West Gatineau Tramway & Downtown Loop | Proposed

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Which is still overkill for the amount of ridership going into Ottawa. You seem to be almost assuming that peak capacity in Gatineau should be equal to peak capacity in Ottawa. I would ask why that is necessary.



Why would they fund something that Gatineau never asked for?



What transit project has ever been 100% funded by the feds without some specific issue? Why the heck would the feds fund a parallel transit tunnel through Ottawa's CBD, when they already partially funded the DOTT?



None of their current plans show any running through Ottawa’s CBDs. That early study is nowhere close to what’s being discussed today. Read it. It’s a study based around the current transit network and what corridors should be prioritized. None of it discusses running LRT through Ottawa. Wellington is on the map because it’s part of the current STO network. It’s quite the assumption to then extrapolate that they want to and would be allowed to build LRT through Ottawa.

Also, please show where the Quebec government has committed to funding a plan which involves running through Ottawa’s CBDs.



Never said they did.



Which map? I can’t see any link that says “the Rapibus ridership is largely heading to Ottawa downtown”. A thicker line is not evidence of “largely heading”. It’s a relative volumetric indication. Not evidence that the majority of Rapibus riders are bound for Ottawa. If you had the proportion of Rapibus ridership heading into Ottawa, I’d really be curious.



Right. So based on their preliminary assumption that they would force 100% of Ottawa bound riders on to the LRT, a fraction of all STO riders would get three transfers. Specifically, a set of riders who use feeder service to access the Rapibus corridor. And that is a very specific situation that is addressable.

Set up express buses and nobody has to transfer on to Rapibus routes saving a transfer. Or allow specific Rapibus routes to loop through Ottawa on an alternative bridge and a transfer onto the STO LRT is saved. It’s way to and there are two few people in this category to get worked up about “OMG! Three transfers.”

And again, this is not an Ottawa problem. STO could also decide to convert the Rapibus to LRT…..something I suggested pages back.

Sorry, I was really tired and I thought you said that Gatineau planned a fully segregated LRT. I'm a bit afraid it's gonna end up like Toronto's streetcar, always stopped by car crashes. Having lived most of my life in Québec, I can't deny that reckless driving is a major problem there.

The LRT route and funding may not be finalized, but claiming that nobody beyond rail fans in this forum talked about it isn't true. The City of Gatineau and the Québec government aren't rail fans from this forum.

I don't have the proportion of Rapibus ridership heading to Ottawa, but the document I linked show a PPHPD of 8500 from Hull to Ottawa in 2031. The Edmonton LRT has a PPHPD of roughly 5500 and they have a tunnel with 6 underground stations. I don't know why you refuse to believe the official forecast.

The city of Gatineau might have built a LRT instead of the Rapibus in the first place if the Québec provincial government was giving adequate funding to public transit infrastructure.

I don't know where you want Gatineau LRT to end if you oppose both a tunnel and a surface route though the CBD.

I totally know that a 2nd tunnel won't happen anytime soon, but pipe dreams seem to be pretty much the point of this forum. An interprovincial tunnel will sure get delayed as much as possible, but it will likely become necessary at some point. If this happens, we'll have to find a way to fund it. After all. the St. Louis LRT has a tunnel linking Missouri and Illinois.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yes it does. The city gets to decide where bus traffic goes. And which bus authorities can operate public conveyances in its boundaries. Especially which bus operators can run transit services that effectively compete with OC Transpo for passengers.

Not just Ottawa either. Try starting up a private transit service in Toronto and see how far you get.

Yes, it has some authorities (like where they can place bus stops and such) but not all of them.

In any event, what is being suggested (banning STO buses from Ottawa) sounds more like a bully husband who's splitting up with his wife shaking his fist ("I'll show her!") than anything that's actually feasible.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Horus

At the Transit upgrade information session I was told by the presenters that in the event an LRT solution is selected, it would use the centre lanes of the Portage bridge.

That's what I would expect. A surface route across the Portage and then a tunnel portal in the vicinity of the Garden of the Provinces. The tunnel would only have to run a few hundred metres from there in order to link up to Lyon Station.

[Horus]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

Sorry, I was really tired and I thought you said that Gatineau planned a fully segregated LRT. I'm a bit afraid it's gonna end up like Toronto's streetcar, always stopped by car crashes. Having lived most of my life in Québec, I can't deny that reckless driving is a major problem there.

