The future of Ottawa's Transit

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The plan isn't bad, but I till don't see how someone who wants LRT to the Glebe would be a fan of this. It doesn't go any closer.

Funny thing, if you convert the Transitways, you will get something like this plan.

The plan IS exactly the current plan with MOOSE.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Also, the confederation line (because it is grade-separated) offers hope that a shorter overall trip. The tram was going to run on downtown streets and be held up by traffic lights, buses, etc.

Core-to-core trips will be LONGER, time-wise, with the route-stubbing.

Right now, going from, say, Beechwood Avenue to the Glebe, you can do it in one bus-boarding: take the 1 or the 7.

Post-LRT there will be a forced transfer thanks to the route-splitting fetishists. The bus trip time will be the same. There will be a forced transfer wait, which can vary from seconds to many minutes, depending on time of day/week, ambient weather or traffic conditions, or any of the other billion excuses OC Transpo has for current lousy service on core routes. Those factors will not change with LRT. And the LRT itself will not be a useful portion of any such Beechwood-Glebe trajectory.

This calculus is the same for almost every other within-the-core trip.

LRT will result in WORSE service between inner-city neighbourhoods.

[Uhuniau]

Still no station at Jasmine.

Goes to show you who this city council thinks are their priorities. Low-income, transit-dependent communities can get stuffed: 🞵🞵🞵🞵 LRT is for the suburbs.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Core-to-core trips will be LONGER, time-wise, with the route-stubbing.

Right now, going from, say, Beechwood Avenue to the Glebe, you can do it in one bus-boarding: take the 1 or the 7.

Post-LRT there will be a forced transfer thanks to the route-splitting fetishists. The bus trip time will be the same. There will be a forced transfer wait, which can vary from seconds to many minutes, depending on time of day/week, ambient weather or traffic conditions, or any of the other billion excuses OC Transpo has for current lousy service on core routes. Those factors will not change with LRT. And the LRT itself will not be a useful portion of any such Beechwood-Glebe trajectory.

This calculus is the same for almost every other within-the-core trip.

LRT will result in WORSE service between inner-city neighbourhoods.

Which is true if you live in an area served by multiple routes: Rideau Street, a small segment of St Laurent, a small segment of Beachwood, etc. Everyone else has always had to transfer, unless their origin and destination happened to be on the same route.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Which is true if you live in an area served by multiple routes: Rideau Street, a small segment of St Laurent, a small segment of Beachwood, etc. Everyone else has always had to transfer, unless their origin and destination happened to be on the same route.

Until OC Transpo started truncating routes, there were many inner neighbourhood pairs that had single-bus ways of getting from A to B.

Post-LRT there will be almost none, other than those that are along the same axis but before the split point (e.g., OOS, Glebe, and Centretown on Bank; Centretown and the Burgs on Somerwellingmond; etc.) There will be no more single-bus trips possible past an LRT station or across the canal.

This is monumentally dumb.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Until OC Transpo started truncating routes, there were many inner neighbourhood pairs that had single-bus ways of getting from A to B.

Post-LRT there will be almost none, other than those that are along the same axis but before the split point (e.g., OOS, Glebe, and Centretown on Bank; Centretown and the Burgs on Somerwellingmond; etc.) There will be no more single-bus trips possible past an LRT station or across the canal.

This is monumentally dumb.

Yes, but unless someone lives near a stop served by multiple routes (which I assume you do), there is a pretty low chance that their local route would line up with their destination (i.e. that someone who lived on Montreal Rd. happened to want to go to Somerset/Richmond and not to Elgin, Bank, Bronson, Preston, Main, etc.)

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Until OC Transpo started truncating routes, there were many inner neighbourhood pairs that had single-bus ways of getting from A to B.

Post-LRT there will be almost none, other than those that are along the same axis but before the split point (e.g., OOS, Glebe, and Centretown on Bank; Centretown and the Burgs on Somerwellingmond; etc.) There will be no more single-bus trips possible past an LRT station or across the canal.

This is monumentally dumb.

Not only are we focusing our transit increasingly on downtown, while our city is decentralizing, but when you go downtown, we are designing everything on the assumption that your destination is the Rideau Centre.

I am not sure how this really supports a transit culture, when you may want to use transit to go to your dentist, go out for an evening of entertainment, or go out for dinner. Let me check, but there are not many good restaurants in the Rideau Centre, not too many dentists, not too many entertainment locations in the mall either.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yes, but unless someone lives near a stop served by multiple routes (which I assume you do), there is a pretty low chance that their local route would line up with their destination (i.e. that someone who lived on Montreal Rd. happened to want to go to Somerset/Richmond and not to Elgin, Bank, Bronson, Preston, Main, etc.)

Most of the inner neighbourhoods and their main streets present multiple local routes as things stand now.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Not only are we focusing our transit increasingly on downtown,

We are?

The line and stations currently under construction are it for LRT downtown, and that project is short one downtown station that should have been built but was scrapped because Jim Watson is a cheapskate who panders to the cheapskate suburbs.

