Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The 40 % figure, as well as the figures for all the other cities, is the current proportion of city wide office space located downtown. So 40% of the total Ottawa office space is downtown. And I am proposing to implement a bylaw requiring that the downtown should keep the 40% proportion. So for every million square feet of office space built in the city, 400,000 square feet should be built downtown.

So why should we implement such a bylaw?

-We are currently encouraging intensification inside the greenbelt, seeing bigger proportions of new residential units in the city. So why are we encouraging the opposite from employment areas?

-It is easier to build a transit system centred around downtown. Basically having rapid transit lines from all across the city converging in the one downtown tunnel.

-Similar to why most people would have preferred the Palladium to be built downtown, having the city’s jobs in a central location results in equal distance for everyone to get to and from their destination.

-For the people living in Gatineau and Orleans working for the RCMP or DND in a central location, it will be extremely disruptive for them once their jobs move to Barrhaven or the former Nortel campus. This will likely result in these people that once took frequent and relatively fast transit to switch to the more convenient option, the automobile (again, it’s easier to have all transit head to downtown in the morning and back to the burbs in the evening).

As for eternallyme, I think your numbers are pretty realistic, and I agree that no money should be invested for BRT in this area, or anywhere. Any transit money we can get should go on extending the ORT whenever possible. In this situation, a tunnel is the best option, and when built, it should be rail right off the bat and that rail corridor should extend all the way to Barrhaven.

I am in total agreement - in the updated TMP, I am going to send a recommendation that the LRT be extended to the suburbs as soon as possible and try to get it done immediately after the western section (or before even for Orleans?) - don't wait for the densities, since master plans can create downtowns in the suburbs as well.

BRT does have a place, but it should be best focused on secondary corridors (and that would be more of the dedicated bus lanes and not Transitways).

[lrt's friend]

I have said this long ago. Density can only be created by building rapid transit first. The traditional suburban road network cannot support high density so it is unachievable to require density first. That whole statement was made to keep pressure off our politicians who knew we cannot afford to build LRT to Kanata, Orleans, Barrhaven and Riverside South. We all know the horrendous debate we are going to get into about who gets it first.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have said this long ago. Density can only be created by building rapid transit first. The traditional suburban road network cannot support high density so it is unachievable to require density first. That whole statement was made to keep pressure off our politicians who knew we cannot afford to build LRT to Kanata, Orleans, Barrhaven and Riverside South. We all know the horrendous debate we are going to get into about who gets it first.

In retrospect, your north-south line should have been built...from Bayview (or Gatineau) to Barrhaven Centre. The downtown at-grade section was an absolute mess though.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

In retrospect, your north-south line should have been built...from Bayview (or Gatineau) to Barrhaven Centre. The downtown at-grade section was an absolute mess though.

I figure that, if it would have been built, we would still have implemented the tunnel plan, leaving Albert and Slater to the N/S trains, making it less of a mess. And considering all the money wasted in studies, administrative costs, lawsuits and eventual inflation of cost once we actually build it, we would have been way more in advance today. Not to mention reducing the debates about who is getting rail next.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I figure that, if it would have been built, we would still have implemented the tunnel plan, leaving Albert and Slater to the N/S trains, making it less of a mess. And considering all the money wasted in studies, administrative costs, lawsuits and eventual inflation of cost once we actually build it, we would have been way more in advance today. Not to mention reducing the debates about who is getting rail next.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. I remember a few months ago getting into a horrendous debate with someone who was unrepentent in saying that the tunnel could only be used by east-west trains. He was effectively saying that the tunnel was going to be at capacity for east-west trains alone. Surface downtown rail servicing the north-south route would have addressed his concern and in the long run provided more transit capacity into downtown. The way things have turned out and with the proper and timely political pressure, we could have had both open by 2018. So what if we have had to deal with a bit of a mess downtown for 8 years. We have a mess anyways and at least we would have had one operating LRT line into downtown during LRT conversion of the Transitway.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Exactly, exactly, exactly. I remember a few months ago getting into a horrendous debate with someone who was unrepentent in saying that the tunnel could only be used by east-west trains. He was effectively saying that the tunnel was going to be at capacity for east-west trains alone. Surface downtown rail servicing the north-south route would have addressed his concern and in the long run provided more transit capacity into downtown. The way things have turned out and with the proper and timely political pressure, we could have had both open by 2018. So what if we have had to deal with a bit of a mess downtown for 8 years. We have a mess anyways and at least we would have had one operating LRT line into downtown during LRT conversion of the Transitway.

