Tracking the Progress: Ottawa’s O-Train Stage 2 Western Extension - August 2024
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
- Take a closer look at the ongoing construction of the O-Train Stage 2 West Extension, stretching from Tunney's Pasture to Algonquin and Moodie. We’ll show you the latest progress, including station updates, track work, and what’s coming next for this critical LRT expansion.
View our other videos in the Tracking the Progress series:
East Extension : • Tracking the Progress:...
South Extension : • Tracking the Progress:...
Video by Shane Seguin
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Thanks so much for your time in contributing to these progress videos, it is greatly appreciated!
Glad you like them! Thanks for the feedback. A video on the South will release next Monday.
Awesome content! As an Ottawa resident interested in transit I love these vids
It's interesting to see how much of the Bayshore building is being re-used for the new train station, rather than having the entire thing torn down and replaced. A little bit of the curvy red-accented buildings will survive.
This one they probably should have torn down: it's in the wrong place. If they had built it a little bit further east, nearer Richmond Road, they could have given the station direct access into the second level of the shopping centre. Instead, transit users get to keep on trekking through the parkade for at least another few decades.
Wish they'd kept that style for the whole thing. It's much nicer looking then the bland grey modern they went with.
As a toronto resident and a life long lover of public transport, its so exciting to see the middle sized Canadian cities invest heavily in public transit! TRUST ME IT'LL BE WORTH IT! More than that were all in it together and the more people who have access to kick ass public transit, the more people who'll vote to improve it. at all levels! hope this progresses quickly and yall can get the bank street subway!
The train hardly works. It’s a joke.
If there's any weather that isn't a bright sunny day the O-train is haulted completely. It's a joke. The trains are EMPTY at rush hour because of this. People have chosen to just use their cars to get to work.
@@12evan89 I wish man, but like others have said, the train barely works. It’s been over a decade in construction and has basically nothing to show for it. Any slightly turbulent weather can stop the entire line, and at max speed it only goes at about 80 km/h. You literally see all the cars speeding by you on the freeway next to the train. It takes ages for the train to crawl back up to speed after a stop. Plus it has an awful screeching sound when it takes even the slightest of turns.
@@1966Faliro spoken like a true Kanata commuter. Your comments are so anti-productive. What does your pessimism do?
@@12evan89 Ignore the haters. Yes, there are still issues, but we'll overcome them and have a great transit system. The most frustrating part is that it's like the designers forget about winter in Ottawa, as it is unreliable in bad weather, which is when you actually want it to shine. Montreal is 2 hours away, or did anyone think of calling Edmonton to ask them how to run an LRT in the winter? Noooo, I don't think they did!
Merci, Shane! This answered a lot of my questions.
can't wait to ride it.
Iris might be my favorite from the extension
Nice job. I work on this project and I can say you have done a great report.
Much appreciated! Thank you.
Can't wait to be able to go from downtown to Bayshore!
Nice video! Thanks for the detailed explanation of all the stations and lines.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Cool update, thanks!
Given Ottawa's bitter cold winters and the problems the OCTranspo have been having with the low floor trams and with the system's ability to operate in winter I'm wondering why it wasn't built as a subway, either heavy rail, Montreal Metro style, or light rail with heavy rail characteristics like in Los Angeles?
Great job and details.
Thank you for this video. I’ve been dying to see what the progress was.❤
Very Interesting! You have such a positive view on this multi-billion dollar lemon. As a local who's suffered using the infamous troubled first phase for past few years. The trains continue to have issues almost daily. The axels and twin cars can't handle the curves it's using now. (mainly one at Hurdman) It's broken down in any kind of weather event. The homeless and drug addicted locals have destroyed and continue to destroy/vandalize every public washroom at every station that has one, aswell as use the elevators and trains themselves as their personal toilets, so the public gets to enjoy the wonderful aroma of the tinkle train in the mornings. The stations are filthy and in very poor condition. The underground ones are still continually leaking and smell rancid. Many people don't pay the fares, they just shove others through gates or break them to get in. It used to take 22-25 mins to go from Tunney's Pasture to Blair, now that time has nearly doubled. None of the 15 double car units have had their axel problems corrected that were discovered early last year. They run single cars on weekends so they tend to get a little overcrowded, especially when sometings going on downtown. Let's not forget the over priced (multi-million dollar) art installations put at stations that are decaying or have been removed all together, and all that crazy expensive tempered glass at every above ground station that hasn't been cleaned well over 3 years. They only very recently decided to reduce daily service (just in time for back to school) to every ten mins in afternoons and evenings to save money but somehow still manage to charge people almost $130 a month for all this great stuff.
