Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

[mencc1701 0]

I wanted to start a thread about Ottawa, since I live here, only for the last couple of years, but long enough to get a good feel for the city, and because it seems to be underrepresented both here on ST, and in the world in general.

Contrary to popular belief, Ottawa isn't a dull, backwater political town, but is in fact a vibrant city, at the center of Canada's fourth largest metropolitan area, with a total population of 1,130,761, as of the 2006 census. The two largest cities in the area are Ottawa itself, at 812,129 and Gatineau, Quebec, at 242, 124.

For those curious, the reason that so much of the city population is within two municipalities is the fact that both are amalgamated; Ottawa contains the former cities of Ottawa, Gloucester, Kanata, Nepean, Orleans, Cumberland and Vanier, as well as several smaller rural suburban townships. Gatineau consists of the former cities of Hull, Gatineau, Alymer, Buckingham and Masson-Angers, and though the official name is Gatineau, many Ottawa'ers refer to the city as Hull, since it is the neighborhood located directly across the Ottawa River from downtown Ottawa.

Now, here's a couple of pictures to cap off the first post:

Map I found showing the various neighborhoods of Ottawa. You can see some of the amalgamated cities I mentioned.

Downtown Ottawa, looking down Metcalfe St., as seen from Parliament Hill.

The aforementioned Parliament Hill, as seen from Quebec. The area at the back of Parliament was undergoing renovations when this was taken - Ottawa isn't missing dependancies, if you were wondering.

Aerial view of the downtown core, with some areas of interest highlighted in colour. They are:

Dark blue: Parliament Hill

Beige: Supreme Court of Canada

Red: Canadian Museum of Civilization

Yellow: Rideau Canal locks 1-8 and Chateau Laurier (hotel)

Teal: Byward Market, historic area

Orange: Lansdowne Park, football stadium and hockey arena

Green: The University of Ottawa (my school!)

Purple: Carleton University (the enemy!)

[GreekMan 246]

AWESOME I love Ottawa

it's a cool place

[asturianu 4]

Hey, menc, good job with the explanation. I love Ottawa, and I have this pic! I got it 3 years ago! THe same pic, but withoust those circles. Lovely pics

Cristian

[Fischbob 9]

Isn't Ottawa's flagship hotel the Chateau Laurier?

Anyway, I visited Ottawa on a school trip a couple years ago (stayed at Carleton U, BTW ), and was really impressed with the city. It's a beautiful setting for Canada's capital, IMO.

I just can't stand their NHL team.

[mencc1701 0]

GreekMan: Awesome, glad you like our fair city.

asturianu: Had that pic a while, myself, just thought I'd add in the circles to show where things are more clearly! Rather than going "Okay, look at the canal, and go up a little ways, then to your left a bit, and..."

Fischbob: Heh. *cough* I knew that! I was, um, testing y'all, of course... *looks around*. Okay, so in my defense, I'm tired today, and that I put in the wrong name... lol. And no worries, I'm a Leafs fan, and I often say the one problem with the city is the hockey team.

[GreekMan 246]

I am in the city right now and it's one hell of a city but not as good as San Diego!

Why don't you do a recreation od Ottawa and post it on ST

[diva613 0]

Now like any good city, it depends on the transit to move its Citizens around. Now as explained before, Ottawa-Gatineau consists of two major cities, the Gatineau or northern parts of the Ottawa River is served by the STO Societie du Transport d'Outoais (Transport society of Outaouis) funded by the Quebec Provincial Government, and OC Transpo (Ottawa Carleton Transportation) which serves the southern portions of the Ottawa River.

This is going to be concentrated on OC Transpo, because i still can't make heads or tails of the STO... LOL It tries to be like Ottawa's Transit, but it is more confusing.

In Ottawa, we have what we call a transitway, it is a network of roads that connect the suburbs with the central parts of the city. The Transitway is a bus only road that travels all over the place, for a few sections of the transitway it is integrated with the cities roads (From Baseline to Hunt Club in the South West, from the 417 to Kanata in the West, and from Blair Road to Trim in the East.) Those sections have transit priority lanes, where buses are only allowed to travel, as well as some perks such as bus right of way, where they have their own set of lights where they can go ahead of the other traffic (I will get into that later).

For the most part it would take me an hour and a half to drive downtown from my home in Nepean Center, but to travel by bus it is about twenty minutes. (Give or take the snow/protests).

During Rush hour, (6am to 9am and 3pm to 6pm) bus routes travel to all the extremeties of the city from downtown. They take the transitway as to avoid the congestion faced on many of the Ottawa streets. During non peak periods the regular routes that travel throughout the city either begin/end or pass by a transitway station, where you can catch one of four routes (94, 95, 96, 97)depending on where you are in the city, that will take you across twon on a $3.00 cash fare. There are also bus routes that Bypass the Downtown Core all together, except by traveling on normal roads, they are the 101,102, 111, 116, 117, 118. At one point in time there was more of these routes, but were eventually cancelled due to low ridership. 

