OC Transpo

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Taxpayers are already paying 15% of their entire tax bill for a service hardly any of them use, by far the largest line item outside of welfare. The CBC wants them to pay more to maintain a level of service that is impractical without commuters who now work from home or remotely from outside Ottawa.

I fail to see what the long term vision is for your proposed solution. Further service cuts implies succumbing to the death spiral and imagining a mobility strategy that doesn't include transit. From there where do you go? There's the pipe dream that you could "one more lane bro" your way out of traffic hell, but look at cities like Dallas, with five-level interchanges and a freeway bisecting DFW airport, yet still they still have crippling traffic but no hope of ever growing their negligible transit modal share in a way that complements the layout of the city/metro.

People need to lay off the CFRA outrage p*rn and get the idea out of their heads that just because they rarely or never set foot on a transit vehicle, that they don't see any return on the tax dollars they invest in the service.

How those tax dollars are allocated within the transit budget is a whole different conversation. Chasing after commuters, when it's clear public servants have their butts parked at home the majority of the week despite return to office orders, is pointless. Get serious and re-design the network around all-day/week transit users and watch usage skyrocket.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

I fail to see what the long term vision is for your proposed solution. Further service cuts implies succumbing to the death spiral and imagining a mobility strategy that doesn't include transit. From there where do you go? There's the pipe dream that you could "one more lane bro" your way out of traffic hell, but look at cities like Dallas, with five-level interchanges and a freeway bisecting DFW airport, yet still they still have crippling traffic but no hope of ever growing their negligible transit modal share in a way that complements the layout of the city/metro.

People need to lay off the CFRA outrage p*rn and get the idea out of their heads that just because they rarely or never set foot on a transit vehicle, that they don't see any return on the tax dollars they invest in the service.

How those tax dollars are allocated within the transit budget is a whole different conversation. Chasing after commuters, when it's clear public servants have their butts parked at home the majority of the week despite return to office orders, is pointless. Get serious and re-design the network around all-day/week transit users and watch usage skyrocket.

Death spiral is melodramatic. Ottawa needs to adjust its transit service to align with reality that it is a service primarily for captive users, with a small market for more affluent users in some central neighborhoods and a niche TOD business along the LRT.

All-day/week transit is magical thinking in a city with Ottawa’s geography. No level of service is going to induce car-owning suburbanites to use transit as their “daily driver.”

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Death spiral is melodramatic. Ottawa needs to adjust its transit service to align with reality that it is a service primarily for captive users, with a small market for more affluent users in some central neighborhoods and a niche TOD business along the LRT.

All-day/week transit is magical thinking in a city with Ottawa’s geography. No level of service is going to induce car-owning suburbanites to use transit as their “daily driver.”

Some transit is a service to the poor. Their time isn't worth as much so they need all day but infrequent service is fine. The frequent service to get the kids and suburbun commuters is nearly hopeless. Transit has some support with this group because they hope some of their neighbours will use it and thus free the 417 lanes for themselves. We need a congestion charge. Especially as we can capture the huge number of Quebec and exurban drivers flooding our streets. Use this to provide decent service and paying $10 to enter a congestionless centre is a good deal for many.

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Death spiral is melodramatic. Ottawa needs to adjust its transit service to align with reality that it is a service primarily for captive users, with a small market for more affluent users in some central neighborhoods and a niche TOD business along the LRT.

All-day/week transit is magical thinking in a city with Ottawa’s geography. No level of service is going to induce car-owning suburbanites to use transit as their “daily driver.”

Still ignoring the consideration about traffic. Which is fine, my first comment alluded to the fact we’re going to need to see unbearable traffic before we start investing in transit again, it’s just a shame that you and people on council and in city staff want to let it get to that point first.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Still ignoring the consideration about traffic. Which is fine, my first comment alluded to the fact we’re going to need to see unbearable traffic before we start investing in transit again, it’s just a shame that you and people on council and in city staff want to let it get to that point first.

