Interprovincial Transit Link

Earlier this week, the NCC held a public open house on proposals for improving interprovincial transit. I blogged on my general preferences (a LRT link using the Prince of Wales  bridge) a few days ago, http://westsideaction.blogspot.com/2010/07/interprovincial-transit-opportunity-to.html. 

At the meeting, a number of matters came up that caused me to ponder.

Bridge repairs... the cost of the LRT on the loop was much much higher than that of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). I inquired as to why the order of magnitude numbers for LRT were so much higher since both were surface crossings. Well, to use the Chaudiere, Alexandra, or Prince of Wales bridges, massive rebuilding would be "required" of these older structures. This rebuilding cost was added to the LRT cost.

But wouldn't these repairs and rebuildings still be required if there was no LRT and the bridges continued to be used by cars and buses like they are today? Yup, I was told, they would require the same rebuilding, at the same costs.

So why do the planners add the reconstruction cost into the LRT option cost when it is a cost that has to be met anyway, even if LRT is not built? The bridge repair costs are not unique to choosing the LRT option. [hint: by adding bridge rebuilding costs, costs might be divided three ways - city, province, feds - instead of remaining 100% to the bridge owner. Nice try for shared dollars, but it makes LRT scarily expensive when the bridge cost will be paid whether we stick with roads or go with whatever form of transit we choose].

Something similar comes up for the Preston Extension. Preston is to be extended out meet the intersection of Vimy Place in front of the War Museum. This road link will be built early in the DOTT process so cars can avoid construction on Booth. After LRT is running, motorists continue to benefit from having a new four lane road built across the Flats. Surely this cost should be stuck in the road budget, but no, its put into the LRT construction budget.

DOTT Capacity: In the many DOTT meetings I have attended over the past years, the consultants always use passenger forecasts that INCLUDE ALL THE STO passengers in the tunnel. They do not assume there is any STO bus service left through the downtown.

There are several options for Quebec links if the linkage is by LRT. One is for Quebec-bound residents to go into downtown Ottawa subway stations and take an LRT to Bayview, and then transfer to a separate LRT service to Gatineau. If their destination was other than downtown Gatineau, they would then need to transfer again to bus service.

The other option was for a separate Gatineau-bound LRT train to run through the downtown tunnel, across the Flats, and then over to Gatineau, making the whole interprovincial trip in the same vehicle. This is a more attractive option than having to transfer LRT trains, and ties in nicely I thought with the design of the Bayview Station which allows trains leaving the downtown to go west  or north/south without transfers, ie same car service from the downtown to airport, or downtown to Baseline. I was really surprised then to hear some of the experts at the event declare that the tunnel would be full to capacity with OC Transpo LRT trains and there simply would not be room for Gatineau-bound trains unless another tunnel was bored just for the "loop" service.

While I confess to some scepticism about this advice, I do wonder if the DOTT planning team is planning their station designs so that someday a third or fourth track could be added to the two originally planned, ie, keep the same stations and escalators and mezannines but increase the carrying capacity by adding additional tracks.

Bus noise: I am concerned to see some of the interprovincial transit options including running way more STO buses through the downtown than before. Way to go ... Ottawa residents will pay to go deep underground while Quebecers inherit the streets. Result: despite the reputed superior fashion-sense of Quebecers, there would be no net improvement to the street environment.

And, the NCC evaluation criteria did not seem to consider the noise of BRT on adjacent residents or quality of life in downtown neighborhoods. Traffic noise is a big factor for downtown residents, it is bizarre to be planning for major increases in bus use without even mentioning the noise and dirt and deteriorated quality of life that would engender.

Almost as bad, and taking some sort of prize for short-term thinking, was the suggestion to run STO buses across the Prince of Wales bridge to a transfer station on the Flats at Bayview. It was a mistake made decades ago to convert the Alexandra bridge from rail to car, and now we are looking at mega-bucks to convert it back ... why on earth would we do the same mistake to the POW knowing that in 20 to 30 years we would be converting it back to rail?

Finally, a comment on how we treat transit users. A certain percentage of users have limited transportation choices, due to income constraints. They'll take the bus because they don't have a {second, third} car. They are captive. They will suffer through buses that get caught in traffic. Or are routed into giant ditches, while motorists get millions of dollars spent to have "scenic" routes into the core.

But if we want transit to be a viable, lifetime option for individuals who do not have cars (the young, elderly, lower income, students, enviro-nuts, etc) or who can choose to drive but don't, or if the city wants to shift modal split onto transit to avoid building ever more roads, then it has to offer attractive amenities to induce the ridership that has a choice.*

 For the downtown loop, I love the idea of the LRT taking the Prince of Wales bridge because it offers great views to riders; and if the other part of the loop used the surface of the Alexandra bridge (which was designed and built, like the POW, as a railway bridge) then there would be even greater views. Imagine, taking the loop would be a scenic, attractive activity bringing sensory pleasure to the ridership. It would even induce tourist traffic just because it would be so nice. Sane tourists going to big cities use transit and avoid bringing their private car downtown -- or does Ottawa want to remain small-town with acres of its core dedicated to storing automobiles?

