LRT Stage 3

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

That's simply the reality of living out in the boonies... Ottawa is in the middle ground, population-wise, where it's no longer viable to provide one-seat express rides to downtown, but also not yet viable to provide dedicated commuter service that bypasses more central neighbourhoods on the way to the core.

Compare travel times across similar distances by transit in other cities, your theory that we're some sort of outlier will be debunked.

How does that solve anything? If we are going to build rail out there, it better be as fast as possible, otherwise we will be spending piles of money for mostly empty trains, which will be a drain on our municipal budget forever.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

How does that solve anything? If we are going to build rail out there, it better be as fast as possible, otherwise we will be spending piles of money for mostly empty trains, which will be a drain on our municipal budget forever.

You can't have it both ways. The only way to build "rapid" service like that would be plain old commuter rail, where you have a smattering of stations and then basically no stops until some.central station in the core, a la GO Train. If a train is going to be useful for more than just downtown commuters then it's going to make many stops. Our trains are running at typical speeds you'd find in other cities. To get the 20km from Kennedy to Union in Toronto takes 40 minutes by subway or 25 minutes by car. Which is about the same 19 km from Limebank to Parliament as our own Line 2/Line 1 at an average 45 minutes (although with a poor connection that of course can be as long as 50 minutes in our system).

Barrhaven along Line 1 will probably be even longer. It's just the nature of the beast

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

You can't have it both ways. The only way to build "rapid" service like that would be plain old commuter rail, where you have a smattering of stations and then basically no stops until some.central station in the core, a la GO Train. If a train is going to be useful for more than just downtown commuters then it's going to make many stops. Our trains are running at typical speeds you'd find in other cities. To get the 20km from Kennedy to Union in Toronto takes 40 minutes by subway or 25 minutes by car. Which is about the same 19 km from Limebank to Parliament as our own Line 2/Line 1 at an average 45 minutes (although with a poor connection that of course can be as long as 50 minutes in our system).

Barrhaven along Line 1 will probably be even longer. It's just the nature of the beast

Well said. And keep in mind Toronto is many magnitudes more populous than Ottawa and has a much higher density, not to mention the kind of transit investment they get. The fact that places like Kanata, RSS, Findlay Creek, Barrhaven etc. have rail at all (or are being considered for it) is for political reasons. We all know that projects like Baseline BRT, Carling BRT/LRT, Rideau-Montreal BRT/LRT would yield much higher ridership gains, especially when you consider ridership outside of M-F rush hour.

Imagine what Eagleson station would look like at 8pm on a Wednesday. And considering the kinds of $$$ we'd have flushed away to build it, it'd feel like a big waste.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Well said. And keep in mind Toronto is many magnitudes more populous than Ottawa and has a much higher density, not to mention the kind of transit investment they get. The fact that places like Kanata, RSS, Findlay Creek, Barrhaven etc. have rail at all (or are being considered for it) is for political reasons. We all know that projects like Baseline BRT, Carling BRT/LRT, Rideau-Montreal BRT/LRT would yield much higher ridership gains, especially when you consider ridership outside of M-F rush hour.

Imagine what Eagleson station would look like at 8pm on a Wednesday. And considering the kinds of $$$ we'd have flushed away to build it, it'd feel like a big waste.

How many new riders do you imagine a Rideau Montreal BRT that saves them 6 minutes brings? I don't like the quick dismissal of things done for political reasons. We are a democracy people get the system the demand and therefore deserve. It isn't some Soviet central planning where we want to move as many work robotots around as we can.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

How many new riders do you imagine a Rideau Montreal BRT that saves them 6 minutes brings? I don't like the quick dismissal of things done for political reasons. We are a democracy people get the system the demand and therefore deserve. It isn't some Soviet central planning where we want to move as many work robotots around as we can.

My point is more so that the Rideau-Montreal corridor already has more than sufficient density to warrant frequency/reliability improvements. That corridor was just one example among others I mentioned. As always, transit investment is (or should be) a game of putting scarce dollars towards projects that will yield the biggest returns. In the case of transit, that's typically measured by ridership. Your argument seems contradictory to your usual stance which centres around prudent stewardship of taxpayer funds.

