Prepared by Fraser Pollock for The Friends of Lansdowne

Stadium transportation requirements

Throughout the early 20^th century (pre W.W. 2) most major sport stadiums were located in the middle of built up centrally located neighbourhoods. The land was usually already owned by the major tenant’s owner and was the best that could be purchased at the time. Beginning with the end of W.W.2, stadiums like families began to move out of the crowed central city to the suburbs. Even though, most of these older stadiums were well serviced by transit and main roads, team owners were ready for new and larger stadiums as well as their larger revenue. Starting in the late1950’s some communities realised that waiting for a team in any particular sport took too long, so they built stadiums on their own to lure new or existing teams to their own community. These stadiums were surrounded by enormous parking lots fed by wide local roads and limited access highways. There was no rail or streetcar service, maybe some bus service, the car was designed to be the prime method of transport to the stadium. This type of stadium development picked up speed in the 1950’s and continued till the early 1980’s.

Stadiums are not producing revenue if there is no event going on at the park and this became a problem when you had no ancillary development nearby. Little by little suburban stadiums carved off lots for malls or restaurants on the stadium property to produce more revenue. Off season, most of this development was at best sparsely attended or completely deserted. The realization began to take hold that stadium needed to be located in neighbourhoods that were alive year round not in a suburban parking lot. This forced the reintroduction of the concept that, you needed something other than the private car to provide transport to the site of the stadium if you are going to locate it inside an existing built up area.

Starting in the early 1980’s some new stadiums began to go back downtown. The Sky Dome in Toronto was an example of this. The new stadiums were generally smaller in total attendance but had more private and corporate boxes. A large percentage of these new stadiums were single sport stadiums but, many did keep the multiple sport capability. Stadiums were mostly joint public and private ventures (the public paying for most of it) designed to be architecturally pleasing buildings that would attract new commercial and residential development around it. This replaced the multi-purpose utilitarian bowl shaped stadia surrounded by parking lots. Buffalo’s Pilot Field is considered the first of these types of stadiums.

The best part of the plan was the area’s transportation plan. The site already had reasonably good road connections but it was the well designed LRT line that gave great access to the whole Inner Harbour redevelopment. The LRT line also managed to finally connect other major rail and transit facilities in downtown Baltimore that were never well integrated together. All these facilities were within an easy walking distance. For the residents they finally had a fantastic local network of public transport that connected many of the city’s major employers.. Since then most new stadiums are usually the main element of an area’s redevelopment plans and in some cases, major new suburban developments.

Ottawa’s Lansdowne Live redevelopment fits in at the end of a long history of stadia and associated real-estate plans. An example is the Meadowlands Xanadu project. This is what happens when you want a new stadium in a location that already has a stadium but, little or no immediate local development. The 82500 seat Meadowlands stadium in suburban New Jersey has been the home of the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets Football teams for many decades. The site is also the location of the 20000 seat Continental Airlines Arena, home to the NBA New Jersey Nets and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils. The existing stadia are surrounded by parking lots and have only marginally successful large scale commercial development going on near it. The site is fed by multiple Freeways and several major area arterial roads. Even with a large mall on the perimeter of the site it is usually only sparsely attended outside of game days. Attendance is especially sparse when you consider the stadium has 29700 on-site parking spots and 12500 more on surrounding properties. The redevelopment will build a new football stadium and a massive retail and residential development called Xanadu that, will link the new football stadium with the basketball /hockey arena. Until recently, the only transit connection was a few suburban New Jersey Transit bus routes. Unlike Lansdowne Live however, New Jersey Transit has built a new Commuter Rail spur line directly to the site of the redevelopment. The new rail line will increase public transit access so that, the Xanadu commercial and residential redevelopment can be built on top of 2500 existing parking spots.

