West Gatineau Tramway & Downtown Loop | Proposed

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I’d guess somewhere between your two extremes. I think you both underestimate a new option. A lot of West Quebec decisions are head scratchers but this whole project seems like way overkill to serve a very small part or an already small city. Busses work fine.

With the tunnel option is there a project in North America or even the world that is more expensive per projected passenger and projected ton of carbon removed?

Ottawa’s tunnel plan was already iffy but this is mind blowing. I mean in one way it’s good to see. 10 or even 5 years ago this kind of money wasn’t available in Toronto for projects with probably 10 times the ridership. We are entering a. Ice phase of transit development. Given how much we have spent on Covid support it seems like a drop in the bucket.

I don't completely disagree.

The west end of Gatineau does need rail. It's poorly served by highways (important for both cars and buses) and it's rapidly densifying. The fastest growing area in Gatineau.

That said, I think the hybrid solution would have been more in line with their needs. Having the trams on the south axis which has a more limited road capacity and simple bus lanes for the north Plateau axis would have sufficed.

As for Ottawa's tunnel, it was fully justified. The central Transitway could not handle any more volume. Surface LRT might have increased capacity slightly, but frequency and length of trains (due to parking garage entrances) would have heavily limited that capacity. Spending an extra $500 million on a tunnel that offered double the max capacity was well worth it.

[Kitchissippi]

From an Ottawa point of view, the loop concept makes little sense. Everything on the Ontario side of the loop’s route is already within reasonable walking distance from the O-train. The only destination that is a good walk is the National Gallery at ~650 m from Rideau. That’s about a 9 minute walk and not worth waiting for a loop tram to come around.

I think the focus should be a direct fare-paid connection at Lyon station which would make transfers between systems seamless since O-train stations can already take STO’s Multi card. If the Alexandra Bridge ever gets redesigned for rail transit, that end can be directly connected to Rideau, creating a non-contiguous loop.

[J.OT13]

So the STO decided on the Wilfrid-Lavigne/Allumetieres route to avoid Aylmer's heritage mains street area. Having a tram line in that area would have been cool. A true all year destination. At the same time, I get that the space is very limited.

Anyone know where the old Hull-Electric tramway route use to be through Aylmer?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

So the STO decided on the Wilfrid-Lavigne/Allumetieres route to avoid Aylmer's heritage mains street area. Having a tram line in that area would have been cool. A true all year destination. At the same time, I get that the space is very limited.

Anyone know where the old Hull-Electric tramway route use to be through Aylmer?

I am pretty sure it ran along Boulevard Lucerne (once known as the Lower Aylmer Road) and not the main upper road to the north.

There is a former tramway depot and power plant at the corner of Vanier and Lucerne, now converted into apartments.

Interestingly enough, the tramway ran quite far to the west, all the way to Queen's Park which is on the other side of the marina. A street along the river still bears that name.

And even more interesting is that at the end of the tramway was... an amusement park!

A radio segment on it, for those who can understand French.

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premie...ult-queens-park-gatineau-aylmer-histoire

If not, you can at least look at the photos.

[J.OT13]

Thanks! So the end of the line was at a similar distance from the heart of Aylmer as the new lines turning point at Wilfrid-Lavigne. I wish they could have used the entire former corridor for the new tramway, but obviously that would not be feasible.

That old power plant turned apartments is pretty cool!

Ottawa tramway through what's today Byron Linear Park also terminated at an amusement park. In that case, at Britannia Beach. Streetcar companies often had those to attract riders. They were truly for all day, everyday use, not just rush-hour commuter shuttles.

I'll be sure to listen to that podcast.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Thanks! So the end of the line was at a similar distance from the heart of Aylmer as the new lines turning point at Wilfrid-Lavigne. I wish they could have used the entire former corridor for the new tramway, but obviously that would not be feasible.

That old power plant turned apartments is pretty cool!

Ottawa tramway through what's today Byron Linear Park also terminated at an amusement park. In that case, at Britannia Beach. Streetcar companies often had those to attract riders. They were truly for all day, everyday use, not just rush-hour commuter shuttles.

I'll be sure to listen to that podcast.

Funny how the region had all these amusement parks way back when.

Kettle Island also had one.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Funny how the region had all these amusement parks way back when.

Kettle Island also had one.

Ya, for sure. I wish we had one today. Wouldn't have to be as large as Wonderland or La Ronde.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

• 9% Sparks tunnel. Preferred option by both municipalities, but no one has the foresight to build the tunnel in a way that would maintain an integrated loop as an option, deeply compromising future capacity;

"Maintaining an integrated loop" should take second place to "not making it impossible to build urban transit that actually serves urban Ottawa neighbourhoods sometime in the next half-millennium" as far as I'm concerned. But we seem to be planning all sorts of underground infrastructure in central Ottawa, for all kinds of purposes other than the benefit of central Ottawa, which will preclude ever furnishing central Ottawa with an urban transit.

Buses, all the way down. Forever.

