Ottawa's WEIRD Transit System 

I liked it but it's sad to see that when Canadian cities try and want to improve public transport it almost always backfires in some way. I would like to see a video about the wildfires in Yukon, NWT and Nunavut

The most infuriating thing about this train is where they chose to make it go. On most of its course it just follows the Queensway, where there's no population density. Worse, they widened the highway at the same time, just to make sure that they were setting themselves up for a failure. So basically people are supposed to use local busses (which suck) to get to the line, or drive to a park and ride, but then why would you ride the train if you are already next to that newly widened highway? In the meantime, places where there is some density have nothing better than a very lousy bus service. Take Bank St, which crosses Centertown, the Glebe (including Lansdowne) and Old Ottawa South. No good options there, while that would be the most obvious place where a tram service would be a success. Same for Centertown, Little Italy, Hintonburg, Westboro, where the train is just a bit too far for a practical access. It should be going right through the center of those neighborhoods. Vanier and other high density, walkable neighbors are in the same situation. I suppose that it was all about saving expropriation money, and I can understand the desire to keep costs low, but sometimes a half-assed solution just leads to guaranteed failure.

Garbage hyperbole.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 that's why we only use their metro trains And rest is given by the Japanese

Actually, the problem was never the trains. The problem is tahat the rail was built on the old transitway. Those curves were never designed for train. The designers of the system decided to assume that the curves were OK. They were not.

I know, I remember I wanted to get somewhere, but I didn't have the car available for the day, so I had two options- I could walk to the O'Train which would take about 20 minutes on its own, and then take the train down to my destination, which would probably take another 20 minutes, so about 40 minutes. Alternatively, my GPS told me I could catch a bus that would take me straight to my destination also in about 20 minutes. I was going to be late no matter what, as I was supposed to be where I was supposed to be in 10 minutes, so I figured the bus was the best option as then I could be 10 minutes late instead of 20. But I just stood there at the bus station in the blistering cold right up until the exact time I was supposed to be at my destination. I tried looking for apps that could tell me exactly where the bus was, but all of them kept asking me to use "free trials" or straight up pay. So I just threw in the towel and decided to walk to the train station and was 40 minutes late when I could have been 20 if I knew the bus wasn't coming.

Exactly… I believe they ordered the whole tram before finalizing plans which is where the main error lies in my opinion. Should never start buying the equipment until the plan is signed and sealed!

@@GeoNerd. The problem with that would be that Ottawa would've had a finished Metro line, for 2 years with no trains. The median sections where to be extensions, not part of the original line. Once they finished the original line and ramped up work on the extension, NIMBYs blocked the at grade part of the line and the city decided to just make it cut and cover.

You've got the gist of it, but there was never a plan for operation in the median of Richmond Rd, though the use of the Byron tramway corridor was mooted and in the fevered imaginations of the local nimby brigades this became a surface line like the old tramway. The rationale for low floor was that the suburban extensions, like in Kanata and Barrhaven, would generally be at-grade, but the powers-that-be kiboshed that fairly early on (probably 2014 but they've never "officially" said when this decision was actually taken) but then didn't revise their earlier decision on what kind of vehicle to design the thing for.

I think the whole city got fooled by SNC-Lavalin and Alstom consortium. There is no way to explain why SNC built a tunnel so huge that it could fit an actual train, yet they choose a cheap LRT solution for this massive tunnel. SNC got the massive civil infrastructure contract, and Alstom got to test its guinea pig version of the tram. The only loser is the City of Ottawa, they city looks like they trust the consortium blindly and completely. They still haven't figured out what's going on because they don't have an expert on their side.

@@asiaworldcity I already said this above, THE CITY OF OTTAWA SPECIFICALLY CHOSE LOW FLOOR LRT TRAINS IT WAS NOT SNC LAVALIN/ALSTOM. There's a reason why literally every other bid had low floor LRT trains, the city said they only wanted low floor LRT trains

I have yet to be able to agree with that for Orléans... but many other places, it is true, when reaching the right peripheries. For Orléans, however, I continue to say it's designed for you to park at a Park & Ride.

