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Alto High Speed Rail
- Thread starter hoggytime
- Start date
OpenRailwayMap
OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.
www.openrailwaymap.org
Super cool site with every rail line on Earth
SweazyCavalry
Active Member
I personally think having the Laval station is integral to making Alto work and that one should be envisioned for Toronto too.
CapitalSeven
Senior Member
The stations in central Paris and Madrid were never abandoned, though, like Ottawa's was, whatever we think of that decision in the 1960s. There would certainly be no question of putting the Madrid station 10 km outside the center of the capital city. But if you want to take one of the fast trains to the north and northwest (I did this last winter) you have to travel 4-5 km by transit north of the core to Chamartin and walk around outdoors to the HSR platform. It's not the end of the world. Ottawa's current configuration is actually much simpler.
In Ottawa, the station and infrastructure to get there no longer exist, except for the head house, which has been renovated to no longer flow like a station. I just don't see how any of the schemes for above-ground connections along the canal are feasible. The Sandy Hill portion of the canal has sand going down a long way (remember why uOttawa station had to be built above ground) so the only feasible approach is a deep tunnel mined the same way the O Train tunnel was, with the expanded platform area underneath the station and Colonel By done the same way, unless you want to dig a pit the size of Parliament Hole beside the canal for 3 years.
Given the grades and river crossing, you'd need the "Montreal" portal to start at the east end of the current station where the tracks cross the O Train access tunnel, and the "Toronto" portal roughly alongside Lycee Claudel. It's about 5 km in all. With that length of tunnel, you could have a Bank St. subway from Queen to Heron, or an E-W connector from Tremblay to Dow's Lake. Money is limited, and better spent on fixing real transportation gaps.
The result would be a very nice station but at the cost of 2 billion perhaps. Any integration with buses would be a complete non-starter, and it would have very poor road access. The traffic problem was one of the reasons the downtown station was closed in the first place. All the ideas of closing Colonel By for this, closing Wellington for trams, making the whole mess between Queen and the Rideau Centre essentially impassible, are just going to render the center of the city unfit to do its work as a capital.
The current station location isn't perfect, but it works well enough for a lot of people, and the tracks through the city reaching it from the east and west can be upgraded to higher speeds without too much pain or expense. Reviving the downtown station is an expensive vanity project which creates as many problems as it solves. I think it's better to spend a tenth of the money expanding the current station and making it a hub, a decision I think ALTO will come to when they look at all of the factors.
In Ottawa, the station and infrastructure to get there no longer exist, except for the head house, which has been renovated to no longer flow like a station. I just don't see how any of the schemes for above-ground connections along the canal are feasible. The Sandy Hill portion of the canal has sand going down a long way (remember why uOttawa station had to be built above ground) so the only feasible approach is a deep tunnel mined the same way the O Train tunnel was, with the expanded platform area underneath the station and Colonel By done the same way, unless you want to dig a pit the size of Parliament Hole beside the canal for 3 years.
Given the grades and river crossing, you'd need the "Montreal" portal to start at the east end of the current station where the tracks cross the O Train access tunnel, and the "Toronto" portal roughly alongside Lycee Claudel. It's about 5 km in all. With that length of tunnel, you could have a Bank St. subway from Queen to Heron, or an E-W connector from Tremblay to Dow's Lake. Money is limited, and better spent on fixing real transportation gaps.
The result would be a very nice station but at the cost of 2 billion perhaps. Any integration with buses would be a complete non-starter, and it would have very poor road access. The traffic problem was one of the reasons the downtown station was closed in the first place. All the ideas of closing Colonel By for this, closing Wellington for trams, making the whole mess between Queen and the Rideau Centre essentially impassible, are just going to render the center of the city unfit to do its work as a capital.
