Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

Wasn't there supposed to be a Rideau Station—NAC pedestrian tunnel? Whatever happened to that?

Good Day.

The ped MUP tunnel beside the RoW tunnel was a feature of where the Rideau station was to have been, under the east side of the canal and the Conference Center and the west side of Rideau Centre. ----and Very Deep----. The access points were: a glass podium on the north side of NAC by the north ramp on the east of Elgin, a glass podium on the east side of the Conference Center on the west side of Colonel By, and down from an integral Rideau Centre entrance.

That disappeared when the under-the-canal alignment was shifted from Albert/Slater and cross-country to sub-Queen, and Rideau station was moved from deep-sub-canal and under the Conference Center, eastward to Rideau Street proper, and shallowed up. All to reduce costs and optimize construction. Elgin St., Lord Elgin Hotel, and NAC were left hanging mid-between the new station locations of Parliament and Rideau.

This was at the end of the initial design period, just as it went to pre-qualifying the bidders, 2011-2012.

Things Change.

[lrt's friend]

This is why City Hall ended up so far from any station.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

The ped MUP tunnel beside the RoW tunnel was a feature of where the Rideau station was to have been, under the east side of the canal and the Conference Center and the west side of Rideau Centre. ----and Very Deep----. The access points were: a glass podium on the north side of NAC by the north ramp on the east of Elgin, a glass podium on the east side of the Conference Center on the west side of Colonel By, and down from an integral Rideau Centre entrance.

That disappeared when the under-the-canal alignment was shifted from Albert/Slater and cross-country to sub-Queen, and Rideau station was moved from deep-sub-canal and under the Conference Center, eastward to Rideau Street proper, and shallowed up. All to reduce costs and optimize construction. Elgin St., Lord Elgin Hotel, and NAC were left hanging mid-between the new station locations of Parliament and Rideau.

This was at the end of the initial design period, just as it went to pre-qualifying the bidders, 2011-2012.

Things Change.

This wasn't just to reduce costs. It was also to improve access.

The initial tunnel plan would have allowed for closer station entrances to more destinations, but it would have required a much deeper tunnel to make that happen. So any time savings you'd get from having a shorter walk to City Hall, the NAC, etc. from the station, would be cancelled out by having to go down many more flights of escalators within the station itself.

Many people have commented that it's somewhat annoying how deep Rideau station is. Well, the original tunnel plan would have had every station at least 50% deeper than that, with the original Rideau station being over twice as deep. So it wouldn't have really been any more convenient, and it would have been far more expensive on top of that, as tunnels get more and more expensive the deeper you go.

The reason for the trade off of shallow tunnel vs. better station locations is because the shallower the tunnel, the more things like parking garage and utility locations constrain the placement of station infrastructure.

(That's another perk of using LRT over traditional metro technology, actually. Traditional metros have much less flexibility for things like turn radii and inclines making it even more constrained. This is the main reason why Doug Ford changed the design of the Relief Line in Toronto from traditional TTC subway tech to Confederation Line-style LRT. It took billions of the cost by easing these constraints and allowed for a longer line to be built in the first phase).

[J.OT13]

OC Transpo proud to show off millions of wasted dollars and laugh at the climate emergency. I feel like THIS would have been a good use for the hybrids?


https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1201514009620598789

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

OC Transpo proud to show off millions of wasted dollars and laugh at the climate emergency. I feel like THIS would have been a good use for the hybrids?

https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1201514009620598789

If the purpose is to replace 600 passenger trains, why are they all 40' buses?

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

OC Transpo proud to show off millions of wasted dollars and laugh at the climate emergency. I feel like THIS would have been a good use for the hybrids?


https://twitter.com/OC_Transpo/status/1201514009620598789

Why the hell are they on? They should be turned off while being unused.

I hope within a few weeks we can start using these buses for actual service instead.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by CityTech

This wasn't just to reduce costs. It was also to improve access.

The initial tunnel plan would have allowed for closer station entrances to more destinations, but it would have required a much deeper tunnel to make that happen. So any time savings you'd get from having a shorter walk to City Hall, the NAC, etc. from the station, would be cancelled out by having to go down many more flights of escalators within the station itself.

Many people have commented that it's somewhat annoying how deep Rideau station is. Well, the original tunnel plan would have had every station at least 50% deeper than that, with the original Rideau station being over twice as deep. So it wouldn't have really been any more convenient, and it would have been far more expensive on top of that, as tunnels get more and more expensive the deeper you go.

