West Gatineau LRT & Downtown Loop | Proposed

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

From what I hear, the tunnel was only added in at Ottawa's insistence. In any case, Gatineau hasn't taken a position.

So based on hearsay you're automatically assuming the worst?

[Aylmer]

I am not at liberty to inform the court of my sources. But even looking at the publicly-available documents, both surface options have been fleshed out whereas the tunnel option is a stub, prefaced with "The intent of these preliminary assessments was not to finalize an exact alignment (both horizontal and vertical)."

[Hybrid247]

Is there any indication of what the projected ridership might be for the downtown Ottawa section of the line? I imagine it would be substantial enough to require fairly elaborate stations, especially to accommodate future growth. Perhaps that is the biggest issue with the Wellington alignment, as large LRT stations in front of Parliament might be considered unsightly, and may take up too much space. I think we need to keep in mind that this system would be a step up from your typical streetcar line, like those in Toronto which have small on-street stops and platforms.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Is there any indication of what the projected ridership might be for the downtown Ottawa section of the line? I imagine it would be substantial enough to require fairly elaborate stations, especially to accommodate future growth. Perhaps that is the biggest issue with the Wellington alignment, as large LRT stations in front of Parliament might be considered unsightly, and may take up too much space. I think we need to keep in mind that this system would be a step up from your typical streetcar line, like those in Toronto which have small on-street stops and platforms.

I would imagine stations similar to Eglinton or ION, so yes, a step-up from your standard streetcar.


http://www.torontotransitblog.com/430299239


https://www.grt.ca/en/about-grt/conestoga-station.aspx

[caboose]

I hope for full grade separation to avoid these

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by caboose

I hope for full grade separation to avoid these

Well, the plan would call for the closure of the street to vehicles, so I'm not sure where you'd expect that to happen in Downtown Ottawa...

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Is there any indication of what the projected ridership might be for the downtown Ottawa section of the line? I imagine it would be substantial enough to require fairly elaborate stations, especially to accommodate future growth. Perhaps that is the biggest issue with the Wellington alignment, as large LRT stations in front of Parliament might be considered unsightly, and may take up too much space. I think we need to keep in mind that this system would be a step up from your typical streetcar line, like those in Toronto which have small on-street stops and platforms.

Actually, this is an argument for a surface option. Sparks is the narrowest street downtown. Ottawa's downtown stations under the wider Queen St already experience some crowding issues (in the before times), with people waiting on the stairs and mezzanine, and blocking the flow of de-training passengers. A sub-Sparks tunnel would have even less holding capacity.
There's also the issue of the capacity of stairs and elevators. Rideau Station is a good example of what happens when you don't have enough throughput for the elevators: at busy times, you can easily wait for 3 or 4 to go by before you can squeeze onto one.

On the other hand, Wellington St is both much wider and is neither constrained by tunnel walls, nor the capacity of elevators and stairs. If there's too many people, they'll disperse on the uber-wide sidewalks. And there are no stairs or elevators necessary - the platform is right there on the street.

The station itself isn't a structure. The only thing you need is a slightly elevated sidewalk for level boarding. A few sheltered points are preferable for passenger comfort, but the point is that if the view of Parliament is paramount, a surface station can (push come to shove) be essentially invisible.

An extreme example of this is Bordeaux's Station Place de la Bourse, where it was stripped down completely in order to fit comfortably in a UNESCO World Heritage site. I don't think we should go this far, nor do we need to. But again, it illustrates that there's more than enough flexibility with a surface option to conform with even the most extreme aesthetic requirements.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I would imagine stations similar to Eglinton or ION, so yes, a step-up from your standard streetcar.

Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

Actually, this is an argument for a surface option. Sparks is the narrowest street downtown. Ottawa's downtown stations under the wider Queen St already experience some crowding issues (in the before times), with people waiting on the stairs and mezzanine, and blocking the flow of de-training passengers. A sub-Sparks tunnel would have even less holding capacity.
There's also the issue of the capacity of stairs and elevators. Rideau Station is a good example of what happens when you don't have enough throughput for the elevators: at busy times, you can easily wait for 3 or 4 to go by before you can squeeze onto one.

On the other hand, Wellington St is both much wider and is neither constrained by tunnel walls, nor the capacity of elevators and stairs. If there's too many people, they'll disperse on the uber-wide sidewalks. And there are no stairs or elevators necessary - the platform is right there on the street.

