Ottawa Transit Developments

[lrt's friend]

in my opinion Line 2 and 4 are exceedingly slow, slower than Phase 1 that ran up to 2020. It has gone from 13 minutes during the early years between Greenboro and Bayview to 16 minutes when they did the first upgrade to 19 minutes (if you are lucky) today.

I have timed it a few times between Rideau and the airport and it takes just over 1 hour. The former bus service soon to be cancelled could make the same trip 15 to 20 minutes faster unless you made very bad connections at Hurdman. On my last test trip, the Route 97 bus passed both the Line 2 train and the Line 4 train between Walkley Station and the airport. It was shocking how the bus outperforms the new trains.

I am very upset how the $100Ms spent did not resolve the slow down at the Brookfield siding. Trains can on some occasions come to a complete stop waiting for the train going in the opposite direction.

If the route could be double tracked (which will never happen), the slow downs that occur everywhere on this line could be eliminated and airport trains could routinely run to Bayview eliminating one of the transfers. There is no reason why travel times from the airport could not b e reduced by at least 10 minutes, but as I said, it will never happen.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

in my opinion Line 2 and 4 are exceedingly slow, slower than Phase 1 that ran up to 2020. It has gone from 13 minutes during the early years between Greenboro and Bayview to 16 minutes when they did the first upgrade to 19 minutes (if you are lucky) today.

I have timed it a few times between Rideau and the airport and it takes just over 1 hour. The former bus service soon to be cancelled could make the same trip 15 to 20 minutes faster unless you made very bad connections at Hurdman. On my last test trip, the Route 97 bus passed both the Line 2 train and the Line 4 train between Walkley Station and the airport. It was shocking how the bus outperforms the new trains.

I am very upset how the $100Ms spent did not resolve the slow down at the Brookfield siding. Trains can on some occasions come to a complete stop waiting for the train going in the opposite direction.

If the route could be double tracked (which will never happen), the slow downs that occur everywhere on this line could be eliminated and airport trains could routinely run to Bayview eliminating one of the transfers. There is no reason why travel times from the airport could not b e reduced by at least 10 minutes, but as I said, it will never happen.

From Rideau to the airport, perhaps, but disagree for lots of other use cases. People do go other places you know. I take it several times a week, and its generally an improvement for places I'm going.

And while the airport thing sucks, for all other use cases the transitway is still there, there's nothing stopping you from taking a 98 to Hurdman just like before. If Line 2 doesn't work for your particular scenario, then don't ride it. It works fine for plenty of others.

For those who haven't ridden Line 2, the reason that it's slower then it used to isn't due to how fast the trains move down the track, but the time they dwell in stations. With one exception at Brookfield, the trains have to sync at stations so they can pass. Trains pass each other at Brookfield siding, Carleton, and Corso Italia between Greenboro and Bayview. Dwell times can be a minute or two

 

[Kyle Campbell]

To put things into a GTA perspective, the distance from Greenboro to Bayview is 8km with 7 stations. Line 2 makes this trip in 19 minutes as mentioned above, though in the original pilot project it could do it in 13, because there were only two trains on the track, and they passed at Carleton. That came at a cost of a 15 minute frequency.

A comparison would be between Woodbine and Spadina along the Bloor subway, which is also about 8k with 12 stations, which takes 17 minutes.

 

[smallspy]

It was shocking how the bus outperforms the new trains.

How is it shocking?

It should be patently obvious to anyone that an express bus running on a defacto highway will always operate faster than a train making lots of stops.

And that's precisely the trade-off here. A train will have a far higher capacity and a more consistent service than the bus ever would.

Dan

 

[bearcat]

How is it shocking?

It should be patently obvious to anyone that an express bus running on a defacto highway will always operate faster than a train making lots of stops.

And that's precisely the trade-off here. A train will have a far higher capacity and a more consistent service than the bus ever would.

Dan

I still feel like the 97 bus should have also be staying as an alternative way to get to the airport in addition to the new train. Ultimately the train and 97 go to different destinations from the airport.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

I still feel like the 97 bus should have also be staying as an alternative way to get to the airport in addition to the new train. Ultimately the train and 97 go to different destinations from the airport.

There's just not enough ridership to have both. There's not even enough ridership to justify the train in the first place, which why it wasn't in the plan originally. Now that it's there the only way to sort of kind of justify it is to force it as the main option. The only sort of silver lining is that it will be great for comicon and other big events at the EY center.

Line 4 is mostly useless in my opinion, but line 2 is perfectly fine. It could have been better, but it's not bad

 

[reaperexpress]

in my opinion Line 2 and 4 are exceedingly slow, slower than Phase 1 that ran up to 2020. It has gone from 13 minutes during the early years between Greenboro and Bayview to 16 minutes when they did the first upgrade to 19 minutes (if you are lucky) today.

I have timed it a few times between Rideau and the airport and it takes just over 1 hour. The former bus service soon to be cancelled could make the same trip 15 to 20 minutes faster unless you made very bad connections at Hurdman. On my last test trip, the Route 97 bus passed both the Line 2 train and the Line 4 train between Walkley Station and the airport. It was shocking how the bus outperforms the new trains.

I am very upset how the $100Ms spent did not resolve the slow down at the Brookfield siding. Trains can on some occasions come to a complete stop waiting for the train going in the opposite direction.