This image shows what the current proposal is for the creation of LRT lanes in the roadways.


Only left-turning vehicles would be crossing the tracks as the tracks would be laid in the centre of the street ROW. This won't be like Rapibus where cars could make right turns across the separate roadway.

[begratto]

Side note :

Originally Posted by Nowhere

Having lived most of my life in Québec, I can't deny that reckless driving is a major problem there.

Not that reckless driving isn't a problem in Quebec, but actually, contrarily to many people's perception, only Ontario does better than Quebec in terms of traffic fatality and accident rates. All other provinces do worse than Quebec . Statcan #s.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

Side note :



Not that reckless driving isn't a problem in Quebec, but actually, contrarily to many people's perception, only Ontario does better than Quebec in terms of traffic fatality and accident rates. All other provinces do worse than Quebec . Statcan #s.

In any event, perceptions of reckless driving shouldn't be anything more than a minor consideration in future transit planning choices.

For the record, Gatineau averages 3000 collisions for 285000 people, whereas Ottawa averages 15000 collisions for 950000 people.

If you do a bit of division with those numbers it's obvious that Gatineau doesn't have a higher accident rate than Ottawa.

[begratto]

I don't think these have been shared here. Lots of details (maybe too much! )about the project from the STO. In French, with English subtitles.


• Video Link

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[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

It is too expensive by any normal logic. Basically this covers less than half of Gatineau which is a city of less than 300k and a $2.1 Billion project. It only works with an oversized provincial contribution of 60% which they have on the table.

I hope Gatineau can grab the money and get something done. I am sure a 20% Federal contribution should be forthcoming. Hopefully Ottawa will let them run on surface for at least one stop in CBD.

On this I kind of agree, even if I have not been the biggest booster of LRT in the Aylmer-Plateau area.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by begratto

I don't think these have been shared here. Lots of details (maybe too much! )about the project from the STO :
]

Thanks for posting these. I can't believe I missed them on the STO's site!

[lrt's friend]

When talking about LRT capacity, we need to consider what is the maximum for street operations. This was talked about at length during the days of the original N-S project. Trains cannot be longer than the length of a city block, otherwise they create major traffic problems on cross-streets.

As far as running trains on Wellington Street, I think this will destroy the character of Confederation Boulevard especially if Wellington and Lyon is the terminus. Even worse, if it was Wellington and Bank. Then the consideration of seamless transfers to the Confederation Line if the walk then becomes two blocks and a descent to Lyon Station.

If trains were to be tunneled under Sparks Street, how does this impact the intersection between the SJAM Parkway and the Portage Bridge?

If STO was forbidden from running trains into downtown Ottawa, how is our transit system supposed to work? Where is the transit integration for people going both ways? How do Ottawa passengers get to the federal complexes in downtown Hull?

If we force STO to use the POW bridge to connect to the C-Line, it inconveniences many STO customers, limits frequency and will eventually create a transfer and ridership crises at Bayview station, plus force another line to be built into downtown Hull to service the federal offices, plus does not effectively connect Ottawa passengers to that same location.

I will repeat what I have said before. If our aim is to run only the C-Line through downtown Ottawa, we will end up with an unreliable transit system. You know, putting all our eggs in one basket and hope we don't drop the basket. We will not always be prepared for a breakdown that happens between Hurdman and Bayview. Yes, OC has a plan, but they have already admitted that they will not have enough buses to handle the demand in all cases. This will inevitably have the same result for STO passengers.

There will be breakdowns and can you imagine the news coverage of people being forced to walk out of downtown?

As far as street running trains and accidents, this will be a problem but this can only work as suggested by others by running on centre lanes, which must be in segregated lanes. When transit capacity with buses is becoming an issue, we need to be creative. A totally segregated ROW is not always available so we have to do the best we can at a cost that we can afford.

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In any event, perceptions of reckless driving shouldn't be anything more than a minor consideration in future transit planning choices.

For the record, Gatineau averages 3000 collisions for 285000 people, whereas Ottawa averages 15000 collisions for 950000 people.

If you do a bit of division with those numbers it's obvious that Gatineau doesn't have a higher accident rate than Ottawa.

