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.
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.
Alstom is the Airbus of train manufacturers as they build the most widely used and most reliable and efficient systems for every kind of rail transit. It isn't their fault if the most Canadian thing ever is to be good at nothing...
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!
@@TheUrbanique 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
@@TheUrbanique 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.
@@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.
There are several extensions being built, and the southern one is almost ready to go. The O-train shortens the commute between Tunney's Pasture to various places in the East end considerably.
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.
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.
As someone who lives in this city and relies on public transit to get around...I can tell you with full confidence that EVERYBODY who has ridden it even once hates it. The strong ammonia product they clean it with makes the whole thing smell like urine, up until last year most of the stations didn't have staff posted for assistance or security, the terminals at those stations often malfunction (either not recognizing our PRESTO cards or just opening by themselves), the spaces in those terminals are barely wide enough to let an adult of average build fit through sideways so screw people in wheelchairs I guess, half the stations didn't even have washrooms for the first year, and the line was first implemented to replace the busiest route in the entire city, leaving thousands of people INCLUDING seniors and government employees stranded and unable to get to work (downtown is notoriously lacking in parking space so most government employees take transit to work even if they own a vehicle.) Oh and on day one OC Transpo laid off over a third of their staff to "cut costs," but when they realized just how badly they screwed over the city (they also cut all bus service to tens of thousands of people in smaller suburban areas to make way for this thing), the very next day they started begging for those drivers to come back. Most of them said no. Three years later they're STILL trying to hire enough drivers to replace the ones they let go. Half the dang busses in the city are "out of service because we don't have enough drivers, please come work for us."
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.
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.
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 !
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.
The National Capital Commission has nothing to do with OC Transpo or this system. The system was commissioned by the City of Ottawa municipality not the federal agency that oversees only certain federally related activities on the two sides of the river. There were purported to be shady deals with these local civic politicians not the federal or even provincial officials, and primarily the mayor at the time.
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
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
It currently is under construction! If I’m not mistaken they just passed the 14-day test today! No firm date on opening though… hopefully late November?
The article Ottawa's Transit Gong Show in the March - April 2023 edition of The Walrus is shall we say more critical of the project. An illustration from the magazine was used in this video.
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
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 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 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.
@@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.
N("National")CC is only for Ottawa so it doesn't serve Gatineau area, which is part of ("National"). Montréal's "REM" will reach the Gatineau area well before any Ottawa service.
Notice how the LRT just skips Overbrooke/Vanier altogether? These are some of the most densely populated parts of the city with a higher percentage of lower income households who could benefit from fast and reliable public transit. Ottawa has a garbage mindset.
While Centretown ( probably the most densely or tied with Vanier area) is pretty well covered, I agree that the line directly dips down Overbrooke/Vanier… the line passes right on the southern border of the density… thought the station dips down to get the Via rail station, an important aspect, i hope an extended east-west line will open some day…
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.
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.
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
This project does not have potential to be great! It’s a never ending project and the government and tax payers keeps pouring money into it and it’s putting Ottawa further into debt. Mark my words, this train will become a ghost 👻 rail LOL.
I don't understand your criticism of "the door problem could've been avoided by going for an at grade or metro system". No, it could be avoided by making better doors
Why did you use some random AI image for the thumbnail? And glossing over Line 2 was weird when it has been the actual history of rail commuting in Ottawa
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.
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.
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
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.
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
I am from Ottawa, and the LRT is a fiasco. Nobody is using it. Federal employees work from home remotely since Covid. The next phase of construction to the far ends of Ottawa East and West are a needless financial burden on Taxpayers. City Managers are so out of touch they decided to approve the expansions anyway, despite the loss of ridership. Then at the same time they cancelled all the existing express buses, reduced the locals bus routes and frequency despite the LRT not being opened. Our own bus ride to downtown now takes over one hour, when it used to take less than 30 minutes on an express bus. Potential riders stayed away and have never returned to public transit.
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.
