West Gatineau Tramway & Downtown Loop | Proposed

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Overhead wires are one thing, but downtown Ottawa being the end of the line will require sophisticated switches, modern signalling and ideally the potential to store extra trainsets. TTC streetcar style archaic switching won't cut it here.

Storing train sets... No way of doing that with the Wellington option, but doable with the underground option.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

To me, Wellington is a bargaining-chip no-starter, only to force a Fed buy-in for the majority of the cost of the Ottawa run from Portage to Metcalfe, wherever it be.

No way - its not just a bargaining chip, I think STO heavily prefers Wellington Street. Look at the level of detail in the options presented. You can tell there has been a lot of thought put into the roadway design of the Wellington Street options - especially how the no-traffic scenario would work. On the other hand the tunnel option is barely explored: station extents copy-pasted from the Confederation Line, no exploration of where the entrances may be, not clear how the Portage intersection would work, etc...

Unless the City of Ottawa or the feds force Gatineau's hand - I'm guessing they have basically already chosen Wellington surface as the preferred alternative.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

There's so much possibility to turn Wellington in front of Parliament into an iconic street. By reallocating the lanes to trams and cycleways, it'll manage to move more people while also freeing up so much space.

The most significant modification I'd make is to keep the trams on Wellington north of the War Memorial.

• Instead of having the cars going the long way around, I'd send them all on the south-east branch of Elgin. There's already four lanes, enough for two northbound and two southbound.
• The south-west branch of Elgin can just be pedestrianized, allowing Sparks to spill directly into Confederation Square.
• Keeping transit on Wellington means it can be relatively easily extended to Mackenzie/Alexandra Bridge to close the loop in the future. The tracks could also be extended onto Rideau/Montreal in the future.

But all in all, this is a really good proposal. Gatineau gets an efficient transit link, and Ottawa gets a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-imagine its symbolic centre.

I agree about putting all car-traffic on the southeast side of Confederation Square. I'm guessing the only reason STO isn't proposing this is an effort to reduce the extents of their study area.

The other interesting thing about eliminating car traffic on Wellington Street between Bank Street and Elgin Street is that you also make O'Connor Street and Metcalfe Street car-free (except for minor local access) from Wellington Street to Queen Street.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

No way - its not just a bargaining chip, I think STO heavily prefers Wellington Street. Look at the level of detail in the options presented. You can tell there has been a lot of thought put into the roadway design of the Wellington Street options - especially how the no-traffic scenario would work. On the other hand the tunnel option is barely explored: station extents copy-pasted from the Confederation Line, no exploration of where the entrances may be, not clear how the Portage intersection would work, etc...

Unless the City of Ottawa or the feds force Gatineau's hand - I'm guessing they have basically already chosen Wellington surface as the preferred alternative.

That sounds plausible. By presenting so many scenarios for Wellington, they are desperately trying to convince Ottawa and the Feds to get on board with that option.

End of the day, I think the Feds will be making the final decision, since they will likely pay for it.

Side note, I'm pretty sure the Confederation Boulevard transit loop was part of the NCC's 2013 transit study, was it not?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

I agree about putting all car-traffic on the southeast side of Confederation Square. I'm guessing the only reason STO isn't proposing this is an effort to reduce the extents of their study area.

The other interesting thing about eliminating car traffic on Wellington Street between Bank Street and Elgin Street is that you also make O'Connor Street and Metcalfe Street car-free (except for minor local access) from Wellington Street to Queen Street.

Good point. That could be an interesting aspect for the Sparks renewal project. We then end up with a continuous pedestrian mall from Bank to Elgin.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Wait wait wait - we bent over backwards to satisfy the NCC's mid-century dream of a Wellington without "unsightly" transit, only to re-dedicate it to STO?

Was Wellington in the mix for mass transit? Or are you talking about busses? I think lines of busses clogging the street is very different than late century trams no? It sounds like Ottawa's approach will be to sell the city owned land.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Overhead wires are one thing, but downtown Ottawa being the end of the line will require sophisticated switches, modern signalling and ideally the potential to store extra trainsets. TTC streetcar style archaic switching won't cut it here.

I'd be interested to know why you think that. In my mind, you'd just have ION-style signalling and a simple two-platform pull-in-pull-out terminus.

