Ottawa intercity bus terminal relocation

[Kitchissippi]

Integrating VIA and Greyhound stations would be beneficial to both companies and give passengers instant choice in one location. This would give people an option of taking VIA's limited but more comfortable intercity routes and transferring to Greyhound's more frequent and/or regional destinations.

[jcollins]

They should definitely integrate at this site, it's beneficial in the short term, and long term it may prove that a bigger integrated hub is needed, maybe at a different location.

As it stands now, does the current train station have enough room to accommodate everything necessary to house Greyhound.

[AuxTown]

I think integrating is the way to go at this point as well. I always get off the 417 at Kent and when a bus has just arrived there is 5-10 people waiting for the bus accross the street to take them downtown. It's far enough away from the core that anyone with luggage will be taking a cab or bus anyway so might as well have the station in a place with higher transit frequencies.

[lrt's friend]

Sorry for not going with the flow, but I support Diane Holmes position. We should wait until LRT is in place before we do this. Once LRT construction begins, there will likely only be one bus route stopping at the Via Station, which will be no better than the current Greyhound Station on Catherine Street. During the duration of construction, all the other bus routes will be bypassing the station on the Queensway.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Following up on Dado's concept, move DND-HQ out to the old Nortel Palace and replace the towers with a BIG hotel connected to the New Conference Centre (and providing additional meeting room space). On the current Colonel By level of this new building would be the HS-rail/intercity-bus terminal. The rail line would run (covered) beside Nicholas and then be under a raised Colonel By, parallel to the new DOTT under Mann, until the DOTT rises. The HS-Rail line would remain low and cross under the transit line, the Rideau River, the Hurdman area, and Riverside.

I really like that idea! DND does not belong in a downtown tower in a crowded area, if for security reasons in the post-9/11 age for anything else. The hub of the transit network definitely belongs downtown.

[IntoTheCore]

Some of the 'arguments' brought up in this article are just so, so mind-boggling (even the ones from the Orleans residents... let's try to see the big picture!).

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Moving station would ‘gut' downtown: Neighbour
By JUSTIN SADLER, Ottawa Sun
Last Updated: March 22, 2010 6:44am
http://www.ottawasun.com/news/ottawa.../13310036.html

The mayor’s pitch to move regional bus services from the Catherine St. terminal to the Via Rail station off Riverside Dr. is raising the ire of many who use the service or benefit from it indirectly.

“Really, the train and the bus station should be downtown like in most cities,” said Tyler Carlson, returning home from Montreal Sunday. He said many of the people who use the bus are urban residents who don’t have cars.

“So it doesn’t really make sense to move it to the suburbs.”

Somerset Coun. Diane Holmes also said it would be a bad idea right now. The bus station is located in her ward.

“I really think what we should be doing in this city is getting our transportation better connected. I would be happy to see it move when we get the light rail going into the train station, but not before that happens.” she said.

Mayor Larry O’Brien sent a letter to Via Rail president Marc Laliberte last week with the idea of moving bus services to the train station.

O’Brien said, “it’s good to have a transportation hub,” and said Greyhound has indicated it would be interested in a move to the train station.

One employee at the bus station, who asked not to be named, described general ambivalence toward the proposal among his coworkers.

“The idea isn’t original. It’s been put out there by other politicians before,” he said, adding he thinks O’Brien is using the idea to build an election platform.

Of those in favour of the move, most, like Maryanne Birnie and Louise Morin who live in Orleans, said they would benefit because it was closer to their homes.

“It’s a good idea for me,” Morin said. “Getting back to Orleans, it’s three buses. It’s too much.”

But Demir Demiri, who operates the Voyageur’s Guest House right behind the bus station, said much of his business is from passersby who spot his bed and breakfast when they get off the bus.

“It’s going to hurt me. It’s busy in the summer, very, very busy,” he said.

Blue Line cab driver, Adel Elsabbagh, is also opposed to the proposal. He said the move would create too much congestion on Hwy. 417 and at the train station.

