Roads/Bridges projects/issues

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

I can't really link the laughable route on the traffic planner, but lets just say under no circumstances will I be taking OC Transpo to work and back.

You know, that trip doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me. Of the 1h20, 16 minutes is waking which means actual vehicle travel time is just over an hour. Palladium Drive is pretty far from Alta Vista/ Elmvale. Your connections are fairly short. I don’t see what could be done to make this much faster other than a direct express bus along the highway which is not realistic. You have the benefit of going against traffic out to a pretty low density area. It’s hard for transit to compete with that.

[AR-OTT]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

You know, that trip doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me. Of the 1h20, 16 minutes is waking which means actual vehicle travel time is just over an hour. Palladium Drive is pretty far from Alta Vista/ Elmvale. Your connections are fairly short. I don’t see what could be done to make this much faster other than a direct express bus along the highway which is not realistic. You have the benefit of going against traffic out to a pretty low density area. It’s hard for transit to compete with that.

I also have a 'reverse commute' and I can say that when you're driving against traffic its almost impossible for transit to look better than driving.

[lrt's friend]

Wasn't the old Route 99 designed to run mostly on the Queensway and ran to Bayshore and to Kanata in peak hours? This was originally designed as a limited stop service to speed up travel times cross-town. Have various iterations of that old route destroyed its value as a fast cross-town route? Why does everybody now have to go through downtown? This can never be fast for those going a long distance. Far too many stops, far too many transfers. This is a symptom of our current problems that we are no longer trying to find creative ways to move people faster by transit and find those untapped markets.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Wasn't the old Route 99 designed to run mostly on the Queensway and ran to Bayshore and to Kanata in peak hours? This was originally designed as a limited stop service to speed up travel times cross-town. Have various iterations of that old route destroyed its value as a fast cross-town route? Why does everybody now have to go through downtown? This can never be fast for those going a long distance. Far too many stops, far too many transfers. This is a symptom of our current problems that we are no longer trying to find creative ways to move people faster by transit and find those untapped markets.

Except the 99 ran along Carling for half the route. I always thought it should have been made into a cross town express, but OC Transpo didn't think anyone would ever use such a bus.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Except the 99 ran along Carling for half the route. I always thought it should have been made into a cross town express, but OC Transpo didn't think anyone would ever use such a bus.

Until 1986 the 99 did use the queensway after Bronson then got of and then on again at Carling and woodroffe.

The 99 started using booth then Carling in 1987

[Norman Bates]

The 99 launched in 1978 as a Queensway crosstown route. It’s terminuses we’re Shopper’s City East and Shopper’s City West. About four years later the terminuses were moved to Place d’Orleans and Bayshore. But it remained a Queensway (and 17 (now 174)) route. With only the westbound portion on Catherine from Metcalfe to Bronson and the eastbound portion from Booth to Metcalfe mostly on Isabella.

It was a great route until they pushed it onto Carling to serve the Civic and then it began to suffer cascading failures and platooning of buses.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Except the 99 ran along Carling for half the route. I always thought it should have been made into a cross town express, but OC Transpo didn't think anyone would ever use such a bus.

The route would have a lot less utility if it didn't serve the Booth St offices, Civic, Carling O-Train, Royal, Carlington, etc.

The problem with a cross town express on the highway is that there are not many people who only want to travel between the endpoints. You are completely eliminating the ridership from folks travelling between 2 of the midpoints. The ridership would never be enough to justify a high frequency service.

[Acajack]

The 99 worked pretty well at the time. I recall taking it every once in a while.

There were dedicated off and on ramps for it at most of the Queensway exits so the buses were not really delayed much. You can still see the old ramp for it (and the pre-Transitway express routes too) near the former RCMP HQ at Vanier Parkway.

[danishh]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Exactly.

