The future of Ottawa's Transit

[waterloowarrior]

http://ottawa.ca/residents/public_consult/beyond_2020/tmp/transit_options/phase2/timeline_en.html

2008


Date
Description
March 3
Release of Downtown Rapid Transit Network options
March 3-31
Consultation on Downtown Rapid Transit Network options
April 16
Tabling of Recommended Downtown Rapid Transit Network option and early phasing recommendations
April 16 - May 7
Consultation on Recommended Downtown Rapid Transit Network
May 21
Report discussed at joint TTC / TRC meeting based on public consultation input
May 28
Council decision on Downtown Rapid Transit Network
October
Consultation on citywide transit phasing options, road, walking and cycling network, cost and phasing
November
Tabling of draft Transportation Master Plan to joint TRC/TTC
December
Consultation on the draft Transportation Master Plan
2009


Date
Description
March
Council approval of the Transportation Master Plan

[lrt's friend]

Instead, we will spend $4B on a system that will not improve performance significantly. It's incomprehensible.

In this respect, I have long shared Franky's concerns. Are we spending $4B++ on a transit system that does not significantly improve travel times, particularly the LRT portions that just replace buses with trains with most time savings from the tunnel lost by extra transfers? Our plan should go far beyond just addressing downtown capacity problems and take transit to a new level that actually delivers faster travel times for substantial numbers of people. I am not convinced that the present plan will deliver that, although I am hoping that the final version will.

Does anyone know when the next date is as far as any decisions being made? Is there any sort of timeline established? Quite frankly, I'm not sure what we're waiting for.

As you recall, the only reason Option 4 got approved was on condition that staff perform several more studies on route extensions and secondary routes. We are waiting for these additional studies to be performed as requested by City Council. Before we can proceed, we must have a comprehensive transit plan. The mayor deliberately delayed any discussion on secondary routes until after the last vote, so we don't have that comprehensive plan yet.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

In this respect, I have long shared Franky's concerns. Are we spending $4B++ on a transit system that does not significantly improve travel times, particularly the LRT portions that just replace buses with trains with most time savings from the tunnel lost by extra transfers? Our plan should go far beyond just addressing downtown capacity problems and take transit to a new level that actually delivers faster travel times for substantial numbers of people. I am not convinced that the present plan will deliver that, although I am hoping that the final version will.



As you recall, the only reason Option 4 got approved was on condition that staff perform several more studies on route extensions and secondary routes. We are waiting for these additional studies to be performed as requested by City Council. Before we can proceed, we must have a comprehensive transit plan. The mayor deliberately delayed any discussion on secondary routes until after the last vote, so we don't have that comprehensive plan yet.

For a system to be successful, service speed doesn't have to go up. In Calgary, I remember reading a study from the 80s that showed the average transit trip time went up, as to be expected with added transfers.

However, peoples perception of how much time their travel took went down, and satisfaction went up.

While it is unfortunate that Ottawa has reached the point where to add a marginal user it will cost $4 billion instead of $400,000 , the point has been reached with the current bus system. The options to fix the bus system are either politically unfeasible (line haul) or more/equally expensive than LRT (tunnel). When your spending that much money, would the politician rather have: a) an improved bus or b) a completly new fancy system!!

The problem with the bus tunnel, is that you aren't providing something 'new'. You aren't providing a politically saleable good. With LRT you can say 'Ottawa has joined the big league of cities'. You have a huge capital asset that is a great prop.

All the studies on the secondary routes should recommend that the system be designed that in the future that if needed a secondary route into downtown from some of the branches could be built. There is nothing wrong or insidious about this. Toronto will need a relief line in the next 25 years, Calgary in the next 15.

Taking transit to a 'whole new level' is for a large part a pipe dream when upgrading existing service that is already Mass Rapid Transit. Beyond dealing with the congestion problems downtown and at certain transit way stations actual service won't improve that much. When Vancouver replaces the B-line and Cambie routes with the Canada line there will be huge differences in service. What both systems do share is a big change in perceptions.

I guess the longer Ottawa takes to build the LRT, the larger the service difference will be, and the more 'justified' it will seem to average people. There is method to all this madness.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

While it is unfortunate that Ottawa has reached the point where to add a marginal user it will cost $4 billion instead of $400,000 , the point has been reached with the current bus system.

