standalone service, as well as providing connections to and from the LRT system current and future, they are actually doing a bunch of things to make that bus system much, much, much worse.

But sure, by all means, talk to me about Watson's useless 5-km boast.

The only way to really boost that number is to build something that cuts through the middle of the city. That's where the Baseline BRT will make a difference.

I don't consider Baseline to be the middle of anything except Nepean.

Arguing practicality as a metric is pointless. You will never have higher order transit lines that capture everyone. The reason LRT will not work for someone living in say New Edinburgh, is because they are too close to downtown to take advantage of it. It'd even be a stretch for them if the LRT was on Montreal Rd. But let's just say that they thought of Montreal Rd for LRT. That would be an absolutely terrible decision. The entire thing would have to tunnelled along Rideau and Montreal till at least St. Laurent.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

And it would it still be capacity and frequency limited because of the lack of grade separation and an exclusive ROW beyond St. Laurent. All with no evidence that total ridership would actually be higher or that the city would address it's most pressing issue of insane bus traffic through the core (and the high operational costs with BRT at this point). This would be about as dumb as the Scarborough Subway or original North-South LRT plan.

Yes, I get it: people in the east end of the urban area should never, ever expect to see urban transit. That's for the suburbs.

My only criticism of the city's plan is that Stage 2 has gone outside the greenbelt. This encourages sprawl in my opinion. Sort of like how the GO Train in the GTA has made 50km commutes completely normal. That aside, projects like the Baseline BRT will keep boosting coverage of the inner urban area. If they add another BRT on Hunt Club, most of the inner urban area will be within walking distance of higher order transit. And that would be fantastic.

Baseline is not exactly the "inner urban area" by the city's definition of that term. It is at the very southern fringe of it, and in a topologically suburban area.

Meanwhile, not only does the truly urban part of Ottawa get bypassed by most of the LRT project either under construction or in planning, there is absolutely nothing being done to improve the bus transit along the traditional mainstreets.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Tunnelling costs at last $300M/km. Extending the tunnel from Nicholas/Rideau to Montreal and St.Laurent would add ~ 4 km of tunnels. I am curious where you think $1.2 billion would come from. Indeed, if this was the proposal, the entire Stage 1 budget would be used from St. Laurent to Bronson. I'd like to know what you think the ridership case would be for this and why Queen's Park and the Feds should support this at all. Especially given that ridership would be absolutely 🞵🞵🞵🞵 for such a line and Ottawa would still be forced to maintain and operate hundreds of buses through the downtown core during peak.

It's amazing how many people forget that the limitations of the Transitway, both on capacity (through the core) and cost (1 driver per 75 pax average) were major drivers for the current LRT plan. That was the whole sales pitch for the downtown tunnel. What's the defence for any LRT plan that does not drastically reduce reliance on buses and bus traffic through the core?

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Yes, I get it: people in the east end of the urban area should never, ever expect to see urban transit. That's for the suburbs.

If your expectation of urban transit is a multi-billion dollar LRT to your front-door, than you're right, you should expect and deserve to be disappointed. Transit decisions are and should always be driven by one overwhelming factor: ridership. And there is no evidence at all to suggest that any corridor other than the existing Transitway would deliver the ridership that it does. And if we do start talking about cost per rider, there's not even a defence for any other corridor if it actually miraculously showed higher ridership.

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Baseline is not exactly the "inner urban area" by the city's definition of that term. It is at the very southern fringe of it, and in a topologically suburban area.

Meanwhile, not only does the truly urban part of Ottawa get bypassed by most of the LRT project either under construction or in planning, there is absolutely nothing being done to improve the bus transit along the traditional mainstreets.

Baseline-Heron-Walkley is the boundary of the inner urban area as per the City's definition:

http://ottawa.ca/cs/groups/content/@webottawa/documents/pdf/mdaw/mduy/~edisp/con024342.pdf

So between the LRT and the Baseline BRT, most of the inner urban area will actually be covered by higher order transit and within 2 km of it. And coverage will be a hell of a lot higher than the suburbs.

I do hope they do something on Carling. BRT would work great there.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Tunnelling costs at last $300M/km. Extending the tunnel from Nicholas/Rideau to Montreal and St.Laurent would add ~ 4 km of tunnels. I am curious where you think $1.2 billion would come from. Indeed, if this was the proposal, the entire Stage 1 budget would be used from St. Laurent to Bronson. I'd like to know what you think the ridership case would be for this and why Queen's Park and the Feds should support this at all. Especially given that ridership would be absolutely 🞵🞵🞵🞵 for such a line and Ottawa would still be forced to maintain and operate hundreds of buses through the downtown core during peak.

