Prince of Wales maintenance

Picture taken yesterday from the bike path on the west side of the War Museum, looking upriver. A service vehicle is on the Prince of Wales bridge near the Quebec side.

Closer view, shows the vehicle has two sets of wheels, rubber ones for the road and steel wheels for driving on rails. What it is doing?

Men in cherry picker extendable arm are working on the side of the bridge.

Arm continues to extend, now right under the whole bridge, the men are beyond the far side of their vehicle. It is rather like using your left hand to scratch your right side.

Working on the underside. Double click to enlarge.

Recently while cycling past the Quebec side of the POW bridge I noticed a security guard on duty, guarding the track/bridge. Upon questioning, I found out there is a guard on duty 24/7. He prevents people from cutting across the river via the bridge (the big fences at each end having been kicked down by thwarted peds). Upon further questioning, he said he was guarding the Fibre Optic Cable (FoC -- as seen frequently painted on downtown streets, along with Bell and other cables that get marked). What is there to steal in FoC? I thought FoC was plastic tube, not copper wire.

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.

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.

Integrating streets, sidewalks, with ped-bike paths

There is a pedestrian-cyclist path along the east side of the Otrain cut from Carling to Young Street. Hopefully this path will be rebuilt and extended next year (a study is underway) to become a really useful cycling link "Cyclopiste de Preston".

Some careful thought needs to be given to how the path will connect to the sidewalks and pavements of the adjacent dead-end streets - there are many of them.

Currently, only one street has its sidewalk (and only on one side) properly connect to the recreational path. This works well for pedestrians, but what are cyclists supposed to do? Walk their bike? (unlikely); ride on the sidewalk then swerve onto the road? (likely) and the movement is even more awkward for those going from the street to the path as the connection is only on the wrong (left) side of the road.

For many of the side streets, there simply isn't a proper connection between the city sidewalk and city pedestrian path a few meters further along:

And sometimes the informal goat trail connection cannot align well with the sidewalk at all. These trails are muddy, some are steep, all are awkward and unmaintained.

Hickory-Champagne Condo Site

Mastercraft-Starwood acquired the Aquerello site on Champagne Avenue at Hickory some months ago. This site is immediately north of the Arnon proposed office towers at 853 Carling, and immediately south of the current and soon to be redeveloped humane society site. The new condos will border the OTrain on the east side of their site.

Their proposal is for high condo buildings positioned to view Dow's Lake. Recall that Hickory Street is likely to be continued across the Otrain corridor cut as a pedestrian street, which will also improve access to the Otrain station there for all the new developments proposed for this area. Recall too that Domicile has acquired the small printing plant located on the west side of Champagne at Hickory for a proposed 12 storey condo tower with six townhouses facing Hickory.

To see the artists sketches of the proposed condo towers from various viewpoints, go to this link http://app01.ottawa.ca/postingplans/appDetails.jsf?lang=en&appId=__7UMT1F and click on the pdf's for the 3 elevation pictures and the site plan.

There is also a story on the proposal in Ottawa Business Journal, at this link:
http://www.obj.ca/Real-Estate/Residential/2010-02-19/article-795846/Developers-file-plans-for-Little-Italy-condo-towers/1

Slippery Slope of Pedestrian Desires

Pedestrians climb over the significant height of the steel barrier to leave the sidewalk and climb down the slope along Albert Street at Tom Brown arena. At the foot of the slope, they cross the soccer field or parking lots at a diagonal, heading towards West Wellington or Bayview/Bayswater.

The worn out slope is quite wide, indicating the volume of pedestrian desire is so large is might be termed pedestrian lust.

The "landing zone" on the slope is almost a foot lower than the sidewalk, worn down by all the users. [Notice the curious shaddow of the man - it seems upsidedown! Must be a trick of the Hintonburg Sun Angle apparent only on select days]

The latest planning documents for Hintonburg have indentified this slope as needing a staircase and path at the bottom. Alas, the document has not yet been approved. If the Otrain station is relocated to the west side of cut, as proposed in the most recent DOTT plans, pedestrian access should be routed to the south side of Albert (going under the Albert St overpass) rather than the north side as it is for the current Otrain station. .

Lansdowne Live

Some misc observations on Lansdowne Live, and in particular the meeting last night at arena Tom Brown arena.

1. Opponents are well organized, sporting custom printed apparel and carry bags (made of recycled hemp, I hope) and handing out reams of photocopied green paper that may have required the souls of every tree in the Glebe. Of course, the Glebe trees are still there (at least along Ralph and Percy when I walked up those streets yesterday) so trees from some other place were sacrificed. Sacrificing somewhere else seems a common theme.

2. The green shirters took off their shirts to sit among the audience or ask questions at the mike, at last night's Live meeting, thus appearing as 'unaffiliated' citizens when they hissed and boo'd answers and people they didn't like. As the meeting ended, the team uniforms were pulled on again. We require lobbyists to register so we know who is meeting whom, it might be nice if citizen lobbyists for one particular cause did the same by keeping their shirts on. (I wore a sweater and jacket throughout the meeting, the air conditioning worked well and continuously despite the crowded room).

3. Cullen, running for mayor, repeatedly referred to Bayview as the best site. He did not mention any alternative sites, certainly none in the Glebe or Ottawa South. He did not mention whether the local residents should have any voice in the matter. He gave every impression his mind was completely made up.

4. I am amazed at the ability of residents and politicians  to call for consultative planning but conveniently ignore the fact that the Bayview site already has a plan for 1600 medium density housing units and a 300,000 sq ft civic building (envisioned in the 2004 study final to be the library, which is now going elsewhere). But no where was a 25,000 seat stadium mentioned. I reviewed this with city planning staff and other community groups, and they confirm a stadium was not on the books. I also reread the Bayview report. Nary a stadium in sight, despite Martin claiming that residents have been consulted.

5. Getting into the Live meeting at Tom Brown was like running a gauntlet of time share salespeople in Mexico, with hyper-ventilating sales people pushing the merits of their real estate dreams. The alternatives to Lansdowne only look attractive because they are not fleshed out, they are conceptual ideas only, being compared to a detailed Lansdowne plan. Of course it is easy to pick at the detailed plan and fantasize about the vague one. Sell the sizzle.

6. I am constantly amazed at the people - politicians, architects, professors - who use one set of words to tell us why Lansdowne is Bad Plan (parking horrors! ugly stadium! sensitive neighborhood!) but then switch vocabulary when suggesting alternatives such as Bayview (civic structure! pedestrian paradise! transit nirvana!).  Residents of the Bayview area may be lower income than the Lansdowne area but we are not stupid.