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
If #Ottawa were to fix Line 1's key fundamental problems, it needs to change to high floor platforms and rolling stocks, regardless of upgrade strategy (yes, shifting elevator landings on platform levels included; e.g. low and high floor rolling stocks operated on same tracks with one side platform station the transition point with multiple transition point planned, every upgraded station be operational while the rest operated by buses, etc.) and rolling stock kind (at least like #Calgary's and #LA's if operations remain the same after upgrade but ideally more like #REMmtl's and #Vancouver's #SkyTrain to minimize operation requirements with tracks separate from freight unlike Line 2's tracks where it's shared with freight).
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.
Alstom is probably the leading manufacturer in terms of innovation for rolling stock, maybe the councillors should’ve just made a solid plan and kept to it!
You need to educate yourself on the status of the City of Ottawa (a municipality within the Province of Ontario) and on the role of the NCC (to mamanger certain federal lands). Critique the LRT all you want, but don't spread misinformation!
I know the status of both Ottawa, Gatineau and the NCC. The NCC is also the largest land owner in the capital region! They have a large say in what happens within the NCR in terms of urban planning! Though this video is dated and I agree it isn’t the best! 😅
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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
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.
Alstom is basically the Boeing of train manufacturers.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 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.
Alstom is the Airbus of train manufacturers as they build the most widely used and most reliable and efficient systems for every kind of rail transit. It isn't their fault if the most Canadian thing ever is to be good at nothing...
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!
@@TheUrbanique 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
@@TheUrbanique 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.
Plain and simple. They went cheap on it. They should have contacted Siemens for trains. Calgary uses Siemens.
Well they had a deal with Siemens and Larry O’Brian canned it!
"Cheap" has nothing to do with the trains themselves.
There are several extensions being built, and the southern one is almost ready to go. The O-train shortens the commute between Tunney's Pasture to various places in the East end considerably.
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.
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.
As someone who lives in this city and relies on public transit to get around...I can tell you with full confidence that EVERYBODY who has ridden it even once hates it. The strong ammonia product they clean it with makes the whole thing smell like urine, up until last year most of the stations didn't have staff posted for assistance or security, the terminals at those stations often malfunction (either not recognizing our PRESTO cards or just opening by themselves), the spaces in those terminals are barely wide enough to let an adult of average build fit through sideways so screw people in wheelchairs I guess, half the stations didn't even have washrooms for the first year, and the line was first implemented to replace the busiest route in the entire city, leaving thousands of people INCLUDING seniors and government employees stranded and unable to get to work (downtown is notoriously lacking in parking space so most government employees take transit to work even if they own a vehicle.)
Oh and on day one OC Transpo laid off over a third of their staff to "cut costs," but when they realized just how badly they screwed over the city (they also cut all bus service to tens of thousands of people in smaller suburban areas to make way for this thing), the very next day they started begging for those drivers to come back. Most of them said no. Three years later they're STILL trying to hire enough drivers to replace the ones they let go. Half the dang busses in the city are "out of service because we don't have enough drivers, please come work for us."
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
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.
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
The National Capital Commission has nothing to do with OC Transpo or this system. The system was commissioned by the City of Ottawa municipality not the federal agency that oversees only certain federally related activities on the two sides of the river. There were purported to be shady deals with these local civic politicians not the federal or even provincial officials, and primarily the mayor at the time.
Whether the cars or high or low floor has nothing to do with the low quality of the door mechanisms.
I actually met the city manager to discuss severe problems and mistakes I could see in their "planning" .....he was a total idiot...
Low floor trams are the standard in NEW technology, whereas high floor tram technology is 50 years old. It is not new.
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
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.
When will the LRT be extended to the airport?
It currently is under construction! If I’m not mistaken they just passed the 14-day test today! No firm date on opening though… hopefully late November?
The article Ottawa's Transit Gong Show in the March - April 2023 edition of The Walrus is shall we say more critical of the project. An illustration from the magazine was used in this video.
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
The airport section is stupid change twice to go downtown it should alternate trains downtown like montreal rem will do
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 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 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.
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.
This is a great video that you made
Glad you liked it!
They need to get rid of those trams and bring in Siemans S70 trains.
N("National")CC is only for Ottawa so it doesn't serve Gatineau area, which is part of ("National"). Montréal's "REM" will reach the Gatineau area well before any Ottawa service.
www.renewcanada.net/canada-quebec-invest-163m-to-plan-public-transit-project-in-gatineau/
There is problem because is baset on Italian management why we couldnt analize system in Oslo or Helsinki ? they have similar climat.