😆 Yay, O train! 👎
" I love 🇨🇦 and I love trains, just not this one unfortunately."
Congratulations or sorry that happened idk I’m not reading all that
@@alexjhorner😆 That's fair! Quick summary;
🚉 🚈 = 🚻🚽☣️
Yes it’s not really a train I call it a fancy street car . Absolutely nothing against the great videos just so sad to waste all that money when they could have easily improved the bus service and do the tunnel . All the delays and wasted money and now what they have running is extremely unreliable. It’s the Goldie lock street car “ weather has to be just right to work
Simply unbelievable that after 5 years of construction, tracks are only sort of laid. Cant wait for it to open in 2022! sigh.
Thanks for this, small hint for folks not in Ottawa, include a map to show people the overview. As an Ottawa resident I dont even know all the stations you mentioned. Trying to provide positive feedback. Cheers
Thanks for sharing! We will consider that in future videos :)
lol you mean constructive feedback quit hating fam
@@mikeking245 lets go for a pint, and I'll share some "constructive feedback" just for you. You clearly missed the point.
@@jeffalexander1104 guy puts all this effort into a video and thats the comment you write. thats constructive feedback not positive feedback. positive feedback is what a great video you made... learn the distinction you retard.
Cool !!!
Interesting video. 👍
2025 to 26, that's 2 years from now, services can be in full swing.
When will the next line open?
Good effort and observations Sir! Do they have been running line 2 around the clock since at least April, I know this because I was working on a construction site in and around Leitrim STN in the middle of the night. With a direct line of sight seeing the train go back and forth. They have said October. Why would they have said May no June no Sept and now October. What is the issue they aren't telling the Public? We deserve answers on a 2 year late delivery Transit Line.
Is there a Park and Ride planned at Moodie?
Unfortunately there will not be a park and ride at Moodie.
Does the westbound train sometimes proceed south and sometimes west from pinecrest while there is a terminus for the line to Moodie?
The lines west split at Lincoln Fields station to go to Moodie and Algonquin.
@RailFansCanada I see that, but is the default direction shift, and will a different train be waiting when line one is set to the other terminus?
@@grantpenton1850 Line 1 will go to Algonquin and Line 3 will go to Moodie. Most of the time both lines will pass through Lincoln Fields and split there. On weekends and late night, Line 3 will only operate between Lincoln Fields and Moodie so you will have to switch there to the Line 3 train waiting.
The only way to have this O-Train be built on time is to have more workers. Phase II will be at least 2 years late.
The numbering is confusing. Why would line 1 not continue to Moodie, making one long Line 1 from Trim to Moodie. Instead, Line 3 is identical to Line 1 with the exception of the spur to Algonquin. Line 3 should have been Lincoln Fields to Algonquin only. Nonsensical.
Did you see anybody actually working?
Yes at nearly all stations.
Feels like the Queensview station was built just so students could get to IKEA
@@ShaneMoorhead it’s hard to see because of the 8-lane wide gash through the middle, but that neighbourhood is very dense.
Not exactly: there is a lot of TOD plans for the surroundings, as well as potential redevelopment of the Iris Shopping Plaza at large. There is also some density already there and coming sooner than later. We really appreciate the construction of the pedestrian bridge as planning forward though. -David
11:40 Why no roof on the pedestrian bridge, as for the Jackie Holzman bridge or the Max Keeping bridge?
It replaces the previous pedestrian bridge that was in need of replacement, and also relocation due to the layout of the tracks.
That's a problematic choice on OC Transpo's part.
The pedestrian bridge replaced an old pedestrian bridge without a cover. The bridge is mostly for students as there is a school nearby to the east. Let's face it, students don't vote. A roof on the bridge would be a bit pointless anyways because to get to the bridge anyone has to walk in the open for at least the length of the bridge to and from it. Saving them from the rain or snow while under the bridge isn't going to keep them dry. If there's a thunderstorm they shouldn't be on a covered a bridge anyways, with or without a roof.