If transit is to be a viable competitor to surface roads and private cars, then it can't always be shoved onto the least-attractive corridors or into ditches. As far as I know, LRT trains won't shrivel up in the sunlight, passengers won't morph into zombies if they have a nice view. Maybe the comatose cubicle farm inhabitants snoozing in their LRT trains will wake up with some of that famous NCC landscaping.



*[I kinda like the Ottawa River Parkway routing option for the west LRT just for that reason: it gives transit users a first class view. And it might even do that by bumping two lanes of the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway off the waterfront.]

Interprovincial transit opportunity to choose your mode

Prince of Wales rail bridge from Ottawa to Gatineau

Tuesday from 5.30 to 8.30 at City Hall (main floor) there will be a public display of the options for interprovincial transit between Ottawa and Gatineau.

Options include which mode of transit to use: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or LRT. Route options include connections via the Alexandra Bridge (or under it, in a tunnel under the river, and remember the tunnel under downtown Ottawa is already very deep down so this doesn't require a steep slope, and the Rideau station has been designed with this connection in mind); a west connection on the Prince of Wales Bridge or Chaudiere Bridge; and maybe connecting these two crossings to make a loop.

Mode: Ottawa is growing out of its BRT system and converting it to an LRT system including a downtown tunnel. Gatineau, smaller than Ottawa, is just building its Rapibus BRT which will last it 30 years until it too is converted to a LRT.

It just doesn't seem logical to me to opt for a BRT linking the two cities. The idea behind the tunnel is get the buses off the downtown streets (so the streets can be redeveloped and landscaped for pedestrians and cyclists), and this means getting the STO buses off the streets too.

And we don't want large BRT stations at LeBreton Flats or near the National Gallery to transfer passengers to the LRT. So, my choice for the mode is LRT for the loop. In Gatineau's small downtown, it is probably premature to run the LRT in a tunnel; I suggest it would be fine to run it on the surface for the next several decades where it would serve to animate the street life.

Route: in the west, either the Chaudiere crossing or the Prince of Wales Bridge will work. But since the LRT route will help intensify development, it makes the most sense to me to run it on the POW bridge so it services all of  LeBreton-Bayview redevelopment areas, and connects with the future North/South line along the O-Train corridor (which might extend right over to Gatineau on the POW). While a bit further than the Chaudiere, the POW bridge would be car-free so service would be faster. The already-planned Bayview Station has been designed to handle east-west and north-south traffic and all its transfers, permeatations and combinations.

I also don't think they would need to double track the Prince of Wales bridge at the beginning, five or seven minute scheduling should be possible even with a single track bridge. Indeed, it might be possible to initially run the whole loop only in one direction on one track, and later expand it to two ways on two tracks.

On the east side, it intrigues me that the LRT could run on the old Alexandra Bridge rather than in a tunnel under it. Of course, car traffic would be booted off, and the bridge would revert to its original rail function. It is sort of poetic justice that rail structures were converted to roads in the 50's and 60's and now they could be converted to LRT service*. And the views from the LRT would be fantastic from both bridges, which can be a great feature attracting ridership.

City hall is air conditioned, so its a great time to come down and tell the City and NCC what you want to see for the interprovincial transit connection.

If you can't get there, you can go to this web site and make your comments. If you are really lazy, you can just copy and paste the shortcut to this blog posting: www.http://interprovincial-transit-strategy.ca/

*expanding on this idea of converting rails to roads and back to rails, the parkway along the canal would be a great conversion back to surface LRT (streetcar service) which would include Lansdowne Park, the Glebe, Main Street, Ottawa South, to Billings.

Condo Development linked to LRT ? Will Claridge "play ball"?

The lot shown in the pictures below is bounded by Queen street on the right (north); Lyon in the foreground (east side); and Albert Street to the left (south). Claridge, a prominent Ottawa condo developer, owns it.  Your photog is standing at the foot of the downramp from the Crowne Plaza hotel:

This view is from the corner of Albert and Lyon, at the foot of the ramp up to the Crowne Plaza's awful driveway ramp entrance. The red brick building at the far side of the lot is 151 Bay, a fourteen storey condo built by Teron in the 70's as part of the Delta Hotel and office tower complex off to the right:

Here is a view from the west corner of the lot, near the Bay/Albert intersection. The CS CO-OP building is immediately to the right, not shown in this photo, which is the site of the proposed new main Library and the entrance to the LRT station a hundred or so feet down:

Here's a view of the lot from the fourteenth floor of 151 Bay Street. Barbarella's strip club is the low rise building on the left side of the lot, the Crowne Plaza and Constitution Square office buildings are beyond:

The Downtown Ottawa transit tunnel (DOTT) project for our underground LRT system will run under Albert Street (the right side of the above picture)  beside the largely vacant lot. To the right, just off the edge of the picture, is the Cs Co-Op lot, which is proposed to become the site of a large new Library building. The western portion of the downtown will be served by a underground LRT station. The station would have two entrances:

• one to the east end of the station platforms, coming up beside the fountain in front of Place de Ville, serving the  downtown office buildings; and
• one entrance from the west end of the platform, coming up through the Library building, and serving the concentration of residential high rises there. 