Ottawa were the first to buy them! Like any new car or anything really the first version always has bugs… should’ve been clear to Ottawa that these things happen and they should’ve factored it into the budget or have a backup plan… all in all I believe it is a mix of a first generation rolling train + bad planning from the city, however this can be fixed and I believe at the end of the day this will be a great project for Ottawa

@@GeoNerd. I agree, as a person born and still living in Ottawa our councilors were persuaded to buy these new vehicles by a salesperson. We should have known better, especially considering our extreme climate circumstances. Who makes wheels that cant stay round? Hopefully these problems are all sorted out by now, its incredibly brutal when they close down the LRT and run replacement buses, just look up the R1 bus online and see the mass of complaints and grippes with the system.

Alstom is incompetent nowadays

@@retrop1783 there are some other cities in the world that are as cold or colder than Ottawa that have LRTs that work just fine. Calgary and Edmonton are the two obvious examples in Canada. That's why I'm saying this is a manufacturing problem - in 2023 they should be able to make LRVs that don't have so many issues...

@@stephen9609 I agree, my point was considering how cold our cities get, our councilors should have known better before buying trains that hadn't even been built or tested, let alone for winter conditions. Incompetence on their part, but manufacturing problems are the root of the issues.

Well they had a deal with Siemens and Larry O’Brian canned it!

"Cheap" has nothing to do with the trains themselves.

We love trams! Ahah but I think this was due to them changing plans midway - I think what happened is that they had already ordered the trams before actually starting construction on the track

@@GeoNerd. Trams work on lines suited to their design. Low-floor trams in particular, like the citidas spirit used on the O-Train, are designed for small, compact urban tram networks that often interface with other transportation modes. I think if Ottawa had used high-floor trams like those seen on the Calgary C-Train or LA Metro, they wouldn't have half of the issues with derailments and doors, as those trains are designed to be robust and fast in majority grade separated ROW's. It doesn't seem like it on the surface, but rolling stock makes all the difference. If I had any fix for Ottawa, I would replace all the Citidas Spirit trains with 75% low-floor Siemens S700's. Then you have low floor doors like what is required for stations, but with a more robust LRV far better suited towards Metro operation, as evidenced by Seattle's Link Light Rail network. Of course, in that case, the rolling stock is still limited, and it would most likely be manufactured in the United States instead of Canada, but at least it would be reliable. The best option would be to redesign the system for high floor LRV's, but that would take a lot of time and money.

Because it was supposed to have on-street running section which we later changed to be grade fully grade seperated

True! I go briefly on it… was a major error for Ottawa.. why order the trams if the plan isn’t sealed and done with. 🤷‍♂️

​@@GeoNerd. No, not correct. A decision was taken a very long time ago now, in 2010, to use low-floor LRVs so that future suburban extensions could be at-grade and make use of available corridors in places like Kanata, Barrhaven and Orleans. And to be clear "at-grade" did not mean "street running"; the at-grade suburban extensions were to be in dedicated, spacially separated corridors from parallel roads, like there are in Calgary and Edmonton. Think "light railway" as in a railway with light rail vehicles with protected crossings. The initial downtown segment was always to be fully grade-separated, primarily because it was either in a tunnel or following the existing grade-separated Transitway. While it can't be proved with any certainty, what those of us who have followed this melodrama for a couple of decades now have concluded is that the Sept 2013 VIA/Double Decker bus collision at Fallowfield caused the powers-that-be in officialdom who actually make the decisions (i.e. not Council) to take a decision to make all future extensions grade-separated as well, probably in a fit of pique fearing future lawsuits. This decision was likely taken in late 2013 or early 2014 because by the time the planning and design studies for the current east and west extensions (and those further afield) went ahead they did so with full grade separation as an inviolable design requirement. The 2013 crash and fear of lawsuits also perhaps explains why the suppliers of black chainlink fencing have done really well as Ottawa has taken to imprisoning the tracks in rather ugly and rather high black chainlink fence. But late 2013/early 2014 was already *after* the contracts for Phase I had been signed and some preliminary work begun (mainly utility relocations). Granted, it was pretty early on and it's unlikely much design work had been done on either the stations or the vehicles themselves so a more thoughtful and forward-thinking administration than Ottawa might have gone back to try to get the vehicles and station platform heights changed but contrary to your assertions near the end of the video they actually stuck with their now really strange and pointless decision to run low-floor LRVs on a system that would never benefit from them.

