Chief William Commanda Bridge (former Prince of Wales Bridge)

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

has no drivers of ridership

Except, you know, probably the single largest concentration of public-sector employees in Canada.

[passwordisnt123]

This is such a failure of imagination on the part of political leadership.

The bridge could serve as a perfectly nice and helpful secondary point of crossing to Terrasses de la Chaudiere so it's such a shame to see even that part ruled out.

But I'd take it even a step further and say there are also a ton of ways it could be a key piece of a more important network. Tt seems at least technically feasible to have a Toronto-style "U" in the system to loop into a bank street subway.



Assuming that an electrified Trillium ran trains with a similar 4% grade maximum tolerance as C-Line, the distance between TdC and the Ottawa River should give enough distance to get down as deep as 63 metres underground (or less deep if a less aggressive grade is used) to cross the river at the shallow point under the island.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Fun fact: downtown Hull isn't nowhere and lots of people have to go there. (Whether they want to or not is another question.)

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Except, you know, probably the single largest concentration of public-sector employees in Canada.

Yeah, but you're not noticeably closer to downtown hull from Taché then you are from Pimisi or Lyon. Where is the advantage of going to Taché?

If you're going from the West side of Ottawa to downtown hull, you're travelling 2 km from Bayview to Taché and 1.5ish km to downtown hull. The existing routing is 2km to Lyon and 1.5ish km to downtown Hull.

[jchilds72]

Would airport/EY/hotels to Casino be a thing? Hard Rock (with shuttle) to Casino? Gatineau to new Civic site?

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

We started building an LRT system with a very secondary north-south line; why should a secondary connection have to wait for a primary one?

It doesn't necessarily mean we have to wait. But I would build it after the primary STO link to alleviate their concerns that too many transferring Gatineau customers will overwhelm the Confederation Line at Bayview.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Yep....Sparks or Wellington.

And NCC is never going to agree to Wellington, either surface or underground.

Sparks will work underground only as far as Lyon Station, between Bay - Lyon - Kent, easily. But No Farther than Kent (reason: we're not allowed to know).

Sparks will work surface as far as:
: between any of Bay - Lyon - Kent, easily.
: between any of O'Connor - Metcalfe - Elgin, only if both NCC and Ott agree to a massive Sparks St. do-over (which it could use, anyway - different discussion).

The most recent STO-Gatineau diagrams show solid lines as far as Lyon in downtown Ottawa and dotted lines toward Parliament and Rideau.

My guess is that any type of funding set-up for an STO line in Ontario territory is going to be extremely complicated.

As result I highly doubt they'll go any further into Ottawa with STO-owned infrastructure implantation than Lyon Station.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Anything done here regarding rail service will certainly be post 2031, probably much later. Preservation of the corridor and the POW bridge is all that is needed in the short-term.

Agree 100%.

Spending $10M now to preserve the bridge and open it to new uses makes sense. This will be a beautiful pathway connection.

The Citizen headline said the the bridge would "never" be used for rail, but opening a pathway on the bridge doesn't mean a rail link on this corridor can't be built down the road if it is warranted.

The alternative is leaving the bridge to rot, which does no benefit to anyone.

[CityTech]

Can the STO legally build infrastructure in Ontario? The feds might have to build that portion, depending.

In any case it makes logical sense for the STO to fund something to Lyon and stop there. That's within walking distance of most customer destinations and also an LRT station.

Plus there's no operational concerns about people crowding the other agency's system with a connection at Lyon. Lots of Ottawans are exiting the trains at Lyon so there's room for STO riders, and Ottawans transferring to the STO system there to get to Hull would be travelling reverse-peak.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Can the STO legally build infrastructure in Ontario? The feds might have to build that portion, depending.

In any case it makes logical sense for the STO to fund something to Lyon and stop there. That's within walking distance of most customer destinations and also an LRT station.

Goode questione. I think that as it stands now, the answer is no. They might get a special permission (it would have to come from Quebec City) since it's a unique case.

Regardless, I can't see them going further than absolutely necessary "into" Ottawa.

And you may be right about how it might be the feds who end up doing it.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

Agree 100%.

Spending $10M now to preserve the bridge and open it to new uses makes sense. This will be a beautiful pathway connection.

The Citizen headline said the the bridge would "never" be used for rail, but opening a pathway on the bridge doesn't mean a rail link on this corridor can't be built down the road if it is warranted.