The two figures below are lifted from an earlier DOTT planning report showing the two entrances in a bird's eye view and a cut-away drawing showing the entrance under the Library block and an optional one in the east under the Constitution Square complex.

                            double click to enlarge

Claridge is proposing three towers for the lot: a 28 storey condo (twice as tall as the Teron red brick condo already on the Bay street end of the block); a second 28 storey condo tower (taller than the Crowne Plaza, shorter than Place de Ville tower C); and a 22 storey condo tower. The height will be 81m (the current zoning permits 60m); all on a one storey commercial podium.

There is evidence in the literature that builders will pay a premium of up to 25% for sites close to a transit station. In this case, Claridge bought the site some years ago. So it has increased in value a lot. In turn, he can charge a premium for the condos there (about 4%), due to their proximity to the LRT station. Link:  http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_15290467 The story in the link -- from Denver, another snowy city like ours -- shows the proximity to transit is the second most important factor for residents there in selecting their high rise location.

And it would be very attractive to live in a complex directly connected to a transit station: all indoor connections via LRT to two universities and one college; to the Rideau Centre, convention centre, St Laurent, to the train station and eventually to the airport. And to many employment centres. The location will appeal to students, professors, young professionals, and seniors.  So will Claridge build the link to the LRT station?

I think if this was an office structure, Claridge would not hesitate to build the link. In this case and given the hot condo market, I think he would sell out easily whether the link to the station is across the street or within his building concourse. If I were Claridge, I'd build an elevator down to the station that was from a separate transit lobby connected to the condo concourse so residents could stay indoors, and public sidewalk users could access the elevator down- lobby from the sidewalk (but not enter the condo lobbies).

But, my sources indicate Claridge is not excited about a direct connection. Apparently, part of the problem is the unknown cost of maintaining the elevator, escalators,  and lobby, which would become the eventual responsibility of the condo owners. In this case, I think it logical to structure the access structures as a condominium itself, with the the three Claridge towers owning a part, and the city owning a part. Count the users every three years or so, and split the maintenance costs between the parties according to how many people use the elevator from the sidewalk vs the condo. The uncertainty risk is then split amongst several parties.

Another complication is that in the current DOTT plans, the city-constructed station entrance comes up through the new Library site. If the Library is not under construction by 2017, then a temporary building to house the top of the elevator shafts and escalators would be required on the Library site, to be later incorporated into the Library building. But what if the city gives up on the Library entrance for the opening of the LRT and instead builds the entrance on the north side of Albert, on the Claridge lot, as part of their condo development, and leaves the the Library access for construction later, when the library complex is actually built?? (this also gives more flexibility in where the station access would come up in the Library building -- on Albert street side or the Slater street side...)

I trust the city has senior staff -- backed up by some imaginative staff capable of thinking outside the box (and they do exist) --  negotiating with Claridge right now to come to some workable solution for a direct connection to the LRT station. If agreement is possible, it creates a valuable precedent and market vote of confidence in the value of connecting with the LRT underground.

Bushwacking for cyclists

Last week a group of concerned citizens participated with the City and its consultants on the routing exercise for the O-Train corridor cycling path (cyclopiste de Preston). Participants represented the NCC, Dalhousie and Hintonburg Community Associations, CfSC and Cycle Vision Ottawa members, a landscape architect, engineer, planner, and others.

The cycling arterial will connect the Ottawa River cycling paths to the Otrain at Bayview, run along the tracks behind the City Centre complex, under Somerset via a new underpass, behind the PWGSC complex at 1010 Somerset, and come out at ground level again at Gladstone. Then a short overground stretch would take it beside the city signals yard annex, under the existing Qway overpasses, to Young Street, where it would join a rebuilt existing path along the east side of the Otrain cut all the way to Carling. The NCC person was present on the bushwacking expedition to consider, amongst other things, where it goes at Carling and how it connects to the Farm paths.

The areas behind the City Centre and 1010 Somerset proved to be very dense bush, with constant surprises hidden in the tall grass, weeds, and shrubbery: the odd half truckload of asphalt or cement, bits of rail, sleeping bags, laptop computers, etc. It is difficult to imagine a safe-feeling path there given the area's current appearance, but with tree thinning, opening up vistas, improved fencing, path lighting, and some suggested alignment and elevation mods, it will work well with current and future developments proposed along the corridor.