Of all the North American stadiums researched for this report (12 Football & Soccer stadiums) Lansdowne Live is the only redevelopment that have no existing or even planned high order transit line(Subway, LRT, BRT, Commuter Rail) to service it. The new and improved Frank Clair Stadium can’t be easily expanded. The plan seating expansion is to occur mostly at the either end of the field behind the Canadian Football end zones. This is less than ideal as outside of special playoff games or for the Grey Cup, fans will not want to be seated behind the goal line. Many of the new stadiums that were researched allowed for easy seating expansion, especially for the primary tenant. They also included as part of the basic site design, extra private and public transportation handling capacity in case of stadium expansion, something that the Lansdowne Live project does not possess.

The Lansdowne Mall

The impact of having a new mall with retail, restaurants and service businesses on this site needs to be assessed. Also the office, residential and hotel components have to be considered as well. The first thing is the amount of trucking it will attract for servicing and supply. The Lansdowne Development Transportation Strategy dated August, 2009 (Delcan report) was used as the main source data in preparation of this report. Also reviewed was the more recent Transportation Impact and Assessment Study and Transportation Demand Management Plan June 2010 ( McCormick Rankin report ).

During the business day and weekends Bank Street is reduced effectively to one lane in each direction due to a curb parking lane in the Glebe and Old Ottawa South as well as very wide sidewalks and pedestrian facilities between Wellington and Gloucester Streets. In Centretown the parking alternates between on one side of the street and the other every 3-4 blocks. The forced merging of traffic effectively reduces the street to one lane in each direction. During the AM and PM peak weekday hours, one lane of parking disappears in the max flow direction and is used for general traffic flow. Only within a few blocks north and south of the Queensway (Bank Street - 417 Interchange) is Bank Street a two lane road.

At various intersections along this corridor traffic levels spike during the peak hour due to traffic entering and leaving the Bank Street corridor. One of the worse spot is at the Bank Street and Lansdowne Park entrance where AM peak northbound levels reach 1117 V/H/D and the southbound PM peak were traffic counts reach 975 V/H/D.

Traffic to be generated by the Mall

It is estimated in the Delcan Report that the proposed development will bring about an additional 566 vehicles per hour (v/h) during AM peak hours; 1269 v/h at PM peak hours; and 1482 v/h on Saturdays. It assumes that 40% of those coming to Lansdowne will be using public transportation, cycling, or walking, and that this will accordingly bring down the additional generated traffic. It therefore argues that the development would generate the following additional traffic: 290 cars / hour during AM peak hours; 544 cars / hour during PM peak hours; and 594 cars / hour on Saturdays. Several intersections along Bank street offer levels of service (LOS) of D during a number of peak hours and the intersection of Riverside Drive North has already a LOS of E during the PM peak hours. (McCormick report p168) These intersections are already to the point of offering a failing LOS (F). Bank Street simply will not be able to accommodate the increased traffic, even the unsubstantiated reduced increases being put forward.

Trucking into the Site

Before the number of trucks expected into the Lansdowne Live Development can be calculated, a first estimate must be done of the total number of jobs for a regular non-game day the site will have. Job tracking data used by most transportation planning models is calculated on a per job basis versus the area of the mall components. However, the site has many unique local conditions and a job estimation model was done based around surveys of specialty retail in unique retail environments and resort communities in the United States.

Lansdowne Components

Cinema- 47000 square feet x 1.3 employees/1000 square feet = 61 jobs

Supermarket- 41000 square feet x 2 employees/1000 square feet = 82 jobs

Retail- 160000 square feet x 3 employees/1000 square feet = 480 jobs

Service- 52000 square feet x 3.6 employees/1000 square feet = 187 jobs

Mall Total = 300000 square feet with 810 jobs

Other important information for this model

Office- 116000 square feet x 7.5 employees/1000 square feet = 870 jobs

168 Residential Condo units in the first phase

Now that we have the jobs and the amount of people living on the site we can calculate the actual trucking levels.

Using the S.C.A.G Regional Trucking Generation Model:

Light Trucks are defined as vans, pickups or small cube vans.