The station itself isn't a structure. The only thing you need is a slightly elevated sidewalk for level boarding. A few sheltered points are preferable for passenger comfort, but the point is that if the view of Parliament is paramount, a surface station can (push come to shove) be essentially invisible.

An extreme example of this is Bordeaux's Station Place de la Bourse, where it was stripped down completely in order to fit comfortably in a UNESCO World Heritage site. I don't think we should go this far, nor do we need to. But again, it illustrates that there's more than enough flexibility with a surface option to conform with even the most extreme aesthetic requirements.

Those are certainly some valid points to consider, but I think we'll have to wait for a detailed study to see if space under Sparks turns out to be an issue.

Although the Place de la Bourse station example does show how minimal an LRT station can be, I doubt there'll be an appetite for a shelter-free platform at such a major station. Without a shelter there'd have to be radiant floor heating for snow/ice removal, and I don't think Gatineau will go that route after seeing the issues with C-line's stations, but who knows

Furthermore - and correct me if I'm wrong - but I don't think there's been any indication of what type of fare system STO intends to operate for the stations. If they go with fare gates, the stations will have to be fairly elaborate for good access control.

[caboose]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

An extreme example of this is Bordeaux's Station Place de la Bourse, where it was stripped down completely in order to fit comfortably in a UNESCO World Heritage site. I don't think we should go this far, nor do we need to. But again, it illustrates that there's more than enough flexibility with a surface option to conform with even the most extreme aesthetic requirements.

Despite my support of a tunnel over Wellington Street, that does look good...

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Aylmer

I am not at liberty to inform the court of my sources.

I think it's only fair that we disregard unsubstantiated rumours of a lack of cooperation.

Originally Posted by Aylmer

But even looking at the publicly-available documents, both surface options have been fleshed out whereas the tunnel option is a stub, prefaced with "The intent of these preliminary assessments was not to finalize an exact alignment (both horizontal and vertical)."

Something I was taught in the military when drafting courses of action, "Don't put up an option you wouldn't feel comfortable with the commander picking."

They really shouldn't be surprised that Ottawa Councillors picked the option that minimizes street level disruption in the core and probably has full support of the NCC. If that's taken as some sign of bad faith, that's entirely on Gatineau.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think it's only fair that we disregard unsubstantiated rumours of a lack of cooperation.

Your Honour should instruct the jury to disregard the defense's arguments and that it be struck from the record

I agree that the STO shouldn't have put in an option it isn't keen on. Not for a lack of cooperation, rather an overabundance of it. I don't think it'll pay off for them, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

As for the NCC favouring a tunnel, don't be too hasty, counsel

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Why didn't you mail them a cheque for the repair costs?

Another one of your "modest" ideas on somebody else's dime. I'd be surprised if Wakefield a decade ago could fill a coach bus into downtown. How about we stop facilitating and subsidizing further sprawl?

How do you think Autoroute 5 got built if it wasn't without someone else's money? Just as the highway was funded by the feds and the province so too should the rail line. Both the provinces and the federal government do this time and time again resulting in the abandonment of viable rail lines that have a lot of potential. It is not as if the line needed to be rebuilt to HSR standards. The line only required sufficient repairs to allow the tourist train to operate until commuter service could be established. Once again a government investment in roads is seen as an investment while it is considered a subsidy when it relates to rail.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

The line only required sufficient repairs to allow the tourist train to operate until commuter service could be established. Once again a government investment in roads is seen as an investment while it is considered a subsidy when it relates to rail.

I don't want to get too off-topic, but there was never going to be a commuter train when there's barely enough commuters to fill a coach bus or two at rush hour. Especially when any hypothetical commuter rail service doesn't get them close to downtown Hull or downtown Ottawa.

Heck, how many of Wakefield's own residents turned out to defend the rail line add opposed conversion to a bike trail? You want to tell them they don't understand what's in their town's interest?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by caboose

I would tend to agree with J.OT13. But it is deeper than that. It's rooted in the linguistic and cultural divide in Canada. English Ottawa resents having French Gatineau residents invading their city, and any proposals to bring more traffic are met with challenges. Never overtly discriminatory, but always "no" to proposals from the Deschenes Bridge, the Champlain Third Lane, the Kettle Island Bridge, the Kanata-Aylmer Bridge, the damn truck traffic on King Edward, Bayview Station capacity etc. This project will suffer the same fate - there will be no trams from Gatineau in Ottawa, not on Wellington, not under Sparks not across the POW bridge...