Both 101 and 118 travel from Kanata to Orleans via different means, 102 is from Tunney's a major government locality to Orleans, 111 is from Ottawa West-Nepean to Overbroke (about a 1 and a half to two hour commute by the 417) 116 is Gloucester to Ottawa West-Nepean/Kanata during Peak points, and 117 is Ottawa West-Nepean to Carleton University (which isn't really that far of a commute)

Bus Priority Traffic Lights is basically what it sounds like. If there is a row of busses waiting at a traffic light, instead of letting the traffic turn ahead, the busses would travel thru first. It was annoying at first, but once you got used to it, it was fine as a driver. 

There are 276-300 bus routes in the city, 100 of which are school routes, 90 are Rush hour or Peak Period routes (some of the routes are contracted out to other transit providers) 6 Early Morning Routes, 6 Special Event Routes, 61 regular routes some of which also double as Peak Period serives and six rapid transit/transitway/major routes where they run 22 hours a day.

The bus service i find is somewhat reliable, as reliable as it can be in a suburb lol and is organized in such a way that its easily deciphered. I am proud to say that Ottawa was said to have one of the best transit systems in North America... though we have yet to have an Extensive Commuter Rail/LRT/Subway too add to the city's transit system, one is in the works to follow the GO Train system of Toronto. Expected completion of this is slotted for 2037, but segments are being said to be completed by 2010 which is quite interesting... 

Attached: Transitway, and Model Buses.

Photo's by me, Transitway image not to scale and is available @ wiki.org

For more information goto www.octranspo.com and www.moving-ottawa.ca

[mencc1701 0]

Nice transit report, diva! I ride the bus all the time, and for the most part, it's a fast and pretty efficient system, though it's pretty clear that planning for the future needs to take place soon, as I think Ottawa is slowly approaching a transit crisis. AKA, east-west light rail is needed! The city currently has a short, 8 km rapid transit line called the O-Train, which services 5 stops from along a north\south route. It runs from Alta Vista, at the southern end of the transit way, servicing Carleton University and Little Italy before meeting the Transitway again at Bayview station, just to the west of downtown.

There was a plan to extend this line downtown, but it was pretty contraversial, and after last fall's municipal election, the plan was scrapped, and further LRT developments have yet to go beyond the planning stage.

For now, though... here's some more transit pictures, culled from Wikipedia:

 

Carleton O-Train station

The O-Train crossing the Rideau River between Confederation and Carleton.

Campus Transitway station, at the University of Ottawa.

New Flyer Invero on Wellington St., near Parliament. These are very nice, modern buses, which often run on local routes and less-popular crosstown routes.

New Flyer D60LF articulated bus. These are the heavy hitters of the system, and are used on high-volume crosstown routes.

[diva613 0]

Just a note on the fourth photo in mencc1701's message, that is the Fairmount Chateau Laurier, behind the bus.

[GreekMan 246]

Awesome! I lke Ottawa's transit! Did you hear that the city gets $600 million for transit improvments?

Thanks for the explanation of the transitways! How many people ride the O train?

[mencc1701 0]

Yeah, transit in Ottawa is pretty good. Eventually, I'm planning on posting pics I take of various neighborhoods of Ottawa, and I'll make sure to show local transit stations when I do so.

O-Train ridership is about 10,000 people per weekday, which is pretty good considering it doesn't go through an ideal transit corridor.

[diva613 0]

I will gladly help you out with that

GreekMan-> I will believe it when i see it, rumour has it it may be going to the new O-Train or Eastern GO Train

 

[mencc1701 0]

An Ottawa GO system? I haven't heard anything about that, that would be pretty cool.

[sovietpower91 2]

Ive been there 12 times over the last couple years to go to hockey games ( i often go to games in Detroit(favourite team), Toronto, Buffalo, Ottawa and sometimes Montreal) Lovely town awesome atmosphere i prefer it 100x over T.O

[diva613 0]

MENCC It isnt officially GO Train, not too sure how it will work, but the city council wants to attach the Eastern Ontario Region to Ottawa, much like the GO-Train does with Toronto. People as far as Alexandria, Belleville, Carleton Place, and Arnprior as well as Mason-Anger, Montebello, and other cities on the Quebec side.

They are going to bore a tunnel out in downtown and make the Conference Center (the building across from the Fairmount Chateau Laurier/Rideau Center) back into Union Station.

[mencc1701 0]

Ahh, gotcha. It could, in theory, be GO as it's Government of Ontario Transit, meaning it can operate anywhere in the province. I think, though, that intra-city rail is more important at the moment, but really any large-scale rail transit would be good for the city. www.ottawatransit.ca has some really neat maps - the 2037 transit map looks scarily awesome.