The cycling underpass under Somerset is also planned to handle the possibility of a LRT station at that location. If all goes to plan, the underpass would be constructed in 2011 with the path completed in 2012.

If you click on the word cloud to the right of this blog posting, select Cyclopiste de Preston to read earlier posts on each segment or use the search button.

LRT station design

On behalf of the Dalhousie Community Association, comments were submitted on the guideslines for the LRT stations.

You can read about them here: http://dalhousiecommunityassociation.blogspot.com/2010/06/dca-comments-on-lrt-station-design.html

If you are reading this blog, and interested in some of the nitty-gritty of how stations impact our neighborhood, it might be worth a read. The city's document on LRT guidelines themselves is a thick document, probably available at their website.

Boston transit

One of the newest stations on the red line, near the Charles River, in Boston. The red line is a true metro, with wide cars, third rail, underground in the city but on a grade-separated right of way in the 'burbs and on bridges.

Stairs were poured concrete, but with rubber pads making the climb much easier on the feet. Escalators were provided only for the up direction.

Ottawa plans a sterile zone along its LRT tracks. Draw a line 45 degrees up from the rail, remove all vegetation, so nothing can fall on the track. Boston showed a more tolerant attitude. At this station, there were lots of trees -- probably self seeded -- very close to the train and the rail. Pleasant.

Boring Life downtown

Worked started on Monday doing test bore holes for the new Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT). Hopefully, the cost won't be wasted if the anti-tunnel Watson gets elected mayor.

The first bore hole is on the park just below the Juliana Apt building near the corner of Queen/Bronson/Hill Street. Each hole boring takes one to two days. While drilling, the crew takes rock samples to ensure what is deep under the downtown is what geologists currently expect to be there. The drilled hole will be capped off with a removable lid, but the hole underneath remains, and will have monitoring equipment in it to measure water flows (the DOTT is for dry people, not storm water). The entrance to the tunnel will be a few hundred meters west of this first hole, roughly where Brickhill Street runs between the two city parking lots on the north side of Albert.

Some of the later holes along Albert Street will be 160' deep, deeper than previous bore holes in the downtown core. Finding the deep water tables and the direction of the water flow (the "thalweg") will be new information that will also benefit future municipal and private sector construction projects.

drilling corner of Albert/Hill/Bronson

drilling on Albert opposite Ottawa Tech

This info is from the City: the Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Investigation for the tunnel portion of Ottawa’s Light Rail Transit (LRT) Plan is scheduled to commence on May 3, 2010 and run until mid-June.

The primary purpose of the Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Investigation will be to further advance our knowledge of the existing geology and groundwater conditions along the tunnel alignment. This information will inform the preliminary engineering and design of the LRT project.


A total of 23 geotechnical boreholes and 15 environmental boreholes will be drilled along the tunnel alignment. Work on each drill site will run from two to five days and on some locations minor traffic re-routing will be required.


Work begins on the western segment and will move East along the tunnel alignment.


Councillors of affected wards have been contacted and residents and businesses in proximity to the boring will be advised prior to commencement.

Bus Traffic on Scott/Albert

Presuming the conversion of the transitway from buses to LRT goes ahead after the upcoming municipal election -- and this is a big presumption since Watson, for one, is running on a platform of reexamining not just the tunnel component but even whether we should have LRT service at all (he seems to favour perpetual bus service)-- there will be many transitioning issues to deal with.

One contentious issue is what to do with the buses that currently run on the transitway while the road is being removed and rails and LRT stations are being installed. This was a big issue last year, and in my opinion a lot of the worst aspects have been addressed: http://www.http//westsideaction.blogspot.com/2009/10/dott-plans-affect-west-side-residents_4600.html, and http://www.http//westsideaction.blogspot.com/2009/10/dott-plans-affect-west-side-residents-v.html.  You can click on the links in the word cloud to the right to go back to read previous LRT and DOTT posts. There are still a number of issues to be addressed regarding how many buses will be shifted onto Scott Street between Tunney's and Bayview, and Albert Street from Bayview to downtown, during and after the construction period.

A somewhat alarmist poster and "fact sheet" are reproduced below. I will attend the walkabout. I am hoping that the organizers will show concern for catholic and french children in the area and invite those school trustees too.

I think it is important that the bus route concern not become a hammer to whack at the LRT project itself, or we run the risk of rising the tide of opposition (for various diverse and contradictory reasons) that might delay or kill the LRT project.

The poster:

The text on the back of the poster:

The Facts as we understand them:

• Scott Street is being proposed to be used as a temporary route for 3- 5 years as the light rail extension is being constructed. This is 3 buses a minute during rush hour and bus traffic 24 hrs a day.


