Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Whether you wait downtown or wait in the suburbs, it amounts to the same thing. The difference will be that more people will have to stand than today. Those people who presently have a seat on an express bus should expect to stand on a train. The majority of train capacity is for standees. The current proposal is not about improving service (and attracting new customers), it is about reducing costs.

And you know, that's why I'm still disagreeing with the choice of LRT as the mean of transportation. ALRT or metro technology, with a minimal price increase would have given the extra capacity for now and the future. I still think the headways of 2 minutes, for such a young transit system will be high.

Tunnel digging for ALRT is cheaper, and 3rd rail is cheaper too. (since there won't be the problem of fences anymore, because it's conversion of the Transitway)

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I have a few questions.

Are local community buses well used, or do most people go to park n rides?

Is it easy (fast) to use transit in Calgary if your destination is not downtown or on the C-Train corridor?

Just an observation that bus service is not particularly frequent in Calgary.

One of the selling points for LRT here in Ottawa is that local service will be improved to make up for the inconvenience of extra transfers. I have long had my doubts that this will actually take place.

The easiest answer to that is this stat:
LRT ridership 271,000. Park and Ride spots: 13,777 (Park and Ride Info here, not all spots are on LRT lines)

All LRT trips start from a Park & Ride, a Kiss & Ride (passenger drop off), a walk-on, or a feeder bus. I remember the split being something like 10%, 8%, 20%, 60%. Service levels on feeder routes is a great question, but hard to quantify whether it really matters as long as the economic incentive for taking the LRT is very high ($400/month or more downtown parking). Outside of peak hours, most feeder routes are every 30 minutes, with some at every 20 minutes. In peak hours, 10 - 15 minute frequency is the norm, with some of course having more frequent due to higher demand.

The second question's answer is: why should the city allow a destination to be built that is not downtown or on a C-Train corridor? Along secondary corridors there is rather frequent arterial service, and to preexisting large facilities that are large enough to warrant dedicated service there is significant service. Another answer is that it is almost always faster to take a bus-train-bus trip even with forced transfers, than to take a bus-bus trip.

As for local service being improved when the conversion is completed, that is a political question, and a question of budgets. As for frequency in Calgary, remember Calgary has the lowest property taxes of a major city in Canada and one of the ways we do that is to have a low transit subsidy. If Ottawa keeps its high subsidy, it could either fire drivers and invest the savings in capital expansion, or increase local service to a degree.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

As for local service being improved when the conversion is completed, that is a political question, and a question of budgets. As for frequency in Calgary, remember Calgary has the lowest property taxes of a major city in Canada and one of the ways we do that is to have a low transit subsidy. If Ottawa keeps its high subsidy, it could either fire drivers and invest the savings in capital expansion, or increase local service to a degree.

I couldn't find this info, only CT info. How do i find out how much money goes into the whole system, not just LRT?

[MalcolmTucker]

City budget, but pages back someone posted a comparison on the subsidy in different cities. The graph showed Ottawa's was almost 3 times Calgary's. That is the more important number.

[Suzie]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Simply because it is too late. Mind you, the mayor has been saying that this sort of thing has been too late since the 4 options were released in March and we know that there was no public input before that either.

Let's face it, this is all designed to gather votes from east and west end councillors and to provide a Cadillac transit service for existing transit users, particularly in Orleans. It no longer matters whether we attract new transit riders since we all know that each one costs the city money.

I always thought that the main impetus for the transit plan was solving the “downtown problem”. That is, the downtown section is congested and capacity is not sufficient to meet long-term demand, and we are told that surface options cannot address these problems. Also, we must address the wishes of downtown business owners who want to remove buses from Albert and Slater.

Regarding the Transitway extensions, I also have grave doubts about the $185M Norice-Baseline project. Certainly, the City’s own analysis shows that it would provide little in the way of transportation benefits. But the cost of the other extensions is pretty modest and the benefits (time savings, increased reliability and lower operating costs) are attractive. The only exception is the link between the Southwest Transitway and Pinecrest at $171M. I suspect the cost reflects the option that would protect Roman Avenue. A lower-cost option is available if there is political will.

