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Ottawa Transit Developments

It was quite a bargain, that line. Cost something like 21 million to build. Peanuts even in 2001 dollars.

I was hoping it would spur more transit agencies to consider using disused rail lines as transit, but its not always that easy. This abandoned line happened to be quite close to many points of interest.

The only other lines like this that I can think of are in California, with the San Diego Sprinter, and the SMART train north of San Francisco.

The Ion LRT does use a portion of the Waterloo Spur, but not exclusively.
Ottawa has another opportunity to re-use the seldom used cross-town rail line to develop another lost-cost single track service. It could link the high tech Kanata business park with thousands of jobs with Greenboro Station (and possibly even further east with a potential connection into Ottawa's VIA station), crossing most of the city, and other rapid transit lines and establishing a service that cannot be provided efficiently today. This was long proposed but fell off the radar to prioritize the enormous cost of the Confederation Line.
 
^ I'm still kind of surprised it's not going to be two tracks at the airport like it is for UP Express at Pearson. But I guess they've run the calculations.
 
The Trillium Line has now been closed for about a week and work has already begun. Chunks of rail have already been removed between Gladstone and Carling, namely.

The city is publishing regular updates like they did for the Confederation Line:

And an update on the Airport link, including a 3D render video

So by 2021 the number of Canadian cities with rapid transit to their airports will be:

1. Toronto
2. Montreal (REM)
3. Vancouver
4. Ottawa
5. Calgary (via a people mover)
Any else i'm missing?
 
So by 2021 the number of Canadian cities with rapid transit to their airports will be:

1. Toronto
2. Montreal (REM)
3. Vancouver
4. Ottawa
5. Calgary (via a people mover)
Any else i'm missing?
Calgary's people mover is barely planned out so completion by 2021 is unlikely., Bizzare nobody thought of originally extending the exsisting Blue line to the airport considering it already runs on southern airport lands.
 
^ I'm still kind of surprised it's not going to be two tracks at the airport like it is for UP Express at Pearson. But I guess they've run the calculations.
It'll be run by two trains going back and forth between South Keys and the airport every 12 minutes with the passing track being located through Uplands station (a pretty long one too which stretches over the Airport Parkway). Unless a train breaks down, I can't see any reason why they'd need two tracks at the airport station. In that sense, it's more like the Canada Line station at YVR.

You can also note that there are support beams being put in place for future platform extensions when the airport branch may also use 80m trains some day in the future. It's good that they're being put in place now.
 
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Calgary's people mover is barely planned out so completion by 2021 is unlikely., Bizzare nobody thought of originally extending the exsisting Blue line to the airport considering it already runs on southern airport lands.

Me and my Calgary friend have discussed how now two lines will pass by the airport and neither will go to it... its kind of insane really.
 
Calgary's People Mover is by no means a done deal right now AFAIK. Not construction start date much less a finish date.
I admit I know nothing about Calgary's People Mover, but the Trillium Line isn't set to re-open until 2022 which is what I was trying to note ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
One thing that occurred to me when watching that video was how much more visible Stage 2 construction will be as opposed to Stage 1. The vast majority of the work for Stage 1 took place either underground or within the existing Transitway ROW.

Stage 2 on the other hand involves a lot of new ROW being created (or significant shifting of infrastructure within existing ROWs). It's also taking place across the city, which means it's much more visible to the majority of the population. Unless you never leave Barrhaven or Kanata (the only 2 suburbs where work isn't happening) it would be pretty hard to miss it.
 

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