Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service

[zzptichka]

Imagine if we closed 417 for 2 weeks for resurfacing every year.

[SweazyCavalry]

On another note, your Flikr account is sick. Great pictures of Ottawa

[BlueJay]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Imagine if we closed 417 for 2 weeks for resurfacing every year.

Exactly. This type of closure should not be acceptable. Overnight work is how it should be done as it is elsewhere.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by SweazyCavalry

On another note, your Flikr account is sick. Great pictures of Ottawa

Thanks. It's just stuff I post here. Mostly updates on different projects.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Imagine if we closed 417 for 2 weeks for resurfacing every year.

Weren't they doing this with Line 2 every year as well, but that was the 'student train' and Carleton was mostly closed during the summer.

This shows how important transit riders are during peak tourist season. Visitors will come and laugh at this city's subway, closed yet again. And because we chose to close the Transitways, we have no efficient bus alternative.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This was the entire point of RTG and RTM. That they would absorb the risk and make long term decisions during procurement the reduce maintenance costs during operations. Then our politicians, in their eagerness to simply have service on political timetables surrendered leverage by absolving them of penalties and contractual obligations.

Watson’s talking points certainly left the impression that RTG was absorbing the risk. I am not sure the contracts were ever written that way.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Watson’s talking points certainly left the impression that RTG was absorbing the risk. I am not sure the contracts were ever written that way.

I spoke with friends yesterday about the P3 arrangement and how the city has lost control of the LRT project and how the city (and the public) has surrendered transparency and how the private corporations control maintenance in order to minimize costs to them even to the detriment of service to the public.

One friend commented that LRT is bankrupting the city (LRT maintenance costs are exceeding the supposed operational savings from converting buses to trains) and I responded that political infighting in the 2006 to 2010 period resulted in massive losses to the city both from abandoning the original project and because the replacement project was underfunded by the higher levels of government, unlike similar projects in the GTA. I further commented that blame can placed on both Liberals and Conservatives and neither party did any favours to Ottawa, and their priorities were to get political advantage over what was good for the taxpayers and transit riders of this city.

[DTcrawler]

Ridiculous hyperbolic statements like “LRT is bankrupting the city” is the exact type of rhetoric that stokes common suburbanite vitriol towards transit and ironically is the exact type of thinking that leads to under-prioritization, under-funding, and half-baked projects like the O-Train has been thus far.

Your friend need look no further than their own backyard to see a few examples of what’s really bankrupting the city.

[lrt's friend]

This is so typical. We have really turned the tables blaming the suburbs for financial woes while both Gloucester and Nepean were very financially prudent prior to amalgamation. Amalgamation was supposed to save a pile of money which failed to happen. Instead, we got a bloated bureaucracy that spends money on trivial projects.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

This is so typical. We have really turned the tables blaming the suburbs for financial woes while both Gloucester and Nepean were very financially prudent prior to amalgamation. Amalgamation was supposed to save a pile of money which failed to happen. Instead, we got a bloated bureaucracy that spends money on trivial projects.

Cities like Nepean and Gloucester were young cities with their biggest expenses paid for at the regional level.
Let's not pretend that their tight budgeting actually represented a fiscally solvent suburb.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Watson’s talking points certainly left the impression that RTG was absorbing the risk. I am not sure the contracts were ever written that way.

The contracts were fine. Them choosing not to impose the penalties was the problem. What's the point of having a contract, if you aren't actually going to stick to it and enforce it? They chose not to impose penalties. And they are largely sticking to that now too.

Also, in hindsight, the city should probably have just contracted Metrolinx to design and run the whole project. It was clearly too much Ottawa to do on its own.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Ridiculous hyperbolic statements like “LRT is bankrupting the city” is the exact type of rhetoric that stokes common suburbanite vitriol towards transit and ironically is the exact type of thinking that leads to under-prioritization, under-funding, and half-baked projects like the O-Train has been thus far.

Your friend need look no further than their own backyard to see a few examples of what’s really bankrupting the city.

