The future of Ottawa's Transit

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As most of you have noticed, the O-Train again was reduced to 30 minutes service today, the second time in a couple of weeks. This really demonstrates the temporary nature of the O-Train as designed and its inadequacy in the long-term.

How did you come to that conclusion?

In fact, OC Transpo hasn't repaired/replaced a train hoist at Walkley yard that has been malfunctioning for months. Because of that, one of the three trains has not been repaired for months either, so when something goes wrong with one of the remaining two we're down to 30 minute service. Without the hoist it's also harder to carry out preventative maintenance/checks. To the extent there's an inadequacy it's due to a small fleet with only limited maintenance facilities. A larger fleet would have more extensive maintenance facilities and presumably more than one train hoist, so even OC Transpo's inadequate response to a malfunctioning hoist wouldn't be as much of a problem. So one solution is to actually extend the service to get more trains and better maintenance facilities, though actually fixing the maintenance facilities when they have a problem would also work too...

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Dado

How did you come to that conclusion?

In fact, OC Transpo hasn't repaired/replaced a train hoist at Walkley yard that has been malfunctioning for months. Because of that, one of the three trains has not been repaired for months either, so when something goes wrong with one of the remaining two we're down to 30 minute service. Without the hoist it's also harder to carry out preventative maintenance/checks. To the extent there's an inadequacy it's due to a small fleet with only limited maintenance facilities. A larger fleet would have more extensive maintenance facilities and presumably more than one train hoist, so even OC Transpo's inadequate response to a malfunctioning hoist wouldn't be as much of a problem. So one solution is to actually extend the service to get more trains and better maintenance facilities, though actually fixing the maintenance facilities when they have a problem would also work too...

Anyone know if Ottawa Central has any other maintenance facilities at that site which could be rented or something?

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have to totally agree.

Going to a metro system requiring total grade separation will limit the flexibility that we need in order to drive rapid transit out to where people want to go and where people expect it to go within a reasonable capital budget. Even as it stands with a LRT system proposed, it is hard to imagine where the funding is going to come from, let alone an even higher cost of building a light metro.

I don't think you know what a metro system is meant for. I know you liked the old LRT schoolbus system, but it's exactly what needs to be prevented in this case, and along if we can reduce operating costs at the same time, good for it.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I also think the lower operating cost of a metro is overblown. It will be lower of course because there would be no driver but there will still be significant operating cost savings of running a 4 car LRT train with one driver as compared with the equivalent of articulated or regular buses. I have seen the operating cost of the Calgary C-Train which is much lower than our bus based Transitway.

I'm still not convinced. Delcan says $172 per rail car average (not train). It's $688 per hour of operation for a 4 car train. OC put $115 per hour for an articulated bus and $105 for a regular bus.

Also, you can't compare the cost of just the rail part without considering the bus part. Calgary has 863 buses to Ottawa's 991. CT has 4741 route km to OC's 6,500 route km. Other metrics aren't easily compared.

Ottawa has the green belt which separates sleeping communities from the city core so passenger travel distances may be affected.

If you look at other city's LRT numbers, Calgary is an aberration. Most places don't get such positive numbers so to expect Ottawa to match these is just wishful thinking.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Franky

I'm still not convinced. Delcan says $172 per rail car average (not train). It's $688 per hour of operation for a 4 car train. OC put $115 per hour for an articulated bus and $105 for a regular bus.

We've been over this before. Delcan/MRC are using the numbers incorrectly. Get over it and move on.

Also, you can't compare the cost of just the rail part without considering the bus part. Calgary has 863 buses to Ottawa's 991. CT has 4741 route km to OC's 6,500 route km. Other metrics aren't easily compared.

Glad you brought that up. CT's 2006 systemwide cost per passenger: $2.24 (down from $2.26 in 2005). OC Transpo's systemwide cost per passenger: $2.63 (up from $2.54 in 2005). And since I know you'll ask, they're in the Wyman report; go find them for yourself (the 2005 numbers are from John Bonsall's presentation Nov 2007 in which he made lame excuses for OC Transpo's poor performance compared to CT's better performance, but that was before the 2006 numbers were available).

Ottawa has the green belt which separates sleeping communities from the city core so passenger travel distances may be affected.

The fact of so many buses going across the Greenbelt strengthens the case for rail across the Greenbelt because the line-haul part of the journey starts in the suburbs and by transferring people early in the journey rather than half way through it's a lot less annoying.

