RUST SHUTS BUS BRIDGE EARLY
Transitway section between Lees and Hurdman stations forced to close Dec. 20
Rusty beams on the Transitway bridge over the Rideau River are forcing the city to shut down a key section of the busway between Lees and Hurdman stations months ahead of schedule.
That section of Transitway wasn’t supposed to close until April 2016 as part of Confederation LRT line construction, but it’s now scheduled to close Dec. 20, forcing hundreds of buses to detour onto nearby streets.
Meanwhile, in the west end, the city has pushed back the scheduled closing of the Transitway between Empress Avenue and Merton Street. That change will see buses rerouted onto Albert and Scott streets on Jan. 17, instead of a month earlier.
The Rideau River bridge must be closed early so the contractor can do repairs it hadn’t anticipated. Rideau Transit Group, which is building the Confederation Line, discovered some of the steel beams the bridge sits on are rusty.
It will now check all 35 beams and do the necessary repairs before continuing with the LRT work, said Steve Cripps, the city’s director of rail implementation.
Because there’s no way the contractor could have foreseen this issue at the time it bid for the contract, the city will have to pay for the work out of its LRT contingency fund, Cripps said.
Pedestrians and cyclists will have to detour off the pathway along the bridge during the closure, but Cripps said the specific details won’t be available for about another month.
CHANGES COMING DEC. 20
Lees and Hurdman stations will remain open — buses will stop at the upper level only at Lees and a temporary platform at Hurdman. Route 85 will now connect Lees with downtown and the University of Ottawa via King Edward Avenue; frequency on this part of the route will be doubled, meaning it will run every six to eight minutes to provide more capacity and shorter waits. Lees will also be served by cross-town routes 6, 101 and 103 in both directions and by routes 91, 95 and 98 eastbound.
Routes to and from downtown from Hurdman will cross the Rideau River using bus-only lanes on Highway 417 and will skip Lees Station. Afternoon express routes to Orléans will no longer stop at Blair station, saving three to four minutes per trip (in good weather) for most riders. About 200 people who catch those express buses at Blair will now need to take a different bus to Jeanne d’Arc or Place d’Orléans to make their connections. Combined service on routes 91, 95 and a new Route 104 from Blair to Place d’Orléans in the afternoon is about every two minutes.
Peak trips to and from Orléans on Route 101 will be renumbered as Route 103, which will skip Hurdman station in both directions and St. Laurent in the eastbound direction, saving riders up to 16 minutes in the afternoon.
A new Route 104 will connect Place d’Orléans and Carleton University, serving Blair, St. Laurent and Hurdman. Route 4 will be shortened to operate only between Carleton and downtown.
West-end express routes from Barrhaven, Stittsville and Kanata, and Route 176 will all end at Mackenzie King Bridge in the morning, meaning about 500 trips farther east will require an additional transfer. Express routes 41 and 43, which come from the south, will end at Hurdman, meaning about 400 trips will have an additional transfer.
CHANGES COMING JAN. 17
The first leg of the western Transitway, between Empress Avenue and Merton Street, will close. Bayview and LeBreton stations will remain open but are being relocated south to Albert Street. Buses will use special lanes on Scott and Albert.
To reduce the number of buses on these streets, morning express trips from the east end will stop at Bay station; out-of-service buses will use Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. Afternoon express trips to the east end will continue to begin at LeBreton Station. Customers from the west and southwest parts of the city will have a longer travel time of up to three minutes.
STILL TO COME
The section between Laurier and Lees stations is scheduled to close in April, while the section between Merton and Smirle streets is scheduled to close in June. At that point, all sections of the Transitway being converted to LRT will be closed. The $2.1-billion Confederation line is set to open in May 2018.