Even if this isn’t the best possible alignment, I do think it’s a very much admirable goal to create a single integrated rail system for Canada’s national capital. The urban area isn’t all that integrated right now, but a single transport system would certainly help.!
Totally agree with the logic behind having one integrated system but I was gonna say cutting out the busiest stop (Portage) probably wouldn't go over well. If I had my way, I'd probably run the Gatineau line past the museum of history and over the Alexandria Bridge (which is set to be replaced soon) and connect everything at the Rideau Centre
plus if future lines (thinking of a potential Bank Street line) be expected to go through Parliament station, the current plan of ending the Gatineau line there isn't really that bad
Meanwhile, here in the south west of Germany, we have a trinational S-Bahn and tram system in the greater Basel area, which serves Switzerland, France and Germany. The Basel airport (may I remind you, that Basel is a swiss city) is actually located in France, but international cooperation even with non EU countries is so advanced, that you actually have a large number of multinational urban areas in Europe, that plan and operate their infrastructure jointly.
You call that a sign of European cooperation but in fact what happened was the city was there operating in an autonomous fashion for generations and then some guy signed the treaty of Westphalia, invented the nation-state, and then stuck one of his silly little borders right through a nice clean conurbation. Good on you for getting back to that place eventually though.
that's exactly my point, see also Strasbourg-Kehl tram shared between France and Germany. Sad to see such pointless divisions happening in Northern America even between internal states of the same country.
@@EastofVictoriaPark Adam something did it. You're right, some cooperations are great between bordering cities and local governments, but as for international longer distance travel aside from a few shared high speed lines between countries on many other lines much work has to be done. Different electrifications are also a hurdle in doing that.
Great job raising this issue Reece. I think you've really hit your stride in blending transit education with transit advocacy. I'm optimistic that making videos like this will make a real difference for Ottawa's transit future. Thanks man!
I have to agree. It's nice to see someone speaking out about these plans. Creating a regional transit plan for the Ottawa - Gatineau area is always a complicated dance between Ottawa, Gatineau, Ontario, Quebec and the Federal government. Unfortunately very few politicians in the region have the will to expend the political capital needed to build a functional and convenient regional transit system. Buck passing is the name of the game. It's hard enough for this car-centric region to build (long-overdue) road bridges linking the two cities. Building intercity/interprovincial transit links just takes that complexity up another notch.
Reminds me of the NYC Subway and the PATH system that goes into New Jersey, separate systems, separate state Authorities running them (MTA and Port Authority), but you can use Metrocards at the turnstiles/gate line for both and there are stations right near each other (or under 6th avenue right on top of each other!), but you have to walk out of the paid fare area and pay again to transfer.
@@OhioGrandma46I think that if PATH was ran by MTA that it would just end up being used mostly for trips between Financial District and Times Square. I think the point of them being separate is that the PATH is used for going to/from New Jersey and not just a faster way for New Yorkers to get around New York. Personally I do think that MTA/PATH transfers should be free, but only trips originating in New Jersey or concluding in New Jersey. Not sure how that would be accomplished but I’m sure they could figure out a way. The only issue with this is that PATH does not recieve the heavy amounts of government funding that the MTA does, so either MTA would need to pay for the free transfers, or it just would not be feasible.
One thing not mentioned here is that a rail system that spans the entire length of Gatineau (Aylmer-Hull-Gatineau) through a hybrid of the propose rail system and the Rapibus network could bring a huge amount of connectivity to the city which relies almost 100% on one highway to connect it right now.
The whole Rapibus in my sense should be transform into a tram system and make a huge station at taché-UQO with bus can drop there aylmer passenger and let them take the train and make a other bridge to cross next to the prince of the gales bridge I know the video of Reese is about no transfer but to be honest I don’t think the aylmer tram should be build now maybe in 10 year but for now population to small there
Porto, in Portugal, is planning to build a brand new bridge over the Douro for the future Linia H to better connect Porto and Vilanova de Gaia, two different municipalities. The plans look amazing!
The thing I loved the most living in Istanbul was how every transit system was connected. You can take the metro to the funicular to the ferry to another metro. Busses stop at metro and metrobus stations. Delight of a system to use.
I just looked at the CPCS article and it makes a lot of sense. I hope the two transit agencies can come to an agreement as it seems it would be beneficial to both cities and tourists alike.
The two are in agreement in their preference that Gatineau LRT is optimized in a Sparks Street tunnel that could be integrated at Lyon Station. And that is all after considering all the options RM suggests in this video (as they did consider those options).
@@mlmielke I’m glad that they’ve agreed upon something because any transit expansion is better than none at all! I’m just worried this may cost more than what it’s worth but to be fair I’m not from Ottawa so I’m limited in terms of what is and isn’t a desirable to the residents of the OG area.
@@RMTransit I think the word you're looking for is seamless. Certain connections, including the idea at Lyon with the Sparks Street tunnel are still integrated.
How you define this is really up to you but I wouldn't consider the systems integrated and I think the planning for the Gatineau system is not very good.
The reason that Gatineau's LRT is proposed to run on the surface to Parliament Hill is to turn Wellington Street into a tram and pedestrians-only corridor, in response to certain security problems they had last winter.
That's honestly such a bs reason. Transit projects should be done on their own accord, not as a response to fight against something completely unrelated. Not to mention it sounds to me like an excuse to cheap out, save money, and push this city loop idea rather than actual security reasons. If you want to turn it into a pedestrians only corridor, you can do that without needing the tram.
@@Absolute_Zero7 No reason not to kill two birds with one stone if you can, though. It's generally desirable, in fact. Also helps get things passed when various people would otherwise be obstructionist about it for unrelated reasons (because politics). Not that that says anything in particular about the actual instance at hand, as cheaping out on important things while being seen to be 'doing something' and then spending a tonne of money on something no one wants that, if you're Lucky, isn't actively detrimental to the people and city/country as a whole is absolutely SOP for idiot politicians (those who are more concerned with ideology or image than with actually doing their job right included). Just another factor to take into account.
@@laurencefraser This is one of the biggest problems with transit planning in NA, using transit as a way to solve problems unrelated to transit. The prime example of this is the various streetcar systems in the US that were built as a way to spur development. When you build something for the purpose of accomplishing a separate goal, you get just that, something where the primary goal isn't transit. In the case of the US streetcars, what we got is a bunch of streetcar lines that are objectively bad transit, are horrible at moving people around, but hey, at least they spurred development. Same principle here. If you're going to be using a tram as a way to stop people from protesting in front of parliament, well that's what you're going to get. A project that's primarily about stopping protesters, and moving people around as a secondary effect. The question that should be asked, and in fact the only question that should be asked is "how good is the alignment at what the primary job should be, moving people around?", to which the answer is "it's bad". Wellington Street isn't exactly a useful street for getting to various places downtown, and its distance away from the Confederation Line makes it pretty awful in terms of allowing people to transfer to the rest of Ottawa's rail network. The only benefits to the surface option from a transit perspective is A) There's an extra stop at Elgin, and B) it lends itself better to future extensions both as a tramway down Elgin, as well as the proposed loop up Alexandria Bridge, the former of which is unlikely to happen due to the provincial governments not wanting to cooperate, and the latter is sort of a tourist gimmick. As Reece said, of you want to get cars off of Wellington, get cars off of Wellington, you don't need a tram to do that.
1. Gatineau would need to pay for the Trillium Line re-reconversion to an electric line. There is no way Ottawa is paying for that - a large expense for another jurisdiction. 2. If anything, a (admittedly far more difficult connection) connection at Rideau makes more sense, the eastern leg of the Loop. It was fairly recently that you talked about balance in branches, but the western side already has two branches, which the east doesn't have (SE Transitway is not likely to be ever converted to LRT). 3. For the cost of making those changes, you could probably expand rapid transit coverage. After Stage 2, Ottawa's main priority should (read: it won't be) be improving service for dense, inner-Greenbelt corridors like on Montreal, Bank, Carling, Baseline, etc. Baseline BRT was costed at $300 million for high quality, full median lanes from Billings Bridge to Bayshore. A large sum spent (poorly) integrating the already planned network could go towards service improvements in both cities.
I don't really agree that the integration would be poor, and while having additional western branches is not optimal having both provinces as stakeholders probably helps the chances of a second downtown tunnel happening in the future substantially! Part of the issue here is that sort of like Melbourne the development in Ottawa-Gatineau is unbalanced, so having even branch numbers is a valuable goal but much more difficult.
@@RMTransit I've seen discussion of running a hypothetical Bank St line up into Gatineau, which then leaves a Montreal Rd line interlining with the current LRT. That retains a forced transfer for most Aylmer-ians (Aylmerites?) though. I do think that Bayview will be a larger problem than expected. When the LRT opened in 2019, many people who had taken the bus to Hurdman, shifted to Line 2 causing an immediate 50% ridership spike pre-COVID. When the extension to Earl Armstrong is complete I suspect OC Transpo will run many Barrhaven buses there (connect the Chapman Mills BRT to the SW Transitway), to reduce bus hours operated. That would, of course, further increase the strain at Bayview.
@@timothytao898 The Algonquin Station bus loop is big - it is already partially used when the 87 does its layby before starting its route (right now, mostly it is just the one bus that uses the big layby facility). Limebank isn't, although the Riverside South CDP does include a plan to extend the Chapman Mills BRT to Limebank.
@@mlmielke I know they are building a whole new terminal at Baseline (I see it everyday on the 111) but Earl Armstrong is closer than Baseline for much of Barrhaven and I wonder what will happen, especially to the Express - sorry, Connection - routes.
@@timothytao898 The Connexion routes, I expect that they'll still go to Algonquin Station. And instead, I would expect another regular route to go to Limebank, like the 74 (my suggestion has been consolidating 87 with 74 with 278 and going via Carling-Churchill-Woodroffe while also extending the route to Greely). Limebank to Bayview is still not quicker than the SW transitway + Woodroffe + Line 1. That also goes with how the ridership forecast is, although those can be underestimated like they have been on Line 2.
I'd love to see you do a video on the MBTA in Boston. There's a ton of interesting history, as well as future plans, surrounding it. On top of that, it has been known to be extremely unreliable at times. Yet it is still one of the most iconic subway systems out there (although I am biased as it is my home city).
Poor integration is a common problem even in much larger cities. The New York City Subway doesn't go to New Jersey or Staten Island (each of these has their own isolated systems, plus PATH that sticks a couple of lines into Manhattan), and on the opposite coast, the San Francisco Bay area has the various transit systems all doing their own thing.
My favorite part of this: PATH is considering extending its Newark PATH line from NWK Penn to EWR airport. And the APM at EWR, which goes to the Amtrak/NJ transit station by the airport is really aging RN. The solution? There is also ANOTHER project proposed to build a NEW APM from the terminal to the Amtrak/NJ station itself, while PATH will extend to serve the same station that Amtrak/NJ transit rail currently uses. And the best part of this? PANYNJ runs BOTH the airport (thus the airtrain) AND the PATH trains…
I know Staten Island is not connected with New York Subway, pretty sure there is a Subway line which Manhattan to New Jersey. Is it not? Or am i missing something.
@@shivankurchahar7368 Those are the PATH lines I mentioned above. The New York City Subway does not reciprocate PATH's outreach; extension of a New York City Subway line into New Jersey has been talked about, but nothing has ever been done.
@@Lucius_Chiaraviglioi assume that the only reason that PATH is not ran by MTA is because if it was it would end up just being a more convenient way for New Yorkers to get from Times Square to the World Trade Centre for example. Although I do agree that PATH/MTA transfers should be free, I think we should only make these transfers free if the trip is originating from New Jersey or concludes in New Jersey, not sure how that would happen but I’m sure it could be done.