If you are looking for good planning remember this is the project that built an "overpass" for the buses to cross the trench the buses used to use at Tunney's Pasture in Phase 1 of the project by stacking a bunch of rigid styrofoam from one side to the other, piling dirt on each side, and then building a road on top while knowing that Phase 2 would require the trains to go under (or rather through) it. So in Phase 2 the original was destroyed and a proper overpass was built. Or in at least one of the stations they didn't use non-slip floor tiles and were surprised when people were falling down after the tiles somehow managed to get wet. In Ottawa. In winter. And you want them to think of putting o roof on a pedestrian bridge. :)
@@capitalinventor4823 That's not the only short-sighted screw-up at Tunney's Pasture, either. Phase I could have placed tail tracks in the trench up to that styrofoam pyramid, which would have given the control system a segment that was on the existing system but which could also be isolated and thus extended without messing up the rest of it. But no, so they had to wait until the system shutdown this summer to do that work. And then of course there's the fustercluck of the interim bus transfer platforms. That is in addition to the frankly bizarre decision to use side-loaded rather than centre-loaded platforms for a terminus station, so you get this absurd situation of passengers hanging out in the mezzanine trying to guess which stairs to head down.
@@davidjames4915
There were a lot of problems at Tunney's. They went with the side loaded platforms because they built the station in the final configuration for what would be needed after Phase 1. Of course such a terminal has nowhere near the passenger capacity required for the temporary role of being an end station.
There's many, many errors that may be mentioned. Other than at the ends there are only two places where switches exist on the first phase. This is the reason why we are seeing a single train going down taking out a third of the line. If switches were between each station then at most two stations would be taken out by a broken train. A train too close to a switch could remove service to two stations. In such a situation the number of replacement buses would be greatly reduced or, if not rush hour and if permitted by safety regulations, trains could alternate on the single working platform for the one or two impacted stations. Once the train frequency becomes too often then the replacement bus option becomes required.
Another major thing done wrong is that on the day the LRT Phase 1 went live (not the first day of the three week public phase in) the transit authority overhauled the bus routes, making large changes and cutting back massively on the frequency of many routes. This caused a lot of overcrowding on the buses when the trains were running. To make matters worse the company took their "excess" buses, which just happened to equal the number of battery electric hybrid buses that the management did not like, off the road and sold them so that they could not be used. This was done even before it was known if the train was going to work or not. Because they had got rid a surplus of buses they also had a surplus of drivers which were laid off as soon as the LRT went live. It took years for them to get drivers again. Of course the city is buying new replacement buses, some of which are electric, instead of changing the batteries in the hybrids. (Management tried to make the hybrid buses look bad but the worst they could do is make them perform the same as non-hybrids. However, the hybrids were much quieter and did use less fuel. Replacing the batteries would have been better environmentally than buying a new bus.)
Of course even before the trains were to be passed over to the city they were supposed to pass a final test of 12 days running in a row without an incident. Someone high up at the city allowed the system to pass at 9 noncontinuous days running with four or five errors. This was done because the train was getting very late and it "needed" to be running. Those in charge had to know that the system was going to have problems, just not how bad.
What I really disliked is that while in office Mayor Watson even gave sworn testimony that he didn't know how bad things were going to get and new the end of his final term that there weren't major problems with the system. After being mayor he went on a vacation. As soon as he came back, was interviewed, and changed his statements about the system and stated that there are problems with the LRT. I really feel that there should be penalties available to charge people like this. He lied to the public as mayor and as soon as he goes back to being a regular taxpayer he's free to speak the truth. (I know that he used some city resources to gather information to put on his personal website. I filed a complaint with the city about it but city councillors and the mayor can't have complaints filed against them. It was for something minor but it speaks to the character of him. Watson was quoted in a news article that he asked a high up city official to get some data for an article he was creating. I searched for the article on the city site but couldn't find it. I went to Google and it was on Watson's personal page. If I wanted city staff to gather information for an article to put on my personal page then I'd have to pay for their time. I wanted the city to look into if Watson paid for the use of city staff time.)