Not that I don't believe you, but I'm curious about where you took these numbers. Looking at the number of injuries per billion km driven, there is a major difference : 357 in Ontario and 476 in Québec.

Anyway, I think we should use grade separation as much as possible. Calgary LRT has caused 43 accidental deaths between 1981 and 2014, even if the system if mostly grade separated.

[harls]

Originally Posted by Acajack

For the record, Gatineau averages 3000 collisions for 285000 people, whereas Ottawa averages 15000 collisions for 950000 people.

If you do a bit of division with those numbers it's obvious that Gatineau doesn't have a higher accident rate than Ottawa.

I wonder how many of those Gatineau collisions involve Ottawa drivers and vice-versa?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

Not that I don't believe you, but I'm curious about where you took these numbers. Looking at the number of injuries per billion km driven, there is a major difference : 357 in Ontario and 476 in Québec.

.

I found the figure for Gatineau on the SAAQ's website, which has figures for every city or MRC in Quebec.

The figure for Ottawa is from the city's website.

In both cases we're talking about all collisions, not just collisions with injuries.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

Sorry, I was really tired and I thought you said that Gatineau planned a fully segregated LRT. I'm a bit afraid it's gonna end up like Toronto's streetcar, always stopped by car crashes. Having lived most of my life in Québec, I can't deny that reckless driving is a major problem there.

Going to a grade-separated system is incredibly expensive. And we’re already at $2.1 Billion for a city of 330k. Good luck to anyone who wants to argue for more. Two grade separated lines would probably push beyond $3 billion. Scope creep is a good way to get projects like this killed.

The only reason Ottawa got as much of a grade separated LRT as it did, is because there was so much grade separated BRT for them to convert. If that wasn’t there, Ottawa would have ended up with lots of street-running LRT like what’s proposed in Gatineau or being built along Eglinton in Toronto.

Originally Posted by Nowhere

The LRT route and funding may not be finalized, but claiming that nobody beyond rail fans in this forum talked about it isn't true. The City of Gatineau and the Québec government aren't rail fans from this forum.

Except that they never discussed LRT through Ottawa. They only ever discussed LRT to Ottawa. You interpreted their analysis of current corridors as a desire for LRT on Wellington. This is not correct.

Originally Posted by Nowhere

I don't have the proportion of Rapibus ridership heading to Ottawa, but the document I linked show a PPHPD of 8500 from Hull to Ottawa in 2031. The Edmonton LRT has a PPHPD of roughly 5500 and they have a tunnel with 6 underground stations. I don't know why you refuse to believe the official forecast.

I have no issues with the official forecast. What I take issue with is the assertion that the majority of Rapibus riders are Ottawa bound. There’s no evidence supporting that specific assertion. I have no disputed that Ottawa will see 8500 pphpd from Gatineau in 2031.

Originally Posted by Nowhere

I don't know where you want Gatineau LRT to end if you oppose both a tunnel and a surface route though the CBD.

Exactly what is proposed. Connection at Rideau and Lyon. There’s no need for STO to have its own line through Ottawa’s CBD. And nobody beyond this forum has proposed it.

Personally, I still think a conversion of Rapibus to LRT with a connection at Bayview makes more sense than the Plateau line but I’m in the minority on this debate I guess.....

Originally Posted by Nowhere

I totally know that a 2nd tunnel won't happen anytime soon, but pipe dreams seem to be pretty much the point of this forum. An interprovincial tunnel will sure get delayed as much as possible, but it will likely become necessary at some point. If this happens, we'll have to find a way to fund it. After all. the St. Louis LRT has a tunnel linking Missouri and Illinois.

You are conflating two separate issues. A tunnel to Ottawa is not the same thing as a tunnel through Ottawa. Suggesting that opposition to an STO tunnel through Ottawa is the same as opposing a tunnel connecting Gatineau and Ottawa, is a strawman argument.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Yes, it has some authorities (like where they can place bus stops and such) but not all of them.

It doesn’t need “all of them”. Deny operating permission for STO to pickup pax in Ottawa and it’d be game over.

Originally Posted by Acajack

In any event, what is being suggested (banning STO buses from Ottawa) sounds more like a bully husband who's splitting up with his wife shaking his fist ("I'll show her!") than anything that's actually feasible.

