Posted Apr 9, 2025, 2:47 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Nepean
Posts: 2,666
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Back in the ‘90s, Ottawa’s public transit system was completely bus based. There were exclusive transit corridors, the Transitways, that enabled buses to move quickly from one area of town to another, away from the interference of general traffic.
Was transit perfect in the ‘90s? Of course not. Buses, especially those that did not run along the various Transitways, were often late. There were issues of buses being removed from runs because they were so late that they were over-taken by later runs. “Sorry for being late – my bus didn’t come.” was not an unheard apology back then either. The difference is the frequency that it was used. It was occasional back then; but much more common now.
The huge transit investments that have been made recently are mostly to change the mode of the Transitways from being bus roadways to railways. This is not a cheap conversion. Where as a paved strip of roadway is ‘low-tech’, modern railways are anything but simple. And the price for electrified rail infrastructure is quickly becoming much more expensive. This is a big problem because, in order to be useful, a rail-based system needs to be complete. i.e., A train can not detour onto the street to bypass an unfinished section of track.
Fundamentally, a bus-based Transitway system and a rail-based Trunk Line system are different. A bus can function as a ‘Local’ bus, picking up passengers throughout a neighbourhood before it jumps onto a bus-only expressway to get to another part of town, where it again running as a ‘Local’ bus to distribute those passengers. This has the benefit of providing a single seat ride between distant areas with minimal slowdowns. It has a relatively low construction cost but, because of the rather small capacity of each bus, requires high operating costs for the many buses needed for a high-capacity system. If there is a problem within the Transitway system, buses can be temporarily diverted onto parallel roadways.
Trains run on Trunk Lines to provide a very high capacity between two areas. But trains do not leave that Trunk route. Local bus service is still needed to pick up passengers in their neighbourhoods and then again to distribute them to their final destination. This generally involves transfers onto and off of the train; and, potentially, also between trains if the passenger needs to change directions. The high capacity of each train can reduce the cost of operators vis-à-vis buses, but is most effective when moving large number of passengers. If the trains are sparsely filled, they can be more expensive to run than buses. This can lead to a reduction of train frequency in an effort to better use their capacity. i.e., it is harder to ‘Right Size’ the service with a balance of frequency, capacity, and cost when the vehicles are very large. A big issue for transit systems that have rail lines comes when there is a problem on a rail line. There suddenly needs to be another high-capacity way of moving the passengers past the problem point. Usually this involves running shuttle buses – but that means that the transit agency needs to have a ready back-up supply of buses and drivers.
Personally, I think that it was a mistake to switch from a bus-based system to a hybrid one; where back-bone routes are provided by rail lines. The promises that trains would ‘fix’ capacity problems while saving a large amount of operating cost where, in my opinion, over-sold.
However, that is one opinion, and, apparently, not the opinion of the city staff and political leaders of the day. The train has left the station, and the only option now is to continue to pay increasingly more to complete the lines and operate them.
(Luckily, it is only public money; and there seem to be no real consequences for making bad decisions with regards to the use of it.)
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