Originally Posted by Richard Eade
I was down at Ottawa BLUESFEST last night, and took the Confederation Line west when leaving. Here is my impression.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were tens of thousands of people there, but there was NO EXCESSIVE CONTROL. There were NO FENCES OR RESTRICTIONS on where we could walk. What a difference from Canada Day (2-years ago).
When there are no fences trying to corral people, they can better ‘zipper’ into lines and decide late that they are on the wrong side and make a change – without causing interference.
Kudos to OC Transpo for having LOTS of RED-JACKETS holding signs informing people – but not restricting movements – about where to go to catch the trains. Their suggestions led westbound passengers – following the orange signs (good idea, OC Transpo to colour-separate the flows) to enter PIMISI on the west, and eastbound travelers – following blue signs – to enter on the east. This really smoothed the flow down to the platforms.
And, ALL OF THE FARE GATES WERE OPEN. WOW! It was as if OC Transpo was finally putting customers first.
The train came along about a minute later. I didn’t even have time to remember to check the train frequency.
There was a bit of confusion at Tunney’s Pasture, since the display told us that the # 61 bus was in 3 minutes, at Stop B. Standing at Stop B, we watched the # 61 drive by and stop at the ‘Night Stop’. We ran back and jumped in the back door. Standing-room, but not ‘Crush Load’. Oddly, the # 61 weaved through Westboro, along Richmond, Woodroffe, and Carling to get to Lincoln Fields. Definitely a lot longer route than I expected. There must have been a detour from the Parkway in place.
I was with my sister-in-law – who doesn’t take transit since she left school many years ago. Her comments when we got to Lincoln Fields?
“Wow! That was so easy. I was worried about taking the train, but it wasn’t over crowded, and it was fast. If I’d known that it was that easy, I’d take transit more.”
Her expectation was based on media reports of transit disasters, especially from past Canada Days.
That said, things changed when we tried to walk out to the Wendy’s at Lincoln Fields ‘Mall’ – which isn’t a mall any more, of course.
“Carling Ave. This Way” said the sign. In the olden days, we would have simply climbed the stairs and taken the bridge to Carling Avenue. Not now. That convenient bridge was demolished – for some unknown reason. Now it is, as she put it, ‘a half mile hike’ around under Carling, and up the LONG ramp to the wrong side of the street. ‘That’ she was definitely NOT impressed by. And she is right. All of the ‘temporary’ – yes, YEARS-LONG temporary – paths for pedestrians are HORRIBLE. Most of the signage at Lincoln Fields Station is HORRIBLE, often because old signs have not been cleared away, or give conflicting directions.
One could argue that the construction mess is due to the construction contractor. Maybe so. But the poor signage is directly on OC Transpo.
Another example, the other day, I was looking for the # 74 bus stop. After walking around looking, I finally asked an off-duty OC Transpo driver. “Over there”, he said, pointing to the last stop in the line. “The ‘THIS STOP NOT IN SERVICE stop?” I asked. “Yup” he said, somewhat grinning, as he could see the confusion. Sure enough, that is where the # 74 stopped.
So, we have years more of the confusion and mess that comes with getting the train extended west. But the good news is that OC Transpo appears to be getting better at using the system that it has.
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