Chief William Commanda Bridge (former Prince of Wales Bridge)

[Ottawaresident]

Is this a geology lesson?

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Ottawaresident

Is this a geology lesson?

Good Day.

No..... a commentary on staying on, or getting back to, topic, when it drifts too far off. And that's a good thing.

As is quoting what you are replying to, for everybody's sake, so there is less of a mis-interpretation possible,
since threads can get very convoluted in conversations, especially when many commenters are replying to one another in a short time.

EnJoy!

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

As is quoting what you are replying to, for everybody's sake, so there is less of a mis-interpretation possible,
since threads can get very convoluted in conversations, especially when many commenters are replying to one another in a short time.

This times 100, ensuring the link to the original post is maintained.

You can carefully trim bits that are unrelated (like I did) or better yet highlight points you are commenting on to maintain context. Use of the [spoiler] tag can also be used to hide parts that are bulky (like pictures) while keeping them easily accessible to those wanting to see them.

I admit that editing on a mobile device is awkward, but it is important to be clear and not misrepresent anyone.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by White Pine

I would think twice about that. I wouldn't want to make a Byron-like situation where they "temporarily" get a park/whatever, and when the transit finally comes, launch a campaign to "save our park". Better to keep it ugly and useless IMO.

Bring the thread back onto topic . . .

I don't see this situation as similar to Byron Linear. The opposition to bringing that park back into use as a rail corridor isn't over the loss of the paths, but rather from home owners not wanting to face onto an LRT line. There are no homeowners living in the Ottawa River.

Furthermore, pedestrians and cyclists could be accommodated on a cantilever walk similar to Alexandra and the RapiBus bridges.

So, to sum up, the bridge should absolutely be used, in the interim, as a multi-use pathway corridor. If the city is going to pay to maintain it, it's best if it's used.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

So, to sum up, the bridge should absolutely be used, in the interim, as a multi-use pathway corridor. If the city is going to pay to maintain it, it's best if it's used.

That's an "interim" use that would become a permanent one: once you give into prettyism and bicyclism and turn a perfectly functional rail link into something else, it becomes instantly politically unpalatable to ever revert it to rail use.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

That's an "interim" use that would become a permanent one: once you give into prettyism and bicyclism and turn a perfectly functional rail link into something else, it becomes instantly politically unpalatable to ever revert it to rail use.

As I said, the two uses are not mutual exclusive. https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=4...Qw&focus=photo

Also it's not a functional rail link - the city would need to invest massive amounts of money to allow it carry a train again.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

As I said, the two uses are not mutual exclusive. https://www.mapillary.com/app/?lat=4...Qw&focus=photo

Also it's not a functional rail link - the city would need to invest massive amounts of money to allow it carry a train again.

If you turn it into a MUP or something, even on a temporary basis, the forces of prettyism will never allow it to even be retro-fitted for multiple purposes.

Once the rail function is gone, it is gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

If you turn it into a MUP or something, even on a temporary basis, the forces of prettyism will never allow it to even be retro-fitted for multiple purposes.

Once the rail function is gone, it is gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone.

It must be hard being so cynical.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

It must be hard being so cynical.

Actually he is telling the truth.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

It must be hard being so cynical.

Good Day.

Uhuniau and OtrainUser are correct. The GreenSpaces lobby and the NIMBYs grab onto -temporary- facilities like they are set in granite. This is one reason that both the City and developers virtually MUST have a new development plan for derelict lots and buildings that they can implement immediately upon demolition of the derelict buildings. And ETC. Examples :

The designated embassy lands that were a temporary park. As soon as the plans for the new American Embassy came up, with their security requirements and access restrictions, which is exactly what the lands were intended for, the GreenSpacers and NIMBYs screamed. Result : they 'won' , and we have the ongoing disaster of the current American embassy location, with all its jersey barriers, bollards, screw-ball bicycle lanes, and traffic chaos.