• Scott St. is being proposed to be used permanently as a route for express buses coming from Kanata and Stittsville. This is to save suburban riders the inconvenience of transferring stations. It makes no sense to spend 1.2 Billion dollars on a transitway to then take buses off the new transitway and have them go down a residential street.


• Alternative routes are being considered,which are more suitable such as the Ottawa River Parkway which is not residential.


• Scott St. is already heavily travelled with traffic exceeding the speed limits. Adding a significant amount of bus traffic will make it dangerous to both local residents and pedestrians. Laneways and small streets off Scott will be next to impossible to turn onto, back out of especially during rush hour. The narrow sidewalk is not suitable and safe for pedestrians, especially children, with numerous fast vehicles so close. Many school children must cross Scott to get to school, which will be difficult with heavy traffic.


• Scott St is residential with some houses less than 6’ from the road (house at corner of Hilda and Scott) Houses are already sprayed with slush etc. which will only increase with numerous buses all day long.


• Our own local bus service has been cut to one bus every ½ hour.


• The original transitway was built below ground in order to protect the community from the noise, pollution and environmental consequences of mass transit so close to homes. No protection is being proposed for the residents of Scott St. in either the short term or long term.

A matter of Choice ...

Shown below is the Queensway, typical autumn mid-afternoon volume.

Shown below, the transitway. I gather that the transitway carries the same volume of passengers each year as does the Qway. Which one would you rather have cutting through your neighborhood?

Look again at the land take of the Qway, smell the fumes!

Yup, I think I prefer the transitway. And I will even more appreciate when it is converted to electric LRT service. The city is going to grow ... do we bitch forever about the cost of transit and continue to ignore the 10-20x larger expenditure on roads for commuters, or do we opt for transit?

More Detroit can do it ... can Ottawa?

http://www.metropolismag.com/

Shown is the Dequindre Cut, a former sunken rail line running through downtown Detroit. The St Clair River is in the background, with Windsor on the far (south!) side.

Detroit is reserving some of the cut for a future LRT line, but first it has built a bi-directional bike route and accompanying pedestrian path, with landscaping. Because the path is grade-separated from the street grid it is fast, direct, intersection-free, and has freeway-style on and off ramps that take cyclists in and out of the cut.

Detroit feels it is lucky to have a straight-line bike path going directly through the heart of established neighborhoods directly to the downtown and the riverfront recreational lands.

Do you notice the similarity to the Scott Street alignment where we built a sunken bus transitway 25 years ago and where we are now looking at a proper bike facility BikeWest? Do you notice the similarity to the OTrain cut where CPR lines were burried in 1960, where we have demo rail service but alas, still only bits and pieces of a bike route? Will the new LRT line that crosses LeBreton Flats just south of the current transitway be a stand-alone feature or will it have an accompanying grade-separated bike route into the downtown core?

We may get the BikeWest route someday, or the Cyclopiste de Preston, but only if we nag or politicians that we want first rate bike facilities and not just pretty signs nailed to telephone poles on the sides of roads.

More Turkey Talk on Tunnel

In a previous post on the downtown Ottawa transit tunnel (DOTT) I mentioned a presentation I saw at Transit Committee on Dec 16th comparing the surface and tunnel options.

The Committee has provided me with a copy of the powerpoint presentation by the Downtown Coalition. Here are the key slides, including the $100 million dollar saving figure. This figure might mean the tunnel saves $100m over a surface rail option, or that the tunnel saves $100m over the current BRT operation, its unclear to me. Their conclusion however remains that the tunnel has a reasonably quick payback period. Double click pictures to enlarge.

Transit Stations ... What will we get? ...

Detroit's downtown city bus station

This photo is of a new centre-island transit station in Detroit. Detroit is not the most viable city in the USA. We're not Flint ... nor Detroit. Will Ottawa's LRT system get anything as nice?

It has a tensile fabric outdoor shelter at the bus loading platforms and there is also a elevated people-mover station platform. The air conditioned and heated glass waiting room building is 25,000 sq ft, includes washrooms, ticketing, and shops. The whole thing cost $22 million dollars, and opened in June 09.

And here's the kicker: the entire terminal complex serves about 12,000 passengers a day -- which is about the same as the OTrain station at Bayview. Could anyone say our bus-shelter collection at these points is better than Detroit's?

Proposed Bayview station; click to enlarge

Thus far in the DOTT - LRT process all the outdoor (non-tunnel) stations have looked the same because the project team has a local-architect-on-board who has sketched in the stations. I presumed that the station architects were there to ensure the functional aspects of station design - pedestrian flow, access points, ensure there is enough space for an elevator well, escalator well, etc.

But at the last few DOTT meetings I recall that the stations have been described in much more definite terms: Tunney's station will look like this; this is what Bayview will look like, etc. I am wondering if the conceptual space planning is turning into a fait accompli?

