O-Train Line 2/4 [Stage 2 | Greenboro to Limebank/Airport] | In Service

[LRTeverywhere]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

the station at Carleton University is not close to completion

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

When we talk about King Street transit priority, this is more than the elimination of on street parking.

On the subject of implementing or even suggesting proposals to increase ridership, from the public perspective, it does not matter the involvement of the commission or staff, it is all the OC Transpo bureaucracy. We need to cut through this and make some progress.

You oppose both and basically oppose any solution other then spending billions on a stubway just so low-density suburban residents can get a single seat ride downtown.....WFH makes commuter traffic like this even less of an issue.

Yeah it does matter, knowing how your government works is kinda important to getting things to actually change, unless you think bitching at city staff will somehow miraculously get local politicians to provide them with more funds....

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

You oppose both and basically oppose any solution other then spending billions on a stubway just so low-density suburban residents can get a single seat ride downtown.....WFH makes commuter traffic like this even less of an issue.

Yeah it does matter, knowing how your government works is kinda important to getting things to actually change, unless you think bitching at city staff will somehow miraculously get local politicians to provide them with more funds....

I am saying there is no point in spending on surface rail on Bank Street, when the same can be achieved with buses without investing $100Ms. Bank Street is simply not wide enough to place rail in an exclusive lane without causing enormous havoc. I know that there is a group who believe that rail 'on' Bank Street is progress, but I don't buy it. For such a narrow street, it either surface buses or go underground. If going underground is too expensive, then we are stuck with the status quo or a slight improvement. Meanwhile, we want to build 40 storey towers at Lansdowne and multiple towers at Billings Bridge and elsewhere. Both traffic and transit will continue to get worse.

As I have stated before, even buses in reserved lanes is now out for part of the route, with only two traffic lanes north of Gladstone and the recent narrowing of the Bank Street canal bridge. which added to traffic chaos at Lansdowne at the last RedBlacks game.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by LRTeverywhere

If we don't consider that users have to reach the station from the neighbouring streets, I guess it is ready to open.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

If we don't consider that users have to reach the station from the neighbouring streets, I guess it is ready to open.

Landscaping and destaging the area isn't going to take 6 months to complete.

Construction on the station itself appears to be done.

[J.OT13]

Gotta say OCCheetos, I really disagree with you on implementing King Street type transit priority on Bank. In Toronto, drivers have countless other options outside of King to go north-south. In Ottawa, we have three, one of which is poorly linked to the Glebe via residential streets, and the other many advocate for its full closure, either for cars, buses or trams.

Bank remains an important north-south artery from downtown to Alta-Vista and beyond.

Even removing street parking is a tough sell considering the activity at Lansdowne. Maybe when we have our downsized facilities.

I've made my point before that I think using QED as a Transitway is the best way forward to not only improve accessibility by transit, but as a proof of concept for any large investment in rail (be it tram or light-metro, usage of a QED transitway will tell).

As for Trillium, further double tracking to get service up to 10 minutes, 8 minutes or even 6 minutes is worth it, but nothing beyond that. Building a new Dow's Lake tunnel and Rideau Bridge would be huge investments on a line that doesn't go all the way downtown. My issue is not the transfer at Bayview, but the capacity at Bayview. At what point will we be overwhelming Confederation Line trains? I guess that would have been another argument for higher frequency; spread out the load of passenger transfers onto more Line 1/3 trains. Dumping 200, 300, 400 passengers at once will create quite the bottle neck on trains that are already full. Maybe we should have built a pocket track at Tunney's to deploy an empty train in sync with the arrival of the Line 2 train.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Gotta say OCCheetos, I really disagree with you on implementing King Street type transit priority on Bank. In Toronto, drivers have countless other options outside of King to go north-south. In Ottawa, we have three, one of which is poorly linked to the Glebe via residential streets, and the other many advocate for its full closure, either for cars, buses or trams.

Bank remains an important north-south artery from downtown to Alta-Vista and beyond.

I think this is an excessively narrow view of what counts as a "north-south" corridor in Ottawa. Riverside->417->Nicholas is a great example of one that is very under-utilized outside of peak periods. Then you have others like Main->Elgin, or Prince of Wales->Preston, etc. These all run north-south, and I'm assuming these some or all of these weren't the ones you were counting.

A north-south corridor for cars doesn't need to be a straight line from start to finish. There are plenty of other options for people coming from Alta Vista and beyond. I'm reminded of this picture after reading these posts:



Anyway, it's not like the King Street priority corridor makes zero exceptions to the rules at some intersections (e.g. King and Bay). We can, and should, implement strict transit priority on Bank, even if it's just more restricted left turns and a few parking spots replaced with proper bus platforms.