Let's not forget the fiasco that named Phase 2 bidding. One firm failed the technical section, twice, but staff were told from a high up city official to put the bid back into the competition. When the city counsel was voting for the contract one of the counsellors asked if it was true one of the bids had failed the technical section. The city lawyer (or the lawyer hired by the city) said it was none of the business of the consul. Meanwhile it came out later that the mayor knew about bid failing at that time and yet he did not speak up. The bid is going to require a lot of extras to make the system work and that will drive up the price. But because the price was so lot the bid that failed the technical specifications, and should have not even been in the running, won with a lot of help from friends in high places.
One thing I've hated about this project from the very beginning of its planning is the amount of figurative oxygen that was sucked out of the room on tunnel-related nimbyism (and whatever it is you'd call what the NCC does). We've ended up with an expensive and time-consuming tunnel being built along a river below the river's water table for absolutely no benefit to the transit-riding public; if anything, to their detriment as they won't be able to enjoy the view. And similarly along Byron/Richmond: a shallower trench would have sufficed, without the excessive digging and concrete-related carbon emissions.
But more than all that is the figurative oxygen: literally nothing else about this project was ever really discussed. The stupid tunnel was all that was ever talked about. I live near Westboro and Dominion stations. The current location of Westboro station is a dumb location for a station; the only reason it is where it is is to allow for a bus ramp on the west side which the LRT station doesn't have. The station should be at Westboro's major cross street: Churchill Ave, which is actually where the initial Transitway planning put it until they added their ramp requirement. That would have pushed Westboro far enough away from Tunney's that another station could have been inserted at Island Park. It also would have meant that Dominion was redundant in its location. It could have profitably been moved further west to the field behind the Maple Lawn, a field the NCC has long wanted to develop anyway.
So we've missed out on a better user experience, a cheaper and quicker build, a TOD opportunity and an additional station serving West Wellington all on account of a couple of dozen nimby townhouse condominium dwellers who could have been all bought out for a fraction of the extra cost we've incurred.
I will retire in less than 4 years. Wonder if it will be complete by then.
The O train seems like it will be finished in 2034! It seems to take so long. They keep pushing back the dates, same for Montreal's REM.
Also, the Bus rapid transit, they had before the O-Train was PERFECT! You could get downtown fast, and they ruined it with the west to east O-Train line. At least the O-Train has better seats than the REM though. The Rem forces you to sit next to at least 1 stranger since there's no single or double seats
@@Kalibur91 Apparently you never actually went downtown during rush hour before line 1 opened, or you would have seen how congested the downtown was with buses. Previously going from Blair to Tunney's Pasture would have taken about 90 minutes. Now you can do it in 25.
@@Kalibur91the "mistake" they made was reducing bus service instead of augmenting it once the train came online. The transitway system was overcrowded and past its capacity. It was logical to replace the central segment of the transitway with a rail system, but it should have been a proper rem or skytrain-style system, not a grade-separated LRT, and the accompanying bus service should have been INCREASED not REDUCED.
I put mistake in quotations because it was in fact a deliberate decision by the city to cut spending on the backs of transit users
@@honouraryapple The mistake was the former Mayor making the worst possible forecasting decision, of assuming the train would go off without a hitch when they handed the keys to OC Transpo in Sept 2019. He laid off 300 driver operators starting in 2017, ( I knew a rookie driver he expected to be laid off then ) and sent a bunch buses to other cities. That's why we have the frantic driver operator hiring spree that's been going on since. How irresponsible! When the train screws up they put the R1 in service, what they don't tell you is that those repurposed buses means your bus won't show at random due to lack of availability 🙄🤔👎
@@wizardsuth I used to go to college at Algonquin college in Nepean, so I'd only go downtown on weekends usually. I've never been on the 94 or 95 during rush hour, but now I'm glad I didn't!
Thanks for a great video. Unfortunately it. seems that they are building transit to take civil servants to go to work, but the civil servants just want to "work" from home.
Iris seems like a completely over engineered station for a small neighborhood. Compare it to the sad little station at Mooney's Bay that will serve so many more.
That area around Iris has tremendous potential for upzoning. Overbuilding the station is strictly a good thing if only just to induce demand (like a new highway lane). Also note how much space was available.
Not bad for 2 years late already....sad....very sad