Quote:
Originally Posted by Boxster
Gatineau cannot make the move to an Aylmer tramway for only a portion of the city network as it becomes too costly to maintain two platforms/infrastructures.
Would a tramway have been in the cards, it would have been implemented instead of the Rapibus on the east side of the city. In addition, Aylmer does not have sufficient population to warrant a tramway and the traffic is nothing compared to the east (Gatineau sector).
I would be very curious to see how many residents from Hull, Gatineau, Masson Angers and Buckingham actually supported this dream.
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From what I understand, when the rapid transit corridor was being studied for east Gatineau, they were using very outdated statistics on LRT technology, where costs were far higher than what you could achieve with today`s technology. So you could say the deck was stacked from the beginning. While I agree there are certain cost savings to be had to have only one mode of public transit for a municipality, to say right off without evidence that Gatineau cannot support two different modes of rapid transit is perhaps a rush to judgment (do you have statistics to back that up?). Ottawa, while admittedly has a much larger population, has currently 4 distinct modes of public transit: regular bus, grade-separated bus transitway (yes, I think there is a difference between the two), O-Train, and the under construction LRT Confederation line.
With the preferred rapibus corridor currently along Allumetières, one must factor in cost-wise how it will get through Gatineau Park without requiring more dynamite to the surrounding rock walls and major changes to the roundabouts in Wrightville. While I still have some lingering questions on the tramway that Aylmer is proposing (will residents be happy with a reduced frequency, assuming there is one due to cost of trams over buses, for one), the implementation cost could be significantly less than rapibus.
A tramway servicing Aylmer and le Plateau to Ottawa over Prince of Wales (or Eddy bridge) and spur to downtown Hull through Domtar lands, combined with Rapibus continuing its run on Wellington for Ottawa bounds passengers and rue du Portage for downtown Hull passengers has benefits for everyone:
- implementation cost savings for Gatineau (everyone will be paying for a portion of it)
- potentially cheaper operational costs (would have to check Aylmer's figures, but electric over fuel in Quebec is usually a good thing)
- Significant decrease in the number of buses on Wellington
- Only a portion of transit riders from Quebec using the Confederation Line, as opposed to having Rapibus from everywhere in Gatineau shuttling commuters to Bayview station
- Huge TOD possibilities along the tramway line, from Aylmer all the way through Hull and Chaudière island.
And future opportunities:
- ease in rail conversion of eastern Gatineau rapibus using technology that has already been implemented in the city
- extensions that lead to creation of surface transit loop connecting downtown Ottawa and Gatineau when the city councils finally decide to work together
- Integration of O-Train into the transit loop to decrease transfers, sharing cost of rebuilding/retrofitting Prince of Wales bridge to double track
Yeah, it will take a miracle to get Ottawa and Gatineau to the table for a conversation on real transit integration between the cities, but if Gatineau at least moves towards new technology similar to what Ottawa is currently putting in place (albeit not grade-separated and much less costly), it will certainly help with your talking points to get that conversation going.