Unknown offence

There's a big hubabaloo in the Centre of the Universe (tm) about arrests without cause (just being in Toronto should have been enough cause for criminal prosecution).

Here in Ottawa, we have our own cryptic crimes (tm)  -- see sign above along the "virtual LRT line" (as bus rapid transit is now being rebranded in some cities).  What is the offence? The fine is known, and it indicates the city has its revenue enhancement priorities straight. Safety considerations seem to have been let fade away, however.

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.

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.

Goodbye Baseline Station

The old Baseline transitway station has been retired, replaced by one immediately to the west. The old location will become the site of new building with the transitway underneath it. The glazing was removed from the station shelters and the steel is being scrapped. The shelters are 25+ years old and not worth relocating.

Demolition of the concrete central structure at the station.

Steel and concrete and asphalt are separated for recyling.

The new station has side platforms rather than a centre-island design. A regular user of the station told me this morning that she much prefers the new side platforms, as being simpler to navigate.

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.

Transitway water bill

Picture 2 shows water burbling up from the base of this concrete structure. It comes up so fast it creates a 6-8" high stain on the concrete. The large puddle of crystal clear water (likely from a water main) forms a large puddle then runs down a ditch to a catch basin.

The site of the puddle is the northwest corner of the western transitway station at Queensway. It is bloody obvious, and must be apparent to OC Transpo maintenance crews. Yet it appears to have been there for some time as aquatic plants are growing the in the runoff and if you click picture one to enlarge it, you can see the asphalt bike path has agae and moss growing on it from the surplus of water.

Yes, I called 311 to report it.

Bird sightings along the Ottawa River

The first photo shows a black cormorant ( I think ... I googled the name and it seems to me to match) on the Ottawa River near Lemieux Island. If I recall correctly, cormorants are rapidly becomming an invasive species and are moving en masse into the Ottawa area having already over run the Great Lakes. It seems bird populations have bubbles just like our economy. Back in university, didnt they call it the boom/bust cycle? I first saw these birds about 3 years ago, there were a lot more last year, and this year I see them by the dozen, especially on the islands frequented by gulls between Parkdale and Lemieux Island.

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The second picture shows another type of comorant, the mechanical yellow one, on search and rescue mission along the Ottawa River.

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Unfortunately I do not have a photo of the birds that excited me the most. Whilst taking the 95 to College Square along the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway, I saw two wild turkeys. Just west of Dominion Station, they were in the median feeding, and were simply huge. Much larger bodies than the Canada Geese so common along the paths. Upon seeing them my mind went through the quick ID list: crows? too big. Geese? too black, too big. Then I saw the wattles, and in profile the birds look just like the ones drawn on kids' colouring sheets at Thanksgiving time. Now, if I had been on my bike instead of the bus, I would have had time to get out the camera and take a picture, instead of talking of them.

Bus shelter slight-of-hand

An ordinary glass OC Transpo bus shelter, this one on Bronson Avenue, is transformed with printed window cling film into a casino hut with a vaguely tropical influence.

Imaginative, eye-catching, fairly cheap transformation of a standard urban fixture. I like it.

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.

West Wellington streetcar?

While walking along West Wellington Street I noticed work crews had uncovered many ties in their excavation. Presumably these were from the Ottawa Electric street railway service. I went looking online for a route map of the old Ottawa streetcars, but could not find one. If anyone knows of a map, I would love to look it up.

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.

Mount Preston

Photo shows Mount Preston, recently conquered for the first time by a loyal OC Transpo standard bearer. In the foreground are the rooms for a new Preston St econo-hotel, where each room barely holds one person. Or maybe they are for a condo? No word yet on room prices.

Interprovincial Transit Ideas

I attended a few hours of the interprovincial transit study meeting last Thursday. I heard lots of suggestions for improving interprovincial transit experience. Here are some of them:

1. Use the Prince of Wales Bridge. This rail bridge from Bayview Station to Gatineau is a favorite solution to most problems. Many felt it need not be double tracked right away, but could operate for the first years as a single track with passing tracks at each end and maybe at Lemieux Island.

2. Most attendees want a rail solution (LRT or O-Train) not a bus solution or bus on transitway solution; and certainly scorned bus lanes as a very inadequate solution.

3. Note that when the Ottawa LRT goes to Baseline, and if it goes to Gatineau on the POW bridge, that Ottawa U, Algonquin, and UQH (or is it UQG?) will be on the line. Carleton will directly connect on the O-Train. It is logical to assume institutions of higher education will be high transit users, because students are supposed to be poor, professors are supposed to have higher levels of environmental consciousness, and transit could be habit forming for life.

4. The City owns the POW bridge, but has not done any maintenance on it yet. It is deteriorating before our eyes. Will it get used before it rusts away? Where is the City's maintenance plan for this valuable asset?

