Future Transit System Ideas - Ottawa/Gatineau | Fantasy

[Kitchissippi]

It's been a while since I posted a fantasy transit system, so here it goes. I'm addressing urban needs/problems here, so I'm not really dealing with beyond the Greenbelt.

First would be an inter-provincial link (a blue line "Champlain" or the "Constitution" if Quebec signs it ) that aims to remove most of the STO buses from downtown Ottawa. It links the main federal employment centres in the core (downtown Ottawa, Portage, Chaudiere and Tunneys) as well as UQO to the Confederation Line and Rapibus system. It would start at a station beneath George street parallel to the Rideau Station being built with an underground link beneath William. It would travel on a shallow cut-and-cover under Dalhousie, then emerge onto a slightly widened M-C Bridge, go through downtown Hull via the Jacques Cartier park, the museum, office complexes and UQO, then descend into a tunnel to Tunneys Pasture. While this might seem redundant with the existing PoW bridge, it eliminates a potentially messy transfer to and from major employment centres, and prevents overtaxing the Trillium line. The river is really shallow here and has a good rocky base. In the future it could be extended down Parkdale toward Baseline with a stop at the Civic Hospital

The second line (an orange [insert name here] line) which would be an uban-focused metro that weaves through all the universities and colleges, Lansdowne Park, Bank Street, downtown Ottawa, Lowertown and Vanier. This would be a combination of bored and cut-and cover tunnels with some surface sections, from Blair to Bayshore.

Another thought I had was that since the Confederation Line would have split ends, the Airport could actually become a terminus of a southeast spur that goes down the Alta Vista corridor. the routes could be interlined as Kanata—Airport and Orleans—Barrhaven

Fire away at it!



Downtown detail:

[SF Thomas]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

It's been a while since I posted a fantasy transit system, so here it goes. I'm addressing urban needs/problems here, so I'm not really dealing with beyond the Greenbelt.

Just spent a bit catching up on the posts in this thread (I've checked it a few times but haven't posted before). This is an interesting alternative solution compared to some of the others I've seen here.

Were it me I would be tempted to look at sending a future Blue line extension towards the Westgate shopping center and down Merivale instead of down Fisher. While a little more complicated this would add a slightly higher catchment area for riders since half of the area isn't taken up by by the experimental farm. Fisher admittedly would be easier since it has a lot of extra space (wide gravel curb and partial forest on the right).

Dream plans aside the Bank St Subway and additional tunnels under the Canal, Carleton and the Rideau River combined would be pretty expensive (ouch!).

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by SF Thomas

Were it me I would be tempted to look at sending a future Blue line extension towards the Westgate shopping center and down Merivale instead of down Fisher.

You've got a point there, I edited it

[SF Thomas]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

You've got a point there, I edited it

Thanks for the recognition. Happy to give you a good idea.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

It's been a while since I posted a fantasy transit system, so here it goes. I'm addressing urban needs/problems here, so I'm not really dealing with beyond the Greenbelt.

Nowhere near enough station density on the Rideau-Montreal portion of your orange line.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Nowhere near enough station density on the Rideau-Montreal portion of your orange line.

I ran out of black dots

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Rob Ford talked about this for a while, I don't think he got much buy in.

The city portion of property taxes on residential property is a little over 1%. To fund a $2B line (as an example) the property values along the line would have to increase by $200B/(whatever number of years you want to amortize it for) (actually more, because a property value increase of that magnitude would change the mill rate for the entire city) and that is assuming all of the specialized charges on the tax bill are diverted to transit. )

I'd amortize over about 30 - similar to the PEI bridge deal.

If we don't economically tie our transportation plan to the land-use plan, we're going to keep getting more craptacular sprawl, more auto roads, more auto dependency, and proportionally less transit.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I ran out of black dots

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Enough for now?

[Kitchissippi]

Dang, now I need glue.

[Dado]

Not sure about the "Acid free" bit.

[SF Thomas]

I was randomly browsing Google to see if I could find any other alternative ideas for an LRT Phase II route and ended up finding this http://www.peoplefood.org/LRT/. The person who made this plan in 2010, Derek Reid, says it is meant to a widespread surface rail and BRT network which leverages existing infrastructure to maximum effect and claims that it could have been built for $1.8 billion. Specifically he says it would have been a better use of money than the current downtown tunnel plan.

Anyways has anyone else has seen this before (I only started checking out this page in late 2012 and early 2013 so I am not as familiar with some of the older stuff)? I am pretty skeptical a rail and bus network this big could have been built for only $1.8 billion. If you went with only the cost of building rails and bus lanes maybe, but I doubt it once you take into account engineering challenges and building stations. Anyone else think it could be built for $1.8 billion or is my skepticism probably right?