Really? Have we past 20,000 passenger per hour per direction mark?

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

The options to fix the bus system are either politically unfeasible (line haul) or more/equally expensive than LRT (tunnel). When your spending that much money, would the politician rather have: a) an improved bus or b) a completly new fancy system!!

But LRT IS line-haul.

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

The problem with the bus tunnel, is that you aren't providing something 'new'. You aren't providing a politically saleable good. With LRT you can say 'Ottawa has joined the big league of cities'. You have a huge capital asset that is a great prop.

Making Ottawa more like Toronto means we lose what makes Ottawa a nice place to live.

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

Taking transit to a 'whole new level' is for a large part a pipe dream when upgrading existing service that is already Mass Rapid Transit. Beyond dealing with the congestion problems downtown and at certain transit way stations actual service won't improve that much. When Vancouver replaces the B-line and Cambie routes with the Canada line there will be huge differences in service. What both systems do share is a big change in perceptions.

So, LRT is a big sales job - I suspected as much.

[lrt's friend]

For a system to be successful, service speed doesn't have to go up. In Calgary, I remember reading a study from the 80s that showed the average transit trip time went up, as to be expected with added transfers.

However, peoples perception of how much time their travel took went down, and satisfaction went up.

While it is unfortunate that Ottawa has reached the point where to add a marginal user it will cost $4 billion instead of $400,000 , the point has been reached with the current bus system. The options to fix the bus system are either politically unfeasible (line haul) or more/equally expensive than LRT (tunnel). When your spending that much money, would the politician rather have: a) an improved bus or b) a completly new fancy system!!

The problem with the bus tunnel, is that you aren't providing something 'new'. You aren't providing a politically saleable good. With LRT you can say 'Ottawa has joined the big league of cities'. You have a huge capital asset that is a great prop.

All the studies on the secondary routes should recommend that the system be designed that in the future that if needed a secondary route into downtown from some of the branches could be built. There is nothing wrong or insidious about this. Toronto will need a relief line in the next 25 years, Calgary in the next 15.

Taking transit to a 'whole new level' is for a large part a pipe dream when upgrading existing service that is already Mass Rapid Transit. Beyond dealing with the congestion problems downtown and at certain transit way stations actual service won't improve that much. When Vancouver replaces the B-line and Cambie routes with the Canada line there will be huge differences in service. What both systems do share is a big change in perceptions.

I guess the longer Ottawa takes to build the LRT, the larger the service difference will be, and the more 'justified' it will seem to average people. There is method to all this madness.

I think it is very sad that we are prepared to be satisfied with no real service improvements and that we are prepared to spend $4B++ just to resolve a congestion problem through the downtown core. I cannot imagine any other city approaching transit improvement in this way. By all means fix the downtown problem, but package it with other real transit improvements, like building new routes.

If travel time actually got worse in Calgary, then other factors are driving ridership growth and that is likely parking costs and scarcity downtown and planning for most job growth downtown. I think the comfort factor of rail is overblown. You can ask many Calgarians about this and you will find that they are experiencing many problems with overcrowding during peak periods and it is much slower to get new rail cars into service than buses (and I am not advocating buses). Also, if your destination is not downtown Calgary, transit is very slow and awkward. Even in Calgary, they are preparing to build a new LRT line to the west end, which is new service, and their plans are to extend service further to edges of the suburbs and to build other new lines in the future. You will notice that Calgary is not obsessing about downtown. They will build the horrendously expensive tunnel when they absolutely have to and almost certainly as part of a plan to start building completely new LRT routes to the north and southeast.

As far as what is happening in Toronto and Vancouver. Are their plans not centred on moving transit routes out of mixed traffic and into varying degrees of grade separation? In the case of Toronto, track improvements are also being made to facilitate service frequency improvements and the introduction of all day service on various commuter lines. Everything is geared towards delivering faster and more frequent service.

