Ottawa Transit Developments

[drum118]

The tunnel in question is 40 years old. I doubt anyone involved in delivering that project is still employed at OC Transpo.

Outside of the city centre, I don't recall seeing or using a tunnel on either side of the city centre tunnel that was built for the LRT in all my travels on the transitway. Now, if you are talking about the O-Train line, yes there are tunnels going back to the days CP ran trains through them to Quebec before my time.

 

[reaperexpress]

Outside of the city centre, I don't recall seeing or using a tunnel on either side of the city centre tunnel that was built for the LRT in all my travels on the transitway. Now, if you are talking about the O-Train line, yes there are tunnels going back to the days CP ran trains through them to Quebec before my time.

 

[kEiThZ]

Like @thenewguy said, they repurposed the transitway infrastructure which was built in the 80's. The station is St. Laurent, which is actually my local station here. I was pretty shocked when I first used it how little they upgraded it. So much of the station is still just crappy old stuff from the 80's. They are currently reconstructing the bus terminal (which happens to be directly above the tunnel) which makes me wonder if the vibration from the construction caused something to come loose.

Begs the question why they never rebuilt the bus terminal at the same time as all the other LRT construction?

They cut so many corners on this thing. Just compare the Confederation Line to REM. Montreal is spending marginally more per km and getting so much more in capability, with a lower operating cost.

 

[CapitalSeven]

Bus service during the construction of the confederation line was complicated, as the stations had to be kept in use while the running way was altered. At St Laurent the lower level of the thru busway was out of service, and all buses had to use the upper bus terminal. Trying to rebuild that at the same time would have been nearly impossible without building a temporary terminal at significant cost in an inconvenient place.

The structure, about a quarter of a mile long, is a tunnel in a qualified sense. It passes under a slightly elevated highway, then between that and a mall. I'm not sure how much the ground was actually lowered when it was built, as opposed to things being built over it. It's somewhat difficult to guess where original surface levels were around the highway and mall.

 

[reaperexpress]

 

[thenewguy]

The repurposing of the 80’s transit was significant. For the most part Line one follows the exact path of the bus transit way corridor. Some stations were repurposed, like St-Laurent and parts of Blair. We see repurposing occurring at several more phase 2 stations, most notably at Bayshore, and Place D’Orleans.

 

[TossYourJacket]

Honestly it was so dumb that they decided to cut corners at Blair and St Laurent when every other station was, maybe aside from the trench, brand new. It's not like they repurposed Lees or Tremblay, those got full replacements.

 

[reaperexpress]

Honestly it was so dumb that they decided to cut corners at Blair and St Laurent when every other station was, maybe aside from the trench, brand new. It's not like they repurposed Lees or Tremblay, those got full replacements.

I disagree. Reusing existing infrastructure is a good way to avoid making projects unnecessarily expensive. There's already a station there, why build a new one?

In the case of Lees, they wanted to add a bike path along the east side of the station, and for Tremblay relocating the station reduced conflicts between passengers and vehicles for people transfering between the O-Train station and the Via Rail station. It also reduced curvature along the line, which is something they've been criticized for not doing enough of.

 

[Garuda]

I disagree. Reusing existing infrastructure is a good way to avoid making projects unnecessarily expensive. There's already a station there, why build a new one?

In the case of Lees, they wanted to add a bike path along the east side of the station, and for Tremblay relocating the station reduced conflicts between passengers and vehicles for people transfering between the O-Train station and the Via Rail station. It also reduced curvature along the line, which is something they've been criticized for not doing enough of.

Agreed.

Although I'm still salty that uOttawa station was never built underground and in -turn creating a linear park between Nicholas and the university campus. It was in the initially concept but was scrapped early on as a cost saving measure.

 

[Allandale25]

 

[nfitz]

The tunnel in question is 40 years old. I doubt anyone involved in delivering that project is still employed at OC Transpo.

So if 40 years is excusable, but new isn't, at what age is the line?

Some of the Eglinton line tunnels must be pushing 10 years old now.

 

[ARG1]

So if 40 years is excusable, but new isn't, at what age is the line?

Some of the Eglinton line tunnels must be pushing 10 years old now.

A major thing to note is also the fact that its a different project. The St. Laurent tunnel was built in the 80s as part of the Transitway East project, a tunnel that was in active use for decades with hundreds of busses and thousands of passengers making use of it every day. The O-train was simply reusing the tunnel as a way to reasonable save on infrastructure costs. The most we can penalize RTG is maybe not doing a thorough job of inspecting the existing infrastructure for any faults?

Eglinton isn't repurposing tunnels, the fact that some sections of tunnel are 10 years is a testament to how horrendous the construction process has been for this project. Even if something catastrophic happens and the line doesn't open for another 20 years, I think there a difference in leeway that we can grant between Eglinton and St. Laurent.

 

[nfitz]

A major thing to note is also the fact that its a different project. The St. Laurent tunnel was built in the 80s as part of the Transitway East project ...

Yes, I think that was mentioned above. Though if my memory serves, wasn't St. Laurent a late 1980s addition? Or perhaps Cyrville was the first extension station.

Gosh, I can't even remember what the terminal was when I was out there. I seldom went further than Train station.

 

[ARG1]

Yes, I think that was mentioned above. Though if my memory serves, wasn't St. Laurent a late 1980s addition? Or perhaps Cyrville was the first extension station.

Gosh, I can't even remember what the terminal was when I was out there. I seldom went further than Station station.

The extension to St. Laurent opened in 1987 as the new terminus alongside Train (present day Tremblay).

 

[rdaner]

View attachment 534595

What line is this? Is the west extension now open?