Unless money starts growing on trees, conversion of these extensions won’t happen for a long time (well past 2031). And based on ridership, the first place outside the Greenbelt that should get an LRT extension is Orleans, where the main Transitway link are two cheap shoulder lanes along the 174.

[Suzie]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

As for local service being improved when the conversion is completed, that is a political question, and a question of budgets. As for frequency in Calgary, remember Calgary has the lowest property taxes of a major city in Canada and one of the ways we do that is to have a low transit subsidy. If Ottawa keeps its high subsidy, it could either fire drivers and invest the savings in capital expansion, or increase local service to a degree.
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One must be careful when making comparisons of property taxes. Differences in property taxes are first and foremost a reflection of the division of responsibilities between provincial and municipal governments. For example, in Ontario, a significant share of the burden of financing social service costs is borne by municipalities and hence the property tax base. This is not the case in other provinces. The current government has promised to address this, but only over a period of ten years. Further, there is the issue of how education is funded. Also, in Alberta, you have a provincial government that has been swimming in money and thus has been able to transfer large amounts of funding to its municipalities (e.g., very generous gas tax transfer and one-time grants). Ontario is not so lucky.

I’ve never lived in Calgary, but I have friends who have. One thing that struck them was the difference in the level of basic services provided by the municipality versus here. They would often give the example of snow clearing, which they found extremely poor in Calgary. This is from a few years ago, so maybe things have changed.

By the way, if Ottawa did the five things below, it could significantly reduce transit operating costs:

• Apply Calgary LRT fare-payment procedures and traffic priority to its BRT system.
• Improve and optimize station design, especially downtown.
• Change fare polities to make sure the capacity of express buses is fully utilized.
• Implement the long list of service cuts that is proposed every year, which consists mainly of cuts to local milk-run routes. You could even add to that list and also make some modest frequency reductions to main routes, especially slow arterial routes such as the #2.
• Hike fares.

The first three would be “no-regrets” measures and not cost much in terms of capital (keeping capital subsidies as low as possible is also a priority for me). The fourth and fifth ones would bring down Ottawa’s ridership, but probably to a level that is no lower than Calgary’s.

The main barrier to achieving large savings would be the labour contracts. But Ottawa would face the same barrier if it converted to an LRT system. At a minimum, it would have to fork out a large severance payout.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

City budget, but pages back someone posted a comparison on the subsidy in different cities. The graph showed Ottawa's was almost 3 times Calgary's. That is the more important number.

That was made by the poster from numbers which aren't accessible. Did they include bus costs?

[waterloowarrior]

We want our ridership to go up, not down... goal is a 30% modal split (peak period PM or something like that).. all our planning and transit/road building is based around that

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

We want our ridership to go up, not down... goal is a 30% modal split (peak period PM or something like that).. all our planning and transit/road building is based around that

Whichi is utterly idiotic, since achieving a higher modal goal for transit would remove more roads. I said it and said it again, a modal goal is just planning for what you want, and what you require to build to achieve that. Many cities are now adopting 40% and 50% ratios.

[waterloowarrior]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

Whichi is utterly idiotic, since achieving a higher modal goal for transit would remove more roads. I said it and said it again, a modal goal is just planning for what you want, and what you require to build to achieve that. Many cities are now adopting 40% and 50% ratios.

Can you think of some examples? I'd be interested to see these cities and what their transportation plans are like

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Franky

That was made by the poster from numbers which aren't accessible. Did they include bus costs?

The data was from the Canadian Urban Transit Agency for 2006; every year they put out a summary of operating data for each major transit agency in the country. The figures were for all of Calgary Transit and all of OC Transpo.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

We want our ridership to go up, not down... goal is a 30% modal split (peak period PM or something like that).. all our planning and transit/road building is based around that

I think that originally the goal was 30% of a 2021 all day system average. I think we are about 17% now. (Actually this seems high for an all day number. I might need to be corrected on this one.)