Gatineau should be encouraged to reduce traffic through Ottawa. The level of STO traffic through Ottawa’s downtown core is already pretty ridiculous. If they are building LRT, every effort should be made to ensure that STO moves most of their Ottawa ridership to their connecting LRTs.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Except that they never discussed LRT through Ottawa. They only ever discussed LRT to Ottawa. You interpreted their analysis of current corridors as a desire for LRT on Wellington. This is not correct.

Exactly what is proposed. Connection at Rideau and Lyon. There’s no need for STO to have its own line through Ottawa’s CBD. And nobody beyond this forum has proposed it.

Through CBD no but by definition to connect to Lyon and Rideau stations there will need to be significant surface or sub surface lines in Ottawa. Unless the plan is to dump off everyone at library and archives and the National Gallery at either end.

I think Ottawa will be surprisingly obstinate on not allowing Quebec to build a tram line on city streets despite doing nothing to control the bus traffic and allowing streams of STO passengers to transfer to OCTranspo at no cost. It seems very backwards to me but from musings from Watson it seems like this will be pushed back.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Through CBD no but by definition to connect to Lyon and Rideau stations there will need to be significant surface or sub surface lines in Ottawa. Unless the plan is to dump off everyone at library and archives and the National Gallery at either end.

I think Ottawa will be surprisingly obstinate on not allowing Quebec to build a tram line on city streets despite doing nothing to control the bus traffic and allowing streams of STO passengers to transfer to OCTranspo at no cost. It seems very backwards to me but from musings from Watson it seems like this will be pushed back.

It's not about Ottawa "allowing" Gatineau to run trams on city streets but rather that is is highly unusual for a city (especially from another province) to place and maintain infrastructure on property or a ROW that isn't theirs. Buses are different, Ottawa is just allowing them to use streets that are fully maintained by the city. With trams there are issues like track upkeep and electric supply, not to mention larger liabilities like pedestrians and cyclists tripping. If Ottawans have a problem with any of it, who do they go to? It's a slippery slope of ceding public property to an institution we don't have a say in.

The logical scenario I see is for the ROW across the Ottawa River between Lyon and Portage, whether it is a tunnel or partial bridge/tunnel, to be fully owned and built by a federal body (the NCC or Public Works) much like the road bridges, and the STO simply gets to use it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It doesn’t need “all of them”. Deny operating permission for STO to pickup pax in Ottawa and it’d be game over.

.

You and I both know that will never happen.

It's like giving the finger to the big bad guy left on the station platform when you're on a quickly departing high-speed train.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Gatineau should be encouraged to reduce traffic through Ottawa. The level of STO traffic through Ottawa’s downtown core is already pretty ridiculous. If they are building LRT, every effort should be made to ensure that STO moves most of their Ottawa ridership to their connecting LRTs.

STO does have an objective (that it is still working towards, it's true) of reducing as much as possible the number buses its runs in Ottawa.

It's not really efficient for them either as the biggest bottlenecks in their system tend to be on Rideau and Wellington in Ottawa.

That's the main reason they split off the Rapibus service into routes 100 (Vieux-Hull only) and 200 (Ottawa only).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Through CBD no but by definition to connect to Lyon and Rideau stations there will need to be significant surface or sub surface lines in Ottawa. Unless the plan is to dump off everyone at library and archives and the National Gallery at either end.

I think Ottawa will be surprisingly obstinate on not allowing Quebec to build a tram line on city streets despite doing nothing to control the bus traffic .

As I mentioned in another post, I don't see any way that the portion of Gatineau LRT or tram would involve anything more "on Ottawa city streets" than a few hundred metres of the Ottawa side of the Portage Bridge, after which the rail vehicles would enter a tunnel that would run a few hundred metres more to near Lyon Station.

Some of the extra-territorial issues raised by Kitchissippi (and myself and others) would still apply but it's not as outrageous and fanciful as some are making it out to be.

If you look at this logically, there is no way STO/Gatineau will be able to get the political, financial and logistical impetus (either from our side or your side of the river) to run a surface rail route down Wellington-Rideau or Albert-Slater all the way to the Rideau Centre. That's totally impossible.

A STO-only tunnel parallel (?) to the Confederation Line between the Portage Bridge, to Lyon and then Rideau, is also unfeasible when you consider all three factors.