Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[lrt's friend]

First of all, I have enjoyed the latest sound bites coming from Alex Cullen. He is now encouraging extensive use of construction workers at premium rates during night and weekend shifts because he is finally recognizing the tremendous disruption that Transitway conversion will inflict on transit riders. He is recognizing that loss of ridership during this conversion period is a possibility. What is most interesting about this is that it is preparing us for further cost increases for Phase 1 of the LRT plan to cover those premium labour rates.

On the route plan, the only winners will be residents of Orleans who will have local service extended to Blair Station. That might be a double-edged sword as service to Place d'Orleans will be reduced and that is a natural meeting place in Orleans. Just like my discussion on Route 149 in the other transit thread, this change may favour commuters to the detriment of off-peak users wanting to go shopping at the local mall.

I also note that LRT downtown is going to facilitate the split up of more bus routes as was the case with Routes 3/9 and 2/12. From comments elsewhere, it appears that this has not been an entire success and has not resolved the schedule issue, and now we see a desire to reduce service on those routes. I find it troubling to see the main terminus for a number of downtown routes being at Laurier and Waller mid-way between 2 subway stations and that a number of routes will no longer cross downtown anymore. For example, the Route on Elgin and St. Patrick. It seems all we care about is efficiency and not whether we are addressing the wishes of transit riders. What happened to customer satisfaction and the customer coming first? Furthermore, OC Transpo will no longer connect downtown Ottawa with downtown Hull with direct service of any kind. Instead, we run the only service to Hull via Preston Street. Lucky people on Preston. You lost your downtown connection. Wait for ridership to fall there too and guess what, we need to reduce service there as well. Why would you make people living so close to downtown transfer to a train?

My other comment is concerning service from the suburbs. All along, I have been warning of a double transfer system being implemented during off-peak hours in order to reach downtown. Now we see it in the proposal. You will have to transfer at Eagleson or Fallowfield and then again at Tunney's Pasture, or from the south at South Keys and again at Hurdman. In the case of Riverside South, let's add a third transfer for good measure within the community to make sure nobody will use transit if you are not within walking distance of Route 99.

Will this really boost ridership? This is a grand transit experiment with many risks. We are depending on the public's willingness to expect to transfer much more often in order to use transit in Ottawa. Studies have indicated that transfers are ridership killers. Good Luck!