Hi! How are you? Korea/Seoul has entered full-fledged winter since the 29th of last month. Temperatures around minus 10'C and snow are falling all over the country. It's already Friday this week. I hope you have good health and good things today, weekends, and holidays. Thank you very much.
To me it just sounds like the two provinces not wanting to interact or have to pay to run services on each other’s network. Canberra and Queanbeyan in Australia (ACT / NSW) had this issue until recently and that was with buses, and the Gold Coast still has this problem with the QLD / NSW border. Both the railway line and tram line, once extended to Coolangatta (Gold Coast), won’t cross the border as Queensland doesn’t want to pay for NSW’s public transport. It’s really frustrating, and combined with different fare systems, makes transit difficult and confusing to use.
A three-country train was recently introduced in the Netherlands. The commuter train now runs from Aachen in Germany to Maastricht in the Netherlands. At the end of 2023, it will continue to the French-speaking Belgian city of Liège. The train will then call at 18 stations in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium with a timetable of two trains per hour. To provide this service it cost many hurdles, due to different infrastructure, security systems, laws and regulations.
As someone living in Hull, the problem are as such : - Station from the Rapibus don't have great walkability (due to being next to the rail corridor), and wouldn't be the best place to build a grade separated corridor. - Portage bridge is not a great connection for buses, and the intersection on both sides of that bridge should be roundabouts. (traffic flow SUCKS next to these intersections. - Lack of funds for the tram project probably mean a smaller scale tram, who would probably go to Plateau via Montcalm and allumetieres, because there is strong opposition from people that lives between the Rapibus corridor and the body of water that separates hull island from wrightville
being from Ottawa i 100% agree about this merging. you cant even use Presto payments on the STO. its always been such a pain if you ever wanted to cross
You can actually see a small sign at Rosslyn station in the US that says “Welcome to Virginia”, as it is the first and last stop between Virginia and DC. Guessing the same goes for stations crossing into Maryland. But in practical terms, you’re right, it’s the same metro system and you don’t see any switch between them
Another thing worth pointing out, is that when they built the Rapidbus, for some reason known only to the city government, they re-laid the rails they tore up to build it. They just moved them over to make room, so those rails are 2013 rails (albeit seemingly unmaintained due to the tracks ending at the Chief William Commanda bridge). They even in some instances upgraded the railroad crossings with modern gates and signals, for a line that seemingly has never been used. Whether Gatineau is optimistic about the O-Train crossing the river and running parallel to the Rapidbus, or there is just some contract that says the rails need to be maintained, is yet to be known to me. But they are still doing it, as when they expanded the corridor in 2022, they re-laid the rails they tore up again...
Haha I always stare at the map and always thought that rail bridge was perfectly lined up to connect line 2 to Gatineau. Would be incredibly convinient
Ottawa has a lot of former rail infrastructure that has some interesting potential. Check out the former ROW from the old train station (now the temporary Senate) under the Chateau Laurier that led to the formerly-rail Alexandra Bridge.
Here in Guadalajara, they are building line 4, which only connects to a BRT line which is insufficient considering Line 4 could serve the airport via a branch but it is unlinkely now and will conect high density and new housing states aswell as rapidly growing towns.
3:56 "The Prince of Wales Bridge" is the official name of the Second Severn Crossing, the modern bridge that takes the M4 motorway over the River Severn (the border between England and Wales).
This sort of reminds me of the Portland max extension which will go over the new I-5 bridge (whenever the rebuild moves ahead) into downtown Vancouver (WA). Neighboring towns/cities could absolutely benefit from a integrated metro system
You should tell that to Paris... each tramway line is independent and has its own rolling stock, gauge and even sometimes technology (yes, I'm talking about you TRANSLOHR).
I think the many different political bodies that exist in the NCR (two municipal governments, two provincial governments, the federal government and the NCC) can make this a real Gordian knot of politics. Add to that the recently elected mayor of Ottawa being elected on a largely anti-transit platform and the general distrust for these large projects following the disaster with the current LRT, and I unfortunately don't see there being enough political will to move this project forward. Which is a shame, because I fully believe the NCR would benefit from a more regional approach to transit. I myself travel across the border for work and would love better connectivity!
Really not sure I agree that the downtown tunnel has all this extra capacity as you say. You're using the current throughput, not the headways planned with the opening of the new extensions. Lines 1 & 3 will already be pushing trains to every 2 minutes... But, ignoring that for a moment, totally agree that better integration between the two systems would be beneficial. Many would argue there isn't actually much intercity traffic (outside of the downtown core) but that is just being reinforced by the current arrangements. If better links were in place, that intercity volume would absolutely increase. Textbook case of induced demand.
The Kanata EPR very plainly mentions the constraints with trying to over branch lines, when it is already two, including how to branch a branch and suggested headways when doing so. It is a major constraint especially with platform circulation that doesn't support it downtown. Sure, it is possible, but if you consider this: Edmonton had to cut service on its main line just to accommodate its additional line, just because of signalling.
Reece, as you already know me from my document I emailed you, I agree. People think about a one system transit service for a long time. Both cities are on NCC territory. Jacques Gréber, I think, founded the National Capital Commission.
Philadelphia has a similar situation, though on a smaller scale. Before 1969, the Broad-Ridge Spur, then under SEPTA's predecessor, the Philadelphia Transportation Company, and the Bridge Line, then under the old Delaware River Joint Commission, shared track from 8th & Market Station to 15th-16th Station. When SEPTA took over from PTC, and PATCO took over the Bridge Line, both in 1968, the decision was made (either by SEPTA or PATCO, or both) to separate the two lines permanently. PATCO retained the original 1936-built 8th & Market Station, as well as 9th-10th, 12th-13th, & 15th-16th stations, while a new one-tracked, one-sided platformed 8th & Market terminus station was built for the Broad-Ridge Spur. The switch tracks were removed, and a chain-link fence was put up, forever separating the two lines.
Good luck with integrating different systems. In Wisconsin, they have actually outlawed the creation of a “regional transportation authority” like they have in the Chicago metropolitan area. Ugh.
As someone who frequently uses oc transpo and sto, my biggest problem right now is that the payment systems arent integrated. So you basically need a presto card and a STO card to travel efficiently. I know that it is OC transpos 5 year plan to solve this issue, but honestly it can't come fast enough.
At this stage in the construction of the Trillium expansion, I think this possibility has missed it's window. The tram vehicles used on Confed and Gatineau side would not meet transport Canada's standards for trains to run on Trillium as it crosses the CN mainline at Walkley. The platforms are built high up for the new rolling stock for Trillium so we would need to raise the rail bed significantly at stations. And that is before, as you said, converting the signalling system, adding OCS and double tracking large areas that are currently single track. I do think this would have been a good idea, and think that the Flirts and Lints could easily be used on an East/West line if we took over the CN line from St. Laurent area(or even expand to Orleans South), across the city near huntclub then crossing into Bell's Corners/Kanata North, but that would be years away... If anything I think the option to connect to Line 1/3 at Bayview would be good, though we would need to find a place to turn them back somewhere in the down town, or build another tunnel going east along Rideau as you said, cause there is no where to have a run terminate in the current infrastructure, especially keeping in mind that by end of stage 2 the expected headways for Lines 1&3 are as low as 1.5 mins.
@@trevorritchie2575 no, Trillium is now grade separated from VIA with a new flyover. It crosses the CN line at Walkley diamond and uses the CN line as part of the connector tracks for the Walkley Yard. Trillium is also used by VIA and CN to bring trains to the NRC facility near the airport.
The main problem that I see with Ottawa's transit system is that too many of the rail alignments come into (or skirt) downtown Ottawa from the west side. And the plan shown at 4:05 exacerbates that. You have 2 red branches and 1 blue branch (2 in Gatineau's plan) come in from the west, and only 1 red alignment continues out on the east. That's not great for through-running, unless you want to run 7 times as many trains on that eastern red alignment as on any other branch. Also, all passengers from the 3 green and light blue corridors (the 2 southern ones and the 1 northern one) will either have to transfer onto one of those lines that takes them into downtown Ottawa from the west. Or you have to split up the vehicles on all of those lines into one line that continues from the bayview interchange to the east; but since you don't have anywhere for them to go to on the opposite side of downtown, you can't do that for all vehicles, which means that you have to operate the other half of the trains on each corridor as lines passing downtown in the Bayview junction, where they move directly between 2 of the 3 western legs of that interchange. Also, to me it doesn't seem like a bad idea for the trains on the Gatineau side to have as convenient of a connection into Hull as possible. Which leads me to my proposed solution: Take the alignment from Gatineau's plan until you reach the north side of the Portage Bridge, but then build a whole new (rail+bike) bridge from the curve in Laurier street to one of the north-south streets in downtown Ottawa. "Ottawa regional road 31" / Bank Street seems like it is lined to an overwhelming proportion with commercial properties, to the point that it might even be pulling more daily visitors into downtown Ottawa than Wellington Street. The red line(s) with it's 2 branches in the east would remain the only line(s) through-running into the eastern red alignment. The Gatineau line would route into downtown from the north (and would have potential for through-routing into some useful corridor in the south in the future). And the green and light blue lines have two development options that are advantageous for downtown connectivity. EITHER the green line gets extended to the north on the Prince of Wales bridge, in which case the 3 green and light blue branches would dump their passengers into the lines that reach downtown Ottawa in *two* different interchange stations, alleviating capacity concerns in Bayview. OR alternatively one of those 2 lines might even join with the Bank Street line to turn into it's southern continuation. Admittedly, the plan shown at 4:06 COULD function as a first development step to my plan idea, except that the Prince of Wales bridge refurbishment isn't fully needed in my plan (unless you want both the green and light blue line to cross the river - which certainly doesn't have to start being built until the northern (green line) extension to Lac-Beauchamp is operational).
All great points! One of the other plans that's been floated by members of the National Capital Commission which oversees regional planning for Ottawa-Gatineau would be to construct an interprovincial light rail loop crossing at the Prince of Wales/William Commanda bridge to the west and the Alexandra Bridge to the east. Given that the Alexandra Bridge currently being replaced and central portions of Wellington St are already closed to traffic after the trucker protests last winter, I hope some forward-thinking planners run with this idea. Ottawa-Gatineau has a high degree of economic integration and the transit separation across the Ottawa river is a huge barrier, especially in the winter months when cycling in -20 or below turns most people off until spring.
This is the same problem for SORTA and TANK (South Ohio Regional Transit Authority and Transport Authority of Northern Kentucky). The Cincinnati metro population is about 2.3million people, with about 2/3rds of it living on the Ohio side and about 1/3rd of it living on the Kentucky side. SORTA busses use to not cross into Kentucky, where TANK busses had two routes that cross the Ohio River only to go to the 5th Avenue Bus Terminal. This poses a problem if you wanted to get to CVG Airport, which is in Northern Kentucky, where you had to take a Metro bus downtown and then transfer to a TANK bus to take you across the river. In recent years there has been integration with ticket systems for monthly pass owners, but if you want a dual pass it is a lot more money and you need to have a physical ticket since there are two online apps
Unfortunately working with Quebec is hard because they always want more and pay less. They want Ottawa to pay for the whole bridge repair but have priority on the line
The planned Gold Coast Light rail extension to Coolangatta reaches 300m from the NSW border and a study has been done on extending but knowing nsw they wont spend any money on tweed let alone further south.
Jim Watson's legacies will be a) maintaining diesel on line 2; b) sticking to the unneeded and unwanted low-floors, and c) intentionally building to prohibit proper use of the Chief William Commanda Bridge.
