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Have they figured out what phase 2 will actually look like?
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- Thread starter green22
- Start date
1overcosc
Active Member
Yep. It will consist of 3 separate projects done simultaneously to begin construction in 2018 (when phase 1 completes) and to be in service by 2023:
1) Extending Confederation Line west from Tunney's Pasture to Baseline with a spur to Bayshore. From Tunney's, the route will follow the existing transitway to Dominion, then along an abandoned CPR RoW just south of the Parkway to Cleary Avenue (where there will be a station) then in a tunnel underneath Richmond Road to Lincoln Fields (there will be an intermediate station at New Orchard as well here). From LF the main line will stop at Iris (Queensway station removed) on the way to Baseline. The spur to Bayshore will run a tunnel underneath Connaught Avenue to Queensview bus garage (where there will be a station), then north of Highway 417 to Pinecrest & Bayshore. Service to be split evenly between Baseline and the Bayshore spur--both continue downtown meaning travel from Bayshore to Baseline will require a transfer at LF. Estimated cost is $1.48B ($980M for main line, $500M for Bayshore spur)
2) Extending Confederation Line east from Blair to Place D'Orleans along the 174 RoW. Stations planned (for now--stations are under review thorough the design process which is now underway) are at Montreal Rd, Jeanne D'Arc, Orleans Boulevard, and then Place D'Orleans. Estimated cost is $500M.
3) Extending O-Train south from Greenboro to have 3 new stations, at South Keys, Leitrim Park & Ride, and at Bowesville Rd just north of Earl Armstrong. Estimated cost is quite low at $100M because most of the track already exists and only a single track would be required with a couple passing sidings (ridership only warrants 7-8 minute frequency).
This yields $2.08B in costs for the lines. When vehicle costs, inflation, and financing are added in it reaches almost $3B. The city wants to finance it with the feds, province, and city each paying $975M. City has confirmed it can raise its share, province has just confirmed its support, feds are still uncertain.
In addition, there are a bunch of bus projects as well that were announced at the same time as Phase 2 but are separate projects that the city will finance on its own because of their low cost. These are:
-Median-running BRTs along Baseline/Heron (from Woodroffe to Riverside) & March Rd (from Highway 417 to Solandt Drive)
-A transitway from Bayshore to Moodie, connecting to the existing bus lanes on Highway 417 west of Moodie that continue to Eagleson.
-A transitway from Eagleson Road to Terry Fox Drive on the north side of Highway 417--bringing rapid transit to Kanata's core. This and the Bayshore-Moodie transitway means Kanata's core will finally have a continuous rapid transit connection to the rest of the city
-A bunch of new bus lanes and transit priority intersections throughout the city but mainly in the central core. Particular highlights include plans to convert Carling Avenue's outer lanes to bus lanes, building queue jumps along Bank Street, and new bus lanes on the Airport Parkway. Also, the new arterials planned for Kanata West and Orleans South will both have bus lanes from the start.
1) Extending Confederation Line west from Tunney's Pasture to Baseline with a spur to Bayshore. From Tunney's, the route will follow the existing transitway to Dominion, then along an abandoned CPR RoW just south of the Parkway to Cleary Avenue (where there will be a station) then in a tunnel underneath Richmond Road to Lincoln Fields (there will be an intermediate station at New Orchard as well here). From LF the main line will stop at Iris (Queensway station removed) on the way to Baseline. The spur to Bayshore will run a tunnel underneath Connaught Avenue to Queensview bus garage (where there will be a station), then north of Highway 417 to Pinecrest & Bayshore. Service to be split evenly between Baseline and the Bayshore spur--both continue downtown meaning travel from Bayshore to Baseline will require a transfer at LF. Estimated cost is $1.48B ($980M for main line, $500M for Bayshore spur)
2) Extending Confederation Line east from Blair to Place D'Orleans along the 174 RoW. Stations planned (for now--stations are under review thorough the design process which is now underway) are at Montreal Rd, Jeanne D'Arc, Orleans Boulevard, and then Place D'Orleans. Estimated cost is $500M.
3) Extending O-Train south from Greenboro to have 3 new stations, at South Keys, Leitrim Park & Ride, and at Bowesville Rd just north of Earl Armstrong. Estimated cost is quite low at $100M because most of the track already exists and only a single track would be required with a couple passing sidings (ridership only warrants 7-8 minute frequency).
This yields $2.08B in costs for the lines. When vehicle costs, inflation, and financing are added in it reaches almost $3B. The city wants to finance it with the feds, province, and city each paying $975M. City has confirmed it can raise its share, province has just confirmed its support, feds are still uncertain.
