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Ottawa Confederation Line LRT (City of Ottawa, U/C)

Markster said:
There's been another open house for the West LRT!

Is it just me, or does that Queensview station seem like it's in a crappy location? It's a 500m walk just to get to the front of the IKEA, nevermind the rest of Pinecrest mall.
Click to expand...

I was upset that I had to miss this, I would have liked to have gone. And yes, I've been waiting for the display boards to be posted online, but still nothing.

The location for Queensview is less than ideal, but given the fact that a) it's a mid-block station, and b) that it's hemmed in between development and the Queensway, it's a pretty decent compromise. The only way you could get it closer to the Ikea would be to dive under the Queensway, have the station on the south side, and then veer back under it again to connect to the existing Transitway trench west of Pinecrest. That wouldn't work, IMO.

On a related note to this, one of the ideas that I have been mulling over is to combine the Western LRT extension with an extension of the SJAM Parkway. Put the LRT in the median of the 4 lane Parkway from Carling to the Queensway, then in the middle of a 2 lane Parkway to Baseline. This would provide an alternative route for people heading downtown, and would divert some of the traffic off of Woodroffe north of Baseline. If the two are built in conjunction, the price differential shouldn't be that substantial. The Queensway interchange can use the existing EB 417 -> NB Transitway and SB Transitway -> WB 417 ramps, and construct a new EB 417 -> SB Transitway ramp. WB 417 -> NB Transitway can be done using the off and on ramp at Woodroffe.
 
I would have just moved Queensview station further west, with the pedestrian bridge on the west side of the station, instead of the east.

It's since occurred to me that the Queensview station can't be moved further west to be closer to Pinecrest Mall, because that would put it way too close to the Pinecrest Station that I believe is just out of frame.

I do want to see more rationale over the exact placement of that pedestrian bridge, and what the pedestrian accesses on either side are expected to be. It looks like it's in a pretty poor location right now. It should either be further east with a new trail to connect to the residential there, or it should be further west to better access the mall (and provide a shorter walking distance to the front entrance of The Citizen).

I emailed about the lack of display boards, and this was the response:

Mon, May 4, 2015 at 3:30 PM

Dear Mr. Jackson-Brown

The Open House display panels are with our webmaster and she is preparing them for the web. I hope that they will be ready by late this week.

I hope that this will be the link they use:
http://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/publi...on-line-west-light-rail-transit-lrt-extension

Regards,
Nelson Edwards
Senior Project Manager,
Transportation Planning Branch - Environmental Assessment Unit
Click to expand...

They're coming... whenever the webmaster gets around to it.
 
Markster said:
I would have just moved Queensview station further west, with the pedestrian bridge on the west side of the station, instead of the east.

It's since occurred to me that the Queensview station can't be moved further west to be closer to Pinecrest Mall, because that would put it way too close to the Pinecrest Station that I believe is just out of frame.

I do want to see more rationale over the exact placement of that pedestrian bridge, and what the pedestrian accesses on either side are expected to be. It looks like it's in a pretty poor location right now. It should either be further east with a new trail to connect to the residential there, or it should be further west to better access the mall (and provide a shorter walking distance to the front entrance of The Citizen).
Click to expand...

I think the pedestrian bridge location could be mitigated if the bridge was placed in an H form over the highway. That way, there would be both an east and a west approach on either side of the highway, minimizing the amount of back-tracking that someone would have to do.

Markster said:
I emailed about the lack of display boards, and this was the response:

They're coming... whenever the webmaster gets around to it.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Hopefully they're actually posted soon.
 
Well, they weren't ready by the end of the week, so I emailed them again.

I must say, the way Region of Waterloo handled information centres was worlds apart from Ottawa.

Waterloo Region would usually run 3 sessions on 3 different nights at 3 different locations, around the area affected. As opposed to this one-shot session at City Hall, which is nowhere close to the West LRT route.
Waterloo Region would actually solicit public feedback. Both in person and online. They'd give out paper forms you could fill out in person, or post online forms on the website. I don't know what it was like at this Ottawa LRT meeting, but the online presence seems to indicate that it was mostly a presentation, with little feedback desired. The website certainly doesn't encourage feedback, saying, at most "if you would like additional information please contact us", implying a uni-directional relationship.
Then there's this whole, "maybe we'll put up the information online one day eventually" thing. Online copies of the materials are the modern public information centre, and Waterloo would have materials up by at least the next day, for public viewing.

I mean, not that Waterloo Region necessarily listened to the advice on the feedback forms, at least, not for the big items, but it sure goes a long way to making the public feel like they've been listened to.
 
Ottawa seems to go in waves in terms of how much consultation it does and the quality of it. When it was covering the grand vision they did an excellent job. As they should have because they made a lot of big, long term decisions that affected how the city will grow and function in the next 50 years.

Now that they are looking at the details it is less frequent. But really the details are more technical and as you said...it's good enough now let's get on with building!
 
Looks pretty solid overall. The more entrances they have the more it will be integrated into the downtown urban fabric. Yeah phase 1 isn't exactly huge but it's going to be super exciting to this line open and take off nonetheless.
 
AnarchoSocialist said:
Looks pretty solid overall. The more entrances they have the more it will be integrated into the downtown urban fabric. Yeah phase 1 isn't exactly huge but it's going to be super exciting to this line open and take off nonetheless.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It's just too bad that Ottawa doesn't have the same type of path system that Toronto does. Integrating into the buildings is nice, but if you're not in the building connected to the station, you still have to get to street level and cross the street.

Like I said, I just hope that the entrances are still easily accessible from street level, and you don't have to go down a set of stairs, around a corner, around another corner, through a set of doors, through the concourse, and then down another set of stairs to reach the trains.

Phase 1 may not be huge in terms of KMs of trackage, but it's the most essential part of the system. Having enough capacity through downtown is where the Transitway went wrong, and they're making sure that same thing doesn't happen again.
 
Regarding New Orchard Station:

Apparently, despite the LRT line running in a tunnel under Richmond Rd, New Orchard station will be open to the air.

New rapid transit station to serve adjacent communities with open air LRT platforms below grade within Byron Linear Park.
Click to expand...

Kinda sucks that they won't be weather-protecting that station by decking it over.
 
I wouldn't call it "huge" - really it should be expected for any modern system being built in the present day.

Retrofitting the service into an older existing system is a challenge.
 
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