OC Transpo

[Truenorth00]

Carbrains don't think about transit isn't some revelation.

What is a revelation is that they don't apparently think about traffic either. At least in generations past there was an understanding that transit helped with traffic.

[Truenorth00]

In any event, there's no point judging these plans until after Stage 2 West is open. We will finally the system as intended with the LRTs being the central artery.

I routinely worry about bus plans on this front. There's no plan after the end of 2027. Half the bus fleet will be be electric. But the other half is where the real challenges lie. Any further electrification requires multi year refits of the Pinecrest and Merivale garages. And that needs capital deployed soon. There's a large wave of replacements coming from the 2019 era onwards.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Going back to this. There's some emerging gaps that should be concerning with the bus fleet.

As a rough breakdown, at the end of 2027, there's going to be:

~350 Electric 40 footers
~260 Diesel 40 footers
~80 Diesel 60 footers
~10 Diesel Double Deckers

30 of diesel 60 footers are over a decade and a half old. Along with the 10 double deckers, these are supposed to be the reserve fleet. Replacements for the regular schedule and contingencies like R1. These seem to be the biggest vulnerability fleet. Replacing these 40 buses with 50 diesel artics and rotating them through some regular service would improve reliability of the whole fleet and most importantly improve reliability for contingencies. 50 diesel artics would be $65M. Doesn't seem like that huge a cost.

Another consideration with the artics is that the above numbers mean only 50 artics in regular service. So about 1 in 11 buses. Basically, post 2027, artics are going to be exceptionally rare. I question whether this ratio is appropriate or we'll end up with a lot of overcrowding on busy routes at peak. Not sure what the correct ratio is, but this seems low.

Lastly, for the 260 diesel forty footers, they start aging out in 2029. Where are the capital investments to convert Merivale and Pinecrest? Work has to start now to facilitate electric buses there in 2030. If this work doesn't start now, reliability problems start piling up in 2031 as these buses start aging and replacements get put off till infrastructure is upgraded.

If I had my way, OC Transpo would order another 100 diesel artics for delivery (2028 - 2030) and launch capital works at Merivale and Pinecrest so they can accomodate a fully electric fleet. Sell off 60 diesel 40 footers. This way the end 2030 fleet is:

~350 electric 40 footers
~200 diesel 40 footers
~150 diesel 60 footers

This would mean that on an average day there would be 300 electric fortys on the road, 100 diesel fortys and 100 diesel sixtys. With 200 buses in maintenance and reserve. Should also allow OC Transpo to start a transition to a fully electric fleet in 2031 or after. 50 buses per year would let them both electrify the remaining fleet by 2040 and finish the replacement of the 2026 first Gen (for OCT) electrics by 2045. They would be buying electric buses in the 2030s with heat pumps, better battery tech, better digital controls, better construction materials, etc.

The current plan is basically no plan beyond 2028. And most worryingly infrastructure gaps that make transitioning the rest of the fleet to electric difficult. All while significantly restricting capacity with only a handful of sixty footers on the road on any given day. This is a setup for overcrowding starting next year and substantial reliability problems beyond 2030.

[Uhuniau]

Back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Going by those fleet composition numbers, multiplied by the stated capacity of total passengers, the June 26 fleet has a capacity of 61,900 pax.

The 2027 fleet has a capacity of 54,300.

The growth in the electric 40-footer fleet will add almost 17,000 notional seats or standee spots, but that is way more than offset by a loss of nearly 25,000 bits of passenger capacity on the gutted articulated fleet.

The total fleet size is the same in both those charts: 704 buses, of whatever type.

If you ride a route that is regularly served by an artic, you are bo-diddley-owned.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

This is a setup for overcrowding starting next year and substantial reliability problems beyond 2030.

There is just no way that routes like the 12, 6, 7, Latey-Late, etc. can run on short buses without massive dwell time issues and even more impossibility of anything like a "schedule" or "frequency".

I think this might even completely undo any benefit the huge million-dollar transit-priority spend that city council graciously offered up before heading off on the campaign trail.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by DarthVader_1961

Second reference that I can recall that mentions the tracks are an issue on line 1.