 7. I am surprised how many people latch onto flimsy straws that support their views without thinking it through. Parking around Lansdowne - now and in the future - will be a problem. So will transit access. So people jump to the Bayview site as solving all this because its on one or more LRT lines (so would the Carleton site, but hey, that's too close to ... ). Well, Bluesfest is located just a few hundred meters east of Bayview, equally right on the transit line, and the neighborhood was plagued with parking problems as thousands of attendees drove to the event and tried to park on lawns, bouelevards, and park space when they couldn't find free on-street parking in the first block off the site. What will make all these people suddenly decide to take transit to the stadium?

8. People at the meeting derrided the park and ride schemes proposed in the Lansdowne Live plan, saying no one would park at Carleton U ($$) or Billings Bridge (because the mall is open 7 days a week and most evenings). But then, how would transit work for Bayview if people aren't expected to park at Lincoln fields, College Square, St Laurent and other shopping centres to take the LRT? Is the City expected to provide new larger park and ride lots for 24,000 cars? If so, shouldn't we consider where and at what cost?

9. Martin proposes a Bayview stadium that is sunk into the ground to partially hide it. As a resident of the Bayview area, and a walker, I can certainly attest to what planners know but seldom boast about: Bayview and LeBreton are low lying areas subject to cold winds from the west and north. They are, in short, thermal sinks. This might be a contributing reason they have always been low income areas. A sunken sadium would be even lower. Can Mick Jagger say "Brr"; Can Kiss-y cats fluff their fur? Surely outdoor concerts would be more comfortable at Lansdowne.

10. And just where does the Bayview parking structure go? Under the sunken stadium, five stories below the River level? And all those people leaving Bayview in their cars ... are they using the Ottawa River Commuter Expressways, even though using the Driveways is disparaged for Lansdowne? Which is it: NCC roads are usable, or not?

11. When the City first faced two competing stadium bids, I was surprised at how quickly centretown residents ruled out Kanata. Much of this is a knee jerk reaction, an antipathy to suburban development which must be derrided as dormitory land and forbidden to diversify. To my mind, the Scotiabank site was pretty attractive: it's far away from me, residents who move in will know they are getting the open air concerts forbidden to the sensitive ears of downtown residents, and it might be enough incentive to extend the LRT to Kanata sooner than later, so we can get rid of BRT in favour of LRT. And it has plenty of parking already.

12. Will the Green Shirt fiscal-hawks be around when alternative stadium sites are being planned for? Or are they really just opponents of a stadium at Lansdowne disguising their opposition in the guise of fiscal and procedural rectitude?

13. If a stadium is bad for established neighborhoods, such as the Glebe/Ottawa South, why is good for other residential areas? Wouldn't honesty require Lansdowne location opponents to oppose stadiums in other residential or urban areas and favour industrial locations? Alas, no such subtle thinking was apparent last night.

14. Questioners focussed on the long term viability of Lansdowne Live: what will become of the stadium in 30 or 60 or 100 years? The obvious answer is that sole city ownership has proven itself a failure as the stadium is crumbling around itself; the Live plan delivers a cash stream to keep the stadium maintained. Would that people were so concerned with the long-term consequences of all city decisions and expenditures.

15. Three politicans were present last night. Cullen took every opportunity to promote himself and Bayview, although Bayview is far from his ward (maybe that's why...). Kitchissippi ward councillor Leadman was there. She represents Bayview area, but said nary a word pro or con Bayview or even that maybe, just maybe, the surrounding community should be consulted and impacts on the area considered. Such admirable restraint! Wilkinson was there too, and did not embarass herself. Holmes was not there to put in a word for her ward which abuts the Bayview site.

16. The city manger Kent Kirpatrick handled hostile questions with grace and skill and in-depth knowledge. It was in marked contrast to the three politicans present. Kirpatrick for mayor !


Finally, a note on my own personal view: I do not think stadiums are easily integratable into urban areas, anywhere. I think stadiums are a component of a vital urban area that offers diverse entertainments and environments, even though I cannot recall ever attending a Lansdowne stadium event.  I am not adverse to looking at Bayview as a stadium site. I am adverse to being stuck with a stadium because an affluent bureaucracy-savy neighorhood gets a below-mediocre council to suddenly jump off a hot stove onto the nearest, ill-thought-out alternative. If Lansdowne Live is killed, what is the alternative?

Otrain "temporary" station at Bayview

When the OTrain service began in 2001 it was a "temporary" experiment to see if Ottawan's would like a train. That the service - derrided as being from nowhere to nowhere - quickly exceeded its longer time ridership projections was a pleasant surprise. Today it carries 50% more riders than the optimistic forecast.

Still, being an experiment and all, the stations were designed to be "temporary". Bayview Station was no exception. The City engineers designed the paved paths with steeply sloping gravel sides. No doubt their text books and tables told them that these would be "stable". Of course, in the real world people walk on the verges, OC Transpo maintenance vehicles and snowplows drive on the paths, and they have erroded. In many places 10" to 14" of the asphalt path has broke off, leaving a dangerous to walk on edge. In the few spots where the gravel base extended out further or cannot be walked on because of the handrail, there is no breaking up of the surface.

Temporary facility or not, maintenance is essential. Repairs are required now.

Light Rail and the SW (OTrain) route

I am constantly amazed at what I hear about light rail planning in the City.

I have to conclude it doesn't matter what happens, people will simple reinterpret it (twist it) to fit their own preconceived agenda. It is part of the hyper-partisan-ization of our society that I find distressing.

There was a SW transit plan under Mayor Chiarelli. It ran on street surface in the downtown, accross the Flats and Dalhousie neighborhoods,  and turned south at Bayswater, ran along the OTrain line, managed to miss the airport, to Riverside,  to the new Strandherd Bridge over the Rideau and thence into Barrhaven where it ended.

The plan had a number of merits. It put transit into a rapidly growing area at the same time as the population moved in, which meant people could get used to transit from day 1, and the street plan could be shaped to feed to it. It serviced a lot of underused lands en route to Riverside. It did not go to Kanata or Orleans, because those areas already had the transitway. It was to cost well less than a billion dollars.

Voters turned it down. Some because it was too expensive. Some because it wasn't expensive enough: they wanted a tunnel. Others wanted it to go East-West first, even though most of the new LRT would simply replace existing BRT. Thus was born an unwiedly coalition of nay-sayers who voted to delay the SW - LRT til a later point in building out the LRT transit system.

After the election, the east-west route took priority. To appease those who did not want surface rail in the downtown, it was put in a tunnel. Even if the LRT could run on the surface for a while, it wasn't a good long term solution, which the tunnel is. Those who claimed the SW - LRT was too expensive gladly voted for the more expensive tunnel version. Converting the BRT transitway to LRT was seen as progressive, even if it didn't give a huge boost to ridership. From a strategic point of view, these Council decisions are defensible.