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I'd amortize over about 30 - similar to the PEI bridge deal.

If we don't economically tie our transportation plan to the land-use plan, we're going to keep getting more craptacular sprawl, more auto roads, more auto dependency, and proportionally less transit.

I agree on the need to tie land use planning to transportation planning and that sprawl is the result of the current disjointed policy, but property values are not where the money is going to be found.

Under a 30 year amortization of a 2B project, property values along Montreal road have to go up almost 7 billion, plus the interest costs of carrying the construction costs for 30 years.

Even if the interest rate were zero, 7 billion would be a phenomenal amount for property value to go up along montreal road, there would have to be an epic building boom with dozens of condos and office buildings going in in a few years. With the LRT under construction we have seen a few construction projects on the line, but nowhere near the amount that could have financed it.

This model might work in cities with much higher real estate prices (London, etc) but probably not here.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I agree on the need to tie land use planning to transportation planning and that sprawl is the result of the current disjointed policy, but property values are not where the money is going to be found.

Under a 30 year amortization of a 2B project, property values along Montreal road have to go up almost 7 billion, plus the interest costs of carrying the construction costs for 30 years.

Only if that were the ONLY way you were paying for the line, which is not what I'm proposing.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

And folks in the downtown core can have a bus that comes when it wants to, even if that's 20 minutes late, and have no choice but to stand. Yay!

Enjoy my taxes, Barrhaven.

Preach on brotha!

As Phase 2 looks more and more like a certainty, I think the focus should shift to improving the non-LRT/BRT portion of the transit system. It's not likely to be improved through one large project, but rather a large number of smaller changes that make things incrementally better.

What are those changes? More bus lanes on streets? More traffic priority through signalized intersections? More buses? Different buses? Route redesigns? Fewer stops? More stops?

[RTWAP]

We have an E-W backbone configured for commuters. If we look to expand LRT after that I think it should be inside the Greenbelt, with more stops and serving residents in more densely populated areas.

I'd propose two new lines. A loop (in green below) that I call Parks, Hospitals, and Museums. It would connect the Civic, CHEO, Riverside, and Montford. It would also serve the History, and Sci-Tech Museums, and the Art Gallery. It would link Vincent Massey, Experimental Farm, Lansdowne, Jacques Cartier, and Major's Hill Parks. I'm sure it wouldn't cost too much more than $7-8 Billion.

The second line (in orange)is intended to serve the remaining areas inside the greenbelt, and the airport, with a direct to downtown link. It would have downtown stops at Bank&Laurier, Conferation Square/NAC/City Hall, and Rideau Centre (link to Confederation Line station).

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by RTWAP

Preach on brotha!

As Phase 2 looks more and more like a certainty, I think the focus should shift to improving the non-LRT/BRT portion of the transit system. It's not likely to be improved through one large project, but rather a large number of smaller changes that make things incrementally better.

What are those changes? More bus lanes on streets? More traffic priority through signalized intersections? More buses? Different buses? Route redesigns? Fewer stops? More stops?

The cheapest improvement OC Transpo could make, but refuses to make, is to put artics on the trunk downtown routes, and all the time.

Costlier, would be to finally install some transit-priority signals, esp on trouble spots like the Wellington/Bank left/south turn, portions of Montreal Road, etc.

But as these things would benefit downtown transit users, and neither OC Transpo, nor city hall, nor even the councilors for downtown areas, seem to give a rat's ass, these things will never happen.

Enjoy my taxes, Barrhaven.

[FFX-ME]

The lines you propose are too indirect and would significantly increase commute times. For example, if you're going downtown with the green line you would need to unnecessarilly loop far east or west. The orange line also has a kink in it. They should go in as strait a line as possible. I like your orange line but I would remove the kink and have it interline with the trillium before heading to the airport. I would also maybe only keep the norther part of the green line which is actually really similar to the proposed at grade light rail line in the ultimate system proposed by the city.

Originally Posted by RTWAP

We have an E-W backbone configured for commuters. If we look to expand LRT after that I think it should be inside the Greenbelt, with more stops and serving residents in more densely populated areas.

I'd propose two new lines. A loop (in green below) that I call Parks, Hospitals, and Museums. It would connect the Civic, CHEO, Riverside, and Montford. It would also serve the History, and Sci-Tech Museums, and the Art Gallery. It would link Vincent Massey, Experimental Farm, Lansdowne, Jacques Cartier, and Major's Hill Parks. I'm sure it wouldn't cost too much more than $7-8 Billion.

