The City today announced its preferred LRT routes and station configurations.
Good news: the major transfer station from buses-on-the-transitway-west will be at Tunney’s Pasture, built on the grassy vacant area north of the current station.
Good news: the configuration at Bayview will permit same train access from the (future) southwest transitway / O-Train alignment to the downtown. This means that we can attract larger conventions to the new convention centre downtown as we will have no-transfer-required service direct from the airport to downtown. The configuration at Bayview permits much greater flexibility in train routing.
Bad News: the LeBreton Station is going to be accessed by bus service along Scott-Albert. This will be about a thousand buses per day per direction (I haven’t been able to get a straight answer from DOTT about the number). This will impose a severe noise and dust and vibration penalty on adjacent residents for at least two years during construction of the at-grade LRT system and probably lesser volume of buses for decades after.
Good News: the Rideau St station will be at the north end of the Rideau Centre, under Rideau St. Other alignments examined had put the tunnel directly under the Rideau Centre, which had some bad service implications but preserved foot traffic in the mall. Now the Rideau Centre will have to lobby for moving some bus services off Rideau to the Laurier side of the mall. Maybe they could start with the STO service … I note that the old Union Station is still being identified as a potential Library site.
Mixed News: the LeBreton station will be at-grade, maybe outdoor, until new developments build over it and turn it into an indoor station. At the rate the Flats are being developed, this could be never … ironically, the City owns and plans to develop the site above and adjacent the proposed station, which bodes even more poorly for its prospects.
To see the powerpoint presentation by the DOTT committee, click on…
https://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/transit_tunnel/interim/technical_briefing_en.pdf