This report provides an update on some design improvements on Ottawa’s Light Rail Transit (OLRT) project and seeks approval to advance the bundling of the Highway 417-Widening project with the OLRT project. This report was approved by City Council on 28 March 2012.
(Full Report – PDF | Accessible HTML Version)
The relocation of Rideau Station makes a lot of sense. However, the 600m radius catchment areas highlight the fact that the same area could be covered by moving the Downtown East station to Kent Street and eliminating the second Downtown station, at a saving of $mega. A wide network of underground pedestrian walkways radiating from Kent staion would offset to a large extent the inconvenience of downtown users having to walk a little farther.
I heard and saw the plans now moving the station itself into the Rideau Centre. Too bad again for the NAC which is by-passed meaning you will need a car to get there. The big concern about a station at the Rideau Centre will be the potential for crime with a large homeless population, large shelters in the vicinity, drugs, crime and shootings in the market, not conducive to wanting to travel in that area. Unless the city provides around the clock policing to improve security and protection for the public, I cannot support such a plan. But given that this project is a decade away from seeing the light of day, I believe it will never happen. Ottawa is too much of a small town for such a project.
The Rideau Centre stop is only a five minute walk from the NAC.
It makes sense to have a stop where tourists can easily reach the Byward Market and a large shopping centre, which also serves as a hub for both local and Transitway bus traffic. I’d say Ottawa has much more of a problem with mischief at outlying and isolated suburban Transitway stops than in a busy shopping and nightlife sector, which is one of the few areas of downtown that actually attracts people evenings and week-ends.
I’m not sure why you would need a car to get to the NAC. A five-minute walk isn’t that bad and you could just take the escalator through the Rideau Centre. A lot of people do this now with the bus station on the bridge and go through the mall to get to the Market. I’m a little perplexed why you think people would need to drive?
Looking excellent. I can’t wait for this to be built.
RE: Report on OLRT Design Improvement – Update
The PDF copy of this document appears to be corrupted.
I’ve tested it on Mac’s and PC’s and with multiple browsers and it seems to be fine. You might need to update your Acrobat Reader. The HTML version has identical information, but if you prefer PDF and can’t upgrade then let me know. I can email you a version formatted for older readers.
When the plan finalizes, it should be presented as a whole instead of constantly changing it, all it is going to do is create turmoil with the citizens thinking that moving the entrance to a station under Rideau Centre is a big deal.
The Downtown East location has one problem, the western entryway should point to Bank Street, not eastwards, which is handled by the eastern entryway to Downtown East. This would encourage people who take the #1 downtown to connect further using that stop instead of Rideau, it also is a more natural flow given where people are going.
I really like the idea to move the LRT station at Train more west, almost as if it is another platform at the VIA station. Hopefully the city can just buckle themselves up and stay with the plan until completion. Also think they should start planning an elevated system down carling to Lincoln FIelds.
I disagree with some previous commentors. Locating the station at Rideau Centre instead of the original downtown location is a mistake. The purpose of public transit is to get as many people as possible to where they want to go, at times when the most of them need to get there.
While certainly a lot of people will go to Rideau Centre and the Byward Market, on a typical workday in Ottawa there are thousands and thousands of people travelling to the core area – west of the Canal, East of Bay St. – to work. Putting the station at Rideau Centre means people will have to walk from the station or transfer to a bus to get to their work location. If the station were at the NAC or nearer to there, people would be much much closer to their work sites, and in my mind that means they would be much more inclined to use public transit. While it’s true that walking from Rideau Centre to the NAC / Elgin and Queen st. area is not really that far a distance, it may be just enough distance and time to discourage people. Especially in the middle of an Ottawa winter.
Put the station back at the NAC, or somewhere nearer to Elgin. St, where more people go. Even better, build both.
I can support all the changes except one: the relocation of the Rideau Centre station. The shift of 200m or thereabouts (less than 3 mins walking) only marginally improves access to the market, Sandy Hill and Lowertown). But it dramatically increases the distance between Downtown East and Rideau. This spacing is a recipe for misery for the transit user, given Ottawa’s harsh winters. As it is, with the alignment shifted north to Queen street, the vast majority of riders will face walks south. And with so few stations in the core, boarding times are bound to increase.
This has all come about because planners chose to build too few stations downtown in the first place. A simple choice to build a station at Laurier (serving most of U of O, NDHQ, City Hall) and pushing the Campus stop further south and Rideau stop further west (to the planned station at the Conference Centre) would have made for comfortable spacing.
