LRT Stage 3

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Ottawa's concept of "complete streets" is almost entirely antithetical to the concept of transit priority. (Cf. Elgin Street reconstruction, the Montreal Road bait-and-switch, and the total fustercluck that is the transit showcase called Queen).

You can have transit priority.

You can have an Ottawa-conceived "complete street".

Pick one.

There are inevitably trade-offs where space is a factor.

The Baseline BRT will be a "complete street" with dedicated bus lanes and dedicated bike lanes, because there is more space.

[Jamaican-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

Well its ambitious I'll say that.

True, but it would be the optimal solution for the urban core of Ottawa moving forward. Additionally, A lot of the red line could actually be at surface level or in a trench, helping to reduce costs substantially.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Regarding BRT on Heron and Walkley, as being more important than on Bank Street, knowing the area very well, I cannot fathom this comment. BRT on Baseline is very important, but as you get east of Bank, I don't see it. East of the Rideau River and south of the Confederation Line, the north-south routes are much more important transit connections. As we more forward with further development to the south, this is going to be emphasized even more.

If you look at the land use of Walkley and Heron east of bank you have lots of low density employment and residential. All the local milk run buses that serve those employment districts and residential areas that are more economically dependent on transit would be better connected to meaningful transfer hubs at Hurdman and Blair by routing through the spine of the Crosstown Transitway.

There is also a lot of development potential that can be unlocked by connecting these areas with the city wide network better.

Crosstown Transitway allows circular routes to go from Blair to Hurdman through this spine, Bayshore-Baseline-Hurdman, a Crosstown like the 88 and allows milk runs like 111 or others to have more meaningful terminals with the Otrain network.


But this includes my vision where the ultimate Ottawa Rapid Network would involve giving the Trillium Line the South-East transitway south of Heron. Leaving the existing Trillium Line right of way for a Airport to Train Station rail link. The SE transitway north of Heron should connect with this Crosstown Transitway at the location of Heron station.

Confederation Line

Trillium Line

Airport Rail Link

Crosstown Transitway

Kanata North Transitway

Barrhaven Town Centre to Limebank Transitway

Cumberland Transitway

And the Federal government should charter OCTranspo to operate their own transit route - a DNDEx - that links Moodie to the DND Carling Campus, DND Operations HQ (future), CSA HQ and the DRDC Ottawa Campus at Shirley's Bay.

I think is could be an opportunity where some bus rapid transit routes could have their own branding to distinguish them more as a "line" then merely another milk run bus.

The Crosstown Transitway is another opportunity of these where rapid routes running cross town or to major transfer hubs could be branded in away that differentiates them from local milk runs only using a portion of the transitway.

Rail-less trams and next generation BRT which will be autonomous and electric gives us a lot of possible innovation.
https://youtu.be/G8cGwYfr6vg

Again, stage 3 should be economically finishing an actual city wide network so we make sure all these links are constructed.
But the opportunity to fix the trillium line how I'd like to where the Heron junction clusterfcuk is made logical for a future more logical city wide network of rapid lines is largly gone by.

[lrt's friend]

Airport to Train Station? Why would that be a priority? Who makes that connection?

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Airport to Train Station? Why would that be a priority? Who makes that connection?

People that want to fly out of Ottawa from Belleville, Kingston and Brockville who might want to avoid flying out of Pearson, especially in the winter. You might be surprised how many people do that, but drive to Ottawa.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

People that want to fly out of Ottawa from Belleville, Kingston and Brockville who might want to avoid flying out of Pearson, especially in the winter. You might be surprised how many people do that, but drive to Ottawa.

But why would that be a priority over getting people from the airport to downtown by making the trip even less direct?

Why would we want to close the Southeast Transitway between South Keys and Heron at the expense of those in the south end who are not well served by the Trillium Line? In other words, to make their travel times even longer.

It won't take long by adding 4 double-decker or artic buses every 12 minutes from Route 93 and 98, and force everybody to transfer destined for Carleton on Route 111 to reach even the expanded capacity of the Trillium LIne not in 30 years but in 2 years.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Airport to Train Station? Why would that be a priority? Who makes that connection?