I live in Ottawa and entirely agree with you, these are all great ideas! So far our transit expansion has been hampered by poorly planned connections (like the future "enhancement" of taking 3 different trains to get to the airport) and more ideas like these are what we actually need to build!
Delhi NCR is similar in the way that it is also divided between 3 state governments, that is of Delhi, Uttar pradesh(UP) and Haryana. But the cities on delhi, Noida and gaziabad (in UP) and Gurgaon and Faridabad ( in haryana) are all served by DMRC. But gurgaon has its own rapid metro line which is owned by Haryana mass transit authority and Noida has aqua line owned by Noida metro rail coorporation, all the operations for both are managed by DMRC. Plus in case of rapid metro one might not be aware about this (which I expect a lot of locals arn't) because when you get off the yellow line, you just go up the escalator and board the rapid metro, you don't even have to go through a set of fare gates. It's seamless. You can use DMRC smart cards, one day cards and all in gurgaon no problem. Noida is not there right now as they don't accept DMRC cards at the moment and you have to buy a seprate ticket or carry two smart cards, it would not be like that for long as Noida will move to the same system as gurgaon in about a year which will be awesome.
Welcome to the wonderful world of public infrastructure projects in Canada, I'll be your guide. STO and OCTranspo were never going to get along on an LRT project. The two cities don't work together on anything. STO runs busses where they want to and OCTranspo does the same. When I lived in Ottawa is was crazy how separated these two systems are. As to why STO wants to run the LRT along roads in downtown Ottawa. Honestly, a lack of forward thinking. Gatineau designed their LRT plan to effectively replace their existing bus service which has nearly all the routes that go to Ottawa run along the same road. They probably thought "oh these bus routes do well, so might as well just duplicate the same thing but with a train!"
It's sad that you even had to make this video. It seems to me that the more fundamental problem is when you have one urban area spanning multiple jurisdictions that don't talk to each other. I get that people want local control, but acting separately just leads to "us vs them" thinking, lack of coordination and ultimately a worse experience for residents. Thankfully there aren't many (any?) cities in the UK where we have this problem, but we just had Brexit, and that's going swimmingly, so......
the combination of street-running tram and full metro alignments into a single service concerns me, as does the interlined service pattern you suggest - i'd think both could set the system up for cascading delays and unreliability. that said, i do agree that integrating transit across the river makes loads of sense, as does sending line 2/4 farther north
I don't think I would be pushing for a very high number of trains from Gatineau into Downtown Ottawa - so I think risk of interference could be kept to a minimum. Perhaps including a parallel turnback east of Bayview would help. Always possible Gatineau's system get's total grade separation too . . .
@@RMTransit i'd argue that if demand is low enough for infrequent service on the Bayview bypass tracks to be feasible, then their absence should not be expected to cause significant overcrowding at Bayview, especially if line 1 operates the kind of tight headways that interlining makes difficult
If the metro has priority over the tram, you could probably keep the metro delays to a minimum, while delaying the tram a bit more than it is already...
Prince of Wales bridge was renamed to honor the indigenous Algonquin chief William Commanda…bridge is being retrofitted for a bikeway and pedestrain dedicated pathway as a connection b/w ontario and quebec, stunning location for sunsets…it’s opening soon
They absolutely could have used the Chief Wlliam Commanda Bridge (former Prince of Wales Bridge) that runs across Lemieux Island to connect to Gatineau but Quebec didn't want to help pay for restoring the bridge. So now it will be a walking/cycling path.
Please cover Helsinski’s “Raide-Jokeri”… a very ambitious 25km west to east light rail that will a) take quite a load off the “Ring Roads” and b) will be opening AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!
The reason Toronto's LRTs (oops, I mean streetcars) are electrified is because on busy lines the operating savings usually pay of the cost of the wire. Someday Ottawa will figure that out too . . . and electrify the Trillium Line.
This has similarity to the NY-NJ issue. Sure there's PATH and it's great but it would be better if it were completely integrated with NYC Subway, and with how urbanized the entire coast is bordering Manhattan, it's a shame that there's so little rail service outside PATH's catchment. If that area of NJ were in New York State, I would reckon the city would have annexed it as the sixth borough years ago.
You are correct and if you are wondering the port Authority trans Hudson was actually built to the same building gauge as the NYC Subway IRT Lines. The problem with that one is that PATH Train is regulated under Federal Railroad Administration which have rules for Mainline trains unlike the subway which goes for Federal Transit Authority regulation Which is less strict than the Federal Railroad Administration regulations.
If only the agencies would realise that integration is an integral part of building a transit system. Here in Germany, many cities have commuter trains operated by Deutsche Bahn, that are still planning together with the local traffic agencies, including an always increasing number of connections
You say that you'll never be able to tell when you cross the line for WMATA, but at least one station (Rosslyn?) has a sign on it welcoming you to Virginia, just as highways do.
It seem like most of Gatineau's bus lines head into Ottawa but, barely. Ottawa bus lines also barely reach into Gatineau. The number of Gatineau lines going into Ottawa indicate high demand however, because the lines stop just inside Ottawa, I would assume that most riders will have to transfer. I'm also assuming that fares are not integrated. At the very least, Ottawa buses should take Ottawa residents to the most popular places that Ottawa people go to in Gatineau. Gatineau buses should take Gatineau residents to the most popular places in Ottawa that they go to. This would offer one-seat rides to a significant number of riders. I always say that with each additional transfer required to complete a journey, more people will choose not to use the system. The biggest cost of transfers is time lost.
For fares, I think pay-per-ride cards (like the Presto or PME) aren’t adapted, since both systems charge different fares, but anyone with an unlimited card (like the ZAP on STO, for students) can use both systems. I learned this the hard way trying to use my PME on the O-train.
Can you do a video on payment systems. As a traveler London is fantastic in that you can tap in and out with any PayWave credit card. In other cities you have to figure out how to pay and it’s annoying.
OMNY is becoming a thing in the NYC area and this may be a non-issue in coming years, but I guess this could be like the PATH system being disconnected from the NYC subway system and passengers needing to pay separate fares for each. Though in this case, the PATH system actually came first and was never originally intended to connect with any subway system in NYC proper, since its original purpose was to shuttle passengers between nearby rail terminals in New Jersey (with only one still standing today) and eliminate the need for a lengthy bus or ferry ride across the Hudson River, but it may still be nice for PATH passengers to pay one fare when they ride. Though from your comments, PATH could also perhaps take advantage of existing rail infrastructure and go all the way to Rockefeller Center and/or Broadway-Lafayette Street if they so chose, but the need to dig additional tunnels and lay new track may not necessarily be worth the reward.
Has Gatineau revived it's rail plan? I thought it was scrapped for a bus rapid transit system, which was actually built, but I have not worked in Hull for over 6 years. Also, their plan would or could make more sense, to come across the old rail bridge and connect to Ottawa's Line 2 at Bayview station.
While I totally agree with the point you're making, it does have to be said that neither province is willing to fund projects that are located outside of their borders. The Ford governement is very unwilling to pay for a project in which ontarians are to have hardly any gains (except for 18 year old ontarians crossing the river to get into bars), while the Legeault gov't won't fund the Ontario part of any project because, well it can't control what happens outside of Quebec (which is actually pretty sensible). And I'll say nothing of ex-mayor Watson, who basically shut the door on the project during his whole tenure. So basically, it falls on the federal gov't to do the financing, which they don't really want to do. The only thing that might enable of the Gatineau project and by extension force the Ottawa city council to be a partner in it is that the city is trying to sell Wellington street to the feds (because of the extreme honking that occured recently) and the federal gov't would then probably use the project to make that street fully car-free.
"the federal gov't would then probably use the project to make that street fully car-free." I'd say the federal gov't has been wanting to do that since Oct 2014.
Although I agree with the overall concept of regionalizing transit in Ottawa-Gatineau, we don't have the federal leadership to accomplish this. This is all about very touchy federal/provincial division of powers and neither Quebec or Ontario are willing to give up any of its control over their own municipalities. As it stands, Bayview is way too far west of downtown and will create a transfer bottleneck in short order if we created a line that extends to serve all of Gatineau, and allowing trains from Gatineau to share access to the downtown tunnel is a slap in the face to south Ottawa residents who will not receive that privilege, and who helped pay for the tunnel in the first place. As it stands, there is no hope of double tracking the Trillium Line and as a result, I favour a Bank Street subway to get people from south Ottawa into downtown, which will also facilitate a one seat ride from the airport to downtown hotels. Another challenge is how they decided to place the Confederation Line Rideau station under Rideau Street. This makes it much more difficult to build a second subway (for example a Bank-Rideau subway) crossing downtown west to east. It would have been smarter to have built the Confederation Line under the MacKenzie King bridge, a little to the south, but that is now spilt milk. Ottawa has also made it permanent that platforms between the Confederation Line and the Trillium Line will not be compatible. This pretty well eliminates any possibility of sharing common rolling stock between the two lines. We have made some catastrophic decisions since the 2006 cancellation for short-term savings without considering long-term integration and other possibilities such as those that you have suggested.
Politics is a big problem for public transit. In the Kansas City area, there were plenty of people and businesses downtown which wanted some kind of light rail. Unfortunately, many people out in the 'burbs didn't want to pay taxes toward anything which would benefit the downtown area; many of these people were living in the 'burbs and working downtown but they didn't want mass transit, they wanted more highway lanes. The traffic going in and out of the city was pretty bad, as I discovered first-hand when I lived there. Additionally, the demarcation between Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas is an arbitrary line on a map. There's actually a street, known as State Line Road, which is on this line. If you think people in the 'burbs were hostile to the notion of spending tax dollars on something which would benefit the downtown, you don't want to know how Missourians feel about spending tax dollars on something which might benefit Kansans, and vice versa. The Missouri side had one bus system (KCATA) and the Kansas side had a different one ("The Jo," serving Johnson County, Kansas). You couldn't transfer from buses on one to buses on the other; you had to pay another fare. It looks like they have finally gotten their respective acts together, since I've moved out of the area. A recent KCMO mayor ("Sly" James; his nickname is well-earned) succeeded in getting a light rail system built downtown KCMO but he had to ensure that the ONLY people who got to vote on it were people who would be served by it; they had to pay a higher tax rate to provide the funding for it. A lot of 'burbs-based light-rail opponents sued to stop this but ... he had checked the laws carefully and made sure all the "i's" were dotted and "t's" crossed. No taxes paid by those in the 'burbs were being spent on this downtown transit project so any such suits failed due to lack of standing. You would think that metro areas could put together some kind of ad-hoc "area government" such that they could coordinate things like this. Not so much. The various governments operating in a large area tend to jealously guard their control and are unwilling to surrender any of it, meaning such "unified government" ideas tend to be jokes.
The Quebec City tramway faces a similar issue, leaving Lévis excluded with no plans to connect to the south shore. Despite the codependent relationship between Quebec City and Lévis, STLévis will only be able to cross the Saint Lawrence River, dropping passengers off at an isolated station to transfer to the tramway or RTC buses-seemingly to avoid any “competition.” Currently, Lévis buses serve multiple destinations within Quebec City, but this new approach risks pushing Lévis residents further toward a car-dependent lifestyle. This shift could lead to increased congestion, which would also trap buses in traffic, exacerbating the problem.
