Rural Commuter Rail

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

That's based on a conventional business case, not MOOSE's. If you want to criticize MOOSE then at least criticize their actual business plan.

There is no actual business plan, there are a bunch of vague statements, talk about the need for a feasibility study and a bunch of buzzwords. And of course all of the vexatious litigation.

If he ever wants to write a business plan there are lots of helpful links here.

https://canadabusiness.ca/business-planning/sample-business-plans-and-templates/

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There is no actual business plan, there are a bunch of vague statements, talk about the need for a feasibility study and a bunch of buzzwords. And of course all of the vexatious litigation.

Well, it may have not started out exactly with this intent, but I suspect the current MOOSE 'business plan' goes something like this:

Phase 1: Make unsubstantiated claims that you can create a viable enterprise.
Phase 2: Blame everyone else when that enterprise fails.
Phase 3: Seek 'compensation' through litigation.

Recent correspondence has already been setting the groundwork for Phase 3: (link para 6.4)

"The companies of MOOSE Consortium have lost time and money because of the uncertainty, delay and enormous amount of unwarranted effort demanded by the City of Ottawa’s persistent noncompliance and vigorous legal resistance to federal regulatory authority in relation to the “Chaudière Extension” inter-provincial railway connection. We note that under the "Transportation Modernization Act" (May 2018), Section 116(4) (c. 1) of the Canada Transportation Act now provides for the Agency to order a railway company “to compensate any person adversely affected for any expenses that they incurred as a result of the company’s failure to fulfil its service obligations”."

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

That's based on a conventional business case, not MOOSE's. If you want to criticize MOOSE then at least criticize their actual business plan.


The cost of upgrading signals and tracks is accounted for in MOOSE's estimates. How often the city closes the Trillium Line is irrelevant. It only becomes relevant if/when MOOSE decides to upgrade their tracks beyond their initial upgrades, and even then there are far fewer constraints for MOOSE to need to work around meaning that closures may not even be necessary in a lot of cases.

I have criticized their business plan. Cities like Alexandria that have 4000 people are not big enough to support a train service or anything that MOOSE proposes so they have no business case.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Charles5

Well, it may have not started out exactly with this intent, but I suspect the current MOOSE 'business plan' goes something like this:

Phase 1: Make unsubstantiated claims that you can create a viable enterprise.
Phase 2: Blame everyone else when that enterprise fails.
Phase 3: Seek 'compensation' through litigation.

So Eugene Melnyk’s business plan.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

I have criticized their business plan. Cities like Alexandria that have 4000 people are not big enough to support a train service or anything that MOOSE proposes so they have no business case.

You’re forgetting that tens of thousands of households are going to abandon urban and suburban living to live in a high density subdivision 90 minutes from Ottawa, because of ... reasons.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by acottawa

You’re forgetting that tens of thousands of households are going to abandon urban and suburban living to live in a high density subdivision 90 minutes from Ottawa, because of ... reasons.

Based on present population patterns of people living in more urban environments and living closer to their workplaces, no one is going to want to travel a total of 3 hrs a day by train to work. I know people like me will never do that since it makes no sense.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

You’re forgetting that tens of thousands of households are going to abandon urban and suburban living to live in a high density subdivision 90 minutes from Ottawa, because of ... reasons.

90 minutes? Maybe not. 60 mins? Maybe. Which is exactly why rural commuter rail is a dangerous proposal that pushes sprawl.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Many times, it has been suggested that we use existing rail, in a manner similar to how we started the O-Train. It does not have to be expensive project just as the original O-Train was not. No fancy million dollar stations, just some shelters.

The O-Train Corridor was in far better shape than most of what we're talking about here.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The O-Train did not serve downtown or the downtown market.

And ridership is low as a result. Which is fine for what was spent. But that's not going to be true for what's being proposed here.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

That is for the Confederation Line in the near future. But, this city has decentralized and continues to decentralize and the Confederation Line does not serve that well.

There's zero evidence the city is decentralizing. Downtown is developing quite well. Especially the commercial sector. Jobs aren't moving out to the burbs.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

So, we start small just like we did with the original O-Train. Provide those connections, that existing transit does not do well. Provide service like we did with the original O-Train, every 15 minutes. Enough, that many people will find it convenient, but without the need of full double tracking. Keep it relatively bare bones, so costs don't escalate out of control.

Again. You ignore the opportunity cost of funds needed to be spent on something like this. Let's say its costs even $100 million to build and a few million to run annually. What are you willing to give up in exchange for this? Or even more poignantly, which other neighbourhood should suffer so that far out suburban and exurban residents benefit.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The O-Train Corridor was in far better shape than most of what we're talking about here.