Makes more sense to let the Trillium Line be upgradedable to Confederation Line specs with the same rolling stock and leave the diesel rolling stock to link the airport.

Trying to have the Trillium Line be both a rail line for the south end and an airport rail link is going make both services poor.

An Airport to Rail Link from the train station would be the first step towards building regional rail and would mean you could easily get off a train from Kingston and get on an international flight without 2 transfer and a ride across the downtown core. Since the Ottawa Airport is eastern ontario's regional international gateway.

Again, is a solution that allows the Airport Rail Link be it's own thing and the Trillium Line is own thing.

Most people taking the Airport Rail Link will be going to downtown and it makes more sense to design a solution for those people it makes sense to route them away from the mess that is the trillium line and save them a transfer at the busy super hub that will be Bayview.

If you spend a lot of time on google earth you'd quickly see this makes more sense in the long run.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

But why would that be a priority over getting people from the airport to downtown by making the trip even less direct?

There is zero tangible difference between getting on the Confederation Line at the train station vs bayview for downtown service. You could argue a couple extra minutes but bayview to rideau / train station to lyon- not much difference and would be worth it for:

1) avoiding the masses of commuters using the trillium line and the crowded bayview transfer station - especially if we ever want to link with Gatineau at this location

2) the double transfer that Bayview and South Keys are

Much easier to get on the Confederation Line - go against the flow of traffic to the east, transfer to a rail link that will take you direct to the airport. Trillium Line can transfer on at South Keys.

Headways could be more in line with a steady 20 mins that the volume requires. Or 15 to match the Union Pearson express. This predictability and ability to tune the service to regional rail and Airport timetables will bring operational savings.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

Makes more sense to let the Trillium Line be upgradedable to Confederation Line specs with the same rolling stock and leave the diesel rolling stock to link the airport.

Trying to have the Trillium Line be both a rail line for the south end and an airport rail link is going make both services poor.

An Airport to Rail Link from the train station would be the first step towards building regional rail and would mean you could easily get off a train from Kingston and get on an international flight without 2 transfer and a ride across the downtown core. Since the Ottawa Airport is eastern ontario's regional international gateway.

Again, is a solution that allows the Airport Rail Link be it's own thing and the Trillium Line is own thing.

Most people taking the Airport Rail Link will be going to downtown and it makes more sense to design a solution for those people it makes sense to route them away from the mess that is the trillium line and save them a transfer at the busy super hub that will be Bayview.

If you spend a lot of time on google earth you'd quickly see this makes more sense in the long run.

So, you are considering someone from Kingston making a connection once per year a priority over someone living in Greenboro, who would under your plan require 2 transfers to reach downtown on a daily basis and who is footing the bill for the system.

How much would this cost? $2B++? Double track the Trillium Line plus convert part of the Southeast Transitway to rail plus develop a plan to somehow share the track with VIA between Heron and the VIA station plus somehow figure out how the Airport and Trillium Lines will cross each other south of Hunt Club plus relocate the bus terminal at South Keys.

At this cost, we could fund a Bank Street subway between Billings Bridge and downtown and eventually give airport visitors a one seat ride to downtown.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

But why would that be a priority over getting people from the airport to downtown by making the trip even less direct?

Why would we want to close the Southeast Transitway between South Keys and Heron at the expense of those in the south end who are not well served by the Trillium Line? In other words, to make their travel times even longer.

It won't take long by adding 4 double-decker or artic buses every 12 minutes from Route 93 and 98, and force everybody to transfer destined for Carleton on Route 111 to reach even the expanded capacity of the Trillium LIne not in 30 years but in 2 years.

The south end should be directed towards the trillium line - why are we spending multiple billions to build this line if we're not going to feed the south end to it?

We need to balance traffic with Bayview and Hurdman moving forward.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

So, you are considering someone from Kingston making a connection once per year a priority over someone living in Greenboro, who would under your plan require 2 transfers to reach downtown on a daily basis and who is footing the bill for the system.

