West Gatineau LRT & Downtown Loop | Proposed

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by roger1818

They would want the station within easy walking distance of UQO as that would be the lion's share of the passengers using the stop.



Or keep the station close to UQO and have the buses travel 120m on Alexandre-Taché to the new road/driveway that runs past the soccer field and behind UQO to the station, since the buses travelling to Taché-UQO are heading west anyway. Buses going to Tunnies Pasture would likely turn on Alexandre-Taché anyway.

UQO has plans for expanding existing buildings and constructing some new ones both to the west and east of the current campus core. So I suppose this will factor into station placement too.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

Im guessing I'm probably on of the few people here who is going to see their transit services improved, with Gatineau's lrt plan puts me at a 7 min walk from an lrt station

You're just going to have to be very patient...

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by Acajack

You're just going to have to be very patient...

Since I do have good bus service in my area I can wait.

[Horus]

Unless there is better coordination between Ottawa and Gatineau, Ontario and Quebec, (NCC and reality), I would expect it would be very unlikely that a proposed STO LRT route would go anywhere but the shortest route requiring the least effort once it crosses the river.

[lrt's friend]

Phase 1 should be building the intercity downtown loop with funding from the feds, both cities and both provinces. Then we can extend north, east and west.

If we really wanted to, we could demand all STO buses dump their passengers onto the loop until Phase 2 or 3 were completed, eliminating all but centre town buses out of downtown.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Phase 1 should be building the intercity downtown loop with funding from the feds, both cities and both provinces. Then we can extend north, east and west.

.

That might make sense, but things are not likely to happen in that order.

The most pressing red-hot issue for Gatineau is getting people out of Aylmer and the Plateau more quickly and into the downtown Hull (and by extension downtown Ottawa) areas.

How they shuffle around within the region's cross-river CBD once they're there is a secondary priority for now.

[agl]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The most pressing red-hot issue for Gatineau is getting people out of Aylmer and the Plateau more quickly and into the downtown Hull (and by extension downtown Ottawa) areas.

If the tramway never materializes or is more than 10 years away I would suggest for Ottawa bound passengers that they increase the x8 series frequencies from Aylmer and the Plateau to Tunney's Pasture once OLRT phase 2 comes online in 2023. There should be space on both eastbound and westbound trains with all the Tunney's workers that get off at that station.

Rue Taché eastbound after UQO is unreliable, and forcing passengers to loop around Portage before heading to Ottawa makes no sense.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Acajack

That might make sense, but things are not likely to happen in that order.

The most pressing red-hot issue for Gatineau is getting people out of Aylmer and the Plateau more quickly and into the downtown Hull (and by extension downtown Ottawa) areas.

How they shuffle around within the region's cross-river CBD once they're there is a secondary priority for now.

I understand but this becomes the opportunity (maybe the only opportunity) to develop a proper interprovincial transit connection. If we allow an Aylmer line to be built with one stop in Ottawa say near the Rideau Centre, we end up with the last mile problem that plagues rail transit at both ends of the line. A proper interprovincial loop addresses that on the downtown side.

Perhaps, it is wishful thinking to hope for sufficient cooperation to build that link so that everybody needing to cross the river can benefit.

This all goes back to the days when Hull Electric entered Ottawa and only stopped at the Chateau, while the Ottawa Electric Railway entered Hull and only stopped at Chaudiere. I really would hope that we can get away from that kind of disjointed system, which is worse than what we have today.

[Kitchissippi]

Here's an idea for a roughly 9 km LRT route for Gatineau that could be extended westward along the 148 corridor and incorporate the future conversion of the Rapibus to LRT. I think this has more TOD potential than the river route, and the investment would be useable by more residents in the short and long term.



Excuse the size of the following diagrams as I wanted to have them all at the same scale. 60m platforms would probably be sufficient for a long time, using a train similar to the expanded version of Ottawa's Citadis



I imagine this sort of integration with the Confederation Line at Lyon, and either using the Portage Bridge or just excavating a tunnel under the river:



Continuing in a cut-and-cover along Maisonneuve:



And then westward either along the highway or by implementing some road diets:



It would service Galleries de Hull and The St-Joseph main street:



It would make the hospital more accessible, and imagine being able to ski Gatineau Park coming off the LRT



It would terminate BRT plaza near the cinemas in the Plateau until a future phase to extend it all the way to Old Aylmer:

[roger1818]

Originally posted in the Rural Commuter Rail thread:

Originally Posted by Charles5

The image linked here is from a study done about a year ago. It's one of several options proposed, and I don't believe they have completely finalized the plan, but option B1 seems to be the preferred solution at the moment (just from gossip I've heard, nothing official). However, currently it seems it would be without the final segment on the east end which crosses the bridge into Ottawa. Rather they seem to be talking about ending it at the Museum of History which is just at the North end of the Bridge.