This isn't a new "source" though, it's just regurgitating prior reporting.

The only primary source I'm aware of that has attributed these issues to the tracks/curves is Alstom themselves as part of their public inquiry testimony. That has never been confirmed by any other source (be it the City, or RTG, or their independent consultants including the TSB and the NRC).

It appears that since Alstom testified as such in the public inquiry, it was accepted verbatim as fact, despite countless signs that it is untrue. And despite the fact that there has only ever been a single source for this claim, it has been widely circulated as "the" confirmed cause.

If this isn't indicative of the way these issues have been poorly reported on, and the way the public will blindly believe what they want to hear, then I don't know what is.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

There is just no way that routes like the 12, 6, 7, Latey-Late, etc. can run on short buses without massive dwell time issues and even more impossibility of anything like a "schedule" or "frequency".

I think this might even completely undo any benefit the huge million-dollar transit-priority spend that city council graciously offered up before heading off on the campaign trail.

I am certain you could sufficiently serve a handful of routes with the ~82 articulated buses that will be left. More so given that any attention towards increasing service levels on those routes has been redirected towards keeping the status quo in articulated buses.

We could also consider reconfiguring our 40-foot buses to enable all door boarding with improved standing room and interior circulation. But hey, the status quo is cool too I guess.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Line 2 runs on an oddball 12 minute schedule that can never be perfectly coordinated with connecting buses, creating a degree of uncertainty for riders.

As always: it can but we choose not to.

Really there's a lot to say about the way OC Transpo chooses frequencies for its bus routes. 15-minute routes being cut down to every 30 after 6pm? Weird!

Yet almost anything I read from you is about how Line 2 is the problem. There's nothing stopping us from running buses every 24 or even every 12 minutes! There's also nothing stopping us from cutting Line 2's service down to every 15 minutes if you really think that's an improvement!

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Back-of-the-envelope calculation:

Going by those fleet composition numbers, multiplied by the stated capacity of total passengers, the June 26 fleet has a capacity of 61,900 pax.

The 2027 fleet has a capacity of 54,300.

The growth in the electric 40-footer fleet will add almost 17,000 notional seats or standee spots, but that is way more than offset by a loss of nearly 25,000 bits of passenger capacity on the gutted articulated fleet.

The total fleet size is the same in both those charts: 704 buses, of whatever type.

If you ride a route that is regularly served by an artic, you are bo-diddley-owned.

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

There is just no way that routes like the 12, 6, 7, Latey-Late, etc. can run on short buses without massive dwell time issues and even more impossibility of anything like a "schedule" or "frequency".

I think this might even completely undo any benefit the huge million-dollar transit-priority spend that city council graciously offered up before heading off on the campaign trail.

Thev plan to clearly go to forty footers across the board. The question is where and what times the sixty footers will service. Are they for the routes you mention or somewhere else?

If the artics are mostly coming off passenger-kms that are paralleling Stage 2, then the impact might be minimal as those pax-km move to the LRT. But intuitively, going from 313 high capacity buses to 90, just seems to be too much of a cut. Even if they want to cap the fleet at 700, I wish they'd just buy 100-150 diesel artics and sell 60-110 forty footers. They'd get something for them at around 10 years old.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

As always: it can but we choose not to.

Really there's a lot to say about the way OC Transpo chooses frequencies for its bus routes. 15-minute routes being cut down to every 30 after 6pm? Weird!

Yet almost anything I read from you is about how Line 2 is the problem. There's nothing stopping us from running buses every 24 or even every 12 minutes! There's also nothing stopping us from cutting Line 2's service down to every 15 minutes if you really think that's an improvement!

I realize that we are stuck with the 12 minute frequency on the train but we made that choice and my latest comment relates to the history of decisions and that is one of them. I don't care how it is done, but bus-rail transfer need to work reliably. I see no desire to make this happen. It is not so simple to change bus frequency to every 12 or 24 minutes, because this has system-wide implications.

Is it that simple to reduce frequency of Line 2 to every 15 minutes with current rail design, but I know that will cause capacity problems when Carleton is open. I have seen standing room only trains.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

As always: it can but we choose not to.

