Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Harley613

Amen. I will hold out for light rail improvements. BRT was never a way forward, it was just an interesting stopgap measure.

Ottawa did really well with BRT. It just outgrew that system. I wish people would recognize that. BRT doesn't work well for a metro of 1.4M spread out over a massive 50x30 km settled area with huge chunks of reserved greenspace breaking up civilization (and forcing additional unproductive mileage on the transport system).

[lrt's friend]

It seems that the downtown capacity that we have built will never be needed especially after listening to the news today about the wishes of public servants to never return to downtown offices, at least not daily.

If anything, our city's transportation needs are going to be more diffused than ever, something that the rigidity (and the enormous cost) of LRT cannot address effectively.

I am not against LRT but I can see Sauvanto's point. We have foregone many other transit improvements to pay for the downtown focused Confederation Line. The city cannot possibly pay for the other transit improvements that will truly speed up transit trips, such as the Baseline BRT and many others.

So, we have paid for a system to take people to offices that have mostly emptied out. Now, it appears that those buildings will need to be repurposed, and this will take many years to accomplish. Even then, the need to travel to downtown will decline but the need to move between suburbs will continue to increase.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It seems that the downtown capacity that we have built will never be needed especially after listening to the news today about the wishes of public servants to never return to downtown offices, at least not daily.

If anything, our city's transportation needs are going to be more diffused than ever, something that the rigidity (and the enormous cost) of LRT cannot address effectively.

I am not against LRT but I can see Sauvanto's point. We have foregone many other transit improvements to pay for the downtown focused Confederation Line. The city cannot possibly pay for the other transit improvements that will truly speed up transit trips, such as the Baseline BRT and many others.

So, we have paid for a system to take people to offices that have mostly emptied out. Now, it appears that those buildings will need to be repurposed, and this will take many years to accomplish. Even then, the need to travel to downtown will decline but the need to move between suburbs will continue to increase.

What you are saying is that there are going to be a lot of buildings that will be retrofitted into housing and retail/restaurant space. Sounds like a great reason to have an LRT running through it.

[ponyboycurtis]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Ottawa did really well with BRT. It just outgrew that system. I wish people would recognize that. BRT doesn't work well for a metro of 1.4M spread out over a massive 50x30 km settled area with huge chunks of reserved greenspace breaking up civilization (and forcing additional unproductive mileage on the transport system).

Agreed. I will say though... the remaining SE Transitway is great for what it needs to be.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It seems that the downtown capacity that we have built will never be needed especially after listening to the news today about the wishes of public servants to never return to downtown offices, at least not daily.

If anything, our city's transportation needs are going to be more diffused than ever, something that the rigidity (and the enormous cost) of LRT cannot address effectively.

I am not against LRT but I can see Sauvanto's point. We have foregone many other transit improvements to pay for the downtown focused Confederation Line. The city cannot possibly pay for the other transit improvements that will truly speed up transit trips, such as the Baseline BRT and many others.

So, we have paid for a system to take people to offices that have mostly emptied out. Now, it appears that those buildings will need to be repurposed, and this will take many years to accomplish. Even then, the need to travel to downtown will decline but the need to move between suburbs will continue to increase.

As a great philosopher once said:
• Video Link

This applies equally today as it did when we decided to build the O-Train. The O-Train will continue to provide a great backbone to Ottawa's transit system. The key is to ensure there is great connecting bus service.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

People who ride transit by choice (rather than by necessity) don't want to ride buses. They want to ride trains. I don't know why that is, but living in Toronto and Montreal, you'll see that people will take the subway/metro (and streetcar in TO) in a heartbeat, but won't touch the buses.

Partly frequency, partly the comfort of the ride.

Both of these are policy decisions. Transit providers could make buses more frequent, but they don't. And they could train their drivers better, but they don't.

[Uhuniau]

The death of the office is greatly exaggerated.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The death of the office is greatly exaggerated.

Please elaborate.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Please elaborate.

It is a reference to Mark Twain.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Please elaborate.

I don't know what more there is to elaborate: the death of the office is grossly exaggerated. As the world returns to normal, eventually, people who work together on paper are going to start working together in physical places again.

Not everyone, sure, and especially not if your work is suited to remote work. But the share of people who want to work from home, or mostly from home, indefinitely, is not nearly as large as the Office Is Dead camp would have you believe.

[Sauvanto]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

It seems that the downtown capacity that we have built will never be needed especially after listening to the news today about the wishes of public servants to never return to downtown offices, at least not daily.

If anything, our city's transportation needs are going to be more diffused than ever, something that the rigidity (and the enormous cost) of LRT cannot address effectively.

I am not against LRT but I can see Sauvanto's point. We have foregone many other transit improvements to pay for the downtown focused Confederation Line. The city cannot possibly pay for the other transit improvements that will truly speed up transit trips, such as the Baseline BRT and many others.

So, we have paid for a system to take people to offices that have mostly emptied out. Now, it appears that those buildings will need to be repurposed, and this will take many years to accomplish. Even then, the need to travel to downtown will decline but the need to move between suburbs will continue to increase.

Exactly my point! We've poured every single ounce of funding into this one suburban-commute-centric tramway; it didn't increase any of the overall transit accessibility at all. And lets remember that the rail that we did get went full garbagio...

Electric busses could've worked 100%, hell why not trolley-busses or extra 3 sections busses

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

At this point, the best use of capital is to electrify and grow the bus fleet, so that there's more regular usage in the suburbs.

