Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend
I am arguing exactly for that, but you paint it in such a negative way. It is really a rationale transition from the existing Transitway system to LRT. You know, Calgary still has direct to downtown bus routes from the north end and to the west end where there is no LRT service at present and it makes no sense to impose a LRT transfer very close to downtown. It is also not only about the express bus routes but also the impacts on local service during off-peak hours. How awkward will it really be to get to downtown? One of the selling points for LRT is that it will enable a more lively downtown. Well, that will not be the case if we make it difficult to use transit to get downtown before LRT has a reasonable build out. We need a better thought out transitional plan instead of some unnecessary mega transfer station at Tunney's Pasture that will not be needed once the western leg is built.
We simply need a more customer oriented transitional transit plan. Don't try to remove all the suburban buses from downtown when we are initially only building a short LRT line. The reduction of downtown buses should happen gradually as LRT is extended in each direction. It is laughable that the reason for running Phase 1 to Tunney's Pasture was because it was an employment centre. There were clearly other agendas here in order to try to force the Ottawa River Parkway route and to block western buses from reaching downtown. I have really been fed up with how this plan was pre-determined and how the public consultations were designed to just rubber stamp what had already been decided with no intention to ever significantly change the plan based on public input. This has been such a turn off for me personally, that it will be a long, long time before I ever attend such a meeting again. My own personal interaction with the mayor at one of those meetings just emphasized that we had elected a mayor who didn't know what he was talking about.
We think more alike than you realize. My fear is that this plan will not achieve the desired 30% modal share unless we luck into it because of external factors, such as $3.00 per litre gas prices. I said early on that this plan delivers very little new rapid transit within the Greenbelt. Almost our entire investment within the Greenbelt will be used to address the downtown congestion issue, which forces existing rapid transit to be re-built. We do get Baseline BRT and Carling LRT very late in the timeframe, but you can bet that those will be the first to be cancelled if costs escalate higher than expected. It is very possible that our 2031 rapid transit network within the Greenbelt will be identical to today, just delivered by rail instead of buses. After billions of investment, it may be no easier or faster to move around the city inside the Greenbelt by transit.
Another interesting news story on Global at suppertime. Many concerns were brought up about the St. Clair streetcar in Toronto, which is the model for the rest of the Toronto Transit City LRT plan. The St. Clair streetcar is taking far longer to build and costs have continued to escalate even after construction began to the point that costs have almost doubled. This demonstrates that it is very hard to contain costs on rail transit and any other form of grade separated transit. I include busways here as well.
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I agree with this assessment. Even though my preference is for a more advanced transit solution, a BRT system for Ottawa is the best vanilla solution. Capital costs are lower, service is better and there is more flexibility. Express buses are possible, trunk and feeder at peak times only or even partial trunk and feeder configurations are possible.
We need to get away from the idea that we have to blow as much gov't money as possible and focus on what is needed/wanted for all aspects of the city and get our share of tax revenue. Projects designed to soak up money (are they called pork barrel?) make no sense. Also, building our transit system in a certain way just because other cities do it that way is also silly. History differs (BRT wasn't an option), geography (no green belt), population and affluence also differ.
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