OC Transpo

[DTcrawler]

I was shocked to learn yesterday that OCT is still running E1 “express” buses between Blair station and downtown during rush hour. I had to commute to Blair station yesterday morning and saw an E1 bus starting its run at the bus loop as I was leaving the station. I counted a whole seven passengers get on this bus at approx. 8:10am which is pretty much the height of rush hour, when you’d expect loads to be the heaviest. Checking the schedule just now, I’m even more shocked to learn that this route operates every 10 min for 2.5 hours during morning rush and for three hours in the afternoon.

Where to begin? OCT deems it necessary to halve off peak frequency on Line 1 to save $1M yet it’s acceptable to be running a redundant bus service during rush hour for a handful of passengers? Not to mention, per the schedule, E1 only shaves a whole two minutes off the morning commute from Blair to Lyon stations compared to the O-Train (20 min vs. 22 min). And given the traffic situation these days, I’d bet in reality Line 1 is actually faster from Blair to downtown. Is there any good reason this route is operating or is it just another example of how OCT has lost the plot?