Montreal Road Revitalization Project [N. River Rd to St. Laurent Blvd]

[J.OT13]

Not sure why we didn't have a thread specific to Montreal Road before.

Anyway, update from Fleury:

Community update: Montreal Road construction
June 12, 2020


Cross-section east of Vanier Parkway showing proposed raised cycle track. Note: The cycle tracks are proposed on both sides of Montreal Road between North River Road and St Laurent.

May proved to be busy in our community, particularly on Montreal Road. It is safe to say there has been a lot of action.

The main sections of the construction include the North River Road and Montreal Road intersection, Montreal Road from North River Road to Marier Avenue, and North River Road from Montreal Road to the cul-de-sac.

The North River Road and Montreal Road intersection have crews working on the southside. All work taking place underground at this intersection is near complete and work on the Cummings Bridge to accommodate modifications at the intersection have started. The next phase will focus on electrical and utility work in the southern quadrants of the intersection and the median on the south-leg of North River Road.

On Montreal Road, from North River Road to Marier Avenue, underground water main and sewer work is underway, creating lane reductions and requiring the closure of Marier Avenue and Olmstead Street. The closure of both Marier Avenue and Olmstead Street will take place until August 28. Detours have already begun for OC Transpo route 19. More information is available on OC Transpo’s website.

Construction of water and sanitary services is currently underway at North River Road from Montreal Road to the cul-de-sac. This work may impact some driveways and landscaping along the street. Once construction is complete, the contractor will fix the affected areas.

Traffic disruptions at various areas along the project site may occur. For this reason, we encourage you to sign up for the project’s newletter here. You may also visit the website at ottawa.ca/montrealroad or email the project team directly here: montrealroad@ottawa.ca.


Dupuis Street landscape layout. Plazas will be redeveloped for animation. Hydro will be buried along the entire corridor, to allow for wider, pedestrian-friendly spaces.


Landscaping is a huge part of this project with significant amounts. This is Montreal Road and North River Road intersection.

https://mathieufleury.ca/community-update-2/

[J.OT13]

• Video Link

[Gat-Train]

Should really be bus lanes tbh

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

Should really be bus lanes tbh

Should really be bus lanes in addition to the traffic lanes. There's nothing on the north side that couldn't have come down to provide space.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

Should really be bus lanes tbh

Depends on your point of view. Bus lanes are great if you live farther east like in Beacon Hill, but if you live in Vanier to the north or south of Montreal Road you’re bound to walk or bike to the main street. Bus lanes are great for funnelling transit through the community but they won’t necessarily improve things for businesses. Improving bicycle and pedestrian facilities on the other hand increases access and appeal to the the shops and services for the surrounding neighbourhood, providing a more stable and constant clientele.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

Depends on your point of view. Bus lanes are great if you live farther east like in Beacon Hill, but if you live in Vanier to the north or south of Montreal Road you’re bound to walk or bike to the main street. Bus lanes are great for funnelling transit through the community but they won’t necessarily improve things for businesses. Improving bicycle and pedestrian facilities on the other hand increases access and appeal to the the shops and services for the surrounding neighbourhood, providing a more stable and constant clientele.

Good Day.

Ummmn - agree to disagree.

Bus lanes on Montreal Rd. east of the Vanier parkway would go a huge long way to improving bus flow and anti-bunching, and on-time performance.
They would improve access to local bus routes, and improve pedestrian and transit-user access. (And improved throughput for commuters from furthur east is not a bad thing.)

I hate to harp, but bike lanes already now exist on Hemlock/Beechwood, and on MacArthur, and N/S exchange between is simple with the plethora of local streets.
Bike lanes on Montreal Rd. would not lead to improved business appeal. Those Locals who already shop there, already shop there, and commuter-cyclists just ain't stopping.

Finally, furthur clogging Montreal Rd. is going to lead to traffic hell. And IMHO, it will be. -- It Will Be --.

NoJoy!

[Nowhere]

With the increasing popularity of cycling, I just wonder how useful would be bus lanes full of cyclists. I would like to see the extra westbound lane always reserved for buses with no parking allowed however.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Ummmn - agree to disagree.

Bus lanes on Montreal Rd. east of the Vanier parkway would go a huge long way to improving bus flow and anti-bunching, and on-time performance.
They would improve access to local bus routes, and improve pedestrian and transit-user access. (And improved throughput for commuters from furthur east is not a bad thing.)

..

Finally, furthur clogging Montreal Rd. is going to lead to traffic hell. And IMHO, it will be. -- It Will Be --.

NoJoy!

Weren't there already bus lanes on Montreal Rd before this (at least at peak periods)? And they didn't seem to fix the bunching and performance issues that have existed for years.

I support bus lanes but in this case, with limited space, I agree with the approach to improve the pedestrian and cycling environment. Ramming through the maximum volume of cars and buses isn't going to make the neighbourhood a more pleasant place to be.

There is still a westbound (peak period) bus lane, an eastbound queue jump at Vanier Pkwy, and hopefully the curb lanes between North River and Vanier Pkwy will be bus-only during peak periods. Plus added shelters and stop consolidation should help.

[Uhuniau]

Yeah, nothing about this project really improves transit at all. Same old story with all the urban street rebuilds, really: transit has been consistently deprioritized throughout the older urban neighbourhoods, without (other than in the near west end) the benefit of LRT to even things out.

