Monthly Archives: December 2009

Winter Cycling Path Maintenance

Alright, I admit that the multipurpose path on the north side of Albert between Bronson and Bayview is not really an official cycling path. If it were, it wouldn’t be plowed in the winter, because the City and NCC do not maintain cycle paths in the winter. But since this is officially a sidewalk  … it just happens to look like and function like and get used like a bike path … it gets plowed and winter maintained.

I thought this path provided some insight into the feasibility of winter cycling in Ottawa.

The Pattern Under Foot

Picture 1 shows sidewalk pavers laid on West Wellington in 2009. The pattern repeats often, with the joint lines lining up in long straight lines. The manufacturer’s instructions caution against this pattern, as the eye sees the long lines.

Almost the same pattern, laid along West Wellington in 2008 contracts. The pattern is very similar to the top picture, but there are no long lines. Every few meters, the blocks jog a bit to break up the distracting line pattern. I find this a much more pleasing pattern.

Does anyone think this matters?

Boring Job

Whilst walking along Somerset Street just west of the OTrain track, at Breezehill, I came across these gents taking bore-hole samples from the street. Little painted notations every few meters along the street indicate that they will be doing this for weeks.

I will nag the Somerset street planners for one bore hole result in particular. It will be the hole bored just a few meters east of the OTrain underpass. Eventually, a segregated bike route (CycloPiste de Preston?)  will be finished along the OTrain corridor, and to be useful it will likely have to pass under Somerset Street. Will it be possible to carve out a cycling tunnel along side the Otrain underpass?

If the viaduct (raised road surface that is Somerset Street) is composed of gravel and rock, it could be possible to pump that space just east of the Otrain underpass with grout (liquid cement) until it is solid, then carve out a bike route underpass parallel to the Otrain underpass. This would avoid digging up the road and building a cycling underpass in a cut and cover operation.

Transit Tunnel is no Turkey

The usual suspects are carping about the transit tunnel, again. Did the province provide funding? Apparently no good news is good enough — they didn’t provide 15-25% more than was asked for … so it’s disaster time. Ring-a-ling. Ding-a-ling. It’s disaster time in the city …

So what might happen if the tunnel portion was cancelled? Critics are quick to attach huge price tags to the tunnel portion. But these won’t disappear if the tunnel is cancelled. After all the tunnel includes tracks (won’t these be needed for the surface rail?); it includes stations and platforms (which will be needed at the surface too, and may have to be located on what is now private property that may have to be acquired by the city); signalling (which will be way more complex and expensive on the surface as it will have to accomodate private cars, trucks, and bus movements too), etc.

Surface rail brings its own unique costs too – streets will have to be dug up for years beforehand to relocate all access hatches (wo/manholes) outside of the track right of way, etc. Anyone visiting Toronto knows how slow the streetcars are and what chaos results in repairs to utilities crossing streetcar tracks or repairing the tracks themselves.

The last numbers I saw showed that cancelling the tunnel in favour of surface rail would result in a construction saving of about $300 million.

However, the system would suffer severe traffic flow impairment when it snows, or the streets are congested, or some bozo from upper lower Pointe Gatineau decides to block the track in order to squeeze through the intersection on his yellow light ….

And this doesn’t even count the delays caused every day by north-south streets having a regular green light (which means the surface rail track is closed to train movements 60% of the time so the north-south motorist enjoys its green-yellow cycle). Let’s throw in some Tamils or other protestors … or striking civil servants who every few years close down the transitway by picketing at Place de Ville and a few other key spots that “accidentally” block the transitway.

What surface rail gets us in the downtown is a vulnerable transit system. Reliable it won’t be. It will be  a very expensive rapid transit emulation system, aka a streetcar pretending to be a rapid transit system.

Transit committee received estimates that going for a surface rail option will, on a daily basis, result in sufficient impairment of service that a number of additional trainsets and operators will be required. How many? Well I saw estimates/calculations of about $100 million dollars per year of capital and operating cost for the additional equipment. [ Readers should see the comments received on this blog, which contest the dollars, time period and payback period for the operating savings. Once I receive the transit committee submission I'll post it on the blog ]  The “savings” in not building a tunnel would be eaten up  …  by increased costs of surface rail in the core.

We can spend the money to build a tunnel that gives us a fast, reliable service in all weathers. Or we can spend the money operating a congested, grid-locked surface streetcar system. I know which one I choose.

For more on this same subject, including the source doucment, go to : http://westsideaction.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-turkey-talk-on-tunnel.html. Indeed, readers might want to scan several other entries in the last few weeks on the tunnel and station design.

CBC Interview on BikeWest

Last Monday, CBC afternoon show interviewed Eric Darwin about progress BikeWest apparently made at transit committee. You can hear the short interview by clicking here: http://www.ericdarwin.ca/CBC_Interview_2.mp3.

The text of the BikeWest proposal (downloadable) can be found at this coordinate: http://www.ericdarwin.ca/BikeWestReport.doc. However, note that I do intend to update this document in the next two weeks to reflect newer information. The report is rather fat, because it has a lot of pictures in it.