Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
1). The system was built backwards from every other transit system on earth (massive infrastructure in sparsely populated suburbs, no infrastructure in the city centre).
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I see this as a positive actually. They got those corridors for a song back then. And did nothing but put down some asphalt and a few overpasses. And all that infrastructure has rolled into the LRT. It's not like Ottawa's Transitway stations were grand in anyway. I don't see any indicators that Ottawa would have had as large an RT network if it had gone with LRT instead.
Most importantly, that suburban infrastructure is the very reason why transit modal share is so high in Ottawa compared to other similar jurisdictions. Ottawa was able to built a transit culture for its suburbs based on services like offering one-seat Express buses. And those services would not have been anywhere as attractive without the Transitway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
2). Because a bus tunnel is highly impractical because of ventilation and space requirements. When Bob Rae killed the tunnel project estimeates were already a billion in early 90s dollars.
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Right. And that's the 90s. If we're talking about the early 80s when the Transitway was built, there's even less of a case for any kind of tunnel through the core, when Ottawa was about the size of London, ON today.
An aside, if you want to see some of these debates live, look at London. They've debated LRT vs. BRT. They've debated a tunnel through their core. They've reached the same conclusions Ottawa did.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
To me the obvious proof of the mindnumbing stupidity of the transitway is that in the 40 or so years since it was conceived, nobody has built an Ottawa-style BRT. Meanwhile hundreds of surface LRTs, light metro systems and subways (plus the odd minimalist BRT) have been built all over the world.
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Except for all the BRTs popping up all over the developing world. Or the BRTs being built in North America, from the short TTC run between York U and Downsview, to VIVA's Hwy 7, to London's upcoming SHIFT plans.
The only major difference is corridor segregation. Ottawa has it. Many other jurisdictions don't. And the only reason Ottawa managed that was because it built early when the land was available for cheap and the cost to segregate was minimal. Where it was expensive, Ottawa didn't end with segregated exclusive ROWs (like the downtown core). This looks to me like more evidence that Ottawa's strategy paid off. In effect, Ottawa reserved those suburban ROWs for future LRTs and ran BRT on them till they could build LRT.
There are of course tradeoffs. As Uhuniau loves to point out.... The switch to a bus system benefited the suburbs far more than the core. Especially in a situation where the core was capacity limited by the lack of a tunnel. However, the upside was the incredible modal share for a city of this size. Imagine what traffic would be like if we had the same modal share as Calgary or Edmonton.
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