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Originally Posted by Acajack
The problem with running the O-Train over the Prince of Wales Bridge to and from Gatineau is that origin-destination studies show that there isn’t that much demand along this transportation corridor.
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So why is STO going ahead with its Rapibus project on the exact same corridor (and make no mistake: STO wants those buses going over the PoW Bridge because the other bridges are still congested)?
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In Québec, the line runs east from the river into old Gatineau, Masson and Buckingham. Not that many people from these areas are going to work in the inner west of Ottawa (where the O-Train currently runs). Gatineau residents who work at Tunney’s Pasture, for example, tend to live in the western parts of the city, such as Aylmer and the Plateau. The train wouldn’t do anything for them.
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True, but no project currently on the books anywhere would do anything for them, so the above is a red herring. What those people need is for STO to make use of the centre lane on the Champlain Bridge a bit more and then make some arrangements with OC Transpo and the City of Ottawa to get to Tunney's Pasture without delay. The easiest way might be to head west on the parkway and enter the Transitway at Dominion. Another would be to get the NCC to reverse the flow on the left westbound lane of the Parkway between Island Park and Tunney's Pasture.
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Studies show the main employment destinations from the eastern parts of the Outaouais (where the train line runs) are downtown Hull, downtown Ottawa, north-central Hull around Boul. St-Joseph, and the inner east part of Ottawa (Montreal Rd/St-Laurent/Vanier).
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So how do you propose to get those headed to downtown Ottawa across the river? It's not like we'll be getting any new bridges any time soon, and even if we do once we have a tunnel the pressure to get rid of STO buses will begin to mount. But the PoW Bridge is there, and OC Transpo currently has unused eastbound bus capacity since overall there are more transit users in Ottawa's east end than in its west end. And once we have a rail tunnel, we'll still have unused eastbound rail capacity relative to westbound.
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So other than kowtowing to the train buffs such as Transport 2000, the rail-based solution over the PoW bridge wouldn’t do much to address the real transportation issues Gatineau is facing.
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The notion of anyone kowtowing to train buffs around here is amusing to say the least (it took, what, a decade of lobbying just to get a pilot project on the tracks?), considering that the powers-that-be have spent the last four decades kicking them and kowtowing instead to the bus lobby and their busways. Now the BRT disease has spread to the north bank of the Ottawa at a time when finally the disease was showing signs of abating here on the south bank.