I don't know what your rambling about communism has to do with anything. It's not anti-democratic to argue that projects championed by politicians looking to throw a bone to their voter strongholds can often contradict what planners would argue is the best use of funds from a business case perspective. If Kanatans banded together and demanded a 300 km/h bullet train straight to downtown with no intermediary stops, that doesn't mean it'd be wise to build it in the name of "democracy".

For the record I never said a Kanata extension shouldn't be built. Simply that the gains (from a ridership perspective) wouldn't be as tangible as improvements to the other corridors I mentioned. And even if the Kanata extension were built, it's clear that even then the travel times wouldn't be satisfactory to people like lrt's friend, who might be one of the people voting for a bullet train.

[OTownandDown]

I'm quite certain the long-long game is trains, and we need to better wrap our heads around inter-lining. I'm talking for distance. Its simply a game of decreasing ridership allowing the lines to be split. The dream of Line 1 and 2 travelling in the same tunnel downtown is not feasible, but a third or fourth split out from Bayshore to Kanata certainly is feasible. Especially when the rail beds and (mostly) the right of ways already existed.

Certainly the very long game was achieved with the current line 2 to apparently nowhere, soon to be neighbourhoods. It was partly missed by not achieving the low-hanging fruit of double-tracking, and by not making electric. Line 2 is primed for a future cross-downtown tunnel to Rideau-Montreal Road and points beyond before hooking south to Blackburn/Navan? I'm talking 100 years from now. (or sooner, if we keep giving building permits in Navan without a chance at a road outta there)

Yes, Baseline BRT is very good return on investment.

So then Arnprior, Carleton Place, Richmond, Greely and Rockland are going to become our Whitby, Scarborough, Ajax, Pickering, Brampton, Milton. How do we get people to Ottawa on transit from there? Certainly not today by train at the cost of $100 billion.

Since OCTranspo cancelled those direct premium rapid services (mostly the 95 express), there's a lot of private coaches plying those routes at a premium. Are you telling me its not financially feasible for OCTranspo to do the same, at 6, 7, 8, 10 bucks a ride? There WAS a demand, and a well-used service.

[AuxTown]

A train from Kanata would be perfect for downtown workers and university students. It's long, but with the relatively smooth ride of a train it is often more comfortable to read and do work on the train. I spent my undergrad (early 2000s) studying on express buses from Kanata to downtown and, while not perfect, I appreciated the time to study. I def remember the downtown crunch as our system became completely overloaded so I appreciate why something needed to change. It was just weird for the people around me when I would study my microbiology textbook with photos of different types of diarrhea or my human anatomy textbook filled with photos of cadavers

That said, I think there is a ton of demand for ridership from the burbs, particularly from park-and-rides. On Tuesdays and Thursdays commutes can be 45-60+ minutes, particularly when there is an accident or the weather is bad. If you can reliably predict 60 minutes to PDV/Tunney's etc. and save on parking I think many people will choose that option.

[lrt's friend]

I never said a bullet express train. I simply said that we need to optimize what we have. Find ways to get rid of slow orders, and reduce dwell times at stations, especially those low demand stations. Do we not want our rail system to be used by as many people as possible? It is sometimes like we are only want to have transit used by students and the poor. That is not what made OC a success in the past. When we talk about 1 hour train rides to the suburbs, how much longer will it take to get people home or to their jobs. TOD is not the solution, when we might be talking about 5,000 out of 100,000 in each major suburb. We need some creativity to make transit attractive. Moving downtown for the majority is not the solution and that will never fill our trains that we are building in the suburbs.

[lrt's friend]

I was thinking the other evening about how many trains might be running south of South Keys including the airport at night with zero passengers. If we want passengers, we better get our act together and offer reliable timed and efficient transfers. Is OC capable of doing this?

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I never said a bullet express train. I simply said that we need to optimize what we have. Find ways to get rid of slow orders, and reduce dwell times at stations, especially those low demand stations. Do we not want our rail system to be used by as many people as possible? It is sometimes like we are only want to have transit used by students and the poor. That is not what made OC a success in the past. When we talk about 1 hour train rides to the suburbs, how much longer will it take to get people home or to their jobs. TOD is not the solution, when we might be talking about 5,000 out of 100,000 in each major suburb. We need some creativity to make transit attractive. Moving downtown for the majority is not the solution and that will never fill our trains that we are building in the suburbs.