The closest thing to any additional downtown service now on the books will be the one new station at Gladstone. That is it.

Every other inch of line and every other new station will be in not-downtown, and the city is systematically making local bus service in the core as useless, uncomfortable, impractical, and time-ineffecient as humanly possible.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Most of the inner neighbourhoods and their main streets present multiple local routes as things stand now.

Just Bank, Rideau and a small segments of Beechwood and Elgin.

Bronson, Somerset, Preston, Holland, Parkdale, Montreal, Gladstone, Main, St Patrick, Scott (normally) and Laurier are mostly served by a single route (or no routes), as are the local routes in neighbourhoods such as Sandy Hill, Carlington, Vanier, Overbrook, OOS, OOE, the Glebe.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Core-to-core trips will be LONGER, time-wise, with the route-stubbing.

Right now, going from, say, Beechwood Avenue to the Glebe, you can do it in one bus-boarding: take the 1 or the 7.

Post-LRT there will be a forced transfer thanks to the route-splitting fetishists. The bus trip time will be the same. There will be a forced transfer wait, which can vary from seconds to many minutes, depending on time of day/week, ambient weather or traffic conditions, or any of the other billion excuses OC Transpo has for current lousy service on core routes. Those factors will not change with LRT. And the LRT itself will not be a useful portion of any such Beechwood-Glebe trajectory.

This calculus is the same for almost every other within-the-core trip.

LRT will result in WORSE service between inner-city neighbourhoods.

I don't see these kind of core to core trips being very common. There is very little employment in either location. The cost of running such a service is prohibitive.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I don't see these kind of core to core trips being very common. There is very little employment in either location. The cost of running such a service is prohibitive.

Many of those current routes break even at the farebox, or come closer to it than any others.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

We are?

The line and stations currently under construction are it for LRT downtown, and that project is short one downtown station that should have been built but was scrapped because Jim Watson is a cheapskate who panders to the cheapskate suburbs.

The closest thing to any additional downtown service now on the books will be the one new station at Gladstone. That is it.

Every other inch of line and every other new station will be in not-downtown, and the city is systematically making local bus service in the core as useless, uncomfortable, impractical, and time-ineffecient as humanly possible.

I knew you would misinterpret my comment. Focused on downtown in that we are consumed with getting people to and from downtown, ie commuter service.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by YOWetal

I don't see these kind of core to core trips being very common. There is very little employment in either location. The cost of running such a service is prohibitive.

I think the point here is making it easier in moving around various points in central neighbourhoods in general.

This is what the old streetcar network permitted and it also made it much easier to live without a car back in those years.

I think that should be our goal for the future to permit more people to live without a car especially if you choose to live in more central areas.

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Still no station at Jasmine.

Goes to show you who this city council thinks are their priorities. Low-income, transit-dependent communities can get stuffed: 🞵🞵🞵🞵 LRT is for the suburbs.

I live near Jasmine. This is really 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 me off. We need a new councillor. He was pretty useless on this issue.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Capital Shaun

I live near Jasmine. This is really 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 me off. We need a new councillor. He was pretty useless on this issue.

We are really seeing who are the effective councillors and who are not. The councillors in Orleans have had a lot pull to get the extension all the way to Trim Road and they obviously been pushing to build to Moodie Drive for all those displaced DND workers living in Orleans.

The scary thing is if an austerity government is elected the next time in Ontario. That could blow all of this out of the water.

I feel for you having gone to Gloucester High and knowing the area very well.

[YOWetal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

We are really seeing who are the effective councillors and who are not. The councillors in Orleans have had a lot pull to get the extension all the way to Trim Road and they obviously been pushing to build to Moodie Drive for all those displaced DND workers living in Orleans.

The scary thing is if an austerity government is elected the next time in Ontario. That could blow all of this out of the water.

I feel for you having gone to Gloucester High and knowing the area very well.

I don't think city councillors had much to do with it I think the route is designed to appeal to key provincial and federal ridings.

Point two seems all but certain. Shovels in the ground didn't even save the Shepard extension so this would seem to be all in jeopardy post 2018.

[1overcosc]

Brown has made pro-infrastructure spending part of his pitch. He spends a lot of time criticizing the Liberals for not having built GO RER; while that does show ignorance in that it ignores the fact that projects have lead times in design and planning, it does show commitment to transit.

While I can see a future government not making new promises, I have a hard time seeing a post-2018 government scrapping things already promised.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Capital Shaun

I live near Jasmine. This is really 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 me off. We need a new councillor. He was pretty useless on this issue.

Thankfully, the final version of the technical report did indicate that procurement would include requiring the line to protect for a future station at Gloucester High School. It's better than nothing and it means the fight is not over.

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Thankfully, the final version of the technical report did indicate that procurement would include requiring the line to protect for a future station at Gloucester High School. It's better than nothing and it means the fight is not over.

I've known about the protected area for some time but come on, just build the station. If it's not done with Phase 2 it'll take 10, 20, or even 30 years more before someone else gets to it. Seems like a no-brainer to build a station there but politicians and planners are in their own world.