Medium Trucks are defined as 3 axle vehicles.

Heavy Trucks are defined as multi –axle, liquid bulk, and flatbed or container carriers

Daily Truck Trip Generation

Retail :

Light Trucks 0.0605 per day per job x 810 jobs = 49

Medium Trucks 0.0962 per day per job x 810 jobs = 78

Heavy Trucks 0.0359 per day per job x 810 jobs = 29

Office/Government:

Light Trucks 0.0080 per day per job x 870 jobs = 7

Medium Trucks 0.0022 per day per job x 870 jobs = 2

Heavy Trucks 0.0430 per day per job x 870 jobs = 37

Residential:

Light Trucks 0.0390 per day per unit x 168 units = 7

Medium Trucks 0.0087 per day per unit x 168 units = 1

Heavy Trucks 0.0023 per day per unit x 168 units = 0.5

Site Total:

Light Trucks: 63 per day

Medium Trucks: 81per day

Heavy Trucks: 66.5 per day

What is significant is that, although light trucks tend to disappear into the general traffic, the medium and heavy trucks do not. Considering that, no less than 80 % of these trucks will be arriving on site between 9am and 4pm Monday to Saturday all trying to unload cargo or provide service to the businesses on site. The mall will have one centralized loading/unloading facility, one for the stadium and one combined for the office and residential condo units. All this traffic will be travelling through one underground parking entrance and or one major vehicle baring street. All medium and heavy trucking will be entering off Bank Street, at the same time people will be coming in to go and visit the site mainly through the Bank St. entrances. Queen Elizabeth Drive does not allow heavy trucking.

Two hundred trucks may not seem to be a large number but, Bank Street is essentially reduced to one lane in the Glebe and Old Ottawa South in non peak times. Any increase in trucking is going to make a crowded situation worse. If this trucking is caught in peak hour traffic trying to use the few intersections that allow East-West access to get into or out of the area, the result could be disastrous. The Bank & Sunnyside intersection is already very busy during the peak periods (traffic condition C & D) and might be pushed into a condition that could force them to completely fail (traffic condition F) and produce gridlock at the worst possible time. Several late winter and spring weekend visits showed that, during the mid afternoon period (12 -3 PM) Bank St. was already very crowded, had no on street parking left and was significantly slowing down transit vehicle access. That is, without a mall or a stadium to make traffic conditions worse.

The 20,000 Guest Event (CFL Football Game) Experiment

Arrival at the Stadium

It is generally agreed that the majority of attendees (65-75%) arrive less than an hour before the game. The rates then drop off at a consistent rate for each hour before the event. Greater than 2 hours before the event the rate of 5-10% is often used. Also the rate at which people attend events can greatly depend on the time and day of the event. A Saturday or Sunday day event will have up to 10% arrive 2 hours or more before the start of the event. Whereas, 5% of attendees or less will arrive greater than 2 hours before an event on week day evening. In this report 2 scenarios will be used as a comparison a weekday event and a weekend event. Although the percentages very only 5-10 % in each hour before the event, the difference in the total numbers of cars people and busses is quite illuminating. When measuring busses we used 12 metre or 40 foot busses as the transit vehicle capacity requirement. A modal shift was used that is common (60% Vehicle, 38 % Transit, 2% Walking and Cycling). Due to the use of the planned satellite parking lots at Carleton University, extra vehicles using that lot have their person total added to the transit numbers and therefore an increase in minimum needed bus requirement. What ends up happening is the transit modal shift then effectively increases from 38% up to a maximum of 58% because of transit service to the satellite lots. Walking and cycling get small modal shares because there is no planned bicycle storage for even 200 bikes (1% of 20000 person event) and even 300-400 people from the local neighbourhood would be stretching the local historical attendance.

Cars are assumed to have 2.4 people per vehicle as per the Delcan report and the McCormick report. The first 8 busses are assumed to have 45 Lansdowne Live passengers and the rest are going somewhere else on the number 1 or 7 bus routes. Beyond this all other busses are using the 70 passenger per vehicle crush load limit.