Then the target moved to 30% of rush hour traffic because "that is how other cities measure modal split." I think that took us up to 19% without having to do any changes to the system; just the measuring.

Now they are aiming for 30% of only the morning peak in 2031. Apparently THAT is now what other cities do. Currently our morning peak enjoys the highest average ridership with a modal split of over 23%. (It is lower in the afternoon peak because quitting times vary more than starting times.)

Thus, we are making great headway towards our goal! We 'gained' 6% of the modal split and we haven't even had to change the system yet. I am confident that within the next 22 years, we can find ways to grow the transit modal split by another 7%.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by Suzie

...
Regarding the Transitway extensions, I also have grave doubts about the $185M Norice-Baseline project. Certainly, the City’s own analysis shows that it would provide little in the way of transportation benefits. But the cost of the other extensions is pretty modest and the benefits (time savings, increased reliability and lower operating costs) are attractive. The only exception is the link between the Southwest Transitway and Pinecrest at $171M. I suspect the cost reflects the option that would protect Roman Avenue. A lower-cost option is available if there is political will.
....

I think that you are right to have reservations about these items (amoung others, of course).

The Algonquin/Baseline Station item of $185M actually has a thread of its own: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=159739

I don't think the Pinecrest item does, but maybe it should have had one. At the big (3 day) Value Engineering (VE) review of the project, the updated cost was $138M. I don't know where the $171M comes from.

There actually are all kinds of problems with that report though. Notice in particular that the cost of the tunnel is being erroneously compared to only phase three of the alternative. Phase three can not stand alone - it needs phase one also.
http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/tc/2008/05-07/ACS2008-PTE-PLA-0058.htm

(If they were really serious about saving a pile of money on the Pinecrest item, they could simply build it one metre less deep. This would put it above all of the existing utilities and allow gravity to handle any water as a sewer would runn directly under the tunnel.

There are no houses beside where it would pass under the road so a hump could be tolerated easily. The slightly higher hump through the park is just a better sliding hill for kids. On the OC Transpo Garage side, it would run under a noise control berm anyway.

Alas, this is a moot point since the entire thing has been thrown back for another EA.)

[Suzie]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

We want our ridership to go up, not down... goal is a 30% modal split (peak period PM or something like that).. all our planning and transit/road building is based around that

I was not advocating the service cuts or higher fares. I just wanted to make the point that, if reducing operating costs was your primary concern, you would, among other things, make service cuts and hike fares. One of the consequences of doing so would be to lower ridership and, depending on the severity of the measures, ridership could decline to Calgary levels.

[Suzie]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

Whichi is utterly idiotic, since achieving a higher modal goal for transit would remove more roads. I said it and said it again, a modal goal is just planning for what you want, and what you require to build to achieve that. Many cities are now adopting 40% and 50% ratios.

At the same time, we must remain realistic. I don't think that there is a metropolitan area (central area plus suburbs) in North America today that achieves 30%. Only NYC, Toronto and Montreal exceeds Ottawa, and not by much.

I don't have the data in front of me right now, but 40%-50% would probably exceed what most European metro areas are able to accomplish and would put us in the territory of some Asian cities. I don't think that's realistic at all for a North American city (i.e., a city built largely after the advent of the automobile).

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Suzie

At the same time, we must remain realistic. I don't think that there is a metropolitan area (central area plus suburbs) in North America today that achieves 30%. Only NYC, Toronto and Montreal exceeds Ottawa, and not by much.

I don't have the data in front of me right now, but 40%-50% would probably exceed what most European metro areas are able to accomplish and would put us in the territory of some Asian cities. I don't think that's realistic at all for a North American city (i.e., a city built largely after the advent of the automobile).

Transit use is directly related to transit availability and lack of highways. Adding more roads while adding more transit is counterproductive, and won't change modal split much. This could be seen with modal split being achieved whatever transit solutions was taken (buses or LRT).

The 30% is not transit, but the "not a car" alternative. So yes, many Europe cities achieve more than that. Unless I'm mistaken, that's what is used to compare Ottawa too, alternatives to car modal use.