5. Building a separate right of way transit system also creates additional capacity on surface roads. For example, removing the downtown bus lanes when the tunnel opens, means a 25-50% increase in road capacity for cars. This is seldom mentioned - shouldn't motorists in their single occupancy cars be delighted to get rid of the buses? And willing to pay for this improvement?

6. Reducing capacity: we tend to build transit as an incremental addition of service. We also continue to build roads that compete with transit. If we think in terms of "modal shift", we could put trains on the POW and then cut commuters off their abuse of Booth St as a through-way.

Preston St is one of the few examples in this City of major decommissioning of a road. It should never have been widened to four lanes, they have never been used, and now the road is being rebuilt as two lanes with the former lanes being converted to wider sidewalks and on-street parking bays. Parts of unused Gladstone east of Bronson were also narrowed a few years ago.

7. Convert roads: The Alexandra (interprovincial bridge) was a rail bridge for more than half a century. Then it has been a road bridge. Why not run the LRT accross the river on the bridge (it would have the wide pedestrian/cylist boardwalk, and two rail lines) and loop it around Hull via Allumete and the Rapidbus right of way to the POW bridge to Bayview and back downtown. In short, why do roads have to be sacred? Maybe we need to sacrifice some road pavement for transit. Note, we wouldn't have all the parking problems these commuters cause either.

8. Other conversions projects include: Colonel By Drive could be converted back to rail. The western parkway from Dominion Ave to Lincoln Fields could be reduced from a 4lane commuter road (we call it a parkway, but lets face it, its primary use is a commuter throughway for motorists) to a two lane road, and the southern two lanes converted to the rail tracks for the LRT. No additional green space would be consumed.

9. Why do transit users get put underground and motorists get the street surface and river views? Would a transit service with nice scenery attract more users?

10. some people think the NCC favours a tight, fairly small circle route for transit, sort of like the ceremonial route. This would put LRT on the surface or under the Portage Bridge. Many attendees want a large ring, that intercepts some traffic before it gets downtown (why make everyone transfer downtown?), and so like the POW and another crossing at McDonald-Cartier. A few wanted an even wider ring, that went as far west as Island Park, south past Carleton U, and as far east as Rockcliffe.

11. Go under water. The canal is shallow, and could easily be opened up and a LRT line burried a few feet down, then the canal refilled. Stations would double as canal crossings. Suddenly transit would open up a whole new urban environment that cars cannot access.

A few years ago I suggested during the OMB hearings on King Edward that the simplest solution was to take the McDonald-Cartier off ramps and run them down under the Rideau River and Stanley Park (a very shallow cut and cover operation...) and dump the vehicles onto the Vanier "Parkway". Of course, the Vanier was originally supposed to be heavy truck route but short-sighted councils appeased neighbors by forbidding trucks and thus dooming King Edward and Rideau St to decades of misery.

12. OC transpo and STO run in separate silos. For example, they lack a common route planner, amongst other fare problems. One of the meeting attendees said that OC and STO would have a joint planner up later this year. Yeah!

13. Faith in Big Government. Many participants at the meeting had a charming faith that if only some big government agency would take control, they would surely built this person's pet project. Didn't that big government give us half a century of vacant land in LeBreton Flats? The Qway to Kanata? The expanded 416 and 417 that extends the commuting shed a hundred km further out, so that small towns turn into large suburbs with obviously short-sighted planning?

I am much less certain that more government is the answer. Although only the NCC does large scale and longer time line planning, the City is hopelessly shortsighted and captive to the current modal split and land use model.

Alarmingly, a number of meeting proponents thought it wise to extend O-Train service to Arnprior, to Wakefield, to Montebello, to Smith's Falls or Cornwall. Do we really need to subsidize or encourage exurban development?

14. Replace buses vs service new areas debate. Some attendees wanted to convert existing bus transitways to LRT, and avoid building new transitways in favor of LRT (eg east end transitway, the rapidbus project in Gatineau).

Others thought the best thing was to leave the bus rapid transit in place and convert existing rail lines to LRT, opening up underdeveloped areas of the City, in new planned developments that focus on LRT transit.

I think particularly of Citizen columnists and bloggers on that one. They opposed the southwest LRT because it didn't serve the major population centres in the east-west axis. They oppose the new E-W LRT because it wont add ridership, just shift users off buses. My view was we should build new transit first, for example the southwest transitway, and try to force development along the huge underdeveloped brownlands along the line.