There could be a greater focus on shaving off seconds here and there though they are more worried about any reliability issues so want to open all doors automatically leave them open etc.

You once were friend of LRT but decided to move to Riverside South. A decision echoed across Ottawa to, Blackburn Hamlet, Bells Corners etc.

What solution is there that gets rapid all day transit to this kind of built form? Some express busses for commuters could be an improvement but at regular fare that just starves the rest of the system.

People need to live with their choices. They need a yard and don't make enough money to afford it in Westboro they will have to be car dependent.

Phase 3 won't change this no matter how it's organized. Now maybe if it makes only 2-3 stops and goes to the CTC that we build as TOD it might be possible to get a stacked Townhouse within walking distance of the train but otherwise it's going to be a slow ride from leafy suburbs lucky enough to get a stop nearby.

[AuxTown]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I never said a bullet express train. I simply said that we need to optimize what we have. Find ways to get rid of slow orders, and reduce dwell times at stations, especially those low demand stations. Do we not want our rail system to be used by as many people as possible? It is sometimes like we are only want to have transit used by students and the poor. That is not what made OC a success in the past. When we talk about 1 hour train rides to the suburbs, how much longer will it take to get people home or to their jobs. TOD is not the solution, when we might be talking about 5,000 out of 100,000 in each major suburb. We need some creativity to make transit attractive. Moving downtown for the majority is not the solution and that will never fill our trains that we are building in the suburbs.

I think we are dreaming if we think the train can somehow get anywhere near a significant majority of suburbanites. What we need to do is encourage those people to use transit via park and rides and better local bus connections. To actually get more people using transit outside the Greenbelt, we need to run the train to employment hubs (March Rd, RCMP in Barhaven, big retail centres, various health centres and hospitals, etc.). The train to Orleans is a perfect example of NOT doing this....though I'm not sure they have a large enough employment base out there anyway

[Richard Eade]

I think that at this point it is fair to bring up the old N-S LRT for lrt’s friend. At that time, Mayor Chiarelli tried to make it very clear that the ‘R’ in LRT stands for ‘RAIL’ – not ‘RAPID’ (as it does in BRT, Bus RAPID Transit). Mayor Chiarelli was trying to manage expectations, because even that LRT plan was not imagined to be rapid. Urban trains are there to move lots of people relatively efficiently, not necessarily rapidly.

That said, the Confederation Line was initially planned to try to replace the bus Transitway lines. Those bus lines were designed to swiftly bring riders from the suburbs to the downtown area. Thus, the Confederation Line was envisioned to do the same thing. It was to act as a commuter line; following the Transitway’s fairly direct route from suburb to core, generally avoiding densely populated areas. This would provide the closest match to the rapid buses of the BRT.

However, it soon morphed into a hybrid line as advocates for local functionality inserted more stations. Planners realized that simply whisking suburbanites through a neighbourhood, without providing any utility to said neighbourhood, would limit the train’s ridership to morning and afternoon peak periods. If the train was to have any positive business-case, it had to have passengers all day. Running a tram-like service with stops every few blocks provides more usage, all day.

Ergo, the planned O-Train system is made up of lines that are long, to provide riders a seat from the suburb to downtown; but does not do so rapidly because of the many local stops along the way. It provides the best of both worlds – and the worst of both worlds. Valid arguments can certainly be made supporting either point of view.

Given that we now have what we have – and how the employment situation has changed – what Stage 3 enhancements would be the most worthwhile?

According to the poll at the top of this page, building the Bank St. Subway should be the first consideration (and with Doug ‘Subway’ Ford at the helm, maybe it has a chance); but I digress.

I think that moving the western terminus of Line 3 to Terry Fox Station should be a given. I would like to see the March Rd. BRT removed from the plan and a tram line run from Kanata-North down through the ClubLink redevelopment (yes, I think that the golf course is lost) to Terry Fox Station, and then south-west through Stittsville. This would improve local transit travel within Kanata but provide a transfer to the line going into Ottawa’s downtown. Remember, most travel done by Kanata/Stittsville residents is within Kanata/Stittsville. They don’t all need to ride a west-east line to get where they need to go – and the west-east line doesn’t need to have many local stops as it speeds east from Terry Fox Station. Removing the March Rd. BRT should remove a lot of complexity (read ‘cost’) from the Eagleson/March/417 interchange reconfiguration.

