London Public Transit

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by tyeman200

Yes they do. But you need your student ID, and you also have to get a bus pass, with your student number on it, and the expiry date. I know LTC has also introduced the 91 Express, which runs down Oxford. The only difference is the 91 Express runs at peak times, and is only running for the Fanshawe school year (September 1, 2014-April 25, 2015). Hopefully in time, the 91 Express would end up like the 90 Express.

Do Western students still only have the pass valid from September-April?

[tyeman200]

Nope. In fact, both of them have their bus passes valid for a year (From August 31 20xx-August 31 20xx). The bus pass is the only one worth it IMO. I would never spend money on a monthly bus pass, I just think those things are ripoffs.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by tyeman200

Nope. In fact, both of them have their bus passes valid for a year (From August 31 20xx-August 31 20xx). The bus pass is the only one worth it IMO. I would never spend money on a monthly bus pass, I just think those things are ripoffs.

That's a good change. When I went to Western we couldn't use the passes during the summer months but the Fanshawe students could.

[ssiguy]

Granville Street is unrecognizable from the 90s. It is very vibrant, attractive, and awash will patios, cafes, bistros, and finally some interesting shopping.

The 🞵🞵🞵🞵 shops are almost all gone and it has gone from shameful to vibrant. Thing is that all the buses {except to the North shore} coming into the city use the Granville Bus Mall. It brings HUGE pedestrian traffic and gets the buses off the parallel roads which has allowed them to have new bike lanes and wider sidewalks as well and yet car traffic moves much faster.

[Blitz]

I hate walking with my family at the corner of Dundas & Richmond. Far too many skuzzy-looking people (the type that would hang out on the patio at Tim Worst's Friday Light Fights Bar) blowing their cigarette smoke and sporting blue-ink tattoos, swearing obscenities at each other in hoarse 3-pack-a-day voices. Never mind the presence of other people. Utterly classless.

This is true. If I need to walk across downtown I usually choose Queens Ave just to avoid those lowlifes. I don't know how much of that has to do with all of the Ontario Works offices there (and the various other services in that area that cater to a certain crowd) rather than the transit layout.

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

I hate walking with my family at the corner of Dundas & Richmond. Far too many skuzzy-looking people (the type that would hang out on the patio at Tim Worst's Friday Light Fights Bar) blowing their cigarette smoke and sporting blue-ink tattoos, swearing obscenities at each other in hoarse 3-pack-a-day voices. Never mind the presence of other people. Utterly classless.

Unfortunately, you’re dead right. I was in downtown London with my wife (who has not spent much time in London, and not downtown, and was shocked by how run-down it was) the other Sunday afternoon. Man, oh man, it was even worse than I remember it, particularly the blocks surrounding Dundas and Richmond. How many head shops can one sparsely-inhabited downtown support?

I don’t know what the answer to Dundas is, but I think that LTC’s ridership is such that it does not attract the kind of feet on the street that are likely to promote the kind of streetscape you would want. That will be even more the case once it moves away from a downtown-focused hub-and-spoke that no longer forces riders to connect at Dundas and Richmond whether they want to be there or not.

Thus, don’t expect putting more buses on Dundas to fix it. Best case, divert more buses to Dundas, and use the freed-up capacity on streets like King and Richmond to widen sidewalks and install bike lanes. I’d say they stand a much stronger chance of meaningful revival. It’s true that transit brings people to an area, but in downtown London I think it’s by and large not the most useful people.

[bolognium]

I've lived at Dundas and Richmond for nearly 4 years now, and I'm shocked people still rag on it like they do. The Rexall alone has been a completely transformative project for the corner. Not to mention Fanshawe's campus, Market Lane, Starbucks renovation, Shopper's Drug Mart and Tim Hortons' imminent expansion into the old Mascot. There have been numerous renovations/restorations to the buildings surrounding the corner as well.

I truly believe the problem with DnR is LTC. There are far too many people standing around waiting for buses, causing congestion on the sidewalks. Dundas is a very narrow street, with even more narrow sidewalks. These congested sidewalks make it easy for undesirables to loiter, and even prey on Ontario Works recipients. Decentralizing OW will make a difference, but I think LTC is at the heart of DnR's problems.