Someone from Greenboro should be funneled to the Trillium Line or else the Trillium line should never be upgraded tto Confederation Line specs of double tracking the entire route.

Pick one priority.

South of the rail yard (Greenboro) should be funneled to south keys and the trillium line and the Heron Gate / Alta Vista area should be a funneled towards Hurdman because it's the best option for using the infrastructure we have to offer broad services.

Some buses will keep going to south keys because that's the major node of the south end but eventually the south east transitway will have to be rationalized with the rest of the city wide network and that largely means leaving It to be a rarely used transitway right next to a multi billion dollar LRT line or making the cut a Heron using the northern section to make the Crosstown Transitway function better and and the southern part making the Trillium Line function better.

Bonus is we have now a rail line we can use to offer a better airport rail link.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

The south end should be directed towards the trillium line - why are we spending multiple billions to build this line if we're not going to feed the south end to it?

Even after Stage 2, I don't think a billion will have be spent on the Trillium Line.

Originally Posted by Mikeed

We need to balance traffic with Bayview and Hurdman moving forward.

That is done by balancing feeder services to Trillium and the SE Transitway. There's no need to rejig the SE Transitway and the Trillium Line. Where buses serve both, people will chose appropriately. Student at U of O? Stay on bus, and transfer at Hurdman. Working west of the Canal? Transfer on to Trillium and then Confederation at Bayview.

[JohnnyRenton]

Someone coming from Kingston, who is looking to get to the airport, would have a quicker, and shorter, trip to the airport if they just got off at Fallowfield and could take a bus to the airport. Going all the way to the "central" station adds a lot of travel time and distance and backtracking.

On another note, if you live in the Kingston, you pretty much have an equal trip to either Ottawa, Pearson, or Dorval. 9 times out of 10, Toronto is the cheapest flight option, which means the market for Kingston travellers is not overly huge.

And the train station is in a terrible location so spending all kinds of money to adapt to its nonsense doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

So, you are considering someone from Kingston making a connection once per year a priority over someone living in Greenboro, who would under your plan require 2 transfers to reach downtown on a daily basis and who is footing the bill for the system.

How much would this cost? $2B++? Double track the Trillium Line plus convert part of the Southeast Transitway to rail plus develop a plan to somehow share the track with VIA between Heron and the VIA station plus somehow figure out how the Airport and Trillium Lines will cross each other south of Hunt Club plus relocate the bus terminal at South Keys.

At this cost, we could fund a Bank Street subway between Billings Bridge and downtown and eventually give airport visitors a one seat ride to downtown.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Even after Stage 2, I don't think a billion will have be spent on the Trillium Line.



That is done by balancing feeder services to Trillium and the SE Transitway. There's no need to rejig the SE Transitway and the Trillium Line. Where buses serve both, people will chose appropriately. Student at U of O? Stay on bus, and transfer at Hurdman. Working west of the Canal? Transfer on to Trillium and then Confederation at Bayview.

It will take a billion dollars to bring the trillium line to Confederation standards again- that's the starting point of this process.

Do we want to bring the Trillium Line up to Confederation spec? If so then we need to have it double tracked for most of the way and I didn't see the value in doing that while maintaining the SE transitway when we can convert half of it to make the Trillium Line better, make a better airport rail link and make a better Crosstown Transitway as already the plans for the Baseline transitway basically shrug when it comes to how to get the 88 onto the SE transitway better. Again most of the inner city bus lines should end at ether Baseline or Hurdman which is better served through the Baseline/Heron/Walkley corridor.

Anyone thinking OCtranspo should keep running rapid buses from Greenboro to Hurdman in the future after spending this much money on the Trillium Line is beyond me. Or else they don't want to see the Trillium line move outta the beta phase it's stuck in.

Trains Share track all the time. It doesn't need much of a plan. UP express, GO and VIA all share the lakeshore.

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

somehow figure out how the Airport and Trillium Lines will cross each other south of Hunt Club plus relocate the bus terminal at South Keys.