Information on the complete study and all the scenarios considered can be found here.

A conceptual drawing from a few years ago is here, showing the train at the intersection of St-Joseph and Alexandre-Taché, going on the North side of the UQO (Scenario B vice B1), but it's just a concept drawing from a while back so don't read anything into it.

Thanks for the links. I thought I had seen an actual study before.

There certainly are pros and cons to the options of going north or south of UQO. I do like the idea of getting it off of Alexandre-Taché as it gets closer to Hull. Certainly ending at Musée makes a lot of sense for the short term so as to not let inter-provincial negotiations stall the project.

Also interesting how on the western end of the Aylmer line, they have it run along Boulevard Wilfrid-Lavigne and Boulevard des Allumettières. They are wide enough to better handle surface LRT than Principale.

Variation B2 is also interesting, but finding a route to Tunnies Pasture that both Ottawa and the NCC would agree on would be a challenge. Running busses across the bridge would probably be best in the short term.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I understand but this becomes the opportunity (maybe the only opportunity) to develop a proper interprovincial transit connection. If we allow an Aylmer line to be built with one stop in Ottawa say near the Rideau Centre, we end up with the last mile problem that plagues rail transit at both ends of the line. A proper interprovincial loop addresses that on the downtown side.

While I certainly agree that an Ottawa-Hull LRT Loop would be nice, having the Aylmer line terminate at the Rideau Centre isn't all that bad either. On the westbound Confederation line, many will have got off at uOttawa and more will get of at Rideau, leaving space for Gatineau passengers to board. In return for letting Gatineau riders use that empty space on the Confederation line, Ottawa riders heading to Gatineau can board the Aylmer bound train, making the return trip less of a deadhead. The key to its success is ensuring the transfer is easy, without too long a walk.

It really isn't all that different from Montreal's Yellow line that runs from Longueuil, across the St. Laurence, to Berri-UQAM, forcing most people on-board to transfer to another line.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Here's an idea for a roughly 9 km LRT route for Gatineau that could be extended westward along the 148 corridor and incorporate the future conversion of the Rapibus to LRT. I think this has more TOD potential than the river route, and the investment would be useable by more residents in the short and long term.

This is tremendous work! I think that a connection at Lyon over/under the Portage Bridge would be ideal for those entering Ottawa from Gatineau needing to go Downtown as opposed to having to transfer at Bayview. With Maisonneuve building up and densifying it would seem a good option for the line, as well, as it's central to Hull.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Here's an idea for a roughly 9 km LRT route for Gatineau that could be extended westward along the 148 corridor and incorporate the future conversion of the Rapibus to LRT. I think this has more TOD potential than the river route, and the investment would be useable by more residents in the short and long term.

Thanks for posting this.

The stretch between St-Joseph and Sacré-Coeur is either unpopulated or lightly populated so there isn't much bang for your buck there in terms of riders. And it's a good portion of the line in terms of km.

You have the Gatineau Park gap you can't avoid but other than that you'll hit more people going straight across on Allumettières.

Also this is a Hull-Plateau solution whereas the city has said it has a Plateau-Aylmer problem.

Overall mobility isn't too bad in central Hull, at least compared to Plateau-Aylmer. Also distances tend to be a lot shorter so commute times are not compounded by congestion.

[Horus]

Originally Posted by roger1818

That map came out of the Western Sector Rapibus study and was one of the recommended routes for a potential Rapibus-lite express bus system. I wouldn't expect an LRT to follow that routing, particularly though the Aylmer sector.

I would also think that putting LRT over either the Champlain or Portage bridges would be a very difficult thing to pull off politically.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Horus

I would also think that putting LRT over either the Champlain or Portage bridges would be a very difficult thing to pull off politically.