If you look at other city's LRT numbers, Calgary is an aberration. Most places don't get such positive numbers so to expect Ottawa to match these is just wishful thinking.

Calgary is an "aberration" because it is (1) in Canada and (2) has high rider volumes, just like we would have in Ottawa. You have to prove why Ottawa would be more comparable to all these other places than to Calgary.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Dado

We've been over this before. Delcan/MRC are using the numbers incorrectly. Get over it and move on.

I don't think so. Where is your proof.

IF they are wrong, why are we hiring Delcan again for the next study?!

Originally Posted by Dado

Glad you brought that up. CT's 2006 systemwide cost per passenger: $2.24 (down from $2.26 in 2005). OC Transpo's systemwide cost per passenger: $2.63 (up from $2.54 in 2005). And since I know you'll ask, they're in the Wyman report; go find them for yourself (the 2005 numbers are from John Bonsall's presentation Nov 2007 in which he made lame excuses for OC Transpo's poor performance compared to CT's better performance, but that was before the 2006 numbers were available).

What are the numbers per passenger km? I can move a lot of people a short distance for a small amount of money... so what.

P.S. According to the Wyman report
Montreal has the lowest per passenger cost <$2.00 and they don't have LRT, they have a Metro system.
P.P.S. it's about $1.76 per passenger trip according to Montreal's 2006 report http://www.stm.info/english/en-bref/a-annuel.htm

Originally Posted by Dado

The fact of so many buses going across the Greenbelt strengthens the case for rail across the Greenbelt because the line-haul part of the journey starts in the suburbs and by transferring people early in the journey rather than half way through it's a lot less annoying.

A) LRT across the greenbelt is not even in the option 4 plan.
B) It actually shows that per passenger costs will be higher in Ottawa whether we have LRT or BRT.
C) Making our bus system a line haul system would make it less appealing - why would we want an LRT system that imposes this mode. Why would we want a system that has less seated passengers?

Originally Posted by Dado

Calgary is an "aberration" because it is (1) in Canada and (2) has high rider volumes, just like we would have in Ottawa. You have to prove why Ottawa would be more comparable to all these other places than to Calgary.

If 9 out of 10 cities have about the same numbers and Calgary has really different numbers, I think YOU would need to prove why Ottawa would be part of the aberration. Some reasons for Calgary's "success" are: restricted parking in the city core and free rides in the city core (if I remember correctly) which artificially inflated the ridership numbers. If you're going to force people to use public transit, might as well make a law to ban cars completely and be done with it. It's a very stupid way to go. Make transit as good as cars and you'll get the ridership - see Personal Automated Transit.

[eemy]

Ottawa has even fewer parking spaces per 1000 jobs than Calgary in its core (at least in the parking study I read a while back, it did). It's also Canadian. It has proven to support high transit modal shares and heavy transit use. It has little road capacity for people to switch to cars, and is quite dispersed making walking or biking a more difficult option. If you look at any metric for transit, Ottawa, and Canadian cities in general, hold almost nothing in common with their American counterparts. So how is Ottawa similar to Buffalo, or Dallas, or any number of US cities that have poorly used LRT?

[Doug]

^Parking rates certainly don't reflect that stat if it is true. Downtown Calgary rates are obscene ($25+ per day for an unreserved stall), which is probably the greatest driver of LRT ridership.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

Ottawa has even fewer parking spaces per 1000 jobs than Calgary in its core (at least in the parking study I read a while back, it did). It's also Canadian. It has proven to support high transit modal shares and heavy transit use. It has little road capacity for people to switch to cars, and is quite dispersed making walking or biking a more difficult option. If you look at any metric for transit, Ottawa, and Canadian cities in general, hold almost nothing in common with their American counterparts. So how is Ottawa similar to Buffalo, or Dallas, or any number of US cities that have poorly used LRT?

I would like to see that study if you come across it.

Here is the section I was looking at from "Calgary’s CTrain – Effective Capital Utilization":
"City of Calgary adopted a policy that limited the amount and location of downtown parking. In recent years, development has consumed most former surface parking lots in the downtown and parking space is limited. Much of the strategically located structured parking is managed by the City of Calgary. The combination of high priced long stay parking rates and limited roadway capacity encourage travel to the downtown by transit.
"
also
"A free fare zone along the transit mall heightens the attractiveness of the system for short trips and provides a key service to support downtown businesses. "

I just don't see the advantage of LRT past a sort of blind faith belief in it's efficiency. There seems to be a disconnect with reality.