The MR-90 EMU trains that AMT used in the Deux Montagnes line are finally being scrapped, sadly no agency wanted them, I d like to see a video on your thoughts of how these trains might have been reused if there was more insight for transit and a more recycling mindset, the trains werec25 years old, but had at least 20 years left in them
I live in Aylmer. My employer is in the west end of Ottawa and I go to Carleton University. I doubt that my situation is unique to me and lot of residents have connections in both cities. I end up using my car exclusively because the transit systems are joined at the city centres. Better integration and more join points would mean more mass transit use. I have neither time nor patience for an hour long drive downtown, across the river, transfer and another trip with or without transfers to get to my destination when I can get to west Ottawa or Nepean in 20-30 minutes by car in light traffic. If it weren't for provincial governments being so jealous of ceding any turf, then the cities could co-operate more.
I think people in your situation stand to gain the most from CPCS's proposal to connect over the Prince of Wales bridge. Especially if the bridge was specifically for pedestrians and rail. As someone who isn't from Ottawa I'm always surprised there isn't a connecting bridge in the west end.
@@michaelvavala3088 There is a bridge in the west end that select STO buses use to get to Tunney's Pasture, although with limited availability. That doesn't get you to Carleton University easily though.
@@mlmielke I think we have different opinions on what is considered west. I know the one you’re talking about and it’s rarely been a pleasant experience getting over. I’m thinking further west between the 416 and Kanata connecting to Aylmer. Even if it was a toll bridge I’d take it for ease of crossing the River.
@@michaelvavala3088 I would love to see 416 extended north of the 417 into Aylmer. There would be a lot of NIMBYs on both sides of the crossing fighting that, and I can hardly blame them. It would keep so many cars off the Champlain Bridge and commercial vehicles out of the downtowns, especially if mass transit, cycling and pedestrians were more than accomodated.
There is a study for Tweed light rail but will the Sydney government cough up the money? The buses aren't too bad at present but could be better, the gc buses should run to at least Kingscliff and Murwillumbah if not byron
Would a shared rail system between Gatineau and Ottawa become under federal jurisdiction because it would be considered interprovincial transport, which is a federal competence?
It would come under federal regulations, but not federal operations. Both OCTranspo and STO are municipal transit agencies, but since they operate across provincial boundaries, they have to follow federal regulations for bus operations, plus provincial regulations. When STO brings rail service into Ottawa nothing will change because both agencies are already federally regulated. Also, all rail services have to follow federal regulations already, no matter where they're located, so again doesn't matter much. GO Transit for example, is provincially owned but follows federal rail regulations as they are a railway.
Hey ! Could you please cover Emmanuel Macron's announcement of new "RER-style" lines in other French big cities, and what it would mean for transit in France ?
Even USA has this better covered with Washington Metro crossing to both Virginia and Maryland. And In Basel trams and rail networks span 3 countries: Switzerland, Germany and France...
The answer here might be copying what Germany has a verkehrsverbund that way Municipal tickets are going to be covered by the regional transit Association. For example you can use a Düsseldorf Mülheim an der Ruhr Essen Oberhausen & Duisburg Straßenbahn Ticket on the S-Bahn Rhein Ruhr system on a station that links the tram with the mainline commuter rail. In the Ottawa example that means a writer on the quarterback side of the river can simply use their ticket on the Ottawa Transit System which actually uses the same electronic ticket as Toronto & Mississauga Presto card
The physical infrastructure of light, metro, regional and HSR should be contiguous and uniform. Any rolling stock should be able to go anywhere in theory.
Can you make a video about the Rapibus I know you mostly a train guy but the extension is going foward and also like we really think in a certain point this should be transformed into train to since the last station on one direction is just above the prince the gales bridge but again is bayview station problem the make it to small
Disclaimer: This comment contains opinions and the author does not know Ottawa or its suburbs. I react strongly to the statement "The best transfer is NO transfer". This is wrong. Transferring is not the problem. What is the problem are associated annoyances during a transfer. If the transfer is "on the edge" (meaning the same edge/curb at which I board a vehicle, wait shortly, and board another vehicle without the need to walk to a different platform) is the best thing you can do. Especially when I, as a commuter, know that the line I transfer to will come every X minutes in rush hour that I will always wait for X minutes when traveling late in the evening (at 21:30). The system must be intuitive and simple, with lines running in easy to remember intervals, such as once every 7.5, 10, 12, 15 and 20 minutes, with 20 minutes being acceptable for very late night services. During peak hours, service should be provided at least every 6 minutes. In such a case, potential waiting time during transfer is acceptable and you do not need to take special care when "synchronizing" lines. Much better than many "direct lines", that run once every 17, 23 or any other "stupid number" of minutes that generate a hard to remember timetable and also creating a situation that if you miss the direct service, you must wait as well as very inconvenient transfers if case that a direct line is not between where you want to travel. I am not interested in those at all. I am willing to transfer, but I want a guarantee that in peak hours I will not wait longer than 4 minutes for the transfer and to know reliably, how long I will wait when transferring late in the evening. I refuse to accept the one line runs once every 15 minutes and the other once every 20 minutes, causing the transfer being a "lottery". Another problem is, that very often, to "transfer" means walking, getting wet in rain, crossing multiple lanes, no protection from passing road traffic (getting wet again), walking stairs, or simply having to walk long distances because of stupid design, etc. I have seen it too often, that transfers required walking over multiple lane road traffic, with pedestrian signalling being very unfriendly, making you wait between crossings, just to see the vehicle you wanted to transfer to drive away from the station. This led to many pedestrians literally running a red light. And I have seen a woman run over by a car with my own eyes. She was running from the bus stop to the tram stop, because she wanted to catch a "direct line" to her destination. Of course, another 5 lines were running on the rails, but only that specific one was going where she needed, so she was risking. I must say that I am very happy to see only two lines running there (instead of six) and they run every 4 minutes each. Even if I would see "my" line driving away, I would not risk anything for 4 minutes. But for 12 minutes (during peak hours), I would run a red light as well (but look for cars on a multiple lane road). Because even if I were prepared to transfer down the line, I would have zero guarantee that the other possible transfer (of which I knew where I could transfer to) will not require me to wait 10 minutes, which is too long). No lines "from everywhere to everywhere"!!! I want safe, convenient and comfortable transfers. I am willing to transfer multiple times. Side note: I proposed the "drastic" reduction of lines "from everywhere to everywhere" decades ago, together with calculating all the costs, etc. I am quite happy that a couple of years back, such a reduction was realized. Even though news papers were full of negative press, in the end people realized how much better it was and ridership increased. I was not surprised at all by this. Sadly, Covid-19 was a hit to all public transport. But the levels are returning to pre-pandemic levels which is nice to see. End of site note. Then there is the tariff integration. It is absolutely vital that all the operators of public transport in a certain area accept one common ticket as well as prepaid monthly and yearly tickets. Holders of such tickets can use any line, regardless of who is operating it, at any time they want (of course within the operating hours of said lines). If a specific operator wants to sell cheaper tickets which are valid only for his system, he may do so. Knowing from experience, very little interest in such tickets exist among the commuters. Another thing is coordination. A centralized coordinator should make sure that predefined "standards of service" are being kept, as well as aligning timetables in order to create safe, comfortable and convenient transfers when possible. As a potential user of public transport I am heavily demotivated to use it if I have to remember the times of "my" line (lines from everywhere to everywhere else once in a year), keep in mind to "tap" my "card" on entry to stations and when exiting or transferring. Another thing about the mentioned rolling stock and track standards. Even if you have the same gauge and electrification on two systems that you want to "connect" without transferring, they are far from being compatible. You need to have harmonized signalling, train control, platform height, width of vehicles (or means to cover the gap if the narrower vehicle serves the "wide" stations), the rigidity of the vehicles themselves (one vehicle with a chassis built for 600kN strength vs. one for 150kN "can" be operated, but not safely on the same tracks, because in the case of an accident, the passengers in the weaker vehicle would be likely killed), wheel profile (one system having wheels with different width and/or different flange shapes and depth, which influences the safe passing over switches and crossings), compatible adhesion/braking distances, compatible current collection equipment and even if both systems use the same type (trolley pole, pantograph), there still remains a possible difference in the dimensions of the slide plates as well as forces applied to the overhead line by the pantograph and/or its operating range. End of rant. 🙂
The way of implementing a rail systems into a city of a different one reminds me of the plans of Wiesbaden's tram since there would have been two mutually exclusive plans: Integration with Mainz's trams (metre gauge) or used to reactivate the Aartalsbahn (standard gauge). Of course, since the citizens voted against a tram in general, that discussion became moot, lol. Otherwise, multi tramways of separate cities are generally well integrated with many examples such as the Rhine-Neckar metropolis (Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Heidelberg), Cologne and Bonn and Schöneiche and Berlin.
The main hurdle for better integration is political. The case of Washington is simpler because it's a main city managed by the federal Government and the surrounding suburbs in different states. Meanwhile, Ottawa might be bigger than Gatineau but it's not as big a difference than Washington with its surrounding, and both sides are managed by different provincial governments, instead of a special district under federal rule vs. state governments. The only way I see such an integration working is if the federal government takes over transit for the region. They can make a constitutional case for it given it crosses provincial boundaries, but I can't see either provincial government taking it very well
With coordinated regional authorities it is possible the integration: In Bogota BRT (transmilenio), we have smooth integration with Soacha, our greatest suburb but it was just to have the political will to do that, a process that took us some years but finally took off.
Even if this isn’t the best possible alignment, I do think it’s a very much admirable goal to create a single integrated rail system for Canada’s national capital. The urban area isn’t all that integrated right now, but a single transport system would certainly help.!
Totally agree with the logic behind having one integrated system but I was gonna say cutting out the busiest stop (Portage) probably wouldn't go over well. If I had my way, I'd probably run the Gatineau line past the museum of history and over the Alexandria Bridge (which is set to be replaced soon) and connect everything at the Rideau Centre
plus if future lines (thinking of a potential Bank Street line) be expected to go through Parliament station, the current plan of ending the Gatineau line there isn't really that bad
Meanwhile, here in the south west of Germany, we have a trinational S-Bahn and tram system in the greater Basel area, which serves Switzerland, France and Germany. The Basel airport (may I remind you, that Basel is a swiss city) is actually located in France, but international cooperation even with non EU countries is so advanced, that you actually have a large number of multinational urban areas in Europe, that plan and operate their infrastructure jointly.
You call that a sign of European cooperation but in fact what happened was the city was there operating in an autonomous fashion for generations and then some guy signed the treaty of Westphalia, invented the nation-state, and then stuck one of his silly little borders right through a nice clean conurbation. Good on you for getting back to that place eventually though.
that's exactly my point, see also Strasbourg-Kehl tram shared between France and Germany.
Sad to see such pointless divisions happening in Northern America even between internal states of the same country.
Martin nobody asked 😂
@@EastofVictoriaPark yeah it's decent when going to bordering countries, like France to Germany but it sucks when going more than 3-4 countries
@@EastofVictoriaPark Adam something did it. You're right, some cooperations are great between bordering cities and local governments, but as for international longer distance travel aside from a few shared high speed lines between countries on many other lines much work has to be done. Different electrifications are also a hurdle in doing that.
Ottawa resident here. Yes to all of this! I've been saying basically the same thing as this for years!
Great job raising this issue Reece. I think you've really hit your stride in blending transit education with transit advocacy. I'm optimistic that making videos like this will make a real difference for Ottawa's transit future. Thanks man!
I have to agree. It's nice to see someone speaking out about these plans. Creating a regional transit plan for the Ottawa - Gatineau area is always a complicated dance between Ottawa, Gatineau, Ontario, Quebec and the Federal government. Unfortunately very few politicians in the region have the will to expend the political capital needed to build a functional and convenient regional transit system. Buck passing is the name of the game.
