The future of Ottawa's Transit

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

Simple: closing the parkways to regular vehicles would bring buses from park and rides in the suburbs directly to downtown. Now if the pathetic NCC would agree on that...

I don't think that this will work as well as you think. The parkways come into downtown alright but where do the buses go when they get there with all the road closures.

[lrt's friend]

Yes, lifes gonna 🞵🞵🞵🞵 for a while during construction, what city has been able to build a big piece of infrastructure through their core and not had major disruption?

Disruption is inevitable but after seeing the chaos on Canada Day, my concern is that we could face more than just a disruption.

I did a little reading about the Yonge Street subway construction. What happened there was that the streetcars were simply moved to an adjacent street as far north as College Street. Beyond that, there was no disruption because the subway did not run directly under the street. In other words, the TTC designed the subway construction to have minimal impact on the transit system. Our plans are going to be much more disruptive with major transit stations taken right out of service and the entire route facing closure for a couple of years. We will see how good the mitigation efforts work but when you see proposals to expand the O-Train, that is suggesting that there will be problems coming into downtown from the east.

[MalcolmTucker]

Having to run on different streets? How is that any different from what Ottawa faces? How that choice effects car users vs transit users is totally up to city council and how much priority they give to transit in the detours.

Plus, what is the solution otherwise?

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I don't think that this will work as well as you think. The parkways come into downtown alright but where do the buses go when they get there with all the road closures.

They could retain a corridor for buses only across the downtown (which would be available on, say, Albert and Slater). Buses coming from the east from the Rockcliffe Parkway would use King Edward which would have a temporary bus lane.

It would only be from the outer suburbs beyond LRT reach; those within the Greenbelt would use LRT.

[MalcolmTucker]

Whole point of the LRT is to save money. Not having direct trips downtown will allow for an increase in frequnecy which will save average users much more time than the transfer penalty.

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Whole point of the LRT is to save money. Not having direct trips downtown will allow for an increase in frequnecy which will save average users much more time than the transfer penalty.

But what about those that want their fat asses to be subsidized all the way from the end of their block (no buses on my street, thank you very much) and delivered in front of their offices (or preferably inside), maybe with an optional stop to buy hideous clothing at a strip mall along the way...huh? WHAT ABOUT THESE PEOPLE! How will they survive standing to wait for a bus in the suburbs at the end of the day? They are only capable of standing to wait for a bus downtown...oh wait, it's the same thing. Woops.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Whole point of the LRT is to save money. Not having direct trips downtown will allow for an increase in frequnecy which will save average users much more time than the transfer penalty.

You think we will end up with an increase in frequency, do you? First of all, the frequency on the LRT route will be reduced compared today. This will be more noticeable during off-peak hours. We will be lucky to have a train every 10 minutes. That is what Calgary gets. Second, we have seen it all before. Eliminate express service to increase frequency. This ends up being temporary and over time frequency is reduced to former levels. We saw it as new sections of the Transitway were opened. Frequency was increased on connecting routes to have it taken away later. This is one of the main reasons I don't take transit to work any more. Frequency has been gradually reduced or entire routes eliminated leaving things worse than before. And this is continuing in September. It is the connecting feeder routes invariably being hammered. So, don't give me that kind of BS.

In any event, this has nothing to do with what I was talking about. I was talking about in view of what happened on Canada Day, how badly will our transit system operate during conversion? Could we have planned things differently to reduce the potential impacts of implementing LRT? I am saying that blocking our only rapid transit accesses into downtown while building rail could potentially be catastrophic.

[lrt's friend]

Having to run on different streets? How is that any different from what Ottawa faces?

Downtown Toronto is a grid. They moved the streetcars over a block. The impact would have been minimal. We are attempting to do the same here, but is it? How will station access be maintained for transfers? Will we be able to maintain bus throughput on Nicholas and Scott compared to the Transitway? All it takes is one bottleneck to foul up the entire system.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

They could retain a corridor for buses only across the downtown (which would be available on, say, Albert and Slater). Buses coming from the east from the Rockcliffe Parkway would use King Edward which would have a temporary bus lane.

It would only be from the outer suburbs beyond LRT reach; those within the Greenbelt would use LRT.

I remind you that LRT reach is only Tunney's Pasture to Blair. I live inside the Greenbelt but many kms from this route.

The problem with the parkways on Canada Day. How do you get the buses from the Parkways to Albert and Slater efficiently so everything doesn't bog down? How do get from King Edward to Albert and Slater and around all the crowds?

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I remind you that LRT reach is only Tunney's Pasture to Blair. I live inside the Greenbelt but many kms from this route.

The problem with the parkways on Canada Day. How do you get the buses from the Parkways to Albert and Slater efficiently so everything doesn't bog down? How do get from King Edward to Albert and Slater and around all the crowds?