[AuxTown]

I believe I mentioned this in another thread, but Calgary definately has way more surface parking in their downtown than Ottawa.



This is Calgary's downtown and the area in the blue box is a 1.5-2 km long surface parking lot. It's bigger than anything I've ever seen in Canada. There are also a number of smaller lots dispersed throughout the CBD area, comparable to what we see here in Ottawa. They are light-years ahead of us interms of skyscrapers and cool buildings, but it will be quite some time before all of that barren land is developed in Calgary. In Ottawa, it is a seamless transition into Centretown, Sandy Hill, and the Market. Once Lebreton is complete, the downtown will be surrounded by dense population on all sides (including across the river in Hull).

I just don't see the advantage of LRT past a sort of blind faith belief in it's efficiency. There seems to be a disconnect with reality.

As for this comment, it's getting a bit exhausting replying to blank statements that put down LRT, but have absolutely no basis. The reality is that:

1) LRT will carry more (many, many more) passengers per hour than the best BRT you could design.
2) It will be quicker through the DT section by going through a tunnel and avoiding all of the traffic lights and stupid idiots downtown. And, yes, in an ideal world traffic light timing would fix this, but all the timing in the world will not help buses avoid a delivery truck or a stupid driver stopped in an intersection. This is not even mentioning the issues of load times and double-stopping which have plagued the downtown section of the Transitway.
3) The faith comes by the fact that we have a relatively small, dense downtown core with huge volumes of passengers coming from the 'burbs to work everyday. We have all the same issues as Calgary in terms of limited road access into downtown and high parking rates (ranked 18th in NA at $183/month average, only behind Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver in Canada). The studies have been completed by transit experts and not a bunch of hacks on the Internet (i.e. us) and they think LRT would be feasible, sufficient, and cost effective for our city. So maybe we can start talking about line placement, station integration/placement, vehicle choice, and all the other interesting things about the future of Ottawa's transit instead of just blindly bashing everything that isn't your idea.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

I believe I mentioned this in another thread, but Calgary definately has way more surface parking in their downtown than Ottawa.



This is Calgary's downtown and the area in the blue box is a 1.5-2 km long surface parking lot. It's bigger than anything I've ever seen in Canada. There are also a number of smaller lots dispersed throughout the CBD area, comparable to what we see here in Ottawa. They are light-years ahead of us interms of skyscrapers and cool buildings, but it will be quite some time before all of that barren land is developed in Calgary. In Ottawa, it is a seamless transition into Centretown, Sandy Hill, and the Market. Once Lebreton is complete, the downtown will be surrounded by dense population on all sides (including across the river in Hull).

Subsurface parking, parking garages and price? I see from your post it's more expensive.

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

As for this comment, it's getting a bit exhausting replying to blank statements that put down LRT, but have absolutely no basis. The reality is that:

And I'm getting tired of dispelling the myth time and again.

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

1) LRT will carry more (many, many more) passengers per hour than the best BRT you could design.

Myth. BRT can move just as many people per hour and can easily meet our needs until a proper metro is needed (assuming we Torontoify Ottawa). Also, more people can be seated in buses than LRT.

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

2) It will be quicker through the DT section by going through a tunnel and avoiding all of the traffic lights and stupid idiots downtown. And, yes, in an ideal world traffic light timing would fix this, but all the timing in the world will not help buses avoid a delivery truck or a stupid driver stopped in an intersection. This is not even mentioning the issues of load times and double-stopping which have plagued the downtown section of the Transitway.

Myth. If BRT had a tunnel and only 3 stops in the city core and off vehicle fare collection, like LRT requires, it would be just as fast, maybe faster.

Originally Posted by O-Town Hockey

3) The faith comes by the fact that we have a relatively small, dense downtown core with huge volumes of passengers coming from the 'burbs to work everyday. We have all the same issues as Calgary in terms of limited road access into downtown and high parking rates (ranked 18th in NA at $183/month average, only behind Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver in Canada). The studies have been completed by transit experts and not a bunch of hacks on the Internet (i.e. us) and they think LRT would be feasible, sufficient, and cost effective for our city. So maybe we can start talking about line placement, station integration/placement, vehicle choice, and all the other interesting things about the future of Ottawa's transit instead of just blindly bashing everything that isn't your idea.

Myth. City officials make bad decision all the time.
Myth. I don't "bash everything that isn't my idea". I bash bad ideas that are a waste of money.

