London Public Transit

[GreatTallNorth2]

I would like to see the City put a huge focus on changing Dundas and make this Main Street be the best street in the city. To do this, widen the sidewalks and run a kind of portobello road style street market once a week, where you basically run an outdoor market. Make it a hip place to be. Also take the buses off the road.

[ssiguy]

So is OW completely out of the Simpson's building an completely out of the downtown core now?

[Pimpmasterdac]

London unfortunately gets a lot of vagrants, and other socially dependent people from other towns of SWO. London is the "big town" of the area, where marginalized have more options than smaller rural places like Wingham, Goderich, Exeter, etc. that don't have "downtowns" for people to loiter and such.

I know there's a de-centralization of OW plan that's being implemented with offices in each cardinal direction. OW is still there, not sure if downtown is office is being closed or just downsized once the plan is implemented.

There's already plan in the works to move Dundas buses to Queens & King. Soon to be retired LTC caveman Larry Ducharme was against the move, do to perceived increased costs and time. Hopefully a the new commissioner will have some 20th century views unlike Larry the caveman.

[jaradthescot]

Ducharme's replacement is an accountant hired from within the LTC hierarchy. Not the best sign

http://www.lfpress.com/2014/11/20/kelly-paleczny-to-replace-larry-ducharme-as-head-of-ltc

[Pimpmasterdac]

Wow, quite an uninspiring commissioner. Has no background in transit planning, just an accountant that rose the ranks... The quote about Larry the caveman leaving the LTC in good shape sealed it.

[haljackey]

With scarcity comes efficiency.

This could be a change for the better. If the LTC is effectively managed from a financial perspective it may help improve the system.

I don't expect any big, bold visions from the LTC anytime soon. It seems they have stopped dreaming about what this city could be in the future.

Most people these days are just happy to reach for the status quo. Here's to hoping things don't get any worse.

[HillStreetBlues]

Originally Posted by Pimpmasterdac

Wow, quite an uninspiring commissioner. Has no background in transit planning, just an accountant that rose the ranks... The quote about Larry the caveman leaving the LTC in good shape sealed it.

I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s almost never appropriate for someone brand new to a job to slag off his predecessor. I also respect accountants, so it doesn’t bother me that that is his designation rather than planning. I’m crossing my fingers and praying that big improvements will be made at the LTC, and maybe this guy will be the one to implement them.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by jaradthescot

Ducharme's replacement is an accountant hired from within the LTC hierarchy. Not the best sign

http://www.lfpress.com/2014/11/20/kelly-paleczny-to-replace-larry-ducharme-as-head-of-ltc

I've seen what accountants can do to successful companies. Not a good move. I worked for a company that went bankrupt after an accountant came in and cut costs to the point that the company's reputation dropped very fast and sales plummeted. The company was doing just fine without him/her and the cost cutting destroyed the company's competitive advantage.

[BIGGUY2891]

This new guy is actually a girl. She claims to have worked in different areas across the province. She is a native of Kitchener-Waterloo. We can hope she has vision, or at the least can copy the transit vision of other municipalities like her hometown.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by manny_santos

I've seen what accountants can do to successful companies. Not a good move. I worked for a company that went bankrupt after an accountant came in and cut costs to the point that the company's reputation dropped very fast and sales plummeted. The company was doing just fine without him/her and the cost cutting destroyed the company's competitive advantage.

This is the fundamental problem with bean-counters. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I have never seen any situation where the bean-counters didn't manage to totally 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 things up with their predilection for cost-cutting at any cost, no pun intended.

It looks like we're seeing a similar situation with the current federal government where services are being slashed left, right and centre, seemingly without regard for who gets hurt in the process.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by Pimpmasterdac

London unfortunately gets a lot of vagrants, and other socially dependent people from other towns of SWO. London is the "big town" of the area, where marginalized have more options than smaller rural places like Wingham, Goderich, Exeter, etc. that don't have "downtowns" for people to loiter and such.

I know there's a de-centralization of OW plan that's being implemented with offices in each cardinal direction. OW is still there, not sure if downtown is office is being closed or just downsized once the plan is implemented.