The clearly marked temporary park for the Phase 3 of the Constitution Towers downtown. They went through planning hell to get that construction delay for valid economic reasons, and still almost lost the plot to GreenSpacers. When the time came, they just dug it all up virtually overnight because they had to, and then just got on with Tower 3. Some reward they got for being community minded.

The clearly marked temporary park at the southeast corner of Rideau and Charlotte. The derelict buildings sat for some time while the owner and developer tried to come up with a new development for the lot acceptable to City Planning, and in the meantime they became a haven for drug hangouts and arson. Finally, City granted a demolition permit early to remove that problem, and the developer CLEARLY marked the interim parkette as owned, and temporary Then they went to put a small pre-sales trailer on the far east edge of the parkette, with the promise to extend the life of the parkette for two years, and the GreenSpacers screamed. Result: the developer had to go to injunction to enforce their rights, and immediately put up their pre-sales building (not a small trailer) in the center of the parkette. Some reward they got for being community minded.

The Byron rail RoW. Never released as anything but transit RoW. Slowly grew, by back-door trimming and use, as a linear park. City started maintaining it as such in spirit of community. Comes time for Phase 1 of LRT, in which it was to have been part of the RoW. SCREAMS. Hence a significant part of the delay of LRT as Phase 1 from Tunney's to Lincoln Fields into Phase 2 instead - costing us a more practicable Phase 1, and traffic chaos. Even in Phase 2 planning, they were still screaming, and has to be numbed and sliced into admitting that a cut-and-cover tunnel with openings was better than a full tunnel under Richmond Road. (My beef with that was - what about the very equal requests and rights of the Scott St. trench residents, which for those long-bus-fume-suffering residents have long been overridden and ignored on exactly the same points.)

And so on and so on and so on.

IE: the only way for your plan.... which in first blush is practicable and reasonable, and should have been done long ago, while the superstructure and piers were still in excellent shape, is to have a pedestrian walkway on one side and a bicycle path on the other side, balanced cantilevered across the bridge. Leaving the center to be reserved for rail RoW with NO argument, pushback, or screams from GreenSpacers, SpandexedSpeedDaemons, or the rest of the general public over the expanse and expense of it all (which would have been less if done long ago, and then maintained properly).

Sorry, but a RoW once lost to other purposes, uses, or interests, is just about gone forever without considerable TEMPR (time effort money people resources) which can be hard to gather together all too often.

NoJoy!

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Uhuniau and OtrainUser are correct. The GreenSpaces lobby and the NIMBYs grab onto -temporary- facilities like they are set in granite. This is one reason that both the City and developers virtually MUST have a new development plan for derelict lots and buildings that they can implement immediately upon demolition of the derelict buildings. And ETC. Examples :

The designated embassy lands that were a temporary park. As soon as the plans for the new American Embassy came up, with their security requirements and access restrictions, which is exactly what the lands were intended for, the GreenSpacers and NIMBYs screamed. Result : they 'won' , and we have the ongoing disaster of the current American embassy location, with all its jersey barriers, bollards, screw-ball bicycle lanes, and traffic chaos.

The clearly marked temporary park for the Phase 3 of the Constitution Towers downtown. They went through planning hell to get that construction delay for valid economic reasons, and still almost lost the plot to GreenSpacers. When the time came, they just dug it all up virtually overnight because they had to, and then just got on with Tower 3. Some reward they got for being community minded.

The clearly marked temporary park at the southeast corner of Rideau and Charlotte. The derelict buildings sat for some time while the owner and developer tried to come up with a new development for the lot acceptable to City Planning, and in the meantime they became a haven for drug hangouts and arson. Finally, City granted a demolition permit early to remove that problem, and the developer CLEARLY marked the interim parkette as owned, and temporary Then they went to put a small pre-sales trailer on the far east edge of the parkette, with the promise to extend the life of the parkette for two years, and the GreenSpacers screamed. Result: the developer had to go to injunction to enforce their rights, and immediately put up their pre-sales building (not a small trailer) in the center of the parkette. Some reward they got for being community minded.

