Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[kmcamp]

Just for fun, I thought it might be interesting to compare ourselves to peer cities (i.e. ones of the same size) since we're talking density, how much people you need for an LRT, etc.

Compare Memphis TN (metro pop 1.3 million), no decent public transit
https://www.google.ca/maps/@35.1594133,-89.9862881,12z

Us (pop 1.4 million including the Gatineau side) with stage 2 shown
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?m....3981540256333%2C-75.72573423906249&z=12

Oslo (pop 1.5 million) with 5 Metro lines, 6 tram lines, and 8 commuter rail lines:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@59.9195422,10.7481383,12z/data=!5m1!1e2


All 3 maps are set to the same zoom level. It's interesting to see how massively Memphis sprawls, and how compact Oslo is. We of course are somewhere in the middle. To be fair, Memphis has no real geographic limits to sprawl, whereas Oslo like Vancouver is constrained by mountains and sea.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Just for fun, I thought it might be interesting to compare ourselves to peer cities (i.e. ones of the same size) since we're talking density, how much people you need for an LRT, etc.

Compare Memphis TN (metro pop 1.3 million), no decent public transit
https://www.google.ca/maps/@35.1594133,-89.9862881,12z

Us (pop 1.4 million including the Gatineau side) with stage 2 shown
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?m....3981540256333%2C-75.72573423906249&z=12

Oslo (pop 1.5 million) with 5 Metro lines, 6 tram lines, and 8 commuter rail lines:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@59.9195422,10.7481383,12z/data=!5m1!1e2


All 3 maps are set to the same zoom level. It's interesting to see how massively Memphis sprawls, and how compact Oslo is. We of course are somewhere in the middle. To be fair, Memphis has no real geographic limits to sprawl, whereas Oslo like Vancouver is constrained by mountains and sea.

Ottawa and Memphis are about the same age. Oslo has been around centuries more. That explains more of why they are the way they are.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Ottawa and Memphis are about the same age. Oslo has been around centuries more. That explains more of why they are the way they are.

Well, yes, Oslo is ancient, But even if it wasn't, it couldn't sprawl the way we do due to geography. It is obvious though that the greenbelt did something, Memphis is way sprawlier than we are, their urban edge would be at the equivalent of Kemptville, yet their population is no bigger than us.

But the other point was that you don't need to be a massive city to have lots of rail lines. It's perfectly valid for us to consider a second line through downtown in the not so distant future, we don't have to be Toronto sized.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Very few metro-style transit systems allow bicycles on vehicles during rush hour (including such bicycle friendly places as the Netherlands). Where they do, it is usually one or two specific spots reserved for bicycles (such as Seattle or Portland) and rules that make it clear that if those spots are unavailable you cannot bring your bike on board. These spots are often shared with other potential uses such as luggage or strollers.

I am not aware of any system that has adopted Ottawa's proposed policy of allowing unlimited bicycles all the time or any system where the recommended strategy is to occupy three seats.

Good Day.

Thank you.
Cross-post from the OC Transpo thread :

I personally have far more sympathy with, for, and to those with wheelchairs, mobility scooters (not speed daemons) or devices, and baby strollers, trying to get out and about the city, doing necessary jobs, functions or just plain life.
Sorry, but I have way less sympathy for those on bicycles who have options besides occupying space on transit systems. Presumably they chose bicycles for a good reason, but quit trying to monopolize both the conversation and the availability of transit for the vast majority. The resource(s) available are simply not infinite.

Thus - no restrictions on strollers, wheelchairs, scooters, mobility devices (walkers, etc).
Limits on bicycles during crush cycles, certainly to begin with.
Better to start limited and ease up as warranted, than to start wild west and try to apply limits as required.

End of Rant.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Thank you.
Cross-post from the OC Transpo thread :

I personally have far more sympathy with, for, and to those with wheelchairs, mobility scooters (not speed daemons) or devices, and baby strollers, trying to get out and about the city, doing necessary jobs, functions or just plain life.
Sorry, but I have way less sympathy for those on bicycles who have options besides occupying space on transit systems. Presumably they chose bicycles for a good reason, but quit trying to monopolize both the conversation and the availability of transit for the vast majority. The resource(s) available are simply not infinite.

Thus - no restrictions on strollers, wheelchairs, scooters, mobility devices (walkers, etc).
Limits on bicycles during crush cycles, certainly to begin with.
Better to start limited and ease up as warranted, than to start wild west and try to apply limits as required.

End of Rant.

There are people who bike because times are tight and time is money. People who simply need the few more minutes of sleep, and for whom biking the rest of the way home after taking the LRT home from work is the only way they can get home in a reasonable amount of time and fit a bit of exercise in. Absolutely, these people should have just as much right to take the LRT during rush hour with their bikes, as people with massive strollers that are double the size of a stroller from 30 years ago!