Instead, we are now going backwards. Planners are creating larger spacings and trying to sell it as better access. And worse yet, these proposed spacings will rule out any infill stations in the future. This city with spend $2.1 billion on an LRT system and cheap out on the $50 million for one extra station that would actually make the system tolerable. Sad.
It looks like a lot of thought went into this process which is fabulous. It’s great that VIA rail, the O-train, and the Rideau Centre will be connected to the LRT.
Now, let’s build it please!
Aside from station location and design issues, any chance of reviewing some of the station names such as Downtown East, Downtown West and Train? Surely there can be better names, eg Parliament Hill, or simply using downtown street names – and can someone come up with a better name than “Train” for Ottawa’s principle railway terminus?
Thank you for your input and inquiry regarding Ottawa Light Rail Transit (OLRT) station names.
The current OLRT station names are used for planning purposes. We agree that the stations should reflect the culture of Ottawa which is why we have developed station-specific themes for several stations which will be expressed through station design and public art:
· Bayview Station – Sustainability Theme
This concept promotes an approach to materials and mediums that consider natural elements and environmental sensitivity of the Ottawa area.
· Le Breton Station – Algonquin Theme
The station design will express Algonquin culture.
· Downtown West Station – Bytown Theme
Celebrating the history of Ottawa, this theme could include our early origins, significant achievements such as the Rideau Canal and/or the community leads that helped build Ottawa
· Downtown East Station – Confederation Theme
This theme concept would incorporate design elements that recognise Ottawa’s role as the Nation’s Capital and could include symbols of Canadian identity and /or the unique cultures of each Province and Territory.
· Rideau Station – Gallery Theme
This theme would create a space for temporary art exhibits covering contemporary Canadian art.
· Campus Station – Innovation Theme
This concept could encompass various elements of innovation realized through choice of materials, medium, subject matter etc.
With regards to the final station names, OC Transpo, as operator of the OLRT system, will be the ultimate decision maker. We have forwarded your comments to them.
I see the two stops that appear to be at Bank and O’Conner. Why not take out the second stop, the eastern most stop at O’Conner and move it down to Elgin. This addresses the problem of Elgin street not having a stop now that the intention is to move the original Elgin Street stop to Ridieau.
And yes, any stop at Rideau will have to be very closely monitored, and heavily policed. Sad but true!
The catchment area for the Campus station is extremely misleading. I doubt that many commuters working in the downtown core west of the canal will consider the Campus station close enough to be a viable option. Notwithstanding the pedestrian bridge, it would be quite a hike to walk from Campus to Cartier and McLaren for example. Officially, the catchment area does not even reach Elgin Street… very cold and windy in the winter, too, not unlike the Laurier bridge.
Elgin Street needs a station with good bus service to run south on Elgin etc.
Okay… Downtown West at Bay/Lyon Street, Downtown Centre at Bank Street and Downtown East at Elgin/Metcalfe. Then Rideau, and Campus… etc…
… with more stops added years from now on an as needed basis…
now there’s a plan!
What about extending the O-Train to the Casino with stations on Montcalm, Montclair streets?
Are you talking about the casino in Gatineau?
Why give priority to stores? This is supposed to be the Capital of Canada! The plan to move the Elgin station east of the RIdeau Centre puts a huge distance between downtown stations, where you will be moving more people. Tourists and workers in the Core will mostly use one station near O’Connor/Queen? Try again.
I agree with others that support a station for Elgin/NAC. It will better support workers in the core and be a boost to tourism. My bigger concern lies in reviewing the financial plans for the LRT and Lansdowne. They are predicated on very conservative estimates of inflation and interest rate increases. Considering that these projects will be partially funded through property tax revenues, if anything changes Ottawa citizens will be in for a big surprise in their rates. To my knowledge a “worst-case” scenario has never been done by City management. I am all for both projects but I think there has to be more transparency with regards to costs. In addition for the LRT I think they need to go back to the planning board once again. Let’s get this right BEFORE we build!
Unfortunately, this system as planned simply lacks vision and could potentially make life worse for many commuters. Many commuters will easily face walks of 10 minutes or more in the dead of winter. The bustling Elgin corridor will be starved as revelers stick close to the Rideau subway station and party in the Market. The heritage aspect will have been completely ignored with the missed opportunity to integrate the Rideau station into the Government Conference Centre. Ottawa. Sticking to its roots of building ugly, utilitarian public infrastructure everywhere. This has to be one of the worst looking capital cities of any developed country.
