Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Have you heard of Google?

He probably has... but just finds it more entertaining to reopen every single thread with long answered questions.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by JohnnyRenton

I am curious as to what problems with Ottawa's transit system you see having been caused by the federal government?

Building the queensway which caused sprawl in the first place and the greenbelt which forced the sprawl further out making transit more expensive for starters.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

Building the queensway which caused sprawl in the first place and the greenbelt which forced the sprawl further out making transit more expensive for starters.

Both fall under the Greber Plan. It's biggest flaw was the assumption that Ottawa would only ever be a government town and as such, the region as a whole would never grow beyond a population of 800,000. The Greenbelt was actually intended to prevent sprawl by confining the city within it.

Obviously Greber was wrong and we have grown well beyond that and thus sprawl has extended beyond the Greenbelt, making the transportation issues it was intended to prevent, even worse.

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Exactly! AFAIK, Ottawa didn't run multiple car trains on its streetcar lines, so buses had a similar capacity to the streetcars they replaced.

With the Confederation Line, each train (with one driver) will probably replace an average of 8 buses with 8 drivers (or more if 40' used). So that is a reduction of 7 drivers for every train. With 15 trains in operation, that is a reduction of 105 drivers. Assuming each driver costs $100,000 a year in salary and benefits (a guess on my part, and probably a low ball estimate), That is over $10 million per year in savings in employment costs alone (ignoring all other savings and savings resulting from growth).

Don't forget the cost savings from not having to plow, salt and repave the busway.

[Gat-Train]

How much more would it have cost to build a light metro with high-floor rolling stock? This would have been better than either a bus tunnel or LRT IMO, as it opens up the possibility of interlining with the Trillium Line without having to scrap the FLIRTs and rebuild the platforms.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

How much more would it have cost to build a light metro with high-floor rolling stock? This would have been better than either a bus tunnel or LRT IMO, as it opens up the possibility of interlining with the Trillium Line without having to scrap the FLIRTs and rebuild the platforms.

The tunnel would have needed to be dug wider to accommodate larger trains, or possibly even two tunnels would need to be dug. They could have chosen fairly narrow metro vehicles to avoid the double tunnel problem (like the Montreal subway, but on steel wheels) but that would still/also create problems with interlining. Generally, the trains themselves would have cost the same.

Even then, it wouldn't really help the interlining problem. The best type of rolling stock for the Confederation Line would be an actual metro train (think something like the Toronto Subway) which still isn't compatible with the type of heavy rail used on the Trillium Line, both for regulatory reasons but also train width/platform levels, etc.
If they had gone with the narrow body trains like I mentioned above, that would also make interlining complicated because a narrow metro train is certainly narrower than a LINT or a FLIRT.

[lrt's friend]

Interlining is out of the question with trains that are not built to the same specifications. FLIRT trains will never run through the downtown tunnel, even if they were electrically powered.

We could never have operated with Toronto or Montreal style subways powered by a third rail. Our trains have to be powered overhead because too much of the track is exposed to the elements. If we think we might have trouble because the trains are not designed to clear snow from the tracks, think of the bigger trouble we would have with third rail operations being buried in snow and ice.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Interlining is out of the question with trains that are not built to the same specifications. FLIRT trains will never run through the downtown tunnel, even if they were electrically powered.

We could never have operated with Toronto or Montreal style subways powered by a third rail. Our trains have to be powered overhead because too much of the track is exposed to the elements. If we think we might have trouble because the trains are not designed to clear snow from the tracks, think of the bigger trouble we would have with third rail operations being buried in snow and ice.

I mean, it's not like a metro-style train body can't work with a pantograph...

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Both fall under the Greber Plan. It's biggest flaw was the assumption that Ottawa would only ever be a government town and as such, the region as a whole would never grow beyond a population of 800,000. The Greenbelt was actually intended to prevent sprawl by confining the city within it.

Obviously Greber was wrong and we have grown well beyond that and thus sprawl has extended beyond the Greenbelt, making the transportation issues it was intended to prevent, even worse.

IMO Greber was an idiot. He was too shortsighted to see beyond car use and now the city has to spend billions to fix that nonsense.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

IMO Greber was an idiot. He was too shortsighted to see beyond car use and now the city has to spend billions to fix that nonsense.