It's also ironic that they are blaming a project whose foundational flaw is that it's largely designed to cater to suburbanites. It would have been far easier to build a more robust heavy rail system if we weren't focused on getting as many kms of rail as possible in the suburbs. Quantity over quality was the key driver behind the enshittification of the O-Train. And now the very folks that this policy was aimed at are whining. Goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished with suburbanites.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Imagine if we closed 417 for 2 weeks for resurfacing every year.

Stop threatening me with a good time.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's also ironic that they are blaming a project whose foundational flaw is that it's largely designed to cater to suburbanites. It would have been far easier to build a more robust heavy rail system if we weren't focused on getting as many kms of rail as possible in the suburbs. Quantity over quality was the key driver behind the enshittification of the O-Train. And now the very folks that this policy was aimed at are whining. Goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished with suburbanites.

First, considering 'urban Ottawa' is perhaps 250,000 people at most, how do we build an effective rail system for such a small population? Is it even possible?

Second, we have really botched the implementation not only because of problems with the rail line, but also the interaction with the bus network. Some of the suburban complaints are justified, that the replacement of express buses has resulted in a system that is overall too slow and has too inefficient transfers to reach suburban neighbourhoods, which are now the majority of Ottawa's population.

Let's stop complaining about catering to suburbanites and find solutions that are effective. Some how, Calgary and Edmonton are building rail, that also has to cater to suburbanites. This is a fact of life for cities this size. And when we look at even Toronto, they also realize that rail has to go far beyond the urban city.

We cannot build cities by the Los Angeles model of highways everywhere. This is not a sustainable approach to urban or suburban planning, and will also lead us to financial ruin.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

First, considering 'urban Ottawa' is perhaps 250,000 people at most, how do we build an effective rail system for such a small population? Is it even possible?

Second, we have really botched the implementation not only because of problems with the rail line, but also the interaction with the bus network. Some of the suburban complaints are justified, that the replacement of express buses has resulted in a system that is overall too slow and has too inefficient transfers to reach suburban neighbourhoods, which are now the majority of Ottawa's population.

Let's stop complaining about catering to suburbanites and find solutions that are effective. Some how, Calgary and Edmonton are building rail, that also has to cater to suburbanites. This is a fact of life for cities this size. And when we look at even Toronto, they also realize that rail has to go far beyond the urban city.

We cannot build cities by the Los Angeles model of highways everywhere. This is not a sustainable approach to urban or suburban planning, and will also lead us to financial ruin.

I don't really disagree with most of this. My original point revolves mainly around the fact that suburbanites need to realize that their lifestyles are inherently burdensome on the city's finances. That's the trade-off North American society signed up for when it was decided this type of development represents the "American (Canadian) Dream".

And as much as listening to CFRA makes people believe that the suburbs are the beacon of financial stewardship while the yuppie urbanites frivolously spend all the taxpayers' hard earned money, that's not quite the case. Instead, suburban development stretches public coffers extremely thin, with everybody and their neighbours wanting quality services like garbage collection, roads, utilities, transit, etc. while simultaneously sweeping societal issues like homelessness/addiction into urban wards and declaring it "their problem".

I'm at risk of going further off topic and I'm mostly repeating what I've already said in other threads anyways, so I'll tie it back to your friend's comment. LRT is not bankrupting the city. Trying to build LRT in a manner that appeases suburbanites' sense of entitlement while contending with sprawl is bankrupting the city. People love to simply chalk it up to pure incompetence but in reality it has more to do with people getting exactly what they voted for.

[Williamoforange]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

First, considering 'urban Ottawa' is perhaps 250,000 people at most, how do we build an effective rail system for such a small population? Is it even possible?

Second, we have really botched the implementation not only because of problems with the rail line, but also the interaction with the bus network. Some of the suburban complaints are justified, that the replacement of express buses has resulted in a system that is overall too slow and has too inefficient transfers to reach suburban neighbourhoods, which are now the majority of Ottawa's population.