You can look into social engineering by checking out the Cheonggyecheon River highway transformation.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I think that originally the goal was 30% of a 2021 all day system average. I think we are about 17% now. (Actually this seems high for an all day number. I might need to be corrected on this one.)

Then the target moved to 30% of rush hour traffic because "that is how other cities measure modal split." I think that took us up to 19% without having to do any changes to the system; just the measuring.

Now they are aiming for 30% of only the morning peak in 2031. Apparently THAT is now what other cities do. Currently our morning peak enjoys the highest average ridership with a modal split of over 23%. (It is lower in the afternoon peak because quitting times vary more than starting times.)

Thus, we are making great headway towards our goal! We 'gained' 6% of the modal split and we haven't even had to change the system yet. I am confident that within the next 22 years, we can find ways to grow the transit modal split by another 7%.

The first mention of the 30% transit split was in the 2003 Transportation Master Plan:

In order to reflect Ottawa’s growth management principles (see Section 1.2) and the Transportation Vision (see Section 2.1), this plan aims to achieve the highest level of future transit usage that can reasonably be achieved. For this reason, an objective of achieving a 30% transit modal split in the 2021 afternoon peak hour was used for modeling and analysis. This means that 30% of all person-trips made using motorized modes (transit or automobile) would be by transit, and 70% by automobile. While a 30% transit modal split represents a real challenge — it almost doubles the estimated 2001 value of 17% — it can be achieved if the required service strategies, transit priority measures, rapid transit lines and a variety of essential supporting actions are implemented in a comprehensive and coordinated fashion.

The reason for the migration to the AM peak hour was because the regional demand model was updated to simulate that time period. The only reason the PM peak was used in the first place was because that was the only thing the model could generate.

As for current (2005) conditions: AM peak period transit mode share is at 21% and 24-hour transit mode share is 13% (which, incidently, is below 1986 when it was 18%). This is from the current TMP update.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by Deez

The first mention of the 30% transit split was in the 2003 Transportation Master Plan:

"In order to reflect Ottawa’s growth management principles (see Section 1.2) and the Transportation Vision (see Section 2.1), this plan aims to achieve the highest level of future transit usage that can reasonably be achieved. For this reason, an objective of achieving a 30% transit modal split in the 2021 afternoon peak hour was used for modeling and analysis. This means that 30% of all person-trips made using motorized modes (transit or automobile) would be by transit, and 70% by automobile. While a 30% transit modal split represents a real challenge — it almost doubles the estimated 2001 value of 17% — it can be achieved if the required service strategies, transit priority measures, rapid transit lines and a variety of essential supporting actions are implemented in a comprehensive and coordinated fashion."

The reason for the migration to the AM peak hour was because the regional demand model was updated to simulate that time period. The only reason the PM peak was used in the first place was because that was the only thing the model could generate.

As for current (2005) conditions: AM peak period transit mode share is at 21% and 24-hour transit mode share is 13% (which, incidently, is below 1986 when it was 18%). This is from the current TMP update.

Ah. Thanks for clearing that up. I had picked up pieces but I hadn't gotten them all aligned properly.

None the less, it is less aggressive to have a goal of 30% AM peak in the next 22 years (2008-2031) than a 30% PM goal in 18 years (2003-2021). Especially since moving from PM to AM gave a 6 point jump.

It was at the TMP Update 2008 Technical Briefing that Nancy said that we are currently at 23% for the AM peak.

I find that an interesting piece of trivia, about the 1986 figure. The 24-hour split dropping from 18% down to 13% (in 2005) is somewhat troubling.

I could speculate that it is largely due to the explosive growth of the suburbs and their predominant use of cars for everything off-peak. But I can't say that for certain.

[Deez]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

It was at the TMP Update 2008 Technical Briefing that Nancy said that we are currently at 23% for the AM peak.

I find that an interesting piece of trivia, about the 1986 figure. The 24-hour split dropping from 18% down to 13% (in 2005) is somewhat troubling.