Bingo!

And as for the tunnel capacity issue; it's a non-issue.

With initial 120 meter, 4 car man operated trains, we can run them up to every 2 minutes. At 200 people per car x 4 cars x 30 trains per hour, that brings us to an initial capacity of 24,000 phpd. And once we extend the platforms to 150 meters and the system is automated, we can run 5 car trains every 1m30sec, bringing the capacity to 40,000 phpd.

Considering that the current peak ridership thru downtown is around 12,000 phpd, we should be good for a long long time.

[S-Man]

Before the building got above ground, the construction webcam for 90 Elgin was pretty good at showing the congestion of east-west buses going along Slater/Albert at peak hours.

So many otherwise knowleagable people in media and radio think the tunnel is to get cars off the Queensway and that engineers are stating that there are car traffic jams in Centretown. No, that was never, ever the argument. It was always, always about bus capacity on those two avenues.

Driving down Albert in your car at 9:30am or 3 in the afternoon does not a counterpont make agains the tunnel. That webcam showed buses heading for and away from the Mackenzie King bridge basically operating at capacity. And those are primarily 90-series routes.

Iknow I'm preaching to the choir here, but that always bugged me. And the North-South plan's downtown portion was fatally flawed. Who wants to pay half the cost of something that will be rendered useless? That was the Chiarelli plan in a nutshell.

[J.OT13]

If there is one place that, for some reason, that NEVER HAS any sort of car traffic jams, it's the central buisiness district. Only Wellington Street suffers from jams, mostly due too STO buses who constantly change lanes.

Sometimes when I go back home from school in the east end, I bypass the Queensway by driving Albert-Scott street because there is never any traffic jams.

So, as you said, that is definately not an argument against a tunnel. At the end of the day, there are no arguments, the downtown subway it is needed no matter how you look at it.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have said this long ago. Density can only be created by building rapid transit first. The traditional suburban road network cannot support high density so it is unachievable to require density first.

Or, or additionally... stop building "traditional" (i.e. since 1950) suburban road networks.

Build grids or grid-like things. Like humans did for 7,000 years before the post-war crap boom happened.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by S-Man

And those are primarily 90-series routes.

I wish they were, but they are not. The rush-hour jams are mostly caused by semi-full suburban expresses. They should be abolished. Now.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

If there is one place that, for some reason, that NEVER HAS any sort of car traffic jams, it's the central buisiness district. Only Wellington Street suffers from jams, mostly due too STO buses who constantly change lanes.

Sometimes when I go back home from school in the east end, I bypass the Queensway by driving Albert-Scott street because there is never any traffic jams.

So, as you said, that is definately not an argument against a tunnel. At the end of the day, there are no arguments, the downtown subway it is needed no matter how you look at it.

Traffic jams are not a huge problem in the CBD, but it is not entirely true that there aren't any. Wellington can be bad as you pointed out, as are Albert and Slater, especially in the afternoon peak. Because of buses again.

There are other traffic pressure points in the CBD as well, but overall it's not too bad and very far from gridlocked.

[Dado]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I wish they were, but they are not. The rush-hour jams are mostly caused by semi-full suburban expresses. They should be abolished. Now.

While it certainly used to be the case that we had a lot of semi-full suburban expresses, that's no longer the case and will be even less so in the future. I have seen plenty of westbound express buses - sometimes articulated buses - in the afternoon completely filled up. Even if there are some semi-full afternoon westbound buses crossing Bronson, generally they fill up at LeBreton and Tunney's Pasture.

They have been busy consolidating routes bit by bit in the last few years while the increasing popularity of suburban park and rides helps ensure a higher utilization of expresses than would otherwise be expected.