The current station location isn't perfect, but it works well enough for a lot of people, and the tracks through the city reaching it from the east and west can be upgraded to higher speeds without too much pain or expense. Reviving the downtown station is an expensive vanity project which creates as many problems as it solves. I think it's better to spend a tenth of the money expanding the current station and making it a hub, a decision I think ALTO will come to when they look at all of the factors.
misterg
New Member
wow amazing I'll be spending a lot of time on here thank you!OpenRailwayMap
OpenRailwayMap - An OpenStreetMap-based project for creating a map of the world's railway infrastructure.
Super cool site with every rail line on Earth
Ottawacurious
Active Member
Check out this historical geomatics for train track routes in Ottawa over the years:
www.kballantyne.ca
1896 is when the spur to the central looks completed:
1912, Central Station is open
Map of Ottawa's Railways Through the Years
An Openlayers map showing Ottawa's railways throught the years.
www.kballantyne.ca
1896 is when the spur to the central looks completed:
1912, Central Station is open
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urbottawa
Active Member
The old post office sure was a beaut
OTownAndDown
New Member
One of the best train experiences I've ever had: standing just behind the monitoring guys with the back door open on the VIA train backing out of Montreal. Front-row, open-air view of the entire track infrastructure through Griffintown.
People might panic about losing Colonel By. Can the whole thing be tunnelled and connections maintained for street traffic? I know that's not an imaginative answer, but it's honestly the path of least resistance physically and emotionally.
casscadia
New Member
Ultimately I don't think I would be too disappointed if they did end up choosing the Tremblay station, it has a connection to the O-train which lessens the fact that it's fairly out of the way, but I think I'd still prefer Union station, if for no other reason than i think rail infrastructure should be prioritized over car infrastructure.
My thought as well. Tremblay is fine. I wouldn't throw a fit. But Union would be a much bigger deal that elevates Ottawa closer to a World City instead of some mid-sized backwater.
casscadia
New Member
Just left the consultation at Bayview yards, not a whole lot of new information since they're still so early in the process, but apparently Alto is not yet leaning one way or the other in regards to Union vs Tremblay, they're still considering things and listening to feedback. Also I'm pretty sure I overheard someone talking about Skyrise and skyscraperpage lol
postingaboutottawa
New Member
This is not meant as a personal charge, I've seen this opinion all around the issues in the last few weeks and I really couldn't disagree more. A real modern multimodal transit hub combines hsr, regional rail, and coach bus with improved lrt connections is much more important than an act of historical cosplay trying to resurrect a station never meant to scale to modern needs. To the extent that Ottawa is a "mid sized backwater" it is not because of the planning descisions of sucessive goverments but rather as the inevitable outcome of being the administrative capital of Canada - a mid sized second tier country that is only in the G7 because the america felt europe was overrepresented.
Plenty of historic trains stations have adapted with modern technology and the addition of new services. Admittedly, Union has a space issue that might (and likely would) limit its potential.
As for Ottawa being a mid-sized backwater, that is due to a lack of vision. No leader other than Laurier (guy who inherited a rough and tumble lumber town and did his best with the time he had, establishing the ancestor of the NCC and approving grand projects like the Château Laurier and Union), Borden (guy who's ambitions for the capital we're stopped by WWI) and McKenzie-King (guy who's ambitions for the capital we're slowed down by WWII, and largely based on the automobile which set-us back in many ways) ever had a vision for Ottawa. Even Jim Watson, arguably the most transformative Mayor in Ottawa's history, Ottawa's Drapeau, literally modeled the ambition of the O-Train to a Chevrolet, not a Cadillac.
StolenO
New Member
Assuming they choose Tremblay, which seems like the most likely option to me (not that I know anything), what would be the route for the tracks heading to Toronto within the city?
postingaboutottawa
New Member
And if higher level of government gave a shit about giving more money to Ottawa and if Canadian cities could issue debt more freely maybe jimbo would have changed his tune and we'd have a system that made the REM look like garbage. Policy decisions happen within a political, economic and administrative context, Canada doesn't have a world city for an administrative capital because at the end of the day Canada doesn't want that.
The centre of gravity of the world is changing from the west and Canada, including Ottawa, has to look forward and not backward to reach new heights.