If they built a ring road (expressway standard) to the south of Ottawa, then you might have some rationale for tolling one of the two.

here's a quick rural rail and highways plan i did up to show what this looks like in my head:


Highways:
1. NCC Parkway from Richmond Road along Hunt Club to Merivale Hydro TS, then along ANR/Beachburg/Walkley rail to Hawthorne Hydro TS (Now that CN is gone, should be feasible), connecting to Hunt Club/417 interchange and orleans link. This would require the most expropriation, but it's mostly commercial/industrial.

2. Ottawa Bypass Highway from 416/Kemptville to Casselman. This could be redesignated as the Trans-Canada route, routing the Trans Canada around Ottawa.

3. Cornwall Highway link from Metcalfe/Ottawa Bypass Hwy. This is low priority for now, but should be designated.

having done all this, tolling the 417 between the 416 and the 174 should be feasible.

Rural Rail:
That's pretty straightforward - use the existing rail corridors to reconnect rural towns and villages to Ottawa. The routes along the Via corridor and ANR subdivision could be built now. Restoring the Havelock, Prescott and Cornwall lines (to serve Carleton Place, Kemptville and Embrun, respectively) would take a lot more time and money as new rail would have to be laid.

I included a Gatineau line too - Bayview - Zibi/TDLC - PDP - Musee - NPB/Imprimerie - Casino - Chelsea - Wakefield, though that seems pie-in-the-sky right now. I just want a ski train.

[Aylmer]

I'm not totally clear on the need for a lot of this. Do we really need to spend billions on a faster link between Kemptville and Casselman? Or anywhere and Cornwall?

To save people the cost of tolling? Keeping in mind that congestion pricing would be something like $3-4 at peak, and free off-peak as it is in other comparable areas (yes, I know London charges like $20, but we're not quite London. We're Gothenburg), it seems like overkill to spend billions just to save some people the cost of a bus ticket during a few hours of the workday.

Perhaps saving time then? Sure, but congestion pricing does a really fantastic job at slashing congestion. So it actually invalidates the need for any of this new capacity by just nudging demand. You don't need a multi-billion-dollar ring road when you can drive from Kanata to Orleans at 9am for $3.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by danishh

2. Ottawa Bypass Highway from 416/Kemptville to Casselman. This could be redesignated as the Trans-Canada route, routing the Trans Canada around Ottawa.

Who would even be using this? It's too far south to be of any use for commuters in Ottawa.

[CityTech]

The Route 400/Marvelville/Dalmeny axis already serves as a reasonably fast route from the Casselman area to the Kemptville area. It's straight and there's no towns on it, so you can go at nearly highway speeds. You can actually use it as bypass (from exit 79 on the 417 to exit 40 on the 416) of the Ottawa metropolitan area. That new highway would offer little speed benefit over this route and would be very expensive.

[danishh]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I'm not totally clear on the need for a lot of this. Do we really need to spend billions on a faster link between Kemptville and Casselman? Or anywhere and Cornwall?

To save people the cost of tolling? Keeping in mind that congestion pricing would be something like $3-4 at peak, and free off-peak as it is in other comparable areas (yes, I know London charges like $20, but we're not quite London. We're Gothenburg), it seems like overkill to spend billions just to save some people the cost of a bus ticket during a few hours of the workday.

Perhaps saving time then? Sure, but congestion pricing does a really fantastic job at slashing congestion. So it actually invalidates the need for any of this new capacity by just nudging demand. You don't need a multi-billion-dollar ring road when you can drive from Kanata to Orleans at 9am for $3.

Originally Posted by JHikka

Who would even be using this? It's too far south to be of any use for commuters in Ottawa.

Originally Posted by CityTech

The Route 400/Marvelville/Dalmeny axis already serves as a reasonably fast route from the Casselman area to the Kemptville area. It's straight and there's no towns on it, so you can go at nearly highway speeds. You can actually use it as bypass (from exit 79 on the 417 to exit 40 on the 416) of the Ottawa metropolitan area. That new highway would offer little speed benefit over this route and would be very expensive.

I'll answer these all together, prefacing this by stating i did call this a rural highways plan. It's not for downtown commuters.

