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Moose Rail (National Capital Region)

Allandale25 said:
^ Interesting. Wouldn't the easiest and fastest thing to do by the CTA would just to be to dismiss their prior order?
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I agree.

The GIC Order regarding the Bayview station issue (Determination No. R-2018-23 of February 16, 2018) only rescinded that particular order, and that is what Joseph Potvin is trying to take advantage of in his newest submission by referring to the POW issue and Determination. Regardless, the GIC Order (2019-0295) is fairly straightforward. It states that "the Act does not impose on railway companies an obligation to maintain a railway line in an operational or near operational state in a context where there is no demand for service. The CTA may simply use that as their reference wherein clarification on the Act has been established and go ahead and rescind this other Determination as well.

I don't see any need for the City to even discontinue the line over the POW Bridge. The Explanatory Notes to the GIC Order indicates that "there is no service obligation for passenger movements under the Act", and that "a railway company could fulfill its level of service obligations through various means, such as refurbishing the railway line, using a competing railway, trucking the goods, or shipping the goods through a marine carrier."

In fact, there is risk (albeit very minor) in that by going through a discontinuance process the City would end up being obliged to sell the bridge, whereas they have indicated that they wish to keep it and make use of it in another fashion.

Who knows, they may not even have to tear up the existing rails to convert this to bicycle/pedestrian use. Perhaps a nice boardwalk could even be installed right over top of the rails.
 
^ Kind of what like what they did with the High Line here?

207195
 
^ Good question. For the discontinuous process, I seem to recall other entities can try to buy the line. Do they all need to have their "Certificate of Fitness"? That seems to be an issue for Moose. They've applied for it and haven't got it. Further, on this thread I think I've seen Joseph flip flop where he's said in one case Moose would get it, and in other post he's said they would his a third-party contractor (like CANDO) to run the service.
 
Charles said:
I don't see any need for the City to even discontinue the line over the POW Bridge. The Explanatory Notes to the GIC Order indicates that "there is no service obligation for passenger movements under the Act", and that "a railway company could fulfill its level of service obligations through various means, such as refurbishing the railway line, using a competing railway, trucking the goods, or shipping the goods through a marine carrier."
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It would be very curious if the city successfully argued that they are continuing to fulfill their railway duties by providing a pedestrian crossing, especially since those laws aren't written around passenger railways anyway.

Allandale25 said:
Joseph flip flop where he's said in one case Moose would get it, and in other post he's said they would his a third-party contractor (like CANDO) to run the service.
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In that case, I believe he was referring to MOOSE being the "railway" who would contract operations out to other people.
 
The thing about "why not use other bridges, connect at other stations" is that the POWB/Trillium line offers something unlikely to be forthcoming from a Rideau option - a one seat ride to/from YOW and Carleton from Gatineau. The answer to the either/or should be "both", but as an extension of Trillium rather than as a full heavy rail situation. I really wish I could sit down with the folks in Watson's office who are so aggressively against extension to understand the issues because their public statements don't make it clear what the real road block is here. OCT is federally regulated already so the interprovincial thing presumably comes down to money, but being interprovincial also strengthens the case for aggressive federal support, no?
 
It would be nice if eventually the trillium line could be extended up the rapidbus route through Gatineau creating a full interprovincial line, but unfortunately that seems really unlikely now given that even crossing the POW bridge is now something Ottawa opposes.
 
I'd agree that the immeidete potential is less than brilliant, but Ottawa's sudden insistence that this means the bridge needs to be somehow prevented from ever being used is at best annoying... I agree that the corridor isn't ever going to be a primary commuter crossing, but medium to long term a YOW - Gatineau - North Shore - Montreal intercity service makes a lot of sense. The immediete issue isn't that we need to find a way to fund rail, just preventing destruction of a potentially useful bit of infrastructure.

So far as I can see the logic of this mess is purely that the city doesn't like MOOSE, justifiably, and feels that this means they should do anything possible to sabotage it...
 