It seems to me that we are simply building a reactionary system. Almost everthing we are planning is a rebuild of what we already have and we are depending on increasing gas prices to drive people to transit. Yet, it won't be significantly easier to move about the city by transit after spending all this money. Where is the vision in all this? I think the role of the secondary routes is going to be crucial in whether this plan is successful or not, otherwise there is going to be a tremendous amount of disappointment in what we end up with after 23 years or longer. Transit trips not centred on downtown will extend from 90 minutes to 120 minutes or longer as the city gets more congested and more and more people are going to become frustrated without an efficient alternative as gas prices rise to $3.00, or $4.00 or $5.00 per litre .

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by Franky

...So, LRT is a big sales job - I suspected as much.

Absolutely correct!

But as ‘kyle_olsen’ has pointed out in his post; “There is method to all this madness.” The City needs to change something. It needs to be seen as making a grand step forward toward the future. It doesn’t think that its image is of that of a ‘World-Class’ city since EVERY ‘World-Class’ city has a subway. There are a number of Councilors who are very ‘gung-ho’ about getting trains in this city. Thus, the City needs to convince the people that there needs to be a huge amount of money spent - but don’t worry about the money - on changing our transit system.

Currently the City needs two different transit systems: One for the suburban commuters which offers a fast and direct route from near their homes in the suburbs to their jobs in the downtown core. The other system is an all-day system which connects major destinations, such as schools and shopping areas. Both of these systems would be supported by local buses.

We do not have a very effective all-day network in this city and that has kept the off-peak ridership lower than it could be. I think it would be wise for the City to start to fill in its transit NETWORK by adding new all day routes where people want to go. I think that this is the point that ‘lrt’s friend’ keeps trying to hammer home.

We do, however have a great system for moving large numbers of commuters to the downtown core. It involves running Express and semi-line-haul buses along a dedicated route. (Yes, off-peak we already run a semi-line-haul system with the 9x series buses. I say ‘semi’ because I believe that a true line-haul line would only have the two end-point stops, where the 9x buses have multiple stops along the routes.)

Part of the problem with the current commuter system is where it is not completely segregated and must run in mixed traffic. Through the core is an excellent example. If the current buses were run through a tunnel, there would be fewer non-bus related delays. That is, there would be no signals to wait for at cross streets, and no interaction with other traffic to block the buses’s progress. And if the platforms of the tunnel were pre-paid areas, then passengers could rapidly flow onto buses through all of their doors. As for wheelchairs, the platforms of the tunnel could be built to the level of the bus doors (There would be no restriction on the curb height in the tunnel.) so, as long as the bus was close enough, wheelchairs could simply roll straight on, similar to what they would do for a train. [I have yet to figure out why several of the current Transitway stations are not pre-paid zones - as they are for the O-Train - or why their platforms are not already higher so that ‘kneeling’ and the ramp would only be needed off the Transitway route. Maybe there is just a mind-set that the old, ‘tried and true’ ways of transportation construction, technology, and operations must be used.]

Anyway, I am getting carried away again. The short answer is that the politically acceptable way to spend Billions on transit is to declare that a total change of technology is REQUIRED. Ottawa NEEDS to have a 100+ year old technology to be modern.

In reality, a change to rail at this stage, and for the planning time frame (up to 2031) is certainly not a requirement. A bus tunnel solution would save at least $1.5B in estimated construction costs and be far less disruptive to the transit system during construction. The statement that ‘a bus system would be at or above capacity by 2031' is not true based on my interpretation of the projected numbers. (And if a bus based system were to be at its limit, then an LRT system would not be far from its limit either.)

What about the operating savings of the rail based system? Well, there are PROJECTED savings of about $50M per year for rail over buses. So, if buses were not any more efficient than they are now, it would take only 30 years to make up the $1.5B difference.

I guess I should point out that I’m not against trains where they make sense, but I just have a problem with throwing out a mostly working system to re-build it with a different technology but not gain anything for that cost. In fact, there will be substantial loss of functionality.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Absolutely correct!

But as ‘kyle_olsen’ has pointed out in his post; “There is method to all this madness.” The City needs to change something. It needs to be seen as making a grand step forward toward the future. It doesn’t think that its image is of that of a ‘World-Class’ city since EVERY ‘World-Class’ city has a subway. There are a number of Councilors who are very ‘gung-ho’ about getting trains in this city. Thus, the City needs to convince the people that there needs to be a huge amount of money spent - but don’t worry about the money - on changing our transit system.