It's hard enough for this car-centric region to build (long-overdue) road bridges linking the two cities. Building intercity/interprovincial transit links just takes that complexity up another notch.
Reminds me of the NYC Subway and the PATH system that goes into New Jersey, separate systems, separate state Authorities running them (MTA and Port Authority), but you can use Metrocards at the turnstiles/gate line for both and there are stations right near each other (or under 6th avenue right on top of each other!), but you have to walk out of the paid fare area and pay again to transfer.
Path should be taken over by the MTA. It would make running it cheaper and make transferring easier.
@@OhioGrandma46I think that if PATH was ran by MTA that it would just end up being used mostly for trips between Financial District and Times Square. I think the point of them being separate is that the PATH is used for going to/from New Jersey and not just a faster way for New Yorkers to get around New York. Personally I do think that MTA/PATH transfers should be free, but only trips originating in New Jersey or concluding in New Jersey. Not sure how that would be accomplished but I’m sure they could figure out a way. The only issue with this is that PATH does not recieve the heavy amounts of government funding that the MTA does, so either MTA would need to pay for the free transfers, or it just would not be feasible.
One thing not mentioned here is that a rail system that spans the entire length of Gatineau (Aylmer-Hull-Gatineau) through a hybrid of the propose rail system and the Rapibus network could bring a huge amount of connectivity to the city which relies almost 100% on one highway to connect it right now.
The whole Rapibus in my sense should be transform into a tram system and make a huge station at taché-UQO with bus can drop there aylmer passenger and let them take the train and make a other bridge to cross next to the prince of the gales bridge I know the video of Reese is about no transfer but to be honest I don’t think the aylmer tram should be build now maybe in 10 year but for now population to small there
Always fun to catch a new release when I really should be going to bed- guess I'm up for the next 10 minutes or so, your content is always so good.
Haha it's 16:28 here in Finland
15:29 in Croatia
@@b34m270 nice
Australia moment
I appreciate it! Thanks for watching!
Porto, in Portugal, is planning to build a brand new bridge over the Douro for the future Linia H to better connect Porto and Vilanova de Gaia, two different municipalities. The plans look amazing!
The thing I loved the most living in Istanbul was how every transit system was connected. You can take the metro to the funicular to the ferry to another metro. Busses stop at metro and metrobus stations. Delight of a system to use.
Istanbul transit is amazing
I just looked at the CPCS article and it makes a lot of sense. I hope the two transit agencies can come to an agreement as it seems it would be beneficial to both cities and tourists alike.
The two are in agreement in their preference that Gatineau LRT is optimized in a Sparks Street tunnel that could be integrated at Lyon Station. And that is all after considering all the options RM suggests in this video (as they did consider those options).
@@mlmielke I’m glad that they’ve agreed upon something because any transit expansion is better than none at all! I’m just worried this may cost more than what it’s worth but to be fair I’m not from Ottawa so I’m limited in terms of what is and isn’t a desirable to the residents of the OG area.
@@mlmielke Connected, but not integrated - two separate systems with forced transfers for regional trips.
@@RMTransit I think the word you're looking for is seamless. Certain connections, including the idea at Lyon with the Sparks Street tunnel are still integrated.
How you define this is really up to you but I wouldn't consider the systems integrated and I think the planning for the Gatineau system is not very good.
The reason that Gatineau's LRT is proposed to run on the surface to Parliament Hill is to turn Wellington Street into a tram and pedestrians-only corridor, in response to certain security problems they had last winter.
That's honestly such a bs reason. Transit projects should be done on their own accord, not as a response to fight against something completely unrelated. Not to mention it sounds to me like an excuse to cheap out, save money, and push this city loop idea rather than actual security reasons. If you want to turn it into a pedestrians only corridor, you can do that without needing the tram.
@@Absolute_Zero7 No reason not to kill two birds with one stone if you can, though. It's generally desirable, in fact. Also helps get things passed when various people would otherwise be obstructionist about it for unrelated reasons (because politics).
Not that that says anything in particular about the actual instance at hand, as cheaping out on important things while being seen to be 'doing something' and then spending a tonne of money on something no one wants that, if you're Lucky, isn't actively detrimental to the people and city/country as a whole is absolutely SOP for idiot politicians (those who are more concerned with ideology or image than with actually doing their job right included). Just another factor to take into account.
You don't need to put a tram in to make it pedestrian only?
@@laurencefraser This is one of the biggest problems with transit planning in NA, using transit as a way to solve problems unrelated to transit. The prime example of this is the various streetcar systems in the US that were built as a way to spur development. When you build something for the purpose of accomplishing a separate goal, you get just that, something where the primary goal isn't transit. In the case of the US streetcars, what we got is a bunch of streetcar lines that are objectively bad transit, are horrible at moving people around, but hey, at least they spurred development. Same principle here. If you're going to be using a tram as a way to stop people from protesting in front of parliament, well that's what you're going to get. A project that's primarily about stopping protesters, and moving people around as a secondary effect.
The question that should be asked, and in fact the only question that should be asked is "how good is the alignment at what the primary job should be, moving people around?", to which the answer is "it's bad". Wellington Street isn't exactly a useful street for getting to various places downtown, and its distance away from the Confederation Line makes it pretty awful in terms of allowing people to transfer to the rest of Ottawa's rail network. The only benefits to the surface option from a transit perspective is A) There's an extra stop at Elgin, and B) it lends itself better to future extensions both as a tramway down Elgin, as well as the proposed loop up Alexandria Bridge, the former of which is unlikely to happen due to the provincial governments not wanting to cooperate, and the latter is sort of a tourist gimmick.
As Reece said, of you want to get cars off of Wellington, get cars off of Wellington, you don't need a tram to do that.
Well that's everyone's hope. It's far from a done deal though and there's opposition to the idea from some local leaders sadly.
1. Gatineau would need to pay for the Trillium Line re-reconversion to an electric line. There is no way Ottawa is paying for that - a large expense for another jurisdiction.
2. If anything, a (admittedly far more difficult connection) connection at Rideau makes more sense, the eastern leg of the Loop. It was fairly recently that you talked about balance in branches, but the western side already has two branches, which the east doesn't have (SE Transitway is not likely to be ever converted to LRT).
3. For the cost of making those changes, you could probably expand rapid transit coverage. After Stage 2, Ottawa's main priority should (read: it won't be) be improving service for dense, inner-Greenbelt corridors like on Montreal, Bank, Carling, Baseline, etc. Baseline BRT was costed at $300 million for high quality, full median lanes from Billings Bridge to Bayshore. A large sum spent (poorly) integrating the already planned network could go towards service improvements in both cities.
I don't really agree that the integration would be poor, and while having additional western branches is not optimal having both provinces as stakeholders probably helps the chances of a second downtown tunnel happening in the future substantially!
Part of the issue here is that sort of like Melbourne the development in Ottawa-Gatineau is unbalanced, so having even branch numbers is a valuable goal but much more difficult.
@@RMTransit I've seen discussion of running a hypothetical Bank St line up into Gatineau, which then leaves a Montreal Rd line interlining with the current LRT. That retains a forced transfer for most Aylmer-ians (Aylmerites?) though.
I do think that Bayview will be a larger problem than expected. When the LRT opened in 2019, many people who had taken the bus to Hurdman, shifted to Line 2 causing an immediate 50% ridership spike pre-COVID. When the extension to Earl Armstrong is complete I suspect OC Transpo will run many Barrhaven buses there (connect the Chapman Mills BRT to the SW Transitway), to reduce bus hours operated. That would, of course, further increase the strain at Bayview.
@@timothytao898 The Algonquin Station bus loop is big - it is already partially used when the 87 does its layby before starting its route (right now, mostly it is just the one bus that uses the big layby facility). Limebank isn't, although the Riverside South CDP does include a plan to extend the Chapman Mills BRT to Limebank.
@@mlmielke I know they are building a whole new terminal at Baseline (I see it everyday on the 111) but Earl Armstrong is closer than Baseline for much of Barrhaven and I wonder what will happen, especially to the Express - sorry, Connection - routes.
@@timothytao898 The Connexion routes, I expect that they'll still go to Algonquin Station. And instead, I would expect another regular route to go to Limebank, like the 74 (my suggestion has been consolidating 87 with 74 with 278 and going via Carling-Churchill-Woodroffe while also extending the route to Greely). Limebank to Bayview is still not quicker than the SW transitway + Woodroffe + Line 1. That also goes with how the ridership forecast is, although those can be underestimated like they have been on Line 2.
I'd love to see you do a video on the MBTA in Boston. There's a ton of interesting history, as well as future plans, surrounding it. On top of that, it has been known to be extremely unreliable at times. Yet it is still one of the most iconic subway systems out there (although I am biased as it is my home city).
currently watching this on a train and it feels so right
That is the correct environment to watch my videos!
Poor integration is a common problem even in much larger cities. The New York City Subway doesn't go to New Jersey or Staten Island (each of these has their own isolated systems, plus PATH that sticks a couple of lines into Manhattan), and on the opposite coast, the San Francisco Bay area has the various transit systems all doing their own thing.
My favorite part of this: PATH is considering extending its Newark PATH line from NWK Penn to EWR airport. And the APM at EWR, which goes to the Amtrak/NJ transit station by the airport is really aging RN. The solution? There is also ANOTHER project proposed to build a NEW APM from the terminal to the Amtrak/NJ station itself, while PATH will extend to serve the same station that Amtrak/NJ transit rail currently uses. And the best part of this? PANYNJ runs BOTH the airport (thus the airtrain) AND the PATH trains…
I know Staten Island is not connected with New York Subway, pretty sure there is a Subway line which Manhattan to New Jersey. Is it not?
Or am i missing something.
@@shivankurchahar7368 Those are the PATH lines I mentioned above. The New York City Subway does not reciprocate PATH's outreach; extension of a New York City Subway line into New Jersey has been talked about, but nothing has ever been done.
@@Lucius_Chiaraviglioi assume that the only reason that PATH is not ran by MTA is because if it was it would end up just being a more convenient way for New Yorkers to get from Times Square to the World Trade Centre for example. Although I do agree that PATH/MTA transfers should be free, I think we should only make these transfers free if the trip is originating from New Jersey or concludes in New Jersey, not sure how that would happen but I’m sure it could be done.
Mind blown! You make so many good points that are simply too logical for the politicians here to ever let it happen. Unfortunately.
Hi! How are you?
Korea/Seoul has entered full-fledged winter since the 29th of last month.
Temperatures around minus 10'C and snow are falling all over the country.
It's already Friday this week.
I hope you have good health and good things today, weekends, and holidays.
Thank you very much.
your videos have gotten so much better, please revisit and update seattle
To me it just sounds like the two provinces not wanting to interact or have to pay to run services on each other’s network.
Canberra and Queanbeyan in Australia (ACT / NSW) had this issue until recently and that was with buses, and the Gold Coast still has this problem with the QLD / NSW border.
Both the railway line and tram line, once extended to Coolangatta (Gold Coast), won’t cross the border as Queensland doesn’t want to pay for NSW’s public transport.
It’s really frustrating, and combined with different fare systems, makes transit difficult and confusing to use.
A three-country train was recently introduced in the Netherlands. The commuter train now runs from Aachen in Germany to Maastricht in the Netherlands. At the end of 2023, it will continue to the French-speaking Belgian city of Liège. The train will then call at 18 stations in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium with a timetable of two trains per hour.
To provide this service it cost many hurdles, due to different infrastructure, security systems, laws and regulations.
As someone living in Hull, the problem are as such :
- Station from the Rapibus don't have great walkability (due to being next to the rail corridor), and wouldn't be the best place to build a grade separated corridor.
