geoOttawa beta

geoOttawa is a mapping site from the City of Ottawa that has an incredible wealth of info and overlays about Ottawa.  The main version requires Flash, but Flash technology has basically become obsolete and is disabled on many computers.  The beta works in any browser.

https://maps.ottawa.ca/geoOttawaBeta/

Two items of note are the Ottawa LRT layers, and the aerial layers.

To access the Ottawa LRT layers, select Layer List

and then scroll down to (or search for) Rail Implementation Office. There are layers for the completed Stage 1 and the under-construction Stage 2.

Here’s a view showing Ottawa LRT Line 1 (Confederation Line) Stage 1 with pale green overlay for the Greenbelt (visible to the east).

Here’s a view adding on to Line 1 Stage 1 (in red) with Line 1 and Line 2 Stage 2 in blue, extending to the east, west and south.  Greenbelt overlay in pale green.

You can see that Line 1 Stage 2 crosses the Greenbelt in the east, and is basically inside the Greenbelt on the west.  Line 2 Stage 2 also crosses the Greenbelt to the south.

Space Battleship Yamato 2199

There have been two anime versions of Space Battleship Yamato.

Star Blazers (released in 1974)

The first in 1974 was called Space Battleship Yamato 宇宙戦艦ヤマト in Japanese and Star Blazers in the US and Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato

It was the first Japanese anime of its type to make its way to Canadian television, with a complex multi-part story, each episode following on from the last.  It was light-years beyond the usual American and Canadian animated kids shows that were available.

You can get it e.g. on iTunes as six episodes of about 1.5 hours each.

UPDATE 2020-07-12: For some reason Star Blazers is no longer available in the Canadian iTunes Store.  END UPDATE

Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (released in 2012)

There was a remake in 2012 called Space Battleship Yamato 2199 宇宙戦艦ヤマト2199 or Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Blazers:_Space_Battleship_Yamato_2199

The remake has dramatically higher quality animation and although it starts out almost identically to the original, it begins to diverge episode by episode from the original story.  It is much better from basically every perspective.

You can get it e.g. on iTunes, in two different versions: the Japanese version with subtitles, or a dubbed version.  I’ve only watched the Japanese subtitled one.  Season 1 is split into two parts of 13 episodes each.  You want either Pt. 1 & Pt. 2 (Original Japanese) or the dubbed Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 (they are all separate purchases).

Also, in the Japanese version of the new series at least and I would expect in the dubbed version as well, aspects of the 1974 series that were bowdlerized for the US and Canadian audience, such as Dr. Sakezo Sado’s fondness for drinking sake, are now shown in full.

Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is very good.  I would skip episode 1×07 Farewell to the Solar System as it has a drunken party including Makoto Harada (the chief nurse) in an inappropriate outfit.  All the other episodes are good.

Particularly notable is episode 1×09 Clockwork Prisoner, which I think is the best episode of season 1 and is the first episode where you can really see they are making a very different show than the original.

Space Battleship Yamato 2202 (released in 2017)

Season 2 of the new series is called Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love 宇宙戦艦ヤマト2202 愛の戦士たち. I haven’t watched it.

Books

There are accompanying books that are very confusingly named.

The book of the 1974 series is inexplicably called Space Battleship Yamato: The Classic Collection (it really should be called Star Blazers). ISBN13: 9781626929128.

My review of Space Battleship Yamato: The Classic Collection

This is the black and white graphic novel of the 1974 Space Battleship Yamato animated TV series, called Star Blazers in Canada. It’s basically a version of the TV series although without the edits that were made for Canada. Dr. Sakezo Sado for example is a veterinarian, and drunk a lot of the time. Kodai Susumu (Derek Wildstar) and Shima Daisuke (Mark Venture) look very young (much younger than in the TV series).

The story begins to diverge from the TV series fairly quickly, after Jupiter. Star Blazers (TV series) spends much longer within the Solar System, while the graphic novel has them out in the galaxy much quicker. Once they diverge, there are many events in the graphic novel that don’t show up at all in the 1974 TV series.

The graphic novel zooms through the story. The entire first season takes place in 243 pages. If you’re looking for a detailed retelling of the TV series, you won’t find it here. It’s more like a highly modified and abridged version of the TV show.