Even removing street parking is a tough sell considering the activity at Lansdowne. Maybe when we have our downsized facilities.

Isn't street parking on Bank already prohibited during major events?
If anything, events at Lansdowne are all the more reason to ban street parking on Bank. The amount of traffic caused by drivers trying to parallel park on an already packed arterial road is unjustifiable.

Now if by "tough sell" you mean to local residents and businesses, then I guess so, as bad as that is. But it really shouldn't be this difficult to sell the removal of street parking to members of an urbanism forum, especially when the goal is to improve transit services along said corridor.

I've made my point before that I think using QED as a Transitway is the best way forward to not only improve accessibility by transit, but as a proof of concept for any large investment in rail (be it tram or light-metro, usage of a QED transitway will tell).

This is just recycling the same old formula of building transit on out-of-the-way corridors that are cheaper and easier to build on. I'm sure it'll work, but is that really going to shut the Bank Street subway people up? I doubt it.

At the end of the day, there are still a lot of hand-wavy car-centric arguments being made here.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

I think this is an excessively narrow view of what counts as a "north-south" corridor in Ottawa. Riverside->417->Nicholas is a great example of one that is very under-utilized outside of peak periods. Then you have others like Main->Elgin, or Prince of Wales->Preston, etc. These all run north-south, and I'm assuming these some or all of these weren't the ones you were counting.

A north-south corridor for cars doesn't need to be a straight line from start to finish. There are plenty of other options for people coming from Alta Vista and beyond. I'm reminded of this picture after reading these posts:

I was referring to the three north-south options downtown; Bronson, Bank and QED.

Anyway, it's not like the King Street priority corridor makes zero exceptions to the rules at some intersections (e.g. King and Bay). We can, and should, implement strict transit priority on Bank, even if it's just more restricted left turns and a few parking spots replaced with proper bus platforms.

In the case of Bank, there are no exceptions that would solve the issue. Coming from Downtown, you need to get all the way to Lansdowne. You can't force people to turn on residential streets.

Isn't street parking on Bank already prohibited during major events?
If anything, events at Lansdowne are all the more reason to ban street parking on Bank. The amount of traffic caused by drivers trying to parallel park on an already packed arterial road is unjustifiable.

Not that I know of. I've parked on the street plenty of times during events at the Civic Centre, and I'm pretty sure the RedBlacks. Restrictions are at Lansdowne parking garage.

Now if by "tough sell" you mean to local residents and businesses, then I guess so, as bad as that is. But it really shouldn't be this difficult to sell the removal of street parking to members of an urbanism forum, especially when the goal is to improve transit services along said corridor.

I mean in terms of logistics during Lansdowne events. I know that often times, impacts on the bottom line from losing street parking is blown way out of proportion. Even with streets with no street parking (Wellington, for example).

This is just recycling the same old formula of building transit on out-of-the-way corridors that are cheaper and easier to build on. I'm sure it'll work, but is that really going to shut the Bank Street subway people up? I doubt it.

At the end of the day, there are still a lot of hand-wavy car-centric arguments being made here.

I consider myself in the middle of most arguments. I'm not 100% on the car lobby side, and I'm not 100% on the active transportation side (including transit on this). Proof is that I'm open to closing QED, removing a very convenient corridor from cars to benefit transit (and if there's space, cycling). I think QED would provide a quicker option for transit than any Bank options where buses, trams or whatever surface option would need to stop at dozens of traffic lights.

If it wasn't for Lansdowne, I would probably not be as supportive of a subway option. Same for the limited long term capacity of Line 2 and Bayview (by extension, Lines and 3). There are many arguments for a Bank subway, eventually. I don't believe a slow tram with capacity that's somewhat similar to a BRT is worth the expense.

[YOWflier]

Didn’t check if previously posted but came across this just now.

https://twitter.com/oc_transpo/status/1668362789197434880?s=46&t=CktuPmt0EGb4bjXVeFxyBA

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

Didn’t check if previously posted but came across this just now.

https://twitter.com/oc_transpo/status/1668362789197434880?s=46&t=CktuPmt0EGb4bjXVeFxyBA

Hope that's not full speed.

Doubling the platforms to 80m on Line 2 but keeping the airport line 40m really limits any possibility of running the service to Bayview. Even of Line 2 frequency is brought up enough to interline, you'd be cutting capacity by 1/3. I doubt the City will ever invest in doubling Line 4 platforms because they "don't need the capacity" or some dumb reason.

