Quote:
Originally Posted by 1overcosc
Yes, a thousand times yes.
The main reason why the Transitway is such a nightmare is because of all the neighbourhood express routes. There's literally dozens of bus routes on the Transitway and people will clog up the platforms waiting 10-15 minutes for THEIR bus as dozens of other buses pass by.
With the Confederation Line, every train is your train. I'd hate to see Ottawa pollute this with excessive interlining of four or five services in the tunnel.
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Yes, I understand that the express bus system has to go, but a single transit line system through downtown is not going to make downtown, Ottawa's meeting place of the future. You are going from one extreme to the other. Dozens of routes to one.
You know, interlining is such a boogey-man concept yet countless cities apply it with great success. It is a necessary concept in many cities because the ability to build additional routes is prohibitive. The situation in San Francisco really parallels Ottawa's situation. San Francisco has to interline because of the cost of building another route under San Francisco Bay is far too expensive. It is very true in Ottawa where we cannot afford to build another tunnel for decades to come. You should read about the history of San Francisco's transit system. The Key system formerly ran on the Oakland Bay Bridge but required transfers at both ends of the bridge. Yes, every train was your train when crossing between San Francisco and Oakland, but it was those extra transfers that soon made it uncompetitive with cars crossing the same bridge and the system closed in 1958 after only 20 years of service. When it was replaced with BART in the 1970s, interlining was used to provide direct service between downtown San Francisco and many parts of Oakland and other suburbs thus eliminating the Key System failure of requiring transfers between Oakland and San Francisco.
I repeat, I don't expect direct service to my door, however, if you want me to make a habit of using transit to travel downtown for events other than for work, I expect transit to offer something that is reasonably convenient. The Confederation Line and Trillium Line combination fails to do so.