They could - and probably should - still consolidate all express routes into "Park & Ride expresses" (e.g. so a route '60' and '61' run at greater frequency would replace all the 60-series expresses to Kanata and would go to the Eagleson and Terry Fox P&Rs) but even if they do that the bus jams won't go away. They might form a bit later and clear ever so slightly sooner, but they won't go away.

They have now got to the point where there are simply too many passengers on too many buses. The City is now scraping the bottom of the barrel for efficiencies - hence the hope in temporary salvation from double deckers.


The truth of the matter is that the new City really dropped the ball a decade ago when it went ahead with rapid transit planning on the assumption that a BRT backbone could support a near doubling in transit use.

[Dr.Z]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

-We are currently encouraging intensification inside the greenbelt, seeing bigger proportions of new residential units in the city. So why are we encouraging the opposite from employment areas?

-For the people living in Gatineau and Orleans working for the RCMP or DND in a central location, it will be extremely disruptive for them once their jobs move to Barrhaven or the former Nortel campus. This will likely result in these people that once took frequent and relatively fast transit to switch to the more convenient option, the automobile (again, it’s easier to have all transit head to downtown in the morning and back to the burbs in the evening).

WRT your first point above intensification requirements are for people AND jobs. The density numbers will require a significant amount of office space in all target areas espcially the Central Area.

WRT your second point above this still occurs with the 40/60 split. So what - there is a lot of absolute office downtown at 40% overall. All municipalities will see decreasing office shares downtown; that doesn't mean that there is insufficient office supply downtown, that just says there is growth occuring in the outlying areas, which makes sense. Unless there is a trend showing that the outlying areas are SUCKING the office space out of the downtown (I don't see this trend at all) there really isn't need for a regulation. In the past decade the office share of downtown, central and suburban has been relatively steady and in fact suburban has decreased from 53% in 2001 to 47% in 2011.

And if you wanted to regulate to maintain a minimum office space, % of city wide isn't the best metric IMO. First if downtown is saturated in that there is no more land for additional significant office space (or there is no demand for the downtown rents in a given year) then you have essentially prohibited all office outside downtown until a major project downtown is able to give the other areas breathing room. Is that what you really want, to prohibit even small and medium projects with 10,000 sq.m or less even in mixed-use and TOD intensification areas not downtown?

Second, even if the suburbs were sucking office from downtown (and its not!!!) Ottawa's total office inventory is so large that 10,000 sq.m of new inventory is a drop in the bucket and doesn't change the 40% benchmark; the suburbs would have 60% before and after 10,000 sq.m of new office. Unless you are not allowing rounding, which means you need lots of decimals, which implies accuracy. Where are we getting these accurate numbers from? Each of the real estate brokers have different numbers for total inventory and their geographic distribution. Where does vacancy fall in your bylaw? Nortel was vacant office that was already built and part of the 60% suburban share.

Regulation is a good idea when the market cannot correct for a failure, whether economic or social (such as your equity goal). I don't see evidence of an office failure in Ottawa. I do see that the DND purchase of Nortel in the west when the majority of their workforce lives in Orleans in the east ito be an unfortunate situation commuting-wise. Maybe after a few years more military staff will rent/buy more in the west.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Dr.Z

WRT your first point above intensification requirements are for people AND jobs. The density numbers will require a significant amount of office space in all target areas espcially the Central Area.

WRT your second point above this still occurs with the 40/60 split. So what - there is a lot of absolute office downtown at 40% overall. All municipalities will see decreasing office shares downtown; that doesn't mean that there is insufficient office supply downtown, that just says there is growth occuring in the outlying areas, which makes sense. Unless there is a trend showing that the outlying areas are SUCKING the office space out of the downtown (I don't see this trend at all) there really isn't need for a regulation. In the past decade the office share of downtown, central and suburban has been relatively steady and in fact suburban has decreased from 53% in 2001 to 47% in 2011.