At this stage of our existence as a region it's going to be hard to justify any type of rapid transit over the Champlain Bridge if it's only primarily to serve Tunney's.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Also interesting how on the western end of the Aylmer line, they have it run along Boulevard Wilfrid-Lavigne and Boulevard des Allumettières. They are wide enough to better handle surface LRT than Principale.

I think veering north on Wilfrid-Lavigne could make a lot of sense if you're only going to do the southern routing coming out of Hull.

If you look at a map once you get to that part of Aylmer the population becomes top-heavy to the north of Allumettières. I know eventually that won't be the case and it will fill up more equally up there but who know what will happen in terms of development. Those people are there now.

A southern route going even further west along Principale in the old part of Aylmer would be pretty far for people up on the northern fringes to use I'd say, especially since it would involve a kind of semi-backtracking for those heading to the CBDs.

OTOH under the dual scenario with both northern and southern lines, the northern part of Aylmer would be served by the same routing as the one serving the Plateau. So you wouldn't need to have the Taché-Aylmer-Principale line veer northwards.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Acajack

OTOH under the dual scenario with both northern and southern lines, the northern part of Aylmer would be served by the same routing as the one serving the Plateau. So you wouldn't need to have the Taché-Aylmer-Principale line veer northwards.

I would say under the dual line scenario, the northern line should terminate in Plateau. When it is eventually extended, it should continue due west and not dip south to follow Hwy 148 (exact routing TBD, but planned within future developments).

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Thanks for posting this.

The stretch between St-Joseph and Sacré-Coeur is either unpopulated or lightly populated so there isn't much bang for your buck there in terms of riders. And it's a good portion of the line in terms of km.

You have the Gatineau Park gap you can't avoid but other than that you'll hit more people going straight across on Allumettières.

Also this is a Hull-Plateau solution whereas the city has said it has a Plateau-Aylmer problem.

Overall mobility isn't too bad in central Hull, at least compared to Plateau-Aylmer. Also distances tend to be a lot shorter so commute times are not compounded by congestion.

I think the area around Sacré-Coeur has a lot of potential for densification, though. Providing better service to central Hull would make it more desirable to redevelop many of the buildings that have reached their end of lifespan before adding to the sprawl.

The Gatineau park gap here is relatively narrow, and already has a precedence of being a road (still accessible to emergency vehicles). Integrated properly with the environment, I could see the NCC approving of the placement of a station right where the parkway is normally closed for the winter and creating a staging point for a park shuttle. It would be a great location for a new visitor centre that is more accessible to tourists and the general urban population instead of the one in Old Chelsea (part of their 50 year plan).

If the line were extended along the 148 in an unimpeded ROW to Aylmer proper, it might be faster and cheaper than reviving the rail line along the river, with north-south collector bus routes drawing from both sides of the line. It also has the potential to influence the type of future development in the entire Plateau. Much like the Ottawa scenario, the cost of tunnelling downtown could also be justified as an investment towards the eventual conversion of the Rapibus to the eastern sector.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I think the area around Sacré-Coeur has a lot of potential for densification, though. .

I didn't really mean around Sacré-Coeur, but rather between St-Rédempteur and Sacré-Coeur, which is basically the backyard of the old government printing bureau and some other institutional uses, with the autoroute on the other side. And as I said the population is low all along the routing from St-Joseph all the way to Sacré-Coeur. The vicinity of Sacré-Coeur itself is reasonably dense. You're in the built-up city there, although it could be more developed for sure.

Of course, all of the low-population areas I am talking about could be densified as well.

But it's a question of whether our transit priority at this stage should be that, or getting people out of bottlenecks where they're living at the moment?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I would say under the dual line scenario, the northern line should terminate in Plateau. When it is eventually extended, it should continue due west and not dip south to follow Hwy 148 (exact routing TBD, but planned within future developments).

Going due west from Boulevard du Plateau just before it veers sharply south toward Vanier actually would take the line through areas that are not slated for development. Part of it is the Boucher forest which is listed as "aménagement différé" or deferred development on the zoning plan I see. In reality it's either been rezoned as a park already (my plan my be out of date) or will be sometime soon as there is lots of public pressure for the city to do this.

Next to that is a fairly large industrial area. There are also golf courses and other recreational uses in the area due west.

Among the areas that are slated for development is a patch roughly west of Klock on the north side of Allumettières.