For Barrhaven, the cost of building the south-west LRT extension has been inflated by the addition of the cost to grade separate the VIA line over Woodroffe and Fallowfield. The city needs to be truthful about what the TRANSIT portion really is.

The City made a HUGELY COSTLY error in not immediately buying the townhouses that it knew had to be removed for a straight run to the west of Woodroffe Ave. Regardless, those properties should be bought NOW. To detour the line out to an elevated structure above Woodroffe (for only an estimated $50M extra; likely more than $100M now) would be compounding that first error.

As with Kanata, the Barrhaven line should go as straight as possible to the heart of the suburb, and cross tram lines should be created to provide transit within Barrhaven. (and, potentially, across the river into Riverside South).

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I think that at this point it is fair to bring up the old N-S LRT for lrt’s friend. At that time, Mayor Chiarelli tried to make it very clear that the ‘R’ in LRT stands for ‘RAIL’ – not ‘RAPID’ (as it does in BRT, Bus RAPID Transit). Mayor Chiarelli was trying to manage expectations, because even that LRT plan was not imagined to be rapid. Urban trains are there to move lots of people relatively efficiently, not necessarily rapidly.

That said, the Confederation Line was initially planned to try to replace the bus Transitway lines. Those bus lines were designed to swiftly bring riders from the suburbs to the downtown area. Thus, the Confederation Line was envisioned to do the same thing. It was to act as a commuter line; following the Transitway’s fairly direct route from suburb to core, generally avoiding densely populated areas. This would provide the closest match to the rapid buses of the BRT.

However, it soon morphed into a hybrid line as advocates for local functionality inserted more stations. Planners realized that simply whisking suburbanites through a neighbourhood, without providing any utility to said neighbourhood, would limit the train’s ridership to morning and afternoon peak periods. If the train was to have any positive business-case, it had to have passengers all day. Running a tram-like service with stops every few blocks provides more usage, all day.

Ergo, the planned O-Train system is made up of lines that are long, to provide riders a seat from the suburb to downtown; but does not do so rapidly because of the many local stops along the way. It provides the best of both worlds – and the worst of both worlds. Valid arguments can certainly be made supporting either point of view.

Given that we now have what we have – and how the employment situation has changed – what Stage 3 enhancements would be the most worthwhile?

According to the poll at the top of this page, building the Bank St. Subway should be the first consideration (and with Doug ‘Subway’ Ford at the helm, maybe it has a chance); but I digress.

I think that moving the western terminus of Line 3 to Terry Fox Station should be a given. I would like to see the March Rd. BRT removed from the plan and a tram line run from Kanata-North down through the ClubLink redevelopment (yes, I think that the golf course is lost) to Terry Fox Station, and then south-west through Stittsville. This would improve local transit travel within Kanata but provide a transfer to the line going into Ottawa’s downtown. Remember, most travel done by Kanata/Stittsville residents is within Kanata/Stittsville. They don’t all need to ride a west-east line to get where they need to go – and the west-east line doesn’t need to have many local stops as it speeds east from Terry Fox Station. Removing the March Rd. BRT should remove a lot of complexity (read ‘cost’) from the Eagleson/March/417 interchange reconfiguration.

For Barrhaven, the cost of building the south-west LRT extension has been inflated by the addition of the cost to grade separate the VIA line over Woodroffe and Fallowfield. The city needs to be truthful about what the TRANSIT portion really is.

The City made a HUGELY COSTLY error in not immediately buying the townhouses that it knew had to be removed for a straight run to the west of Woodroffe Ave. Regardless, those properties should be bought NOW. To detour the line out to an elevated structure above Woodroffe (for only an estimated $50M extra; likely more than $100M now) would be compounding that first error.

As with Kanata, the Barrhaven line should go as straight as possible to the heart of the suburb, and cross tram lines should be created to provide transit within Barrhaven. (and, potentially, across the river into Riverside South).

