Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I am glad you are happy that we are still paying more and more for cancelling that project as we cobble together a poor facsimile of the original plan with each section costing much more than its superior 2006 counterpart.

Your falsehoods are always entertaining. We are paying more to get more. Simple as that. Those toy Siemens LRTs and bus shelters penciled in under the original plan are not even close to what the Confederation Line brings to the table.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

You happily cancelled out my vote that would have given us LRT 10 years ago, and reduced bus congestion downtown at the same time, also 10 years ago.

I happily cancelled out your vote for a plan that would not have seen any real relief from bus congestion in the core (despite the Chiarelli propaganda you swallowed whole) and added LRT congestion to the mix. I will not apologize for voting against bad ideas. And I certainly won’t apologize for voting against plans that put the the interests of developers over existing transit riders.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

You can believe the tripe that this would have stalled LRT for other parts of the city when it would have clearly demonstrated how LRT would speed up service for the 100,000 people who already live south of the Greenbelt + another 100,000 people who lived inside the Greenbelt.

I can believe it because I’ve seen it in other cities. Building transit lines to help developers rarely delivers the ridership number promised. But let’s parse out how many lies are packed into this statement:

1. There weren’t 100 000 people living outside the Greenbelt in the south at the time. Are there even that many now?

2. The 100 000 people inside the Greenbelt could have been sufficiently served with O-Train. As we’ve seen over the last couple years.

So really this debate comes down to spending hundreds of millions of dollars to provide rail service to a handful of new subdivisions outside the Greenbelt or putting those same resources towards a larger plan that actually moves more transit riders. As I said at the time to those around me, “I’ll happily pay more for better transit.”

You can whine about it costing more. I don’t care. This plan delivers more. It’s building the backbone of a transit system that’ll serve the city adequately for at least a generation, and provides plenty of room for expansion. The old plan would have left us debating about transit tunnels and parallel lines right about now, while a whole new generation of riders got to discover the Albert/Slater rush hour bus parade.

Here’s the kicker from my end. When I voted for O’Brien I was living off Beechwood. Nowhere near any place that would be impacted by his transit plan. Nor did I have any plans at the time to move near a transit line. It was an honest vote for what I thought would be good for the city. On the other hand, your vote was entirely about self-interest. Regardless of how you want to cast it. Let’s be honest about how you see it: you wanted gold plated service for the south and were willing to have the bulk of the city’s riders and the city’s development suffer for it.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Believe what you would like. O'Brien was a neophyte who didn't know what he was doing at the time. I saw his performance at an all candidates meeting and didn't believe his zero means zero nonsense. Being a little more adept at the political game could have saved us $100M+ and got us the tunnel wish as well.

If the job was that easy, why didn’t I see your name on the ballot?

[NOWINYOW]

Originally Posted by highwaystar

+1

O'Brien thought he could run the city like a company. The B.O.D. (council) did then and have now, their own pet projects that will dictate how they vote on the big issues; "scratch my back, I'll scratch yours".

We need a council that will look at each expenditure, big and small, on merit alone, the impact (costs) to all taxpayers and not because someone wants something and will block anything else until they get it.

[rocketphish]

LRT trial likely to go past 12 days, RTG risks missing Aug. 16 handover deadline

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: August 9, 2019

It doesn’t look good for the 12 days of mandatory testing for the Confederation Line LRT.

According to sources not authorized to speak publicly about the trial, the testing will need to extend past Friday, which was the 12th day of the critical testing period.

In fact, the testing might already have been hampered by minor problems early in the 12-day trial, throwing the timeline off track. It became obvious to city bosses overseeing the transit project that the trial would likely need to be extended.

Now, the Rideau Transit Group risks missing its Aug. 16 handover to the city, which means a September launch of the $2.1-billion transit line could be in question.

The 12-day trial started on July 29 after RTG achieved the substantial completion of construction on July 27.

RTG needs to run 12 consecutive days of full service before handing over the LRT system to the city and achieving “revenue service availability.” That milestone comes with a $202.3-million payment to RTG.

The city is also in a position to penalize RTG another $1 million for missing the Aug. 16 handover, if the company does, indeed, miss that deadline.

The city applied $1-million penalties for each of the missed deadlines on May 24, 2018, Nov. 2, 2018 and March 31, 2019.

During the 12-day trial, if there was a major problem identified during testing, the clock was to be reset to Day 1. Minor deficiencies are allowed and they wouldn’t require a full reset of the clock.