- Portage bridge is not a great connection for buses, and the intersection on both sides of that bridge should be roundabouts. (traffic flow SUCKS next to these intersections.
- Lack of funds for the tram project probably mean a smaller scale tram, who would probably go to Plateau via Montcalm and allumetieres, because there is strong opposition from people that lives between the Rapibus corridor and the body of water that separates hull island from wrightville
being from Ottawa i 100% agree about this merging. you cant even use Presto payments on the STO. its always been such a pain if you ever wanted to cross
You can actually see a small sign at Rosslyn station in the US that says “Welcome to Virginia”, as it is the first and last stop between Virginia and DC. Guessing the same goes for stations crossing into Maryland.
But in practical terms, you’re right, it’s the same metro system and you don’t see any switch between them
Another thing worth pointing out, is that when they built the Rapidbus, for some reason known only to the city government, they re-laid the rails they tore up to build it. They just moved them over to make room, so those rails are 2013 rails (albeit seemingly unmaintained due to the tracks ending at the Chief William Commanda bridge). They even in some instances upgraded the railroad crossings with modern gates and signals, for a line that seemingly has never been used. Whether Gatineau is optimistic about the O-Train crossing the river and running parallel to the Rapidbus, or there is just some contract that says the rails need to be maintained, is yet to be known to me. But they are still doing it, as when they expanded the corridor in 2022, they re-laid the rails they tore up again...
Haha I always stare at the map and always thought that rail bridge was perfectly lined up to connect line 2 to Gatineau. Would be incredibly convinient
Ottawa has a lot of former rail infrastructure that has some interesting potential. Check out the former ROW from the old train station (now the temporary Senate) under the Chateau Laurier that led to the formerly-rail Alexandra Bridge.
Here in Guadalajara, they are building line 4, which only connects to a BRT line which is insufficient considering Line 4 could serve the airport via a branch but it is unlinkely now and will conect high density and new housing states aswell as rapidly growing towns.
3:56 "The Prince of Wales Bridge" is the official name of the Second Severn Crossing, the modern bridge that takes the M4 motorway over the River Severn (the border between England and Wales).
This sort of reminds me of the Portland max extension which will go over the new I-5 bridge (whenever the rebuild moves ahead) into downtown Vancouver (WA).
Neighboring towns/cities could absolutely benefit from a integrated metro system
You should tell that to Paris... each tramway line is independent and has its own rolling stock, gauge and even sometimes technology (yes, I'm talking about you TRANSLOHR).
Yes, I don't think thats a great approach overall. Since the actual spec is often very similar!
Boston, Massachusetts' Commuter Rail goes into the State of Rhode Island through the capital city Providence too.
Switzerland and France got it in Geneva after about 100 years of planing to properly combine the rail systems in Geneva. So there is hope for Ottawa
remember europe copoperates and sone% do nonsense beuroracy
That would like like if NJ transit or the PATH couldn’t get us to WTC or Penn Station. Come on Canada, we believe in ya!
SF Bay Area is rebuilding and old (built in 1910) bridge and using it for The Dumbarton Rail project, which is cross-bay commuter rail.
I think the many different political bodies that exist in the NCR (two municipal governments, two provincial governments, the federal government and the NCC) can make this a real Gordian knot of politics. Add to that the recently elected mayor of Ottawa being elected on a largely anti-transit platform and the general distrust for these large projects following the disaster with the current LRT, and I unfortunately don't see there being enough political will to move this project forward. Which is a shame, because I fully believe the NCR would benefit from a more regional approach to transit. I myself travel across the border for work and would love better connectivity!
Really not sure I agree that the downtown tunnel has all this extra capacity as you say. You're using the current throughput, not the headways planned with the opening of the new extensions. Lines 1 & 3 will already be pushing trains to every 2 minutes... But, ignoring that for a moment, totally agree that better integration between the two systems would be beneficial. Many would argue there isn't actually much intercity traffic (outside of the downtown core) but that is just being reinforced by the current arrangements. If better links were in place, that intercity volume would absolutely increase. Textbook case of induced demand.
The Kanata EPR very plainly mentions the constraints with trying to over branch lines, when it is already two, including how to branch a branch and suggested headways when doing so. It is a major constraint especially with platform circulation that doesn't support it downtown. Sure, it is possible, but if you consider this: Edmonton had to cut service on its main line just to accommodate its additional line, just because of signalling.
Reece, as you already know me from my document I emailed you, I agree. People think about a one system transit service for a long time. Both cities are on NCC territory. Jacques Gréber, I think, founded the National Capital Commission.
Here in south bend we have cross county service betweemn elkhart and St joe county. Also not as good between niles michigan and South Bend
Philadelphia has a similar situation, though on a smaller scale. Before 1969, the Broad-Ridge Spur, then under SEPTA's predecessor, the Philadelphia Transportation Company, and the Bridge Line, then under the old Delaware River Joint Commission, shared track from 8th & Market Station to 15th-16th Station. When SEPTA took over from PTC, and PATCO took over the Bridge Line, both in 1968, the decision was made (either by SEPTA or PATCO, or both) to separate the two lines permanently. PATCO retained the original 1936-built 8th & Market Station, as well as 9th-10th, 12th-13th, & 15th-16th stations, while a new one-tracked, one-sided platformed 8th & Market terminus station was built for the Broad-Ridge Spur. The switch tracks were removed, and a chain-link fence was put up, forever separating the two lines.
Good luck with integrating different systems. In Wisconsin, they have actually outlawed the creation of a “regional transportation authority” like they have in the Chicago metropolitan area. Ugh.
As someone who frequently uses oc transpo and sto, my biggest problem right now is that the payment systems arent integrated. So you basically need a presto card and a STO card to travel efficiently. I know that it is OC transpos 5 year plan to solve this issue, but honestly it can't come fast enough.
At this stage in the construction of the Trillium expansion, I think this possibility has missed it's window.
The tram vehicles used on Confed and Gatineau side would not meet transport Canada's standards for trains to run on Trillium as it crosses the CN mainline at Walkley. The platforms are built high up for the new rolling stock for Trillium so we would need to raise the rail bed significantly at stations. And that is before, as you said, converting the signalling system, adding OCS and double tracking large areas that are currently single track.
I do think this would have been a good idea, and think that the Flirts and Lints could easily be used on an East/West line if we took over the CN line from St. Laurent area(or even expand to Orleans South), across the city near huntclub then crossing into Bell's Corners/Kanata North, but that would be years away...
If anything I think the option to connect to Line 1/3 at Bayview would be good, though we would need to find a place to turn them back somewhere in the down town, or build another tunnel going east along Rideau as you said, cause there is no where to have a run terminate in the current infrastructure, especially keeping in mind that by end of stage 2 the expected headways for Lines 1&3 are as low as 1.5 mins.
I think they may be grade separating the Trillium line crossing of the CN mainline near Walkley?
@@trevorritchie2575 no, Trillium is now grade separated from VIA with a new flyover. It crosses the CN line at Walkley diamond and uses the CN line as part of the connector tracks for the Walkley Yard. Trillium is also used by VIA and CN to bring trains to the NRC facility near the airport.
The main problem that I see with Ottawa's transit system is that too many of the rail alignments come into (or skirt) downtown Ottawa from the west side. And the plan shown at 4:05 exacerbates that. You have 2 red branches and 1 blue branch (2 in Gatineau's plan) come in from the west, and only 1 red alignment continues out on the east. That's not great for through-running, unless you want to run 7 times as many trains on that eastern red alignment as on any other branch. Also, all passengers from the 3 green and light blue corridors (the 2 southern ones and the 1 northern one) will either have to transfer onto one of those lines that takes them into downtown Ottawa from the west. Or you have to split up the vehicles on all of those lines into one line that continues from the bayview interchange to the east; but since you don't have anywhere for them to go to on the opposite side of downtown, you can't do that for all vehicles, which means that you have to operate the other half of the trains on each corridor as lines passing downtown in the Bayview junction, where they move directly between 2 of the 3 western legs of that interchange.
Also, to me it doesn't seem like a bad idea for the trains on the Gatineau side to have as convenient of a connection into Hull as possible.
Which leads me to my proposed solution: Take the alignment from Gatineau's plan until you reach the north side of the Portage Bridge, but then build a whole new (rail+bike) bridge from the curve in Laurier street to one of the north-south streets in downtown Ottawa. "Ottawa regional road 31" / Bank Street seems like it is lined to an overwhelming proportion with commercial properties, to the point that it might even be pulling more daily visitors into downtown Ottawa than Wellington Street.
The red line(s) with it's 2 branches in the east would remain the only line(s) through-running into the eastern red alignment. The Gatineau line would route into downtown from the north (and would have potential for through-routing into some useful corridor in the south in the future). And the green and light blue lines have two development options that are advantageous for downtown connectivity. EITHER the green line gets extended to the north on the Prince of Wales bridge, in which case the 3 green and light blue branches would dump their passengers into the lines that reach downtown Ottawa in *two* different interchange stations, alleviating capacity concerns in Bayview. OR alternatively one of those 2 lines might even join with the Bank Street line to turn into it's southern continuation.
Admittedly, the plan shown at 4:06 COULD function as a first development step to my plan idea, except that the Prince of Wales bridge refurbishment isn't fully needed in my plan (unless you want both the green and light blue line to cross the river - which certainly doesn't have to start being built until the northern (green line) extension to Lac-Beauchamp is operational).
All great points! One of the other plans that's been floated by members of the National Capital Commission which oversees regional planning for Ottawa-Gatineau would be to construct an interprovincial light rail loop crossing at the Prince of Wales/William Commanda bridge to the west and the Alexandra Bridge to the east. Given that the Alexandra Bridge currently being replaced and central portions of Wellington St are already closed to traffic after the trucker protests last winter, I hope some forward-thinking planners run with this idea. Ottawa-Gatineau has a high degree of economic integration and the transit separation across the Ottawa river is a huge barrier, especially in the winter months when cycling in -20 or below turns most people off until spring.
I don't love the idea of loops haha
This is embarrassing for us Ottawans... we need that cross-line transfer!
Why no cross-platform?
lol imagine Quebec cooperating with Canada, especially Ottawa.
To my knowledge, it's actually been Ottawa that's been unwilling to cooperate.
This is the same problem for SORTA and TANK (South Ohio Regional Transit Authority and Transport Authority of Northern Kentucky). The Cincinnati metro population is about 2.3million people, with about 2/3rds of it living on the Ohio side and about 1/3rd of it living on the Kentucky side. SORTA busses use to not cross into Kentucky, where TANK busses had two routes that cross the Ohio River only to go to the 5th Avenue Bus Terminal. This poses a problem if you wanted to get to CVG Airport, which is in Northern Kentucky, where you had to take a Metro bus downtown and then transfer to a TANK bus to take you across the river. In recent years there has been integration with ticket systems for monthly pass owners, but if you want a dual pass it is a lot more money and you need to have a physical ticket since there are two online apps
Unfortunately working with Quebec is hard because they always want more and pay less.
They want Ottawa to pay for the whole bridge repair but have priority on the line
The planned Gold Coast Light rail extension to Coolangatta reaches 300m from the NSW border and a study has been done on extending but knowing nsw they wont spend any money on tweed let alone further south.
Jim Watson's legacies will be a) maintaining diesel on line 2; b) sticking to the unneeded and unwanted low-floors, and c) intentionally building to prohibit proper use of the Chief William Commanda Bridge.
RMTransit: We need to combine the two transit systems.
Rhein_Ruhr Transit system: Hold by Altbier.