Council and staff hope to bring the city to its knees to build consensus for tax increases to pay for their transit dreams. The war on cars continues. An actual war on cars by a massive removal of parking, congestion charge and the like is of course off the table because they prefer to constantly increase congestion in small increments obfuscating their real goal.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Still ignoring the consideration about traffic. Which is fine, my first comment alluded to the fact we’re going to need to see unbearable traffic before we start investing in transit again, it’s just a shame that you and people on council and in city staff want to let it get to that point first.

What’s the consideration about traffic? Running empty buses does not reduce traffic. Jacking up taxes to put more empty buses on the road does not help traffic.

[Admiral Nelson]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

The war on cars continues. An actual war on cars by a massive removal of parking, congestion charge and the like is of course off the table because they prefer to constantly increase congestion in small increments obfuscating their real goal.

You say that as if creating reasonable alternatives for people who can't/don't want to drive in a 21st century city is somehow a bad thing.

There's no obfuscation and no conspiracy. Just pro-human, pro-urbanism/8-80 cities planning. A damn good thing we at least pretend to have those ideas at the fore nowadays.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Admiral Nelson

You say that as if creating reasonable alternatives for people who can't/don't want to drive in a 21st century city is somehow a bad thing.

There's no obfuscation and no conspiracy. Just pro-human, pro-urbanism/8-80 cities planning. A damn good thing we at least pretend to have those ideas at the fore nowadays.

Well providing alternatives is one thing. The complete streets are more about strangling traffic than providing alternatives. Closing the QED is only about chasing away cars. We have dozens of little irritations that I bet are made by staff. Of course some is residents not wanting cars barrelling through where they live though some of these are long standing thoroughfares that residents want to change.

My point is if we want to make active oriented city we need to make more drastic changes. The problems is the voters of the city dont really want that. They want their little cookie cutter houses with their own patch of grass. There is no universe where we can deliver regular all day transit service to the sprawling city people want to live in, let along the continued expansion.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

What’s the consideration about traffic? Running empty buses does not reduce traffic. Jacking up taxes to put more empty buses on the road does not help traffic.

Why would the buses be empty? As a general rule, more service equals more ridership.

It also means a viable alternative so we don’t need to spend money on more roads. In my opinion, the wasted money is a spending on a car-based city that is unsustainable. We’re just pushing the reckoning down the road (literally) instead of getting ahead of it.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by phil235

Why would the buses be empty? As a general rule, more service equals more ridership.

It also means a viable alternative so we don’t need to spend money on more roads. In my opinion, the wasted money is a spending on a car-based city that is unsustainable. We’re just pushing the reckoning down the road (literally) instead of getting ahead of it.

You actually believe this? Let's imagine a billionaire offered to bankroll unlimited expansion of our transit system. What level of service do you imagine would allow us to stop maintaining roads? It's nonsense. Even the modest expansion of roads is more about connecting new neighborhoods than adding any real capacity. People who live in vast tracts of suburban housing aren't taking transit to kids activities and grocery shopping. Even in Europe where people settle for squished together town houses the level of taxation required for adequate transit is substantial and still doesn't replace the need for vehicles from suburban errands for the most part. Totally accepting it does allow an urban dweller to easily be carless.

Anyway we are not approving any substantial increase in the property tax portion going to Transit and the ridership of captive civil servants seems gone so routes will need to be self supporting. Barring upper level government bailouts we are in real trouble. Interest rates alone blow up the math on the phase 2 expansion even if ridership was at pre pandemic levels.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

Why would the buses be empty? As a general rule, more service equals more ridership.

It also means a viable alternative so we don’t need to spend money on more roads. In my opinion, the wasted money is a spending on a car-based city that is unsustainable. We’re just pushing the reckoning down the road (literally) instead of getting ahead of it.

Where is there evidence of a general rule that more bus service leads to more ridership?

