It will be interesting to see what the ridership becomes on the SE Transitway once the enhanced Line 2 opens. With every station south of Billings now basically being an LRT station too, I can't imagine there would be much left on it.
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Ottawa Transit Developments
- Thread starter Reecemartin
- Start date
reaperexpress
Senior Member
The transitway still provides a useful connection from the south to the east. For example, I live on the east side of Ottawa, so to get home from the airport I would take Line 4 to South Keys, then the transitway to Hurdman, then route 9 the rest of the way. Line 2 is hardly ever useful to me since it usually ends up perpendicular to my direction of travel, unlike the transitway.
They might be able to draw in more ridership by introducing some through running beyond Hurdman, such as extending route 9 and 42 along the transitway to South Keys, replacing the 97 and 99 which themselves will be made redundant by Lines 4 and 2 respectively. Routes 10, 88, 90, 92, 98, 290, 291, 294 and 299 serve different corridors than the train so their ridership will remain relatively unaffected.
I wish they'd eliminated Greenboro O-Train station when they added Walkley and South Keys. The transitway can act as the local service there and there's hardly anything at Greenboro anyway.
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CapitalSeven
Senior Member
You may be forgetting plans to completely rethink the South Keys area. This is the density map with proposed building heights from the city's Secondary Plan. I think they are starting the work at the south end, but eventually Greenboro will have significant walk-in potential.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
Yes, South Keys will certainly continue getting even more busy, with a lot of development around it. But even with the redevelopment, Greenboro would still only have a handful of buildings on one side, which don't add up to much ridership on their own.
Again I'm not suggesting to get rid of the transitway station. That would remain, making the development still very well connected, including to O-Train Line 2 via a one-stop ride in either direction. If people are going to the airport, they need to change to Line 4 at South Keys anyway, so it makes little difference whether they take the transitway one stop or the train one stop to get there.
drum118
Superstar
Every time we have visited the Greenboro, it been a busy place for the transitway as well the retail there. Its also allow for the buses to U-turn at the end of their routes.
Rule of thumb, stations need to be 500m apart to allow for zig zag walking to get to/from it for those who live in the area up to 1500m. Not an easy walk to the residents area east of it
reaperexpress
Senior Member
treplow
New Member
I still don't understand why the airport spur has to be separate from line 2 instead of interlining like Vancouver does.
DirectionNorth
Active Member
Frequency. The line north of South Keys can only handle a train every 12 minutes, interlining would mean that each branch gets 24 minute frequency.
ARG1
Senior Member
And to add on, the Limebank is expected to have a larger ridership and is arguably the more important branch of the 2.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
It's not all or nothing. They could run each branch every 24 minutes and also have an airport shuttle every 24 minutes which combines to a 12 minute headway on the airport branch.
The reason they're not doing that is rolling stock: they have a given number of short (Alstom) trains and a given number of long (Stadler) trains, but if they interlined them they'd need to have enough long trains to run the entire network apart from the one short train shuttling between the Airport and South Keys.
Speaking of fleet, do we know what will happen with the surplus Alstom LINT trains? They currently have 6 of them, but they only need 3 to run Line 2 (2 in service + 1 spare). Are there other lines in North America which could use some non-FRA compliant DMUs?
The Train de Charlevoix is the other notable user of non-FRA-compliant DMUs in Canada. They're currently running an Alstom LINT hydrogen test train which will be returned to Alstom in September, but I don't know if they're looking to replace their normal fleet of DB Class 628 DMUs.
Maybe during rush hour in the peak direction (due to park-and-ride demand that could just as easily go to Uplands station), but for the rest of the day I find it hard to believe that more people are going to a single low-density suburb than to the city's international airport.
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NoahB
Active Member
The capability for interlining is built in. But I assume they are not planning to use it for all the reasons mentioned above.
smallspy
Senior Member
They will be running one or two trains of coupled LINTs in concert with the FLIRTs on Line 2. It sounds like they're going to try and prioritize the rush hour runs, but it remains to be seen if that actually happens.
Dan
DirectionNorth
Active Member
And a 24 minute headway to Limebank where people actually live?
If the ridership required it, they would have designed a larger airport shuttle.
Uplands is not going to have Park and Ride.
The remaining Trillium Line is out of the way for Riverside South, and Limebank will also be fed by Barrhaven buses (what the usefulness of this service will be, I don't want to know). Also, YOW is a low traffic airport, even before COVID there were only 5 million passengers a year.
ARG1
Senior Member
While the requirement for a transfer isn't great, the transfer itself isn't that bad - certainly not bad enough to warrant cutting the headways to Riverside South to every 24m. Its a timed transfer, when the Line 4 train arrives at South Keys it then heads into the pocket track north of the station, and immediately after both Line 2 trains arrive at the station at roughly the same time. After they leave, the L4 train comes out of the pocket track to pick people up. As such, the transfer time is never more than 1-2m. I can't see how replacing this with your situation is an improvement outside of a minority of trips.
2 to run on Line 2, another 2 for Line 4, and a few spares. No they are not sending any for scraps.
2 things:
1) Even if its a low density suburb today, it is a prime target for a large amount of TOD, so there is a big question for how long it will be a low density suburb.
2) What should be given a higher priority, the people who live in the city and have to commute on Line 2 everyday, or people who are coming/out of the city, and will likely only use the line twice for the entire trip? Unless you work at the airport, even if you're flying into Ottawa somewhat regularly, you're still maybe going to use Line 4 to get to the airport twice a month (this is best case scenerio for a minority of people). Compare that to people who rely on the line to get places twice a day - personally speaking I think the daily users should have the priority here.
Mind_the_gap
Active Member
It’s kind of sad debating about interlining Lines 2/4 until the mainline between Bayview and South Keys is properly double-tracked. That ship sailed with the flyover over the former VIA diamond, and the underwater tunnel.
It really should’ve been done properly this time (closure) around.
It really should’ve been done properly this time (closure) around.