The City and NCC have come up with a revised connection of the Western LRT and Richmond Road corridor. But I don’t think it is complete enough, yet. Just like a complete street is better than just a road, the Cleary … Continue reading I can see Cleary now …
Bayview Station was built on the transitway for the 2001 experiment of having a rail service to the south. That station was only ever a collection of bus shelters on a hillside, with ramps down to the Otrain Trillium platforms at the … Continue reading Bayview Station
The raison d’etre for the Queen Street reconstruction and streetscaping is to enlarge the sidewalks enough to carry all the people walking to and from the new subway entrances. All the entrances are on one street, the originally planned ones on other streets were value engineered out of existence. That there is some access from other streets is strictly courtesy of private-property access: through the Clarica Buildings lobby from Albert Street, or the underground concourse at Place de Ville (but not 240 Sparks or Constitution Square or Minto Place). A principle Lyon Station entrance is through the Podium Building, shown below. The … Continue reading Queen Street wrap-up : for people who walk
Road diets refer to over-sized streets being right-sized to a more fit form. At the Queen Street streetscaping plan unveiling last week, Queen was referred to going from four lanes to two. A first glance at some drawings confirms this: … Continue reading Did Queen Street really go on a diet?
Here’s the Lyon Street main Confed line station entrance in the Podium Building, which is sandwiched between Tower C Transport Canada and the Marriott Hotel. The building may still have the old movie theatres locked in its core. It also … Continue reading What Queen Street tells us of the Confed Line Stations
The City unveiled the final streetscaping plan for several blocks of Queen Street around the two downtown Confederation Line stations (Lyon, and Parliament). One detail I noticed was the graphic logo for the Stations, consisting of a bright red circle (donut?) on a stick. Here’s the one at Lyon Station: and another at Parliament Station by the old Zellers: and again at the link between the two towers of the Clarica /Sunlife Centre: Of course we need a graphic logo that can (eventually) instantly identify where the Station entrances are for locals and tourists alike. On the existing transitway, the bright … Continue reading New graphic identity for Confederation line?
Every time there is a new Liberal government in Ottawa, VIA Rail appears, exactly on schedule, to promote spending money investing on a dedicated passenger rail network in The Corridor (Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City, or some subset thereof). While the “solution” is always … Continue reading VIA Rail, Climate Change, and Naiomi on a streetcar
IF one of the proponents in the NCC’s current game of Who Can Build the Flats constructs an Arena or similar multi-function space, could it be 100% accessed only by transit? It would of course be quite a risk to … Continue reading LeBetter Flats (v) – How Quickly can you Drain the Sens Arena?
The temporary LeBreton transit station requires many transferring people and station walk-ins to cross one or more intersections. Some of the crossings, or repeated crossings, are because the city was too cheap to provide sidewalks even paved shoulders on both … Continue reading Contempt for Pedestrians at Transit Station and some Unworthy thoughts as to how it came to be that way
Alas, for those people walking or cycling east towards the downtown, there won’t be a separated multi-user path, nor as direct a path as along the north side of Scott and Albert. Starting near Tunney’s, there is a south-side east-bound painted bike lane, which I suppose it a wee tad better than cycling with sharrows in the “50KMH” lanes: The cycling lane is “buffered” from cars, trucks, and buses by a 2′ painted median, but the cycling lane is also the right turn lane and driveway access lane. And boy, are there ever a lot of those: There are many … Continue reading Navigating Scott-Albert (east bound)
People who drive westwards from the downtown using Albert and then Scott have big flashing traffic signs, painted arrows, and scrupulously scraped bare pavement. While the lane markings are new, the learning curve should be short. My only bugbear on this so far is the sudden merge of the two westbound traffic lanes around Brickhill Street (just before Good Companions). People who cycle and people who walk face some more challenges. To RTG’s credit a few small ped directional signs have appeared near Bayview Station. So maybe it is worthwhile to follow the route for people who walk or cycle … Continue reading Navigating Albert-Scott (westbound)
It only takes a few weeks out of town to realize how much things can change in even a short absence. The photo above shows Pimisi Station taking form on LeBreton Flats. The view is from Fleet / Booth intersection and Claridge Design Centre, and just north of [new] Wellington Street, by the War Museum. Concrete columns have been poured to support the new much-higher Booth Street. Booth will rise up gently from the foreground of the photo to go over the Confederation Line using the overpass being constructed. That same overpass will be part of the new Pimisi … Continue reading Pimisi Station takes form
In the West End, the Confederation Line LRT will eventually extend to Lincoln Fields, then along Pinecrest Creek (where the transitway is) and it will split into two directions from a point north of the Queensway. One leg will carry on to Algonquin College. The other leg vers westward under a city park and emerges from its underground tunnel between the Queensway and the west end bus garage on Queensview Drive. The in-an-open-cut Queensview Station ( much like Westboro and Tunney’s Stations) will replace the lawn directly in front of The Brick. Directly opposite The Brick is The Ottawa Citizen plant, and … Continue reading Queensview Station Crossing (part iii)
Will the redeveloped Tremblay Station area be better than what is there today? Will there be a wonderful world of tomorrow, or just a bigger – higher – denser version of autotopia? Here’s a city-provided sketchup of the Tremblay LRT Station (formerly known as Train). Construction starts in December this year, for completion in July 2017. The ring road that services the train station is visible at the top; with the VIA Station at the top right. The parking lot shown is existing, but not for long. While the main LRT entrance is to the east, by the ring road, … Continue reading Coventry Bridge, Tremblay LRT Station Underachievers (part ii)