One could also say we are the idiots for buying into the car-dependent lifestyle

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I mean, it's not like a metro-style train body can't work with a pantograph...

In hindsight, a metro style train with a pantograph is what we should have gone with, but the original idea was to run at grade out in places like Kanata, where low floor made more sense. We all know that idea has gone out the window, but at the time they were designing phase 1 it was still a definite possibility

To be honest, it still makes sense, the viaduct out by the CTC they are planning is a silly waste of money. Running at grade with railway style crossings would save a lot of money beyond the greenbelt, and the frequencies on those outer branches don't really justify the "full metro" treatment

[J.OT13]

The automated system might be an issue if we were to run it at grade. That said, why propose fully automated with low-floor vehicles?

As for the bus vs train tunnel debate, it seems to me the bus tunnel would have made a lot of sense 30 years ago when originally discussed, but at the point we are now, a train tunnel makes more sense. Yes we could have run buses in the tunnel and Albert/Slater, but part of the point was to clear the streets for a more walkable/cyclable design and better all-around environment.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

In hindsight, a metro style train with a pantograph is what we should have gone with, but the original idea was to run at grade out in places like Kanata, where low floor made more sense. We all know that idea has gone out the window, but at the time they were designing phase 1 it was still a definite possibility

To be honest, it still makes sense, the viaduct out by the CTC they are planning is a silly waste of money. Running at grade with railway style crossings would save a lot of money beyond the greenbelt, and the frequencies on those outer branches don't really justify the "full metro" treatment

As long as the trains had absolute priority with gates, it could have worked. In the inner areas, where train frequency was going to be very high, full grade separation is needed.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The automated system might be an issue if we were to run it at grade. That said, why propose fully automated with low-floor vehicles

You could run with ATO off in the far sections, the much lower frequency means you don't need the tight spacing ATO allows and we could spend less on signalling. We're paying for the drivers anyway, might as well use them. I can't see us ever needing 120 second frequencies in far off Kanata within the 30 year lifespan of the current vehicles. Beyond that our signalling system will be antiquated anyway. The system would switch to ATO where the branches join. This is exactly how the Crosstown will work in Toronto, but it won't have priority at level crossings

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Both fall under the Greber Plan. It's biggest flaw was the assumption that Ottawa would only ever be a government town and as such, the region as a whole would never grow beyond a population of 800,000. The Greenbelt was actually intended to prevent sprawl by confining the city within it.

Obviously Greber was wrong and we have grown well beyond that and thus sprawl has extended beyond the Greenbelt, making the transportation issues it was intended to prevent, even worse.

The Greenbelt and Gerber plan would have been fantastic if they actually had teeth to it. You can’t slap on a Greenbelt without tolls and expect that sprawl won’t leapfrog.

[lrt's friend]

Has the City of Ottawa (or any city) ever planned for a 70 year window? We aren't today. The world has changed a whole lot since 1948.

[OCCheetos]

Trains are receiving logos and name decals this week.
https://twitter.com/JimWatsonOttawa/status/1110673774528155648?s=19

[Mikeed]

For the record:

The selected LRT train names:

Trillium Line train cars

Nanuq • Polar Bear
Northern Lights
Rocket Richard
Dreamcatcher
Emily Murphy
Portage
Confederation Line train cars

The 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

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Has the City of Ottawa (or any city) ever planned for a 70 year window? We aren't today. The world has changed a whole lot since 1948.

No, but the Greber plan had failed in a lot less time than that.

Ironically Holt would have stood the test of time a lot better.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

IMO Greber was an idiot. He was too shortsighted to see beyond car use and now the city has to spend billions to fix that nonsense.

While I disagree with Greber's ideas, he didn't have the advantage of hindsight. It may seem obvious today, but back then we had no idea about global warming or sustainability issues.

I think the big factor Greber didn't forecast was Ottawa becoming a tech hub. Without that, I suspect Ottawa-Gatineau's CMA population would still be under 800,000.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

The Greenbelt and Gerber plan would have been fantastic if they actually had teeth to it. You can’t slap on a Greenbelt without tolls and expect that sprawl won’t leapfrog.

That would certainly have been one solution, though you don't necessarily want to toll tourists visiting Ottawa. Another option would have been to put the entire National Capital Region under an independent district (including areas outside of the Greenbelt) and then limit the development to within the Greenbelt. Unfortunately that ship sailed long ago.