Storing the vehicles is an interesting puzzle. Being a bit fanciful, it'd be interesting if some limited train storage could be accommodated under one of the future judicial precinct buildings between the Supreme Court and LAC (currently two parking lots). I wonder if something of the sort has ever been done.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Just wait until you find out about the Ottawa extending LRT to the less expensive outer suburbs.

Yeah but they still pay taxes in Ottawa/Ontario.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

No way - its not just a bargaining chip, I think STO heavily prefers Wellington Street. Look at the level of detail in the options presented. You can tell there has been a lot of thought put into the roadway design of the Wellington Street options - especially how the no-traffic scenario would work. On the other hand the tunnel option is barely explored: station extents copy-pasted from the Confederation Line, no exploration of where the entrances may be, not clear how the Portage intersection would work, etc...

Unless the City of Ottawa or the feds force Gatineau's hand - I'm guessing they have basically already chosen Wellington surface as the preferred alternative.

Good Day.

On choosing Wellington...
My take is that they presented so many details of design that they are just asking for multiple objections. And they are there.
As I laid out, IMO several details are just not going to be permitted at all - such as using the parallel road inside the Precinct fenceline.
I just cannot see any of the security services even thinking of allowing it. That is going to be a hard line.

On the Portage intersection, rail .vs. road: this has not been addressed in any of the scenarios.
And it is a large detail to have glossed over so much in this presentation.
East side or west side or center of the bridge. Cross at the Gat end or the Ott end. ie: we, and they, do not know.

On less detail for the Sparks tunnel... most people are now familiar with the tunnel scene.
The cut-and-paste was, I will admit, sloppy on their part. What else is new in so much of any plan presentations.
But, really, the only question is the exact placement of the two stations and their interconnects. The rest is now basically a known method and plan.

As for their preference..... all is supposition until they say what so.

More Fun !

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.
As I laid out, IMO several details are just not going to be permitted at all - such as using the parallel road inside the Precinct fenceline.
I just cannot see any of the security services even thinking of allowing it. That is going to be a hard line.

I think the only scenario where that is contemplated is in the "With Traffic" option, as a way of ensuring a continuous cycling route.

I don't see why having cyclists within Parliament Hill would be a security concern as long as bollards etc. are used- it seems fine beside the US Embassy.

It is important that the bikeway be continuous, so if the "With Traffic" option was selected, some solution is required to ensure that it is.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I think the only scenario where that is contemplated is in the "With Traffic" option, as a way of ensuring a continuous cycling route.

I don't see why having cyclists within Parliament Hill would be a security concern as long as bollards etc. are used- it seems fine beside the US Embassy.

It is important that the bikeway be continuous, so if the "With Traffic" option was selected, some solution is required to ensure that it is.

Good Day.

True, but....

Your comparison is faulty. The U.S. Embassy cycle lane is part of City/NCC/Canada.
The bollards replaced the more-effective-to-blast-deflection jersey barriers, when the U.S. relaxed their global embassy security requirements in the case of Ottawa.
The Embassy proper still has its own fence line on its' property line for its' internal security perimeter.
The Wellington proposal is for the cycle track to be -inside- the security fenceline perimeter. Are they to build another perimeter ? I think not.

And, this was only one particular difficulty with this particular scenario for Wellington.
Overall, there are many problems and objections in my view of most of the Wellington scenarios, some of which I did lay out, and others have also alluded to.

Still fun !

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.
As I laid out, IMO several details are just not going to be permitted at all - such as using the parallel road inside the Precinct fenceline.
I just cannot see any of the security services even thinking of allowing it. That is going to be a hard line.

The solution seems pretty simple to me here. Security, emergency, and service vehicles can drive on the tram lanes. Or they use the street on the Hill as they do currently. If anything, I can see them preferring this option. Wellington is currently clogged with traffic, but a tram/bike-only option means a traffic-free way for emergency vehicles to get across downtown quickly even at the height of rush hour.

The Wellington proposal is for the cycle track to be -inside- the security fenceline perimeter. Are they to build another perimeter ? I think not.

They already have two other perimeters - the fencing north of Wellington and the Hill itself. Of course, this is all kinda moot since the plan is to have this cycleway on Wellington regardless of what happens with the tram.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

As a transit user, it'd be a far greater inconvenience to have to go up and down 4-5 flights of stairs every ride for a tunnel. For the convenience, I'd happily put up with occasionally having to walk an extra five minutes on handful of off-peak hours during the entire year.