It's only a segment of the population that feels that way, but the sentiment is always there under the surface whenever these things are discussed.

It's a bit absurd that so many people think that these jobs were are talking about that are based in Ottawa are primarily there due to the ingenuity and industriousness of Ottawans themselves, as opposed to being financed by taxpayers in all of the provinces and territories.

It's actually a great privilege and windfall for Ottawa and Ontario to be the primary beneficiaries of this, and the fact that part of that happens to be shared with another city and province is actually only evening things up a bit. Most other places that pay for the public service through their taxes get very little in terms of employment and economic spin-offs.

So Ottawa shouldn't complain that it has to share a bit of the wealth with Gatineau.

[Truenorth00]

These supposed anti-Gatinois claims are absurd. I very much doubt any of this comes into play when councillors and bureaucrats are discussing transit options. Bureaucrats are mostly motivated by mandate or policy goals. Councillors by re-election. And absent a regional political body, those concerns are driven by residents of Ottawa. This is how democracy works.

I would expect Gatineau's city councillors to be equally cautious if Ottawa wanted to ram through a tram through the centre of Hull. And I would argue they would be within their rights to pick a more expensive and less disruptive solution. I wouldn't see that as some anti-Ontario or anti-Anglo bigotry.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

These supposed anti-Gatinois claims are absurd. I very much doubt any of this comes into play when councillors and bureaucrats are discussing transit options. Bureaucrats are mostly motivated by mandate or policy goals. Councillors by re-election. And absent a regional political body, those concerns are driven by residents of Ottawa. This is how democracy works.

I would expect Gatineau's city councillors to be equally cautious if Ottawa wanted to ram through a tram through the centre of Hull. And I would argue they would be within their rights to pick a more expensive and less disruptive solution. I wouldn't see that as some anti-Ontario or anti-Anglo bigotry.

I don't think it's top of mind all the time but it's telling to see how "improvements" to the highway system and other links to Ottawa from outlying municipalities on the Ontario side generally don't draw much of a peep, whereas there is always opposition or at least a clear lack of support in Ottawa for anything relating to the Quebec side of the river. (People don't see people from Carleton Place and Rockland as job-stealing interlopers, but many do view Gatinois that way, like it or not.)

I should clarify that it's not even primarily an English-French thing, as most of the Franco-Ontarian leadership (political, institutional) in Ottawa also tends to oppose better transportation links between the two sides of the river.

Note also that I am not necessarily bitter or personally involved, as neither I nor anyone in my family has to cross the river for occupational reasons.

Just calling it as I see it.

[Truenorth00]

I don't buy it. I see far more mundane explanations like a lot of those links dumping right into Ottawa's downtown core. Your can see that resistance as driven by bigotry. I see that resistance driven in some cases by old fashioned NIMBYism and in some cases by actual urbanism.

And the reason, other Ontario communities don't draw the same ire is that they are orders of magnitude smaller. I guarantee you if Rockland or Carleton Place were as big as Gatineau, the relationship with them would be very different.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I don't buy it. I see far more mundane explanations like a lot of those links dumping right into Ottawa's downtown core. Your can see that resistance as driven by bigotry. I see that resistance driven in some cases by old fashioned NIMBYism and in some cases by actual urbanism.

And the reason, other Ontario communities don't draw the same ire is that they are orders of magnitude smaller. I guarantee you if Rockland or Carleton Place were as big as Gatineau, the relationship with them would be very different.

The Kettle Island bridge for example isn't downtown and (in spite of what the Manor Park and Rockcliffe people say) won't even affect any neighbourhoods directly.

I don't think it's the number one factor and I think your rationale is pretty valid, but what I have described (anti-Quebec anti-job-stealer sentiment) is definitely there and allows Ottawa politicians to drag their feet on these matters.

It's not the majority of Ottawans I realize but if you listen to CFRA and read the comments sections of everything from the Sun to the CBC, it's almost like how some people in San Diego talk about Mexicans.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

.

It's not the majority of Ottawans I realize but if you listen to CFRA and read the comments sections of everything from the Sun to the CBC, it's almost like how some people in San Diego talk about Mexicans.

You seriously suggesting the comments section of the Sun and CBC, and talk radio is reflective of the opinion of most Ottawa residents?

[Aylmer]

He literally answers that in the quote you pulled