And if you wanted to regulate to maintain a minimum office space, % of city wide isn't the best metric IMO. First if downtown is saturated in that there is no more land for additional significant office space (or there is no demand for the downtown rents in a given year) then you have essentially prohibited all office outside downtown until a major project downtown is able to give the other areas breathing room. Is that what you really want, to prohibit even small and medium projects with 10,000 sq.m or less even in mixed-use and TOD intensification areas not downtown?

Second, even if the suburbs were sucking office from downtown (and its not!!!) Ottawa's total office inventory is so large that 10,000 sq.m of new inventory is a drop in the bucket and doesn't change the 40% benchmark; the suburbs would have 60% before and after 10,000 sq.m of new office. Unless you are not allowing rounding, which means you need lots of decimals, which implies accuracy. Where are we getting these accurate numbers from? Each of the real estate brokers have different numbers for total inventory and their geographic distribution. Where does vacancy fall in your bylaw? Nortel was vacant office that was already built and part of the 60% suburban share.

Regulation is a good idea when the market cannot correct for a failure, whether economic or social (such as your equity goal). I don't see evidence of an office failure in Ottawa. I do see that the DND purchase of Nortel in the west when the majority of their workforce lives in Orleans in the east ito be an unfortunate situation commuting-wise. Maybe after a few years more military staff will rent/buy more in the west.

Well, I guess this is a very unpopular idea and I would drop it out of my political platform. Democracy rules and I will stop arguing this point.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

I wish they were, but they are not. The rush-hour jams are mostly caused by semi-full suburban expresses. They should be abolished. Now.

The busiest express routes are the 35, 61 and 77. Those routes are getting the double deckers first and foremost, and all of them serve the major Park and Rides in their area which result in them gaining most of the ridership. The next busiest, based on my own observations, are the 20, 30, 34, 60 and 76.

The least busiest, except for the rural routes, are the 37, 65, 66, 69 (which IMO should be a regular-fare route) and 73.

[waterloowarrior]

Barrhaven/Riverside South display boards
http://ottawa.ca/en/city_hall/planningpr...barrhaventransitea/oh1_display/index.htm

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Barrhaven/Riverside South display boards
http://ottawa.ca/en/city_hall/planningpr...barrhaventransitea/oh1_display/index.htm

I still very strongly oppose having part of this corridor as LRT and part as BRT. Forcing a rapid transit mode transfer for only the last few kms of the corridor will steeply reduce ridership. This corridor was originally designed for rail and should remain so. In fact, parts of the corridor in Barrhaven are quite narrow and will almost certainly face strong opposition from neighbours when we finally attempt to build a busway. This is all part of Ottawa's obsession with busways and in this case, it makes no sense whatsoever.

[Dado]

I doubt anyone in Barrhaven would use this to head downtown via Riverside South... they're more likely to hop on a bus to head west to Strandherd/Marketplace or north to Fallowfield.

This corridor is not a radial corridor. It's an orbital or circumferential corridor, which are the kind of corridors that busways best suit: they complement radial rail lines. It never made much sense as a rail corridor. The only rail corridors that make sense from Barrhaven are north to Algonquin College or along the VIA line to Confederation Heights.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I still very strongly oppose having part of this corridor as LRT and part as BRT. Forcing a rapid transit mode transfer for only the last few kms of the corridor will steeply reduce ridership. This corridor was originally designed for rail and should remain so. In fact, parts of the corridor in Barrhaven are quite narrow and will almost certainly face strong opposition from neighbours when we finally attempt to build a busway. This is all part of Ottawa's obsession with busways and in this case, it makes no sense whatsoever.

And again, why waste money on BRT when we can extend the ORT, especially if your already talking about converting BRT corridors that don't exist yet.

And another thing, if the future N/S ORT riders have to transfer at Bayview, it will be a total disaster. Why are the people at city hall such idiots?

[J.OT13]

S-W Transitway extension to Tallwood. Price tag of 33.2 million split two ways between the City and the Province.

http://www.ottawasun.com/2012/11/01/city-of-ottawa-province-make-transit-funding-announcement

Talks between City of Ottawa and Algonquin College about expanding the campus.