[McC]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Us (pop 1.4 million including the Gatineau side) with stage 2 shown
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?m....3981540256333%2C-75.72573423906249&z=12

You left out the Moodie branch/line; FWIW, I hope they map and brand the branches as separate lines with 2 numbers and colours.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Buggys

There are people who bike because times are tight and time is money. People who simply need the few more minutes of sleep, and for whom biking the rest of the way home after taking the LRT home from work is the only way they can get home in a reasonable amount of time and fit a bit of exercise in. Absolutely, these people should have just as much right to take the LRT during rush hour with their bikes, as people with massive strollers that are double the size of a stroller from 30 years ago!

Why wouldn't those people park their bikes at the station and then pick them after work?

It is hard to see many scenarios where a commuter would find it useful to haul a bike around, or where it would make sense to pay for transit rather than just bike the route. If most users are recreational cyclists, keeping them off trains in rush hour seems like a sensible strategy.

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Why wouldn't those people park their bikes at the station and then pick them after work?

It is hard to see many scenarios where a commuter would find it useful to haul a bike around, or where it would make sense to pay for transit rather than just bike the route. If most users are recreational cyclists, keeping them off trains in rush hour seems like a sensible strategy.

Errands after work on the bike near the place of work, going to a place other than home after work, etc. Much faster than bussing the rest of the way.

These people are not doing it just for recreation. It's just the faster & cheaper & more direct way of doing things.

E.g. it doesn't make sense for someone to bike all the way from Kanata to downtown. And what if they need to make an errand at South Keys before visiting a friend in Riverside South?

[Kitchissippi]

Most cyclists I know just like riding their bike and hate lugging it into transit. I'm not opposed to restricting bikes in rush hour, but I doubt it's going to be big problem. Dealing with a bike in the downtown tunnel stations is too much of a hassle, most people would just leave their bikes at their local station. This is where a good bike share program might start to work really well downtown.

Secure bike parking would be a better focus for those who bring their bikes just for the sole reason that they're scared it might get stolen. I'd love to see these storage towers put in the beyond-the-core stations, I'm sure there's a way to make them cost-recoverable.

ecocycle

[lrt's friend]

Note how Oslo interlines trains through their downtown tunnel. I was there last May and rode a train through the tunnel. It is wide tunnel with more than two tracks and accommodates both local and intercity trains. The tunnel ran under the whole central part of the city and was quite long. The tunnel is not designed as a subway and I don't believe there were any underground stations. At one end was central station where you could transfer to a variety of train lines or to trams located immediately outside. The station included an airport express train (with no transfers from Central Station) and as I recall the trains had started somewhere else so no transfers from other parts of the city as well. The station also included a major shopping area and a hotel without stepping outside. All designed for the convenience of those using trains. It was a really good setup. I believe you could transfer at the other end of the tunnel as well.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Note how Oslo interlines trains through their downtown tunnel. I was there last May and rode a train through the tunnel. It is wide tunnel with more than two tracks and accommodates both local and intercity trains. The tunnel ran under the whole central part of the city and was quite long. The tunnel is not designed as a subway and I don't believe there were any underground stations. At one end was central station where you could transfer to a variety of train lines or to trams located immediately outside. The station included an airport express train (with no transfers from Central Station) and as I recall the trains had started somewhere else so no transfers from other parts of the city as well. The station also included a major shopping area and a hotel without stepping outside. All designed for the convenience of those using trains. It was a really good setup. I believe you could transfer at the other end of the tunnel as well.

I took the "flytoget" highspeed train to the airport when I was there, but none of the other train lines. I did ride the metro a couple of times, but I actually found the Tram most useful to get around the city core. The metro was interlined too I believe

[rocketphish]

Gord Downie, Rocket Richard among winning names for Transpo LRT cars

Staff Reporter Staff Reporter
Published on: February 24, 2018 | Last Updated: February 24, 2018 3:57 PM EST

There were some old favourites and some surprises in the list of names for the train cars on the city’s 40 Light Rail Transit system.

For one thing, there are no Ottawa Senators hockey players on the list but sainted Montreal Canadiens icon Rocket Richard will ride the rails on a Trillium Line car.

Former governor general Lord Stanley, who donated the Stanley Cup to denote hockey supremacy, will be on a Confederation Line car long before the actual Cup is won by the modern-day Senators.

And the late Gord Downie, former frontman of the Tragically Hip, will live on with his own Confederation Line car.

The Name the Trains contest was open to kids 16 years and under (although some of the winners, such as author Farley Mowat and former Supreme Court justice Bertha Wilson, hint at some parental assistance.)