The Byron rail RoW. Never released as anything but transit RoW. Slowly grew, by back-door trimming and use, as a linear park. City started maintaining it as such in spirit of community. Comes time for Phase 1 of LRT, in which it was to have been part of the RoW. SCREAMS. Hence a significant part of the delay of LRT as Phase 1 from Tunney's to Lincoln Fields into Phase 2 instead - costing us a more practicable Phase 1, and traffic chaos. Even in Phase 2 planning, they were still screaming, and has to be numbed and sliced into admitting that a cut-and-cover tunnel with openings was better than a full tunnel under Richmond Road. (My beef with that was - what about the very equal requests and rights of the Scott St. trench residents, which for those long-bus-fume-suffering residents have long been overridden and ignored on exactly the same points.)

And so on and so on and so on.

IE: the only way for your plan.... which in first blush is practicable and reasonable, and should have been done long ago, while the superstructure and piers were still in excellent shape, is to have a pedestrian walkway on one side and a bicycle path on the other side, balanced cantilevered across the bridge. Leaving the center to be reserved for rail RoW with NO argument, pushback, or screams from GreenSpacers, SpandexedSpeedDaemons, or the rest of the general public over the expanse and expense of it all (which would have been less if done long ago, and then maintained properly).

Sorry, but a RoW once lost to other purposes, uses, or interests, is just about gone forever without considerable TEMPR (time effort money people resources) which can be hard to gather together all too often.

NoJoy!

Well spoken! Can you imagine if we ever tried to re-use the former rail corridor from Bells Corners through to Stittsville? What about our walking trail? Scream, blather, etc, etc, etc.

[White Pine]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.


IE: the only way for your plan.... which in first blush is practicable and reasonable, and should have been done long ago, while the superstructure and piers were still in excellent shape, is to have a pedestrian walkway on one side and a bicycle path on the other side, balanced cantilevered across the bridge. Leaving the center to be reserved for rail RoW with NO argument, pushback, or screams from GreenSpacers, SpandexedSpeedDaemons, or the rest of the general public over the expanse and expense of it all (which would have been less if done long ago, and then maintained properly).

I agree with what you and the others are saying about temporary parks/trails/etc, but I'm just pointing out that this scenario was more or less what the other poster was arguing for.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Uhuniau and OtrainUser are correct. The GreenSpaces lobby and the NIMBYs grab onto -temporary- facilities like they are set in granite. .... NoJoy!

Sorry, this is an entirely different scenario.
1) There is no greenspace to protect
2) there are no neighbouring properties (like Byron Linear) where change to LRT would be perceived as having a negative impact.
3) there is a highly plausible way that it can be both. Examples being the RapiBus bridge. Additionally, the Moose (for whatever that's worth) proposal suggests exactly this - cantilevered paths, central rail corridor.

Anyways, given the City has done absolutely nothing with the bridge in over a decade other than neglect it, I doubt we will ever see anymore than trespassers crossing it. Extending OCTranspo across provides little advantage for riders, STO coming across would be better, but STO is years away from LRT yet. And an amalgamated transit group doesn't seem politically likely.

Best thing that could happen right now, if we want to see that bridge used for rail in the future, is get it designated heritage and provide any use on it that embeds it as a social asset.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Well spoken! Can you imagine if we ever tried to re-use the former rail corridor from Bells Corners through to Stittsville? What about our walking trail? Scream, blather, etc, etc, etc.

If it hadn't been turned into a recreational corridor it would have been sold to (or absorbed by) adjacent property owners - just like all those back alleys in Ottawa that could have been useful for resolving parking access issues on infill housing.