You don't. You make people use their mobility limbs (legs) to get to King Edward in the east for all points East and South East and to Lebreton in the West for all points West and Southwest.

[MalcolmTucker]

You think we will end up with an increase in frequency, do you?

In the suburbs there will be increases in frequency unless they plan on saving a lot mmore money than they are looking at today in reorganization. On the LRT line unless the union forces themselves onto trains the automatic train control will let service remain high.

[Cre47]

The Citizen did point the Transit troubles on Canada Day in this anonymous piece

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion...334/story.html

[lrt's friend]

The following from Ottawa Citizen dated July 5, 2011 explains what I was talking about.

Maybe this city still doesn’t quite have all the elements in place to throw a really big street party. The transit system failed miserably in its most important function of the day: getting revellers to and from downtown. There were long delays as buses packed to the gills whizzed by hot, drooping families on the Transitway. The city did take some extra measures to cope with the Canada Day needs, but clearly those measures were woefully inadequate. It’s not as if the demand could have taken OC Transpo unawares; Canada Day is always a big event and the royal visit wasn’t a surprise either. Part of the problem was familiar to daily OC Transpo commuters: the buses got stuck in the bottleneck in Centretown. But on Canada Day, the system should have been focused on getting people to downtown, not through downtown. If the system really is so inflexible that it can’t be changed appropriately to cope with a special event, that’s a problem. Part of being the capital of a G8 nation is putting on the occasional big show — and that means you ought to be able to get visitors from, say, the airport or the train station to that show, and back again. Anyone trying to get a No. 97 airport-bound on Friday afternoon knows it was well nigh impossible.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/royal-...+Canada/5053334/story.html#ixzz1RKZVM4Oy

It was explained in an article on Saturday that the transit budget and service level for July 1st was set 6 months ago. That is long before the royal visit was announced. There is inflexibility in the city's planning for such events. This is exactly why I have no confidence in the city's plans for LRT conversion. A further example of the city's lack of planning or the inability to relay information to the public. I phoned OC Transpo this morning to ask about transit service during Bluesfest to assist some friends who were coming from out of town. 30,000 attended last night. They could not tell me whether there would be supplemental transit service. They told me that the O-Train would only run on a half hour schedule when Bluesfest concludes. It frustrates me that a basic question could not be addressed beyond quoting the schedule that I have access to anyway.

I finally got the information I needed by calling my city councillor. There will be supplementary bus service on all Transitway routes and the O-Train will run on a 15 minute schedule until midnight.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by gjhall

You don't. You make people use their mobility limbs (legs) to get to King Edward in the east for all points East and South East and to Lebreton in the West for all points West and Southwest.

Exactly how do you get to King Edward from the Southeast?

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Exactly how do you get to King Edward from the Southeast?

King Edward-417-Walkley-Bank/Airport Parkway to get people directly to Greenboro/South Keys
or King Edward-417-Riverside Drive-Airport Parkway/Bank to basically match the Transitway's route.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by gjhall

King Edward-417-Walkley-Bank/Airport Parkway to get people directly to Greenboro/South Keys
or King Edward-417-Riverside Drive-Airport Parkway/Bank to basically match the Transitway's route.

I learned something . I never go downtown that way. It is far from direct from where I live. In any event, you would use the Transitway as far as Hurdman. Of course, running buses down Bronson would actually faster unless traffic is bad.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by gjhall

But what about those that want their fat asses to be subsidized all the way from the end of their block (no buses on my street, thank you very much) and delivered in front of their offices (or preferably inside), maybe with an optional stop to buy hideous clothing at a strip mall along the way...huh? WHAT ABOUT THESE PEOPLE! How will they survive standing to wait for a bus in the suburbs at the end of the day? They are only capable of standing to wait for a bus downtown...oh wait, it's the same thing. Woops.

How about putting their strip malls in the suburban transfer points? That'll shut them up.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Cre47

The Citizen did point the Transit troubles on Canada Day in this anonymous piece

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion...334/story.html

It's not anonymous. It's an editorial. Why does no one know what an editorial is any more?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I learned something . I never go downtown that way. It is far from direct from where I live. In any event, you would use the Transitway as far as Hurdman. Of course, running buses down Bronson would actually faster unless traffic is bad.

Running buses down Bronson would only be faster if you eliminate all other traffic. The 85 on Bronson is a bloody nightmare, especially at peak or in any kind of precipitation.

[eternallyme]

Fleet is now 100% low floor. Since the Orion VI's I believe will be retired next year, the fleet will also be entirely less than 9 years old...and they won't need to buy too many new buses for a while (although I would like to see some 25 or 30-foot buses for local routes).

http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/07/12/oc-transpo-dumps-high-floor-buses-making-fleet-accessible