Currently the City needs two different transit systems: One for the suburban commuters which offers a fast and direct route from near their homes in the suburbs to their jobs in the downtown core. The other system is an all-day system which connects major destinations, such as schools and shopping areas. Both of these systems would be supported by local buses.

We do not have a very effective all-day network in this city and that has kept the off-peak ridership lower than it could be. I think it would be wise for the City to start to fill in its transit NETWORK by adding new all day routes where people want to go. I think that this is the point that ‘lrt’s friend’ keeps trying to hammer home.

We do, however have a great system for moving large numbers of commuters to the downtown core. It involves running Express and semi-line-haul buses along a dedicated route. (Yes, off-peak we already run a semi-line-haul system with the 9x series buses. I say ‘semi’ because I believe that a true line-haul line would only have the two end-point stops, where the 9x buses have multiple stops along the routes.)

Part of the problem with the current commuter system is where it is not completely segregated and must run in mixed traffic. Through the core is an excellent example. If the current buses were run through a tunnel, there would be fewer non-bus related delays. That is, there would be no signals to wait for at cross streets, and no interaction with other traffic to block the buses’s progress. And if the platforms of the tunnel were pre-paid areas, then passengers could rapidly flow onto buses through all of their doors. As for wheelchairs, the platforms of the tunnel could be built to the level of the bus doors (There would be no restriction on the curb height in the tunnel.) so, as long as the bus was close enough, wheelchairs could simply roll straight on, similar to what they would do for a train. [I have yet to figure out why several of the current Transitway stations are not pre-paid zones - as they are for the O-Train - or why their platforms are not already higher so that ‘kneeling’ and the ramp would only be needed off the Transitway route. Maybe there is just a mind-set that the old, ‘tried and true’ ways of transportation construction, technology, and operations must be used.]

Anyway, I am getting carried away again. The short answer is that the politically acceptable way to spend Billions on transit is to declare that a total change of technology is REQUIRED. Ottawa NEEDS to have a 100+ year old technology to be modern.

In reality, a change to rail at this stage, and for the planning time frame (up to 2031) is certainly not a requirement. A bus tunnel solution would save at least $1.5B in estimated construction costs and be far less disruptive to the transit system during construction. The statement that ‘a bus system would be at or above capacity by 2031' is not true based on my interpretation of the projected numbers. (And if a bus based system were to be at its limit, then an LRT system would not be far from its limit either.)

What about the operating savings of the rail based system? Well, there are PROJECTED savings of about $50M per year for rail over buses. So, if buses were not any more efficient than they are now, it would take only 30 years to make up the $1.5B difference.

I guess I should point out that I’m not against trains where they make sense, but I just have a problem with throwing out a mostly working system to re-build it with a different technology but not gain anything for that cost. In fact, there will be substantial loss of functionality.

I really this post

I suspect the problem with wheelchairs and curbs would be whether buses can be stopped close enough to curbs to allow a wheelchair on safely AND not risk damaging the buses on the curb. I suppose that is one advantage anything on tracks has.

You raise a VERY interesting idea wrt to fare control. It would be neat to see a station fare control at least at peak time. There could simply be a fare inspector (or several) setup at the entrance along with a fare box and transfer printer. They could issue everyone a transfer a la proof of payment so that there are no issues when the time comes to switch back to bus fare control after peak hours (for example someone waiting a while for their bus)

There are a few places such a pilot would be workable: Tunney's, St. Laurent, Campus perhaps.

They would also be able to allow back-door boarding on all vehicles except express. Express you would need to show your transfer to prove you paid for express (it would still be faster than pay and print).

===============

As for the LRT project.

I also think that while the project itself may not deliver much, it is need to lay a bit of a foundation for future work. For instance once tracks are layed we can run a number of different types of trains on them with only changes around stations (provided tunnel smartly)

The problem with the current setup is it is very hard to make major additions to it until that downtown problem is at least partly solved.

[Richard Eade]

I was wondering if someone who takes the O-Train often could tell me how frequently a fare inspector comes through to check passes and POPs? I have not travelled on the O-Train often enough to have seen one myself.