Parking Spaces

This has been one of the most critical and controversial issues. During several site visits the number of actual metered and non metered parking spots on or near Bank Street in the Glebe and Old Ottawa South were counted and recorded. On street parking numbers from the Lansdowne Transportation Strategy were used for simplicity however, the standard of 15-20 minute walk limit to the site boundary was used to get what residents say is more realistic number of parking spaces. The 15-20 minute standard is used in the U.S. for large parking lots and area parking catchments. A level of 50% availability was assumed because of conditions seen during several weekday and weekend site visits.

The Analysis

2-3 Hours before Event

What is outstanding is the existing transit capacity on Bank Street. During the weekday evening there is just enough existing transit capacity (8 busses /hour/direction) but on weekends during the day, people generally will have more time to come earlier and would be encouraged to do so by the owners of Lansdowne Live. However the current Saturday day service of 10 busses /H/D would be stretched to the limit even replacing some smaller busses for the larger articulated busses. Sunday day service of 6 busses /H/D would be totally unequipped for this.

1-2 Hours before the Event

Whether it is a weekday or weekend event, on-site parking fills up during this period, whether it’s for the event or the mall. If it is the week end all the Bank Street parking is now full as well. Even during the week on Bank Street parking will be filling up during this phase. Store owners on Bank Street during the weekend will now have no parking at all. If the weekend event started at 1:00-1:15 PM as most CFL games do, by 12:15 PM Bank Street all parking is being used and will be full till 4-5:00 PM. This is significant because on Sundays stores are only open 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM and are closed by 6:00 PM on Saturday. Traffic is also starting to get very heavy and the single lane capacity of Bank will be pushed to limit. Side street parking will begin to fill as well.

During this phase weekday or weekend, the need for transit capacity increases to levels that exceed the normal weekday peak service levels of 15-16 busses/H/D. Serious problems occur now due to the fact that O.C. Transpo does not plan to start it’s increased bus service till 90 minutes before the start of an event. Due to the higher transit traffic it would be a very good idea for O.C. Transpo to start its planned increased service at 2 hours before the event not 90 minutes.

0-1 Hour Before The Event

Bank Street throughout the Glebe and Old Ottawa South is full and intersections that lead to any of the area’s major East-West streets are busy as well. The intersections and ramps from the Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Colonel By Drive are full as well. Most of all the on street parking is full or will be soon and the remote satellite lot at Carleton is being heavily used. Access to the mall in this phase is difficult if you are not seeing the event. Very little non food shopping is going on in the area and the only real shopping is for event related items. Bus service is at its maximum level but, the buses travelling down Bank Street from Wellington have many bottlenecks to deal with. Some frustrated people are getting out of the bus to walk. Passengers transferring at Albert and Slater to Bank Street have severely slowed service in the core. The small blocks from Wellington to Gloucester Streets have made the bus and vehicle crowding worse. Passengers on busses like the 2 or 4 complain because they are trapped as well and they are not going anywhere close to Lansdowne. Similar choke points at Somerset Street, First and Glebe Avenues complete the mess. Between Sunnyside and Fifth where no parking is allowed the traffic somewhat increases operating speed but, the buses have to get around huge numbers of pedestrians trying to get into the stadium.

Departure from the Stadium

Similar to the arrival at the stadium, maximum flow levels very due to the time and day. More people will try to get out faster Sunday afternoons and Monday through Thursday during the evening because, most have School or work the next day. If it is a weekday evening, most of the stores and some of the restaurants will already be closed when the event finishes. Sunday afternoon most places are still open but, not for long. Friday evening or Saturday afternoon is different, we can stay around longer however, and most of the stores will still be closing soon or already have closed. But the bars and restaurants are open.