It's amazing how many people forget that the limitations of the Transitway, both on capacity (through the core) and cost (1 driver per 75 pax average) were major drivers for the current LRT plan. That was the whole sales pitch for the downtown tunnel. What's the defence for any LRT plan that does not drastically reduce reliance on buses and bus traffic through the core?



If your expectation of urban transit is a multi-billion dollar LRT to your front-door, than you're right, you should expect and deserve to be disappointed. Transit decisions are and should always be driven by one overwhelming factor: ridership. And there is no evidence at all to suggest that any corridor other than the existing Transitway would deliver the ridership that it does. And if we do start talking about cost per rider, there's not even a defence for any other corridor if it actually miraculously showed higher ridership.



Baseline-Heron-Walkley is the boundary of the inner urban area as per the City's definition:

http://ottawa.ca/cs/groups/content/@webottawa/documents/pdf/mdaw/mduy/~edisp/con024342.pdf

So between the LRT and the Baseline BRT, most of the inner urban area will actually be covered by higher order transit and within 2 km of it. And coverage will be a hell of a lot higher than the suburbs.

I do hope they do something on Carling. BRT would work great there.

What will be interesting is how much capacity the Confederation Line has in real life. Metrolinx considers the Citadis to have room for 540ish in a two car train vs our estimate of 600. How many people will squeeze on in real life is still a mystery. If it can't move as many people as claimed, it might increase the chances of a second east-west line in the future.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

What will be interesting is how much capacity the Confederation Line has in real life. Metrolinx considers the Citadis to have room for 540ish in a two car train vs our estimate of 600. How many people will squeeze on in real life is still a mystery. If it can't move as many people as claimed, it might increase the chances of a second east-west line in the future.

Different agencies probably have different standards for calculating crush capacity.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If your expectation of urban transit is a multi-billion dollar LRT to your front-door, than you're right, you should expect and deserve to be disappointed. Transit decisions are and should always be driven by one overwhelming factor: ridership. And there is no evidence at all to suggest that any corridor other than the existing Transitway would deliver the ridership that it does. And if we do start talking about cost per rider, there's not even a defence for any other corridor if it actually miraculously showed higher ridership.

Yeah, a significant number of posts on this thread are "why isn't there high-capacity rapid transit to low-density suburban neighbourhood X"

People want Paris transit with Wichita densities.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's amazing how many people forget that the limitations of the Transitway, both on capacity (through the core) and cost (1 driver per 75 pax average) were major drivers for the current LRT plan. That was the whole sales pitch for the downtown tunnel. What's the defence for any LRT plan that does not drastically reduce reliance on buses and bus traffic through the core?

People on this do forget that. All the publicity is about how much better it will be for the rider (which is largely true) but the real driving force was money. The Express buses are particularly expensive. For a typical run the driver has to pick up the bus in the garage, drive it to the beginning of the run (deadheadding), wind through the streets gradually picking up passengers, hop on the transitway and drive downtown (rarely picking up or dropping anyone off). Once downtown, the bus slowly creeps along Albert/Slater street and once at the end of the run, there often isn't enough time to get back to the suburbs to pick up another load of people, so instead it deadheads back to the garage. As a result, that 75 PAX often requires 2 hours of labour and a dedicated bus.

With LRT (especially after stage 2) not only will the Connexion bus routes be shorter, but they will be finish their run closer to the start of the next run, so instead of getting 1 maybe 2 runs in, the bus will be able to get 3 or 4 runs in before going back to the garage. Not only that, but since on many routes, the bus doesn't fill up until it reaches the park and ride, they can get away with a 40' bus instead of having a high capacity bus run mostly empty through the suburbs.

there is no evidence at all to suggest that any corridor other than the existing Transitway would deliver the ridership that it does. And if we do start talking about cost per rider, there's not even a defence for any other corridor if it actually miraculously showed higher ridership.

I mostly agree with what you are saying. The only thing is the the transitway route was picked because the ROW existed from abandoned rail lines. In the west it isn't a bad location, maybe a bit too far north, but it is reasonable with lots of TOD potential. In the east though, the route isn't optimal as it is too close to the Queensway. While admittedly much more expensive, rerouting the eastern leg along Montreal Rd. to the 174 would largely serve the same purpose while enhancing service overall. Of course it is too late for that now.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yeah, a significant number of posts on this thread are "why isn't there high-capacity rapid transit to low-density suburban neighbourhood X"

People want Paris transit with Wichita densities.

http://ajverster.github.io/blog/2013/09/16/population-density-maps-in-canadian-cities/

If you take look of where it shows Ottawa you can see the current LRT goes though a less dense area than Montreal road goes though so Uhuniau does have a point. Also why isn't there an LRT route planned for Bank street when it is one of the busiest streets in Ottawa? Even the Gatineau LRT that is being planned will be closer to me ( 7 min walk) than your LRT will be to to him. Even some of my family live within 1.1km which is a 15 min walk to a current LRT station. It not unreasonable to expect transit to actually serve people, but when you force people to rely on unreliable buses then they will look for other sources to get where they need to go and that's why OC transpo ridership is down. Ridership will only recover when the people are better served by transit.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

... In the east though, the route isn't optimal as it is too close to the Queensway. While admittedly much more expensive, rerouting the eastern leg along Montreal Rd. to the 174 would largely serve the same purpose while enhancing service overall. Of course it is too late for that now.

