06-06-2023, 03:55 PM
(06-06-2023, 01:42 PM)ac3r Wrote: The main benefit in using Victoria is the ease of TOD.FWIW, the Region has also expressed interest in road-dieting Victoria St N after the construction of the new Highway 7 (whenever that happens). So it seems to me that it would be the perfect time to re-allocate 2 car lanes for a LRT and urbanize the stretch of road from King to Bresleau. Considering how long in advance these things need to be planned, I hope that the Region is thinking about this now.
Ottawa has a lot of single family, low density neighbourhoods nearby. That will inevitably make redevelopment harder as developers propose new mid rise/towers/skyscrapers but then have to deal with opposition from NIMBYS.
On the other hand, Victoria is largely full of low density commercial development which would be much easier to redevelop (zone changes not taken into account, but that isn't hard to fix). However, the Grand River runs to the north of it. Also there are also not a lot of existing residential areas there, so they would have to bet on rapid redevelopment to justify using Victoria...low density commercial isn't exactly going to pull in a lot of riders to justify the cost. But again, the benefit would be that they could easily promote redevelopment of Victoria itself but can also readjust bus services to nearby areas. For example, running more bus service up Lancaster would open up redevelopment of Northward (largely industrial) but then also connect Bridgeport with better transit, which is itself currently going through densification. Said buses could funnel people down to a Victoria LRT line and that would be great.
However you also have to take into account things like schools, commercial services, emergency services and so on. Victoria isn't covered by those too well, so new schools and commercial services (grocery stores etc) would have to be constructed. Ottawa can be densified and there are existing schools around there to handle new students. The auditorium would also be a perfect place for a new hospital and an LRT on Ottawa would connect that. Going westbound, you can also connect areas like Laurentian Hills which is much more populated than Victoria Hills, Williamsburg, Highland West etc which are closer to Victoria.
Either way, there are a lot of options. My wish is that the region will be smart and scrap the whole Cambridge LRT stuff and just build a second line in Kitchener-Waterloo. Cambridge just isn't important enough. And we see how much NIMBY backlash we get here...Cambridge residents would become livid if developers started proposing skyscrapers across the city.