I have noted that the O-Train stations are pre-paid fare areas and I am kind of wondering how the honour-system has worked out for those stations.

[Richard Eade]

The City Staff has been tasked with evaluating the cost for a FREE TRANSIT SYSTEM. I'm not keen on an entirely free system, but I think the cost could be lowered a bit.

If they asked me, I could tell them that if the OC Transpo budget is $250M with a 50% cost recovery, then there will be a $125M cost. With a $2B City budget, this works out to a 6.25% budget increase. About $188 more on a $3000 tax bill. (I sure hope the City won't need to hire a $100K+ consultant to write a report on this.)

However, I am in favour of making transit free in the downtown core. I think that this would encourage people to do more things within the core during their lunch hour, or before and after work.

Anyone who owns a bus pass so that they can get to work downtown will not benefit by this free service, I am specifically targetting people who drive into the core and park for the day. If they could just hop on a bus and zip to the Rideau Centre at lunch, or walk along the Sparks Street Mall and expect to get back to DND in time, then they might spend more money downtown.

If people are being encouraged to spend money in the core, then perhaps the downtown merchants could subsidize the cost of the free service.

Also, if car drivers find that the buses are air-conditioned and are better than what they had imagined, they might be inclined to travel more on buses.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

The City Staff has been tasked with evaluating the cost for a FREE TRANSIT SYSTEM. I'm not keen on an entirely free system, but I think the cost could be lowered a bit.

If they asked me, I could tell them that if the OC Transpo budget is $250M with a 50% cost recovery, then there will be a $125M cost. With a $2B City budget, this works out to a 6.25% budget increase. About $188 more on a $3000 tax bill. (I sure hope the City won't need to hire a $100K+ consultant to write a report on this.)

if there would be higher ridership, more buses/drivers would be required

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

if there would be higher ridership, more buses/drivers would be required

I'm not too worried about that if only the core were free. But you bring up a good point if the entire system were free.

What sort of increase in ridership would you expect to see for a completely free system?

Personally, I wouldn't expect a huge increase in the ridership. The people who currently need to take the bus to work currently do, and will continue to do so. Those who currently pay more than a bus pass to park their cars down town will probably continue to do so. I am of the opinion that bus fares are pretty elastic: That is, big changes in the fares will cause very small changes in ridership.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

The City Staff has been tasked with evaluating the cost for a FREE TRANSIT SYSTEM. I'm not keen on an entirely free system, but I think the cost could be lowered a bit.

If they asked me, I could tell them that if the OC Transpo budget is $250M with a 50% cost recovery, then there will be a $125M cost. With a $2B City budget, this works out to a 6.25% budget increase. About $188 more on a $3000 tax bill. (I sure hope the City won't need to hire a $100K+ consultant to write a report on this.)

However, I am in favour of making transit free in the downtown core. I think that this would encourage people to do more things within the core during their lunch hour, or before and after work.

Anyone who owns a bus pass so that they can get to work downtown will not benefit by this free service, I am specifically targetting people who drive into the core and park for the day. If they could just hop on a bus and zip to the Rideau Centre at lunch, or walk along the Sparks Street Mall and expect to get back to DND in time, then they might spend more money downtown.

If people are being encouraged to spend money in the core, then perhaps the downtown merchants could subsidize the cost of the free service.

Also, if car drivers find that the buses are air-conditioned and are better than what they had imagined, they might be inclined to travel more on buses.

I was thinking a bit about this free fare idea after the story in the Metro the other day. It is definitely too expensive to make the entire system free in Ottawa.

I was thinking free on weekends could be an interesting thought. OC has a pretty decent "market share" during the week with commuters and such. Come the weekend the bus is out and the car is back in. The reason for this is that either they are going short distances (for example in the burbs the grocery story is never more than about 3 minutes away..the engine is not even hot yet) or if they are traveling further there is no rush hour congestion to deal with. The exception is something like Connexion 400 to the sens game..but the congestion plays a role again.

Without congestion on the weekend the transit system needs to work a little harder to attract riders.

There is less service on the weekend so the cost to taxpayers would not be a s high. Furthermore many of the users are probably already commuters with a pass that are say now taking the kids somewhere...so in reality we are really only giving the kids and maybe the spouse a free ride. Passes are already priced in such a way that are worth-while if you are only using the system for weekday commuting so the price of them would not affected.

