Search results

Hilarious and almost painfully possible to see that actually happening. Ultimately I agree that SmartTrack as it stands is a half thought out plan. Right idea. Poor execution of the details and lack of respect for the planning process. As lots of other people here have said this will likely...

Desperate electioneering. As much as I want better funding for transit I do agree it's a little odd, and not just because the CPC has been so dismissive of cities and transit. Whether it's the CPC or another party that puts such funding into effect (I'll leave politics out of it but I'm sure...

Couldn't agree more. If your goal is to make Pearson a truly multi-modal hub that captures all transit and all the various regional and intercity rail services it needs to be via a tunnel. Anything else will just be a janky user experience that people will not use. UP express will succeed...

A real rail station at Pearson is inevitable in the next 20 years. And by that I mean something along the lines of Schiphol were a tunnel heads under and creates a direct, super short connection with the rest of the terminal. Any other half baked idea where it's kind of close but not really just...

Exactly. Brilliant work on their part to get people to see at as a "hybrid" option when it is clearly not. I don't think any of these options are the best option. I still think burying it is what should be done. But that is also several fold more expensive then these options being presented...

Holy. You really get a good sense of just how much work was done in that corridor over the past few years from that video. It's great to finally see regional rail getting the love it deserves. I'm pretty excited to get to use UPX next time I fly into Toronto!

So your saying that not all LRTs are built the same and not all Metros look a like? Can that really be? Studies like that can be interesting but really don't offer much that can be applied on a general basis. Like you said, there are so many factors which can affect the cost and design of an...

The last proposal was pretty flawed and lacked a lot of creativity. Not to mention it would have been drawn up in the early to mid 90's and in that time a lot has changed. Not just in terms of how cities have grown, but also transportation patterns. If you start to examine possible routes in...

I thought the DOTT for the N-S lrt line was set for around 2016 but with all the changes to the project it may well have changed at some point. Either way, in terms of its affect on HSR or regional rail it wouldn't make any difference in terms of timelines. I don't expect regional rail for a...

I want to say that most of the grade separations on the current VIA line could be twinned (save the Rideau River bridge) but I could be mistaken. Right now the three major at grade crossings that remain are the diamond crossing across the O-Train line, and Woodroffe and Fallowfield. The...

Walkley yards is not far from the station itself really and would provide very little time savings in the end. A Toronto to Montreal route that goes through Ottawa instead of along the Lakeshore is going to be about 100 km longer and add about 30 minutes to the overall travel time (between...

Though the greenbelt is not super developed, it still has enough development that it would be an expropriation nightmare. Not to mention the NCC would never let it happen. Politically it would be a mess, even by Ottawa standards. Pushing it a bit further south would likely work well. Its...

Im not sure if that bridge could be twinned or not. Im not sure if that would much help anyways, depending on what speeds the bridge could allow even with upgrades (right now trains slow down to about 60 km/h when they cross it). One of the problems, or unique aspects, with Ottawa is that it...

The existing station is not perfect, but its not terrible either. With the LRT network U of O, The Byward Market and the CBD/Parliment zone will be a 4-7 minute trip. And yes the Queensway can be busy, but the airport is not much better in terms of access. Barrhaven did a lot to improve...

One last post for the night (probably). Pricing and services are perfect examples of how to make the idea more attractive, and how good network design can play a role. Serving local stops means overall trip times between major cities are slower (though they would still offer large time...

The problem is you cant avoid the costs. If you start cutting the budget you end up with something vastly inferior. What you can do is find a way to maximize the value of the network. Really i think that point we agree on. When the 401 was built they didnt try to build off of highway 2. They...

Except it would be 22 minutes if trains could run through most of Ottawa at top speed. Right now it takes 20 minutes to go from Barrhaven to the main station. God luck sending trains through that section at high speed. You could build a station at the airport as someone suggested but do you...

Except it isnt that cheap too just fix up the tracks and electrify a line. Electrification is roughly $2 million per kilometer per track (dropping a little bit per track with each additional track). Depending on how bad the existing tracks are you could be looking at another $1 or 2 million per...

The big thing about just upgrading existing corridors (and by that I mean electrifying and adding tracks right next to the existing lines) i that you will spend a lot of money for relatively little improvment. At best some section might hit 200 km/h but since many can support 160 km/h as it is...

Not only would a northern bypass be quite expensive but Ottawa's gain would Montreals lose. Given Montreal is 3 or 4 times the size of Ottawa 20 minutes extra on a Toronto-Ottawa trip to have service to the lakeshore and St Lawrence communities and the fatest travel time between Montreal and...