Along comes the recession and government stimulus money. Stimulus money isn't to be spent far in the future if it is to stimulate us out of a recession, it needs to be spent soon (unless you are US Congress which will announce the majority of their stimulus money next June, before their re-election, and well after the recession is over). The stimulus in Canada requires municipalities to accelerate or bring foreward planned projects so that they can be implemented sooner than otherwise planned and stimulate the economy. This means projects that are already in the planning pipeline. They are not to be the projects the City planned to build this year anyway - that wouldn't be a stimulus, it would just replace municipal money with federal money. Ottawa has two transit plans with environmental approvals: the E-W  LRT from Blair to Tunney's, and the SW - LRT from Bayview south.

The City is suggesting it could build the segment from Bayview to Riverside immediately. This is NOT the old SW plan that included the street surface tracks in the downtown. It does not include the link to Barrhaven. It builds on elements from the old SW plan, which Council has previously decided needs to be built someday, and offers it up for immediate funding. This is smart politics. If other levels of government are waving money around, rejiggle City transit projects timelines around a bit to take advantage of the free - or at least cheap - money.

Let's not forget other elements of the transit route nirvana. The NCC, Gatineau, and Ottawa are examining a better linkage of interprovincial transit. The most logical first-phase outcome, in my opinion, would be a LRT service from Rideau through the new tunnel to Bayview Station and thence north accross the Prince Of Wales Bridge to Gatineau. Say goodbye to most of those blue buses in downtown Ottawa, and hello to a busier LRT system. The converted OTrain alignment looks pretty prescient in this case.

Take a valium Ottawa, the unfolding LRT plans are not to everyone's liking, never will be. But they are certainly not a disaster.

[Note that the extension of the LRT from Tunney's west to Lincoln Fields is not eligible for short-term stimulus money because the route hasn't been decided on yet. There is still lots of consultation and hand-wringing to do].

Bayview re-landscaped

Looking east on Albert as it goes over the OTrain

Boulevard trees, west side of Bayview seen from Scott

Curious curb jogs, seen from Somerset looking north

Field of Trees, between TomBrown Arena and Albert

Sometimes the City makes me very happy. Like when I see the amount of generous landscaping going in along Bayview Avenue between Somerset and Albert/Scott.

For several years the City waterworks people have been burying high pressure water mains in the area. Approx.where the sidewalk is shown in picture 4 & 5 is the route of the pipeline. There was a bare grassy lawn running from Tom Brown arena's bright orange roof over to the intersection of Scott/Bayview/Bayview/Albert (that's right - all four streets at this intersection have different names, possibly a record for Ottawa). The area was used for staging construction supplies and got all chopped up. Now there is topsoil and a host of new trees. My only regret here is that once again the City cannot bear to actually pave the desire lines that pedestrians wear into the grass showing where they really want to go, but the city makes the sidewalk follow the street line as if pedestrians are just slow cars. By next year, the grass will be worn into a few popular walking lines, diagonally over to Albert Street.

At least the sidewalks here are not glued firmly to the curbline, but are set back generously from the curb, with trees planted in the boulevard, as shown in picture 2. I do hope all these trees survive.

It is always difficult to picture the final layout and appearance of the streetscape before it is all put in place. Certainly I have been fooled before by what something looks like in isolation, but makes more sense as more elements are put in place. But looking down the Bayview the curb line from Somerset the jogs do not make much sense. Bayview is wide at Somerset, to allow for three lanes of traffic and to align with Bayswater on the south side of the interesection. As Bayview goes downhill from Somerset, the street narrows to a two lane road. But notice in picture 3 that the road then becomes much wider again where the new pavement starts, and over the next 40m or so goes back to a narrower roadway. The widening cannot be used for parking, as it is a row of townhouse driveways (and the sidewalk in front of them stays depressed, it doesn't roller-coaster every driveway!). I'll keep an eye on this, but it looks bizarre now.

Picture 1 is looking uphill along Albert as it ascends to go over the OTrain tracks. There used to be a lengthy "merge" lane here. When the City help public meetings on these roadwords, they had kept the merge lane in place, and I had a lengthy debate with the engineers as to why they shouldn't have one (it isn't a Qway merge lane, after all!) and that City policy required they remove it. They insisted it stay. Now its gone, and that is good news. I hope some trees appear in the boulevard.

BTW, the sidewalk running up the hill is brand new concrete squares. The City actually took out and replaced all those squares just last year. Maybe second time lucky ...

This wouldn't be my blog if it didn't contain a beef about the City, and here it is. The high pressure water pipe project runs from Bronson to Bayview. The portion from Bronson to Empress is beautifully landscaped with path and trees and pedestrian lighting, even though the area along the path is subject to redevelopment in the near future and Albert Street is to be reconstructed. Then, there is no landscaping from Empress to Preston to City Centre Avenue, and the City refuses to plant trees because it would be only "temporary" until developments come along the street. But these new buildings are not scheduled to come for another 20-plus years! Then, once the pipeline crosses the OTrain, the lush landscaping resumes. Did our neighborhood do something wrong that we can't get trees from Empress to City Centre?

855 Carling, part ii

The Ottawa Civic Hospital Community Assoc. held a meeting on Tuesday evening. On the agenda was the 855 Carling Ave project proposed by Arnon Developments. They already own the two red brick office towers on Carling between Preston and Rochester (a site I vaguely recall might already have planning approval for a third tower?)

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From their planning documents I had concluded in my post a few days ago that this was a rezoning well in advance of any project, but at the meeting it became clear that this project might proceed in the near future, and my interpretation was wrong. The new building will be close to the lot line on the Carling side, but the lot line is set considerably back from the existing sidewalk, so the new building will be set back about the same distance as the existing CMPA towers to the west. If Carling is widened, perhaps in conjunction with a median LRT transit line, the hardscaping might get closer to the building, but until then it will be as suburban looking as the CMPA towers, which is a shame.

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The proponent noted that the 800 car parking garage would operate for one office shift a day, whereas the existing 300 car lot on the site today operates for 3 civic hospital shifts (there is a shuttle bus and waiting shelters) so the traffic impact of the new building will be similar to what is there now. The new garage would be four floors deep, which is considerably deeper than the adjacent OTrain cut. Apparently there are talks with the City about extending the building excavation right out to the OTrain cut.