The alternative is leaving the bridge to rot, which does no benefit to anyone.

Agreed! The third option of refurbishing the bridge now and then not allowing anyone to use it is also of little benefit.

[harls]

Do the bus shelters and signs provided by the STO count as infrastructure?

[Acajack]

I'd like to add that even though I am a PoW-skeptic, when Watson and Pedneaud-Jobin say it will "never" be used for transit, the most accurate definition of "never" is "as long as those two are the mayors".

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by harls

Do the bus shelters and signs provided by the STO count as infrastructure?

Good Day.

My 2 cents...... yep.

Signs as signs, shelters as "street furniture"

Now rails and power.... that is a bit more significant.

EnJoy!

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The most recent STO-Gatineau diagrams show solid lines as far as Lyon in downtown Ottawa and dotted lines toward Parliament and Rideau.

My guess is that any type of funding set-up for an STO line in Ontario territory is going to be extremely complicated.

As result I highly doubt they'll go any further into Ottawa with STO-owned infrastructure implantation than Lyon Station.

Good Day.

Yep....highly complicated.

Which may or may not have been either simplified or furthur complicated by a trade-off for the T-Line to go to Terrasses des Chaudieres / Zibi.

And I really do not see it going beyond Lyon station, no matter who funds what. Farther in is too political.

So, agreeing with others.... it would probably still require a majority Fed buy-in for that (those) pieces.

Oh, well !

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yeah, but you're not noticeably closer to downtown hull from Taché then you are from Pimisi or Lyon. Where is the advantage of going to Taché?

I'd ask someone who recommends that the terminus be at Taché.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

It doesn't necessarily mean we have to wait. But I would build it after the primary STO link to alleviate their concerns that too many transferring Gatineau customers will overwhelm the Confederation Line at Bayview.

In which case it'll never be built.

Converting this bridge to sacred bike trails will permanently take transit off the table for this route.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

In which case it'll never be built.

Converting this bridge to sacred bike trails will permanently take transit off the table for this route.

Disagree. The pedestrian/bike path could be re-designed to be cantilevered off to the side. Or, a new parallel bridge could be built for transit.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

In which case it'll never be built.

Converting this bridge to sacred bike trails will permanently take transit off the table for this route.

I guarantee you, had they decided today to run train on it, any bridge refurbishing plan would 100% require addition of cantilever bike/ped path. Today, tomorrow, 20 years from now, doesn't matter. It's a moot point.

[lrt's friend]

The best thing that could happen to the preservation of the POW bridge will be to convert it into a MUP. Imagine the beautiful views from this vantage point. This is far better than letting it rot into the river given that rail is not in the cards, at least, not for a long, long time. I see this as a major asset to the community to be built at Bayview and Lebreton Flats.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The best thing that could happen to the preservation of the POW bridge will be to convert it into a MUP. Imagine the beautiful views from this vantage point. This is far better than letting it rot into the river given that rail is not in the cards, at least, not for a long, long time. I see this as a major asset to the community to be built at Bayview and Lebreton Flats.

But as far as we know, the bridge hasn't even been properly considered as a secondary rail connection in the present day. The STO itself identified the bridge as a potential secondary crossing in their study, and it seems like the city didn't do much extra digging into the state of Bayview beyond what the STO study turned up a few months ago... Why, unlike every other LRT-related study, hasn't the study that determined that Bayview would "never" work been published?

It really sounds more like a quick, cheap promise in the middle of an election, because you know, we conveniently have the promise from local Liberal candidates, not even for funding, but a promise to advocate for funding if elected.

My full, and unfounded conspiracy theory is that, like the provincial liberals did in the last provincial election, the liberal party came looking for local issues to win votes and naturally "the bridge" came up and the city kind of scratched their head and said "but wait, the STO said that won't work, so uh how about we just go for pedestrian crossing?" and bam now we have a half-assed election promise on what looks like a half-assed plan to finally do something with the bridge.

The path to converting back to rail isn't even that complicated. Just build the cantilevered walkways while the central pedestrian crossing is still open, then close the central crossing once the walkways are done, lay some rail, and you're in business (well, after more structural repairs to the bridge). But they didn't announce that possibility. So either they truly think the bridge has no use for rail ever, or they didn't take the time to properly study it, and both of those possibilities still sound like bull to me.