Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[acottawa]

There are people who live somewhere that once made sense commuting wise and now find relocation impractical.

There are also people that completely ignored the commute in their housing decisions and now want taxpayers to bail them out of their poor life choices. I am less sympathetic to that group.

[Vixx]

I don't have much sympathy for people who work in downtown and commute from Stittsville or Orleans and constantly bitch about their commutes but at the same token, it's pretty hard nowadays for people on a $70,000 government salary with not much room for career growth to be able to afford housing close to work suitable to their lives who have families.

For $480,000 you can get a new (albeit relatively small) home with a yard and quiet street in Barrhaven. How much is that going to get you in Centre town or the Glebe that's not a condo?

A professor I had in university who I still keep in touch with owns a detached home in Centretown that he has lived in for over 40 years. He noted back in the day many families would buy up property in the area and spend many years at the homes purchased. Nowadays very few families can afford the area and the ones that can are pretty well off. It's mostly students or young, single professionals who stay for 5 years max then move to the suburbs once they settle and start a family.

The greenbelt only adds commute times for those who have no choice but to settle in places like Barrhaven, but the onus is ultimately on them for choosing to live there and working far away. I wish people who know in advance the commute times would bitch less and start owning up to their choices.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Exactly. And this is why I think the downtown centric planning obsession of this board is somewhat flawed. Not everybody works or lives downtown. And we should be aiming for a transit system that can get someone from a home in Orleans to a desk in Kanata in an hour or a home in Barrhaven to a cubicle in Gatineau in an hour. And I do mean an hour from the time they walk out the front door to them setting down their lunch pail at their desk. This should be the goal. The city would be far more livable and see far less car use if we achieved this.

It's not just the outer burbs. The inner suburbs (Vanier) are terrible too. It's pathetic that it takes 45 mins to trundle down Montreal and Rideau from say Beacon Hill to Rideau Centre. I get the frustration of folks Uhuniau (though I'm perhaps less inclined to completely dismiss suburban concerns).

Ease of mobility to and from jobs across a metro area is actually essential for economic prosperity. I understand favouring certain modes but the idea of placing real or even virtual barriers to mobility is just strange.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

hmm... I see. So since my company moved from near downtown to Kanata... I'm supposed to a) Move to Kanata or b) Find a new job or c) Spend 45-60 minutes on buses rather than 16 minutes in a car.

Please advise.

I was put in that exact position so I switched jobs.

[Gat-Train]

The issue isn't so much the greenbelt, but rather how far the city limits are. IMO, it should be a goal to actually reign in sprawl. If the city were more compact, then people don't have to travel as far.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

The issue isn't so much the greenbelt, but rather how far the city limits are. IMO, it should be a goal to actually reign in sprawl. If the city were more compact, then people don't have to travel as far.

Yep. The fact that people are now moving to Carp and Cumberland and moving right past Stittsville and Orleans, in the ever continuous drive for large and cheap homes is crazy. This city will choke on traffic in a decade if there isn't a serious attempt made to rein in sprawl.

I am most interested to see if the Confederation Line changes the calculus of home buying. They say rail lines are taken more seriously that busways. It'll be curious to see if home buyers start considering their distance from the line over time.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by harls

I also have two kids to bring to school and to pick up at a certain time as per my 'service de garde' contract, lest I be dinged with a fine.

Daycare rules in this city absolutely blow my mind. My kid is in a daycare which closes at 5pm. How does that make sense? We're looking for a new one.

I've never been anywhere that daycares aren't open from 730am to 6pm to cover all the core hours that parents have to work. Practices in this town are absolutely bizarre.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Daycare rules in this city absolutely blow my mind. My kid is in a daycare which closes at 5pm. How does that make sense? We're looking for a new one.

I've never been anywhere that daycares aren't open from 730am to 6pm to cover all the core hours that parents have to work. Practices in this town are absolutely bizarre.

That's rough, my daycare does 6.

I'm guess I'm different than most in that working farther away moved me to public transit. I switched jobs from a place in the burbs to downtown, and now I bus instead of drive.

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Daycare rules in this city absolutely blow my mind. My kid is in a daycare which closes at 5pm. How does that make sense? We're looking for a new one.

I've never been anywhere that daycares aren't open from 730am to 6pm to cover all the core hours that parents have to work. Practices in this town are absolutely bizarre.

There are so many things about Ottawa, primarily driven by our 300000+ public servants that don't do well for most people in the private sector. I am always amazed when I get off a bit early on a Friday, for example, when I hit the road at 2:30pm and traffic is crazy! People have a lot of flexibility here and that means very few are working the classic 8or9-6 work hours seen in a lot of the private sector.