If the route could be double tracked (which will never happen), the slow downs that occur everywhere on this line could be eliminated and airport trains could routinely run to Bayview eliminating one of the transfers. There is no reason why travel times from the airport could not b e reduced by at least 10 minutes, but as I said, it will never happen.

Do you (or anyone else) happen to have a timetable from the early years (2003-2015)? We know empirically that since they ran 15 minute service with 2 trains the one-way travel time must have been under 13 minutes, but I haven't been able to substantiate that with a source.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Do you (or anyone else) happen to have a timetable from the early years (2003-2015)? We know empirically that since they ran 15 minute service with 2 trains the one-way travel time must have been under 13 minutes, but I haven't been able to substantiate that with a source.

From the way back machine, a schedule from 2004 showing 13 minutes. However the headway was 20 minutes back then

Wayback Machine

web.archive.org

 

[bearcat]

From the way back machine, a schedule from 2004 showing 13 minutes. However the headway was 20 minutes back then

Wayback Machine

web.archive.org

This is one from your link even shows 12 minutes! And seems to be running every 15 minutes some of the time. Though this may be just a proposed schedule, I can't tell for sure.

So if you just missed a train now the train will come 3 minutes sooner but will take 7 minutes longer to Greensboro to Bayview.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

View attachment 636823

This is one from your link even shows 12 minutes! And seems to be running every 15 minutes some of the time. Though this may be just a proposed schedule, I can't tell for sure.

So if you just missed a train now the train will come 3 minutes sooner but will take 7 minutes longer to Greensboro to Bayview.

There's two more stations in between then back then, which is part of it. Plus another 4 added to the new section of the line.

It's not that the current line is that slow by urban rail standards, it's that the original line was very fast.

 

[bearcat]

There's two more stations in between then back then, which is part of it. Plus another 4 added to the new section of the line.

It's not that the current line is that slow by urban rail standards, it's that the original line was very fast.

I guess as you mentioned earlier it's comparable speed to B-D subway in Toronto, but the subway is also more frequent than every 12 minutes, and even ignoring that Line 2 still has a lower average speed with 5 fewer stations from your own numbers that you posted

anyway, I am not from Ottawa so maybe I am sticking my head into a discussion I don't know know enough of the nuance about

my knowledge about Line 2 in Ottawa is mostly based on this thread, and I've only ever rode it myself a couple times in the late 2010's

it does seem that overall Line 2 is a benefit to transit in Ottawa, but for some specific trips it's not really an improvement from the past and may be a downgrade

 

[Kyle Campbell]

I guess as you mentioned earlier it's comparable speed to B-D subway in Toronto, but the subway is also more frequent than every 12 minutes, and even ignoring that Line 2 still has a lower average speed with 5 fewer stations from your own numbers that you posted

anyway, I am not from Ottawa so maybe I am sticking my head into a discussion I don't know know enough of the nuance about

my knowledge about Line 2 in Ottawa is mostly based on this thread, and I've only ever rode it myself a couple times in the late 2010's

it does seem that overall Line 2 is a benefit to transit in Ottawa, but for some specific trips it's not really an improvement from the past and may be a downgrade

The way to explain it is that is the nicest line you could build for it's bargain basement price of 1.6 billion. They have wrung as much as you can get out of a single track line, and the stations are now real stations and not just bus huts on asphalt. The trains are snazzy and comfortable. In that light (which is how I look at it) it's good.

If instead you look at it in what it could have been if they had stretched the pursestrings, then it would have been an electric line, double track, probably using the same equipment as line 1. In that scenario, assuming the endpoint was still Bayview, the travel times would be maybe 5 minutes faster for line 2, but probably at least 12 faster for line 4 as they could interline. From that what coulda/shoulda been, it's disappointing

The stations wouldn't have been drastically different than what got built, though, it's mostly about speed and frequency.

It would have cost probably closer to 2.5 billion. Ottawa didn't have the money. To do it for the same amount as they spent, they would have likely needed to drop everything from South Keys on. Now that Metrolinx is in the picture, I could see the double tracking happening much sooner than 20 years or so they predicted

 

[Bojaxs]

And that's precisely the trade-off here. A train will have a far higher capacity and a more consistent service than the bus ever would.

Not a fan of this mentality. Speed is king. When more people realise how slow the train is, they'll simply opt to spend a little more $$$ and take an Uber to & from the airport instead. Ridership will suffer. So much for all that extra capacity.

Transit needs to compete with driving. Respect the rider's time. Time is money. None of this "suck it up, and just be grateful we have a train" nonsense.

What good is a train if it's too slow?

 

[reaperexpress]

From the way back machine, a schedule from 2004 showing 13 minutes. However the headway was 20 minutes back then

Wayback Machine

web.archive.org

Thank you for that! Clearly I need to work on my Wayback Machine skills (admittedly it was my first time trying to find something on there and I was having trouble figuring out the old URL)

 

[reaperexpress]

There's two more stations in between then back then, which is part of it. Plus another 4 added to the new section of the line.

It's not that the current line is that slow by urban rail standards, it's that the original line was very fast.

A station adds about 1 to 2 minutes on an urban rail line. So that explains the increase from 12 to 15. The other 4 minutes need to be explained by other factors like the ridiculously short Walkley siding, unnecessarily low switch turnout speeds and 25 km/h limits at platforms.