Bureaucromancer said:
I'd agree that the immeidete potential is less than brilliant, but Ottawa's sudden insistence that this means the bridge needs to be somehow prevented from ever being used is at best annoying... I agree that the corridor isn't ever going to be a primary commuter crossing, but medium to long term a YOW - Gatineau - North Shore - Montreal intercity service makes a lot of sense. The immediete issue isn't that we need to find a way to fund rail, just preventing destruction of a potentially useful bit of infrastructure.

So far as I can see the logic of this mess is purely that the city doesn't like MOOSE, justifiably, and feels that this means they should do anything possible to sabotage it...
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Moose was never credible.

My position is that any proposal that saves the bridge from further deterioration, including a multi-use trail, preserves the bridge for the potential return of rail service.

I don't see north shore intercity rail service to Montreal returning, when we already have two other right of ways preserved for Montreal service that are either underutilized or not utilized at all.
 
I would have liked to see see O-Trains go one stop north to Gatineau.
But that's a question for a future era.

Though, when that (ever) happens, perhaps that'll probably be the Bank Street subway instead, connecting to the existing Parliament LRT Station before diving under the Ottawa River, towards the conceptual Place Du Portage Station.
 
The river is as much as 40 feet deep on a line from the north end of Bank Street, possibly more than 100 feet deep north of Entrance Bay.
 
mdrejhon said:
I would have liked to see see O-Trains go one stop north to Gatineau.
But that's a question for a future era.

Though, when that (ever) happens, perhaps that'll probably be the Bank Street subway instead, connecting to the existing Parliament LRT Station before diving under the Ottawa River, towards the conceptual Place Du Portage Station.
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This is my preferred option, only with a bridge over the Ottawa River. Ottawa really lacks a signature bridge (the Alexandria kind of fits the bill, but not really). An LRT-only bridge with Parliament Hill as the backdrop would be fantastic. It could emerge from the cliff face near the Confederation Building, and cut diagonally across the river to an elevated station at PDP, which could be directly integrated into the 2nd floor circulation system of the PDP complex.
 
gweed123 said:
This is my preferred option, only with a bridge over the Ottawa River. Ottawa really lacks a signature bridge (the Alexandria kind of fits the bill, but not really). An LRT-only bridge with Parliament Hill as the backdrop would be fantastic. It could emerge from the cliff face near the Confederation Building, and cut diagonally across the river to an elevated station at PDP, which could be directly integrated into the 2nd floor circulation system of the PDP complex.
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Bridge it is, your idea makes better sense.

This potentially sounds like Phase 4 stuff though -- it is a ginormous cost.

By then, I would hope that there's a Master Plan for the ginormous amount of land south of Rideau River near Billings Bridge. This area could densify to a cluster of 10-storey or 30-storey -- or even (heavens!) -- 60-storey buildings within 1km of the BRT+subway interchange at Billings Bridge. So much asphalt -- Data Centre, Billings Bridge, etc -- and so much opportunity for 100 years that could easily justify the Bank Street Subway.

Just the existing parking lot asphalt alone within 1.5km of Billings Bridge -- is roughly half the surface area of Byward Market! The parking lots alone! That's even without using up any of the grass at RA Centre, Mooney's Bay or NCC lands -- even without touching the grass at all, just merely redeveloping the asphalt (and putting parking underground) would free up a boon of development space that justifies funding the Bank Street subway within 50 years. This area-of-opportunity sprawls all the way between the Billings Bridge station through near Mooney's Bay LRT station.

A metro route extending from either South Keys / Billings Bridge all the way to Gatineau-Hull, going underground near Billings Bridge and only surfacing at the cliff above Ottawa River. And if the Bank Street subway reaches South Keys LRT station, this also presents a potential possible opportunity to fork the Trillium line -- with service interleaving -- allowing a nonstop airport train (via Bank Street subway).

The sum of "Airport + South Keys densification/redevelopment + Billings densification/redevelopment + Bank Street + Stadium + Hull-Gatineau" = could potentially justify the cost of a Bank Street subway

Not yet, not now, but -- eventually. Phase 4 or Phase 5.

And especially after Phase 1 teething problems are a long-gone memory.

Either way -- this is a far more sensible idea than Moose Rail.
 
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