14. The sucess of the O-train. Is it a conspiracy or not? The City avoids mentioning the O-Train like the plague. Yet a demo project, derrided as going from nowhere to nowhere, grandiously projected to carry 7,000 people a day by 2020, carries today over 10,000 passengers a day. Why isn't the frequency being increased (this doesn't require more trains or track)? Why isn't it being extended to Gatineau where it would offer the fastest interprovincial commuting? Why aren't we going to run it into the DOTT ? ( I am not sure if the trains are diesel electric, in which case they would need only a overhead connector, or if they would have to be converted to run on both diesel and electric tracks). The more I hang around the people at transit meetings the more I tend to sympathize that there just may be a conspiracy after all...

15. Cycling. Will the new rail and transit rights of way really have useful cycling and walking facilities along them? We know that nice drawings always show these facilities when the transit project is being sold to the public, but with details missing. Unfortunately, when built, key links in the cycling and walking plans have been removed due to "budgetary constraints", or are charmingly left to built in segments as adjacent lands are developed (what? a bike path built in segments ... surely we should be grateful for disconnected bits). A number of meeting attendees emphasized that the rights of way should include proper bike and walking facilities carefully designed in to maximize their utility. Token bike pavement is so "out".

Summary: lots of ideas. Many of them good and positive. Much approval of LRT, much scorn for busways as yesterday's solution. Not many of the ideas will see fruition.

One train/one tunnel vs many trains in one tunnel

The downtown transit tunnel will have two tracks, one for each direction.

This would be fine if the trains only went east and west. However, desire for travel is also north and south.

It is possible to force everyone on the future southwest LRT, and future southeast LRT, and future link to Gatineau LRT, to transfer to the east-west line. Transfers would occur indoors, be comfortable, but would still increase trip time significantly. This would be significant for those who already had to take a local bus to the BRT to the LRT transfer ... etc.

Recall too that IF the southwest LRT, which should go through the airport, doesn't offer direct to downtown service we can kiss goodbye many conventions. Apparently a deciding factor in choosing convention destinations is direct airport to downtown transit. However, if the southwest LRT went over the Prince of Wales bridge, it could easily continue on the Casino and a convention centre there. Is this really what we want? I want to be good neighbors, and the two jurisdictions really should function and be planned as one metro city, but I dont feel obliged to build a major transit system to deliver conventions to Gatineau and not Ottawa.

I like to view the tunnel as being like the existing transitway, open to many transit vehicles with various destinations. Consider if we had red trains running east /west Blair to Tunney's, and green trains running from the southeast through the downtown and then back out to the south along the southwest route, a giant U shaped route. This not operationally difficult to schedule.

Now consider the Gatineau service. Recall that the DOTT projections for tunnel ridership assume all STO bus users are in the LRT tunnel. How did they get there? I don't see a major bus transfer facility at Rideau. But recall that the currently planned tunnel has a spur tunnel designed into it, branching off at the east end of the Rideau St station. From there, that tunnel could someday extend under the market to a station near Sussex before crossing the river (whether in a tunnel, on the McDonald Cartier span, or my preference, taking back the Alexandra Bridge as a transit and pedestrian/cyclist bridge).

The DOTT team have specified a spur at Rideau, not a two level station with transfers. This I expect (but it hasnt been said out loud) is a Federal tourist influence. The Feds want an easy to use system for tourists and visitors and for the interprovincial LRT to have a national unity function. A one-car no-transfer service from downtown Ottawa to Gatineau is best for this. So visitors could go to any downtown station, and get on the blue train that would go to Rideau and then off to Gatineau.

It is just my speculation, but obviously the LRT could continue through downtown Gatineau and back to Ottawa on the Prince of Wales bridge, make a circle route. Or, it could be implemented in reverse, with trains from the east going through the downtown and then over the POW bridge to Gatineau, until such time as the rest of the loop is completed.

Fully developed, a multi-train multi-destination LRT service in the DOTT could consist of a east/west line, a route from the south that loops through the downtown from the east and back out to the south from the west side, and a circle route that crosses the river.

Fortunately, the interprovincial study just starting up should be well enough under way as the DOTT planning process continues, to incorporate any number of options.

Kanata to downtown direct bus service ?

I read on Real Grouchy's blog that he and Marianne Wilkinson expected direct BRT service from Kanata to downtown to continue after the LRT system is opened from Tunney's to Blair.