What happened to the notion that LRT stations should reflect individual neighborhood identities (existing or proposed)? Do other LRT systems have uniform station design system-wide (like we did for the transitway) or unique stations?

Are unique stations reserved for politically and economically powerful neighborhoods whilst lower income neighborhoods or unorganized communities get off-the-shelf stations-from-a-kit?

Where is the we need a world-wide design competition crowd -- have they gone away because no stations are planned for the Glebe? Are Ottawa's transit stations going to be sole-sourced to the planning bureaucrats or the winning bidder architectural firm on the project planning level?

Proposed Tunney's bus centre-island transfer station and LRT station. No soaring roofs ... but soaring isn't usually associated with government office complexes. In the City of Ottawa, only taxes soar.

Read more about Detroit's station at http://www.metropolismag.com/lists/lt.php?id=eU0DAQUFUQFZUxoIAUwADgICAA%3D%3D

Transit Tunnel is no Turkey

The usual suspects are carping about the transit tunnel, again. Did the province provide funding? Apparently no good news is good enough -- they didn't provide 15-25% more than was asked for ... so it's disaster time. Ring-a-ling. Ding-a-ling. It's disaster time in the city ...

So what might happen if the tunnel portion was cancelled? Critics are quick to attach huge price tags to the tunnel portion. But these won't disappear if the tunnel is cancelled. After all the tunnel includes tracks (won't these be needed for the surface rail?); it includes stations and platforms (which will be needed at the surface too, and may have to be located on what is now private property that may have to be acquired by the city); signalling (which will be way more complex and expensive on the surface as it will have to accomodate private cars, trucks, and bus movements too), etc.

Surface rail brings its own unique costs too - streets will have to be dug up for years beforehand to relocate all access hatches (wo/manholes) outside of the track right of way, etc. Anyone visiting Toronto knows how slow the streetcars are and what chaos results in repairs to utilities crossing streetcar tracks or repairing the tracks themselves.

The last numbers I saw showed that cancelling the tunnel in favour of surface rail would result in a construction saving of about $300 million.

However, the system would suffer severe traffic flow impairment when it snows, or the streets are congested, or some bozo from upper lower Pointe Gatineau decides to block the track in order to squeeze through the intersection on his yellow light ....

And this doesn't even count the delays caused every day by north-south streets having a regular green light (which means the surface rail track is closed to train movements 60% of the time so the north-south motorist enjoys its green-yellow cycle). Let's throw in some Tamils or other protestors ... or striking civil servants who every few years close down the transitway by picketing at Place de Ville and a few other key spots that "accidentally" block the transitway.

What surface rail gets us in the downtown is a vulnerable transit system. Reliable it won't be. It will be  a very expensive rapid transit emulation system, aka a streetcar pretending to be a rapid transit system.

Transit committee received estimates that going for a surface rail option will, on a daily basis, result in sufficient impairment of service that a number of additional trainsets and operators will be required. How many? Well I saw estimates/calculations of about $100 million dollars per year of capital and operating cost for the additional equipment. [ Readers should see the comments received on this blog, which contest the dollars, time period and payback period for the operating savings. Once I receive the transit committee submission I'll post it on the blog ]  The "savings" in not building a tunnel would be eaten up  ...  by increased costs of surface rail in the core.

We can spend the money to build a tunnel that gives us a fast, reliable service in all weathers. Or we can spend the money operating a congested, grid-locked surface streetcar system. I know which one I choose.

For more on this same subject, including the source doucment, go to : http://westsideaction.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-turkey-talk-on-tunnel.html. Indeed, readers might want to scan several other entries in the last few weeks on the tunnel and station design.

Dubai, LRT lessons

Last week there was a interesting public presentation at City Hall on planning and development in Dubai. Presenter was Gordon Stratford of HoK architects and planners, a mulitnational consultancy.

In August 05 Dubai called tenders for a LRT system, and then opened the first 40km segment with 22 stations in Sept 09. The system is expected to grow to 70km with 43 stations, although the 2012 opening date may be delayed given the statlet's decline into near insolvency  recent debt restructuring moves.

I recall that at the June LRT technology forum held at City Hall, the winner equipment provider was on hand to show off their technology and had slides of the Dubai solutions.

The important point is not that some places can build a system faster than Ottawa. That should be easy, if public consultation is unheard of, environmental review processes are non-existant, etc. and there is a taxpayer (or lender) be damned attitude at the government level. The lesson from Dubai is that growing cities world-wide are investing in LRT and public transit as they realize that catering to ever-more car traffic is the road to ruin. Ottawa is growing at a much slower pace than frontier cities like Dubai, but still has to plan and build infrastructure that will serve the city well for the next century at least. And that is not going to be found by building more busways into the core (hello STO and busway to LeBreton!) or by stop-gap surface rail in the core. As long as the downtown remains a major commercial and employment node and tourist hub in the metro area, we are going to need rapid congestion-free LRT service, and that means grade separated, probably in a tunnel.