Even some neighbouring residents said it would be unfortunate, especially after losing downtown train service in 1966.

“It’s a shame that we missed that dynamic that comes with a downtown train station,” said Paco Francoli, who lives a block away from the bus terminal.

“I see it as another attempt to gut the downtown core of the businesses and services you’d find in a city. The Via station is out in the middle of nowhere. Some things belong downtown for practical purposes.”

[phil235]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

I really don't think it would be all that effective in that role though, because Union Station isn't central downtown, and therefore most people would likely have to take transit anyway. Given the choice, I think the only truly effective option for commuter rail in Ottawa would be to have it run through a tunnel across downtown. Obviously this would be prohibitively expensive though, so the status quo is probably best for now.

If I'm not mistaken, the advisory panel created by Larry O'Brien recommended exactly what you are suggesting. Their thinking was that the DOTT should be designed to accommodate both LRT and heavy rail so it could be used by commuter trains as well. Not sure that recommendation got much serious consideration.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Sorry for not going with the flow, but I support Diane Holmes position. We should wait until LRT is in place before we do this. Once LRT construction begins, there will likely only be one bus route stopping at the Via Station, which will be no better than the current Greyhound Station on Catherine Street. During the duration of construction, all the other bus routes will be bypassing the station on the Queensway.

I agree. Ideally we'd get rid of DNDHQ, but short of that waiting for LRT to reach the VIA station is the best bet. Not that I'm worried that something might happen before then, anyway...

[jcollins]

Would there need to be much infrastructure added or money invested to join the two into a hub at this point? It seems like it'd be a fairly small investment short term.

[waterloowarrior]

Bus-station shift gets mixed reviews
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...837/story.html
Relocation to VIA terminal pitched by O’Brien

BY GLEN MCGREGOR, THE OTTAWA CITIZENMARCH 23, 2010 12:02 AM


OTTAWA — Mayor Larry O’Brien’s proposal to move the Ottawa bus station to the VIA Rail terminal in the east end of the city could leave a Vancouver property developer holding a valuable slice of downtown real estate.

The mayor last week wrote to VIA president and CEO Marc Laliberté to ask him to consider allowing Greyhound Canada to relocate its intercity bus service to the train station on Tremblay Road.

O’Brien said a transportation hub combining train, buses and the city’s proposed light-rail transit would be good for all parties and would benefit Ottawa residents and visitors.

Greyhound Canada, which leases space at the bus station, says it has been working with O’Brien on the plan and likes the possibility of an “inter-modal facility” that lets passengers travel by train and bus on the same trip.

“It’s certainly something we are on board with and would strongly support,” spokeswoman Maureen Richmond said from Greyhound’s office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

However, other area politicians are uncertain about taking the station out of the downtown core when the city’s transportation plan is still a work in progress and question what would become of the current bus station, which covers a city block.

Until 2007, the Catherine Street property was held through a numbered company controlled by CSL Equity, the investment arm of the international shipping empire owned by former prime minister Paul Martin’s family.

Martin’s company purchased Voyageur Colonial Bus Lines and the Ottawa station in 1981, but unloaded the bus service in the mid-1990s as his federal political career ascended. CSL Equity, however, retained ownership of the terminal and leased it out.

In 2007, CSL’s numbered company sold the Ottawa property for $8.5 million to Crerar Silverside Corporation, a company run by Vancouver developer Stewart Robertson, according to land transfer records. At the same time, Crerar registered a $7.3-million loan from a British-based investment firm, Middlemarch Partners Limited. Another $400,000 was loaned through B.C.’s Canadian Western Trust Company.

The exact value of the property today is unknown. However, with residential property values continuing to climb, it could be worth more as a real-estate development than as a bus station.

Crerar does not appear to have any role in running the station. It is staffed and managed by Station Centrale, a Quebec firm that also runs Montreal’s bus terminal. A spokesman for that company said it had had no contact with O’Brien to discuss a plan to relocate.