All in all, I think more STO riders would be inconvenienced with the Wellington option. It will be a futher walk for those working dowtown and it will certainly be more inconvenient for the large portion of riders transferring to Line 1. The tunnel option will make transfers to Line 1 much easier while also providing more weather protection. Connecting both the STO and Line 1 tunnels via underground walkways could also be start of Ottawa's very own underground city, which would be very welcome amongst riders during the winter months.

The tunnel option would also better accommodate future capacity increases through platform extensions and longer trains when the time comes. Who knows, maybe the rapibus corridor will one day be converted to LRT and the tunnel can be used by both the Gatineau west and east lines.

[Aylmer]

Again, although Sparks is closer on the map, having it in a tunnel means that it's still a longer walk to destinations. The tunnel option also has one less station, meaning longer walks.

The connection argument is valid. But I think that Ottawans overestimate how many STO riders use the Confed Line. I don't dispute that some do, but the vast majority of STO users are headed to destinations that don't require a transfer. We should build the system to make transfers easy, of course. But the relatively slim percentage of transferring passengers shouldn't be the overriding concern.

The surface option can still accommodate easy transfers. At Lyon, the STO appears to be contemplating an underground passage from the CL platform directly to the STO platform. It's 100m and a 15m descent, easily covered in 1-2 minutes. At Parliament, passengers will walk for less than 30 seconds outdoors along a newly-pedestrianized O'Connor to access the Sparks/O'Connor LRT entrance.

Both of these transfers seem totally fine. In fact, they're much better than any of the Confederation Line's train/bus transfers where the walk is often twice as long. Would they be better in a tunnel? Yes. Are they so bad that they justify spending likely $500M+ to build a tunnel? I just don't see it.


As for the underground city, it's moot. Two fare-controlled, 50-metre tunnels doesn't really do anything for us one way or another. I just don't see anyone going down flights of stairs, paying $3.50 and going up five flights of stairs just to get from Sparks to Queen.

[Horus]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

All in all, I think more STO riders would be inconvenienced with the Wellington option.

Except that current STO riders are already using Wellington. So really, that's more or less the status quo, except with fewer stops than the buses make now.


Details on the tunnel option are pretty thin so far. It's hard to generalize that the depth of the stations would be a major issue because we don't know what the planned depth of the Sparks tunnel would be. Nobody has said that the tunnel has to be at the same depth as the Line 1 tunnel. Connecting tunnels to line 1 stations could have to be accessed by descending from the STO platforms under Sparks.

The Sparks tunnel offers the attraction of climate protected platforms, easier transfers to Line 1 for those who need it, and no traffic to contend with to enter/leave downtown. Wellington, as Aylmer pointed out, is probably better for users who are destined for downtown locations, and is certainly less costly.

[J.OT13]

I'd say that surface Wellington options likely better serves the STO customers who work in Ottawa's CBD, while the Sparks tunnel option is better for the few STO customers who work/study outside of the CBD and the few hundred (thousands?) of Ottawa transit riders who work in Hull. Ultimately, the system is built for the convenience of Gatineau passengers, not Ottawa passengers.

For the underground city, I don't see that happening. Downtown property owners seemed excited about the concept when we started discussing a tunnel, but as soon as it became reality, they became stone-cold silent. I don't expect much growth, if any, of the indoor city beyond what we have (Rideau Centre, Place de Ville and the few buildings connected at Parliament) with or without an STO tunnel.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

TOf course, this is all kinda moot since the plan is to have this cycleway on Wellington regardless of what happens with the tram.

I was referring to the Wellington With Traffic scenario, where options A, B and D propose either eliminating a segment of the bikeway, reducing its width or having a segment shared with pedestrians.

I don't really think any of these options are acceptable, but Option C (where the cycling facility is re-routed onto the frontage road within Parliament Hill) would be OK. I'm sure there is a way that such a link could be designed so that only bikes could use it and it would prevent vehicles from using it to drive onto the hill.

[J.OT13]

Assuming this becomes part of the O-Train network, anybody have an idea for the line name.

I'm thinking:

Line: 3
Colour: Blue
Name: Portage

I'm trying think of a possible indigenous name, but other than Asticou (boiling kettle), I can't think of any other such word or name closely associated with the west end of Gatineau.

Remember, we also need to reserve a name for the future RapiBus conversion O-Train line.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Remember, we also need to reserve a name for the future RapiBus conversion O-Train line.

Fleur-de-lis to parallel Trillium?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Fleur-de-lis to parallel Trillium?

Bit of a mouthful.