The reason for the trade off of shallow tunnel vs. better station locations is because the shallower the tunnel, the more things like parking garage and utility locations constrain the placement of station infrastructure.

(That's another perk of using LRT over traditional metro technology, actually. Traditional metros have much less flexibility for things like turn radii and inclines making it even more constrained. This is the main reason why Doug Ford changed the design of the Relief Line in Toronto from traditional TTC subway tech to Confederation Line-style LRT. It took billions of the cost by easing these constraints and allowed for a longer line to be built in the first phase).

I agree the new alignment is superior to the initial proposal. Although the Confederation entrance would have been awesome on so many levels, it (along with the super-deep stations) wouldn't have been functional on a day-to-day basis. I do wish they would have built a pedestrian tunnel from the Convention Centre to the NAC, and maybe extend it to the Lord Elgin (since the owner did offer partial funding), but I digress.

I agree the technology chosen gave us more flexibility in terms of turning radius and inclines, and I have used this argument a few times before, but the main issue is the choice of low-floor which greatly limits the interior configuration and number of doors. The argument for this, of course, was that we might run on the street in the suburbs, but this was extremely short-sighted considering the passenger volumes today and in the future.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The argument for this, of course, was that we might run on the street in the suburbs, but this was extremely short-sighted considering the passenger volumes today and in the future.

The thought of instead of running spur lines having the magical tech of splitting trains going to the suburbs, and coupling them for the central segment to maintain frequency reared its head too iirc.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

OC Transpo proud to show off millions of wasted dollars and laugh at the climate emergency. I feel like THIS would have been a good use for the hybrids?

Sorry but what "millions"? These are buses that were on order anyway and have been delivered early. The only cost is to keep them staffed, fueled and ready.

Hopefully this is a short term measure and they hardly get used as train reliability improves.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I agree the new alignment is superior to the initial proposal. Although the Confederation entrance would have been awesome on so many levels, it (along with the super-deep stations) wouldn't have been functional on a day-to-day basis. I do wish they would have built a pedestrian tunnel from the Convention Centre to the NAC, and maybe extend it to the Lord Elgin (since the owner did offer partial funding), but I digress.

While serving Rideau is great and in many ways necessary, probably the cheapest, shortest , shallowest and least disruptive route for a tunnel would have been to pass under the canal right after uOttawa and then under Albert, with a station at Confederation Park/City Hall. It would have avoided the sinkhole incident

However, if we did need a second tunnel, the east and west segments could be separated with the Orleans trains looping out to Gatineau and the western trains continuing down a Rideau-Montreal subway

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

Sorry but what "millions"? These are buses that were on order anyway and have been delivered early. The only cost is to keep them staffed, fueled and ready.

Hopefully this is a short term measure and they hardly get used as train reliability improves.

I'm not suggesting the buses themselves are millions wasted nor I am suggesting we are wasting millions a day but the staffing hours, the fuel wasted by idling and the fleet sitting there waiting for the apocalypse, that is wasted. I'm not sure how long we'll have these buses parked at the baseball stadium every rush hour (until March 1 when the fares are st to go up?) or how much it costs per day (I feel like they mentioned a figure in the millions at the Transit Committee Meeting November 20th, but I could be wrong).

To boot, this service starts 2.5 months after the launch of the Confederation Line when most of the problems seem to be subsiding.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

While serving Rideau is great and in many ways necessary, probably the cheapest, shortest , shallowest and least disruptive route for a tunnel would have been to pass under the canal right after uOttawa and then under Albert, with a station at Confederation Park/City Hall. It would have avoided the sinkhole incident

However, if we did need a second tunnel, the east and west segments could be separated with the Orleans trains looping out to Gatineau and the western trains continuing down a Rideau-Montreal subway

I agree that a cheaper route would have followed Albert or Slater (not the original cross-country route) but they also wanted a solution that served the Rideau Centre and Byward Market directly.

Unfortunately, this routing makes it very difficult to build a second subway across downtown at any point in the future.

They were to rough in connections to both Montreal Road and Bayview but those were both cut to save money.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I'm not suggesting the buses themselves are millions wasted nor I am suggesting we are wasting millions a day but the staffing hours, the fuel wasted by idling and the fleet sitting there waiting for the apocalypse, that is wasted.

These buses are an insurance policy. Is the $ spent on your house insurance wasted?