[YOWflier]

Couldn’t they just do rear car boarding at airport on a full length train set?

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by YOWflier

Couldn’t they just do rear car boarding at airport on a full length train set?

I thought of this, but I doubt it is possible. The concern will be that though the FLIRTs are walk-through, the passage through the engine module isn't wheelchair accessible, so there will be a concern about someone getting stuck on the wrong side of the train. I just doubt they're going to let that happen.

[DogsWithJobs]

The removal of parking on bank and replacing it with a transit priority lane seems like a no brainer to me at this point.

Getting to the VNL match at Lansdowne on Saturday, it was faster to get off the bus and walk the length of bank.
Transit shouldn't be limited by personal vehicle traffic if we want it to be the more appealing option.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Hope that's not full speed.

Doubling the platforms to 80m on Line 2 but keeping the airport line 40m really limits any possibility of running the service to Bayview. Even of Line 2 frequency is brought up enough to interline, you'd be cutting capacity by 1/3. I doubt the City will ever invest in doubling Line 4 platforms because they "don't need the capacity" or some dumb reason.

Maybe I am imagining things, but the cars seem to be running faster than you would expect. Is the video running a little fast? If so, the train is actually running slower than it appears. But this is a very early test so this does not reflect final service speed.

[lrt's friend]

Why do we suggest directing traffic via Nicholas Street from the south end. It is OK for Elmvale and parts of Alta Vista, but for points further south and west? I have been to the Vanier Parkway interchange at rush hour and it can be really clogged with traffic.

It seems we just want to block the movement of traffic to facilitate local transit with no regard to those who live beyond Billings Bridge. No plans to improve greater transit connectivity either.

We have already choked the Main/Elgin corridor. We are closing QED. Now lets close Bank Street to through traffic, let alone impede traffic even for local residents.

There needs to be a balance between transit and traffic needs and not create traffic prisons for slight improvements in transit.

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I was referring to the three north-south options downtown; Bronson, Bank and QED.



In the case of Bank, there are no exceptions that would solve the issue. Coming from Downtown, you need to get all the way to Lansdowne. You can't force people to turn on residential streets.



Not that I know of. I've parked on the street plenty of times during events at the Civic Centre, and I'm pretty sure the RedBlacks. Restrictions are at Lansdowne parking garage.



I mean in terms of logistics during Lansdowne events. I know that often times, impacts on the bottom line from losing street parking is blown way out of proportion. Even with streets with no street parking (Wellington, for example).



I consider myself in the middle of most arguments. I'm not 100% on the car lobby side, and I'm not 100% on the active transportation side (including transit on this). Proof is that I'm open to closing QED, removing a very convenient corridor from cars to benefit transit (and if there's space, cycling). I think QED would provide a quicker option for transit than any Bank options where buses, trams or whatever surface option would need to stop at dozens of traffic lights.

If it wasn't for Lansdowne, I would probably not be as supportive of a subway option. Same for the limited long term capacity of Line 2 and Bayview (by extension, Lines and 3). There are many arguments for a Bank subway, eventually. I don't believe a slow tram with capacity that's somewhat similar to a BRT is worth the expense.

All the lost parking on Bank will be more then made up in parking added as part of Lansdowne 2.0 .... Parking that you oppose in the amount proposed..... And if not build a garage.

Secondly, if the bank St subway got built do you really think bank would stay 4 lanes?.....nvm that the whole point in increasing transit frequency and reliability would be to shift transit model to the bus...

Third the QED extension for transit is more of a East/West thing then a North/South thing and it wouldn't serve the same areas....

Implementing the king st idea would be bad if it doesn't let freight go straight,

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Williamoforange

1. All the lost parking on Bank will be more then made up in parking added as part of Lansdowne 2.0 .... Parking that you oppose in the amount proposed..... And if not build a garage.

2. Secondly, if the bank St subway got built do you really think bank would stay 4 lanes?.....nvm that the whole point in increasing transit frequency and reliability would be to shift transit model to the bus...

3. Third the QED extension for transit is more of a East/West thing then a North/South thing and it wouldn't serve the same areas....

4. Implementing the king st idea would be bad if it doesn't let freight go straight,

1. I never opposed the additional parking proposed for Lansdowne. If anything, it's quite reasonable considering the size of the podium and towers.

2. If a subway was built, that would provide a legitimate option in both speed and capacity that it would at that point warrant rethinking Bank and narrowing it to 2 lanes, IMO.