There are four books for the 2012 series, all with the title Star Blazers 2199 (they really should be called Space Battleship Yamato 2199).

• Star Blazers 2199 Omnibus Volume 1.  ISBN13: 9781506712208
• Star Blazers 2199 Omnibus Volume 2.  ISBN13: 9781506712215
• Star Blazers 2199 Omnibus Volume 3.  Not yet released.  Estimated date December 28, 2021. Provisional ISBN13: 9781506712222
• Star Blazers 2199 Omnibus Volume 4.  Not yet released.  Estimated date December 28, 2021.  Provisional ISBN13: 9781506712239

STO presentation to NCC on Gatineau west-end rail June 2020

STO presented to the NCC Public Board of Directors Meeting on June 25, 2020.

• Presentation: Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) public transit system linking Gatineau’s West End to Ottawa – Scenarios under review (PDF)
• Système de transport collectif de la Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) reliant l’ouest de Gatineau à Ottawa – Scénarios à l’étude (PDF)

The NCC has replied with staff analysis:

• Approval Submission No. 2020-P218 Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) public transit system linking Gatineau’s West Endto Ottawa –Scenarios under review (PDF)
• Proposition d’approbation fédérale d’utilisation du sol, de design, et de transaction – N^o 2020-P218 Système de transport collectif de la Société de transport del’Outaouais (STO) reliant l’ouest de Gatineau à Ottawa – Scénarios à l’étude (PDF)

including a recommendation that the entire segment in Ottawa, including the crossing of the Portage Bridge and any segment on Wellington, use battery power:

The tramway will have to be battery operated on the bridge to avoid any equipment that diminishes the aesthetic quality of this section of Confederation Boulevard.

In [the Wellington Street] section, the tram would operate on batteries only and no overhead wires or structures would be necessary, in keeping with the aesthetic requirements along Confederation Boulevard.

which would not have been my choice.  Much better to have overhead wires than to introduce more complexity into what is already a very complex transit planning problem.

Plus which, let’s be super generous and say Confederation Boulevard is 35 years old (“Planning began in 1982 and construction in 1985.”)  Ottawa had streetcars with overhead wires from approx. 1891 to 1959.  That’s 68 years.  Overhead wires are way more a part of Ottawa’s built heritage aesthetic history than Confederation Boulevard.

UPDATE 2020-07-15: Nevertheless, it appears STO has agreed, as their “Surface Integration on Wellington Street Option” on their website says:

• Arrival by the Portage Bridge without overhead catenary wires.
• At-grade integration on Wellington Street without overhead catenary wires.
• Route continuing along Wellington Street until Elgin Street, in dedicated transit lanes.

END UPDATE

NCC summary:

A presentation was made to the Board of Directors on the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) study for a transit system linking Gatineau’s west end with downtown Gatineau and Ottawa.

The study

• will help to determine the mode (or modes) that would be implemented
• refine the corridors in the west end of Gatineau (Allumettières and Taché)
• define the alignment of the future tram / light rail system (which will take the Portage Bridge) into downtown Ottawa (via a tunnel under Sparks Street or a surface route along Wellington Street).

The NCC is in favour of public and active transportation initiatives in the National Capital Region. In evaluating this project, the NCC will have to ensure that the proposed solutions comply with plans governing the use of federal lands.

The sections of the alignment that affect federal lands will be submitted to the Board of Directors for approval in October 2020 or January 2021.

SIDEBAR:

The STO has launched a consultation on how the proposed tramway should arrive on the Ottawa side.  Should it go on the surface on Wellington or in a tunnel under Sparks?

• detailed background information
• consultation – closes July 19, 2020

END SIDEBAR

For more information about STO’s proposed transit system, you can see my previous blog post proposed rail transit for Gatineau west end – May 2020 update to City of Ottawa.

STO consultation on options for integrating proposed Gatineau west-end rail transit into Ottawa

STO is proposing a rapid transit system in the west end of Gatineau that would connect to Ottawa by a tramway over the Portage Bridge.

They are consulting on the options for integrating this tram on the Ottawa side.  The options they propose are surface rail on Wellington or a tunnel under Sparks.  The consultation closes July 19, 2020.