I could speculate that it is largely due to the explosive growth of the suburbs and their predominant use of cars for everything off-peak. But I can't say that for certain.

The 23% quoted could have been for the AM Peak Hour...but I can't remember if the model simulates that time frame or not. Another potential reason for the discrepancy could be in the way the number was calculated; the regional model includes travel data from Quebec, so there are a variety of ways to count what constitutes "transit travel" in the City of Ottawa (ie. do trips starting in Ottawa but ending in Quebec count? What about the other way around? Etc.). Regardless, 21% is what's given in the TMP document.

EDIT: I've since verified that 21% is the share of all travel (including walking, cycling) whereas 23% is the share of motorized trips. So 23% is the real benchmark.

Although the 2005 split is down from '86, it's up from '95 (when it was at 11%). 1996 was the all-time low for travel on public transit in Ottawa.

I agree that shifting time periods is a bit of a cheat, but at least they're not making transit any less important in the TMP. In fact, there is significantly less road investments in this TMP compared to the last one...even though the populations for the two horizon years are approximately the same. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to monitor progress until another O-D survey is conducted in or around 2015.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by Suzie

I was not advocating the service cuts or higher fares. I just wanted to make the point that, if reducing operating costs was your primary concern, you would, among other things, make service cuts and hike fares. One of the consequences of doing so would be to lower ridership and, depending on the severity of the measures, ridership could decline to Calgary levels.

Decline to Calgary levels has to be taken in context however, since yearly trips on OC Transpo was : 91.8 million and Calgary was 90.3 million. (also remember, OC measures trips, Calgary measures revenue trips, which are not directly comparable (due to free fare zone) and Calgary assumed a fare evasion of 2.2% in the measured year).

Originally Posted by Suzie

One must be careful when making comparisons of property taxes. Differences in property taxes are first and foremost a reflection of the division of responsibilities between provincial and municipal governments. For example, in Ontario, a significant share of the burden of financing social service costs is borne by municipalities and hence the property tax base. This is not the case in other provinces. The current government has promised to address this, but only over a period of ten years. Further, there is the issue of how education is funded. Also, in Alberta, you have a provincial government that has been swimming in money and thus has been able to transfer large amounts of funding to its municipalities (e.g., very generous gas tax transfer and one-time grants). Ontario is not so lucky.

I’ve never lived in Calgary, but I have friends who have. One thing that struck them was the difference in the level of basic services provided by the municipality versus here. They would often give the example of snow clearing, which they found extremely poor in Calgary. This is from a few years ago, so maybe things have changed.

By the way, if Ottawa did the five things below, it could significantly reduce transit operating costs:

• Apply Calgary LRT fare-payment procedures and traffic priority to its BRT system.
• Improve and optimize station design, especially downtown.
• Change fare polities to make sure the capacity of express buses is fully utilized.
• Implement the long list of service cuts that is proposed every year, which consists mainly of cuts to local milk-run routes. You could even add to that list and also make some modest frequency reductions to main routes, especially slow arterial routes such as the #2.
• Hike fares.

The first three would be “no-regrets” measures and not cost much in terms of capital (keeping capital subsidies as low as possible is also a priority for me). The fourth and fifth ones would bring down Ottawa’s ridership, but probably to a level that is no lower than Calgary’s.

The main barrier to achieving large savings would be the labour contracts. But Ottawa would face the same barrier if it converted to an LRT system. At a minimum, it would have to fork out a large severance payout.

Yeah Calgary doesn't clear much snow, beisdes main roads and bike paths. We wait for chinooks to melt it, and we don't get enough that any side road ever becomes impassable. (I think we spend something like 1/5th of what Ottawa spends on snow clearing).

As for the easy fixes, if they were really that easy, they would be done already. I remember when Calgary bought new ticket machines for our LRT stations, and we bought ones that could only accept coincs, and don't give change, we still spent millions on them. If they were so easy either poltiically, or practically they would be done already.

Sometimes the only way to move a system forward is creative deconstruction.