To boot, this service starts 2.5 months after the launch of the Confederation Line when most of the problems seem to be subsiding.

In retrospect, yes there are a number of things that maybe should have been done differently on October 6th. Having a longer phase-out of the parallel service and/or dedicated R1 from the beginning should have been part of the plan.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Unfortunately, this routing makes it very difficult to build a second subway across downtown at any point in the future.

The tunnel is deep enough that if you're willing to cut and cover a shallower one, you can bring a second one in. In any case, that is a decades from now problem.

[lrt's friend]

Door problems came up again Friday and Saturday, which caused some delays.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I agree that a cheaper route would have followed Albert or Slater (not the original cross-country route) but they also wanted a solution that served the Rideau Centre and Byward Market directly.

Unfortunately, this routing makes it very difficult to build a second subway across downtown at any point in the future.

They were to rough in connections to both Montreal Road and Bayview but those were both cut to save money.

In terms of the downtown tunnel, routing wise, the selected path probably offered the best balance between keeping costs down and best serving the population.

Cost saving measures like dropping the double escalators, eliminating the slight bump-out for a future Rideau-Montreal subway, the configuration of Bayview, were all very short-sighted. Building under Queen, limiting the width of the two CBD stations was also a mistake IMO.

Originally Posted by bradnixon

These buses are an insurance policy. Is the $ spent on your house insurance wasted?

I see it more like constantly running my generator in case I lose electricity.

My biggest concern is the environmental impact. How can we declare a climate emergency yet run 20 parked buses for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week? Why do they need to be running? If it's to keep them warm, why not use hybrids? If it's a reliability issue (won't start in the cold), what kind of crap did we buy? Why not keep them parked and turned off at the St-Laurent garage? Why 20? Why short buses? If they must be running, why not 10 accordions or double deckers?

I understand the general reasoning behind having 20 buses dedicated to R1 service, and even the reasoning behind having 20 bus drivers on stand-by (though couldn't hey be doing something else in the meantime, like paper work?), but why do we need to have the 20 parked buses running outside at the baseball stadium?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The tunnel is deep enough that if you're willing to cut and cover a shallower one, you can bring a second one in. In any case, that is a decades from now problem.

Cut and cover won't work if you have to cross the Rideau Canal.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Cut and cover won't work if you have to cross the Rideau Canal.

If you need to both cross the canal, and cross the existing tunnel in short order, I am not sure what route would actually need that. And yeah, you can totally cut and cover in the canal. It just wouldn't be pretty. But neither is cut and cover on the streets either.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

My biggest concern is the environmental impact. How can we declare a climate emergency yet run 20 parked buses for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week? Why do they need to be running? If it's to keep them warm, why not use hybrids? If it's a reliability issue (won't start in the cold), what kind of 🞵🞵🞵🞵 did we buy? Why not keep them parked and turned off at the St-Laurent garage? Why 20? Why short buses? If they must be running, why not 10 accordions or double deckers?

I understand the general reasoning behind having 20 buses dedicated to R1 service, and even the reasoning behind having 20 bus drivers on stand-by (though couldn't hey be doing something else in the meantime, like paper work?), but why do we need to have the 20 parked buses running outside at the baseball stadium?

I gather they need to keep the idling to keep the air brakes charged. From what I have read, any air brake equipped vehicle needs to run for 10 minutes to pressure up the air brake reservoir before they can start driving. When the train goes down, that 10 minutes will seem like an eternity.

Now in the garage, they might be able to keep the reservoir charged by connecting it to an air compressor, but I suspect they aren't setup for that.

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Cut and cover won't work if you have to cross the Rideau Canal.

It is a canal not a river. The beauty of a canal is it has locks which allow you to drain a section. Now the canal is out of order while you are doing that, but given that it is a very short section, it won't take that long and they could time it to minimize the inconvenience (start digging shortly after Winterlude and then finish with a late start to the boating season).

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

If you need to both cross the canal, and cross the existing tunnel in short order, I am not sure what route would actually need that. And yeah, you can totally cut and cover in the canal. It just wouldn't be pretty. But neither is cut and cover on the streets either.

I can't see Ottawa doing this, when we didn't do cut and cover the first time. Will we be able to insert another subway over the top of the existing subway and not cause problems? Usually, when a new subway is built that needs to cross an existing line, they put it under the existing subway to make sure nothing is compromised.