• Press release June 22, 2020: Connecting public transit between Gatineau and Ottawa – Consultations on options for a future tram linking Gatineau’s west end and the downtowns of both cities now open / Projet structurant de transport collectif entre l’ouest de Gatineau et les centres-villes de Gatineau et d’Ottawa – Consultations sur les options d’aménagement d’un futur tramway

There is a really extensive (as in, very long web page) background overview presenting the analysis and options:

• Dedicated Public Transit System Between Gatineau’s West End and the Downtowns of Gatineau and Ottawa
• Projet structurant de transport collectif entre l’ouest de Gatineau et les centres-villes de Gatineau et d’Ottawa

UPDATE 2020-07-15: There are two options.

One is Surface Integration on Wellington Street, which potentially have three stops, with one rather unexpectedly at Elgin and Queen, a sort of “gateway to Ottawa” location that OC Transpo rejected for an underground station.

Note that these are surface rail (tram) stations, despite using the underground metro emoji 🚇.  Given the location they are likely just to be sidewalk shelters, not actual full stations.

The NCC doesn’t want them to have overhead wires on Portage Bridge or on Wellington, and STO has apparently agreed.

The second option is Tunnel Integration Under Sparks Street with two stops.

These would be underground stations.  They like everything about this option except the cost.

I personally think the cost and space constraints of tunneling under Sparks would mean that Ottawa would again get too-narrow, too-small platforms, as it has with LRT Line 1 underground stations.

END UPDATE

Consultation:

• consultation questionnaire
• questionnaire de la consultation

The consultation closes July 19, 2020.

For more information, you can see my previous blog post proposed rail transit for Gatineau west end – May 2020 update to City of Ottawa.

For more information on the NCC’s requirements, see blog post STO presentation to NCC on Gatineau west-end rail June 2020.

finding BBC Radio audiobooks

The short answer to finding BBC Radio audiobooks that you can listen to outside the UK, is use BBC – Programmes – Categories: Audiobooks – Available now and then look for only the books that say “BBC Radio” after them.  Books that say “BBC Sounds” are not available outside the UK.

This doesn’t cover all of the things you may consider to be audiobooks, as BBC categorizes many of them as “Drama”.  The BBC website doesn’t provide any way to filter out just drama based on books.  It also doesn’t have any way to filter just drama presented on BBC Radio 4 Extra (which is mostly books).

Dramas are also not consistently named.  Sometimes it’s by author.  Sometimes it’s by author and book title.  Sometimes it’s by character name.  e.g.

• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Dick Francis (author) – “Adaptations of the popular thrillers by the British steeplechase jockey turned crime writer.”
• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Jack London – The Sea Wolf (author and title)
• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Miss Marple (character) – “June Whitfield stars as the iconic sleuth created by the queen of the whodunit, Agatha Christie.”
• BBC Radio 4 Extra: Sherlock Holmes (character)

The two main audiobook programs are Book of the Week and Book at Bedtime.

• Book of the Week – BBC Radio 4 – audiobooks, usually in 5 or 10 episodes
  • Note books are only available for a limited time; only books with a speaker icon are actually available online
• Book at Bedtime – BBC Radio 4 – audiobooks, usually in 5 or 10 episodes

It used to be the case that the multipart BBC Radio 4 audiobooks would be made available on BBC Radio 4 Extra in combined omnibus episodes at the end of the week (on Sundays I think), usually one omnibus for every 5 episodes.  However once the current pandemic crisis got underway, BBC Radio 4 Extra stopped posting omnibus editions, so you will have to listen to the individual episodes for now.

SIDEBAR: Don’t use the very similar BBC Sounds – Category – Audiobooks page as it doesn’t show which books are BBC Radio and which ones are BBC Sounds.  END SIDEBAR

The 2021 Unicode Delay and coloured shape sequences for Emoji 13.1

Emojipedia reports

The Unicode Consortium is delaying Unicode 14.0 by six months due to COVID-19.  This means that emojis that would have arrived on phones in 2021 will instead roll out in 2022.

and

Alternatively, Unicode has suggested a Emoji 13.1 release which could fill the gap in 2021. This wouldn’t be able to include new Unicode characters (which need a full Unicode release), but could include sequences.

What is a sequence?  A sequence is a way of creating new emojis by combining existing ones (combining existing code points), rather than creating a new code point.