There's already plan in the works to move Dundas buses to Queens & King. Soon to be retired LTC caveman Larry Ducharme was against the move, do to perceived increased costs and time. Hopefully a the new commissioner will have some 20th century views unlike Larry the caveman.

Decentralization of the Ontario Works office and moving of the Dundas buses are steps in the right direction - and long overdue. I work downtown, and I am really tired of seeing all the feckless dirtbags hanging around in the Richmond-Dundas area. They seem to help keep the scruffy, dirty bars and taverns that line that part of Richmond Street in business, and those are things I would like to see gone as well.

I find that the combination of the two - the bums, the drug-dealers and tatted-up, chain-smoking single mothers with their baby carriages and the run-down, scruffy storefronts and bars make the downtown core an unpleasant and depressing place to be. Although the recent arrival of Fanshawe's downtown campus, the existence of the Covent Market and the freshening of storefronts along Dundas helps lighten things up a little bit, it's not enough.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by 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/

I met Ducharme once, and I thought he was the dullest, most unimaginative man I'd ever met. A classic risk-averse bureaucrat too afraid to make waves and move things ahead, which is exactly what our risk-averse, unimaginative city hall wanted.

[Stevo26]

Originally Posted by 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.

Well, with Brown now at the helm, and since he has a serious interest in getting the BRT system started, I don't think we'll have to worry about London not jumping on funding opportunities.

[ssiguy]

I certainly hope you are right.

A pro-transit mayor, and provincial government backed up by an impending federal election with a surplus is a very rare set of circumstances that London should immediately take advantage of. If the City waits til after the next federal election it will be too late.

London is in the enviable position of being home to a lot of swing voters and London will definitely be considered a battleground city which London should take advantage of.

[mpd618]

Originally Posted by jaradthescot

Ducharme's replacement is an accountant hired from within the LTC hierarchy. Not the best sign

"Head of finance and administration" is a leadership and management role, not an accountant role.

Originally Posted by Stevo26

This is the fundamental problem with bean-counters. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I have never seen any situation where the bean-counters didn't manage to totally 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 things up with their predilection for cost-cutting at any cost, no pun intended.

The city of Kitchener has had an accountant as mayor for the last 17 years, with a very different outcome than the above.

[jaradthescot]

From the reddit link provided in the coffee talk thread:

"I wasn't expecting to feel unsafe walking down some of the main streets later in the evening, so I was surprised by that. " (later clarified to be talking about "Richmond street around here where I started to get really sketched out while waiting for a bus")

Something I hadn't thought of is how, being right downtown, whatever image they have of that particular area will be how many visitors will remember London.

[GreatTallNorth2]

Finally some vision from the top. Let's hope we get some form of LRT in London.

http://www.lfpress.com/2015/01/27/london-mayor-matt-brown-announces-beginning-of-lrt-plan

[MolsonExport]

I'd love to see a European-style tram in London. Northern terminus: Masonville. Down to UWO, then across the Thames parallel to Richmond St. (A block either way, who cares?). Approach on the East side of Victoria park (or Wellington), loop down Dundas Street to Richmond, then down Richmond under/over the train tracks...back towards Wellington and points south....all the way to White Oaks (Southern terminus).

Reims (France) is smaller (metro pop of 291,735, albeit much denser) than London, and this is what they got:

funimag

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by jaradthescot

From the reddit link provided in the coffee talk thread:

"I wasn't expecting to feel unsafe walking down some of the main streets later in the evening, so I was surprised by that. " (later clarified to be talking about "Richmond street around here where I started to get really sketched out while waiting for a bus")

Something I hadn't thought of is how, being right downtown, whatever image they have of that particular area will be how many visitors will remember London.

We've brought in job candidates (for professor positions) here to London, and put them up in a downtown Hotel (usually Delta Armories or the Hilton), and several have expressed the same impression. As was my first impression when I too was brought in from out of town (and I am from big city Montreal, so I am used to the unsavory side of all large cities).

[GreatTallNorth2]

I think the new TTC streetcars look sweet. They are Bombardier and made in Thunder Bay.