In addition, there are a bunch of bus projects as well that were announced at the same time as Phase 2 but are separate projects that the city will finance on its own because of their low cost. These are:
-Median-running BRTs along Baseline/Heron (from Woodroffe to Riverside) & March Rd (from Highway 417 to Solandt Drive)
-A transitway from Bayshore to Moodie, connecting to the existing bus lanes on Highway 417 west of Moodie that continue to Eagleson.
-A transitway from Eagleson Road to Terry Fox Drive on the north side of Highway 417--bringing rapid transit to Kanata's core. This and the Bayshore-Moodie transitway means Kanata's core will finally have a continuous rapid transit connection to the rest of the city
-A bunch of new bus lanes and transit priority intersections throughout the city but mainly in the central core. Particular highlights include plans to convert Carling Avenue's outer lanes to bus lanes, building queue jumps along Bank Street, and new bus lanes on the Airport Parkway. Also, the new arterials planned for Kanata West and Orleans South will both have bus lanes from the start.
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Very true. I was just hoping that, since it's a relatively minor amount of infrastructure (compared to say the Confederation Line) that it could be sped up a little bit.
Baseline is actually already quasi-sorta underway. The Heron bridge recently had bus lanes put in, and the Baseline-Clyde intersection was rebuilt a couple years ago and they included queue jump lanes. I suspect Baseline will end up being a piecemeal project, where small sections are added over time. And the only section where BRT lanes are really necessary is between Riverside and Merivale. During rush hour that stretch backs up a lot, and the buses get stuck in it (speaking from experience).
The BRT through Kanata would definitely be a quick win too, and would maybe lessen the sourness of having Orleans getting LRT, but Kanata getting next to nothing in transit (comparatively). Would also make it easier for Connection 400 routes.
As a related note to the service levels, I always thought it would have made sense to build Hurdman as a 2 platform, 3 track station. That way, you could run trains from Baseline to Orleans, and Bayshore to Hurdman. Every Transitway branch would then have it's own dedicated station where it could feed people onto an empty train. Under the current plan, the Southeast Transitway feeding into Hurdman is going to be bad, because the trains will already be mostly full by the time they reach Hurdman, leaving those BRT passengers to have to fight for a spot.
With a 2 track, 3 platform station, the Bayshore trains could pull into the centre track, unload on the right side (looking eastbound), and then load from the left side. For passengers continuing eastward, just cross the platform. For those waiting to go westbound, either wait for a short-turn train on the one side of the platform, or a thru train to Baseline on the other side.
1overcosc
Active Member
I did hear that the Confederation Line is being built to enable short-turns at Hurdman, but that was years ago before design started and I don't know if that carried through the process. In any case, short turns between Tremblay & St-Laurent are definitely possible using the MSF spur. I agree that Bayshore trains shouldn't continue all the way to Orleans. If they do not only do you have the issue of full trains at Hurdman but also the issue of overservicing Orleans. As frequency in the tunnel would have to reach 90 seconds by 2030 for capacity reasons, having no short-turn in the east would mean the ridiculous expense of having trains crossing the Greenbelt every 90 seconds.
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Agreed completely. The Transitway does that 'layering' very well, and I was hoping they would somewhat duplicate that with the LRT service. Do you know what measures were said to be put in place at Hurdman to allow short turns?
1overcosc
Active Member
I have no idea. It's just something I heard way back in 2008-ish when the plan was started.
1overcosc
Active Member
Construction update was given yesterday. They're WAY ahead of schedule on the tunnel. The western roadheader has reached Lyon station and is now beginning to mine out the platforms. Central roadheader is supposed to reach Parliament station within the next week. They're past the 20% mark now! At this rate tunnelling will be completely finished by early 2015, leaving them with a generous 2.5 years to build the tracks and pantographs before testing has to begin--something that really only needs one year.
Eastern roadheader is still moving very slowly. At this rate, RTG is probably going to have the central roadheader take over a bunch of the eastern crew's section. Currently they're projected to meet just west of Rideau station (which is to be dug out by eastern crew). They're probably going to have central take over Rideau Station with the eastern crew doing just the tunnel east of there.
Eastern roadheader is still moving very slowly. At this rate, RTG is probably going to have the central roadheader take over a bunch of the eastern crew's section. Currently they're projected to meet just west of Rideau station (which is to be dug out by eastern crew). They're probably going to have central take over Rideau Station with the eastern crew doing just the tunnel east of there.
That's good news! Do you think it would be possible for them to potentially start working on the surface stations a bit earlier, in light of the new projected tunnelling timelines? I noticed in the schedule that a lot of them aren't supposed to start until early 2016.