We talk about wanting patios on Dundas, but we still want buses rumbling by? Moving buses to Queens/York will add some life to those streets, and also help clean up Dundas. The only way I'd be happy to see LTC remain on Dundas is if it became a transit street, with no personal vehicles allowed. Have the BRT/LRT run down the centre and allow delivery/courier vehicles and the like.

Dundas and Richmond is a completely safe corner, and hearing families and couples avoid it because they see it as "scuzzy" seems pretty superficial to me.

[jaradthescot]

I agree with it being entirely superficial, but the point still stands. I never feel in danger when I'm there, but I do feel, for lack of a better word, 'icky' walking past the crowds that assemble there. I love our downtown, with all its flaws, but that one intersection I do hate. That being said, it only lasts for a few storefronts before the area starts to get much nicer. I agree that it's entirely down to the LTC's presence.

For a long-term solution, I'd love to eventually repurpose the Galleria (at least part of it; its entire quare footage would be superfluous) into a transit hub to get people off the streets. The Galleria is doing nothing these days and having a London version of Grand Central or Union Station would be great for the LTC's image and getting LTC patrons off the streets would be great for DnR.

[Pimpmasterdac]

DnR will be a lot different once the decentralization of Ontario Works is fully implemented, and doesn't require all of the unsavoury people that are dependent on to go there. Not only from a social perspective, of drug deals going on in open day light, but that of businesses in the area. I doubt it will require as many payday loans and pawn shops, but instead bring more reputable and decent. As well the ongoing condo boom ought to gentrify the area nicely!

As far as a transit hub IMO London has missed the boat on that. There have been plenty of locations that could've handled one (One London Place pre-1990, Talbot Block pre-JLC, Former London Mews site to name a few) but it wasn't considered a priority in the revitalization of downtown somehow...

Now any transit hub would have to be on the periphery of downtown, likely on York st, either near the VIA station or either side of Wellington. Galleria could have potential as a hub, given the high vacancy rate but I would be it would be turned into condos before it becomes a transit hub..

[GreatTallNorth2]

Wow, more good news!! Larry Ducharme is retiring! Hope they get a progressive General Manager that can create a decent transit system.


http://blackburnnews.com/london/2014/11/06/ltcs-general-manager-to-retire/

[jaradthescot]

Do we think that is entirely coincidental? I suspect/would like to think that it has at least a little to do with the new direction City Hall is moving in. Either they directly pressured him to retire, or (more likely but less exciting) he saw that their vision was opposed to London's transit future and retired under his own volition.

I'm sure it's neither, but the timing of the announcement lends itself to conjecture

[MrSlippery519]

Originally Posted by jaradthescot

Do we think that is entirely coincidental? I suspect/would like to think that it has at least a little to do with the new direction City Hall is moving in. Either they directly pressured him to retire, or (more likely but less exciting) he saw that their vision was opposed to London's transit future and retired under his own volition.

I'm sure it's neither, but the timing of the announcement lends itself to conjecture

I think both ideas are entirely possible, at the end of the day I am just happy he is gone.

Lets hope his replacement can think a little better outside of the box.

[ssiguy]

London should get it's BRT act together and present it to senior levels of government as soon as possible. It is rare when you get an Ontario government willing to spend real money on transit at the same time as a federal government is running a balanced budget and going to an election where all kind of goodies are dished out.

[MolsonExport]

Dundas and Richmond is a completely safe corner, and hearing families and couples avoid it because they see it as "scuzzy" seems pretty superficial to me.

I don't need my 6 year old daughter and 8 year old son hearing the foul mouths and witnessing the gross behaviour of the lowlifes. Sure, Dundas is improving measurably. But hectoring people for feeling uneasy is the wrong approach. Before I had kids, I wouldn't give two shits. Things change...a lot...when you have a young family. I get the impression that you do not.

[ssiguy]

I totally appreciate where you are coming from MolsonExport. No one wants to be exposed to that kind of language or general offensive behavior especially when they have kids.