And if you are only considering the modern low-floor TRAM-TRAIN LRT systems I think even Waterloo's Ion Line opened first but the rest of the content is solid... Keep up the good work! New subscriber here! Number 420 to be exact! ;-)

Interesting! I’ve been to Edmonton a handful of times, I saw they were expanding heavily their LRT to the suburbs (mill woods I believe) unfortunately never has the opportunity to take it… yet !

@@stickynorth they may consider a line with zero at grade crossings / road running. idk

The process to get the trains used in Calgary and Edmonton was much the same... using newer technology that wasn't previously used in Frankfurt, as a prototype. The big difference is just that Ottawa's required such extended kms to be forced to realize updates required sooner.

Yup - and since then Calgary and Waterloo also implemented it before Ottawa

Great idea! Definitely writing that down 📝 Thank you for the compliments, will keep working hard🫡🙌

Piggybacking on that.. .I'd love a comparison of low-floor LRT vs high-floor LRT vs UTDC Skytrain/Alstom Automated rapid transit. Too often crappier tram projects in Canada now cost more than if we just built new skytrain networks from scratch since they are reliable, low-cost and high capacity systems that have changed the cities they are being used in entirely for the better...

​@@stickynorthSkytrain itself isn't better. It's just a better network. It has had all the same issues Ottawa's had. And still has them. The network just allows them to manage them so that they're much less noticeable.

​@@mlmielkeat this point, skytrain is more proven than grade-separated low floor lrt on a guideway converted from busway

It would also be neat to profile Kitchener-Waterloo's LRT. 29 km of track and 19 stations. It seems to be doing better than Ottawa.

www.renewcanada.net/canada-quebec-invest-163m-to-plan-public-transit-project-in-gatineau/

They have been running test trains for several months and still can't get the interchange to the airport at South Keys working properly. What a mess! Now a full two years late.

That has nothing to do with the airport section. Line 4 was an add-on by senior governments. However, no money was made available to upgrade Line 2 tracks to twin tracks. And the assumptions indicated a forecast higher demand on the Line 2 sections from Bowesville to Carleton, with next to none on Line 4. North of Carleton though, the forecast doesn't require more than the trains used on Line 4. So from a best use capacity perspective, it's better to have Line 2 only go Limebank to Carleton, and Line 4 to go Airport to Bayview.

@@mlmielke Line 2 and Line 4 can't overlap between South Keys and Carleton. There is still single track on that section. And how many transfers do you expect people to tolerate coming from the south end of the city? What you suggest will require 3 transfers to reach downtown from Riverside South. That is unacceptable. Even the double transfers about to be implemented is poor service. The whole plan for the Trillium Line is terribly conceived. We have to get off this capacity planning. We need to deliver service that encourages more people to ride transit.

I agree, they wanted to have a tram not a good transit project, if they did, they would've taken more time for planning or not changing the plans every 3-4 months lol I hope you enjoyed the video!

​@GeoNerd. The plans didn't change every 3-4 months. The east alignment, the only reason for people's perceptions, built between 2015 and 2019, stayed the same since 2008. The central alignment stayed the same since 2011 accelerated planning. With Planning since 2007, following the 2006 election, influenced from decisions made in the 1970s.

It's really easy to say should after the fact, but the political appetite required that extensions be at-grade until 2015. By that point, rolling stock to be used was already decided 3 years earlier from specs required in the prior two years (2010-2012), from Council's 2009 vote on technology direction that didn't allow anything but light rail vehicles. All after Council voted a direction of east alignment in 2008 that wasn't suitable for what Council chose in 2009, because of some Councillors insisting on at-grade extensions and capacity needs not requiring grade separations beyond the central corridor.

Buses, yes. Trains, no.

I don’t really have an issue with it being grade-separated in fact I agree in many cases it’s much faster and safer for the users, however, I found the rolling stock used for this project quite odd, first order, low floor made for curb pickups and also there was so much back and forth on this project before construction began and the city just kept throwing money at anything! I think my biggest issue is the rolling stock, I’ve recently tried the O-train and I liked the experience ( even though I couldn’t find a single garbage can in the stations) it being grade separated does help for traffic related issues in my opinion, but the rolling stock should’ve been properly tested for the use case before buying so many of them

Seattle and Ottawa risk under-using grade-separated rights of way by saddling them with trains that are optimised to run at grade and at lower capacity than light metros

Trillium and confederation! The latter being the newer electric one!