City council had not been updated on the status of the 12-day trial as of early Friday afternoon.

The city on Friday wasn’t saying anything about the status of the testing.

“As previously noted, the independent certifier will confirm whether the requirements of trial running have been achieved as part of finalizing the requirements for revenue service availability,” according to a statement attributed to transportation GM John Manconi, sent through the city’s communications office.

“Once RTG has achieved all trial running requirements, staff will inform council, members of the transit commission, the public and media outlets.”

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...s-risks-missing-aug-16-handover-deadline

[acottawa]

I rode the Waterloo streetcar this past weekend. Sort of a smaller version of what Charelli was proposing. I guess it will look good on recruiting posters for the universities and tech companies, but hard to see much transportation value.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I rode the Waterloo streetcar this past weekend. Sort of a smaller version of what Charelli was proposing. I guess it will look good on recruiting posters for the universities and tech companies, but hard to see much transportation value.

It's probably faster to drive, in traffic.

And like the Chiarelli plan, the main purpose was development. Not transport.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ion-build-lrt-corridor-1.4431670

Heck, their service frequency for ION is worse than some bus routes in Ottawa. 8 minutes at peak. 10-15 mins outside peak.

I don't get how anyone can see it as rapid transit. Mass transit? Absolutely. It's a longer route than the Confederation Line. And every don't even have half the number of trains. It's a great example of the crap we might have gotten with Chiarelli. At least KWC isn't a million residents.

The same $800 million would have been better spent on BRT and full conversion to electric buses. They have a larger, more frequent and more financially sustainable system.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's probably faster to drive, in traffic.

And like the Chiarelli plan, the main purpose was development. Not transport.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ion-build-lrt-corridor-1.4431670

Heck, their service frequency for ION is worse than some bus routes in Ottawa. 8 minutes at peak. 10-15 mins outside peak.

I don't get how anyone can see it as rapid transit. Mass transit? Absolutely. It's a longer route than the Confederation Line. And every don't even have half the number of trains. It's a great example of the crap we might have gotten with Chiarelli. At least KWC isn't a million residents.

The same $800 million would have been better spent on BRT and full conversion to electric buses. They have a larger, more frequent and more financially sustainable system.

Not only is driving faster, but google recommended taking the local bus because that was faster too.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Yes, the Chiarelli plan did not deal with the downtown capacity issue, at least, not satisfactorily. There was a plan to cut buses by 30%, which would have given the city some temporary relief.

There is no way anywhere near 30% of the busses run along the SE Transitway. The only way they could have come close to that number would have been to also cancel the vast majority of busses on the SW Transitway (presumably all of the express buses at a minimum) and force almost all Barrhaven residents to use the train, even though for most it would be a 10 minute longer trip (yes it would have been faster for a small minority, but not enough to achieve that 30% reduction without a heavy hand on the schedule).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Not only is driving faster, but google recommended taking the local bus because that was faster too.

Yikes! Was the bus actually faster, or did the wait for the LRT favour the bus? Either way, this shows what a waste that $800 million was. Essentially, they spent that try to replace a handful of bus routes with an infrequent tram.

Originally Posted by roger1818

There is no way anywhere near 30% of the busses run along the SE Transitway. The only way they could have come close to that number would have been to also cancel the vast majority of busses on the SW Transitway (presumably all of the express buses at a minimum) and force almost all Barrhaven residents to use the train....

I have never bought the idea that the Chiarelli plan would have seen a cut of 30% of buses through the core. Clearly BS. Especially, when that plan never even had LRT going to Hurdman at launch.

Also, the S70s they planned to use are 60% of the size of the Alstom Citadis Spirit the Confederation Line is using. If the really eliminated 30% of buses, there would be chaos fitting that many passengers onto the trams.

I think it's clear what would have happened. They would have launched. Either found it too slow for some or overcrowded. And then reinstated many of the bus services. And we'd be right back to talking about how to relieve downtown. This time after spending $700-800 million and taking up valuable space in the downtown core.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yikes! Was the bus actually faster, or did the wait for the LRT favour the bus? Either way, this shows what a waste that $800 million was. Essentially, they spent that try to replace a handful of bus routes with an infrequent tram.

It was 14 minutes by bus, 16 by tram. Now that was the weekend.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Yikes! Was the bus actually faster, or did the wait for the LRT favour the bus? Either way, this shows what a waste that $800 million was. Essentially, they spent that try to replace a handful of bus routes with an infrequent tram.