Ottawa mayoralty candidate Jim Watson said the plan to move the station didn’t make a lot of sense, particularly as the city was yet to lay a single kilometre of track for its light-rail project. “Most Canadian cities have the bus depot downtown, not the suburbs. Before you start musing about moving the bus depot, you have to get your own act together with respect to the transportation plan.”

Watson likened the plan to the controversial decision to move Ottawa’s train station to the east end location from downtown in the 1960s.

Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar said he’d like to hear more about the rationale for the plan before the bus station was moved out of his riding.

If it is relocated, however, Dewar says the city should consider redeveloping the Catherine Street site as mixed housing. “A solid stock of affordable housing, where you have rent geared to income housing, along with private housing … that’s what we need all over the city.”

In response to O’Brien’s letter, a VIA spokesman said the corporation welcomed any initiatives that could improve service. He said the twinning of bus and rail in inter-modal facilities had worked well in Vancouver and Quebec City.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by jcollins

Would there need to be much infrastructure added or money invested to join the two into a hub at this point? It seems like it'd be a fairly small investment short term.

Depends on how well they want to do it. They could simply convert the frontmost platforms into bus bays. however, the platforms are open to the outdoors, which is why they queue train passengers inside the station. Bus riders are used to queuing right at the gate, so they would probably have to enclose those platforms to make them climate controlled.

It seems that they are only using half of the original tracks — there are abandoned platforms behind where new bus bays could be built with a heated terminal building connected by extending the tunnel. That spiral ramp down to it is so cool

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Mille Sabords

What's the real-life inter-modal necessity between Via and Voyageur today? Why do the two need to be in the same building? Is there something larger in the works here?

.

Thinking a bit about this. My thoughts are: I don't know but perhaps.

There has long been plans/dreams of high speed rail on the Quebec-Windsor corridor.

One of the problems with building this high speed rail is that it would no longer be feasible to have trains stopping in every little town along the way. Consequently you would either need to continue running the old fashioned slow trains in parallel (would there even be enough business?) or come up with something else. Having both services in the same building would allow transfers from the high speed trains to buses to complete the last lag of the journey to small communities.

[ajldub]

I can see the association. Let's say you want to take the train to, I don't know, Quebec City, but you live in, say, Perth. If it's a short bus ride to the train station it saves you trekking across Ottawa en route.

I like this plan because the next 10-20 years will(hopefully) see the rolling out of a serious high speed rail network on this continent. I was really hoping Obama would take it on, but it looks for the time being he's focusing on health care. When it does come online, we will need a place to have a station, and as much as I would like to see trains come downtown I think the price of high speed rail in the core would be prohibitive. So a transit hub out by the old station makes sense to me. A couple of light rail spurs to the airport and downtown and you've actually got a nice little system.

[Acajack]

Although I really do like the idea of a transportation hub in downtown Ottawa at the old Union Station, just for fun I checked out how far from the city centres the two stations on the Eurostar line are.

Gare du Nord is about 5 km from central Paris (Champs-Élysées/Arc de Triomphe/Eiffel Tower)

Waterloo Station is roughly 2 to 4 km from most points in central London (closer to Parliament at Westminster, and a bit further from the "City").

For the sake of comparison, the Ottawa VIA station on Tremblay is about 5 km from Parliament Hill.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by jcollins

Would there need to be much infrastructure added or money invested to join the two into a hub at this point? It seems like it'd be a fairly small investment short term.

The time to do it is when they rebuild the front semi-circle for LRT. The marginal cost at that point in time won't be too much since the place will be dug up and reconfigured anyway.


A number of municipalities to the east are organizing commuter bus services and there is some talk of commuter rail, but rail would only be at peak periods whereas it is conceivable that bus services might be run at other periods as well. From their point of view, having the commuter rail and bus services interface with the rapid transit system at the same location makes a lot of sense. Similarly, people can make journeys involving VIA in one direction and buses in the other.