Myself, I live in the burbs primarily to be close to my wife's work, friends, and family. I do the commute into town every day but I arrange my schedule so I do very little rush hour (particularly p.m. rush hour) commuting. I feel for anyone forced into both the 8am AND 4pm traffic snarls day in and day out! That being said, there are some great podcasts online and I've made car time into kind of "me" time. Extending LRT to Kanata won't help me as I need my car to move between multiple workplaces and randomly to the hospital when called :-(

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yep. The fact that people are now moving to Carp and Cumberland and moving right past Stittsville and Orleans, in the ever continuous drive for large and cheap homes is crazy. This city will choke on traffic in a decade if there isn't a serious attempt made to rein in sprawl.

I am most interested to see if the Confederation Line changes the calculus of home buying. They say rail lines are taken more seriously that busways. It'll be curious to see if home buyers start considering their distance from the line over time.

It's hard to say, it might do the opposite and drive people farther out as previously affordable areas turn unaffordable, like what happens in Vancouver near skytrain stations.. The housing market has gone a bit nuts lately, as though pent up energy from Toronto's bubble bursting had to go somewhere. I'm fortunate that I can afford a good sized single house inside the greenbelt, thus I'm both suburban but close enough in for decent transit in stage 1 and do city dweller things like coffee in the glebe if I feel like it, but most people aren't in my position.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

I was put in that exact position so I switched jobs.

OK... you win. Given that I'm in a highly specialized industry, options are few in Ottawa so I'll have to change careers.

Damn!!! if only... if only... if only I lived 3km closer to Kanata, all would be right with the world.

What utter silliness... now back to your regularly scheduled thread.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

I was put in that exact position so I switched jobs.

This becomes increasingly difficult as you get older especially if you are working in the private sector where transfers to positions in a different location are limited or non-existent. There is a difference between a public sector job transfer and actually seeking a completely new job with another company. Often this involves a loss of income and benefits.

I will add that my job skills are also highly specialized so a comparable job in this city is unlikely without a career restart, which is not going to happen as I approach retirement.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Daycare rules in this city absolutely blow my mind. My kid is in a daycare which closes at 5pm. How does that make sense? We're looking for a new one.

I've never been anywhere that daycares aren't open from 730am to 6pm to cover all the core hours that parents have to work. Practices in this town are absolutely bizarre.

Where are you from? I'm not sure there's anything unique to Ottawa in this regard, at least in my discussions with out of town friends. We didn't have a problem finding a center with those hours (or at least to 1730 with later pickup being a surcharge)...but we're paying for it handsomely vs other options we looked.

We found a lot of variation in home care hours though. One lady in our neighborhood had a firm 1630 pickup time. What a fool.

Day cares have become too powerful and aren't sufficiently regulated IMO. That we rely so heavily on them says a lot about what we've become as a society... but that's a different thread.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Where are you from? I'm not sure there's anything unique to Ottawa in this regard, at least in my discussions with out if town friends. We didn't have a problem finding a center with those hours (or at least to 1730 with later pickup being a surcharge)...but we're paying for it handsomely vs other options we looked.

We found a lot of variation in home care hours though. One lady in our neighborhood had a firm 1630 pickup time. What a fool.

Day cares have become too powerful and aren't sufficiently regulated IMO. That we rely so heavily on them says a lot about what we've become as a society... but that's a different thread.

I know this is not politically correct, but I believe that our move to a two income society is one of the drivers in housing price increases. Families have more money available so gradually demand has pushed prices up. This is left people in a one income situation with fewer and fewer affordable options.

[YOWflier]

We could go down a large rabbit hole debating the effects of the 2 income society.

[passwordisnt123]

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.

I know this is getting a bit off topic from the Confederation Line but I think there's a great deal worth criticizing in the Greber plan (especially in terms of its implications for mass transit and facilitating an auto-dependent city) but I agree 100% about what you say about the Greenbelt. The greenbelt neither helps nor hinders suburban sprawl. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That doesn't mean the greenbelt is bad, it just means it's a different kind of thing.

It's a bit bizarre that people talk about suburban sprawl in the way that we do. It's like constantly having the "where do babies come from?" conversation except for urban planning.

Suburban sprawl doesn't just happen. Try just unilaterally building an entire suburban development somewhere in the city limits without City Council's approval and you'll soon find yourself stymied. Suburban sprawl happens because city councils conscientiously decide to approve, permit and even actively subsidize suburban sprawl through things like how we finance and manage our roads and highways in North America to de-incentivise use of public transit. City council could stop new suburban sprawl in a very short period of time if they had enough backbone.