I take your point, but a lot of drivers of ridership are along the Queensway corridor. Along the highway there are two shopping malls, a train station, an Ottawau campus, several high density housing clusters and a number of brownfield, greyfield and greenfield sites. On Montreal Road there isn't a whole lot to drive ridership.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

What will be interesting is how much capacity the Confederation Line has in real life. Metrolinx considers the Citadis to have room for 540ish in a two car train vs our estimate of 600. How many people will squeeze on in real life is still a mystery. If it can't move as many people as claimed, it might increase the chances of a second east-west line in the future.

If you look at Alstom's brochure for the Citadis Spirit, it lists the capacity for the 84m train to be 280 - 340 passengers. I suspect a lot of that has to do with seating arrangements and other design factors.

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yeah, a significant number of posts on this thread are "why isn't there high-capacity rapid transit to low-density suburban neighbourhood X"

People want Paris transit with Wichita densities.

Except LRT needn't be about ultra high capacity. Ottawa is buying the largest LRT train Alstom makes and coupling two of them together to meet our capacity needs. They also asked for them to propose an even longer variant for them for future expansion. There is a 30m variant of the Citadis Spirit that has about double the capacity of an articulated bus. This would certainly be appropriate for a major corridor like Montreal Rd or Bank St.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

http://ajverster.github.io/blog/2013/09/16/population-density-maps-in-canadian-cities/

If you take look of where it shows Ottawa you can see the current LRT goes though a less dense area than Montreal road goes though so Uhuniau does have a point. Also why isn't there an LRT route planned for Bank street when it is one of the busiest streets in Ottawa? Even the Gatineau LRT that is being planned will be closer to me ( 7 min walk) than your LRT will be to to him. Even some of my family live within 1.1km which is a 15 min walk to a current LRT station. It not unreasonable to expect transit to actually serve people, but when you force people to rely on unreliable buses then they will look for other sources to get where they need to go and that's why OC transpo ridership is down. Ridership will only recover when the people are better served by transit.

There are no areas of Ottawa of any size that are dense enough to drive mass transit with local residents. A higher density neighbourhood in Ottawa has about 5k people per square km. Mass transit in Ottawa has to be driven by transfers and Montreal and Bank are not particularly efficient for that.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Except LRT needn't be about ultra high capacity. Ottawa is buying the largest LRT train Alstom makes and coupling two of them together to meet our capacity needs. They also asked for them to propose an even longer variant for them for future expansion. There is a 30m variant of the Citadis Spirit that has about double the capacity of an articulated bus. This would certainly be appropriate for a major corridor like Montreal Rd or Bank St.

That could work on Carling or St Laurent, but Bank and Montreal are not wide enough for a surface LRT (that can be separated from traffic). If you have to dig a tunnel it is no efficient to spend billions to run short trains at a low frequency.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

What will be interesting is how much capacity the Confederation Line has in real life. Metrolinx considers the Citadis to have room for 540ish in a two car train vs our estimate of 600. How many people will squeeze on in real life is still a mystery.

Torontonians belong to a species that's 10% larger than Ottawans, dontcha know?

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There are no areas of Ottawa of any size that are dense enough to drive mass transit with local residents. A higher density neighbourhood in Ottawa has about 5k people per square km. Mass transit in Ottawa has to be driven by transfers and Montreal and Bank are not particularly efficient for that.

Give me the stats to prove your point

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I take your point, but a lot of drivers of ridership are along the Queensway corridor. Along the highway there are two shopping malls, a train station, an Ottawau campus, several high density housing clusters and a number of brownfield, greyfield and greenfield sites. On Montreal Road there isn't a whole lot to drive ridership.

I would argue that only the uOttawa campus is a significant driver of ridership and a route to Montreal Rd could be diverted to serve it. As discussed elsewhere, shopping malls are in decline (and few use transit to go to them anyway) and even with HFR, there will only be 2 trains an hour.

As for development opportunities, I would argue that Montreal Rd has far more than the Queensway does. The Queensway itself acts as a significant barrier for walk-ability to the station.