Yes! The Ottawa model I believe have 4-9 door but the doors on the Citadis don’t seem strong… they broke down often

I don't understand that either. What difference could it possibly make.

Their "friends" .. aka, 90% of the voters who voted for them in every single election since 2006. That asked for LRT from Kanata to Orléans with a downtown tunnel. While keeping Stage 1 to a fixed budget that meant a poor choice of east alignment and then sending constrained bogies down that alignment, increasing property values and a more manageable long term operational cost that is good for taxpayers. These goals have been mostly achieved... to finish, just need to bring Moodie into Kanata.

Exactly, corrupt through and through!

You act like that’s unique to public transportation. You have the same thing with highways and parks

Bingo!

Rmtransit is the crème de la crème for these types of videos… could never compete!

People only say that because Hurdman to Blair was a cheap alignment. And how buses were aligned after the fact.

I’m working on my « perfect » transit systems, I’ll be posting a map of a hypothetical Ottawa LRT and plan to have it connected with Gatineau!

👋👋

Ottawa, Kansas 🤣?

St Laurent station? Doesn't have that river an English name, too?

@@ferencszathmary9689 It is named after the nearby arterial street St. Laurent Boulevard. The river's English name is the Saint Lawrence river, but the street in the east end of Ottawa has only ever used the French name.

LRT continues to be the best winter choice. Ottawa's version of LRT has demonstrated continuing to run in more winter events than other systems and vehicles do, including 100% of snow events, and >95% of freezing rain events.

@@mlmielke there've been a lot of closures of the LRT because it wasn't running. Buses suckinthewinter because of getting stuck in snow banks and snow drifts where there's no traction. Inthe summer,the engines have caught fire. We'll see how it goes this winter.

Glad you liked it!

That's not true. It has a higher daily ridership per km than any other similar system in North America. Calgary's high ridership is still much lower ridership per km, despite also having a low operating cost per km and hour, something Calgary has measured is marginally the same liw operating cost per km and hour as pre-pandemic.

Now that they have decided to run ‘single’ trains, they are often packed with standing room only, and everyone at the stations has to run to get to the shorter train’s doors. Signage is practically non-existent in the stations, the trains sound terrible going along curves, and they’ve now reduced frequency of service. Escalators are often closed off for repairs, and the decor everywhere leaves much to be desired. It used to take us just over a half hour to get from Blackburn Hamlet (east end) to Rideau Centre, now it’s closer to forty-five minutes. Another problem is that the train system only helps those close to the city proper, and ignore the rest of the travellers in the 2,700 square kilometres of the whole city. No major park ‘n rides or as far as I know, no regular buses to all the outlying villages surrounding the core, to get folks out of their cars and onto the LRT, as evidenced by the worsening rush hours on the Queensway. I’m surprised that with all the cities in the world with train systems, we seem to have done ours from scratch, and therefore all the attendant issues, failures, mistakes, etc. Could have been so much better.

I have a friend who drives for OC Transpo. There is no place on earth more incompetent that their transit control. He's had to start a shift, do a route in Kanata, then deadhead straight to Orleans, do a single trip on the route, then go to Nepan. At one point he was ready to just park his bus and quit in the middle of downtown and let OC Deal with it. He's sticking with them though to get the Deisel train operator license and run Trillium trains, with the plan eventually to jump ship to GO, AMT, Via, or even CN/CP

Functionally, the system already runs like Skytrain does, but, in more weather conditions than Skytrain does. REM's benefit isn't high floor, but that it is already a more robust vehicle for the kilometres expected; again, that isn't because of being high floor. Also, if you didn't know, Calgary and Edmonton are the next generations of what was an unproven LRT model in Frankfurt; similarly, Skytrain is next generations of what was unproven in Scarborough.

Both lines in Ottawa use the same track gauge, but incompatible in all other technical aspects (signalling, axle limits and loading gauges). The TTC uses a different track gauge from Metrolinx, leading to incompatibility.

The 2009 report recommending what the appetite only was said from time to time that would be the case.

French trains are great, we’re just using them on the wrong tracks my guy