jpBombales
Active Member
Ah I see! I know the last time I visited, the Queensway was backed up and people were telling me that it was cause of construction on the transitway. The tunnel is suppose to extend from downtown to St. Laurent though right?
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- Thread starter green22
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Ah I see! I know the last time I visited, the Queensway was backed up and people were telling me that it was cause of construction on the transitway. The tunnel is suppose to extend from downtown to St. Laurent though right?
cyruskafaiwu
New Member
The tunnel is starting after Stn Lebreton and ending right before Stn Campus at uOttawa. It will have 3 stations Lyon, Parliament/Parlement and Rideau.
For the rest of the 2018 confederation line, the current transit way will be replaced with the Light Rail.
Highway 417 is under construction for an widening where a temporary transitway will be placed during the construction of the confederation line (as the current one will be closed for construction).
All of the information can be found here:
http://www.ottawalightrail.ca
jpBombales
Active Member
Thanks for the link. I`ll have to check out the progress next time im in town.
Most of the construction at this point is still confined to the 3 portal/extraction sites (Albert & Old Wellington, Kent & Queen, and Laurier @ the Transitway). Based on the project schedule, 2015 is the year in which it's going to have a much wider impact, because that is when they will begin shutting down existing Transitway stations (and stretches of the Transitway itself) to upgrade them to LRT.
2015 to early 2018 are going to be some pretty tough years for transit and traffic in general in Ottawa. But I know it'll be worth it in the end.
2015 to early 2018 are going to be some pretty tough years for transit and traffic in general in Ottawa. But I know it'll be worth it in the end.
jpBombales
Active Member
Ottawa definitely needs something more than the Transitway and the O-Train. Its a shame that LRT was cancelled towards Barrhaven. Sprawl gonna continue south towards Manotick, especially with Minto's Mahogany community.
I'm glad that thing was canned. It didn't really solve anything, and actually would have made things worse downtown, since the LRT would have been running in the same lane as buses. The trip time from Barrhaven to downtown was actually longer than it currently is via the Transitway. It was a $660 million real estate subsidy for the developers of Riverside South.
When you look at the reports for the original LRT plan, it actually stated in plain English that the at-grade section through downtown would have been at capacity by 2017. Yup, it would have been open for a whopping 7 years before the downtown section was at capacity. That's profoundly short-sighted.
The current plan is infinitely better than the original plan. It's just a shame we wasted 5 years before we figured that out.
jpBombales
Active Member
It was a shame that they wasted all that money, prepared the infrastructure, and got sued by Siemens.
Agreed. It was politics that dictated the N-S line over the E-W line (with an at-grade downtown stretch), and that should never have gotten to the point that it did. Normally I'm not one to advocate sacrificing the good for the potential of having the perfect, but the N-S LRT was far from good. It was sub-par in trying to achieve everything LRT in Ottawa should be achieving.
It's regrettable that it had to come to getting sued, but I don't regret the fact that it didn't happen, and I certainly don't regret the fact that it was replaced with the current plan, which is superior in almost every way.
Markster
Senior Member
The Riverside South line to Barrhaven is not cancelled, it is simply postponed, as far as my understanding.
Actually, let me see if there's any movement on that lately...
Looks like there's been something:
http://www.ccc-ottawa.ca/transit-issues#TOC-Barrhaven-to-Riverside-South-BRT
which links to an Ottawa City Council document:
http://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/agdocs.aspx?doctype=agenda&itemid=109107
So it seems that a truncated LRT design is being proposed, with BRT through Barrhaven, on the old proposed LRT right of way.
And the document says there will be more in the 2013 Transportation Master Plan Update. Let's check that out.
http://ottawa.ca/en/draft-transportation-master-plan-0
http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/10/09/live-mayor-jim-watson-unveils-ottawas-transportation-master-plan
Interesting. Looks like the de facto current plan is an extension of the existing O-Train to Bowesville Rd, with BRT through Riverside South and Barrhaven.
The "If we magically get money" plan has LRT in-median through Riverside South, but not crossing the bridge. Presumably at this point, it would be converted to electric.