[Richard Eade]

Remember that in 2007, the Federal Government changed the tax law to allow the cost of a transit pass to be claimed as a non-refundable tax credit. This effectively makes the bus free for pass holders anyway. The difference is that the rider must front the cash but will 'get it back' at tax time. (This is probably not true for a good number of students, though, since they may already have a low income.)

The other thing about the tax credit scheme is that it comes from all the tax payers of Canada - not just Ottawa tax payers. If the City really wanted to get money from the Feds, it should hike the cost of the worker's passes (non-student Regular and Express) and reduce the amount the City gives OC Transpo.

I don't recall any huge increase in ridership when the Feds started crediting for passes. This leads me to think that the price is not the biggest factor in ridership numbers.

[Cre47]

I've heard about the proposal of free rides on smoggy days in Hamilton from councillor Sam Merulla on CHCH during a debate with the CTF's Kevin Gaudet. Apparently, if such mesure would be done, the tax bill would increase over 100$ per household just for smoggy days - perhaps a lot more. So as much I would love to see this happening in Ottawa, this would probably cause councillors like Hunter and Chiarelli to roar like crazy and call this initiative as stupid, nonsensical, etc, etc. even if it is on weekends only.

Seems some councillors (i.e Desroches) are more wiling to cut service during weekends - not the way to attract riders. One way is to have a free downtown line for tourists.

It would be also good to have free weekend rides city-wide especially with the threat of a 10-15% fare hike next July

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I'm not too worried about that if only the core were free. But you bring up a good point if the entire system were free.

What sort of increase in ridership would you expect to see for a completely free system?

Personally, I wouldn't expect a huge increase in the ridership. The people who currently need to take the bus to work currently do, and will continue to do so. Those who currently pay more than a bus pass to park their cars down town will probably continue to do so. I am of the opinion that bus fares are pretty elastic: That is, big changes in the fares will cause very small changes in ridership.

When the U-Pass was implemented at Waterloo, GRT had a huge influx of users. Students are a bit different since they don't own cars at the same rate as the general public; however, I suspect you'd still see quite a large effect. Obviously some people will still choose a car though, but gas prices will be a big influence as well.

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Remember that in 2007, the Federal Government changed the tax law to allow the cost of a transit pass to be claimed as a non-refundable tax credit. This effectively makes the bus free for pass holders anyway. The difference is that the rider must front the cash but will 'get it back' at tax time. (This is probably not true for a good number of students, though, since they may already have a low income.)

The other thing about the tax credit scheme is that it comes from all the tax payers of Canada - not just Ottawa tax payers. If the City really wanted to get money from the Feds, it should hike the cost of the worker's passes (non-student Regular and Express) and reduce the amount the City gives OC Transpo.

I don't recall any huge increase in ridership when the Feds started crediting for passes. This leads me to think that the price is not the biggest factor in ridership numbers.

The problem with a tax credit is that it doesn't have an immediate effect on the shelf price of a bus pass. Consumers are rarely rational enough to make a purchase decision like that with such foresight. Also, although they would probably be pass holders anyway, a tax credit doesn't really help those people who really need it in the first place (which is the primary reason I hate the policy).

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

I really this post

I'm not sure if you loved it or hated it, but that won't stop me from continuing the conversation.

...
I suspect the problem with wheelchairs and curbs would be whether buses can be stopped close enough to curbs to allow a wheelchair on safely AND not risk damaging the buses on the curb. I suppose that is one advantage anything on tracks has.

There could easily be a steel rail which the bus wheel runs up against when it is close enough to the platform. Besides, most bus drivers are pretty good at driving a bus.

...
You raise a VERY interesting idea wrt to fare control. It would be neat to see a station fare control at least at peak time. There could simply be a fare inspector (or several) setup at the entrance along with a fare box and transfer printer. They could issue everyone a transfer a la proof of payment so that there are no issues when the time comes to switch back to bus fare control after peak hours (for example someone waiting a while for their bus)

There are a few places such a pilot would be workable: Tunney's, St. Laurent, Campus perhaps.