[J.OT13]

A few other reasons why I'm disappointed they didn't go with the Eardley route in Aylmer is that we're missing the heart of activity at Place des Pionniers/Bilbliothèque Lucy-Faris along with the Centre Cultural (old courthouse and jail) 500 meters from where the Tramway will turn. More so, on Eardley itself, there's a decent amount of redevelopment proposal, including an existing dense low income apartment complex.

The quaint town centre only really starts after Place des Pionniers, so choosing that route would have had minimal impact on the character while providing service to far more destinations and density.

[J.OT13]

STO
@STOGatineau


Participez à la 1ière d’une série de 3 rencontres publiques virtuelles «UN TRAMWAY DANS MA VILLE» pour en apprendre davantage sur le système de transport collectif structurant de l’ouest de Gatineau. Détails et inscriptions au http://sto.ca/tramwaygatineau


10:20 AM · May 19, 2021·Hootsuite Inc.

https://twitter.com/STOGatineau/status/1395021451040808970

[J.OT13]

A few more public open houses coming up over the next few months.


L'effet d'un réseau structurant sur l'aménagement urbain
Mercredi 22 septembre 2021
18 h 30 à 20 h


L'impact du tramway sur les autres
modes de transport
Mercredi 17 novembre 2021
18 h 30 à 20 h

http://sto.ca/index.php?id=776&L=fr

[J.OT13]

Derek Ellis of O-Trains Fans has created an STO Tramway layer for the website's O-Train map based on the most recent info from the Gatineau transit agency.


https://map.railfans.ca/?gatineau=true#11/45.3863/-75.6562/-30

[J.OT13]

Wrong thread.

[J.OT13]

The STO has posted its June 2 public consultation on the Aylmer Tramway.

General Website: http://sto.ca/index.php?id=433&L=en
Video Presentation (French only, English subtitles upcoming): https://www.facebook.com/STO/videos/503603531059800/
PowerPoint Presentation (French only): http://sto.ca/fileadmin/user_upload/comm...3%A9listes_2juin_WSP-STO_VF_20210601.pdf

[sseguin]

The Gatineau Tramway, proposed for the west-end of the city, will transform public transit, most notably in the Plateau and Aylmer sectors, which currently do not have any rapid-transit offered.

In this video discussion with Maude Marquis-Bissonnette (Mayoral Candidate, Leader of Action Gatineau, and councillor for Plateau), we discuss the tramway project, the eventual rapibus conversion, the tramway insertion into Ottawa, and a 6th crossing between Gatineau-Ottawa.

• Video Link

[Nowhere]

I was thinking of all the issues that will come with this project. If they really plan to remove STO buses from Ottawa downtown entirely, it means that the STO will experience a city wide catastrophic failure every time the LRT will be down. Everyone coming from the Rapibus will be stuck at l'Université du Québec, unable to get downtown.

Considering that they plan to run the trams along the sidewalks rather than the median on the Chemin d'Aylmer due to the narrow right-of-way, we can expect the trams to get involved in car crashes frequently, since a LRV can't break as fast as a bus.

In Toronto, streetcars were involved in 549 crashes in 2017, which is more than once a day. Looking at the C-Train in Calgary, disruptions from car crashes sometimes last 2 hours.

I would rather see BRT to Aylmer and Le Plateau than an unreliable LRT system that will paralyze the whole transit system regularly. It's like the cancelled 2006 plan in Ottawa, trying to use BRT for the busiest corridors, while using LRT for lower ridership corridors, when it should be the other way around. We're looking at the cheapest solution and it's going to cause a lot of issues.



I couldn't find anything more recent, but that's a 2031 transit ridership forecast made for the 2008 transportation master plan. We can see that the Rapibus is where most of the ridership is. It wouldn't be politically popular to convert a brand new BRT system to LRT, but I think that we need to seriously start to talk about converting the Rapibus to a fully segregated LRT similar to the Confederation Line.

[roger1818]

The big difference is in Ottawa in 2006, the east/west transitway had reached its capacity (especially through downtown) so an upgrade was needed. In Gatineau, the rapidbus is no where near capacity were as the bus lanes to Aylmer are nearing capacity. They looked at making a busway, but the electorate preferred LRT.

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by roger1818

The big difference is in Ottawa in 2006, the east/west transitway had reached its capacity (especially through downtown) so an upgrade was needed. In Gatineau, the rapidbus is no where near capacity were as the bus lanes to Aylmer are nearing capacity. They looked at making a busway, but the electorate preferred LRT.

Downtown Hull and Ottawa are getting at capacity however when it comes to STO buses.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

Downtown Hull and Ottawa are getting at capacity however when it comes to STO buses.

I find that surprising considering STO runs a fraction of the buses Ottawa did downtown. Then again Ottawa invested a lot in transit priority measures to increase capacity.

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I find that surprising considering STO runs a fraction of the buses Ottawa did downtown. Then again Ottawa invested a lot in transit priority measures to increase capacity.

Maybe it's going to better for Ottawa now that STO buses are using 3 different routes instead of all running on Wellington, but pre-Covid, Wellington looked pretty much like Albert/Slater before the LRT. I remember someone jumping out of a bus windows to escape an endless bus jam.

The loop in Hull downtown is still painfully slow however, even with the pandemic.