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The rezoning and increased FSI for this site should not be considered in isolation. There is a Community Development Plan (CDP) neighborhood planning study for the redevelopment of the Carling to Bayview corridor (remaining old stuff from the railway era needs to be replaced with developments meeting current needs and the transit corridor opportunity) but the CDP was stalled when the north south LRT project was cancelled about 2 years ago. It is apparently getting going again (3 cheers ! something right from City hall !) and is the proper place to consider the height and FSI for this site, in conjunction with the other sites along the LRT

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I am very concerned with the possibilities for squandering the transit oriented development opportunities presented at this site. The developer has a main entrance on the east side, adjacent the station, and he indicated he was amenable to connecting it directly to the station. Such a connection needs to be all season, weatherproof, and perhaps climate controlled to compete with the 800 car parking garage in this building alone.

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But further planning is needed to access the CMPA buildings and Merion Square condos and the residential neighborhood to the OTrain/LRT to make it as convenient as possible. This might mean through-building access, or a link to Hickory Street pedestrian overpass over the cut. It is rare enough to find a lot of vacant land, ready for development in the next decade, right on top of a major transit station, and possibly the junction of two transit lines (the north-south and Carling LRT).

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Keep in mind also the land south of Carling, currently a grass field, is NOT NCC parkland nor part of the experimental farm, but is zoned for high-density mixed-use development. The OTrain and LRT station needs to be connected to this site too, and that does not mean a crosswalk with push-button placebo, it means a proper underpass from the station to the south side, also accomodating the bike path.

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The southmost anchor for development of that site is already there, but under threat, as the Feds are proposing to demolish the Sir John Carling building whereas it should be repurposed, perhaps as a condo.

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The 855 Carling developer is asking for increased FSI. The City should not grant it without some price. In the earlier CDP process, I advocated for covering part of the OTrain cut near Beech Street to expand Larouche Park. This neighborhood is a park desert. This is a marvelous opportunity to double-deck the narrow OTrain corridor so we get both transit-oriented development and neighborhood improvement.

855 Carling Avenue

855 Carling is a parking lot bounded by the OTrain Carling Station, Champagne Avenue S, and Carling Avenue. Immediately west of the site is the CMPA office buildings and beyond that is the Merion Square townhouse and two apartment towers being built by Domicile. The site is currently used as a park and ride lot for the Civic Hospital. The lot is owned by Arnon Developments, which tore down Campbell Steel and related industrial works on the site a number of years ago. The photo above is taken from Carling Ave near the Otrain Station, looking northwest.

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The planning document excerpt shows the site viewed from further north and east of the site, with Carling Avenue running left-right across the centre of the picture and the OTrain running top to bottom.

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The Arnon proposal is seeking not so much to build two office towers, the tallest one 15 floors, as to get the City to agree to the size of building, floor area, and location. If approved, Arnon will then consider whether to build an office, residential, or mixed office-residental building(s), and when, if ever to build them. In short, they feel the time is right to lock in an upzoning of the site.

Something similar was done for the theoretical condo tower on Preston at Sydney. Once rezoned, the proponent went away, there is no sign of any intention to build the condo, the owners wanted to strike while the City is readily approving upzoning. Sadly, Arnon is proposing upzoning for its theoretical building based on the proposed height of the unbuilt theoretical building on Preston. Only Domicile is actually building anything in the area, although Charlesfort and other developers are knocking on doors (metaphorically and physcially) throughout the area. The recent site cleanup of the old Esso at the corner of Carling and Preston has readied that lot for redevelopment.

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I cannot blame the developers for doing what they want to do. I do regret that the City has dropped the ball, letting the Carling-Bayview Community Development Plan get stalled. This CDP was well on its way to completion when the city put it on hold, because the N-S LRT line was postponed. I, and members of the Dalhousie Community Assoc (representing the neighborhood immediately to the east) have been nagging the City to get the plan restarted, precisely so that all the properties ripe for rezoning along the OTrain Corridor could be planned in a coherent manner. The Arnon proposal is not necessarily at odds with what the CDP proposed, but it misses several opportunities, such as a direct link to the OTrain, possibly covering the Otrain cut to increase the lot green area, connecting bike and pedestrian networks, etc. The City should postpone the rezoning application until the Carling-Bayview CDP is completed (which should be quite quick that much of it was already done).

Prince of Wales Bridge

A while ago I questioned the lack of visible maintenance on the Prince of Wales railway bridge over the Ottawa River from Bayview Station to Gatineau. This is an important link in interprovincial transit.

Apparently the City is preparing a maintenance plan. The plan will cost 1.8 million; the repairs or rehabilitation another 20 t0 40 million dollars:

M E M O / N O T E D E S E R V I C E




To / Destinataire
Mayor and ToMembers of Council
File/N° de fichier: File Number
From / Expéditeur
Wayne Newell - FromDirector, Infrastructure Services Department

Subject / Objet
SubjectPrince of Wales Bridge
Date: 18 June 2009Date4 June 2009

On 4 March 2009 Transit Committee passed the following motion:

That the following Motion be referred to staff:

WHEREAS the Chaudière Bridge has proven to need rehabilitation and that supplementary corridors might be needed to assist in short-term inter-provincial transportation demand management;

AND WHEREAS the implementation of light rail on the Prince of Wales bridge would allow reallocation of the current bus fleet to provide additional service across the city;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT City staff be directed to immediately develop a Class A estimate for the rehabilitation of the Prince of Wales Bridge and associated track for light rail use;

AND THAT City staff be directed to report back to Committee and Council on the outcome of the Class A estimate.

The Prince of Wales Bridge is formed by two structures (north and south) separated by an island – comprised of six spans in the south structure and seven spans in the north structure. The clear width of the structure is approximately 5 m carrying one track only. The total crossing length is 989m. The structures were built in 1879 and were last rehabilitated in 1926.

In May 2005, the City purchased this bridge as a possible future transit crossing from Canadian Pacific Railway as part of the NS Light Rail Transit project. Prior to the purchase, the City conducted a visual inspection and condition assessment of the below water piers and abutments. A visual structural analysis was also conducted for the superstructure.

In January 2007, an inspection of the rail infrastructure on the south portion of the structure was carried out.

This structure is currently "out of service", but not abandoned. Capital Railway’s Daily Operating Bulletin (the City’s operating entity) indicates that the Lemieux Island Spur (the track that crosses the Prince of Wales Bridge) is out-of-service.