All the electric buses in the world aren't going to get suburbanites to generate that "more regular usage". That's going to take decades of suburb repair, even if we start today, which.... we aren't.

An electric bus is still an electric bus if it has a terrible frequency, inefficient (by design) routing, and has to serve suburbs which are built to stupid and inefficient physical forms with stupid and inefficient mass segregation of land uses.

And in our rush to electrify bus fleets, we are running the risk of saddling transit operators with lemons, which will only put more budgetary pressure on the system, leaving fewer resources to do the things with transit that we need to be doing.

Also: reallly, at some point, are we ever going to stop bending over backwards for transit-hostile suburbanites, and maybe direct some investment back towards urban transit users in, like, the urban areas?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I don't know what more there is to elaborate: the death of the office is grossly exaggerated. As the world returns to normal, eventually, people who work together on paper are going to start working together in physical places again.

Not everyone, sure, and especially not if your work is suited to remote work. But the share of people who want to work from home, or mostly from home, indefinitely, is not nearly as large as the Office Is Dead camp would have you believe.

I have several friends who work for the federal government. Some are pretty high up. They have been told not to expect a physical office in a building going forward. Since Ottawa is a big government town, I don't see how what you say would be true.

[rocketphish]

Tripped breaker cited as cause for latest LRT train stoppage
There have been three reports of stopped trains delaying LRT service since the resumption of service on Nov. 12.

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Nov 24, 2021 • 1 hour ago • 1 minute read

An Alstom Citadis Spirit LRT train unexpectedly stopped on Tuesday night because of a tripped voltage breaker, according to the city manager.

OC Transpo reported longer travel times between Tremblay and Rideau stations just after 11 p.m. The transit agency reported the return of regular service within about 10 minutes.

Steve Kanellakos said Wednesday that a technician had to reset a voltage breaker.

The LRT system restarted on Nov. 12 after being out of order for 54 days following the Sept. 19 train derailment near Tremblay Station.

There have been three reports of stopped trains delaying LRT service since the reopening.

Nine trains were running on the LRT line on Wednesday as the city incrementally adds trains throughout the month. The city expects 11 trains to be running on the 12.5-kilometre rail line by the beginning of December.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...d-as-cause-for-latest-lrt-train-stoppage

[lrt's friend]

On purely aesthetic grounds, I like the look of the new Alstom Citadis running on T9 and T10 lines in Paris more (those light stripes are fantastic), but these aren't bad. Hopefully, they will have resolved the design flaws that plagued this model all over Europe and Australia in the last few years.

Interesting comment from the Calgary page.

Is the technology getting so complex that it is becoming difficult to keep it running problem free?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Interesting comment from the Calgary page.

Is the technology getting so complex that it is becoming difficult to keep it running problem free?

This sounds like Donald Trump complaining about electromagnetic catapults replacing the steam catapults on aircraft carriers.

New technology always has a learning curve. And the kinks will get worked out in due course. A more relevant question for us, is whether we're asking the system to do what it wasn't designed to do, leading to some of the issues we see. Or whether this is just the normal bathtub curve hitting us harder than usual. Or maybe, we just picked a lemon of an LRV model.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This sounds like Donald Trump complaining about electromagnetic catapults replacing the steam catapults on aircraft carriers.

New technology always has a learning curve. And the kinks will get worked out in due course. A more relevant question for us, is whether we're asking the system to do what it wasn't designed to do, leading to some of the issues we see. Or whether this is just the normal bathtub curve hitting us harder than usual. Or maybe, we just picked a lemon of an LRV model.

There is an element of excessive reliance on sensors that wasn't the case before. Or additional electronic complexity where there was less before.

If the additional sensors do bring benefit, fine, so be it. The Boeing 787 uses a whole suite of electric/electronic systems to do what pneumatics and hydraulic systems used to do. It cuts down on maintenance over the long term.

However, if this is the transit version of 'Add a tablet computer to your fridge, because reasons' I'm less a fan.

[Truenorth00]

Haven't most of the issues been mechanical on the O-Train?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by thewave46

There is an element of excessive reliance on sensors that wasn't the case before. Or additional electronic complexity where there was less before.

If the additional sensors do bring benefit, fine, so be it. The Boeing 787 uses a whole suite of electric/electronic systems to do what pneumatics and hydraulic systems used to do. It cuts down on maintenance over the long term.

However, if this is the transit version of 'Add a tablet computer to your fridge, because reasons' I'm less a fan.

Can you explain why the Skytrain isn't reporting issues? They have been fully automated from the start. This isn't new technology. Why not blame the humans involved? Why not blame shoddy workmanship? The technology is proven. Those Boeing crashes were all human error to a new system, not the system in error.

[thewave46]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Haven't most of the issues been mechanical on the O-Train?

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Can you explain why the Skytrain isn't reporting issues? They have been fully automated from the start. This isn't new technology. Why not blame the humans involved? Why not blame shoddy workmanship? The technology is proven. Those Boeing crashes were all human error to a new system, not the system in error.

They have been.

Apparently 'proven technology' and 'good maintenance' were not part of Alstom's process for the Confederation Line.

It's more frustrating to me as I've seen repeated examples of 'This should work properly because it's proven that we can do this reliably' in many modern facets of life and yet somehow end up with stuff that doesn't work.