Considering the transitway and rail line already do this it's simple. Keep the rail line on the left and the double tracked trillium line on the right.

This plan recycles most existing bridges and infrastructure.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

It will take a billion dollars to bring the trillium line to Confederation standards again- that's the starting point of this process.

Do we want to bring the Trillium Line up to Confederation spec? If so then we need to have it double tracked for most of the way and I didn't see the value in doing that while maintaining the SE transitway when we can convert half of it to make the Trillium Line better, make a better airport rail link and make a better Crosstown Transitway as already the plans for the Baseline transitway basically shrug when it comes to how to get the 88 onto the SE transitway better. Again most of the inner city bus lines should end at ether Baseline or Hurdman which is better served through the Baseline/Heron/Walkley corridor.

Anyone thinking OCtranspo should keep running rapid buses from Greenboro to Hurdman in the future after spending this much money on the Trillium Line is beyond me. Or else they don't want to see the Trillium line move outta the beta phase it's stuck in.

Trains Share track all the time. It doesn't need much of a plan. UP express, GO and VIA all share the lakeshore.

Why is Route 88 a bigger priority over Route 98 when Route 98 carries more passengers and when Route 88 already uses the Transitway today?

Why is the number of transfers unimportant?

Why would we argue about the few people going from the airport to the rail station are being so badly inconvenienced by a downtown detour, when your proposal disconnects well established travel patterns on the SE Transitway forcing far more people to face exactly the same detour?

[Mikeed]

Originally Posted by JohnnyRenton

Someone coming from Kingston, who is looking to get to the airport, would have a quicker, and shorter, trip to the airport if they just got off at Fallowfield and could take a bus to the airport. Going all the way to the "central" station adds a lot of travel time and distance and backtracking.

On another note, if you live in the Kingston, you pretty much have an equal trip to either Ottawa, Pearson, or Dorval. 9 times out of 10, Toronto is the cheapest flight option, which means the market for Kingston travellers is not overly huge.

And the train station is in a terrible location so spending all kinds of money to adapt to its nonsense doesn't make a lot of sense.

We don't design things only for one use case. We need to design solutions for that work for multiple use case.

It's still a better downtown airport rail link that requires one less transfer that also happens to put that transfer at a location that can be used to interlink with rail.

I'm sure you would find it faster considering their would be less stops and be just as close to downtown just on the east end, be less congested, would require one less transfer.

Let the Trillium Line be it's own thing and let the airport to downtown link be it's own thing and you will have a better network overall.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

Considering the transitway and rail line already do this it's simple. Keep the rail line on the left and the double tracked trillium line on the right.

This plan recycles most existing bridges and infrastructure.

That was not my point. They will need to cross each other south of Hunt Club.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Mikeed

We don't design things only for one use case. We need to design solutions for that work for multiple use case.

It's still a better downtown airport rail link that requires one less transfer that also happens to put that transfer at a location that can be used to interlink with rail.

I'm sure you would find it faster considering their would be less stops and be just as close to downtown just on the east end, be less congested, would require one less transfer.

Let the Trillium Line be it's own thing and let the airport to downtown link be it's own thing and you will have a better network overall.

How would it be faster to go to the VIA station?

We all know how slow VIA trains operate between Billings Bridge and the station plus the transfer is not nearly as convenient, with a much longer walk between the platform and the Confederation Line Station.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by JohnnyRenton

Someone coming from Kingston, who is looking to get to the airport, would have a quicker, and shorter, trip to the airport if they just got off at Fallowfield and could take a bus to the airport. Going all the way to the "central" station adds a lot of travel time and distance and backtracking.

On another note, if you live in the Kingston, you pretty much have an equal trip to either Ottawa, Pearson, or Dorval. 9 times out of 10, Toronto is the cheapest flight option, which means the market for Kingston travellers is not overly huge.

And the train station is in a terrible location so spending all kinds of money to adapt to its nonsense doesn't make a lot of sense.

To be fair, there is no efficient transit connection between Fallowfield and the airport.