Transport Canada was consulted regarding regulations for structures “out-of-service”. Bridges on an “out-of-service” rail corridor do not fall under the Railway Safety Act (RSA) and the railway's Bridge Safety Management Program (BSMP) since they do not affect safe railway operations. However, the railway (i.e. the City) inspects these structures from a public safety and liability perspective. Transport Canada advised that before being placed into active service, we will need to inspect the structure in detail to ensure its safety for the operations that are being proposed.
Without a detailed condition assessment it is difficult to estimate the cost or extent of renewal, however based on the information available the cost could vary between $20M and $40M.Scheduled future work

To be able to prepare a Class A estimate - tender ready - a detailed inspection of the structure and rail infrastructure would be required to define the needs, followed by preliminary and detailed design, including seismic evaluation. This work would take approximately eight (8) months to complete at an approximate cost of $1.5M.

Without a detailed condition assessment it is difficult to estimate the cost or extent of renewal, however based on the information available the cost could vary between $20M and $40M.

This structure was identified under the Federal Stimulus Package for rehabilitation of the piers and abutments. The estimated budget for these repairs was $5M, however this project was not approved. The renewal will be undertaken as part of a future budget request.

The structure is also scheduled for new inspection for year 2010.

Should you need further information please contact me at extension 16002.

original signed by W.R. Newell


W.R. Newell, P.Eng.
Director, Infrastructure Services


Author
Author’s InitialsPrepared by Initials
cc: Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager - Infrastructure Services and Community SustainabilityGary Craig, Manager, Deputy City Manager's OfficeAlain Mercier, General Manager Transit Services DepartmentJohn Jensen, Manager Transit Rail, Safety and Development BranchAlain Gonthier, Manager Asset Management Branch

LRT Maintenance Facility Site

There will be a low-key public meeting at City Hall on Wedn. June 24 from 5.30 to 8pm on the proposed new maintenace facility. No speaches, just poster boards and comment sheets.

Recall that on May 27 Council approved the alignment (route) and station locations. The consultants and staff are now working on station design, the BRT to LRT conversion process, construction staging, and how the LRT and BRT will operate once the line opens. Their results will be shown at another open house in Sept.

But back to the Maintenance Facility. Planners examined all the site along or near the LRT phase one alignment from Tunneys to Blair. The three top sites are
1. St Laurent, south of the Qway, either on PWGSC lands or immediately west of the current OC Transpo yards
2. Bayview, between Bayview Ave, Scott/Albert to the south, the Ottawa River Parkway to the north, and the existing bus marshalling facility to the east (Bayview Station)
3. Hurdman North, the vacant land immediately north of Hurdman Station

The consultants showed some familiar google satellite images or air photos of existing facilities in Mineapolis, Houston, and San Jose. Unfortunately, none of those are of the type proposed for Ottawa. Due to our extreme climate (minus 50 in winter, plus 32 in summer with high hummidity) most of the Ottawa facility will be indoors. The maintenance facility itself would of course be a large indoor structure. The storage yards would also be a structure, perhaps partially heated, to protect the vehicle fleet from weather. There would also be some test track sections, lots of loops and switches to move vehicles around, and a huge employee parking lot. These are most likely to be outdoors. So there is abundant oportunity for the facility to a noise nusience to residential neighbours, which is why the consultants prefer an industrial or already-noisy area.

The Bayview site is currently vacant brownfields, former snowdump and garbage infilling of Nepean Bay. Running through the site is the east-west transitway and the north-south OTrain line, the presence of which will complicate building a yard. Especially worrysome is the link across the Prince of Wales Bridge to Gatineau, which cuts the site in half. I would hate to see this potential interprovincial link 'lost' because the LRT itself used up the approach space to the bridge.

There is an existing Community Development Plan for the site. It calls for high rise apartment towers about 75m tall (23 stories, approx). Unfortunately, the City elected to build the high rises east of the Larouche Park, on unstable land that requires massive cleanup. The CDP plan deliberately scorned any consideration of economics, which would have put the residential uses on the land now used by Larouche Park and moved the park east one block to be adjacent the riverfront parklands. Now, apparently, the CDP is stalled because the proposed developments are too expensive to build due to remediation costs. And the City may well lose a potentially large and viable residential neighborhood close to the transit, the core, and employment centres, in favour of a one or two storey high sprawling industrial building and outdoor trackage because to build that does not require remediating the lands: just lay down a meter or two of stone excavated from the tunnel under the core, and presto, industrial heaven.

Now I can envision that a facility could be built there that would be compatible with adjacent neighborhoods and able to develop the site to a higher potential. Such a facility would locate the buildings and test tracks then fill in the loops and empty spaces with apartment buildings on top of a large podium structure that would be the green roof covering the maintenance facility, etc. Note that buildings would not be built over the maintenance garage itself or storage tracks, just all the other less-critical tracks and parking lots. Such a facility should have minimal neighorhood impact as all the facility would be indoors and quiet. The biggest impact would be workers commuting to the buildings, but that should be a similar traffic volume to the proposed CDP which would have had a dozen or more tall apartment towers.

But while architects, planners, and dreamers can envision such a development, I have absolutely zero faith that the City could or would actually built it. Until they come up with a plan that shows a largely indoor facility, with apartment towers above, and no gross underutilization of the site for "surface parking" or squealing train loops, it's thumbs down from me for this site.

LRT Technical Session

The City hosted a technical session on Saturday, June 20th for all those people who delight in spending a summer Saturday listening to streetcar vendors. About 100 of the public showed up, and at least 30 staff and consultants and vendors. The stated purpose of the meeting was to examine technical issues such as low floor vs high floor LRTs, dedicated vs shared rights of way, driverless vs on-board staff, etc. But I think the unstated purpose of the meeting was to educate the bloggers and transit hobbyists and community activists, so as to raise the tone of the debate when real decisions on technology are being made in September. If this was the covert objective, it succedded admirably. A number of participants prefaced statements with " I used to think ... but now ..."

The meeting started with spiels from Mayor Bellemare (sorry, I dont have a TV so I didn't recognize him - he was startingly young looking ...), Alain Mercier (OC Transpo) and Mona the head of the Transportation Master Plan project (TMP). I am not sure which speaker actually said it, but I did catch the comment that the LRT system will function with bus service as feeders to the line-haul LRT service. I didn't notice Marianne Wilkinson around to hear that one. But when the vendors spoke, two of the three emphasized that it was illogical to continue to run any bus rapid transitway - BRT - service to the core once the LRT was up and running. I have long suspected the LRT planners are saying YES to continued direct bus express service from Kanata and Barrhaven only until later in the process when the idea can be proved to be infeasible.