Great video, could you look at Dublin, Ireland and the new "bus connects" system & new airport metro?
If you want an example of cities sharing a metro system, you should look at Rotterdam-the Hague (RandstadRail)
There is also Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing in northern France, although Lille is clearly the centre of the network.
@@unlapras9365 I’ve only been there once, but I love the cute tiny little trains. They look like children’s toy versions of the MP05s here in Paris!
@@joshridgeon4777 I love VAL trains too. Unfortunately Lille's metro has gone a bit obsolete, it really needs a refurbishment.
There are many examples all over the world!
I like how you talk about these developements like if money were infinite.
Less subsidies for the auto industry should do the trick!
I live in Ottawa and entirely agree with you, these are all great ideas!
So far our transit expansion has been hampered by poorly planned connections (like the future "enhancement" of taking 3 different trains to get to the airport) and more ideas like these are what we actually need to build!
Delhi NCR is similar in the way that it is also divided between 3 state governments, that is of Delhi, Uttar pradesh(UP) and Haryana. But the cities on delhi, Noida and gaziabad (in UP) and Gurgaon and Faridabad ( in haryana) are all served by DMRC.
But gurgaon has its own rapid metro line which is owned by Haryana mass transit authority and Noida has aqua line owned by Noida metro rail coorporation, all the operations for both are managed by DMRC.
Plus in case of rapid metro one might not be aware about this (which I expect a lot of locals arn't) because when you get off the yellow line, you just go up the escalator and board the rapid metro, you don't even have to go through a set of fare gates. It's seamless. You can use DMRC smart cards, one day cards and all in gurgaon no problem.
Noida is not there right now as they don't accept DMRC cards at the moment and you have to buy a seprate ticket or carry two smart cards, it would not be like that for long as Noida will move to the same system as gurgaon in about a year which will be awesome.
Yes, this is a huge problem for a region like Delhi, and given the scale of the region the problem is many times worse.
Welcome to the wonderful world of public infrastructure projects in Canada, I'll be your guide.
STO and OCTranspo were never going to get along on an LRT project. The two cities don't work together on anything. STO runs busses where they want to and OCTranspo does the same. When I lived in Ottawa is was crazy how separated these two systems are.
As to why STO wants to run the LRT along roads in downtown Ottawa. Honestly, a lack of forward thinking. Gatineau designed their LRT plan to effectively replace their existing bus service which has nearly all the routes that go to Ottawa run along the same road. They probably thought "oh these bus routes do well, so might as well just duplicate the same thing but with a train!"
In Berlin we also share a transit network with surrounding Brandenburg (a different state)
It's sad that you even had to make this video. It seems to me that the more fundamental problem is when you have one urban area spanning multiple jurisdictions that don't talk to each other. I get that people want local control, but acting separately just leads to "us vs them" thinking, lack of coordination and ultimately a worse experience for residents. Thankfully there aren't many (any?) cities in the UK where we have this problem, but we just had Brexit, and that's going swimmingly, so......
the combination of street-running tram and full metro alignments into a single service concerns me, as does the interlined service pattern you suggest - i'd think both could set the system up for cascading delays and unreliability. that said, i do agree that integrating transit across the river makes loads of sense, as does sending line 2/4 farther north
I don't think I would be pushing for a very high number of trains from Gatineau into Downtown Ottawa - so I think risk of interference could be kept to a minimum. Perhaps including a parallel turnback east of Bayview would help.
Always possible Gatineau's system get's total grade separation too . . .
@@RMTransit i'd argue that if demand is low enough for infrequent service on the Bayview bypass tracks to be feasible, then their absence should not be expected to cause significant overcrowding at Bayview, especially if line 1 operates the kind of tight headways that interlining makes difficult
If the metro has priority over the tram, you could probably keep the metro delays to a minimum, while delaying the tram a bit more than it is already...
@@99ferns Gatineau wants a 7,000 capacity line.
Prince of Wales bridge was renamed to honor the indigenous Algonquin chief William Commanda…bridge is being retrofitted for a bikeway and pedestrain dedicated pathway as a connection b/w ontario and quebec, stunning location for sunsets…it’s opening soon
They absolutely could have used the Chief Wlliam Commanda Bridge (former Prince of Wales Bridge) that runs across Lemieux Island to connect to Gatineau but Quebec didn't want to help pay for restoring the bridge. So now it will be a walking/cycling path.
Please cover Helsinski’s “Raide-Jokeri”… a very ambitious 25km west to east light rail that will a) take quite a load off the “Ring Roads” and b) will be opening AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!
The reason Toronto's LRTs (oops, I mean streetcars) are electrified is because on busy lines the operating savings usually pay of the cost of the wire. Someday Ottawa will figure that out too . . . and electrify the Trillium Line.
This has similarity to the NY-NJ issue. Sure there's PATH and it's great but it would be better if it were completely integrated with NYC Subway, and with how urbanized the entire coast is bordering Manhattan, it's a shame that there's so little rail service outside PATH's catchment. If that area of NJ were in New York State, I would reckon the city would have annexed it as the sixth borough years ago.
You are correct and if you are wondering the port Authority trans Hudson was actually built to the same building gauge as the NYC Subway IRT Lines. The problem with that one is that PATH Train is regulated under Federal Railroad Administration which have rules for Mainline trains unlike the subway which goes for Federal Transit Authority regulation Which is less strict than the Federal Railroad Administration regulations.
This is very good concept but we need left turn from aeroport to Kanata.
If only the agencies would realise that integration is an integral part of building a transit system. Here in Germany, many cities have commuter trains operated by Deutsche Bahn, that are still planning together with the local traffic agencies, including an always increasing number of connections
You say that you'll never be able to tell when you cross the line for WMATA, but at least one station (Rosslyn?) has a sign on it welcoming you to Virginia, just as highways do.
It seem like most of Gatineau's bus lines head into Ottawa but, barely. Ottawa bus lines also barely reach into Gatineau. The number of Gatineau lines going into Ottawa indicate high demand however, because the lines stop just inside Ottawa, I would assume that most riders will have to transfer. I'm also assuming that fares are not integrated.
At the very least, Ottawa buses should take Ottawa residents to the most popular places that Ottawa people go to in Gatineau. Gatineau buses should take Gatineau residents to the most popular places in Ottawa that they go to. This would offer one-seat rides to a significant number of riders. I always say that with each additional transfer required to complete a journey, more people will choose not to use the system. The biggest cost of transfers is time lost.
Unfortunately what you suggest will never happen. The cities of Ottawa and Gatineau don't work with each other on anything.
For fares, I think pay-per-ride cards (like the Presto or PME) aren’t adapted, since both systems charge different fares, but anyone with an unlimited card (like the ZAP on STO, for students) can use both systems. I learned this the hard way trying to use my PME on the O-train.
Can you do a video on payment systems. As a traveler London is fantastic in that you can tap in and out with any PayWave credit card. In other cities you have to figure out how to pay and it’s annoying.
Could you please make a video about the Prague transport system (PID)? Its an incredible transport system that rarely gets any attention.
OMNY is becoming a thing in the NYC area and this may be a non-issue in coming years, but I guess this could be like the PATH system being disconnected from the NYC subway system and passengers needing to pay separate fares for each. Though in this case, the PATH system actually came first and was never originally intended to connect with any subway system in NYC proper, since its original purpose was to shuttle passengers between nearby rail terminals in New Jersey (with only one still standing today) and eliminate the need for a lengthy bus or ferry ride across the Hudson River, but it may still be nice for PATH passengers to pay one fare when they ride. Though from your comments, PATH could also perhaps take advantage of existing rail infrastructure and go all the way to Rockefeller Center and/or Broadway-Lafayette Street if they so chose, but the need to dig additional tunnels and lay new track may not necessarily be worth the reward.
As a resident of Ottawa I fully support this. Now we just need a rack railway into the hills on the Quebec side. Just some food for thought NCC...
Has Gatineau revived it's rail plan? I thought it was scrapped for a bus rapid transit system, which was actually built, but I have not worked in Hull for over 6 years.
Also, their plan would or could make more sense, to come across the old rail bridge and connect to Ottawa's Line 2 at Bayview station.
While I totally agree with the point you're making, it does have to be said that neither province is willing to fund projects that are located outside of their borders. The Ford governement is very unwilling to pay for a project in which ontarians are to have hardly any gains (except for 18 year old ontarians crossing the river to get into bars), while the Legeault gov't won't fund the Ontario part of any project because, well it can't control what happens outside of Quebec (which is actually pretty sensible). And I'll say nothing of ex-mayor Watson, who basically shut the door on the project during his whole tenure.
So basically, it falls on the federal gov't to do the financing, which they don't really want to do.
The only thing that might enable of the Gatineau project and by extension force the Ottawa city council to be a partner in it is that the city is trying to sell Wellington street to the feds (because of the extreme honking that occured recently) and the federal gov't would then probably use the project to make that street fully car-free.
"the federal gov't would then probably use the project to make that street fully car-free."
I'd say the federal gov't has been wanting to do that since Oct 2014.
Although I agree with the overall concept of regionalizing transit in Ottawa-Gatineau, we don't have the federal leadership to accomplish this. This is all about very touchy federal/provincial division of powers and neither Quebec or Ontario are willing to give up any of its control over their own municipalities. As it stands, Bayview is way too far west of downtown and will create a transfer bottleneck in short order if we created a line that extends to serve all of Gatineau, and allowing trains from Gatineau to share access to the downtown tunnel is a slap in the face to south Ottawa residents who will not receive that privilege, and who helped pay for the tunnel in the first place. As it stands, there is no hope of double tracking the Trillium Line and as a result, I favour a Bank Street subway to get people from south Ottawa into downtown, which will also facilitate a one seat ride from the airport to downtown hotels. Another challenge is how they decided to place the Confederation Line Rideau station under Rideau Street. This makes it much more difficult to build a second subway (for example a Bank-Rideau subway) crossing downtown west to east. It would have been smarter to have built the Confederation Line under the MacKenzie King bridge, a little to the south, but that is now spilt milk. Ottawa has also made it permanent that platforms between the Confederation Line and the Trillium Line will not be compatible. This pretty well eliminates any possibility of sharing common rolling stock between the two lines. We have made some catastrophic decisions since the 2006 cancellation for short-term savings without considering long-term integration and other possibilities such as those that you have suggested.
México city have the same problem, many of the metro lines run only in México city's territory, only line B crosses the border with México state
Politics is a big problem for public transit.
In the Kansas City area, there were plenty of people and businesses downtown which wanted some kind of light rail. Unfortunately, many people out in the 'burbs didn't want to pay taxes toward anything which would benefit the downtown area; many of these people were living in the 'burbs and working downtown but they didn't want mass transit, they wanted more highway lanes. The traffic going in and out of the city was pretty bad, as I discovered first-hand when I lived there.
Additionally, the demarcation between Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas is an arbitrary line on a map. There's actually a street, known as State Line Road, which is on this line. If you think people in the 'burbs were hostile to the notion of spending tax dollars on something which would benefit the downtown, you don't want to know how Missourians feel about spending tax dollars on something which might benefit Kansans, and vice versa. The Missouri side had one bus system (KCATA) and the Kansas side had a different one ("The Jo," serving Johnson County, Kansas). You couldn't transfer from buses on one to buses on the other; you had to pay another fare. It looks like they have finally gotten their respective acts together, since I've moved out of the area.