Why should be spend $500,000,000+ to remove some buses from 10 city blocks. There will still be buses there anyway, the 250 Gatineau buses by 2031 will still be there and many of the local buses will still need to run. Plus those roads will always be busy with other traffic.

[eemy]

I *believe* it was this article, but I could be wrong. Unfortunately it's not freely available, but if someone is interested, they might be able to pull it up through their library.

Morral, John and Dan Bloger. 1996. "The Relationship Between Downtown Parking Supply and Transit Use." ITE Journal, 66(2): 32-36.

As I recall, New York, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa all had the lowest ratio of parking stalls to jobs, all being somewhere between .3 and .4 compared to a city like Phoenix or Houston which were above 1.0. Obviously things change over ten years, so I suppose Calgary and Ottawa could have switched places.

[waterloowarrior]

Igor Vojnovic's chapter on Urban Infrastructures in 'Canadian Cities in Transition' has the following numbers from a Kenworthy and Laube study (CBD parking spaces per 1000 CBD jobs)

Calgary - 522
Winnipeg - 546
Edmonton - 593
Vancouver - 443
Toronto - 176
Montreal - 347
Ottawa - 230

in case you're interested, here's a few more cities
NYC - 60
Chicago - 128
Phoenix - 906
LA - 520
Melbourne - 337
Frankfurt - 246
Paris - 199

this article quotes part the article in chart with a detailed breakdown (p.11)
http://shoup.bol.ucla.edu/People,Parking,CitiesJUPD.pdf

[c_speed3108]

All I could think of is Franky as I read this article sitting on a hot cramped bus thinking about how much more roomy the O-train is....

Anyway:

Oil costs test Transitway
On Track by Nadine Doolittle
July 06, 2008 11:35

I wasn’t going to talk about the fare hike. I didn’t want to think about it. With oil at $145 a barrel, a fare hike was inevitable. It’s wretched, it’s distressing, but it’s the cost of having a diesel-dependent transit system.

Who could have foreseen 30 years ago that a bus rapid transit system would become a financial black hole, vulnerable to escalating fuel costs? It’s not like there were any clues ...

Well, other than that pesky energy crisis.

In 1976, Ottawa, like the rest of North America, was sweating under an oil embargo when bus rapid transit (BRT) was first proposed for the city.

The idea had a lot of things going for it: Low capital cost, flexibility, and with a population of 500,000, the region was deemed too small for rail-based transit.

Sure, gas prices were soaring and pumps were running dry, but OPEC couldn’t stay mad forever.
The Transitway project was approved in 1981 for an estimated cost of $97.5 million.

Fifteen years and $440 million later, the Transitway was complete, every kilometre of it dependent on oil.
Hindsight is 20-20, which is a handy thing if you put it to use.

The current transit committee has announced an environmental assessment for a Transitway link running through Alta Vista.

Ward Coun. Peter Hume says the corridor isn’t appropriate because the community is too small to handle buses.

Nevertheless, the EA study for the inappropriate link should be complete by the end of 2009 — just in time for oil to hit $200 a barrel.

Is there any point when the city cannot afford to continue on the BRT path?

A more relevant EA study is underway for the downtown light rail tunnel.

The city will use the study to bolster its business case for funding of the new LRT system. The feds and the province have committed $200 million each to the project, which is expected to be complete by 2031.

In the meantime, it’s conceivable that the cost of fuelling up buses will outstrip the city’s ability to pay before the shovels even break ground. If that happens, how will we get around?

Come to think of it, maybe the city’s transit planners of 1981 were visionaries after all!
The Transitway will make a world-class cycling route.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

All I could think of is Franky as I read this article sitting on a hot cramped bus thinking about how much more roomy the O-train is....

Anyway:

Plug-in hybrid buses. Calgary transit has 863 Diesel buses that will be affected by rising diesel prices also. It's not like switching to LRT means no diesel will be used - that's another myth.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Franky

Plug-in hybrid buses. Calgary transit has 863 Diesel buses that will be affected by rising diesel prices also. It's not like switching to LRT means no diesel will be used - that's another myth.

Could you provide me a link to the website of the maker of the plug-in buses you keep talking about? I want to check the brochure.

I don't know of anyone making them, so fill me in.



and buses will always be required to the local work of picking people up with neighbourhoods. The idea of the trains is to deal with the heavy load along the main line.