Three transit system vendors had display tables, brochures, free pens, models, and each gave a forty minute presentation. Alstom displayed their range of product to fit every market niche, and surprisingly to me he gently chided Ottawa for looking at LRT: in his mind, the City volumes along the transitway were enought to justify going straight to a metro-capacity train. He emphasized, as did all the speakers, that new LRT and metro systems always generate more traffic than transportation models predict. Since the system must be put in place to last 50 years (the life expectancy of a LRT or subway car) it is shortsighted fiscally and adminstratively to install a system that meets today's needs but which will be undercapacity in a few years. Why did I think he was directing his comments to certain shortsighted and tightfisted City councillors? Surely his remarks weren't directed to Alex Cullen who was in the audience, or the other councillors' staff members in attendance?

Dan Braund (an Ottawa boy, and old colleague from our days in the urban transit directorate at Transport Canada) spoke on behalf of Bombardier. Both he and the Alstom man claimed to represent the biggest LRT/metro vendors. The third speaker, Rainer, was from Shinkinsaro, an admittedly small firm that has a number of significant installs in North America. Most uniquely, his firm has no North Amercian assembly plant to put the vehicles together and then ship them to Ottaws via conventional heavy rail (the DOTT consultants have insisted the LRT maintenance yards be located adjacent a freight line to bring in the LRTs from eleswhere). Instead, Shinkinsaro uses the City's new LRT maintenance facility and its staff to assemble the cars here in Ottawa, which adds local value and thoroughly teaches the maintenance staff how the cars go together and work. This proceedure impressed me a lot. I will be going to the DOTT maintenance yard meeting this week.

Notably absent was Siemens, which won the previous round for Ottawa's LRT trainsets. I asked, and yes they were invited, they declined to attend. I suspect I hear a lawyer in the background at Siemens saying that if the show up to bid for this LRT project they are acknowleding that they somehow lost the previous bid. Nonetheless, I hope the City staff and consultants are busy reviewing their specs: after all, if they were deemed the best vehicle two years ago then presumably they must at least be a contender now.

The presentations and speaches were followed by a series of round-table discussions, with all points raised being written down by a scribe (each table had its own moderator/facilitator and another person to act as scribe - that's two staff to each 5 or 6 attendees. Can't say they weren't listening).

Amongst the comments at my table, I heard (or made myself...) the following:

1. greater respect for the idea that the LRTs along the transitway should be 'line haul" offering fast service with fewer stations rather than 'local" service with frequent stops.

2. a consequence of this was greater support for using the Ottawa River Parkway from Dominion to Lincoln Fields, with maybe one walkin stop along the route

3. there was less support for the Byron right of way, as its main virtue would be frequent stops for walk ins, at the price of slower express service and a very expensive precedent of perhaps burying the LRT where NIMBYs are loudest. Is McKeller Park the new Glebe?

4. while Carling is of interest, it is not likely to offer as fast a line-haul service as converting the transitway

5. there were mixed opinions on how to run the service on the ORP. I favour removing the southside lanes and making the northside lanes two directions of car traffic, and using the freed-up space for the LRT. Others favour running the LRT down the middle of the two road surfaces.

6. everyone agreed that we almost have enough transitway infrastructure that we could have a totally grade-separated and segregated system with no mixed-traffic. All the three vendors lauded the perfect conditions for Ottawa to convert the transitway and felt we are in an extremely lucky position due to the foresight of the builders of the transitway in the 1980s

7. but if we go for segregated system, there must be frequent grade-separated underpasses, for pedestrians and cylists, say every 500', to compensate for the 'barrier effect' of having a segregated right of way. Specifically mentioned were current at-grade crossings at Preston (install it from day one, not in the future), Dominion, along the ORP, Lincoln Fields, Iris, south of Iris, etc. Such a committment might make selling a segregated system easier.

8. LRTs can be dual mode. If diesel-electric, then it is not necessary to electrify all the track, for eg along the ORP there could be no overhead wires, and even more exciting, it would be much cheaper to extend the LRT beyond the greenbelt if electric catenary is not required. Thus the LRT service could be extended to Orleans, Barrhaven, Kanata years or decades sooner than currently envisioned using dual track overhead electric power.

9. Another version of dual mode would be electric-battery, whereby the LRT vehicle uses battery power in selected short distances, such as along the ORP.

10 Several attendees wanted on-board transpo staff, if not as a driver then as a guard. Totally automated trains made people uncomfortable. A chorus of voices was raised that the on-board staff need not be premium-paid "drivers" since running the almost-automated LRT is simpler and less-responsible than driving a bus. I heard the word "conductor" used for the on-board position. This will be unpleasant news to the OC TRanspo union which got a hefty premium from taxpayers for the "drivers" of the O-Train.

In conclusion, it was certainly refreshing and interesting to hear "outsiders" comment on our planning process, the opportunities available to us, and to speak some plain truths (yes, yes I know they are vendors) about what we should be doing.

I was left wondering about the meetings on Friday June 19th, which were not public meetings as far as I know, with operators of LRT systems in a number of US and Cdn cities. Presumably they also gave blunt advice about what to do or not to do. I wonder if any councillors were present? I would definately like to see made public a transcript of those advisory sessions.

Pedestrian Safety? or Harassment?

I heard on the CBC radio this morning that the City is starting a pedestrian safety campaign. I went to the City website. Their advice for pedestrian safety:



Cross at marked crosswalks or traffic lights, not in the middle of the block or between parked cars.
Remove headphones; put away cell phones or other electronic devices when crossing the street. Use your full attention so you’ll be able to see, hear and respond safely to what is happening on the roadway.
Make sure drivers see you before you cross.
Cross when traffic has come to a complete stop.
At a traffic light, cross at the beginning of a green light. Do not cross once the “Don’t Walk” signal begins to flash or once the light has turned yellow. Never cross on a red light.
Watch for traffic turning at intersections or entering and leaving driveways.
Wear bright or light-coloured clothing or reflective strips when walking in dusk or darkness.



Note that there is nothing for motorists to do; it seems pedestrian safety is 100% a pedestrian responsibility. So if you get run over ... you know who's fault it is!

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Being a parent with young kids - now grown up - and a full time pedestrian (I never have owned a car) I think the City's advice absolutely totally STINKS.

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I always trained my children to cross in the middle of the block. It is way way safer. Traffic is generally moving in only two possible directions, at a predictable rate. Midblock, the road is likely the narrowest, either because of parked vehicles or because our fair City widens roads at the intersections and then wants pedestrians to be exposed to the maximum crossing distance!

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And what are motorists doing at intersections? Let me describe the corner a few hundred feet from my house. Vehicles heading north on Preston reach Albert. These vehicles face long red lights while Albert vehicles have long long turn signal greens. Daily commuters know the pattern, so they zoom right-turn through the intersection. While turning right, the drivers' heads are turned 90 degrees left as they approach the intersection, and about 120 degrees back over their left shoulder as they turn through the intersection. See a pedestrian or cyclist on the right side of the road? Ha! dream on!

