LRT Stage 3

[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).