Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

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.

You miss the point. The greenbelt adds extra costs to the city by pushing everything further out.
and thats not sustainable.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

You miss the point. The greenbelt adds extra costs to the city by pushing everything further out.
and thats not sustainable.

That decision was made 70 years ago. What is done is done. We should focus on how we design our city going forward. The Greenbelt is now full of trails that are used year round and are an asset to the city. At this point, the Greenbelt should continue to be improved as a public asset, not paved over.

[YOWflier]

Originally Posted by Acajack

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 was harsh in hindsight....I just have a tough time envisioning who can make 1630 work on a routine basis and my schedule is pretty flexible. Obviously they're out there or she'd be out of work.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by ac888yow

I was harsh in hindsight....I just have a tough time envisioning who can make 1630 work on a routine basis and my schedule is pretty flexible. Obviously they're out there or she'd be out of work.

No worries. I didn't find it unduly harsh.

Generally speaking those home daycares that close early have their niche. I suppose they also open pretty early so parents who are looking for that seek them out.

Which in my experience seems to be a lot of people.

"Drop off early, pick up early" is a very sought-after arrangement.

When my kids went to after-school daycare, we'd pick up between 5 and 5:30, and out of maybe 150-200 hundred kids registered there, there would perhaps only be a dozen or a half-dozen left between 5 and 5:30.

I stopped counting the number of times my kids were the last ones waiting when we picked them up at, say, 5:18 pm.

That always surprised me as my wife and I both worked on the Quebec side so no bridge traffic to fight - whereas a whole bunch of other parents certainly worked in Ottawa.

I assume that many parents stagger their work start and end times, so one drops off a bit later and then goes to work, and the other (who went to work earlier) picks up earlier.

[YOWflier]

No kidding on that 5:18 comment. I once arrived to pickup my kid at 5:31 or something and felt like I had abandoned him.

[613Steve]

Seems like there's been a few more double trains being tested this week compared to last week.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

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 :-(

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 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.

Am military. Just got posted back to Ottawa. Last place we were (in the US), the daycare operated from 0630 to 1800. And that wasn't just a military thing. Most daycares in town had those hours and had staff that came in during the day to manage coverage.

I live near Cyrville, work in Gatineau. For the moment (till we get something better), we have a daycare spot at Uplands. They open at about 630 or 7 I believe, but end at 5pm. This effectively rules out me dropping and picking up. And when my wife eventually gets work, she may well be leaving home at 630 to get her to daycare on time so that she can put in 8 hrs and get back down there by 5. Sure, our problem is a bit peculiar because we have a daycare that's far for the moment. But it is ridiculous that any centre-based care ends at 5pm. That's not reasonable for a lot of people, and all but impractical if you aren't driving. It's amazing to me that the driver's paradise that is the US had better hours at virtually every daycare in town.

And it is an Ottawa thing. Before going to the US, was in TO. Plenty of daycares there that went to 6 too.

Back on topic, this is why I say we need mobility goals, like say 1 hr between say 80% of the settled area of the city or some other target. We aren't going to reduce car use if we don't work towards a tangible goal that improves quality of life and plan and build accordingly.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

That decision was made 70 years ago. What is done is done. We should focus on how we design our city going forward. The Greenbelt is now full of trails that are used year round and are an asset to the city. At this point, the Greenbelt should continue to be improved as a public asset, not paved over.

It also assumes we wouldn't have just spread almost as far anyway. I think if the greenbelt wasn't there, everything would be almost the same except the inner parts of the city would be even less dense then you see now.

Visit a city like Phoenix. Population wise it's similar to Vancouver but it sprawls forever. It makes Ottawa look like Hong Kong by comparison.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I live near Cyrville, work in Gatineau. For the moment (till we get something better), we have a daycare spot at Uplands. .

Holy crap that's a helluva (25 km) detour each way!

You can't find anything closer to home?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

It also assumes we wouldn't have just spread almost as far anyway. I think if the greenbelt wasn't there, everything would be almost the same except the inner parts of the city would be even less dense then you see now.

Visit a city like Phoenix. Population wise it's similar to Vancouver but it sprawls forever. It makes Ottawa look like Hong Kong by comparison.

Isn't Phoenix denser than Ottawa? Looks that way when I look at stats.

Comparison to American cities is not really sensible. Toronto didn't have a greenbelt for the longest time and it's grown densely. As have other Canadian cities.

In general we do build denser cities in Canada. Gas is more expensive. Road space is a lot less (since road maintenance is very expensive). Housing costs more. And maintaining housing is expensive (heating). All while incomes are lower. Those factors all drive some level of densification in Canada.

I really don't think Ottawa would have ended up like an American city. It might have ended up more like Edmonton or Winnipeg though.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Holy crap that's a helluva (25 km) detour each way!

You can't find anything closer to home?

Not right when we got posted in a few months back. And the base daycare does help when you first move in. We're waitlisted for a few closer to home, which should open up by September.