3. QED would serve the densest areas along the corridor, and Lansdowne. Line 2 does not need to be relived now, but it will in the future, so for now, QED resolves the issues of today. In 20-30 years, a Bank subway solves the inevitable capacity issues of Line 2 and Bayview.

4. Sure. No comment.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Why do we suggest directing traffic via Nicholas Street from the south end. It is OK for Elmvale and parts of Alta Vista, but for points further south and west? I have been to the Vanier Parkway interchange at rush hour and it can be really clogged with traffic.

It's a trade-off. We don't need to provide direct routes for cars when even an indirect traffic-clogged route is still going to be just as fast, if not faster, than transit. If we can provide improved transit corridors, which something like this could enable, then that helps to shift people away from cars since it clearly inconveniences them so much.

It seems we just want to block the movement of traffic to facilitate local transit with no regard to those who live beyond Billings Bridge. No plans to improve greater transit connectivity either.

I think you're a hypocrite if you argue that we some day need to spend billions of dollars building a subway under Bank Street, but call sweeping improvements to transit priority along Bank "local transit with no regard for those who live beyond Billings Bridge".

Remember, we're talking about building a subway to parallel a rail line and BRT corridor that will carry less than half of what the Confederation Line did pre-pandemic under a street that you won't even support strong transit priority measures on?

We have already choked the Main/Elgin corridor. We are closing QED. Now lets close Bank Street to through traffic, let alone impede traffic even for local residents.

Did cutting lanes from Main or Elgin end the world? Did it meaningfully increase traffic on Bank? I think the answer to both is "No". Still, like I said above, the freedom of a car means you can take basically any routing to get around these kinds of things.. or just use transit otherwise.

There needs to be a balance between transit and traffic needs and not create traffic prisons for slight improvements in transit.

I'm going to repeat what I've said about car-centrism: your idea of balance seems to disproportionately benefit cars.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

It's a trade-off. We don't need to provide direct routes for cars when even an indirect traffic-clogged route is still going to be just as fast, if not faster, than transit. If we can provide improved transit corridors, which something like this could enable, then that helps to shift people away from cars since it clearly inconveniences them so much.



I think you're a hypocrite if you argue that we some day need to spend billions of dollars building a subway under Bank Street, but call sweeping improvements to transit priority along Bank "local transit with no regard for those who live beyond Billings Bridge".

Remember, we're talking about building a subway to parallel a rail line and BRT corridor that will carry less than half of what the Confederation Line did pre-pandemic under a street that you won't even support strong transit priority measures on?


Did cutting lanes from Main or Elgin end the world? Did it meaningfully increase traffic on Bank? I think the answer to both is "No". Still, like I said above, the freedom of a car means you can take basically any routing to get around these kinds of things.. or just use transit otherwise.


I'm going to repeat what I've said about car-centrism: your idea of balance seems to disproportionately benefit cars.

I am more willing to use transit than most out here.

The message that you present to most suburbanites as we restrict more and more streets is to not go downtown. Correct? That is what I get. Not every trip works with transit especially at night and on weekends when service frequency is abysmal.

It seems that balance should reflect reality to some degree. Modal share is 80 to 90% for private vehicles and strangely transit modal share has fallen steeply. Where's the carrot? Yep, run buses every 30 to 60 minutes and require two transfers to reach downtown. Restricting through traffic on Bank Street hurts local residents probably more than anybody else. For those who don't live there, we have the option of simply not going there.

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

1. I never opposed the additional parking proposed for Lansdowne. If anything, it's quite reasonable considering the size of the podium and towers.

2. If a subway was built, that would provide a legitimate option in both speed and capacity that it would at that point warrant rethinking Bank and narrowing it to 2 lanes, IMO.

3. QED would serve the densest areas along the corridor, and Lansdowne. Line 2 does not need to be relived now, but it will in the future, so for now, QED resolves the issues of today. In 20-30 years, a Bank subway solves the inevitable capacity issues of Line 2 and Bayview.

4. Sure. No comment.

1. Your correct I misread

2. So the only solution your allowing to improve transit on bank is to wait as you state 20-30 years to spend billions on a stubway in an area the fights any attempt to increase density.......buses are a legitimate method to move people around at the local level and bank is already at 2 lanes for personal vehicle removing parking doesn't change that between Billings bridge and DT....

3. That comment was about buses. buses/at-grade LRT along the QED do not serve the same areas as buses on bank. QED being added doesn't change the need to improve bus transit on bank for the local area.

Anyway, pretty much all of these comments are probably better suited for the forgotten thread for bank st subway....