Really there's a lot to say about the way OC Transpo chooses frequencies for its bus routes. 15-minute routes being cut down to every 30 after 6pm? Weird!

Yet almost anything I read from you is about how Line 2 is the problem. There's nothing stopping us from running buses every 24 or even every 12 minutes! There's also nothing stopping us from cutting Line 2's service down to every 15 minutes if you really think that's an improvement!

His perspective comes from symbolic nonsense. He admitted several times here that he didn't take transit regularly. That's why the only complaint he has is a made up one about the supposed grievance of 12 min lrt headways.

As you correctly state, the biggest problem in Ottawa are the buses. A reliable and frequent bus service can would actually overcome a lot of deficiencies of the rail system.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The underfunding of transit was never or at least rarely specifically mentioned in municipal election campaigns. Mostly there was a discussion of general restraint in tax increases, and few would have paid attention to the impact on transit budgets or service, if it was even specified.

So, while we can complain about suburbanites supporting budget constraint, most had no idea that this would damage transit service. We know now, but as been pointed out, it has been 'death by a thousand cuts'. It was not one or two decisions that produced the current situation, but many decisions. Without being a transit nerd, most would never understand the building negative impacts. i doubt that our city councillors even understood the cumulative effect of their decisions over a number of years. If our councillors could not see what was happening, the general public certainly would not.

I mean it was a clear decision in the election. One side promoted investing in transit and it was a clear redflag to taxpaying voters. While maybe a tax restraint was sold as impact free that's kind of naive. Maybe most didn't understand that meant cuts they clearly weren't ready to pay taxes to increase service. Put another way even Leiper isn't really running on a restoration of transit funding agenda. The 12% number means it's not a winnable platform. Especially as it's probably even less of voters. (Non citizens and no voters being more transit users)

[Truenorth00]

I've said before that traffic will get worse. That's the only way voters will learn to appreciate transit investments. But that lesson is going to take at least a decade or more to learn. Driving commutes have to get over an hour regularly before a fed up public starts demanding any action. And even in places like Toronto people put up with substantial traffic off-peak, with a system not designed to really facilitate regional travel efficiently.

[golfguy9]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I've said before that traffic will get worse. That's the only way voters will learn to appreciate transit investments. But that lesson is going to take at least a decade or more to learn. Driving commutes have to get over an hour regularly before a fed up public starts demanding any action. And even in places like Toronto people put up with substantial traffic off-peak, with a system not designed to really facilitate regional travel efficiently.

Traffic in this city is not bad enough to push people out of their cars and it most likely never will be. Outside of a couple hours of rush hour traffic per day, you can go from Kanata to Orleans (40km) in 30 minutes - public transit is never competing with that.

This city is not dense enough to support good public transit. It's unfortunate but it is what it is. If you want a real urban city, Ottawa is not your place, and I'm not sure why people keep trying to make fetch happen.

[yvesdarly]

Originally Posted by golfguy9

Traffic in this city is not bad enough to push people out of their cars and it most likely never will be. Outside of a couple hours of rush hour traffic per day, you can go from Kanata to Orleans (40km) in 30 minutes - public transit is never competing with that.

This city is not dense enough to support good public transit. It's unfortunate but it is what it is. If you want a real urban city, Ottawa is not your place, and I'm not sure why people keep trying to make fetch happen.

Well, if transit would be not be able to compete with free flow car travel time, I think that it could compete in terms of generalized travel time (ie. not having to figure out the parking situation)

Stage 2 and 3 extensions are supposed to help address the travel time discrepancy, while increasing access to the rapid transit backbone (LRT and BRT). If i take Orleans as a case study:

• 1 When Orleans customers will be able to walk to the LRT or board a short feeder bus line, it will minimize overall travel time
• 2 We dropped the ball for Chapel Hill South and Avalon when Brian Coburn Extension was built without the Cumberland BRT. I know firsthand that there is demand for a direct link between Chapel Hill to the City through the 228 line at least for those in Chapel Hill South. Imagine if we had the segregated BRT line from Avalon to Blair!