Whether or not Ottawa should be a car-based city is a hypothetical discussion that has no bearing on reality. That ship has already sailed, 90% of the city (except downtown and a few pre-WWI streetcar suburbs) is entirely based on a car. Adding more buses that nobody has any incentive to take does not change this reality. In a car-based city, transit is only practical to bring people to a central hub such as a downtown. With the current government trying to make WFH permanent, there will never be a viable model for transit outside of those few pre-WWI neighborhoods and buses for special occasions.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

You actually believe this? Let's imagine a billionaire offered to bankroll unlimited expansion of our transit system. What level of service do you imagine would allow us to stop maintaining roads? It's nonsense. Even the modest expansion of roads is more about connecting new neighborhoods than adding any real capacity. People who live in vast tracts of suburban housing aren't taking transit to kids activities and grocery shopping. Even in Europe where people settle for squished together town houses the level of taxation required for adequate transit is substantial and still doesn't replace the need for vehicles from suburban errands for the most part. Totally accepting it does allow an urban dweller to easily be carless.

Anyway we are not approving any substantial increase in the property tax portion going to Transit and the ridership of captive civil servants seems gone so routes will need to be self supporting. Barring upper level government bailouts we are in real trouble. Interest rates alone blow up the math on the phase 2 expansion even if ridership was at pre pandemic levels.

Also, buses use roads. Measures to hinder cars also hinder buses (unless it is a bus lane which this city refuses to do).

[phil235]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Where is there evidence of a general rule that more bus service leads to more ridership?

Whether or not Ottawa should be a car-based city is a hypothetical discussion that has no bearing on reality. That ship has already sailed, 90% of the city (except downtown and a few pre-WWI streetcar suburbs) is entirely based on a car. Adding more buses that nobody has any incentive to take does not change this reality. In a car-based city, transit is only practical to bring people to a central hub such as a downtown. With the current government trying to make WFH permanent, there will never be a viable model for transit outside of those few pre-WWI neighborhoods and buses for special occasions.

I thought that the relationship between transit frequency and ridership was pretty widely known. Here is a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9759415/

Or just read any number of articles on Human Transit.

Meanwhile, you’ve made any number of assumptions that don’t reflect reality. For one, this government is not making WFH permanent, it has a hybrid model in place. People still have to go into the office. And people do go places other than work. In bigger cities with better transit, this is actually quite a common occurrence.

Ottawa is going to be a bigger city in the future. To say it is car-based now and there is nothing we can possibly do about that yet in’s incredibly short-sighted. Cities need to plan for the future and as Ottawa grows, transit necessarily becomes a bigger and bigger part of that.

[lrt's friend]

I have been following this discussion and I am stunned.

Let the city choke with traffic congestion, congestion charges, focusing service only in the most urban locations, to serve only those who are transit dependent, while jobs move to the suburbs.

First, if jobs flee from downtown, and that is exactly what is currently happening, how do people go car-free, if there is little transit where the jobs are in the suburbs?

Any city that wants to implement congestion charges, invests heavily in transit first. There has to be a viable alternative.

Nobody in their right mind should want their city to be choking on traffic. This is about quality of life, and not about punishing people especially when there are no alternative way to get around. And for the vast majority who need to use a bus for part or all of their journey, buses will be caught in worsening traffic as well.

If we offer no reasonable transit to the suburbs, the urban parts of the city will also be choking on traffic as well.

A transit death spiral, which will happen when we limit service in most parts of the city, will lead to higher costs in the long run. Many cities in the USA have spent a fortune on rail but without a good supporting bus network feeding it, ridership is always disappointing. Often rail implementation, results in lower transit ridership. Sound familiar??

[DTcrawler]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have been following this discussion and I am stunned.

Let the city choke with traffic congestion, congestion charges, focusing service only in the most urban locations, to serve only those who are transit dependent, while jobs move to the suburbs.

First, if jobs flee from downtown, and that is exactly what is currently happening, how do people go car-free, if there is little transit where the jobs are in the suburbs?

Any city that wants to implement congestion charges, invests heavily in transit first. There has to be a viable alternative.

Nobody in their right mind should want their city to be choking on traffic. This is about quality of life, and not about punishing people especially when there are no alternative way to get around. And for the vast majority who need to use a bus for part or all of their journey, buses will be caught in worsening traffic as well.

If we offer no reasonable transit to the suburbs, the urban parts of the city will also be choking on traffic as well.

