Ottawa's WEIRD Transit System
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2023
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Ottawa is Canada’s capital, it’s supposed to be the ideal city, the example, this is supposed to be what represents the whole country. Darn it they even have a whole commission called the National Capital Comissions which was mandated to and i states : to build a great Capital for Canadians, specifically by preparing plans for and assist in the development, conservation and improvement of the National Capital region in order that the nature and character of the seat of the government may be in accordance with its national significance.
Ottawa is a rather large city in Canadian terms, with a metro region of 1.4 million people, making it the fourth-largest city in Canada. It was also the fourth city in Canada to introduce a Light Rail transit system, however this system is quite unusual. Ottawa now has two lines, and we'll be focused on its electric Confederation Line, which opens in 2019. It runs east-west, supplementing the north-south Trillium Line, which runs to the west of the city centre.
Learn more about Ottawa and Canada's weird transit / Light Rail system in this video!
#canada #trains - บันเทิง
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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
Alstom is basically the Boeing of train manufacturers.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 that's why we only use their metro trains
And rest is given by the Japanese
The reason why Ottawa went for low floor, was because originally the phase 2 extensions of the Confederation Line, now under construction, where to be at grade in the median of Richmond Rd. however this was later changed and now the line is entirely grade seperated.
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
The fully at grade-LRT is definitely a weird choice by the politicians. However, the issues with the vehicles themselves seems to completely on the manufacturers end. How is it in 2023 you can't have working doors that don't malfunction all the time? How can you have wheels that come loose? Ottawa should sue the manufacturer
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.
OC transpo? More like OCcasional transpo, you never know if a train or bus is coming
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.
I find it odd that you are critical of Ottawa's LRT because it is grade-separated. That's actually a good thing. At-grade systems that run on streets and have to share space with automobiles are often stuck in traffic and are no better than buses.
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
Great video but for the record, Edmonton was the first Canadian city with modern light rail in 1978... Calgary followed in 1981... First in the Americas of the modern systems actually and it was based on the Frankfurt Metro including our use of Siemens-Duwag U2 cars, the same that the U-bahn in that city used...
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
Hey! Would like to have your insight about the Montreal REM and how its different (if at all) from Ottawa O train. Keep up the great work, always a pleasure.
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
Why didn't they use a propper metro rolling stock? Why did they use trams instead? It's absolutely absurd from a planning perspective. It's like using a Honda Civic to tow a boat.
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.
Whether the cars or high or low floor has nothing to do with the low quality of the door mechanisms.
Low floor trams are the standard in NEW technology, whereas high floor tram technology is 50 years old. It is not new.
Very interesting
OC Transpo = Worst public transportation system in the Americas! For a G7 country is pure shame!
I'm a bit puzzled how issues with the doors are a specific problem with low floor trams running in a grade separated alignment. It seems that problem would have been an issue with street running trains regardless
I don't understand that either. What difference could it possibly make.
"Ottawa now has 2 lines."
Where's the 2nd one?
Trillium and confederation! The latter being the newer electric one!
A similar thing happed to the l1 innerwest line in a sydney, I think our state gov bought the same or similar model of tram and uses it in the same way (with some street crossings in the city). Almost the whole fleet was retired because of the cracks in wheels and body and for months we had very limited to no tram service
I lived in Ottawa during its construction. I remember reading a full metro would have necessitated an underground station at uOttawa, with the tunnel emerging just north of Lees Station (due to curves and gradients), as well as a realignment at Hurdman (corners are not shallow enough for most metro trains). I feel that the focus was too much on 'iconic architecture', and that in the initial stage, more reuse of the existing Transitway stations should have been done as was done at St. Laurent station, with station rebuilds postponed to Stage 3 once the full build-out was complete.
I had the honor to visit Ottawa during the construction on the Confederation Line 1-RED. The 2- Green Line aka Trillium Line was built first it used desaffected Rail track was a north-South line and used DMU. First on Bombardier-Talent 643 Build by Bombardier in the old Talent Factory in Germany now it 's have been replace by Alstom Coradia Lint and Stadler Flint.
Back in the days Blue Line 3 - FLeur-de-Lys was a proposed line extension to Gatineau Québec.