In a perfect world, because Ottawa is so sprawled, plans should have been out for commuter rail with low stop density, to give a more sustainable option instead of running long connexion bus routes

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by yvesdarly

Well, if transit would be not be able to compete with free flow car travel time, I think that it could compete in terms of generalized travel time (ie. not having to figure out the parking situation)

Stage 2 and 3 extensions are supposed to help address the travel time discrepancy, while increasing access to the rapid transit backbone (LRT and BRT). If i take Orleans as a case study:

• 1 When Orleans customers will be able to walk to the LRT or board a short feeder bus line, it will minimize overall travel time
• 2 We dropped the ball for Chapel Hill South and Avalon when Brian Coburn Extension was built without the Cumberland BRT. I know firsthand that there is demand for a direct link between Chapel Hill to the City through the 228 line at least for those in Chapel Hill South. Imagine if we had the segregated BRT line from Avalon to Blair!

In a perfect world, because Ottawa is so sprawled, plans should have been out for commuter rail with low stop density, to give a more sustainable option instead of running long connexion bus routes

The LRT was never designed to be fast or competitive with cars. Outside of downtown it is slower than the BRT system it replaces. It was designed to relieve pressure on the central portion of the Transitway. It was subjected to function creep by politicians, but if the objective is to get people out or cars it is not fit for purpose, both in terms of technology and route design.

[Truenorth00]

Choice of LRT aside, the route and stop spacing aren't bad. They are metro-esque in stop spacing rather than LRT-esque. But cars move fast outside of peak traffic. So competing with non-peak traffic is very difficult. And usually requires a ton of investment in buses to improve frequency. Not much can be done on the rail side. Going to commuter rail instead of a metro is a trade space question between frequency, stop spacing and speed.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The LRT was never designed to be fast or competitive with cars. Outside of downtown it is slower than the BRT system it replaces. It was designed to relieve pressure on the central portion of the Transitway. It was subjected to function creep by politicians, but if the objective is to get people out or cars it is not fit for purpose, both in terms of technology and route design.

We specifically demanded trains that could run at 100 kph. This should have made the train speed competitive.

If our only object was to deal with downtown congestion, then the train should have ended at Hurdman, and spend the rest of the money on BRT improvements to focus our efforts on moving people as fast as possible. This is what the average person wanted. Get me to work and home efficiently. Look at Line 2 that runs considerably slower than years ago.

Other cities do not build rapid transit to be slower than what it replaced. This points to incompetence if that is the end result.

Trains sold to the public as 100 kph and then they don't run anywhere near that speed.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We specifically demanded trains that could run at 100 kph. This should have made the train speed competitive.

Top speed doesn't really determine travel time.

Stop spacing is the largest factor. Followed by average running speed.

And stop spacing itself has trade offs. Wider rail stop spacing (like commuter rail) is a faster train ride. But with most people accessing the rail system by bus this means more time spent on a slower bus. The metro-esque stop spacing of the O-Train is a decent compromise for Ottawa.

The slow downs on the LRT don't add much to the travel time. Going from 70 kph average to 50 kph, is a difference of 5 mins over 15 km. The wait for a bus on either side is a much bigger problem.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We specifically demanded trains that could run at 100 kph. This should have made the train speed competitive.

If our only object was to deal with downtown congestion, then the train should have ended at Hurdman, and spend the rest of the money on BRT improvements to focus our efforts on moving people as fast as possible. This is what the average person wanted. Get me to work and home efficiently. Look at Line 2 that runs considerably slower than years ago.

Other cities do not build rapid transit to be slower than what it replaced. This points to incompetence if that is the end result.

Trains sold to the public as 100 kph and then they don't run anywhere near that speed.

Even if it could reach that speed (which was almost certainly a lie) there are so many tight curves, questionable stops, changes in elevation, etc. that there was never much chance for a sustained top speed. The insistence on using the Transitway routing (with all of its tight curves), the insistence on keeping all the Transitway stops, and the insistence on a using Rideau street, combined with a lot of value engineering, led to a slow system.

The route map more closely resembles the schematic for a roller coaster than a modern rapid transit system.