A couple of weeks ago, I was down in San Jose for a couple of days for work and I managed to snap a couple of cell phone photos of the LRT system used. This is similar to the system that is planned for the city of Ottawa. It is based on electricity with train like street cars that get their juice from the overhanging wires. Like we had last century.
Let’s take a look at the San Jose LRT and see what we can expect from our system.
Notice the overhead wires?? How lovely for our city to have such nice wires strung across our view of the lovely blue sky.
Can’t see them? Look at the picture below. They are much nicer. Think of how many kites our city will be able to catch and resell at a profit!!
See how they contrast so nicely on the blue? It will give our eyes something joyful to focus on. Who would want to stare at that lovely blue sky all by its’ lonesome anyway.
Oh, and in case you just can’t get enough, check out this lovely rat’s nest that happens where routes split. We will have lots of these as spurs as the system grows. It’s such a nice pattern. It reminds me of a spider’s web. And our green environmentalista ridership will appreciate the natural artistry of a spiders web won’t they!! And if they can’t appreciate that, they can appreciate the system not using diesel electric trains. Instead they will run on juice provided by the power grid that supplies our homes. We all know how reliable that system is. It means our city of Ottawa will not get those noxious diesel fumes. Instead. we can now slough it off on the area surrounding the coal fired power plants in some other part of the province. How nice of us to have clean air at someone elses expense. Mayor Bob was a genius with regards to this aspect of the plan.
Below is a picture of one of the stations for posterity. It looks pretty harmless. I also noticed that much of the LRT route in San Jose had lovely trees lining it to try to hide it from the view of the public. But lucky for us in Ottawa, those overhead wires will not have the foliage to hide them with our long winters. Oh joy, oh bliss!! We get to look at the spider’s web of wires!!
I hope my sarcasm came through in the above info. I am very thankful that Minister Baird is putting conditions on the federal funding for this money pit. The city has apparently overhestimated ridership.
Check this out. The route runs North South. The bulk of traffic is East West and our East West highway is packed during rush hour and the city decides to implement a “no idling” law for people who sit in cars that are not moving. The irony is astounding.
I, for one, am glad that Minister Baird is holding this LRT up for our new city council to decide on. The whole plan was shrouded in secrecy and I have a feeling that cost overruns are going to cost us all a hefty tax increase to compensate for the lack of ridership.
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Given that no overhead wires have been buried in Ottawa since 1980 and many downtown streets are already a mass of hanging electricity/hydro/cable wires, it isn’t likely that a few more will make any difference.
Transit–like so much here in Ottawa–is a mess. The buses are the dirtiest in Canada, the schedules are utterly unreliable and the equipment is typical of a middle-income third world country. All this for the the highest cash fare in North America ($3 a ride).
Charelli’s plan is nonviable. The streetcars are supposed to run along streets which are already bumper to bumper with buses at rush hour. It often takes 45 minutes to travel six blocks on the buses now. Throw streetcars into the mix and it’s anyone’s guess what will happen. But when someone is run over by a train (which will certainly happen) or hits a car (yes, streetcars, cars, trucks, buses and bendy-buses will all battle for lane space together)and rush hour will be cancelled, ’cause you can’t reroute streetcars.
Poor Bob is in such a tizzy trying to make his idiotic plan irrevocable before the election that one can’t help but wonder who is going to benefit from the land expropriations that will follow if it goes through. . . one thing is for sure, it’ll be a billion bucks for nothing.
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When you are traveling behind a streetcar or across one of it’s track’s be sure to never look away from the power lines above you, if you like the view or not when one of the fireball’s from the power line and the pickup tower fall to the ground it can burn your car or you badly. The fireball’s also scare the hell out of children, and only sometimes make a little noise.
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Not only, will the overhead wires be ugly, but the north south light rail line will require the digging up the Arboretum at the Central Experimental farm. This is truly a treasure for those of us living in the National Capital it seems almost criminal to dig it up!
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I agree with Ray that transit in this city is generally a mess, but it actually isn’t too bad from Kanata, which surprised me.
Some of the transitway stations seem to be meet and great areas for gang members (Hurdman, South Keys, and Billings Bridge come to mind). The cops will do a limited sweep but they (the cops and sweeps) are ineffective.
Most of the population is east/west, not north/south..so that is where transit really needs to be improved. The transitway was originally supposed to be for a light rail system but don’t know what happened to that.
Toronto has a good transit system, but always seemed to me (at least while I was living there) that city council was actually competent..not like the clowns we have running Ottawa.
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You’d prefer a sea of cars on the road, than a few thin wires above some major streets?
Sort out your priorities.
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Devon (#5) perhaps you would rather have a money pit estimated at $800 Million that will end up costing $1.5Billion and was shrouded in secrecy, rammed through, benefitted friends of the Mayor via the acres of land they own along the proposed route instead of giving the bidding and selection process a good fair open to the public view….
Why don’t you get YOUR priorities straight. Diesel Electric will put far less fumes in the air than a coal fired power plant pumping electricity through the whole system ALL THE TIME to keep electric trains moving. At least a Diesel Electric system would produce emissions only when needed.
And further, I am not against Light Rail so your point about a sea of cars is actually well taken. Perhaps you haven’t noticed but all the traffic issues in Ottawa are East West not North South. Which means a North South transit is aimed at building the city in that direction and not alleviating the immediate gridlock on the east west routes.
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