Wow, that is quite the sweeping statement. If you had been to Kitchener, I think you would perhaps think otherwise. There are literally billions of dollars of development going up along the line. You may argue that some of it would have happened otherwise, which may or may not be true, but there is no doubt that serious money is betting on the value of the system.

8 minute headways is hardly infrequent service and there is plenty of opportunity to add more trains as needed.

It replaces a busy trunk route that was at capacity and getting bogged down in traffic. It makes fewer stops, loads faster and is clearly superior outside the cores where it is separate from traffic. It also eliminates the need for transfers as a continuous route.

I’m not saying that a surface route was right for Ottawa, but in a less dense environment with key transit nodes, it was clearly the right choice.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Wow, that is quite the sweeping statement. If you had been to Kitchener, I think you would perhaps think otherwise. There are literally billions of dollars of development going up along the line. You may argue that some of it would have happened otherwise, which may or may not be true, but there is no doubt that serious money is betting on the value of the system.

8 minute headways is hardly infrequent service and there is plenty of opportunity to add more trains as needed.

It replaces a busy trunk route that was at capacity and getting bogged down in traffic. It makes fewer stops, loads faster and is clearly superior outside the cores where it is separate from traffic. It also eliminates the need for transfers as a continuous route.

I’m not saying that a surface route was right for Ottawa, but in a less dense environment with key transit nodes, it was clearly the right choice.

There is also a lot of development going on outside the ion corridor (King St North of Laurier, for example) and was lots of development inside the corridor before the project was approved. I think someone would be hard pressed to establish a causative relationship.

Frequency is 15 minutes most of the time.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by phil235

Wow, that is quite the sweeping statement. If you had been to Kitchener, I think you would perhaps think otherwise. There are literally billions of dollars of development going up along the line.

I literally said the purpose of the line was development. And that's my point. It's primary purpose is not mobility.

Originally Posted by phil235

8 minute headways is hardly infrequent service ...

For a bus maybe. For a rapid transit system that is the trunk of the regional network, that's ridiculous. And that's the peak frequency. For most of the day, it's 10-15 mins.

Originally Posted by phil235

It replaces a busy trunk route that was at capacity and getting bogged down in traffic. It makes fewer stops, loads faster and is clearly superior outside the cores where it is separate from traffic. It also eliminates the need for transfers as a continuous route.

All of that could have been achieved with BRT for less, and since it's cheaper to buy buses, frequencies could have been ramped up.

Originally Posted by phil235

I’m not saying that a surface route was right for Ottawa, but in a less dense environment with key transit nodes, it was clearly the right choice.

And what I'm saying is that BRT would have delivered KWC much more. And built right, they could have always converted to LRT later like Ottawa did. As it stands, it's doubtful that anyone who doesn't live along the line will use it.

[J.OT13]

The Cities of Kitchener-Waterloo seem pretty adamant that the billions of new development is directly related to the ION.

I'm trying to think what developments have gone up in Ottawa directly related to the Confederation Line. The one Frontier tower at Blair and maybe the Brigil's Apoge on Parkdale. A couple buildings were renovated downtown, the Hilton (former Delta), Heritage Place and the SunLife Centre. We could arguably say that the Rideau Centre expansion and renos were somewhat related. Zibi has nothing to do with the rail line.

For Stage 2 related projects, we have the rental towers along Scott, but those are also closely associated with the pent-up rental demand that has exploded in the last few years. I guess the same could be said for Frontier.

Plenty of Line 1 related proposals. Trinity at Bayview, which killed LeBreton Flats and might not be built for decades. The upcoming LeBreton Flat's new RFP. Future phases of Frontier and Apoge. Claridge Moon is U/C.

The only place where we've seen significant rail related TOD is near Carling Station.

We're twice the size of KW and new development related to our new rail line represents maybe half the value.

This is not to criticize the Confederation Line. I'm just disappointed we didn't see more development so far. I blame the private sector for holding on to its high rents that come with high commercial occupancy.

[Kitchissippi]

I think you’ll see a lot of development on Scott street in ‘the coming years, as well as Richmond road as stage 2 ramps up. Stage 1 doesn’t really have that much affordable/available land around it except for Lebreton which is stuck in limbo and Cyrville where there’s a lack of imagination. Save for the downtown stations, Stage 1 doesn’t really go through that many walkable desirable neighbourhoods

[jchilds72]

The redevelopment of Lincoln Heights Galleria that's in the works?