The shelters better damn well be awesome, because bus speeds, frequencies, and capacity aren't going to be.

[Gat-Train]

Here's an idea for a compromise between the bikes and transit on Montreal Road. Build a viaduct for cyclists, and put stairs with a bike groove at every other intersection. Then we can also have the transit lanes. Everyone wins, and it's probably not too expensive.

[Truenorth00]

Let's be honest. The only way to truly improve transit on the Montreal-Rideau corridor is tunneled LRT. At least from Rideau station till St-Laurent, with surface running after. This is exactly what the Eglinton Crosstown is doing in Toronto.

[Harley613]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Let's be honest. The only way to truly improve transit on the Montreal-Rideau corridor is tunneled LRT. At least from Rideau station till St-Laurent, with surface running after. This is exactly what the Eglinton Crosstown is doing in Toronto.

In other words a Subway

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Harley613

In other words a Subway

Yes....and no.

From Rideau Station to Montreal Rd Station is about 9.5 km. About half of it (from Rideau to St-Laurent) would need to be tunneled. But they can be designed to be a lot smaller than the Confederation line. Don't need 120m platforms for a local transit line. Again Eglinton Crosstown in instructive. They have 90m platforms. We could probably go down to 60m and have even smaller stations. That would make it cheaper. Probably still a $1.5B to $2B project though.

[Nowhere]

I think that Montréal Road has more of a business case for an underground LRT than Bank where there's little opportunity for redevelopment. I know we're too cheap in Canada to properly develop transit, but in my dream world, there would be an underground LRT under Rideau and Montréal from Rideau Centre until Bathgate, where it would turn south to serve the college and then come out above the ground at the National Research Council that would be redeveloped in a high density community and then end at Blair.

This could eventually be extended in the Cumberland Transitway corridor if ridership ever warrants it in a few decades. Montréal Road would probably redevelop very fast if we changed the zoning to allow it, considering that Rideau will soon run of space to redevelop.

Again, I know I'm dreaming considering how indebted governments are, but we're going to face serious issues with traffic and transit once Wateridge will be fully done. In the meantime, I would like to see parking fully removed from Montréal, Rideau and also Bank.

Edit : If this was built (which won't be the case anytime soon or ever), we might as well merge it with the possible Gatineau LRT for the people on the Québec Side heading to the college or federal office buildings.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Let's be honest. The only way to truly improve transit on the Montreal-Rideau corridor is tunneled LRT. At least from Rideau station till St-Laurent, with surface running after. This is exactly what the Eglinton Crosstown is doing in Toronto.

I agree. And I support such a project, though I suspect the intensification and gentrification likely to come with it would not be welcomed by many.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Let's be honest. The only way to truly improve transit on the Montreal-Rideau corridor is tunneled LRT. At least from Rideau station till St-Laurent, with surface running after. This is exactly what the Eglinton Crosstown is doing in Toronto.

There isn't a huge amount of demand on that corridor. Even in the Before Time I don't think the bus came more often than every 10 minutes. It was pretty crowded, so maybe an 8 minute frequency would have been better. To me this is one of those problems that could have been easily solved with dedicated bus lanes (not just the two hour dedicated bus lanes in one direction in rush hour they had before).

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by acottawa

There isn't a huge amount of demand on that corridor. Even in the Before Time I don't think the bus came more often than every 10 minutes. It was pretty crowded, so maybe an 8 minute frequency would have been better. To me this is one of those problems that could have been easily solved with dedicated bus lanes (not just the two hour dedicated bus lanes in one direction in rush hour they had before).

Agree - dedicated bus lanes would have done it.

[silvergate]

The cost of tunneling coupled with city council's dedication to Line 1 means a tunnel here is probably not in the cards for decades. So consider alternatives. Specifically, if you have a narrow corridor that chokes bus traffic with car traffic, figure out how to remove the car traffic.
This would have the bonus of pissing off drivers, who would cry out for a solution, which in this case would be the tunneled transit.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

Edit : If this was built (which won't be the case anytime soon or ever), we might as well merge it with the possible Gatineau LRT for the people on the Québec Side heading to the college or federal office buildings.

I don't think that would work. First and foremost, because the line would be split between two transit agencies. Then we have the whole loop debate. And finally, the line will run surface on the Gatineau side (and maybe the Ottawa side) which reduces reliability. The longer the surface line, the more reliability is reduced.

Originally Posted by acottawa

There isn't a huge amount of demand on that corridor. Even in the Before Time I don't think the bus came more often than every 10 minutes. It was pretty crowded, so maybe an 8 minute frequency would have been better. To me this is one of those problems that could have been easily solved with dedicated bus lanes (not just the two hour dedicated bus lanes in one direction in rush hour they had before).

Speaking of reliability, the 10 minutes or so frequency is on paper only. Purely theoretical. Never have I seen that bus on time. It comes in two and three every 45+ minutes. All day bus lanes would help, but the ship has sailed with the Montreal Road renewal. The only way to solve reliability is with a subway or light-metro.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by silvergate

The cost of tunneling coupled with city council's dedication to Line 1 means a tunnel here is probably not in the cards for decades. So consider alternatives. Specifically, if you have a narrow corridor that chokes bus traffic with car traffic, figure out how to remove the car traffic.
This would have the bonus of pissing off drivers, who would cry out for a solution, which in this case would be the tunneled transit.

Or, in the case of Montreal Rd, widen the corridor....