In a release, the city said the submissions reflected historical figures from Ottawa’s and Canada’s past, the arts and military history, and also honoured Indigenous people and culture.

The winners received certificates and two “golden tickets” each for the inaugural run on the Confederation Line when it opens later this year.

Here’s the complete list of winning names:

Trillium Line train cars

Nanuq • Polar Bear
Northern Lights
Rocket Richard
Dreamcatcher
Emily Murphy
Portage

Confederation Line train cars

Canada Goose
Farley Mowat
Gord Downie
Inuksuk
John McCrae
Logdriver • Draveur
Lord Stanley
Louis Riel
Majestic Moose
Odawa
Poppy
Snowbird
Bluenose
Boreal
Emily Carr
Jacques Cartier
Juno
Nathan Cirillo
Normandy
Samuel de Champlain
Thomas D’Arcy McGee
Totem
Tundra
Wagosh • Fox
Acadia
Agnes Macphail
Amik • Beaver
Bertha Wilson
Billy Bishop
Eh-Train
Henrietta Edwards
Maple Taffy
The Mountie
George Brown

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news...among-winning-names-for-transpo-lrt-cars

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Eh-Train

Seriously???

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Well, yes, Oslo is ancient, But even if it wasn't, it couldn't sprawl the way we do due to geography. It is obvious though that the greenbelt did something, Memphis is way sprawlier than we are, their urban edge would be at the equivalent of Kemptville, yet their population is no bigger than us.

But the other point was that you don't need to be a massive city to have lots of rail lines. It's perfectly valid for us to consider a second line through downtown in the not so distant future, we don't have to be Toronto sized.

A second line? Yes? Through downtown? Doubtful. Tunneled? Even more doubtful. Everything else we end up doing will be BRT (like Baseline) or some kind of surface, in-median LRT.

Context matters too. Oslo maybe a tad bigger than us. But it's far more strategically important to Norway, than Ottawa is to Canada, or even Ontario. Oslo is Norway's biggest city. And it's not close. Bergen, the 2nd largest city in Norway, is a quarter of the size of the Oslo. Hence, there's far more likely to be major public infrastructure investment in Oslo than the smaller Norwegian cities. And that's on top of the reality that the Europeans fund a lot more rail investment than we do.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

A second line? Yes? Through downtown? Doubtful. Tunneled? Even more doubtful. Everything else we end up doing will be BRT (like Baseline) or some kind of surface, in-median LRT.

Context matters too. Oslo maybe a tad bigger than us. But it's far more strategically important to Norway, than Ottawa is to Canada, or even Ontario. Oslo is Norway's biggest city. And it's not close. Bergen, the 2nd largest city in Norway, is a quarter of the size of the Oslo. Hence, there's far more likely to be major public infrastructure investment in Oslo than the smaller Norwegian cities. And that's on top of the reality that the Europeans fund a lot more rail investment than we do.

You're advocating for the status quo, instead of the way things could be. By North American standards we're even too small for the system we're getting. Right now only very large 4 million+ cities get fully segregated metros (Vancouver is also below the typical size). I'm not saying it'll change overnight, but we shouldn't reject it out of hand just because "it's not the way it's done here"

[Kitchissippi]

See the full list of winning names, in no particular order:

O-Train Line 1 (Confederation Line)

The Canada Goose
Farley Mowat
Gord Downie
Inuksuk
John McCrae
Logdriver
Lord Stanley
Louis Riel
Majestic Moose
Odawa
Poppy
Emily Carr
Snowbird
Bluenose
Boreal
Jacques Cartier
Juno
Nathan Cirillo
Normandy
Samuel de Champlain
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Totem
Tundra
Wagosh • Fox
Acadia
Agnes Macphail
Amik • Beaver
Bertha Wilson
Billy Bishop
Eh-Train
Henrietta Edwards
Maple Taffy
The Mountie
George Brown

I'd say "Eh-Train" is as bad as Trainy McTrainface.

Personally, I wish they had just stuck with the indigenous names for animals with translation

[Uhuniau]

Yeah, they should have picked a theme for the train names, and stuck with it. This is a dog's breakfast of pandering.

[Kitchissippi]

Whenever I find myself in a packed train I'll be able to whinge about being witness to the Full Mountie.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Whenever I find myself in a packed train I'll be able to whinge about being witness to the Full Mountie.

And let's hope the first car to breakdown isn't the Agnes MacFAIL.

[OTSkyline]

What was the point of naming trains anyways? Will the name actually be listed on the it or plastered on the side of it?

"Oh man, I got to run, I need to catch the "Majestic Moose" at 3:45pm"