A transit death spiral, which will happen when we limit service in most parts of the city, will lead to higher costs in the long run. Many cities in the USA have spent a fortune on rail but without a good supporting bus network feeding it, ridership is always disappointing. Often rail implementation, results in lower transit ridership. Sound familiar??

I’m confused by what you mean when you keep saying jobs are moving to the suburbs. The only example I can think of was DND moving to Carling but that was long ago. Tech in Kanata North has always been suburban but if anything that’s the sector with the highest WFH-office ratio.

As for choking the city with traffic, I don’t know who in their right mind would want that but that’s clearly the direction the city is going by way of its decisions and the direction given to elected officials by most voters. “We want to drive everywhere and we want high quality services to serve our low density cookie cutter homes and we don’t want to pay much in taxes for it”.

Current council doesn’t care about the burden it’s creating for future councils and generations of residents, they just care about saving face with the vocal minority of voters who come to town halls and cry about fiscal irresponsibility because that’s the type of buzzword they hear on CFRA. That’s in the suburbs, but our urban representatives aren’t much better when they seem to have fallen to the other extreme of the spectrum by taking the position that it doesn’t matter how inefficient transit is at getting you somewhere in decent time, so long as it’s an option for our “unhoused populations” and safe haven for “neighbours who choose to use drugs”.

Meanwhile, nothing is going to stop Ottawa’s rapid pace of growth, until we reach a point where we’re no longer a medium-big city that can sort of scrape by without a serious transit system, and instead a big city that’s constantly snarled by traffic with no alternative option because the transit system has been gutted to the bones and whatever is left of it is out of the question for many entitled residents here who feel they’re above using transit.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by phil235

I thought that the relationship between transit frequency and ridership was pretty widely known. Here is a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9759415/

Or just read any number of articles on Human Transit.

The executive summary says

When observing the variation within each route-segment over time, however, ridership is inelastic; each additional vehicle-trip is expected to generate less ridership than the average bus already on the route.

Which is exactly the point I am trying to make. If you have a suburban route with 5 passengers, adding more buses will each have fewer than five passengers.

Originally Posted by phil235

Meanwhile, you’ve made any number of assumptions that don’t reflect reality. For one, this government is not making WFH permanent, it has a hybrid model in place. People still have to go into the office. And people do go places other than work. In bigger cities with better transit, this is actually quite a common occurrence.

Hybrid working is not being very consistently applied. People who move more than 125km away are exempt, people that have a doctors note that gives them some sort of office-related anxiety are exempt, and even for the the rest many people some to be not doing their two days in the office or doing part days. Many offices can no longer accommodate the staff they have so people are going home because there is no workspace.

Yes people go other places than for work, but in a low-density, car-focused city it is impractical to provide transit that is more attractive than the car for going to "other places."

For example, when we lived in Gloucester, train yards was a 5-10 minute drive depending on traffic. Bus was 30 minutes to an hour depending on how far we were willing to walk. Increasing frequency would bring that down slightly, but still many multiples of the driving time. Plus if we drove we could make purchases that may not have been easy to bring back on the bus.

Originally Posted by phil235

Ottawa is going to be a bigger city in the future. To say it is car-based now and there is nothing we can possibly do about that yet in’s incredibly short-sighted. Cities need to plan for the future and as Ottawa grows, transit necessarily becomes a bigger and bigger part of that.

Fine, but what are the policies the city is currently implementing that will lead to a different form factor in the future? The future doesn't occur in a vaccuum, it is the direct result of previous policy decisions.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have been following this discussion and I am stunned.

Let the city choke with traffic congestion, congestion charges, focusing service only in the most urban locations, to serve only those who are transit dependent, while jobs move to the suburbs.

First, if jobs flee from downtown, and that is exactly what is currently happening, how do people go car-free, if there is little transit where the jobs are in the suburbs?

Any city that wants to implement congestion charges, invests heavily in transit first. There has to be a viable alternative.