The second line (in orange)is intended to serve the remaining areas inside the greenbelt, and the airport, with a direct to downtown link. It would have downtown stops at Bank&Laurier, Conferation Square/NAC/City Hall, and Rideau Centre (link to Confederation Line station).

[danishh]

my thinking has evolved in the past few months to simplify the ontario side into the following 5 lines.

1. confederation line... bayshore to orleans
2. trillium line... riverside south to bayview
3. carling-altavista line
-takes over baseline (and eventual barrhaven) spur from confederation line
-goes down carling from lincoln fields to bronson
-tunnels through the glebe to a stop by landsdowne
-tunnels up elgin
-joins confederation line for rideau, uOttawa, lees, and hurdman stations
-follows the path of the proposed lees-conroy extension to the hospital campuses
-continues down conroy and terminates to a park n ride around conroy/hunt club
4. Airport-Vanier line
-takes over airport spur from trillium line
-follows trillium line to walkley station, then tunnels under bank st to downtown
-joins confederation line for parliament and rideau stations
-continues east along rideau and montreal road
-terminates at blair, with the possibility of future expansion to serve south orleans.
5. Downtown connector line
- eventually, to fuel development in centretown and lowertown as needed, a line that connects bayview station to earnscliffe federal govt buildings
-starts at bayview, tunnels east under somerset, under canal, then north up king edward to earnscliffe terminus.

every line would interchange with every other line at some point, some at multiple points.

[RTWAP]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

The lines you propose are too indirect and would significantly increase commute times. For example, if you're going downtown with the green line you would need to unnecessarilly loop far east or west. The orange line also has a kink in it. They should go in as strait a line as possible. I like your orange line but I would remove the kink and have it interline with the trillium before heading to the airport. I would also maybe only keep the norther part of the green line which is actually really similar to the proposed at grade light rail line in the ultimate system proposed by the city.

That's the thing. They're an exercise in not being beholden to provide the best possible service for the people living at the end of the line, or beyond. They're not just commuter lines. Maybe that's not wise, but it was intentional.

Of all the passengers in the city, the ones going to and from the airport by rail are least likely to care whether the trip takes 22 minutes versus 27 minutes. They care that it is predictable and reliable.

Regarding that diversion in the orange line, yah, it's ugly. I was attempting to ensure that more than 90% of residents inside the greenbelt had rapid transit within 1km but that corner of the city makes that a real challenge. Eliminating that loop is probably a good idea.

And thanks for the feedback. It's appreciated.

[MoreTrains]

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?m...U.kSx-EB7kNt5s


The Green line is a modification of the Trillium Line and as such would be named the Trillium Line. It runs from Barrhaven Centre to the Rideau Centre via the Airport and Gatineau. It would be electrified, double tracked and would be above ground from Barrhaven Centre to the turn from Limebank to the Airport where it could be fully buried or trenched. It would rise back above ground after Lester and remain above ground until Zibi and run underground until the Rideau Centre.

The Blue Line is the Carling Line. It runs from Bayshore along Carling (Skytrain Style) to Bronson where it dives underground until Hurdman.

The Yellow Line is the Rockliffe Line. It runs from the Rideau Centre to Blair, fully underground following Rideau Street, Montreal Road, dog legging up to Montfort, Rockliffe and then to Blair road to Blair Station.

The Red Line is the Confederation Line. Running from Terry Fox to Trim. It is setup mainly as a commuter line, with all day service. It runs above ground in the 417 median to Bayshore. It then drops underground stopping at the Ikea before returning above ground to Lincoln Fields along the current routing to Trim (As shown in the actual Phase 2).

The Grey Line is the Base-Line. It runs from the Queensway Carleton Hospital along Baseline Skytrain Style to Heron/Bronson station then Runs up the transitway to Hurdman.

111.7 Km of tracks connecting mainly the Inner City. I believe that this would connect as many people as possible to allow Ottawa to triple its population inside the Greenbelt without too much issue (apart from the current lack of housing). Im trying to minimize the number of Stops in the extremities so there would be two stops in Kanata, two in Barrhaven, one in Riverside South and two in Orleans.
Inner Greenbelt stations would be 500-700m apart and trains would run 10 minute headways all day and 7 minutes monday to friday 730-930 and 330-530. It would start the day at 5 and end at 12 (Then replaced by a midnight system running every 15 minutes between 12 and 5.