Rural Commuter Rail

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I would agree with that. However, as I said earlier in this thread, local politics favours adding rail services to outlying suburbs. There have been 4 additions added by politicians to "phase 2" in the last 5 years (PdO, Bayshore, Trim and Moodie) before phase one is even complete. They are chomping at the bit to announce extensions to Kanata and Stittsville. In this context, in my view, adding another $2 billion extension to a milkrun LRT that has already been over-extended (in theory anyway, all of phase 2 is still just a political talking point) beyond the suitability of the technology and the design of the route makes little sense.

Realistically, we're talking Stage 3 here. There's no way more extensions will come on to Stage 2.

At that point, while they've only looked at Kanata for that extension, you can bet when that plan becomes more public, Barrhaven is going to be asking what the heck is going on. As will South Keys and Riverside, when they find out that the Trillium Line upgrades aren't all that they are cracked up to be. I would bet money that the LRT will go to Fallowfield, before it goes past Terry Fox. So I wouldn't be too worried about the money being blown on LRT to Hazeldean quite yet.

As long as Kanata and Stittsville are in one riding, there's far less payoff in going to Hazeldean in Stage 3. Better to go to Terry Fox in the West and Fallowfield in the Southwest. Helps two MPs and MPPs.

Originally Posted by acottawa

I was looking for a section of the GO network that isn't used as a milk run and doesn't have major freight conflicts. Perhaps you could explain what factors of Kanata, the Greenbelt, Nepean and the South End would make it difficult to travel at reasonable speeds. These are empty fields or postwar suburbs.

The biggest factor in average operating speeds is stop spacing. There's no way you'll ever get 10km stop spacing in Ottawa. And if you did that, ridership would be 🞵🞵🞵🞵, because you'd be relying on just 2 stop for riders. So the 80 kph average is just not logical in my books.