Rural Commuter Rail

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by acottawa

It is unlikely a train will get someone from Arnprior to Line 2 in 30 minutes without significant and costly upgrades. That is 40ish km. The original o-train took 20 minutes to go 8 km with more modern track. More likely that is an hour at least, then another 30ish minutes to get downtown on line 2 and line 1. They can drive to Eagleson in 30 minutes, then maybe 30-40 minutes downtown.

Yeah I'm sure these lines need a ton of work.

As for parking and riding from Eagleson. I wonder what the schedule will look like once LRT Phase 2 is open but I don't think it gets you to Carleton or even downtown in even 40 minutes right now. LRT hasn't improved much though the weaving in and out of construction zones on the western BRT must be slower than the future train. Past there it seems you always take weird detours that end up in Kanata shopping centre gridlock whenever I take the 404 before saying never again until I forget a few months later and try and save $10 and the "parking hassle".

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

Yeah I'm sure these lines need a ton of work.

As for parking and riding from Eagleson. I wonder what the schedule will look like once LRT Phase 2 is open but I don't think it gets you to Carleton or even downtown in even 40 minutes right now. LRT hasn't improved much though the weaving in and out of construction zones on the western BRT must be slower than the future train. Past there it seems you always take weird detours that end up in Kanata shopping centre gridlock whenever I take the 404 before saying never again until I forget a few months later and try and save $10 and the "parking hassle".

Eagleson to Rideau Centre is about 50 minutes. Not sure if that will get faster or slower when the extension to Moodie opens someday. Even at current speeds it is still faster than a theoretical unupgraded train.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

If you consider regional transit to include buses as well, here is the latest populations.

Metcalfe 1,800
Greely 10,000
North Grenville including Kemptville 19,000
Russell including Embrun 22,000
Casselman 4,000
Clarence-Rockland 29,000
Arnprior 10,600
Mississippi Mills (Greater Almonte)16,000
Smith's Falls 10,400
Manotick 5,300
Richmond 4,200
Perth 7,000
Carleton Place 14,000

There are subdivisions in Ottawa with more people than some of these rural towns that don't get better than 30 min service. Work on that before trying to create rural transit.

Heck, do rural residents even care about this? I dont see much evidence they do. Seems to be mostly online railfans clamouring to pour millions in subsidies for services that would get a fraction of three ridership an urban bus route would.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

What happens when Rockland reaches 50,000 or any of the other satellite towns, with a 20 or 40 km drive across nothingness to reach the real city?

Commuters from there will face incredible traffic and maybe they'll finally understand why transit should be subsidized through their property taxes and they'll start subsidizing commuter bus services.

I'm not sure why any Ottawa resident should really care, beyond some traffic impact.

[lrt's friend]

Back to the original subject, it is clear that urbanists would rather see everybody in cars even if the population beyond the city limits reaches 250,000. A rather contrary position for an urbanist, I would say especially as we increasingly face a housing affordability crisis when most also don't want to live in a highrise.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Back to the original subject, it is clear that urbanists would rather see everybody in cars even if the population beyond the city limits reaches 250,000.

Ridiculous strawman with no evidence.

Neither "urbanists", nor Ottawa residents as a whole control what happens outside Ottawa's urban boundary. It's up to those cities and towns to build the transit they need. I'm not sure what somebody living in the Golden Triangle has to do with the decision of commuters in Rockland or Embrun, to drive.

If the province wants to subsidize their commutes with an Ottawa GO bus system, that's the perogative of Queen's Park. But I certainly don't want my transit dollars catering to them when we have so many Ottawa residents who need improved services.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Ridiculous strawman with no evidence.

Neither "urbanists", nor Ottawa residents as a whole control what happens outside Ottawa's urban boundary. It's up to those cities and towns to build the transit they need. I'm not sure what somebody living in the Golden Triangle has to do with the decision of commuters in Rockland or Embrun, to drive.

If the province wants to subsidize their commutes with an Ottawa GO bus system, that's the perogative of Queen's Park. But I certainly don't want my transit dollars catering to them when we have so many Ottawa residents who need improved services.

Why this kind of response? This is exactly what I was talking about .

My points were about a provincially funded regional transit system and this was in the original video. But you get your dander up about a local subsidy from Ottawa taxpayers. Nobody is suggesting that. It proves my point that urban residents are opposed to regional transit for no good reason. It is the same things that prevent useful interprovincial transit and interprovincial bridges. I don't personally benefit so don't build it. Who cares about anybody else who might benefit.

This is why things don't get built or get built in a half *ss manner.