Lincoln Fields is a major transfer station on the transitway and will in the future be a major transfer point from LRT Confederation Line to buses serving the further west end neighbourhoods.

Here is an aerial view of the station today:

The buried LRT tracks in a tunnel will enter the area roughly following the pedestrian pathways shown to the upper left of the aerial photo above. The new station itself will be roughly where the red pedestrian bridges of the current transitway station are today, running out towards Carling Avenue.

The city photo illustration below shows the new platforms as in a walled cut, like the Richmond Road stations, with a flat-roofed building above, and a new bus transfer facility extending quite a ways north on what is now the crab tree nursery / plantation and meadow. Carling Avenue is on the right edge of the photo:

Because it is in a tunnel and narrow cut, I expect much of the LRT track and station to be easily concealed with landscaping from motorists on the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway. The NCC will surely insist on Cadillac landscaping standards.

The bus parking zone will be much harder to disguise visually and acoustically. But I expect the sight of cars and the drone of tires on the parkway will still dominate.

The sloping roofs of the Phase 1 station designs reappears:

The Lincoln Fields dead-mall is about to be redeveloped as a bunch of high rises. The current transitway station connects to the existing apartments and maybe the mall via an at-grade signalized crossing at the north end of the station. Presumably this crossing will disappear.

But I see no provision for integrating the new Lincoln LRT Station with the proposed intensification of the site to the west of it. Surely we aren’t proposing to force pedestrians to take a roundabout route on sidewalks glued to the curb of high speed Carling Avenue and force them to wade through the freeway-offramp-style Parkway exits … are we??

The last time I mentioned this to the city’s consultants, I got a blank look and bland assurance that if the site was within 600m then it had acceptable (to them) access. If you don’t want to get sprayed by the cars then don’t “go for a walk”on rainy days!

A stronger push for integration of transit and development should be part of the new OP/TMP. In the meantime, I hope better, direct access to the existing and new developments is created. And not just a bridge dumping pedestrians onto a car-centric access road around the towers; I’d like to see a pedestrian spine through the site that creates a welcoming priority. A work, shop, live, play, transit continuum rather than more towers in a parking lot.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The current Iris Station is a bus stop at one of the few remaining at-grade intersections on the transitway.

It looks like Iris will be elevated slightly to go over the LRT tracks and the tracks themselves depressed below what is now the transitway alignment.

I expect stations like Iris to get a lot of walk in and bike in traffic, as well as some bus transfers. I do not see any provision for transit users to connect to a west bound bus on Iris.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A new Queensview Station is proposed along the Queensway between a furniture big box store and the Citizen/IKEA buildings on the south. A new ped-cyclist passerelle is to be provided. It looks to be the same design as the attractive Max Keeping bridge between the VIA Station and the baseball park.

Eventually, I think some of those warehousey buildings and parking lots will grow up to be a much more intensive development node.

I access IKEA today by walking from the Pinecrest Station over the Queensway via Pinecrest overpass. The route is just barely acceptable if you stick to the east side of Pinecrest. But the freeway fumes are noxious, and the sidewalks exposed to dreadful sprays of water and grime. It is a tribute to the follies of 70’s auto-mania. The new ped bridge will bring whole new neighbourhoods to easy access of the LRT and give residents of other neighbourhoods easy access to the commercial developments here. (note: this is in contrast to the situation in the east end, as we shall see…)

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The proposed Bayshore LRT station is, I hope, still a work in progress. I am not inspired by the current illustration. Nor the lengthy walking distances to the mall. And especially not the treatment of LRT passengers as some sort of low life forced to walk through parking garages to get to the mall. LRT access via parking garages rarely works out well, even with the best of intentions, such as at SeaTac Airport. Let alone the Bayshore plan which seems too dependant on a cheap reusing of the existing awkward bridges. Cost over function??

 

No amount of fancy planning photoshop can make that garage walk of shame into a pleasant event:

Given that the LRT platforms extend significantly east of the existing red bridges, it makes sense to me that new elevated access ped bridge access be provided to the south side of Hudson’s Bay or even a new aisle to the mall itself in roughly the following alignment, either as a new bridge outside the existing building, or carved out from existing building space like the McKenzie King transit area is:

The shopping mall environment is highly competitive. If Bayshore mall is to remain a first class contender it will have to up its game and provide or share-cost a better, direct connection from the LRT platforms into the mall. Otherwise it will become another Carlingwood when something newer opens up further west.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The new Algonquin-Baseline Station utilitzes the existing tunnel/station space already constructed underground along the western edge of the College building shown here:

There appears to be a new entrance to the underground platforms via a small new not-much-glazed building shown on the lower left (findable by the curved elevator shrouds).

The current transitway platforms are removed, and shown as a new green lawn. Surely this is planning porn at its worst. We can expect it to be quickly converted into a larger parking lot for the employees of the city office buildings adjacent or the college.

Eventually, though, I hope Algonquin or other other developments erode away those enormous parking lots that have no role adjacent a location with major transit access.

I notice that a new two storey highly-glazed building is shown above the south end of the platforms, connected to the College with a new ped bridge, and offering easier access to Centrepoint municipal centre with its theatre and library and offices. Given the small access building providing platform access to the college, and the larger one at the bus transfer area, its obvious that the key focus here is LRT to bus transfers and not the College and office developments as destinations. I would like to see a closer indoor integration of the station and platforms to the existing and future college buildings.

I think there is to be a new bus parking facility further south, out of the picture, where in Phase 3 or 4 or 5 the LRT extends to Barrhaven.

_____________________________________________________

Yes, these stories skipped a few western LRT stations. If you are interested, email me and I will send you the illustrations for Pinecrest and Moodie Stations.