Also, since you seem to have semi-inside info, any idea when the Eastern roadheader is going to be out of 'Sandy Hill' and hit the harder rock?
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1overcosc
Active Member
^ Absolutely no idea on Sandy Hill. My sources are the construction website + OC Transpo reports (the only thing they've released that isn't on the construction website is bus detour plan info) + the odd info scrap I get from a friend of mine who works for Scotiabank as a secretary for some guy who does financing for RTG. (We need to get an actual RTG construction worker on here!) She's my source for new tunnel projected completion date. I wonder why Watson hasn't publically announced that one--possibly to avoid giving people false hope if something messes it up and it's "delayed" back to its original schedule. Or maybe so he can unveil as a "SURPRISE things are going GREAT!" during the election campaign
It would be possible, if warranted, to start work on the eastern segment in spring 2015 instead of late 2015 as currently projected. May 2015 is the projected completion of the highway 417 widening--but they're actually scheduled to not use the new BRT until October 2015. That wouldn't actually be helpful because the segment east of Hurdman is actually projected to be done almost a year before the rest of the line anyway.
West of downtown the Albert/Scott bus detour won't be fully ready until 2016 so timelines are tight there. (I believe some work can start here in late 2015 though).
The central-east portion--from the eastern portal to Hurdman--is the one section where early construction is possible & useful. Work between Hurdman and the portal has been delayed until April 2016, to minimize the amount of time required for the bus detour there which will be highly disruptive (by far the most disruptive detour as it involves converting existing auto lanes to transit as opposed to building more bus lanes like on Albert/Scott), but they could easily start those in April 2015 if necessary.
An early opening between Lyon and Blair in the autumn of 2017 is starting to look very possible, if they advance Rideau-Hurdman construction, with Lyon-Tunneys opening in spring 2018 as scheduled. Hopefully RTG will bring it up later this year as things get clearer and ask city council if they want to take that approach.
It would be possible, if warranted, to start work on the eastern segment in spring 2015 instead of late 2015 as currently projected. May 2015 is the projected completion of the highway 417 widening--but they're actually scheduled to not use the new BRT until October 2015. That wouldn't actually be helpful because the segment east of Hurdman is actually projected to be done almost a year before the rest of the line anyway.
West of downtown the Albert/Scott bus detour won't be fully ready until 2016 so timelines are tight there. (I believe some work can start here in late 2015 though).
The central-east portion--from the eastern portal to Hurdman--is the one section where early construction is possible & useful. Work between Hurdman and the portal has been delayed until April 2016, to minimize the amount of time required for the bus detour there which will be highly disruptive (by far the most disruptive detour as it involves converting existing auto lanes to transit as opposed to building more bus lanes like on Albert/Scott), but they could easily start those in April 2015 if necessary.
An early opening between Lyon and Blair in the autumn of 2017 is starting to look very possible, if they advance Rideau-Hurdman construction, with Lyon-Tunneys opening in spring 2018 as scheduled. Hopefully RTG will bring it up later this year as things get clearer and ask city council if they want to take that approach.
Gotcha. I've been looking at the website and reports and stuff too, I was just curious if you had any insider info, haha.
That would definitely make sense. By November we should have a good idea if the tunnelling pace will continue, of if there's been a slow-down, especially if the current pace keeps up and it'll be done by early 2015. That would certainly make for a good election announcement on his part.
I wouldn't be opposed to an early opening from Lyon to Blair at all. If anything, that would decrease the amount of time between when the Western Transitway direct connection is broken, and when the Western LRT extension opens, because that intermediate period where everything is ending at Tunney's is going to be a PITA.
I've been saying this for a while now, but I really hope they find a way to accelerate the opening of the Western LRT extension. Ideally, I'd like to see the WLRT under construction by the time Phase 1 is wrapping up. Those 3-4 years in between are going to be even more painful for west enders than the 2016-2018 Scott St detour, IMO.
Overall though, it would be great to see an updated schedule. One will probably be released around election time, as you speculated.
cyruskafaiwu
New Member
I'm still wondering how they plan to temporarily move Hurdman, Lees and Campus Stn stretch. They need to still connect the 97, 98, 99 and etc to the Transitway network. Rideau River and Canal make it difficult. Any idea?
It's being routed onto the 417. The highway is being widened now in preparation for the buses only lanes, and the diversion will begin sometime in 2015.
ehlow
Senior Member
I apologize for being uninformed, but is this line on the bus transit-way other than downtown where it will be in a tunnel?
Is it fully grade separated?
Thanks
Is it fully grade separated?
Thanks
innsertnamehere
Superstar
It'll be tunnelled through downtown, and will be fully grade seperated.