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The Cities of Kitchener-Waterloo seem pretty adamant that the billions of new development is directly related to the ION.

I'm trying to think what developments have gone up in Ottawa directly related to the Confederation Line. The one Frontier tower at Blair and maybe the Brigil's Apoge on Parkdale. A couple buildings were renovated downtown, the Hilton (former Delta), Heritage Place and the SunLife Centre. We could arguably say that the Rideau Centre expansion and renos were somewhat related. Zibi has nothing to do with the rail line.

For Stage 2 related projects, we have the rental towers along Scott, but those are also closely associated with the pent-up rental demand that has exploded in the last few years. I guess the same could be said for Frontier.

Plenty of Line 1 related proposals. Trinity at Bayview, which killed LeBreton Flats and might not be built for decades. The upcoming LeBreton Flat's new RFP. Future phases of Frontier and Apoge. Claridge Moon is U/C.

The only place where we've seen significant rail related TOD is near Carling Station.

We're twice the size of KW and new development related to our new rail line represents maybe half the value. Most of that is residential, but DTK is also seeing construction of its first new build office buildings in over 25 years.

This is not to criticize the Confederation Line. I'm just disappointed we didn't see more development so far. I blame the private sector for holding on to its high rents that come with high commercial occupancy.

$3.1B was the figure I saw in the Record when I was in K-W earlier this week. Most of that is residential (the population of DTK will double in the next two years!), but DTK is also seeing its first new build office construction in over 25 years.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

$3.1B was the figure I saw in the Record when I was in K-W earlier this week. Most of that is residential (the population of DTK will double in the next two years!), but DTK is also seeing its first new build office construction in over 25 years.

But I think they are just adding up all of the building permits across a huge swath of the cities. That isn’t causation.

It was unclear to me exactly how people are supposed to use this system beyond as a student shuttle service and pre-existing bus users. There are no park and rides, not much in the way of feeder routes, no residential areas along the line. I guess the idea is that high-income condo dwellers will spend close to an hour going to Zehrs, but that seems unrealistic to me.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The Cities of Kitchener-Waterloo seem pretty adamant that the billions of new development is directly related to the ION.

I'm trying to think what developments have gone up in Ottawa directly related to the Confederation Line. The one Frontier tower at Blair and maybe the Brigil's Apoge on Parkdale. A couple buildings were renovated downtown, the Hilton (former Delta), Heritage Place and the SunLife Centre. We could arguably say that the Rideau Centre expansion and renos were somewhat related. Zibi has nothing to do with the rail line.

For Stage 2 related projects, we have the rental towers along Scott, but those are also closely associated with the pent-up rental demand that has exploded in the last few years. I guess the same could be said for Frontier.

Plenty of Line 1 related proposals. Trinity at Bayview, which killed LeBreton Flats and might not be built for decades. The upcoming LeBreton Flat's new RFP. Future phases of Frontier and Apoge. Claridge Moon is U/C.

The only place where we've seen significant rail related TOD is near Carling Station.

We're twice the size of KW and new development related to our new rail line represents maybe half the value.

This is not to criticize the Confederation Line. I'm just disappointed we didn't see more development so far. I blame the private sector for holding on to its high rents that come with high commercial occupancy.

I don't actually think Trinity's development was the kicker there. It's obvious from that long saga Ruddy and Melnek despised each other, and Melnek knew of the development from the get go. Melnek was looking for any excuse to get out.

I think you can argue all of the TOD around Carling is Line 1 related. Carling station had been there for a decade, but the mad land rush only started when the Otrain was no longer a train from "nowhere to nowhere", but a link in a city wide rail system.

[Gat-Train]

Ion trains in two separate crashes on Monday I'm very glad we decided to go with a grade-separated system. Even in cities that have had streetcars for over a century drivers still act like idiots around them

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by acottawa

But I think they are just adding up all of the building permits across a huge swath of the cities. That isn’t causation.

It was unclear to me exactly how people are supposed to use this system beyond as a student shuttle service and pre-existing bus users. There are no park and rides, not much in the way of feeder routes, no residential areas along the line. I guess the idea is that high-income condo dwellers will spend close to an hour going to Zehrs, but that seems unrealistic to me.

Students will constitute a major component of ridership, as they do for the GRT system generally. I'm assuming people will use it as they use buses now (in many cases in addition to the buses they use now). We'll see how it is being used twenty or thirty years from now, as istm that's how far ahead of the curve K-W is with this project (one is reminded of their Conestoga Parkway, built decades in advance of real need).