The Wakefield rail was in danger of the same thing until it turned over to recreational corridor. There's a lot of cottage owners who would benefit from slowly assuming an unused right of way that's runs between their cottages and the water front.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

Sorry, this is an entirely different scenario.
1) There is no greenspace to protect
2) there are no neighbouring properties (like Byron Linear) where change to LRT would be perceived as having a negative impact.
3) there is a highly plausible way that it can be both. Examples being the RapiBus bridge. Additionally, the Moose (for whatever that's worth) proposal suggests exactly this - cantilevered paths, central rail corridor.

Anyways, given the City has done absolutely nothing with the bridge in over a decade other than neglect it, I doubt we will ever see anymore than trespassers crossing it. Extending OCTranspo across provides little advantage for riders, STO coming across would be better, but STO is years away from LRT yet. And an amalgamated transit group doesn't seem politically likely.

Best thing that could happen right now, if we want to see that bridge used for rail in the future, is get it designated heritage and provide any use on it that embeds it as a social asset.

Good Day.

As to scenario.... not really. You asked why, in terms of Uhuniau' s attitude and opinion, and by extension some others' , including lrt's friend and mine.
I explained why, with reference and background to well known incidents. There are many others. That they do not - directly and exclusively - apply to the PoW is not the point.... more generically, the proprietary expropriation and resultant exclusivity of lost RoW (in many and several forms of property and Right-of-Use) to other purposes is the point, and has been expressed by all of the groups I have mentioned before. The fact that they are or are not neighbouring is irrelevant to many and several of them, and in this discussion, to us, since these groups express themselves City-wide.
Your point of using the bridge for pedpath and Bikeway has been suggested before, but notably... within the RoW of the rails, not cantilevered additions. Not that is until the suggestions of replacing the rail RoW with bus TransitWay RoW, as the Rapibus has done....but they replaced the rails in the bridgework and approaches paving, and added cantilevers, all to expressly retain the rail RoW for the future. You had not made that clear until you added the link photo of the cantilever concept, and even then did not really spell it out.
mOOse was not the first to propose this either, and their proposals have other problems than this, and is well-discussed in another thread.
My commentary came back to this point, as emphasis that we should not simply loose RoW without a proper debate and conscious decision about the fate of the link.
That the City has not done anything at all with the PoW is absolutely a sore point with us all. It has been an unconscionable demolition-by-neglect attitude, and should not be allowed to continue. That the City is actually proposing to spend a few bucks on the piers in this budget is -amazing- .
There are definitely ways that either OC-T or STO can make more proper LRT use of the PoW, and it must be reserved to do so (IMO). But getting it designated Heritage would be disastrous to really doing anything proper and sound in terms of double-tracking, cantilevers, or almost anything at all. Designation, as most property owners would tell you, freezes them from any but the most highly expensive moves to even maintain, let alone improve a building or property. IMO, a non-starter.

To me, sounds like we agree on the overall, but details catch us, and we will have to agree to disagree.
Thx.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

But getting it designated Heritage would be disastrous

But would prevent the city from completing the demolition by neglect (and selling the bridge for scrap). I've worked on enough heritage projects to know the end goal of re-use of a heritage asset provides a certain degree of latitude as to alterations.

Designation is not a ideal path, and would add complication in approvals, but it would freeze the city's option of letting it decay and tearing it down.

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

To me, sounds like we agree on the overall, but details catch us, and we will have to agree to disagree.
Thx.

I think that's fair. I'd love to see transit running over that bridge (as would I love to see LRT going across the Alexandra).

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

Sorry, this is an entirely different scenario.
1) There is no greenspace to protect

It may not be green in terms of there being grass and trees, but it is an isolated location. If opened as a trail, people will enjoy the peacefulness of being in the middle of the river without requiring the use of a boat. Having trains travel across the bridge again would disturb that peace and it can be assured that some would fight that. The irony is those same people may also fight for a parking lot to be built at either end of the bridge.