- the ottawa bypass parkway allows private vehicles to bypass the 417, and also significantly alleviates strain around hunt club road between merivale and conroy. Trucks stay on the Hunt Club Road truck route. This is really not dissimmilar to what we did in the 50's, taking JR Booth's old tracks out of the city and replacing them with the Queensway, and moving rail operations for CN down to Walkley. This time freight rail is moving to CP's winchester line.

-kemptville to casselman - this is to allow future development on this axis, rather than continued sprawl of barrhaven/riverside south. Future development could focus around the existing towns and cities of north gower, kemptville, osgoode, metcalfe, russell, and embrun. The highway, redesignated as the trans canada, does connect these towns to each other and the 416/417 highways, but the real goal is to accommodate future growth. The key as far as tolling goes is that it allows transcanada traffic to avoid the toll route.

-As mentioned by citytech, this actually follows an existing road alignment. For now i would designate the corridor, build a new interchange at the 400, and build a bridge at the rideau. It would then be upgraded over time as traffic counts justify it. I would expect this to be a provincial/MTO project, as the benefits are mostly to GPR/SDG/LGTI counties.


- As i mentioned, the cornwall link is low priority and wouldn't be built until the communities mentioned have grown and traffic counts justify it.

- I very deliberately do not want a bypass highway closer to the city (eg the fallowfield/leitrim) axis as it would just be encouraging more exurban sprawl. Barrhaven and Riverside South are getting LRT, that's enough for their commuting needs.

[Kitchissippi]

Roger Stevens (OR 6) is already heavily used by trucks, has a bridge across the Rideau and is desperately in need of rehabilitation. It's a better route for a provincial 2-lane highway and can be extended to Hwy 7 passing just north of Smiths Falls and Perth. I posted this idea on another thread years ago:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=6284265&postcount=9

Interestingly since then, Amazon set up their facility not to far off from it, and Smiths Falls has become a cannabis capital

[danishh]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Roger Stevens (OR 6) is already heavily used by trucks, has a bridge across the Rideau and is desperately in need of rehabilitation. It's a better route for a provincial 2-lane highway and can be extended to Hwy 7 passing just north of Smiths Falls and Perth. I posted this idea on another thread years ago:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showpost.php?p=6284265&postcount=9

Interestingly since then, Amazon set up their facility not to far off from it, and Smiths Falls has become a cannabis capital

yeah, that achieves the same purpose, i'm fine with that if you can get Kars and North Gower to agree. Mecalfe should be easier to bypass.
there's a mystery distribution centre being built in North Gower as well.

[silvergate]

Why not just put tolls on highway exits/entrances in the core at rush hour? Avoid all the political dealing with the Province, and get the same effect as tolling the highway, but if people aren't going to these highly congested areas then they don't pay.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by silvergate

Why not just put tolls on highway exits/entrances in the core at rush hour? Avoid all the political dealing with the Province, and get the same effect as tolling the highway, but if people aren't going to these highly congested areas then they don't pay.

And the cost of this tolling infrastructure would be? We can barely get Presto to function as it should

IMO the best approach would be to just let traffic go to pot, not spend any money in "solving" it, and invest instead on more transit, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure to make these become better choices over driving.

[TransitZilla]

^We don't need tolling gantries everywhere, we just need to equip all vehicles with a transponder and charge them accordingly.

According to some, tolling is inevitable. (PDF)

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by kitchissippi

imo the best approach would be to just let traffic go to pot, not spend any money in "solving" it, and invest instead on more transit, pedestrian and cycling infrastructure to make these become better choices over driving.

this.

[Kitchissippi]

Equipping all vehicles with transponders sounds like a simple thing but these schemes usually end up as a big boondoggle where purpose is lost in the process.

Traffic in Ottawa really isn't that bad, the people it affects are mainly the drivers caught in it, and mostly a rush hour issue. There is no congestion problem in the core that is seriously affecting the economy to the point of having to limit access. I think downtown Ottawa is actually quite fragile, beyond the touristy stuff there is very that can't be easily relocated, replicated or repeated in the suburbs in terms of employment, shopping or services.