I'd prefer to see all this take place downtown, but the VIA station is the next best alternative - and even if we eventually get something like this downtown it's unlikely that the current location would close (it has and likely always will have more parking, for example) since it is better located for a lot of non-business & non-school travel.

[Kitchissippi]

I don't see intercity trains entering downtown Otawa. Ever. There just isn't room for it. There is more to a station than just the station building, there are train yards, areas for baggage and cargo handling, not to mention the parking requirements and the traffic of people dropping off and picking up passengers. As infrequent as the arrivals are in VIA station, it does cause momentary traffic jam in the vicinity.

Also, for high speed rail to be viable in North America, it needs to compete and be well integrated with airports. The way I see it a first phase could start in Montreal Central Station (YMY), stop in Dorval airport (YUL), head to Ottawa train station (XDS) and terminate in Ottawa Airport (YOW). Taking it into downtown Ottawa would dead-end it there, unless there was a massive expenditure to take it across in another tunnel downtown, a huge cost for something that would be used only a few times a day.

There are a lot of grim areas surrounding the Montreal and Toronto stations (or any station in Europe for that matter) that are pretty hard to disguise. There just is no way parts of downtown Ottawa would be ripped up for it.

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Although I really do like the idea of a transportation hub in downtown Ottawa at the old Union Station, just for fun I checked out how far from the city centres the two stations on the Eurostar line are.

Gare du Nord is about 5 km from central Paris (Champs-Élysées/Arc de Triomphe/Eiffel Tower)

Waterloo Station is roughly 2 to 4 km from most points in central London (closer to Parliament at Westminster, and a bit further from the "City").

For the sake of comparison, the Ottawa VIA station on Tremblay is about 5 km from Parliament Hill.

Waterloo isn't the Eurostar terminal anymore, it's St Pancras, which is on Euston Road, which is pretty darn central. I'm not sure what you used as your measuring point for Central London, as there isn't a natural central point as in Ottawa (Parliament).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by gjhall

Waterloo isn't the Eurostar terminal anymore, it's St Pancras, which is on Euston Road, which is pretty darn central. I'm not sure what you used as your measuring point for Central London, as there isn't a natural central point as in Ottawa (Parliament).

Thank you for pointing that out. It shows I haven't been in London for a few years.

I used Westminster and the "City" business district as central points for London. I realize that London is a huge city and that there is not necessarily a central focal point there.

My main objective was to demonstrate that 5 km from many central points of interest (like the current VIA station in Ottawa is) is not necessarily that big a deal.

Of course, there are huge differences in urban form between Tremblay Rd. in Ottawa and the areas around the Gare du Nord and St. Pancras.

All in all, the VIA station on Tremblay is not a bad location. Ideally, Union Station downtown might be the best location for travellers but others have made good arguments as to why it might not be practical: cost of tunnelling, a potentially huge "railway scar" if a tunnel cannot be built, suitability for link-up with HSR, etc.

[c_speed3108]

If my understanding of the high speed rail dream is correct, Ottawa would be a line station not a terminal point.

This would greatly complicate having the station downtown since you need not only a way in, but also a way out... (twice the cost and trouble)

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

If my understanding of the high speed rail dream is correct, Ottawa would be a line station not a terminal point.

This would greatly complicate having the station downtown since you need not only a way in, but also a way out... (twice the cost and trouble)

The UK's new HSR plan has Birmingham as a shoot of the line to a downtown terminal point in addition to a stop "Birmingham Interchange" on the main line.

If you look at the existing railtrack there is essentially a one track that comes in from Toronto and points west past Hurdman and to the current station and it keeps going to Montreal and points east.

Assuming a track, tunneled or not, went to Union Station via Colonel By Drive, it would only deviate from the line for 2 km, then could reverse back to the main line. A pretty minimal time delay considering the train has to stop anyway.

Let's not forget that an investment in HSR will not mean the current LOW rate of service, it will be a fundamental shift in transport mode, with a fairly constant flow of trains throughout the day, you know, like in other developed countries...