For example, Polar Bear, planned for 2020, is not a new code point, it is

a ZWJ sequence combining 🐻 Bear, ‍ Zero Width Joiner and ❄ Snowflake

That’s

• Bear 🐻 U+1F43B plus
• Zero Width Joiner U+200D plus
• Snowflake ❄ U+2744

An obvious use for sequences would be to fix the weird codepoint allocation that has gone to making coloured hearts, circles and squares, and some coloured “diamonds”, but no other coloured shapes.

• heart: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown
• circle: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown
• square: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, white, brown
• diamond: small orange, small blue, large orange, large blue (the diamond is really more of a rotated square)

That’s 27 codepoints just to make colours for three different shapes, and another four codepoints to make colours and sizes for another shape.  (I don’t know why there are orange and blue diamonds; I assume they have some cultural meaning.)

It actually is even more complicated than that, because there are multiple codepoints for black and white squares, and it’s not clear whether black and white mean, well, black and white, or more likely mean filled and unfilled, which was the earlier meaning for black and white in pre-emoji Unicode.

• black small square, black medium-small square, black medium square, black large square
• white small square, white medium-small square, white medium square, white large square

There are also separate playing card shapes:

• spade suit ♠ U+2660
• club suit ♣ U+2663
• heart suit (a red heart, again) ♥ U+2665
• diamond suit ♦ U+2666

So a very simple proposal would be to make more colours by using sequences.  Just pick one of the coloured shapes to use as an additional indicator of colour.  Probably the circles, because the squares are complicated.

e.g. make a small yellow diamond with small orange diamond + zero width joiner + yellow circle

What I would really like them to do is make an actual diamond-shaped black diamond, with diamond suit + zero-width joiner + black circle

• diamond suit ♦ U+2666 plus
• Zero Width Joiner U+200D plus
• black circle ⚫ U+26AB

This would create the black diamond I recommend as the liquorice emoji.

 

NCC Interprovincial Transit Strategy 2013

Since everything that goes around comes around, having eliminated all of the interprovincial rail, the NCC circa 2009-2013 tried to conjure up some ideas about bringing it back, as a light rail loop.

There was no money and no plan so the whole thing is moot. This is a historical document only.

In usual NCC fashion, almost all of the documentation has vanished from the web, including the website

www interprovincial-transit-strategy ca

and the archive website

archives ncc-ccn ca/planning/transportation-strategies/interprovincial-transit-strategy

In fact the only thing remaining on the web is the summary hosted by Quebec’s STO – Connecting Communities: An Interprovincial Transit Strategy (PDF).

Some other sites have preserved the report: Action Sandy Hill has the full report in a Google Doc, and City Centre Coalition has all of the annexes/detailed reports as Google Docs.

I saved the presentation deck, and here is the key slide with their imaginary LRT loop.

That diagram is pretty small, basically the idea was that Bayview Station would be the hub with connections across Prince of Wales Bridge, and that rail would also come across the Alexandra Bridge, making a loop.

Here is a a clearer version, from page 52 of Interprovincial Transit Strategy for Canada’s Capital Region: Connecting Communities (January 2013).  From the Action Sandy Hill copy.  I have also put a copy in the Internet Archive.

This post adapted from the NCC Interprovincial Transit Strategy 2013 section of my post Ottawa – Gatineau interprovincial rail.

What is actually being built instead

Ottawa Stage 1 LRT is complete.

Ottawa Stage 2 LRT is under construction, with a further Stage 3 proposed.

Gatineau has proposed a west-end rapid transit system including trams, crossing the Portage Bridge to connect with Ottawa LRT in the downtown core.

The future of the Prince of Wales Bridge

The Prince of Wales Bridge is currently closed.  Wikipedia tells me that it was built in 1880 and last used in 2001.

The disused line runs between Ottawa’s OC Transpo Bayview Station (the Line 1 – Line 2 interchange station), and Gatineau’s STO Rapibus terminus at Station Taché-UQO.

Above Imagery ©2019 Google

STO and OC Transpo

Although it was initially considered for a proposed rail transit connection to Ottawa from Gatineau, it has now been removed from consideration by STO in favour of the Portage Bridge.  The reasons cited for removing it from consideration included that OC Transpo’s Bayview Station wouldn’t have enough capacity, and that Portage delivers passengers more directly to the Ottawa Central Business District.