[bgsimplayer94 0]

Well i've been in Ottawa only once but it was great!I even went on a boat cruise!But I still like Toronto the best!

[dragonboi28 0]

OMG im goin to ottawa 'u' this yr

[mencc1701 0]

I'm back in Ottawa as-of today, and after I was on campus buying a bus pass, I decided to take a walk around downtown and take some pictures, so... here they are! This is my walk, in order... down Albert St. to Lyon St., and then back up Wellington St. to the Rideau Canal.

My school, and it's newest building, Desmarie... a ten story, multidisciplinary building which should act as the de facto northern gate to our downtown campus.

Standing over the Rideau Canal and looking towards the east side of downtown, across Confederation Park. (Sorry for the washed-outness, the sun was starting to go down)

Looking north from about the same spot, towards Chateau Laurie, the Westin hotel and the Rideau Centre (major downtown mall and Transitway station).

The historic First Baptist Church (built 1877), at the corner of Elgin and Laurier, is dwarfed by the 94 metre tower Place Bell, built in 1971.

Spot the transit problem! Rush hour buses crowd Albert St.

Looking west down Albert.

The West Memorial Building (There is a mirrored identical building on the other side) and the Memorial Arch.

Close up of English text on arch.

The Supreme Court of Canada, on Wellington St.

The top of downtown's tallest building, Place de Ville building C, at 112 metres.

Buildings fronting Wellington St.

The Center Block of Canadian Parliament, which dominates Wellington St.

The East Block of Parliament, with the Chateau Laurier and the Rideau Centre in the background.

And finally, the beginning of the Rideau Canal, which marks the eastern edge of downtown.

If you have any questions about anything I posted, feel free to ask!

[GreekMan 246]

Awesome pics

I think i am going to like this thread!

[Godzillaman 21]

I don't know how many times I crossed that bridge for a grade 8 grad trip...Very nice place! Some bad rush-hours there. Good thing we weren't in the center of downtown a lot. Best place though was probably the arcade though !

[IKVNexis 0]

HI.

 Just want to jump in here as I have lived in this city for most of my life (Beleave me thats a LONG time). 

 Some other tidbits about OC Transpo that I like. In most of the transit stations they have monitors that are linked to computers that show the busses that go to those stations showing the time the next bus comes by. Also a lot of the stops have the time tables printed in a small box attached to the pole along with a route map. The busses issue transfers using a little computer and printer. They are printed with a time that shows how long the transfer is good for at the time you board. This allows you to ride any (except Express special busses) untill the time limit. This is usualy 1 1/2 to 2 hours or you can buy a day pass. Also the on line sight you can even plan your trip by entering your starting point and the destination and time of arrival and the computer will give you what buses and what times to be there to catch them. Nice.

A better shot of the locks.

Cummings Bridge over The Redieu River Just rebuilt and made up to look like it originaly did.

The Tomb of our First Prime Minister Sir Wilfred Laurier.

The Department Of National Defence as seen from the East block of Parliament.

The U.S. Embasy right across from the National Gallery Of Canada.

[GreekMan 246]

The US embassy is huge!

They fortifed it. what do you think?

[psteverific 8]

Hey, awsome, a thread about my beloved hometown!

Regarding the O Train, I can personally attest to the fact that the train is fairly well used, although I can only speak for off-peak times.

I work evenings out by the airport and live near the first station on the line (Bayview), so I currently ride six days a week, and I have yet to see an empty train.

Even heading downtown on the last or second to last train on sundays, there are always passengers.

And it's really no wonder why... LeBreton to South Keys in 12 minutes? Try that on surface roads!

[GreekMan 246]

That would be cool to live in Ottawa

SD's transit is difficult to use but the trolley is the fourth most ridden in the US

ridership will grow when the city grows

[mencc1701 0]

Originally posted by: GreekMan The US embassy is huge!

They fortifed it. what do you think?quote>

I, and a number of my friends, refer to it as the Fortress, and we always joke that there are several snipers trained on us whenever we walk by.

I actually really dislike the embassy, since it's very out of place in it's neighborhood, the Byward Market, just across the Rideau Canal from downtown. It's a very historic area of town, and so the embassy sticks out like a sore thumb.

[GreekMan 246]

I know what you mean

but it's has to be done for protection

[Godzillaman 21]

The top part of the embassy looks like a bunker from WW2...

I really like the Department of National Defence. Its a generic looking building but I like it.

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: Godzillaman The top part of the embassy looks like a bunker from WW2...

quote>

It's designed to look like a submarine. Actually pretty darn imposing when you see it in person.

IKVNexis: Umm... our first PM was John A. Macdonald...

[mencc1701 0]

^ Hehe, I didn't even notice that one...

Laurier was our first French-Canadian Prime Minister, though, perhaps that's what he meant.