Dalhousie Community Assoc responds ...

Wearing my other hat, and with much input from other members of the Dalhousie Community Association board, the DCA sent two letters. One to the Marie Lemay of the NCC regarding the bad idea for bringing Rapibus to Ottawa over the POW bridge; and the other is detailed comments on the current state of the Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel study.

You can read both of these letters at http://www.dalhousiecommunityassociation.blogspot.com/

NCC to Quebecers: Back [on the] Bus

 

Proposed modernist Bayview LRT station is elevated and long. The proposed STO bus terminal would be off the left. Click to enlarge photo.

Planning in a Federal capital region is not just about good planning on utilitarian "planning' terms. A good chunk of it is political planning and symbolism too.

In the past,  separatist elements in Quebec made hay from the disparate images of the Quebec side of the river (low rise, lower income housing, industrial mills) and the Ottawa side of the river (shiny high rises set high on a green hill). They drew a direct line to the federal purse, discrimination, second class status, etc.

The response from the Feds was politically / symbolically motivated. The Portage Bridge appeared, the Ottawa River Parkway was rerouted so that Wellington appeared to go directly to Hull while Ontario users had to "turn" to continue in Ontario. High rise cubicle farms sprouted on the Quebec side. Museums and prestige buildings materialized. Confederation Boulevard.

The major planning decisions for roads, transit, and buildings, in the Ottawa-Gatineau area have traditionally had a strong Federal political element.

Today, I fear the Feds are about to step in la merde in a rather big way.

Ottawa planned and built its transitway (bus rapid transit, or BRT) a few decades ago. It was a reasonable decision for the size of the city as it was then. It was always designed to be convertible to LRT, which is where we are heading now. On the Quebec side, the City is now planning and constructing its own BRT system called Rapibus. I presume that Gatineau is making a rational decision given its population density, geographic area, costs, etc.

The problem comes in the downtown area where the two systems -- LRT and BRT -- will meet.

There is currently a front-running proposal in the NCC-chaired interprovincial transit study to bring the Rapibus system over to a terminal in Ottawa. If the Prince of Wales railway bridge is rebuilt as a two-lane BRT for STO buses (a repeat of the Alexandra Bridge solution adopted almost half a century ago) the national unity optics are terrible: English commuters ride sleek and shiny LRTs to the downtown, French commuters ride old-technology diesel buses to the periphery where they are then permitted to transfer to the LRT.

Election 2020: If I were the PQ, I'd be snapping pictures of the two modes from an aerial point over the Ottawa River looking south, ie the view from Quebec. It would show the Federally-funded bright red trains entering the modern very long elevated glass and steel Bayview Station, and Quebecers shuffling past bus shelters on their traipse through wind-whipped snow to get to first class transit.

Of course, the national unity side could score with a slightly different system: build the LRT line over the POW bridge to stop at Terrace de la Chaud and then run along the surface of Rue Principale to Place du Portage. Then the picture shows Federal money delivering the smart-growth green technology of the future to the voters of Quebec. I'd even paint the LRT vehicles on the first part of this great circle loop in STO colours, regardless of who operated them.

Which picture will the NCC be setting up?

DOTT plans affect west side residents (xii): Booth Station

The Booth Street station is location directly under the new elevated Booth Street overpass. The overpass crosses over the station and the aquaduct. The new LRT alignment is a few meters south of the current transitway which is closer to the aquaduct. Most frightening about this drawing is the abundance of car traffic lanes on Booth, the awful manoevering required to get buses from the Booth St bus stop over to the centre lane to turn onto Albert to go uptown, and the generous addition of lanes to Albert Street in both directions. Somehow, a transit project is providing lots of expensive car commuter infrastructure and generous road widenings on prime downtown development land. Just who will rush to live in condos facing such over-sexed roadways? What happened to neighborhood connectivity, with these proposed huge automotive rips to the urban fabric of Dalhousie neighborhood.

DOTT plans - posts updated

Note that the previous nine or so posts on the downtown Ottawa transit tunnel (DOTT) and LRT project have now been updated to include some sketches and plans from the City and its consultants. I invite you to go back to look at the posts again, which may make more sense when illustrated.

As usual, click on each picture to enlarge it to full screen.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (x): Campus Station

The Ottawa U station on the new DOTT system will be located near the location of the current surface transitway Campus station. Recall that early plans had a new surface station here, but it made more sense to keep the LRT service in the tunnel longer to avoid having the trains climb to the surface and then descend again towards Lees Avenue, and the underground option also facilitates surface car traffic on the roads. This logical change to a better plan is, of course,  headlined as an example of wildly escalating DOTT costs, overruns, etc.