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And what does the city recommend a pedestrian do in this circumstance? Why "cross when traffic has come to a complete stop". Except it never does stop, vehicles just roll through the right turn continually, based on car movements only. See the skeleton on the corner over there? That's a pedestrian who waited for traffic to stop...

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Years ago the city had big pedestrian crossing signals at some minor intersections: push the button, lights flashed, cars stopped ... pedestrians walked. Except on Preston St a car with Quebec plates ran over a pedestrian and claimed that the orange flashing lights were french for "sidewalk all clear". So the city removed all the flashing signals and replaced them with regular traffic lights. Now, you can push the button and in many cases wait...and wait...and wait...and wait. Some signals, like the ones at Primrose/Bronson, simply wont turn until a car arrives to justify the light turning. I have stood at that corner through 2 red light cycles at Somerset and Gloucester, watching the intersections north and south of Primrose, while my light wont change! And when it does eventually go green, Bronson motorists run the orange and usually the red too, each driver in his or her single-occupancy vehcile looking carefully at the intersection before running the light... they are looking for cars, which might enter the intersection and damage their own car ... but pedestrians, ignore them!

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For further illustration of this common event, recall the big power blackout a few years back in August. I walked home, observing vehicle to vehicle courtesy at almost every intersection where there might have been chaos. But at Bronson/Primrose, Elm/Preston, and the Otrain crossing at Bayview, which are all mainly-pedestrian signals rather than opposing-flows-of-traffic signals, motorists did not slow, did not look, they just zoomed through at full speed. Traffic planners tell me that signals are safer than flashing pedestrian crossings, but my experience is that motorists soon learn which signals are "real" (where another car might hit theirs) and which ones don't count (soft pedestrians are safe to ignore).

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There is one signal that is pedestrian activated that does work instantly.The one at Primrose/Booth. But again, motorists can readily see there is no crossing car traffic, so too many are reluctant to stop, they run the orange or red so they can get 40' ahead and stop in the queue of lined up cars in the grid lock to hell (sorry, gridlock road to Gatineau).

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Preston St is right now being narrowed to two traffic lanes as part of its reconstruction. Prior to 1959 the houses along the street were great family living: with front yards, huge elm and maple trees shading the street, curbside sidewalks. Then the City widened the street, removed all the greenspace, and installed a mini-sidewalk so close to the houses that for most of its length it is under the drip line of the front verandahs and in some places narrowed to less than 3' width because of verandah posts. There never was enough traffic to justify the widening. Now we are spending millions of your water-bill dollars to narrow the street and install streetscaping, a most worthwhile expenditure in my estimation. But, the major intersections such as Carling and Albert, the City is insisting on installing very generous turn radii, which means the pedestrian crossing distance [remember to cross at intersections now, its safer!] is LONGER for a street that has just been narrowed! Why the generous turn radii? Because its "safer" for a 53' tractor trailor to turn. And just where are these tractor trailers coming from? Are they removing comatose civil servants from the cubicle farms at Tunney's Pasture?

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So, to conclude my rant, I do not appreciate the City's pedestrian program to force people to cross the street only at intersections. Indeed, I would love to see the actual legislation that forbids people from crossing the street. In fact, the City's policy is contrary to common sense and their own reports that indicate pedestrian hazards increase with the length of the crossing. And the longest crossings are at intersections, not midblock.
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So, City, spend your money on sidewalks, crosswalks, street narrowings, and not on advertising campaigns to blame the pedestrian.
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And stop the stupid practice of locating bus stops at mid-block, or 100's of feed further and further from those "safe intersections".

Royal Mis-treatment

The Prince of Wales railway bridge is owned by the City of Ottawa. Built in the 1880's it should be declared a heritage structure. It sits unused just north of Bayview O-Train station.

Does the city have any maintenance plan for the bridge, or are they going to let it rust away until it collapses or requires more expensive repair? I do not know if the rust is just a surface effect to not worry about or if it is corroding away the bridge. But I do notice that other city steel structures are rust free. Just north of this bridge is the Lemieux Island bridge, pristine and rust free. While cycling around I tried to find other steel bridges that are owned by the City, but could not find a rusty one.

So, does the City have an asset maintenance program or not?

Extending the O-Train

There have been many calls to extend the O-Train service north to Gatineau, or to increase its frequency using existing equipment.

At transportation committee next week, according to the Citizen: a motion by Kanata North Councillor Marianne Wilkinson will also be debated. She wants the city to extend the O-Train line, which currently stops at South Keys, south several kilometres to Leitrim Road. This is not called for in the city’s current rapid-transit plan, but there is growing pressure from people living in the southern part of the city for better public transportation options.

Leadman's DOTT meeting May 26th

Leadman's ward bumps up against Somerset Ward where I live, almost on the border of the two, which is why this blog is named West Side Action, since I try to cover events that happen on the west side of the downtown, regardless of fiefdom. Anyhow, I joined the big turnout for her forum Tuesday evening on the DOTT.

Her presentation and meeting themes covered two things: the DOTT in the downtown area, and the first-phase LRT in her ward terminating at Tunneys Pasture. She was accompanied by Renfrew Morrison, a transportation consultant that we recall was Clive Doucet's hired gun for his Carling LRT proposal earlier this spring, and who was Urbandale's hired gun in August 2007 when the developer lobbied to resurrect the southwest LRT.

What follows is not a report of the meeting, but my impressions of what went on. So, it is personal views, interpretation, and not "objective".

Leadman claims that council approved the Albert St routing for the LRT tunnel, including a surface crossing of the canal using the Mackenzie King bridge, with a sharp turn south, ie the current bus route through the downtown. And that the counsultants have gone off and "surprised" her and "shocked her" by examining alternative routes, and eventually recommending the Albert St - Rideau St - Ottawa U route. She claimed to be shocked that they had extended the terminus of the first phase LRT to Tunneys Pasture instead of Bayview, as council had directed.

Both Leadman and Morrison want an underground city in the downtown, connecting the stations with underground malls under office buildings. I wondered why the underground city idea never dies: council killed the plus-16 version of it years ago, and the city's developers have consistently refused to connect together their own malls. Minneapolis discovered you can have a lively plus-16 network or lively streets, but not both, and got the worst of both. I think Ottawa is way too small to support two lively streetscapes, or three, if plus-16 walkways are brought back in. Please "bury" this fantasy. And recover more of the surface from autodomination.

Morrison surprised me by claiming that 180m stations, capable of handling six car LRTs or future conversion to subway trains, would never ever be required in Ottawa, not in 100 years. I am in part puzzled by this because so many of the other blogsphere critics of the DOTT claim the system will not be able to handle the traffic proposed. Is the system undersized or oversized, on the short term or the long term?