A new line 3 have been proposed Line Orange
Line 4 -blue = MacDonald-Laurier Airport Line
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!
I live in Ottawa and the LRT is a joke. All major cities have already had LRT for years. It's not ideal for winter and the wheels supposedly tin, not steel.
This is a great video that you made
Glad you liked it!
High floor LRT's, what RMTransit calls CityTrains, are a great compromise that more North American LRT's should use, especially Ottawa and Seattle. They can get upgraded to 3+ doors per car side as seen on various Mexican systems and Manila's LRT
Yes! The Ottawa model I believe have 4-9 door but the doors on the Citadis don’t seem strong… they broke down often
🇺🇸 hello from Kansas
👋👋
Ottawa, Kansas 🤣?
I have no idea how to make this work but it’s not the best idea indeed. The head is just too much for me to handle right away
They need to get rid of those trams and bring in Siemans S70 trains.
Reminds me a lot of the LRT tram-train thing they’ve got going on in Seattle as well lol
There is problem because is baset on Italian management why we couldnt analize system in Oslo or Helsinki ? they have similar climat.
Hey Calgary Ab has high train. Only 5.5 B underground expansion planned. ( was shelved yrs ago poor soil cond / water level in DT are- but now new tech hope to solve the problem ) 5.5 B now going up only 500 M in one yr. Lol. But NO LRT to airport lol. Every track "must go DT" ( heart of city - lol. Good heart but is bleeding out lol going to die lol ) Record profit in Oil Ind. But Ai is laying off Eng etc top prople. Equip operators bussy. But cant afford repairs etc. Or if repsired log trucks. Csnt afford fuel too. Lol. 5.5B and Calgary is 1/10 size of NY. Lol. And NY is now testing Elect Aviation. Yup in Florida too. But No had cut back new LRT not even going now to new hosptal. Yeh but City Council has heated underground paid parking too. But need another yes 3 rd track through DT. Lol. Edm hey airport is an hr from the city lol. Rail nope. DT airport was closed down for big reslestate dev. Lol. Was connection for northern areas hospitals. Not now. Lol. Hey Carbon capture is Sk finally working better after 10 yrs of troubles. But Feds / Justin. Trudeau wants coal elect plants shut down. Ab prov got power from Sk coal elect plants back in Jan. Lol. Cslgary new solar farm is NOT hooked into elect grid. Oops forgot need to get "plugged in" too lol. 1 Four zero three Eight three zero Fortyone Twentyfour
tldr pic rolling stock that fits your lines
Very cool channel. I can you there's a LOT more to this story. I have friends who worked on this and they say we will continue to find "surprises"
The 2009 report recommending what the appetite only was said from time to time that would be the case.
Make sure you do your videos in chronological order. Sink hole story should have been at the start of the video.
No mention of the busway, which is why the system was grade-separated. I clicked like, but this wasn't at all a good video.
should have spent a little bit more for a full sized metro. not this tram on dedicated tracks
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.
I live in Ottawa and I have to take the O train daily. Safe to say I very much want to move out and I despise OC transpo. Genuenly makes my day go from good to bad almosy daily.
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
@rmtransit is shaking with anger and denial about this video for sure lol
Rmtransit is the crème de la crème for these types of videos… could never compete!
As i said to someone the other day, that ever since that day Rideau street opened up with the Sinkhole and them burring that guys van. It gave me the sense of how the project would go from then on. Leaking walls, falling concrete, 2 different rail gauges which means a non integrated system. meaning that Trains cannot be run from one line to the other. NYC can even run their trains out on the LIRR. the TTC have trains that can be run right across the network for the most part. This shortcoming will hurt the OC system in the long run
yeah the lrt is garbage lmao. what a waste of our money
People only say that because Hurdman to Blair was a cheap alignment. And how buses were aligned after the fact.
As an Ottawa resident, I can tell you the LRT was designed to serve one purpose and that is to line the pockets of local politicians and their friends. The companies tasked to develop, build and maintain this transit system have no business doing so.
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!
It’s a French manufacturer. That’s the main problem. Second problem is that it’s electric
French trains are great, we’re just using them on the wrong tracks my guy