[Cre47]

Here are a couple of Citizen comments published today. I will comment on the first though. Assuming if they opt for Carling line, it would probably means that you will really have to boost the 90s series routes still. Carling is in no way a commuter line corridor, it would be a spur road, since it would be at least 10 to perhaps 15 minutes longer then via the current Transitway. Maybe the spur line would extend to Kanata eventually, with the other one being the Barrhaven line via either the Parkway or Byron

Run train on Carling for economic benefits
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, July 07, 2008

Re: The three-kilometre controversy, July 1.

It is disappointing to read that Mona Abouhenidy, program manager in the city's transportation strategic planning unit, limits the east-west light rail options to just three. All three are variations of the same theme -- build a barrier to the river frontage, assuming we are restricting plans to a surface system rather than a trench.

But that is not the only problem. Between Tunney's Pasture and Lincoln Fields virtually no one and no commercial activity is supported. That is a waste of light rail transit (LRT).

Carling Avenue is another option worth serious consideration. It would link the O-train, the high density area around Dow's Lake, The Ottawa Hospital's Civic campus and Royal Ottawa medical centre, Carlingwood Shopping Centre, the Lincoln Fields Transit station and Bayshore shopping centre and residential complex. Carling Avenue is currently six lanes wide in most places with turn lanes and a grass median in addition.

Reduced car traffic is an objective for the city so a reduction in car lanes to accommodate LRT would not be out of place. Carling Avenue is a more logical choice for intensification of both residential and commercial properties than the Ottawa River Parkway.

Yes, it might be expensive but I predict the returns in usage would be great. Cross streets would have to be reduced (with the added advantages of calming residential areas and speeding traffic on Carling) and options such as timed lights and swinging barriers would have to be considered for getting cars and pedestrians from one side to the other. As for the existing "trench" -- keep a spur line that would serve Tunney's Pasture and Westboro.

Budapest did it
The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, July 07, 2008

It appears neither the Byron Avenue nor the Ottawa River Parkway is an acceptable solution for the majority of people. An alternative solution is building a trench, cover it and put landscaping on top.

For example, the original Budapest subway was built in 1896, the first on European continent, running under the one of most elegant boulevards, the Andrassy Ut. If they could do it in 1896 in Budapest, certainly Ottawa could do it in the 21st century.

The Budapest proposal was submitted in January of 1894, the council approved it in April of 1894. The length of the line was 3,695 metres and it was completed April 1, 1896. On May 3, 1896 the subway was turned over to the public. The original electric cars were running for 70 years. In 1973 the line was modernized and extended to 5.2 kilometres.

[c_speed3108]

As I always say when I hear people suggesting transit options that are considerably more expensive then what is proposed.

"Shall we take that as an open invitation to raise your taxes as much as is need? So 30 or 40% is okay then? Excellent! Will double them then! This transit system is going to be great!"


Now on to some more sensible solutions:

Why not just install several of those underpasses like they under the O-train tracks at Carleton. Just place them at strategic locations. Quick, easy, cheap,...problem solved.

The high speed highway (er parkway) blocks direct access in most places anyway. There is also a large area towards the western park of the area in question which is not mowed and therefore not really passable for direct access to the river anyway.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

Could you provide me a link to the website of the maker of the plug-in buses you keep talking about? I want to check the brochure.

I don't know of anyone making them, so fill me in.

It's not rocket science.plug-in buses will be available before an lrt system can be built.
http://pluginpartners.blogspot.com/2006/07/plug-in-bus.html

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

and buses will always be required to the local work of picking people up with neighbourhoods. The idea of the trains is to deal with the heavy load along the main line.

Trolley buses would also work for a lot less money.

Surface LRT (streetcars) as suggested in the quote above is just about the only way LRT makes sense - if you don't mind wires and tracks everywhere.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Franky

It's not rocket science.plug-in buses will be available before an lrt system can be built.
http://pluginpartners.blogspot.com/2006/07/plug-in-bus.html

That is not a bus manufacturer that is someones blog or something.

But this is exactly the point....we need proven technologies. No one makes plug-in buses. The likely reason is that the batteries would need to be far too large to be practical and feasible from a $$$ sense. This is an exercise in transit system development not an R&D activity that might produce a nice result (or might fail). The city is not in the business of inventing new types of transit vehicles. We need stuff that is presently in production and available, not fantasy concepts.

The closest thing are gas-electric hybrids which require all the tunnel ventilation. Hybrid buses run on gas. The electric is produced by gas.


The trolley buses would solve part of the problem, but would still suffer from the problems of space and one driver per vehicle. Might as well go to trains and be done with it if we are putting in all the electrical.

The trolley buses could be a good option for certain other urban routes..say Rideau street or something.