[J.OT13]

Heritage designation does nothing to protect a structure. We've seen it with Somerset House, Magee House the Daly building and countless others.

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Uhuniau and OtrainUser are correct. The GreenSpaces lobby and the NIMBYs grab onto -temporary- facilities like they are set in granite. This is one reason that both the City and developers virtually MUST have a new development plan for derelict lots and buildings that they can implement immediately upon demolition of the derelict buildings. And ETC. Examples :

I understand what PHrenetic is saying. Same thing happened with the Daly building site. Though I don't think it applies as much for the PoW as it is not an integral part of any community like any of the other examples. If we were to have an MUP through the rail right of way, they would have to build the cantilevered extension for a new MUP before moving to replace with new rails in order to avoid any shut-downs if possible.

Going through the list of GreenSpacer/NIMBY occurrences:

I was to young for the American Embassy debate but remember the park and parking from old aerial photographs. Quick questions, how did the GreenSpacers and NIMBY's "win"?

Constitution Square. I agree it is pretty ridiculous that people expected the park to stay (again to young to remember the park and debate). The CBD does lack proper park space however, and the City should address that in the near future. Hoping they can carve out a large portion of any future PdV III project for park space in exchange for a little more height if at all possible or exemption from building fees.

Charlotte and Rideau, again no excuse for the opposition. This is actually quite recent too. When they demolished the old buildings, they initially had nothing but crushed stone on the lot. If I'm not mistaken, it was the community who wanted a temporary park. When Richcraft agreed and subsequently applied at the City, some members of committee/council brought up the fact that if we make it a park, people will expect it to stay that way. The question is, are neighbors opposed to the development or the height/density which I'm assuming doesn't match the zoning?

On to the Byron Linear Park, I think the nearby residents have the upper hand on this one. The park had been a park for about 50 years before the City started musing about ripping it out for the Confederation Line. It wasn't temporary, it was an official park. Even when planning the Transitway, the Region was looking into a bus tunnel under the park. It is and has been for decades, an integral part of the community. I understand why there is opposition against the cut-and-cover tunnel through the park today. It will be extremely disruptive to the area for a few years. It is worth noting that voices have calmed down. People seem to understand that this is for the greater good. No doubt screams of opposition will return with construction, but we should be a little more empathetic on this one.

As for the Scott Street trench. It started life as a surface CP right of way before the City built the trench. The trench was better than buses running on the surface. There was no in-between as far as I know. That said, I agree it is a little "unfair" that McKellar Park gets a tunnel while Scott is stuck with this trench dividing neighborhoods. Now that we will have electric rail through the trench, I believe we should be looking at possibly covering parts of the trench bit-by-bit. Use the Ward's park budget, allocate some of the development charges of nearby developments, request funds for community improvements towards the new park from developers who ask for more height. Within 20 years, it could be fully covered for maybe a few million a year.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Uhuniau and OtrainUser are correct. The GreenSpaces lobby and the NIMBYs grab onto -temporary- facilities like they are set in granite. This is one reason that both the City and developers virtually MUST have a new development plan for derelict lots and buildings that they can implement immediately upon demolition of the derelict buildings.

This is why I HEART whichever developer it is knocked down the older, derelict building across Rideau Street from Waller House, and rather than let it sit as fallow gravel, turned it into a temporary park with a sign calling itself exactly that: Temporary Park.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by dougvdh

If it hadn't been turned into a recreational corridor it would have been sold to (or absorbed by) adjacent property owners - just like all those back alleys in Ottawa that could have been useful for resolving parking access issues on infill housing.

The Wakefield rail was in danger of the same thing until it turned over to recreational corridor. There's a lot of cottage owners who would benefit from slowly assuming an unused right of way that's runs between their cottages and the water front.

You can't slowly assume it unless the public authority lets you, tacitly or otherwise. There are solutions to such "assumption".

I still think the city should have stuck it to the back-lane appropriators.