To blame the Greenbelt for suburban sprawl is like blaming my notebook paper for why my pens run out of ink. It not only misses the point, it obfuscates—either intentionally or unintentionally—what's going on and it makes it less likely that people will find a solution to the problem because it gives them a strawman to blame.

If people want to blame suburban sprawl and the challenges it causes for transit and other things, people should blame the city councils (and the province) who approved and encouraged the sprawl for generations, not the Greenbelt which is one of the very few good things to come out of the Greber plan.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

Where are you from? I'm not sure there's anything unique to Ottawa in this regard, at least in my discussions with out if town friends. We didn't have a problem finding a center with those hours (or at least to 1730 with later pickup being a surcharge)...but we're paying for it handsomely vs other options we looked.

We found a lot of variation in home care hours though. One lady in our neighborhood had a firm 1630 pickup time. What a fool.

Day cares have become too powerful and aren't sufficiently regulated IMO. That we rely so heavily on them says a lot about what we've become as a society... but that's a different thread.

I was going to say this too - I don't think it's an Ottawa thing to have daycare pickup times end somewhere between 5 and 6.

And yes, some home daycares have earlier "closing" times but if it's a single person providing the care, she's probably been taking care of kids since 6:30 or 7 am, so there are limits to having people work 12 hour days, five days a week.

I've gladly been out of the daycare period of my life for a few years. We generally dealt with 5:30 closing times. As bus commuters we were often stressed due to unpredictable delays (bus not showing, bus too full, snow, accidents, etc.)

I'd also add that in some cases, arriving late for pickup too often doesn't just result in extra charges. You can get kicked out of the daycare too.

(My kids' elementary school daycare hours were something like 6:45 am to 5:30 pm.)

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

I know this is getting a bit off topic from the Confederation Line but I think there's a great deal worth criticizing in the Greber plan (especially in terms of its implications for mass transit and facilitating an auto-dependent city) but I agree 100% about what you say about the Greenbelt. The greenbelt neither helps nor hinders suburban sprawl. One thing has nothing to do with the other. That doesn't mean the greenbelt is bad, it just means it's a different kind of thing.

It's a bit bizarre that people talk about suburban sprawl in the way that we do. It's like constantly having the "where do babies come from?" conversation except for urban planning.

Suburban sprawl doesn't just happen. Try just unilaterally building an entire suburban development somewhere in the city limits without City Council's approval and you'll soon find yourself stymied. Suburban sprawl happens because city councils conscientiously decide to approve, permit and even actively subsidize suburban sprawl through things like how we finance and manage our roads and highways in North America to de-incentivise use of public transit. City council could stop new suburban sprawl in a very short period of time if they had enough backbone.

To blame the Greenbelt for suburban sprawl is like blaming my notebook paper for why my pens run out of ink. It not only misses the point, it obfuscates—either intentionally or unintentionally—what's going on and it makes it less likely that people will find a solution to the problem because it gives them a strawman to blame.

If people want to blame suburban sprawl and the challenges it causes for transit and other things, people should blame the city councils who approved and encouraged the sprawl for generations, not the Greenbelt which is one of the very few good things to come out of the Greber plan.

Well said.

I will take this a step further. Our policies on suburban design including parking requirements and making transit a low priority in these locations is a self fulfilling prophesy. We make it impossible to build compact transit friendly suburbs when everything is built around the automobile, wide boulevards, and massive parking lots. Without decreasing the size of houses and lots, we can increase density significantly by designing around transit first instead of the automobile. This was my primary disappointment when the 2006 plan was cancelled. We were trying a different approach to suburban design around rail. Maybe it wouldn't have worked, but you don't know if you don't try.

[passwordisnt123]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

For what Greber intended for the greenbelt it was a failure , it was meant to stop sprawl and it backfired. All the greenbelt does now is increase transportation time and costs in Ottawa that city taxpayers have to pay for and it also increases more pollution due to longer commute times.

The Greenbelt has loads of ecological benefits, do those benefits not count?

Frankly if the Greenbelt inconveniences people living outside of it by making their commutes a little bit longer, I don't give a damn.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I was going to say this too - I don't think it's an Ottawa thing to have daycare pickup times end somewhere between 5 and 6.

And yes, some home daycares have earlier "closing" times but if it's a single person providing the care, she's probably been taking care of kids since 6:30 or 7 am, so there are limits to having people work 12 hour days, five days a week.

I've gladly been out of the daycare period of my life for a few years. We generally dealt with 5:30 closing times. As bus commuters we were often stressed due to unpredictable delays (bus not showing, bus too full, snow, accidents, etc.)

Agreed. We have been through a number of daycares, and never had a pick-up time earlier than 6. None were private though.