I think a lot of the more important corridors that could be considered are even still in better shape than the O-Train corridor was. Even then, it's not like no work went into rehabilitating that corridor for the pilot.

Take the corridor out towards Kanata for instance: the track is largely CWR and is even listed as class II (not usable for any kind of service, but an indication of its condition), also almost entirely grade separate. In my mind, that corridor would be ideal as consideration for another pilot.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

90 minutes? Maybe not. 60 mins? Maybe. Which is exactly why rural commuter rail is a dangerous proposal that pushes sprawl.

It is hard to estimate for imagination land. But Via service to Smith Falls is about an hour. Add another 15 minutes for stops, a gong show on the Trillium line and an OCTranspo ride and you’re pushing 90 minutes. He has a pretty small capital budget, so we’re not taking about major track or rolling stock upgrades.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's zero evidence the city is decentralizing. Downtown is developing quite well. Especially the commercial sector. Jobs aren't moving out to the burbs.

.

I guess it depends what you define as burbs. The federal government has moved a lot of jobs further out over the last decade (CSC, DND, CBSA, RCMP, Public Service Commission). They have really only built three government buildings downtown over the last 20 years (EDC, Finance, PS).

[CityTech]

Private sector employment growth is pretty strongly oriented to downtown these days. Downtown is definitely outpacing Kanata for new tech jobs the past few years.

[Allandale25]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

@Allandale25 Try answering the question. "At what level of regional population do YOU think regional rail should be put in place here? And by that time, after "x" more years of government-funded destruction of the existing railway connections, how do you imagine that might be accomplished?"

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

Try answering the question? Man, you're passive aggressive. Really instills a lot of confidence.

But I actually did answer your question. I said you're making an applies to oranges comparison. In other words, building a robust transit network that actually benefits commuters is a lot more complex than looking at one aggregate population number of an entire region. By the way, like it or not this is one of your biggest challenges: https://twitter.com/StuntmanStu/status/1066793477709664256

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I guess it depends what you define as burbs. The federal government has moved a lot of jobs further out over the last decade (CSC, DND, CBSA, RCMP, Public Service Commission). They have really only built three government buildings downtown over the last 20 years (EDC, Finance, PS).

There has been a lot of construction in the downtown area but most of it has been residential. When the Cathedral hill project was being planned, there was to be an office component but there was no demand so it was converted to more condos. There are other projects facing the same situation. Isn't that also the case with the proposal on Lyon Street?

I don't see a lot of employment growth downtown, so where are people working in a growing city? It seems obvious to me, that the growth is in the suburbs. Increasing road congestion in the suburbs is also telling me this.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I think a lot of the more important corridors that could be considered are even still in better shape than the O-Train corridor was. Even then, it's not like no work went into rehabilitating that corridor for the pilot.

Take the corridor out towards Kanata for instance: the track is largely CWR and is even listed as class II (not usable for any kind of service, but an indication of its condition), also almost entirely grade separate. In my mind, that corridor would be ideal as consideration for another pilot.

Again. You keep talking about what track is available and not how much it would cost, how much ridership would be generated, and the opportunity cost of that spending. We don’t launch commuter rail service on every piece of rail sitting on a wooden tie somewhere.

Again, I ask, what are people willing to give up for this if trade offs have to be made. You willing to get bus service in your neighbourhood cut? You willing to put up with a shortening of Trillium Line extensions or delays to Confederation Stage 3?

Investment decisions often involve trade-offs like these. And I appreciate that Ottawa is being smart by targeting high ridership corridors first. Put it this way, whether it’s $10 million or $100 million, I’d rather see that money go towards bolstering the Trillium Line. $100 million would let us double track half of today’s Trillium Line. How much would that improve service? Would you rather have that or a literal handful of trains a day to Smiths’ Falls?

Originally Posted by acottawa

I guess it depends what you define as burbs. The federal government has moved a lot of jobs further out over the last decade (CSC, DND, CBSA, RCMP, Public Service Commission). They have really only built three government buildings downtown over the last 20 years (EDC, Finance, PS).

A lot of that is consolidation from suburb to suburb though. I know that’s true on the DND side. DND isn’t abandoning downtown. By they are consolidating several buildings all over the city, some downtown, some not, into fewer larger campuses (Carling is 5 large campuses and a few satellite locations).

Also it’s not like buildings the feds vacate in the core are sitting vacant.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Allandale25

Try answering the question? Man, you're passive aggressive. Really instills a lot of confidence.