I go to the DOTT meetings held about every two months as member of the public advisory council. The give the same presentation earlier that day to the business advisory council. And I thought they gave it to council members. But both Leadman and Morrison continually surprised me by their poor grasp of what I thought were well-covered items.

For example, Morrison chided the DOTT team for failing to include a spur at Rideau to extend the LRT east (along Rideau, or north to Gatineau), in fact, this has been frequently mentioned by the consultants.

More bizarrely, Leadman claims that by ending the first phase LRT at Tunneys, it forever "precludes any great circle line through Gatineau" (using the POW bridge) and will "eliminate potential for cross river transit forever". I guess this eliminates any potential for a n/s LRT line along the O-Train route too, but elsewhere in the meeting Leadman seemed to support that route, and the Carling LRT, even with the LRT going to Tunney's.

Well, maybe not to Tunneys. Her position alternated all night on that. Certainly building a major transfer station at Tunneys will be disruptive. But it will be very useful for the residential community, local bus transfers to the LRT, and Tunneys employees in the future, during the first phase LRT AND once the LRT is extended westward. Some citizens at the mike expressed appreciation for improved LRT service. It is not a "throwaway cost". It is, of course, perfectly fine to build a major transfer station at Bayview, in the neighboring ward, and she expressed no concern about throw away costs there. So does she favor ending the LRT at Bayview, or continuing to Tunneys? And in future phases, should it continue west past Tunneys? The answers varied all night.

Similar confusion prevailed on the use of Scott and Albert for BRT service. Recall that during conversion of the transitway to LRT service (at least two years) all the buses that use the transitway from Tunney's to the downtown will have to move off the transitway onto Scott and then onto Albert. This will certainly be very negative for adjacent residents, and I too question how the roads can handle all the buses. Staff suggests that the two curbside lanes will be bus only lanes, but I still see congestion hell.

Then, once the LRT is running, in theory most of these buses can be stopped at Tunney's and riders transfer to the LRT if going to the downtown, and for those going to Bayview or LeBreton, every third 95 would provide this service. However, Leadman and many citizen speakers derrided putting buses on Scott, derrided transfers at tunneys, and derrided evil-Kanata residents who want one-bus service from Kanata to downtown. Well, if they dont want transfers at Tunney's, they'll have decades of buses on Scott until the LRT is extended to Lincoln Fields and transfers are forced there. At some point you cannot please everyone, tradeoffs are necessary. There are hard choices here, and more leadership and consistency is required than was evident last night.

There was consistency though, in several aspects: Tunneys transfer station: bad; buses on Scott street: bad; LRT to Tunneys: good; no: bad; Kanata riders shouldnt be worried about making transfers at nice indoor stations; local riders wont stand for forced transfers; put the transfer station at Bayview, the city owns all the land around it (points to PPT slide that highlights land that is in fact owned by other parties like Phoenix DCR who have applied to build a condo on the land); its dumb to put LRT on the Ottawa River Parkway; the solution is to run all the buses on the parkway all the way to the downtown and not along Scott; look at the big picture, plan for the future and the whole city, but make decisions based on short-term local impacts. The tunnel selection should be based on city-building criteria, but give us the costs of each option first (so we can choose the cheapest?)

And the STO buses ... Leadman claimed the study ignores the STO buses on Ottawa's downtown streets, and claimed that there are more STO buses than Ottawa buses downtown. In fact, the DOTT projections always have counted all the STO users as being DOTT tunnel users, which gives some hint about the future of STO surface buses in the downtown, and some hint about the direction of the interprovincial transit study.

The audience asked many intelligent questions, and some whoppers. Members clearly disagreed as to whether transfers were good or bad, generally it seems Kanata residents should be prepared to transfer but local riders should not. The Byron right of way is useless for LRT, claimed a speaker, because it goes no where (gee, and I thought it ended so close to Lincoln Fields...). The LRT should run along Carling because there could be many stops serving local businesses and institutions (but no mention of why Kanata commuters would want such a milk run service). Use Byron, on the surface, no, put it underground. Leave the parkway only for cars, remove the buses, dont put LRT on it. No, keep the buses on the parkway. Even extend them all the way to the downtown on the parkway. A number of people spoke to the idea that the current transit planning too oriented to long-haul commuters at the expense of local transit (I agree heartily, but we still gotta deal with the folks in Barrhaven and Kanata). Keep the buses off Scott (cheers !) (how? by putting them on Albert, but hey, that's not our ward, it's someone else's problem).

Oh, that Bayview station, great place to put it, its in a field surrounded by no one. As for the Blair terminus, its stupid, its out in the middle of nowhere with vacant space around it, move it into a built up area. Morrison: London transit cited as doing great innovative tunneling work using the Austrian mine technqiue, and we are not considering it. He ignores that the tunnel-boring consultants for DOTT are from London Transport. Dont build the DOTT near the Langevin Block ... running it under the War Memorial would make a "nice" terrorist target ... but not to worry about running it along or under DND ...

Conspiracy theories abound, and are some of the reasons why going to public meetings can be so much fun. Did you know the LRT is intended for the Ottawa River parkway because they want to rezone it all for condos? That Hintonburg is always "targetted" because its poor? (I nod my head at that one ...) That it should be run on Byron so locals can use the LRT, but not on Byron because it is no longer a right of way but a park? That the urban core is the victim of suburban dominated council? (allright, I've gotta agree with that one too). Or that city staff is so incompetant that they continually bamboozle councilors and go off on their own tangents regardless of council direction and staff is secretly running everything ...

In summary, there were a number of valid concerns raised, in particular how well the DOTT will work at the great depth proposed; and how buses will be handled during construction and between phase and phase two. Yet if we are to focus on the big picture, the city-building one, we cannot continually nitpik on local impacts. The transit system has to serve a variety of needs and users, and cannot exclude the long haul, short haul, peak or off-peak users.

Leadman was listening, and giving people a chance to vent, and that is admirable. But she made no effort to reconcile her own mutually-conflicting options, and offered little leadership. I would have preferred her to have expressed some preferences for moving the system forward instead of just agreeing with every expressed concern. I think it is a leader's role to also temper public opinion, to acknowledge that with change comes disruption as well as opportunity. There will be some pain along with the gain. She could also try to reactivate the Carling-Bayview CDP so that vulnerable chunks of the neighborhood are prepared for change as the LRT is built out. She could also attend some more of the DOTT briefings (or send her staff, or get more community association people attending) because the significant factual gaps and misunderstandings undermine the quality of decisions and leadership we expect.