First I'd like to say that whatever the city comes up with, will be good enough and they should just do it instead of arguing, but just for fun I thought it would be interesting to see what your own designs for Ottawa transit would look like.
Now I don't live in Ottawa, but based on what I know, this is what I came up with. Not perfect, but Hopefully this can get the ball rolling on some discussion.
The rail (subway/above ground) portion would be centred on 3 main lines, which I drew on Google maps but my scanner doesn't work
. I'll call them R1, R2, and R3.
R1 would start at Scotiabank Place, then go to the Kanata Centrum,maybe the park’, ride lot at the Eagleson exit, then Bayshore, somewhere in Westboro (possibly around MEC?), Bayview, through downtown, (add a couple of stations, Bank St. Maybe?) then to Union (I’ll elaborate later), U of O, train station, St. Laurent, and somewhere in Orleans.
The R2 would start around Byward Market/Museum and go through Union, Museum of nature, Lansdowne, Carleton U, Meadowlands mall, and Algonquin College.
The R3 would be the O-Train with an extension to the Airport.
I can't make a map of the whole thing, but I managed to put something together for the downtown area...
Wait, how do you post a picture from your computer? (no URL)
I also thought of providing a link to Civic Hospital
to elaborate on Union, it would either be the old train station, or a massive underground station with openings at Rideau centre, NAC, the new Convention Centre, and an opening or two outside around the Conference Centre and/or NAC, and possibly one more on the other side of Wellington, somewhere around Chateau Laurier.
Everywhere else could have busses (I don't know east Ottawa so there's probably a gaping hole there)
If I wanted to put more bus drivers out of work (I'll just pretend this wouldn't be a problem) there could be secondary lines that go into more residential areas. Bells Corners, Kanata (both sides of Queensway), Nepean, Vanier, and other major resedential places would all have lesser stops, possibly in a central neighbourhood park or at a community centre.
In Both cases, however, the goal is to get people from their homes to an area hub (Kanata-Centrum, Nepean-Bayshore Gloucester-St. Laurent, Vanier-Train, etc) and on to a main line atht takes them to some major points around the city.
Please let me know what you think!
btw, I thought of Lynx Stadium, but nobody goes there, although there are houses there and you guys may get baseball again (never know
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Cheers!
-Whitepine