A recent KCMO mayor ("Sly" James; his nickname is well-earned) succeeded in getting a light rail system built downtown KCMO but he had to ensure that the ONLY people who got to vote on it were people who would be served by it; they had to pay a higher tax rate to provide the funding for it. A lot of 'burbs-based light-rail opponents sued to stop this but ... he had checked the laws carefully and made sure all the "i's" were dotted and "t's" crossed. No taxes paid by those in the 'burbs were being spent on this downtown transit project so any such suits failed due to lack of standing.
You would think that metro areas could put together some kind of ad-hoc "area government" such that they could coordinate things like this. Not so much. The various governments operating in a large area tend to jealously guard their control and are unwilling to surrender any of it, meaning such "unified government" ideas tend to be jokes.
The Quebec City tramway faces a similar issue, leaving Lévis excluded with no plans to connect to the south shore. Despite the codependent relationship between Quebec City and Lévis, STLévis will only be able to cross the Saint Lawrence River, dropping passengers off at an isolated station to transfer to the tramway or RTC buses-seemingly to avoid any “competition.” Currently, Lévis buses serve multiple destinations within Quebec City, but this new approach risks pushing Lévis residents further toward a car-dependent lifestyle. This shift could lead to increased congestion, which would also trap buses in traffic, exacerbating the problem.
In Germany it would be a Stadtbahn right RMTransit?
More or less
The MR-90 EMU trains that AMT used in the Deux Montagnes line are finally being scrapped, sadly no agency wanted them, I d like to see a video on your thoughts of how these trains might have been reused if there was more insight for transit and a more recycling mindset, the trains werec25 years old, but had at least 20 years left in them
I live in Aylmer. My employer is in the west end of Ottawa and I go to Carleton University. I doubt that my situation is unique to me and lot of residents have connections in both cities. I end up using my car exclusively because the transit systems are joined at the city centres. Better integration and more join points would mean more mass transit use. I have neither time nor patience for an hour long drive downtown, across the river, transfer and another trip with or without transfers to get to my destination when I can get to west Ottawa or Nepean in 20-30 minutes by car in light traffic. If it weren't for provincial governments being so jealous of ceding any turf, then the cities could co-operate more.
I think people in your situation stand to gain the most from CPCS's proposal to connect over the Prince of Wales bridge. Especially if the bridge was specifically for pedestrians and rail. As someone who isn't from Ottawa I'm always surprised there isn't a connecting bridge in the west end.
@@michaelvavala3088 There is a bridge in the west end that select STO buses use to get to Tunney's Pasture, although with limited availability. That doesn't get you to Carleton University easily though.
@@mlmielke I think we have different opinions on what is considered west. I know the one you’re talking about and it’s rarely been a pleasant experience getting over. I’m thinking further west between the 416 and Kanata connecting to Aylmer. Even if it was a toll bridge I’d take it for ease of crossing the River.
@@michaelvavala3088 One connecting to March Road, I'd definitely cross at, and visit Aylmer more often if it existed.
@@michaelvavala3088 I would love to see 416 extended north of the 417 into Aylmer. There would be a lot of NIMBYs on both sides of the crossing fighting that, and I can hardly blame them. It would keep so many cars off the Champlain Bridge and commercial vehicles out of the downtowns, especially if mass transit, cycling and pedestrians were more than accomodated.
Integrated Transit would be a good idea for the Gold Coast and Tweed areas in Australia.
There is a study for Tweed light rail but will the Sydney government cough up the money? The buses aren't too bad at present but could be better, the gc buses should run to at least Kingscliff and Murwillumbah if not byron
Would a shared rail system between Gatineau and Ottawa become under federal jurisdiction because it would be considered interprovincial transport, which is a federal competence?
It would come under federal regulations, but not federal operations. Both OCTranspo and STO are municipal transit agencies, but since they operate across provincial boundaries, they have to follow federal regulations for bus operations, plus provincial regulations.
When STO brings rail service into Ottawa nothing will change because both agencies are already federally regulated.
Also, all rail services have to follow federal regulations already, no matter where they're located, so again doesn't matter much. GO Transit for example, is provincially owned but follows federal rail regulations as they are a railway.
The whole NCR should become a federal district
Is Gatineau starting totally from scratch? Thanks for the interesting video!
oh an Stadtbahn Network, this reminds me about some citis in west Germany like Bielefeld or Essen who have an very simular system build.
What's Bielefeld?
@@scythal A city in germany with about 300000 inhabitants
Hey ! Could you please cover Emmanuel Macron's announcement of new "RER-style" lines in other French big cities, and what it would mean for transit in France ?
Oh please you know it's just communication right ? The idea is not new and the amount promissed by Macron is ridiculously low compared to the needs.
Talking about French RER projects would be nice though.
There will be an RER related video this month!
Even USA has this better covered with Washington Metro crossing to both Virginia and Maryland. And In Basel trams and rail networks span 3 countries: Switzerland, Germany and France...
The answer here might be copying what Germany has a verkehrsverbund that way Municipal tickets are going to be covered by the regional transit Association. For example you can use a Düsseldorf Mülheim an der Ruhr Essen Oberhausen & Duisburg Straßenbahn Ticket on the S-Bahn Rhein Ruhr system on a station that links the tram with the mainline commuter rail. In the Ottawa example that means a writer on the quarterback side of the river can simply use their ticket on the Ottawa Transit System which actually uses the same electronic ticket as Toronto & Mississauga Presto card
The physical infrastructure of light, metro, regional and HSR should be contiguous and uniform. Any rolling stock should be able to go anywhere in theory.
Could you please do a video on the Newcastle Tyne and Wear metro in the uk
Imagine transit connecting things
As an Ottawa resident, just make one that works.
EASILY DONE, oC Transpo just needs to expand 1 station across the Prince of Wales Bridge, like STM did in Longtail
Can you make a video about the Rapibus I know you mostly a train guy but the extension is going foward and also like we really think in a certain point this should be transformed into train to since the last station on one direction is just above the prince the gales bridge but again is bayview station problem the make it to small
tu connais bien la région 🙂
Disclaimer: This comment contains opinions and the author does not know Ottawa or its suburbs.
I react strongly to the statement "The best transfer is NO transfer". This is wrong. Transferring is not the problem. What is the problem are associated annoyances during a transfer. If the transfer is "on the edge" (meaning the same edge/curb at which I board a vehicle, wait shortly, and board another vehicle without the need to walk to a different platform) is the best thing you can do. Especially when I, as a commuter, know that the line I transfer to will come every X minutes in rush hour that I will always wait for X minutes when traveling late in the evening (at 21:30). The system must be intuitive and simple, with lines running in easy to remember intervals, such as once every 7.5, 10, 12, 15 and 20 minutes, with 20 minutes being acceptable for very late night services. During peak hours, service should be provided at least every 6 minutes. In such a case, potential waiting time during transfer is acceptable and you do not need to take special care when "synchronizing" lines. Much better than many "direct lines", that run once every 17, 23 or any other "stupid number" of minutes that generate a hard to remember timetable and also creating a situation that if you miss the direct service, you must wait as well as very inconvenient transfers if case that a direct line is not between where you want to travel. I am not interested in those at all. I am willing to transfer, but I want a guarantee that in peak hours I will not wait longer than 4 minutes for the transfer and to know reliably, how long I will wait when transferring late in the evening. I refuse to accept the one line runs once every 15 minutes and the other once every 20 minutes, causing the transfer being a "lottery".
Another problem is, that very often, to "transfer" means walking, getting wet in rain, crossing multiple lanes, no protection from passing road traffic (getting wet again), walking stairs, or simply having to walk long distances because of stupid design, etc. I have seen it too often, that transfers required walking over multiple lane road traffic, with pedestrian signalling being very unfriendly, making you wait between crossings, just to see the vehicle you wanted to transfer to drive away from the station. This led to many pedestrians literally running a red light. And I have seen a woman run over by a car with my own eyes. She was running from the bus stop to the tram stop, because she wanted to catch a "direct line" to her destination. Of course, another 5 lines were running on the rails, but only that specific one was going where she needed, so she was risking. I must say that I am very happy to see only two lines running there (instead of six) and they run every 4 minutes each. Even if I would see "my" line driving away, I would not risk anything for 4 minutes. But for 12 minutes (during peak hours), I would run a red light as well (but look for cars on a multiple lane road). Because even if I were prepared to transfer down the line, I would have zero guarantee that the other possible transfer (of which I knew where I could transfer to) will not require me to wait 10 minutes, which is too long). No lines "from everywhere to everywhere"!!! I want safe, convenient and comfortable transfers. I am willing to transfer multiple times.
Side note: I proposed the "drastic" reduction of lines "from everywhere to everywhere" decades ago, together with calculating all the costs, etc. I am quite happy that a couple of years back, such a reduction was realized. Even though news papers were full of negative press, in the end people realized how much better it was and ridership increased. I was not surprised at all by this. Sadly, Covid-19 was a hit to all public transport. But the levels are returning to pre-pandemic levels which is nice to see. End of site note.
Then there is the tariff integration. It is absolutely vital that all the operators of public transport in a certain area accept one common ticket as well as prepaid monthly and yearly tickets. Holders of such tickets can use any line, regardless of who is operating it, at any time they want (of course within the operating hours of said lines). If a specific operator wants to sell cheaper tickets which are valid only for his system, he may do so. Knowing from experience, very little interest in such tickets exist among the commuters. Another thing is coordination. A centralized coordinator should make sure that predefined "standards of service" are being kept, as well as aligning timetables in order to create safe, comfortable and convenient transfers when possible. As a potential user of public transport I am heavily demotivated to use it if I have to remember the times of "my" line (lines from everywhere to everywhere else once in a year), keep in mind to "tap" my "card" on entry to stations and when exiting or transferring.
Another thing about the mentioned rolling stock and track standards. Even if you have the same gauge and electrification on two systems that you want to "connect" without transferring, they are far from being compatible. You need to have harmonized signalling, train control, platform height, width of vehicles (or means to cover the gap if the narrower vehicle serves the "wide" stations), the rigidity of the vehicles themselves (one vehicle with a chassis built for 600kN strength vs. one for 150kN "can" be operated, but not safely on the same tracks, because in the case of an accident, the passengers in the weaker vehicle would be likely killed), wheel profile (one system having wheels with different width and/or different flange shapes and depth, which influences the safe passing over switches and crossings), compatible adhesion/braking distances, compatible current collection equipment and even if both systems use the same type (trolley pole, pantograph), there still remains a possible difference in the dimensions of the slide plates as well as forces applied to the overhead line by the pantograph and/or its operating range.
End of rant. 🙂
The way of implementing a rail systems into a city of a different one reminds me of the plans of Wiesbaden's tram since there would have been two mutually exclusive plans: Integration with Mainz's trams (metre gauge) or used to reactivate the Aartalsbahn (standard gauge). Of course, since the citizens voted against a tram in general, that discussion became moot, lol.
Otherwise, multi tramways of separate cities are generally well integrated with many examples such as the Rhine-Neckar metropolis (Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Heidelberg), Cologne and Bonn and Schöneiche and Berlin.
The main hurdle for better integration is political. The case of Washington is simpler because it's a main city managed by the federal Government and the surrounding suburbs in different states. Meanwhile, Ottawa might be bigger than Gatineau but it's not as big a difference than Washington with its surrounding, and both sides are managed by different provincial governments, instead of a special district under federal rule vs. state governments. The only way I see such an integration working is if the federal government takes over transit for the region. They can make a constitutional case for it given it crosses provincial boundaries, but I can't see either provincial government taking it very well
With coordinated regional authorities it is possible the integration: In Bogota BRT (transmilenio), we have smooth integration with Soacha, our greatest suburb but it was just to have the political will to do that, a process that took us some years but finally took off.