It does remain on Ottawa’s proposed Stage 3 rail transit map (look for the short purple line in the centre of the map below, connected to Bayview) but without any indication of how it would be used and how it would connect into the existing rail lines.

from slide 109 of the Stage 2 Light Rail Transit Project: Technical Briefing – February 22, 2019 (PDF, Internet Archive) – Stage 3 extensions to Kanata, Barrhaven and across the Prince of Wales Bridge in purple

The only other faint possibility of it ever being used for rail is an STO speculation that it could be a “Potential future link for a west-south route” (following the completion of the proposed Gatineau west-end transit project).  Note that I have changed the colours in the map below to align with more common Ottawa usage.

From slide 11 in STO’s Complementary Study: Public Transit System in Gatineau’s West End – Technical Briefing to City of Ottawa May 15, 2020 (PDF) on STO webpage Update: Progress of the analysis of options for the integration in Ottawa.

So for any possible rail use of the Prince of Wales Bridge you’re into the 2030s timeframe, a decade or more from now.

Current Plans

The current plan is to adapt it for pedestrians and cycling, but there doesn’t seem to be any money allocated for that purpose.

Joanne Chianello writes for CBC Ottawa:

The city of Ottawa bought the Prince of Wales Bridge for $400,000 from Canadian Pacific Railway about 15 years ago for the express purpose of running trains across it one day, and that’s still in the city’s current Transportation Master Plan.

But last fall, the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau announced that plans for rail over the bridge were off.

“It would congest … Bayview station, and secondly, Gatineau has been pursuing their LRT project and they too have ruled it out as a bridge that would be used for transit,” Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said last September.

Both Watson and Gatineau Mayor Maxime-Pedneaud Jobin are hoping to use the bridge instead as a pedestrian and bike crossing.

from CBC Ottawa – Gatineau wants to run light rail over Portage Bridge

Also see the Mayors’ joint announcement from September 2019 as reported in CBC Ottawa – Mayors rule out Prince of Wales Bridge for transit link.

UPDATE 2020-05-19: Also see Analysis: Rejection of Prince of Wales Bridge illustrates difficulty of planning Ottawa-Gatineau rail link by Jon Willing in the Ottawa Citizen.

For historical completeness, there was an NCC Interprovincial Transit “Strategy” in 2013 that had trains going from Bayview Station across the Prince of Wales Bridge to connect with STO transit, and also had a rail connection across Alexandra Bridge.  But it was totally unfunded so it is moot.

proposed rail transit for Gatineau west end – May 2020 update to City of Ottawa

On May 15, 2020 the Gatineau transit agency, the STO (la Société de transport de l’Outaouais) presented a technical briefing to the City of Ottawa about its studies into improved transit on the Quebec side that would run basically from Place du Portage to Aylmer.  There was a particular focus on how the proposed transit, previously narrowed down to include trams (streetcars) in all three options, would land in Ottawa (the language used is Options d’insertion à Ottawa which is standard French urban planning terminology that does not lend itself to a literal translation).

This is about a tram that would cross Portage Bridge from Gatineau to Ottawa and is proposed to deliver passengers somewhere along Wellington Street or Sparks Street, at least as far as Lyon Station, but possibly as far as Parliament Station or even farther east.

Note that this system is nowhere near being funded and approved yet.

UPDATE 2020-06-27: The STO has launched a consultation on how the proposed tramway should arrive on the Ottawa side.  Should it go on the surface on Wellington or in a tunnel under Sparks?

• detailed background information
• consultation – closes July 19, 2020

END UPDATE

There is an STO press release in French only:

• Étude de l’ouest : Options d’insertion à Ottawa retenues pour la suite de l’étude

The City of Ottawa also did press releases:

• City of Ottawa receives presentation on STO study to link transit between Ottawa and Gatineau
• La Ville d’Ottawa reçoit une présentation sur l’étude de la Société de transport de l’Outaouais pour la création d’une liaison de transport en commun reliant Ottawa et Gatineau

I have to say you would be hard pressed to understand exactly what is being proposed from the Ottawa press releases. The STO one is not super clear on the Portage Bridge part, although it does make the two options for landing in Ottawa clear: either on the surface along Wellington Street, or in a tunnel under Sparks Street.

deux options d’aménagement d’un tramway sont retenues pour la suite de l’étude :

* Une insertion en surface sur la rue Wellington;
* Une insertion en tunnel sous la rue Sparks.