When the DOTT study began, its terms of reference were from Bayview to Blair. It was a somewhat dubious proposition to force all west end commuters to transfer to the LRT at Bayview when they were already in sight of the downtown. They therefore proposed continuing BRT service from the west into the core. Since the transitway would be converted to LRT, the buses would exit the transitway at Tunney's and use Scott-Albert-Slater through the downtown. Turning all the buses around was a problem, so they proposed to run them all the way through to Hurdman. Then they would pick up traffic at Hurdman. It was immediately apparent that this approach had many flaws:

1. we would build a tunnel and LRT, but have to keep the bus lanes on Albert-Slater
2. not enough people would be on the LRT/BRT if a parallel surface BRT ran from Hurdman to Kanata through the downtown
3. The LRT and BRT are on the same alignment from Campus to Hurdman, and Booth to Bayview ... this might force a mixed surface running both buses and LRT's
4.. the surface bus lanes would stay in place for about 20 years, until the LRT was extended to Lincoln Fields. Would west end taxpayers be willing to continue funding an LRT system they seldom used? Recall that one reason the southwest LRT was killed was because west and east end commuters saw no immediate benefit to themselves.

The final LRT system selected deliberately offered service to two high ridership routes - east and west. (I confess I still think the southwest route was better from a town planning perspective, as it shaped new growth rather than servicing old growth, and existing neighborhoods usually complain about any changes, especially intensification).

BTW, as a citizen rep on the public advisory committeee to DOTT, I made those very aguments repeatedly.

So in January of so of this year, the DOTT mandate was extended to Tunney's. There is room there for a major transfer station. It is far enough from the downtown core to "warrant" transfering people from BRT to LRT. The LRT will offer all users the advantage of an exclusive grade separated congestion free all-indoor route through the congested downtown and its immediate east and west sides. And importantly, more taxpayers will get to ride on the LRT and benefit from its glamorous stations etc etc and thus be willing to vote for expanding it.

Note that the DOTT team and OC Transpo do not expect west end BRT users heading to Bayview and its O-Train or Booth to go to Hull, to transfer to the LRT. Instead, every 3rd or 4th 95 bus will continue to Bayview and Booth and maybe over to Hull. But not into the downtown.

In full disclosure, I should note that Marianne Wilkinson was my high school Geography teacher at Boredom High in Nepean. I subsequently went on to accumulate two geography degrees and the world's shortest career at the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs and subsequently the urban transit directorate at Transport Canada.

Transit tunnel success ...

The City today announced its preferred LRT routes and station configurations.

Good news: the major transfer station from buses-on-the-transitway-west will be at Tunney's Pasture, built on the grassy vacant area north of the current station.

Good news: the configuration at Bayview will permit same train access from the (future) southwest transitway / O-Train alignment to the downtown. This means that we can attract larger conventions to the new convention centre downtown as we will have no-transfer-required service direct from the airport to downtown. The configuration at Bayview permits much greater flexibility in train routing.

Bad News: the LeBreton Station is going to be accessed by bus service along Scott-Albert. This will be about a thousand buses per day per direction (I haven't been able to get a straight answer from DOTT about the number). This will impose a severe noise and dust and vibration penalty on adjacent residents for at least two years during construction of the at-grade LRT system and probably lesser volume of buses for decades after.

Good News: the Rideau St station will be at the north end of the Rideau Centre, under Rideau St. Other alignments examined had put the tunnel directly under the Rideau Centre, which had some bad service implications but preserved foot traffic in the mall. Now the Rideau Centre will have to lobby for moving some bus services off Rideau to the Laurier side of the mall. Maybe they could start with the STO service ... I note that the old Union Station is still being identified as a potential Library site.

Mixed News: the LeBreton station will be at-grade, maybe outdoor, until new developments build over it and turn it into an indoor station. At the rate the Flats are being developed, this could be never ... ironically, the City owns and plans to develop the site above and adjacent the proposed station, which bodes even more poorly for its prospects.

To see the powerpoint presentation by the DOTT committee, click on...

https://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/transit_tunnel/interim/technical_briefing_en.pdf

New OC Transpo bus routes impact centretown

OC Transpo is proposing some significant bus routes changes that affect our neighborhoods on the west side of the downtown. Comments on the routes must be in to oc transpo by April 25th.

Most significantly, the number 16 would no longer run along Scott nor Albert in the Flats area. It would instead start somewhere in the downtown ( I couldn't find out where on the OC transpo page) and run east only. And number 18 will run only run as far west as Tunney's. These changes are part of OC Transpo's rerouting scheme to reduce the buses that run through the core in favour of routes that deliver people to the transitway and the express buses on it.

A new route, 150, will start at Tunney's and go west approximately on the old 18 route. It appears that OC Transpo is getting a head start on the major transfer facility proposed in the DOTT plan for Tunney's Pasture.

While the goal is laudable, I find a number of things upsetting. First, it assumes all users commute to the core. What of people in the central neighborhoods that want to travel west? While many transpo users are M-F commuters, many residents depend on OC Transpo for all trips. Well, we'll just have to transfer. For those who live beyond an easy walk to the transitway stations, that means yet another bus transfer. And why do the oc transpo web pages highlight the routes affecting the west end neighborhoods but ignore the trips originating in central area neighborhoods?