Nobody in their right mind should want their city to be choking on traffic. This is about quality of life, and not about punishing people especially when there are no alternative way to get around. And for the vast majority who need to use a bus for part or all of their journey, buses will be caught in worsening traffic as well.

If we offer no reasonable transit to the suburbs, the urban parts of the city will also be choking on traffic as well.

A transit death spiral, which will happen when we limit service in most parts of the city, will lead to higher costs in the long run. Many cities in the USA have spent a fortune on rail but without a good supporting bus network feeding it, ridership is always disappointing. Often rail implementation, results in lower transit ridership. Sound familiar??

Where is people going car-free identified as an objective? None of the city, federal or provincial government have implemented any policies or funding that would facilitate people going car-free outside of a few central neighbourhoods or a few TOD sites. Nobody living in a typical Ottawa suburb who has the means to own a car has any incentive to go car free, or if they did it would be because they calculated uber fares are cheaper than car-related costs (which doesn't help traffic or transit).

Unused or lightly-used transit is not a solution to traffic.

It isn't really a death spiral, it is just returning to the mean. Ottawa had unusually high levels of transit usage in the suburbs because federal policies (mainly parking policies) incentivized people to take transit, which made it feasible to run higher frequency services during rush hour to get these people into central Ottawa (and also provided a source of revenue). The federal government has changed its policies, which are no longer conducive to transit in the suburbs. OCTranspo needs to adjust to this reality.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by DTcrawler

Meanwhile, nothing is going to stop Ottawa’s rapid pace of growth, until we reach a point where we’re no longer a medium-big city that can sort of scrape by without a serious transit system, and instead a big city that’s constantly snarled by traffic with no alternative option because the transit system has been gutted to the bones and whatever is left of it is out of the question for many entitled residents here who feel they’re above using transit.

Ottawa's rapid pace of growth is directly related to massive increases in foreign students/immigration and massive increases in the public service. Both trends are slowing even under the Liberals and will likely slow faster if the Tories win the election next year.

Even if that pace of growth continues, the 905 didn't start to get much transit until the GTA had a population of many millions, so there is quite a ways to go.

[eltodesukane]

"...Meanwhile, nothing is going to stop Ottawa’s rapid pace of growth..."

The metro area population of Ottawa-Gatineau in 2023 was 1,437,000, a 0.98% increase from 2022.

The metro area population of Vancouver in 2023 was 2,657,000, a 0.95% increase from 2022.

The metro area population of Toronto in 2023 was 6,372,000, a 0.93% increase from 2022.

The metro area population of Montreal in 2023 was 4,308,000, a 0.72% increase from 2022.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by phil235

I thought that the relationship between transit frequency and ridership was pretty widely known. Here is a study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9759415/

Or just read any number of articles on Human Transit.

Meanwhile, you’ve made any number of assumptions that don’t reflect reality. For one, this government is not making WFH permanent, it has a hybrid model in place. People still have to go into the office. And people do go places other than work. In bigger cities with better transit, this is actually quite a common occurrence.

Ottawa is going to be a bigger city in the future. To say it is car-based now and there is nothing we can possibly do about that yet in’s incredibly short-sighted. Cities need to plan for the future and as Ottawa grows, transit necessarily becomes a bigger and bigger part of that.

AC has covered most of these issues so I don't want to repeat. I don't think anyone is saying that increased frequency won't add riders. In the same way that lower fares will add riders. The question is the elasticity of both. Free transit with 5 minute service on every bus route would certainly increase ridership. Though even a lot of that would replace walking biking or simply induce demand. We'd still be left with the same road budget and even a lot of the same traffic problems. The claim (mostly correct) that new roads are simply filled with traffic holds here. Any drop in traffic on the 417 from Kanata will be filled by more people moving there as those along the way get out of their cars and ride the bus.

All of that pie in the sky a car free city stuff doesn't matter as was aid our politicians as directed by voters are not pursuing anything like that. We have to decide what parts of our transit system to maintain. I would argue a basic level of service for those without the means to drive to get to work and commuters that continue to work downtown should be the priority. There is no appetite for increased taxes to pay for more so cuts are coming it's just a matter of where.