Notice how the LRT just skips Overbrooke/Vanier altogether? These are some of the most densely populated parts of the city with a higher percentage of lower income households who could benefit from fast and reliable public transit. Ottawa has a garbage mindset.
While Centretown ( probably the most densely or tied with Vanier area) is pretty well covered, I agree that the line directly dips down Overbrooke/Vanier… the line passes right on the southern border of the density… thought the station dips down to get the Via rail station, an important aspect, i hope an extended east-west line will open some day…
When I moved to Ottawa in the eighties, I asked my girlfriend what OC stood for. With a straight face she replied, ‘Ox Cart’. I still find it funny.
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.
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!
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
Reminds me a lot of the LRT tram-train thing they’ve got going on in Seattle as well lol
This project does not have potential to be great! It’s a never ending project and the government and tax payers keeps pouring money into it and it’s putting Ottawa further into debt. Mark my words, this train will become a ghost 👻 rail LOL.
"Ottawa now has 2 lines."
Where's the 2nd one?
Trillium and confederation! The latter being the newer electric one!
@@TheUrbanique It's still being updated, it was put out of service a few years ago
I don't understand your criticism of "the door problem could've been avoided by going for an at grade or metro system". No, it could be avoided by making better doors
100%, this whole disaster could be avoided if the councillors didn’t keep switching plans and rethinking the whole system
Why did you use some random AI image for the thumbnail?
And glossing over Line 2 was weird when it has been the actual history of rail commuting in Ottawa
Ottawa is the 6th, not he 4th city in Canada to introduce light rail.
What is the other city that has it? Toronto , Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Waterloo?
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.
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.
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
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.
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
inept city of Ottawa city planners
I would blame this more on politics, planners only have certain tools, at the end of the day political decisions render these either useful or useless
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
Make sure you do your videos in chronological order. Sink hole story should have been at the start of the video.
tldr pic rolling stock that fits your lines
European trains on North American rail standard, duh!
🇺🇸 hello from Kansas
👋👋
Ottawa, Kansas 🤣?
OC Transpo = Worst public transportation system in the Americas! For a G7 country is pure shame!
the uh-O train......or the O-no - not again train.......
Very interesting
I am from Ottawa, and the LRT is a fiasco. Nobody is using it. Federal employees work from home remotely since Covid. The next phase of construction to the far ends of Ottawa East and West are a needless financial burden on Taxpayers. City Managers are so out of touch they decided to approve the expansions anyway, despite the loss of ridership. Then at the same time they cancelled all the existing express buses, reduced the locals bus routes and frequency despite the LRT not being opened. Our own bus ride to downtown now takes over one hour, when it used to take less than 30 minutes on an express bus. Potential riders stayed away and have never returned to public transit.
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.
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
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.
The LRT and Buses from oc transpo are a joke!!! Always late or cancel their trips!
Buses, yes. Trains, no.
If #Ottawa were to fix Line 1's key fundamental problems, it needs to change to high floor platforms and rolling stocks, regardless of upgrade strategy (yes, shifting elevator landings on platform levels included; e.g. low and high floor rolling stocks operated on same tracks with one side platform station the transition point with multiple transition point planned, every upgraded station be operational while the rest operated by buses, etc.) and rolling stock kind (at least like #Calgary's and #LA's if operations remain the same after upgrade but ideally more like #REMmtl's and #Vancouver's #SkyTrain to minimize operation requirements with tracks separate from freight unlike Line 2's tracks where it's shared with freight).
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.
@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!
Should never have bought French trains
Alstom is probably the leading manufacturer in terms of innovation for rolling stock, maybe the councillors should’ve just made a solid plan and kept to it!
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.
You need to educate yourself on the status of the City of Ottawa (a municipality within the Province of Ontario) and on the role of the NCC (to mamanger certain federal lands). Critique the LRT all you want, but don't spread misinformation!
I know the status of both Ottawa, Gatineau and the NCC. The NCC is also the largest land owner in the capital region! They have a large say in what happens within the NCR in terms of urban planning! Though this video is dated and I agree it isn’t the best! 😅
First it was No C Transpo, now it's the No Train.
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.
They need to remove the tracks and pave it and use it as the transit way like it was before.
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