At the same time you have to appreciate that that is not unique to London. It happens in EVERY city in the country. If you were here in Vancouver not only would you face foul language but offensive and threatening behavior, drunk and high people, being asked for change 2 or 3 times per block in the entire downtown peninsula, prostitution, needles on the ground and in the parks, hundred sleeping on the benches, sidewalks, parks, and even in the banks ATM sections.Police sirens, smashed windows, violence, and poor souls with track marks up and down their arms. Being screamed at by people who are off their meds and thrown out of their health care centre or by someone is on a meth or heroin trip.

I know that doesn't make it any nicer for you or your children to hear offensive language but you have no idea how benign and ultra safe London till you've been out here.

[MolsonExport]

^I am from Montreal. I lived in downtown Montreal for years. I also lived in Downtown Vancouver (among other places). So Yes, I am aware that it is common elsewhere, but generally on the seedier side streets. Here, it is right at ground zero of downtown. That is the difference. You don't get that pee smell on the corner of Peel & Ste. Catherine in Montreal.

[ssiguy]

I appreciate that but then you at Central and Richmond and you definitely get it at Ste.Catherines and St.Laurent.

I totally agree that have to clean up the corner and I think that when {if} they move the Ontario Works out of the area that will be a major step forward. If those two condo towers at the previous London Mews site goes up that will definitely help as will a widening of the Dundas sidewalks as more cafes open up and people and businesses really start making an issue of it when it effects their cafes. Getting rid of Ontario Works will also probably mean an exodus of the pawn shops and Money-Marts.

The city could do a better job of that corner certainly but I guess I see it from a different perspective. When I go back every couple of years I see the real progress the downtown is making while it's easier to over look if you see it everyday and the change is more incremental.

I left London in 1989 and went back thru the 90s and the city's downtown is in renaissance compared to what it was at that time. The streetscape and energy of the downtown is unrecognizable from that time when many were simply writing off the downtown as a lost cause.

Change will continue to come and the new mayor seems determined to make the Core a top priority.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

^I am from Montreal. I lived in downtown Montreal for years. I also lived in Downtown Vancouver (among other places). So Yes, I am aware that it is common elsewhere, but generally on the seedier side streets. Here, it is right at ground zero of downtown. That is the difference. You don't get that pee smell on the corner of Peel & Ste. Catherine in Montreal.

I second that, living in Kingston - and we have the added dimension of people out on parole from the various prisons out here. While we have some panhandlers, the downtown doesn't have the swearing, fighting, and high people that London's downtown had when I lived there.

Part of the difference may be the far lower number of buses, and there's no OW office downtown.

[MolsonExport]

I do believe that the new OW office has opened at Northland Mall. Most of the latter has been renovated (now a mini-mall with about 6 shops enclosed and the rest, all strip mall. Most of the former mall space in the rear has been repurposed for the OW office. I see an increase in sales for the Wine Rack shop in the mall

Now if only Tim Worst would move his loan-sharking establishment...

[HillStreetBlues]

I enjoy this “my-downtown-makes-your-downtown-look-like-Disney World” kind of conversation. The fact is that Vancouver is Vancouver- it is the centre of an urban area of two and a half million. It has a climate that is mild compared to other parts of the country, and attitudes towards poverty and social support that are markedly more generous than neighbouring jurisdictions. So it’s going to have a lot of the elements that ssiguy describes.

London, on the other hand, is a relatively small city with larger cities nearby. I have no idea why downtown London attracts as many marginalized people as it seems to (and I understand that much of this is just my perception). Downtown Kitchener has a reputation in Waterloo Region as being rough; Hamilton has a reputation nationwide. But I can honestly say that London’s downtown (particular Dundas and Richmond, which is its heart) is a less comfortable place to be. Yes, you get panhandlers in downtown Hamilton, but they’re rarely at all aggressive; there is often an on-foot police presence at King and James. There are a lot of poorly-off folks hanging around Jackson Square and Gore Park, but they generally are not swearing and harassing people.

Redistributing the Ontario Doesn’t Work offices to other parts of the city is a good idea, as long as they’re still accessible. As MolsonGuy points out, there’s even a sort of economic development effect for certain niches.