Minor changes proposed today for the Ottawa TMP:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/City+promises+study+airport+rail+link/9122254/story.html
The change I want to see most (and it's a pretty minor change) is the terminus of the Western LRT be Moodie, not Bayshore. The current plan is to have the LRT end at Bayshore, and a new dedicated Transitway to Moodie. Well an LRT extension would cost ~30% more than the dedicated Transitway, and would provide a lot more land to build a proper transfer station (the Bayshore transit site is pretty cramped). Also, by the time the LRT is open, the former Nortel campus will probably be housing DND, which means thousands of workers will be much better served by having an LRT terminus right down the road, to the point where DND can simply run a shuttle from the station to the campus. That's a pretty minor change though in the grand scheme of things.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/City+promises+study+airport+rail+link/9122254/story.html
The change I want to see most (and it's a pretty minor change) is the terminus of the Western LRT be Moodie, not Bayshore. The current plan is to have the LRT end at Bayshore, and a new dedicated Transitway to Moodie. Well an LRT extension would cost ~30% more than the dedicated Transitway, and would provide a lot more land to build a proper transfer station (the Bayshore transit site is pretty cramped). Also, by the time the LRT is open, the former Nortel campus will probably be housing DND, which means thousands of workers will be much better served by having an LRT terminus right down the road, to the point where DND can simply run a shuttle from the station to the campus. That's a pretty minor change though in the grand scheme of things.
cyruskafaiwu
New Member
Update on the central extraction shaft:
Sorry for the crappy pics, it was late in the day and there was a lot of glare from the office windows.
They were also doing a lot of blasting the past couple of days. At least 4 times a day the building would shake a bit.
Sorry for the crappy pics, it was late in the day and there was a lot of glare from the office windows.
They were also doing a lot of blasting the past couple of days. At least 4 times a day the building would shake a bit.
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AnarchoSocialist
Active Member
This is hands down my favourite transit project in Canada right now. Yeah, it was frustrating watching the 10 years of debate and planning but in the end the debate was worth it. The plan cancelled by O'Brien should have been canned and what is now being built is far superior. Yeah there are a few little quibbles I have but all were forgotten once they started construction.
What has been just as great is how much the debate around transit has changed in the past year with the build up and start of construction. The best example is the western extension towards Lincoln Fields. Before now, the debate would have been endless, trying to figure out exactly what to do (its not a cheap extension given its length). Now, they know the best plan is to spend the money, use tunnels, put it through the urban areas instead of along the river and get on with it. Yeah the NCC being the NCC helped them get to that decision but even then it was still relatively quick and painless (of course it isn't set in stone but it seems clear what will happen).
Even plans for the rest of the network are starting to change. With the most recent TMP a lot of smaller capital projects that would have helped create the grade separations and infrastructure on the BRT network necessary to make a future LRT conversion faster have been dropped in favour of skipping intermediate steps and going straight to LRT for a number of the segments. Now that the backbone of the network is being built you can see eyes lighting up and people wanting to really build on that and extend the network as quickly as is financially possible.
Yeah the city still has other transit challenges but this was the most important so with this in motion you can start to see the debate being set, slowly mind you, but still beginning, on interprovincial and regional commuter rail. It will probably be a decade before anything really begins on those fronts, but, with the huge challenges both of them have that isn't a surprise.
What has been just as great is how much the debate around transit has changed in the past year with the build up and start of construction. The best example is the western extension towards Lincoln Fields. Before now, the debate would have been endless, trying to figure out exactly what to do (its not a cheap extension given its length). Now, they know the best plan is to spend the money, use tunnels, put it through the urban areas instead of along the river and get on with it. Yeah the NCC being the NCC helped them get to that decision but even then it was still relatively quick and painless (of course it isn't set in stone but it seems clear what will happen).
Even plans for the rest of the network are starting to change. With the most recent TMP a lot of smaller capital projects that would have helped create the grade separations and infrastructure on the BRT network necessary to make a future LRT conversion faster have been dropped in favour of skipping intermediate steps and going straight to LRT for a number of the segments. Now that the backbone of the network is being built you can see eyes lighting up and people wanting to really build on that and extend the network as quickly as is financially possible.
Yeah the city still has other transit challenges but this was the most important so with this in motion you can start to see the debate being set, slowly mind you, but still beginning, on interprovincial and regional commuter rail. It will probably be a decade before anything really begins on those fronts, but, with the huge challenges both of them have that isn't a surprise.
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I was surprised with the Phase 2 announcement too. I thought Phase 2 would consist of the Western LRT extension to Baseline, and that we would need to fight to get an extension to Bayshore included in that. It ended up being well beyond that!