Rather than burying the lede, here’s the key slide from the STO presentation:

From slide 29 in  STO’s Complementary Study: Public Transit System in Gatineau’s West End – Technical Briefing to City of Ottawa May 15, 2020 (PDF) on STO webpage Update: Progress of the analysis of options for the integration in Ottawa.

Why Portage?

These two slides from the May 2020 presentation sum up their analysis:

From slides 11 and 12 in STO’s Complementary Study: Public Transit System in Gatineau’s West End – Technical Briefing to City of Ottawa May 15, 2020 (PDF) on STO webpage Update: Progress of the analysis of options for the integration in Ottawa.

Why a Tramway?

As seen in this slide from the January 30, 2020 update (presentation available in French only), STO’s study recommends a tramway because the bus-only options don’t have enough capacity for a scenario of 7,000 – 7,500 riders per peak hour over the next 15 years.  Also note that to meet that projected demand they’re planning for a future with a tram every 2.4 minutes.

From slide 23 in Étude complémentaire pour la réalisation d’un système de transport collectif structurant dans l’ouest de la ville de Gatineau – Breffage technique 30 janvier 2020 (PDF) on STO webpage Update on the additional study.

Three Scenarios

As a reminder, here are the three scenarios being considered on the Gatineau side: all-tram (T1), hybrid with rail (in blue) to the north and bus rapid transit (in green) to the south (H1), and hybrid with rail (in blue) to the south and bus rapid transit (in green) to the north (H2).

From slide 24 of Étude complémentaire pour la réalisation d’un système de transport collectif structurant dans l’ouest de la ville de Gatineau – Breffage technique 30 janvier 2020 (PDF) on STO webpage Update on the additional study.

STO and City of Ottawa Information

• Mise à jour : Avancement des analyses d’insertion au centre-ville d’Ottawa
• Update: Progress of the analysis of options for the integration in Ottawa

The STO presentation is available:

• Étude complémentaire pour la réalisation d’un système de transport collectif structurant dans l’ouest de la ville de Gatineau – Breffage technique à la Ville d’Ottawa 15 mai 2020 (PDF) – or Internet Archive copy
• STO’s Complementary [Additional] Study: Public Transit System in Gatineau’s West End – Technical Briefing to City of Ottawa May 15, 2020 (PDF) – or Internet Archive copy

The City of Ottawa info is very high-level and basically just tells you to read the STO webpages.

• Public Transit System for Gatineau’s West End – Complementary [Additional] Study
• Étude complémentaire pour la réalisation d’un système de transport collectif structurant dans l’ouest de la ville de Gatineau

You can watch a recording of the briefing on YouTube.  Note that it’s a Zoom meeting so there is a lot happening on screen sometimes (multiple video windows).

• English video
• French video

Next Steps

June 2020: On-line public consultation for Ottawa and Gatineau.  Until then, email contact addresses are available:

• Ottawa – Residents can submit questions or comments at STOwesttransitouest@ottawa.ca
• Gatineau – D’ici là, nous vous invitons à nous faire part de vos questions ou commentaires généraux à l’adresse etudedelouest@sto.ca

July 2020: Transportation Committee and Council – present recommended plan for integration in Ottawa

SIDEBAR: What’s Old is New Again

I couldn’t resist bringing forward this comparison from my first blog post in this series, showing that the proposed new rail infrastructure echos rail infrastructure we already had and tore up.  The earlier STO map I have chosen shows rail options across either Prince of Wales or Alexandra, which emphasizes in a way that they both used to be rail bridges (Portage was never a rail bridge).

If you put the proposed Gatineau (orange) and Ottawa (red) commuter rail map up against the rail that existed in a map from the Greber Plan (all the black lines on the second map below), it’s pretty striking that with the tracks curving along either side of the river we’re trying to recreate some of what already existed. (You can literally still see the ghost of the old rail line to Aylmer in the curve of what is now a vehicle road by the river.)

Above from Greber Plan: Plate 12 Réseau Ferroviaire Existant Ottawa – Hull and Environs 1948 as made available on the Town and Crown website, 1950 Plan for the National Capital: General Report (Greber Plan) – List of Plates Contained in the Atlas.