The Analysis

0-1 Hour After The Event

Just like getting in, getting out right after the event is hard. There is no other way to say it, is busy. The problems that happened less than 1 hour before the event are happening in the opposite direction. There are some new transportation problems, if this is a weekday evening or Sunday afternoon transit users are going as fast as they can before connecting busses and services stop running. There is nothing worse for a transit user to go through insanely crowed and busy trunk services to finally reach your local Transitway stop and discover that, the local bus that takes you home stopped running 45 minutes ago. This can be a serious problem for those who decided to stay on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon and are not careful.

The McCormick Rankin Report (p179) identified that the main problems would arise after events as it takes longer to board a bus and crowds build up as passengers wait at a stop. The main issues would be crowd control, pedestrian safety, extensive delays and congestion on Bank Street. The McCormick Rankin Report (p156) assumes that 5,000 people take transit from the bus stops and 7,000 the shuttles services to off-site parking. About 1,800 passengers per hour use the bus stop on Albert at Bank at peak time. Therefore, the requirements in terms of the transit infrastructure, number of busses and shuttles would have to be about six times those at Albert to service 12,000 passengers. In contrast, the Toronto subway and Montreal metro can moved out 25,000 sports fans per hour.

1-2 Hours After The Event

Regardless of the day, a similar issue arises when 90 minutes after the event passes, O.C. Transpo will no longer be offering the vastly increased transit service when a still large group of transit riders will be stuck having to take the basic evening or afternoon service offered on Bank Street. Parking will finally be clear again on site and open for general use. Traffic is still busy but it is clearing on Bank Street.

2-3 Hours After The Event

Transit still has issues on Saturday afternoons and Friday evenings that require much higher service than is actually supplied. The need may actually be caused by a lot of people still needing to get back to Carleton to get to their cars at the satellite Parking lots.

The Cost of O.C.Transpo Bus services for Lansdowne Live

For an event of 20,000 to occur O.C. Transpo says it needs to supply over 120 busses. It costs $24.23/hr to pay a driver. $6.83/hr for fuel per bus $9.67/hr for maintenance costs per bus

O.C. Transpo needs 120 busses to operate between Billings Bridge, Carleton and the Rideau Street bus mall.

The busses operate 3 hours before and after the game and for 4 hours during the event. That it is a total of 7 hours per bus.

Each 20,000 person event is costing in transit services from O.C. Transpo $34,213.20. The costs go up when the events get larger. Lansdowne Live predicts somewhere between 10-14 similar sized events a year. That would bring a cost of at least $478,984.80 a year. The McCormick Rankin report estimates of transportation costs would be even higher as they include additional cost for off-site parking shuttle services. It estimates that for a 25,000 person event the transit services would be $43,000 and $38,000 for the shuttle services for a total transportation cost of $81,000.

Conclusion:

The proposed redevelopment of Lansdowne Park will bring a grid lock on Bank Street. The increased traffic of more than 500 vehicles per hour at peak time from the mall cannot be accommodated on Bank Street as it has reached in many intersections a failing or near failing level of service at peak hours on weekdays and in the weekend. To make matters worse, the truck deliveries to service the redevelopment would now bring over two hundred trucks a day at off peak times when on Bank is essentially one lane in each direction.

The 20,000 person event at the stadium will exacerbate the situation by bringing extensive delays and congestion on Bank Street and raising serious issues of pedestrian safety and crowd control. The requirements in terms of the transit infrastructure, number of busses and shuttles to service 12,000 passengers would have to be six times those at Albert at Bank which serve 1,800 passengers at peak time. In contrast, the Toronto subway and Montreal metro can move out 25,000 sports fans per hour.

As in all other stadium redevelopment project in North America, the redevelopment of the Lansdowne stadium needs to be serviced by a high order transit line (Subway, LRT, BRT, Commuter Rail) to adequately address transportation requirements of moving such large group of people within an hour. Failing this, a new site should be selected which would offer a high order transit line service and provide easy access to highways and several major area arterial roads.

View this transportation report in PDF format here.