It's particularly crappy at the moment with the LRT not running because my wife either drops me to work and then goes to Uplands or I walk to St-Laurent and then take an hour to get to work by bus. My QOL improves drastically when the LRT opens and my transit commute time is almost cut in half.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by 613Steve

Seems like there's been a few more double trains being tested this week compared to last week.

I was at Tunney's yesterday and it seemed like every other train was coupled. The timing was weird though, sometimes a minute apart sometimes 8 minutes.

[Truenorth00]

I can see the trains out my window. They have indeed amp'd up pairs testing. But I still more singles on my end than pairs.

[McC]

It's funny how the hours of testing seem to vary. For the past couple of weeks, I was seeing lots, especially on my walk home; but this week, literally 0 trains on the western alignment. (I'm passing by plus-or-minus-15-minutes from about the same time every weekday)

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Isn't Phoenix denser than Ottawa? Looks that way when I look at stats.

Comparison to American cities is not really sensible. Toronto didn't have a greenbelt for the longest time and it's grown densely. As have other Canadian cities.

In general we do build denser cities in Canada. Gas is more expensive. Road space is a lot less (since road maintenance is very expensive). Housing costs more. And maintaining housing is expensive (heating). All while incomes are lower. Those factors all drive some level of densification in Canada.

I really don't think Ottawa would have ended up like an American city. It might have ended up more like Edmonton or Winnipeg though.

The stats for Ottawa will tell you it's 820/mile, but that's because vast rural areas are inside the city proper since the city border is against Arnprior on one side and Rockland on the other. Does anyone know what the actual density is within the original old city of Ottawa borders?

However when you are there it's obvious Phoenix is less dense. Imagine Kanata times 10 but with even wider roads and bigger lots

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

The stats for Ottawa will tell you it's 820/mile, but that's because vast rural areas are inside the city proper since the city border is against Arnprior on one side and Rockland on the other. Does anyone know what the actual density is within the original old city of Ottawa borders?

However when you are there it's obvious Phoenix is less dense. Imagine Kanata times 10 but with even wider roads and bigger lots

Found a way to answer my question:

http://www.city-data.com/city/Phoenix-Arizona.html

The densest neighborhoods there work out to about 30K/mi, which works out to 116 people /ha, which is about the same as Overbrook.

https://censusmapper.ca/#14/45.4328/-75.6431

[kmcamp]

On another topic

https://youtu.be/NxVLgAVCgUY

Easter egg? I think the door chime of our trains is revealed in these videos. They all feature a "bing-bong" type chime at the end.

[passwordisnt123]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

You miss the point. The greenbelt adds extra costs to the city by pushing everything further out.
and thats not sustainable.

My point is pushing stuff farther out doesn't need to cost the city a single penny extra... if the city decided it would stop subsidizing suburban sprawl and make those individuals pay the *full* cost of their choice to live outside the Greenbelt. I'm sorry if I didn't make that point clearer before.

To bring the Confederation Line back into the topic of suburban sprawl though, it is curious to me why there's been so little or no conversation (outside of this forum and a couple of other rare places) about a tap-on-tap-off system for the Confederation and Trillium Lines or a zone-type system like they have in London. This is effectively another subsidization of suburban sprawl. Why should somebody who rides the Confederation Line from Terry Fox all the way to Blair pay the same fare as somebody who rides from Lyon station to uOttawa?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

To bring the Confederation Line back into the topic of suburban sprawl though, it is curious to me why there's been so little or no conversation (outside of this forum and a couple of other rare places) about a tap-on-tap-off system for the Confederation and Trillium Lines or a zone-type system like they have in London.

I think it's a function of the transition from buses to rail. Because a lot of people were used to jumping on a bus and arriving downtown, I think a tap on/tap off might have turned riders off. You're adding cost and a transfer at the same time.

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

This is effectively another subsidization of suburban sprawl. Why should somebody who rides the Confederation Line from Terry Fox all the way to Blair pay the same fare as somebody who rides from Lyon station to uOttawa?

Zoning only really works when you also price roads in some manner. If you don't price roads, all you're doing is making it more expensive to take transit instead of the car. This is why I've argued that there should be a congestion charge across the greenbelt. That could easily be combined with zoned fares. Two zones. Inside the greenbelt. Outside the greenbelt.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

My point is pushing stuff farther out doesn't need to cost the city a single penny extra... if the city decided it would stop subsidizing suburban sprawl and make those individuals pay the *full* cost of their choice to live outside the Greenbelt. I'm sorry if I didn't make that point clearer before.

To bring the Confederation Line back into the topic of suburban sprawl though, it is curious to me why there's been so little or no conversation (outside of this forum and a couple of other rare places) about a tap-on-tap-off system for the Confederation and Trillium Lines or a zone-type system like they have in London. This is effectively another subsidization of suburban sprawl. Why should somebody who rides the Confederation Line from Terry Fox all the way to Blair pay the same fare as somebody who rides from Lyon station to uOttawa?

Now that I agree with