Let's stop complaining about catering to suburbanites and find solutions that are effective. Some how, Calgary and Edmonton are building rail, that also has to cater to suburbanites. This is a fact of life for cities this size. And when we look at even Toronto, they also realize that rail has to go far beyond the urban city.

We cannot build cities by the Los Angeles model of highways everywhere. This is not a sustainable approach to urban or suburban planning, and will also lead us to financial ruin.

Lmao, you literally defended the original rail plan just mere days ago..... And still complain about the transitway being closed....

I don't think anything you have to say is going to be relevant, useful or factual if you continue to think that was a good plan.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

First, considering 'urban Ottawa' is perhaps 250,000 people at most, how do we build an effective rail system for such a small population? Is it even possible?

Second, we have really botched the implementation not only because of problems with the rail line, but also the interaction with the bus network. Some of the suburban complaints are justified, that the replacement of express buses has resulted in a system that is overall too slow and has too inefficient transfers to reach suburban neighbourhoods, which are now the majority of Ottawa's population.

Let's stop complaining about catering to suburbanites and find solutions that are effective. Some how, Calgary and Edmonton are building rail, that also has to cater to suburbanites. This is a fact of life for cities this size. And when we look at even Toronto, they also realize that rail has to go far beyond the urban city.

We cannot build cities by the Los Angeles model of highways everywhere. This is not a sustainable approach to urban or suburban planning, and will also lead us to financial ruin.

Had we started out with the vision with that we were not building rail past Moodie in the West, Fallowfield in the Southwest, airport in the south and Blair in the East, we would have had very different specifications for the system. Because we started with a goal that has its ultimate form of rail to literally every suburb, that lead to the idea that we would have to use cheaper rail infrastructure (LRT) but that we still need to operate safely and quickly (hence expensive grade separation and higher speeds). This insidious idea is the root of most of the problems with the O-Train.

The root of that mindset? The entitlement of suburbanites who want higher order transit to their front door, but they aren't willing to actually pay the taxes necessary for building a robust enough system. And ultimately when the compromised solution is built (because of their cheap mentality), they won't even use transit anyway. Catering to suburbanites was always a fool's errand. The post-Covid problems are only making it more obvious.

As for how it can be fixed? It can't. The very people who have champagne tastes have beer budgets. So it has to be triaged. In that case, priority has to go to the greatest return. Priority for improvements to routes with high ridership. Priority for cuts to routes and areas with low demand.

There will be no Stage 3. Not for a very long time. And if growth keeps up, traffic is likely to get worse. Ironically, this might be the only thing that gets ridership up. In the end the Downs-Thomson paradox is going to be the rate limiter on ridership growth.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Had we started out with the vision with that we were not building rail past Moodie in the West, Fallowfield in the Southwest, airport in the south and Blair in the East, we would have had very different specifications for the system. Because we started with a goal that has its ultimate form of rail to literally every suburb, that lead to the idea that we would have to use cheaper rail infrastructure (LRT) but that we still need to operate safely and quickly (hence expensive grade separation and higher speeds). This insidious idea is the root of most of the problems with the O-Train.

The root of that mindset? The entitlement of suburbanites who want higher order transit to their front door, but they aren't willing to actually pay the taxes necessary for building a robust enough system. And ultimately when the compromised solution is built (because of their cheap mentality), they won't even use transit anyway. Catering to suburbanites was always a fool's errand. The post-Covid problems are only making it more obvious.

As for how it can be fixed? It can't. The very people who have champagne tastes have beer budgets. So it has to be triaged. In that case, priority has to go to the greatest return. Priority for improvements to routes with high ridership. Priority for cuts to routes and areas with low demand.

There will be no Stage 3. Not for a very long time. And if growth keeps up, traffic is likely to get worse. Ironically, this might be the only thing that gets ridership up. In the end the Downs-Thomson paradox is going to be the rate limiter on ridership growth.

Well, to be fair the form of the O-Train was more or less pre-ordained half a century ago with the idea of the Transitway being "convertable" into to an LRT (though probably they assumed high floor like Edmonton or Calgary). And the entire system was designed to funnel government workers downtown and back again. And this isn't unique to Ottawa, pretty much every transit system in every city in North America was designed with commuting to the center in mind. It's not like this in cities in Asia and Europe because those old world cities had always been multipolar when it comes to transit demand, and so they built their systems like that.