 (Note that this and other benefits to car traffic will be expensed as a DOTT expenditure, not charged to the general transportation budget. It is worth emphasizing because many of the DOTT expenditures will deliver great benefits to motorists (not the least of which is getting buses out of the downtown) but motorists will not pay a cent specifically for the benefits but can complain bitterly about the overly-expensive LRT).

The new Campus station will be located somewhat closer to the Canal than the current station. This shift is done to minimize surface road disruption during construction (car benefit!). But it generates some interesting benefits to residents of centretown. The station, like the others, will have two entraces. One will be a bit south of the current pedestrian underpass and Campus transitway station. The other will be a few hundred meters north. Most intriguingly, the north station entrance will be very close to the end of the new Corktown (Somerset Street) pedestrian and cyclist bridge. Recall that this much derrided and mocked bridge has proven very popular with residents, pedestrians, cyclists, and visitors, and resulted in new linkages between neighborhoods.

It is yet to be worked out if the new north entrance could be right at the eastern edge of the Corktown Bridge. This would make the Campus Station into a Golden Triangle station as well, and offer LRT service conveniently to City Hall, the Court House, and Elgin Street. The station access design is difficult here, with the various conditions attached to the Corktown Bridge design, the heritage status of the Canal, etc but it is exciting to consider the urban planning benefits of having one of the north entrances located right at the end of the bridge. (Does anyone else not feel there is something a bit wrong with the current handling of the bridge pedestrians and cylists that have to descend from the bridge to a at-grade road crossing, before ascending again into the campus? It always seems to me to be overly circuitous, inconvenient, and incomplete. Pedestrians go out of their way because the motorists come first).

I gather Ottawa U officials are ecstatic about the Campus Station design and entrance points. The DOTT LRT service will greatly improve the accessability and attractiveness of their business to all regions of the City.

DOTT plans affect west side residents (viii): Tunney's station

At Monday's public open house, city planners will unveil the final system plans for the DOTT and LRT facilities to be constructed as the first phase of a city-wide sytem. The western terminus of the LRT will be at Tunney's until the LRT is extended west. A major bus transit to LRT facility will be constructed at Tunney's.

The current bus station is in the cut immediately west of Holland Avenue. The new station will be in the same place. The earlier plans for a centre platform LRT station have been scrapped, to avoid having to widen the cut under the Holland overpass. Instead, there will be two side platforms, just like now. The new platforms will be wider than they are now. The two tracks will extend a few hundred meters further west than the station platforms, to allow for the storage / positioning of extra rush hour trains, for switching trains from one track to another, and for any "dead" trains that need to be sidelined until they can be removed in the quiet hours.

plan of new station, bus staging and transfer area to north side, Scott side for local buses only; where did the bike path go to?

The existing transitway bus shelters, 25 years old and badly rusted, are nearing the end of their life, and will be scrapped. A solid flat roof, level with the top of the cut, will be constructed as the new roof for the platforms. This roof will be much higher than the current shelters. The solid platform roofs will be joined over the tracks by a glass roof section, making the whole station somewhat indoors, but open at the ends for the trains. The platform waiting areas will not be heated, but will be "tempered" from the extremes of hot and cold. There may be heated areas within the station, somewhat similar to the heated shelters at some existing transitway stations. The new roofs of the platforms may be "green roofs" (planted).

On the north side, the platforms will access a new tunnel access extending north and then up to an island platform for the bus transfer station. This will look somewhat like the current Hurdman transitway island station. Most arrivals and departures will occur from the north platform. The south platform will be used at rush hour and in the future when the LRT service is extended west to Lincoln Fields. Users on the north platform will be able to access the south platform when necessary (there will be TVmontiors to advise users which track will have the next train) via an overhead walkway or directly across the tracks at grade at the west end of the station.

The current pedestrian crossing of the transitway cut is deemed too narrow for the anticipated volumes of pedestrian traffic. It will be replaced by a new crossing, about 3x wider than the current one. The planners hope to keep the current elevator shafts, and maybe even the "buildings" at each end of the current bridge.

Buses on the transitway can currently climb up out of the cut at Tunney's. This access road will be relocated several hundred meters west, and made more gentle, as all transitway buses will have to exit the cut to the new transfer station at Tunney's.

The transfer station at Tunney's will receive huge volumes of traffic during the first phase of the LRT project, because allmost all bus passengers will transfer to LRT at Tunney's. The station is busy for accessing the employment node as well. Once the LRT service is extended further west in 5-20 years, the facilities will continue to be used for a more intensely developed Tunney's employment node and as a major transfor point for local bus services delivering passengers the line-haul LRT service. Local bus service east-west will be further reduced in favor of delivering N-S passengers to the LRT spine.

Planners have identified the east-west cycling route as passing directly in front of the station doors facing Scott Street, and continuing along the street level bus stops. This is exactly the same unsatisfactory situation as cyclists currently face when passing Tunney's. It is dangerous for cyclists, for pedestrians, and buses. There is a better way, which will be the subject of another post.