But I actually did answer your question. I said you're making an applies to oranges comparison. In other words, building a robust transit network that actually benefits commuters is a lot more complex than looking at one aggregate population number of an entire region. By the way, like it or not this is one of your biggest challenges: https://twitter.com/StuntmanStu/status/1066793477709664256

Heck, the way things are going, his bigger challenge is going to be a fully autonomous Tesla by the time he actually has enough for that feasibility study.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

A lot of that is consolidation from suburb to suburb though. I know that’s true on the DND side. DND isn’t abandoning downtown. By they are consolidating several buildings all over the city, some downtown, some not, into fewer larger campuses (Carling is 5 large campuses and a few satellite locations).

Also it’s not like buildings the feds vacate in the core are sitting vacant.

Some of it is suburb-to-suburb, but even in those cases the new location is much further out from the old location. And I think the feds are sitting on a bunch of empty offices, which may be renovation related.

[Kitchissippi]

They're also packing more people in the same space. Cubicles have become significantly smaller in the last 10 years as office equipment and physical storage requirements have shrunk. So although it seems not a lot of office towers have been built, there's quite a lot of people commuting to the core.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There has been a lot of construction in the downtown area but most of it has been residential. When the Cathedral hill project was being planned, there was to be an office component but there was no demand so it was converted to more condos. There are other projects facing the same situation. Isn't that also the case with the proposal on Lyon Street?

I don't see a lot of employment growth downtown, so where are people working in a growing city? It seems obvious to me, that the growth is in the suburbs. Increasing road congestion in the suburbs is also telling me this.

There is plenty of employment growth in the downtown core, but that hasn't translated into demand for new commercial projects just yet because there's a lot of vacancies from the federal government implementing Workplace 2.0 and a most of the employment growth is in software companies which tend to use much less square footage per employee than other white collar sectors.

I don't think we actually have numbers more frequent than the census that can be used to determine location of employment in the city, but I'd be willing to bet pretty heavily that over the past 4 years, private sector employment has been growing faster in the downtown core than in the city as a whole. I don't know if this significant enough to cancel out the effects of the DND move, though.

Within the private sector the trend is actually centralization, not decentralization. Telesat is abandoning their Gloucester campus for new digs downtown, for example. This is in keeping with the norm across the continent; in Toronto, the downtown core is dramatically outpacing the 905s for office growth for the first time in decades. Microsoft is the latest example; they're abandoning a large campus in Mississauga in exchange for a huge new office on King Street.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Some of it is suburb-to-suburb, but even in those cases the new location is much further out from the old location. And I think the feds are sitting on a bunch of empty offices, which may be renovation related.

Sure. But that's not what we are discussing here. As a driver of transit, there's still more employment concentrated in the core. And that's where the growth is. The feds being opportunistic on a nice commercial real estate market doesn't change that.

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

They're also packing more people in the same space. Cubicles have become significantly smaller in the last 10 years as office equipment and physical storage requirements have shrunk. So although it seems not a lot of office towers have been built, there's quite a lot of people commuting to the core.

You also don't need as much space, if you have flexible working arrangements and you can share workspaces. As is increasingly common in the tech world.

Originally Posted by CityTech

There is plenty of employment growth in the downtown core, but that hasn't translated into demand for new commercial projects just yet because there's a lot of vacancies from the federal government implementing Workplace 2.0 and a most of the employment growth is in software companies which tend to use much less square footage per employee than other white collar sectors.

I don't think we actually have numbers more frequent than the census that can be used to determine location of employment in the city, but I'd be willing to bet pretty heavily that over the past 4 years, private sector employment has been growing faster in the downtown core than in the city as a whole. I don't know if this significant enough to cancel out the effects of the DND move, though.

I don't get why people think there's some massive move from DND out of the downtown core. Three buildings were effectively shuttered or will be from DND. The Constitution Building, West Memorial and Cumberland. The rest of it are one-off downtown offices (a floor or two here or there). NDHQ will remain where it is and is not seeing a reduction in the number of people who work there. Just a change in which organizations work there.

Originally Posted by CityTech

Within the private sector the trend is actually centralization, not decentralization. Telesat is abandoning their Gloucester campus for new digs downtown, for example. This is in keeping with the norm across the continent; in Toronto, the downtown core is dramatically outpacing the 905s for office growth for the first time in decades. Microsoft is the latest example; they're abandoning a large campus in Mississauga in exchange for a huge new office on King Street.

Yep. I don't get where the idea that industry is decentralizing comes from. I've seen it in my time here in the US too. Companies are rushing to gobble up urban land. Google, for example, is building a massive campus in downtown San Jose right behind a high speed rail station. Tech companies in particular want to be at locations that are easily accessible by transit. And that usually means in the downtown core. Creates more of a radius for housing options for potential employees. And gives them an excuse not to provide parking. And is a better fit for urban-centric millennials (target employment age cohort for tech).