END SIDEBAR

Prince of Wales Bridge

If you want to find out more about the various (unfunded) proposals for using the bridge, see my post The future of the Prince of Wales Bridge.

Previously

I’ve done three previous blog posts related to the Gatineau west-end rapid transit proposal, with a lot of detail about the history of interprovincial rail including old photos and videos:

May 31, 2019  proposed rail transit for Gatineau west end including rail across Portage Bridge
February 10, 2019  proposed Gatineau west-end rail project

February 13, 2019  Ottawa – Gatineau interprovincial rail

Disclaimer

Check with the City of Gatineau and the STO website for updates and for the official word on the specific rail line routes and stations for Gatineau west-end rail.

Live in Ontario, Work in Quebec – The taxing tale of the Quebec Releve 1 form

If you’re working on preparing your taxes, and you live in Ontario and work in Quebec (or live in any other province and work in Quebec), there’s a tax form you need to know about.

I mention this because I worked in Quebec for two years before even finding out this form existed.

Revenu Québec has a form called the Relevé 1 – Revenus d’emploi et revenus divers, the RL-1 form.

If you work in Quebec the RL-1 will contain important information, most notably income tax that has been deducted from your Quebec pay.  While you may also have a T4, the Quebec information is not on your T4.

If you don’t include the RL-1 information in your tax filing, and you had income tax deducted from your Quebec pay, you could end up unnecessarily and incorrectly paying thousands of dollars in additional taxes.

You may have questions.

The TL;DR is you need to get the RL-1 from your employer directly, and make sure you manually add the RL-1 information (after entering T4 info) into any tax preparation software or paper forms for tax filing.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: I download my tax forms including the T4 from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).  Won’t the RL-1 be included with that?
  A: No.
• Q: I download TurboTax for Windows to do my taxes every year.  Won’t TurboTax automatically download the RL-1?
  A: No.
• Q: When I say that I work in Quebec but I’m filing in Ontario, won’t TurboTax remind me to check if I have an RL-1?
  A: No.
• Q: When I file my taxes saying that I work in Quebec but live in another province, won’t CRA detect the missing RL-1 form and notify me?
  A: No.
• Q: If I work for the Government of Canada, won’t I get a reminder that I need to download an RL-1 form in addition to a T4?
  A: No.
• Q: Won’t the Government of Canada’s pay system remind me to also download the RL-1 when I download my T4?
  A: No.
• Q: Can’t I just create a Revenu Québec account and download the RL-1 form directly?
  A: No.  Only Québec residents can create a Revenu Québec account.  If you try going through your bank to authorize an account it will just fail when you enter your SIN and birthdate.

• Q: How do taxes work if you live in one province and work in another? Which province’s taxes do you pay?
  A: You always pay the taxes for your province of residence.  e.g. if you live in Ontario but work in Quebec, you pay Ontario taxes.  The provinces have arrangements to sort out the money behind the scenes.

Summary

Get the RL-1 form from your employer.  (In addition to any T4s.)

If you work for the Government of Canada, to get the Relevé 1 in Phoenix select Self Service -> Payroll and Compensation -> View RL-1
(There is a separate menu item to download your T4s in Phoenix.)

In the download version of TurboTax, in guided tax preparation mode, when it asks the forms that you have to enter, you must manually check the Relevé 1 form option.  Then enter the T4 data first.  Then when it gets to the Relevé 1 entry you must Edit the Relevé 1 form to manually enter the missing fields (it will pre-fill some information from your T4 but the software literally has no idea what the remaining Relevé 1 values are). Most importantly, edit the RL-1 form in TurboTax to enter the amount of income tax deducted from your Québec pay.

If you need to ReFILE

If you are using TurboTax download version and have to refile taxes from previous years because your RL-1 form was missing, do not click “Change a filed return”. Click “Continue your return” and then click “Change return” under “Your Federal return” in the FILE section at the end of the guided return process.

Go back to the beginning of guided tax preparation mode, select that you have a Relevé 1 form, and then on the Relevé 1 screen, click edit to make the changes.  Then at the end of the process click ReFILE.

Disclaimer

I am not a tax preparation professional and this is not professional advice.