It's hard to fault OC Transpo for not having a crystal ball and seeing the world would suddenly and permanently change. The challenge now is coming up with a transit system that works. We have the O-Train lines, for better or worse they are the spine of the transit system. But there's a lot we can do with the bus system.

[Truenorth00]

I'd argue that OC Transpo's problems aren't entirely to do with COVID. Other cities have substantially recaptured ridership. Their spotty reliability has driven away ridership.

Like I said earlier, there is no obvious fix. Only hard choices. If they insist on trying to put a chicken on every pot on a shoestring budget, they'll continue to have a crap feeder service.

What's the point of having the same debates here every 3 months? The choice is obvious. Increase the budget for feeder bus services or make difficult choices to stay within the allocated budget. There's no other obvious magical option.

[orleans_man]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Had we started out with the vision with that we were not building rail past Moodie in the West, Fallowfield in the Southwest, airport in the south and Blair in the East, we would have had very different specifications for the system. Because we started with a goal that has its ultimate form of rail to literally every suburb, that lead to the idea that we would have to use cheaper rail infrastructure (LRT) but that we still need to operate safely and quickly (hence expensive grade separation and higher speeds). This insidious idea is the root of most of the problems with the O-Train.

The root of that mindset? The entitlement of suburbanites who want higher order transit to their front door, but they aren't willing to actually pay the taxes necessary for building a robust enough system. And ultimately when the compromised solution is built (because of their cheap mentality), they won't even use transit anyway. Catering to suburbanites was always a fool's errand. The post-Covid problems are only making it more obvious.

As for how it can be fixed? It can't. The very people who have champagne tastes have beer budgets. So it has to be triaged. In that case, priority has to go to the greatest return. Priority for improvements to routes with high ridership. Priority for cuts to routes and areas with low demand.

There will be no Stage 3. Not for a very long time. And if growth keeps up, traffic is likely to get worse. Ironically, this might be the only thing that gets ridership up. In the end the Downs-Thomson paradox is going to be the rate limiter on ridership growth.

There surely was a poor decision in the vehicle selection and overall design (LRT was probably not what we needed). This I do agree, and certainly the desire to cover as much of the city in rail as possible with a less than needed budget was probably misguided.

Just to clarify, "suburbs" vs "non-suburbs"? Not really following? Ottawa is mostly suburban? Ottawa's actual urban area is very small? I've had properties in Alta Vista, Vanier and Orleans and lived in Ottawa all my life. Whether I am visiting friends in McKellar Park, Meadowlands, Hunt Club or reflecting on my past homes, most of these neigbhourhoods are very similar. I think you mean perhaps inner vs. outer suburbs. I don't think that all suburbanites should all be lumped together.

I just think the story is much more complicated than you make it out to be.

Another major factor that is overlooked was the costing model that was used to justify the Stage /2 plans. The 12 Billion or so in spending over ~30 years was a planned 100 million in annual cost savings. This was achieved my removing buses and drivers that were hauling 10 of millions of commuters annually on the transitway (many of them the entitled suburbanites you speak of).

With covid / work from home / high tech leaving downtown (Shopify + others), the commuting landscape has changed and Stage 1 / 2 plans are now out of alignment with the world the existed in 2012-2015 or so when much of this planning was done. It's just really unfortunate that timing of covid and how the dynamics changed, not to mention the inability of the LRT contractor to deliver a quality system.

Even with all that, I still have an optimistic view that the system/vehicle issues will stabilize over the coming years, Stage 2 will provide a backbone that allows for TOD and a foundation to attract a new generation of commuters who would otherwise be driving.

I hope (and believe) that in 25 years we are looking back saying, things were rough at launch and the with the pandemic. However, sure it worked out better than the bus tunnel or worst yet nothing? Oh, and stage 3 still doesn't have a business case