They would also be able to allow back-door boarding on all vehicles except express. Express you would need to show your transfer to prove you paid for express (it would still be faster than pay and print).

As a pilot project, you are quite right, a single 'ticket-taker' with a fare box and printer could be used for each of the test stations. The other option is a kiosk, like at the O-Train stations - only one that takes tickets also! - and the honour system.

Once Smart-Cards are introduced (maybe 2010?) it would be no problem to simply have a turn-stile which wants either a Smart-Card or cash - for which it prints a POP. There will be no tickets once the Smart-Card is in use.

Currently, all POPs are tagged with the number of the issuing bus, so depending if that is important, the rider might need to be issued a new POP on the bus. I doubt that it will be necessary though.

As for Express buses, it would be possible for a person to board an Express bus but only pay a regular cash fare. In that case, the person is probably an occasional rider and the lost $1.00 will be lost. Unless the fare inspector catches that person.

A person with a Regular pass could board an Express to go home, but would have to either take a series of Regular buses to get to work, or pay the premium for the Express each morning. Paying the premium for the 20 days a month equals the $20 difference in the pass costs. That person might as well just buy an Express pass.

If the person is content to take Regular buses to work and sneaks onto an Express to go home, then they risk being caught by a fare inspector.

In short, I don't think that there would be a big loss if all buses were 'all-door boarding' from the pre-paid stations.

Since there will be many years before any 'fix' is ready in the core, this might be an interim solution.

[MalcolmTucker]

Why not do a U-Pass style thing for federal government employees. The government drops a fixed fee for each regional employee in the OC Transpo account and all employees get passes (of course at a discount compared to current per user rate.

After that you could offer similar deals to all employers.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

When the U-Pass was implemented at Waterloo, GRT had a huge influx of users. Students are a bit different since they don't own cars at the same rate as the general public; however, I suspect you'd still see quite a large effect. Obviously some people will still choose a car though, but gas prices will be a big influence as well...

Hmmm. Am interesting thing this U-Pass.

As I understand it, everybody at the Universities pays about $14 per month instead of only bus riders paying $50 per month. But, then everybody has unrestricted access to transit service. It is possible that actually having a card (pass) that they are paying for has spurred them on to take the bus. After all, they are paying for it already.

If there were no cards or passes required, would it be the same? If the students didn't have to 'pay for it', would they still flock to transit? It would be an interesting study.

I haven't found reference to the huge influx of new riders, but I have found sites referring to the extra revenue generated from the U-Pass for the transit companies.

I do accept your point though. Students would probably be the ones to take the most advantage of a free service and we have two (three?) Universities and a college in town.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Hmmm. Am interesting thing this U-Pass.

As I understand it, everybody at the Universities pays about $14 per month instead of only bus riders paying $50 per month. But, then everybody has unrestricted access to transit service. It is possible that actually having a card (pass) that they are paying for has spurred them on to take the bus. After all, they are paying for it already.

If there were no cards or passes required, would it be the same? If the students didn't have to 'pay for it', would they still flock to transit? It would be an interesting study.

I haven't found reference to the huge influx of new riders, but I have found sites referring to the extra revenue generated from the U-Pass for the transit companies.

I do accept your point though. Students would probably be the ones to take the most advantage of a free service and we have two (three?) Universities and a college in town.

It's actually a student fee that is included with the other fees tacked onto the tuition, so I expect a lot of new students don't even realize they are paying for it. Also, no one recieves a pass, the student card gets you on the bus.

When they started the U-Pass, GRT introduced a new route and increased frequencies on routes serving the university. Nevertheless, come September, there was a huge problem with congestion on the buses, and buses were driving by stops because there was no room on them. GRT has sorted things out since then, but there was most definitely a surge in demand.

Obviously free transit would affect students of all ages most; however, I expect there would also be a huge increase in use by seniors.

[waterloowarrior]

here's some statistics on GRT's U-Pass... it's got even more popular since then in my experience as people learn about it and figure out the system
http://www.region.waterloo.on.ca/WEB/Region.nsf/8ef02c0fded0c82a85256e590071a3ce/C21FC07C77A6371F852573EF005C2CD2/$file/MEMO.pdf?openelement