I do occasionally get out of my WestSide stomping grounds. A recent trip took me to the near East Side where I had the opportunity to use the new Coventry bridge for people who walk and people who cycle, over the Queensway. It’s also useful to look at it in light of the similar proposed Queensview bridge. I took the transitway to the Tremblay Station (in the hole in front of VIA Rail Station). The formerly landscaped slopes around it have been clearcut for construction starting later this year of the realigned roadbed and new Confederation LRT Line station location … Continue reading Coventry Active Transportation Bridge (part i)
The City has decided some time ago not to engage transit users for feedback on the design and use of its new LRT vehicles and stations. Instead, users are stuck until they can “try out” a PR model of the new trains, or watch PR Videos cheerleading the project. At Lansdowne Park, a mock-up LRT vehicle reveals numerous shortcomings, from entanglement points, very hard seats, to the lack of footroom at some seats that will make winter riding uncomfortable and exiting the window seats acrobatic enough to challenge cirque de soleil performers. It’s a shame these details are coming … Continue reading Ottawa’s LRT: Sifting Commercials for Info
In the previous three stories I’ve tried to review what is planned, what some of the tradeoffs were, what the consequences area, and slip in just a teensey tiny wee bit of my opinion. So what would Eric do if faced with the same starting situation, of the City insisting its Western LRT had to go down the parkway space; and the NCC insisting that people using transit is incompatible with their revised greenspace plan? (note I am not considering other completely different route options). The physical plan My goal going into the conflict would be to keep rail on … Continue reading Westward Ho ! (part iv) in which Fantasies come to the fore …
The Cleary Avenue end of the western LRT and motor expressway corridor is shown here: The westbound trains enter the picture from the right, along the orange line. Cleary Station is shown in dark blue. The Unitarian Church and apartment building is shown a bit further west (left). The underground track alignment swings gently under the Unitarian parking lot to get out towards its (under) Richmond Road alignment. The swing out to Richmond will occur under a car repair shop and/or Kristy’s restaurant. These businesses will not remain in place during construction. Since dig-the-ditch-and-cover construction won’t start until 2017 … Continue reading Westward Ho ! (part iii) the curse of stations and transit users
Rochester Field, now to be a condo development site with a green corridor to the parkway along its western (left) edge, is shown on the above map just above the word Richmond [Road]. The new LRT line, in a shallow cut-and-cover tunnel, with the eastbound traffic lanes of the Ottawa River parkway piggybacking on top, is shown as a thick orangey line extending straight along the parkland. This kilometer-long straight section I find very alarming. The “Parkway” is already derisively known as the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway because of its current high volumes and speeds that rarely descend to the posted … Continue reading Westward ho ! (part ii) Western LRT along the parkway
So the NCC and the City came to an understanding for routing the western LRT beyond Dominion Station. It’s time to go beyond the headline coverage. Let’s parse that agreement, and see what’s there and what isn’t. The basic concept: the LRT will extend west from Dominion along the Ottawa River Parkway (ORP) to Cleary Avenue where it will transition southwards to follow the Richmond Road corridor. Instead of being pushed up close to the southern edge of the parkway lands, close to some developed parcels, the LRT will now run roughly down the centre of the space, halfway between … Continue reading Westward ho ! (part i)
I trotted off for an evening walk and ended up at Lansdowne Park and presto [pardon the pun] there was the new Confederation Otrain. Sort of. Inside it looked very familiar: The deja vu all over again feeling was partially due to a flood of memories of using the Seattle LRT last year. Although Seattle has Korean-made equipment. With that in mind, let’s peek into a Seattle downtown station. Their downtown station is used by diesel buses and the LRT. In the pic above, note the [indoor] escalator; the electric pick up lines suspended a few inches below the … Continue reading Bus stop Bus stop, part iii, LRT in Ottawa and Seattle, with videos
Too often I cringe in dismay at the 99% motorist-focus of our planning and engineering staff. Do [m]any of the staff and consultants working on the LRT stations actually use transit? I have been known to cause moments of embarrassment by asking at an OTrain planning meeting if any staff present have actually ridden the train. [answer: rarely]. It’s quite easy to tell the station planners don’t walk to stations. Ever. Or take transit to work anywhere else, for that matter. Here’s a small example of how even when building and designing a state-of-the-art rapid transit system (ie, the Confederation … Continue reading Fostering transit by catering to cars (part 1)
The City has been planning for quite some time to extend the existing OTrain Trillium Line further south, from Greenboro to Leitrim or Bowes Road. They will be holding public meetings on all the changes required and plans, on Jan 13 at Durrell Rec Centre, and Jan 15th, 6-8pm, at St Anthony Hall. I encourage anyone with an interest to go and support the extended service. And press for its early start. Currently, the red trainsets run every 15 minutes. There are two trains in operation at any one time on the single-track line, passing each other in the middle … Continue reading Extending the OTrain Trillium Line South to Airport / Riverside South
Recall that the current transitway, running in an open cut through the west side, will be replaced by rail tracks for the new Confederation Line LRT. There is a construction lead time to construct the tracks and the new stations at Tunney’s and Bayview and LeBreton, so the buses now on the transitway will have to be detoured during the construction period. Others are busy working on detours that do not involve Scott and Albert Streets. This is the second exploration of how the detour could occur on Scott-Albert. (for the first option, see: http:/www.westsideaction.ca/putting-the-buses-onto-scott-albert/ ; the comments … Continue reading Yet another Scott Street > transitway option
So, the Airport folks are now on-board with the notion that rapid transit to the airport is a good thing. As an occasional airport user, and appreciating the importance that good transportation links make for a better local economy, I’m on board too. But there are numerous pitfalls along the way, and sure footing is required to get a system to work. I sure don’t have the answers, but I do have some questions. Note on the City’s TMP map below, the link to the airport is the short red horizontal line somewhere south of Hunt Club Road. It shows … Continue reading Some thoughts on that airport link for the OTrain
