First up: Westboro Station, then the new Dominion Station. One sees major change, the other very little.

Westboro Station gets no love.

The City’s newest reveal of the details for the Western extension of the Confederation Line LRT has only the scantiest mention of Westboro. It will be rebuilt in the style of the other Confederation line stations, with improved Scott Street frontage and improved access for people who walk or cycle. No further illustration or details are warranted, so they aren’t in the plan unveiling.

There is more info for Dominion Station.

Currently a collection of bus stops where the transitway joins the Ottawa River Commuter Expressway, aka Sir John A Parkway, this stop  will get a real station building in a slightly new location.

Right now the transitway trench comes up to the surface level at the edge of the parkway, and angles slightly north at the intersection. See this Google aerial view:

The new trench will bend west, travelling in a continued shallow cut that, after the station, descends into a tunnel portal behind the Collican office building and  Minto’s new UpperWest condo tower. Here is the City’s sketchup of the new alignment, from a similar angle as the Google pic:

 

The new station will have open air LRT platforms in the trench. A walkway extends out towards the River via a new pedestrian underpass. Here’s the current view, and the City’s projection:

 

 

Notice that the continuity of the pathway system on the south side of the river is maintained. Access to the new Station building will be from the street level on the Berkley / Dominion / Roosevelt side. From the Workman /Westboro Beach side, the surface walkways will run downhill to enter at the lower,  platform level.

The area keeps the existing ped bridge at the end of Roosevelt, and there may be a new one just west of the station, sort of visible if you squint at the sketchups above, to replace the current at-grade crossing of the pathway at the traffic lights now on the edge of the Parkway.

Here is a pigeon-eye view of the new Station itself, showing the entrance from the Berkley / Dominion streets at grade, the crossing over the tracks, and the staircases down to the sunken side platforms. The existing transitway multi user path continues past the station after traversing a broad front forecourt.

While there is a kiss-and-ride passenger drop off and pick up facility, I suspect it won’t see much more use than the current station does. This is a walk-in or bike-in station. There is no planned bus service to here, rather Richmond Road buses will wander their way to the Westboro Station with its bus loop and transfer point.

Nonetheless, if I lived on Berkley or Dominion I’d be lobbying for streetscaping as part of the project, perhaps even speed bumps or bulb outs with trees, as a sort of pre-emptive calming.

The view shown below is from the south side of the Parkway walking paths, as if one was approaching from Westboro Beach or Workman Avenue. This is the view motorists will have from the Parkway. (Will car commuters survive seeing a red train from their windows on the Parkway?! What risk takers these NCC folks are !) From the drawings, it looks like the pedestrian walkways make use of the former roadbed alignment of the transitway, as the new LRT cut moves off to the right, between the existing apartment buildings and the parkway :

 

Presumably, at night when the Station is closed, people will cross the LRT trench via the existing  Roosevelt ped bridge or the new crossing along the south side of the Parkway that goes towards the northwestern end of Workman Avenue.

Next: Cleary Station, and New Orchard Station