Tuesday, January 11, 2011

More transit dreaming for Ottawa


A few months ago, Dwight Williams wrote an article on Spacing Ottawa (which I wrote about on this blog) about uniting the city's mega-projects, light-rail and the Lansdowne redevelopment, with a rail line down Bank Street. He's since fleshed out the idea into an all-out proposal for a Streetcar and LRT system for the city of Ottawa, which you can see above.

There are a lot of interesting decisions Williams decided to feature in his plan, whether by including stops or choosing not to. One is the extension of light-rail part-way along the Ottawa River Parkway, complemented by a streetcar line down Carling Avenue. Light-rail doesn't go to Baseline Station, but a streetcar heads there, and one also heads to Bayshore to connect the southern and western transitways, respectively. A southeastern LRT line connects downtown with the airport, which is kind of a big deal. It looks like a streetcar line connects the LRT spine to the General Hospital complex, and Riverside Hospital and CHEO along with it.

There are likely plenty of other aspects you may have noticed, and feel free to mention them in the comments. It's certainly an interesting proposal to look at.

4 comments:

Centretowner said...

Whither Kanata?

James said...

Looks like people trying to get to Algonquin College (Baseline) would be the real losers in this plan (it looks like a spur?). Does Westboro become a bus-metro transfer station for everyone coming from the far West End? ugh! i like the idea of Bank St and Rideau-Montreal subways, but this plan seems poorly thought out, and really, we're not going to get Bank St and Rideau-Montreal subways (we missed our chance for that in the 1960s) so let's move on!

Dwight Williams said...

I have to laugh at my own short-sightedness yet again, James. As ever, I never seem to take my ideas quite far enough!

There was another map here a few weeks ago that took some of the ideas I've been fiddling with, you see, and extended them to a truly logical and ideal conclusion. You've likely seen it as well if you're following this blog regularly.

Yes, Algonquin/Centrepoint/Baseline should be a major hub for its part of the city. And Centretowner is right: Kanata needs proper attention as well, but since I don't know that part of the city as well as I ought to - yet! - I didn't want to risk picking the route-lines and hubs badly.

Further revisions to come, obviously, and my apologies for not thinking it through far enough.

WJM said...

we're not going to get Bank St and Rideau-Montreal subways (we missed our chance for that in the 1960s)

We're not going to get anything if we keep pressing the only button on our transit apparatus, the reset button.

The eastern part of the E/W spine really ought to be under Rideau-Montreal rather than in the current busway corridor which has virtually no opportunity for transit-oriented infill. But Ottawa is still fixated on 1960's thinking, and always will be. This "city" is rapidly becoming a suburban backwater. In fact, the conversion is almost complete.