As much as Bank St Subway would make for a nice trip to Lansdowne, we don't need 3 rapid transit corridors to the south while everywhere else gets 1.

A Montreal road subway would make far more sense, as there's no rapid transit anywhere near that corridor. The Carling LRT/BRT also would make a lot of sense

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

As much as Bank St Subway would make for a nice trip to Lansdowne, we don't need 3 rapid transit corridors to the south while everywhere else gets 1.

A Montreal road subway would make far more sense, as there's no rapid transit anywhere near that corridor. The Carling LRT/BRT also would make a lot of sense

Not disputing the logic of Montreal Rd, but there is no rapid transit anywhere near Bank St. either.

[mxg308]

If Metrolinx does take over maybe they take a look at upgrading the Beachburg and Renfrew subs for service along the Hunt Club, Bells Corners, Kanata North corridor and maybe ending it in Carp? That would provide another east-west line with connections on Line 1, 2, and possibly 3 if they build some sort of transfer station at Corkstown.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by phil235

Not disputing the logic of Montreal Rd, but there is no rapid transit anywhere near Bank St. either.

Dow's Lake station is under a 30 minute walk from the heart of the Glebe. The 6 and 7 combined give very high frequency bus service from Parliament or Billings to all points in Old Ottawa South, the Glebe, and Centertown within 10 minutes (if traffic isn't terrible). So it's quite close to the rapid transit network even though not directly served

Yes, there's no rapid transit within a 5 min walk, but it's far from what I'd rank high on the list to spend billions of dollars. It's a nice to have, not a must have. There's other parts of the city much farther from rapid transit like Vanier, baseline etc that should be ranked higher

[phil235]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Dow's Lake station is under a 30 minute walk from the heart of the Glebe. The 6 and 7 combined give very high frequency bus service from Parliament or Billings to all points in Old Ottawa South, the Glebe, and Centertown within 10 minutes (if traffic isn't terrible). So it's quite close to the rapid transit network even though not directly served

Yes, there's no rapid transit within a 5 min walk, but it's far from what I'd rank high on the list to spend billions of dollars. It's a nice to have, not a must have. There's other parts of the city much farther from rapid transit like Vanier, baseline etc that should be ranked higher

Having rapid transit a 30-minute walk away is not being served by rapid transit. Ottawa is pretty unusual in that its rapid transit system makes a circle around the core of the city rather than serving it.

I'm going to guess that you don't take the 6 or 7 often if you describe them as "very high frequency". While it's unlikely that Bank St. gets true rapid transit, it is currently a pretty glaring gap in our network.

[lrt's friend]

Who would regularly walk 30 minutes to rapid transit? And that is the closest point. I live in the Bank Street corridor, but it is so difficult for me to get to the urban part of Bank Street. Yes, I can walk 30 or so minutes to South Keys and another 30 or so minutes from Dow's Lake, but is that really useable transit on our city's main Street?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Terry Fox should be the terminus for a Kanata extension. I can’t even explain how unbelievably stupid and wasteful it’d be to extend it further. Didsbury station? Give me a break, LOL!

I've said this for years. Terry Fox should have been a priority over the extension from Place d'Orléans to Trim or the extension to Limebank, but politics.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by phil235

Having rapid transit a 30-minute walk away is not being served by rapid transit. Ottawa is pretty unusual in that its rapid transit system makes a circle around the core of the city rather than serving it.

I'm going to guess that you don't take the 6 or 7 often if you describe them as "very high frequency". While it's unlikely that Bank St. gets true rapid transit, it is currently a pretty glaring gap in our network.

You misunderstand me. By Ottawa standards, Bank Street gets very frequent bus service. It's scheduled at about every 8 minutes combined. It falls way of that schedule, but on paper it's frequent. I am a fairly frequent rider of said bus. In fact it's also my godsend everytime the LRT is down, I make a beeline for the 6 rather than take an overcrowded R1 to Hurdman or Bayview

It's not that I wouldn't love a Bank Street subway either, but if I got a cheque for 10 billion from Dougie, I'd be hard pressed to justify it when vast swaths of the city are a transit desert, as a Bank St Subway would be in that price range. I feel like we can get more bang for the buck elsewhere