But at least a few stores at the Rideau Centre might make a buck or two and a few councillors and the mayor will get to brag at election time about how they held the line on costs. Nobody will question them on the poorly functioning, inconvenient, ugly LRT they are building.
@Annie,
They can’t add stops years from now. The way they’ve spaced out these stops will preclude in-fill stations later.
Adding an Elgin St. station would definitely be a good idea, both because it’s a logical hub and because of the every-few-blocks spacing. It’s a long walk between the northeast side of the Rideau Center and O’Connor when the weather or traffic is bad. An Elgin St. station would also put a larger swath of Elgin within an easy walk of the station.
Get off at the rideau center & take the bus 14, 6, 5 & it’ll take you down Elgin.
With the Rideau Station, why not connect the OCC under the canal with the NAC so that patrons can get to their concerts in their best shoes without going outside? As an NAC subscriber, I would be happy to walk through the OCC and Rideau Centre. Then again, I don’t mind the $10 for parking either, so it depends on your point of view.
Did you honestly just say that?
Lets spend millions so people don’t need to go outside with their best shoes…give me a break..
The entrance to the train station from the side is so nasty and user-unfriendly. It may actually discourage people from using public transit to get to the station. Just imagine lugging your suitcase along a narrow sidewalk as you go from the station to the main entrance.
Terrible design and planning. So Ottawa!
Yea, this all looks great! But why is it that there is no train service to Barrhaven? Barrhaven is the fastest growing community in Ottawa! It makes perfect sense to have inner city train service to Fallowfield station. Think about it…
I agree with most of the proposed changes including the Rideau location. Rideau is the busiest bus stop through the downtown and it more efficiently connects to local routs. It only disadvantages a few rush hour users: those that work in the area west of Elgin and east of Metcalf; about 1500 workers (and that may be generous). On the other hand 2000 rush hour workers are advantaged by the closer Rideau station. Also about 2000 residents live closer to Rideau location (Very few live closer to the Elgin station; a couple hundred). This also only takes into account weekday ridership. On weekends The Rideau Centre draws dozens more riders than the Elgin station ever would have.
The other main destinations that people claim would be disadvantaged are the Conference centre, the Chateau Laurier, and the NAC. All three do not contribute to rush hour traffic. The whole point of this LRT exercise is to deal with the fact that Albert and Slater are maxed out with busses during rush hour. This is then our primary concern. The Conference centre is the destination of very few people on a regular basis; its deciding force on station location is moot. The Chateau Laurier has guests that drive into the city and generally get about the city by car or by foot. Tourists in general avoid rush hour traffic for that very reason; it is rush hour traffic. As much as there are tourist destinations around the Elgin location there are just as many around the Rideau location. Tourists also primarily move about by foot not LRT. The Largest of the three the NAC is one that people claim by not having a close station people will not take LRT to see a show. This is not the primary motivation for people to take transit. As long as there is sufficient parking at the NAC people will continue to drive. Even if the station is 3 min closer why would people choose to spend 30 min by transit when they could make the same trip in 15 min by car? No matter what your starting point; at 7 pm traffic is not a problem so people will continue to drive. The decision to move the Elgin station to Rideau although not well explained by the city does make economic sense and will continue to keep your tax from rising unnecessarily.
The one change I am opposed to is the decision to move the VIA rail Station further from the pedestrian bridge connecting it to Baseball stadium. This will be a major draw as all sports venues have the ability to be; so why the city chose to provide worse service to those potential users (if we ever get a team) is not clear to me. At the same time the old and the new locations are just as close to the Vial rail doors.
If the city is so bent on saving money to build and operate this LRT system they should consider removing the Cyrville Station. Very few people use this station; while the two stations adjacent see many thousands of people. The reason this stations is not used is clear: there are very few destinations. Almost all of which are much more easily accessible by car or better served by a bus easily accessed form the St. Laurent or Blair Stations. This is a station that should be scraped until such time as the density of the area justifies its construction. At this time and in the near future this is not, will not be the case.
This is a theme that can also be repeated in the downtown. Let’s leave appropriate space between stations for new stations to be constructed when the density of the area requires it(20+ years from now). There are three such locations that could have this designation. One could be Elgin but place lying under Queen Street just west of Elgin. The second would lie roughly where Laurier Station is now (seeing as the distance between Campus and Rideau is 1000m). The third would be between Down town West and LeBreton Stations at about Bronson. Let us not become caught up in the idea that what we build today is what we will be left with for a century. We are building a system that will be ever changing and we need to as responsible citizens make the changes that may need to be made in the future as easy to implement as possible. Doing this requires planning ahead.