Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

They have a lot of seats upstairs, but there's lot's of standing room downstairs. The dwell time isn't bad at all as long as people know double decker etiquette (come downstairs before your stop), at least on the one I used to ride all the time.

No, there is not lots of standing room downstairs. And you are not supposed to use the stairs while the bus is in motion.

DDers are better for BRT-style routes with longer gaps between stops/stations.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Vancouver would be an even better example, but I think there's no convincing people like that. Ottawa is now on that border between mid size city and big city, and we're starting to get big city things. There's a lot of resistance to that idea I find, people seem to want to keep Ottawa frozen the way it was.

It's not that they want to keep Ottawa "frozen" so much as they are cheap.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's amazing to me for example, that we'll go from not having rail transit to 70% of Ottawa residents being within 5 km of rail transit (a 20 min ride on a feeder bus) in 15 years.

That "within 5km" metric is completely and utterly meaningless to anyone who isn't Jim Watson.

It has absolutely no relevance to anyone or anything else.

My next hope is that we can get the discussion going on boosting Confederation Line off-peak frequencies. And hopefully sometime next decade we can talk about double tracking and electrifying the Trillium Line, along with discussing what to do about other corridors, like Carling for example.

Maybe in the next two centuries, Ottawa will even contemplate building some urban transit, instead of just suburban transit. The existing dense, mixed-use parts of the city are subsidizing transit-based sprawl on the current plan out to the mid-century horizon. This is no more sustainable than the previous six decades of auto-based sprawl.

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

No, there is not lots of standing room downstairs. And you are not supposed to use the stairs while the bus is in motion.

DDers are better for BRT-style routes with longer gaps between stops/stations.

Good Day....

yep. and that is exactly and precisely how they were 'sold' to us, the consumer - express route ONLY useage on high-capacity, long-distance, low on-off volume except AT each end, for PRECISELY those reasons (and as well the height concern - trees, wires, poles, etc.). We were told that they would NEVER be on local services. And then, lo-and-behold, they started sneaking onto local routes. inc. the (then) 1. OH! only temporary. only an emergency run. only, only, only. the excuses started getting ridiculous, and then ceased, and here we are.
Just like the original artics. BRT, 'train-like' transitway use only. and then........ (inc. the chestnut that their length would never make it around tight curves. and then there it was on the (full-length, old style) 5.)..... etc.
That's why those priceless photos of artics backed up and bent up at Terr.des.Chaud (and at the bottom of the Carling hills, and and ) in the middle of a snowstorm was a perfect commentary on all of THAT.
It ticked me off then; it ticks me off now. End of rant.

[kmcamp]

I actually like riding the DD's even on local routes, and I meant move down one stop ahead, not when the bus was in motion. Maybe I'm in the minority though, or maybe it's just because when one shows up I always get a seat with a view rather than standing beside somebody's armpit.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

That "within 5km" metric is completely and utterly meaningless to anyone who isn't Jim Watson.

It has absolutely no relevance to anyone or anything else.

Same metric used by Metrolinx in the GTA to define access to higher order transit. And 5 km makes sense. At 15 kph, that's a 20 minute bus ride on a feeder bus. For reference, I've read that TTC buses have an average speed of 17 kph. Not sure about Ottawa.

[caveat.doctor]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

That "within 5km" metric is completely and utterly meaningless to anyone who isn't Jim Watson.

It has absolutely no relevance to anyone or anything else.

Is there any data along the lines of % of residents within walking distance of frequent transit? That might be a more useful metric. There's US data at http://transitcenter.org/2016/06/09/who-lives-near-frequent-transit/, for example. You can get other neat stats for US neighbourhood, like number of jobs within 30 min by transit, at http://alltransit.cnt.org/.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

I actually like riding the DD's even on local routes, and I meant move down one stop ahead, not when the bus was in motion. Maybe I'm in the minority though, or maybe it's just because when one shows up I always get a seat with a view rather than standing beside somebody's armpit.

I don't *mind* them for local use, and I do the same, get ready to disembark a stop or two ahead of time, but unfortunately, most people don't.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Same metric used by Metrolinx in the GTA to define access to higher order transit.

The fact that two systems are using the same BS metric doesn't make it less BS.

And 5 km makes sense. At 15 kph, that's a 20 minute bus ride on a feeder bus.

And the significance of 20 minutes is...?

For reference, I've read that TTC buses have an average speed of 17 kph. Not sure about Ottawa.

I don't know about Ottawa's system overall, but it's not unusual for local buses in the core to move at 10-15 km/h during the day. That's a problem that isn't measure by the 5km BS, nor is it solved by the 5km magic solution.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Same metric used by Metrolinx in the GTA to define access to higher order transit. And 5 km makes sense. At 15 kph, that's a 20 minute bus ride on a feeder bus. .

That doesn't sound very competitive to me in terms of attracting riders. Especially if that feeder bus is running on 30-minute frequencies (maybe 15 if you're lucky).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

That "within 5km" metric is completely and utterly meaningless to anyone who isn't Jim Watson.

It has absolutely no relevance to anyone or anything else.

.

I agree.

Your options with 5 km are those feeder buses (see previous post about how that usually goes) or someone dropping you off or picking you up by car... at which point you're already in the car. Which defeats the advantage of taking transit in a lot of cases (though not all them it's true).

Or of course there is walking. The average person will take about an hour to walk 5 km. In good weather.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

The fact that two systems are using the same BS metric doesn't make it less BS.



And the significance of 20 minutes is...?



I don't know about Ottawa's system overall, but it's not unusual for local buses in the core to move at 10-15 km/h during the day. That's a problem that isn't measure by the 5km BS, nor is it solved by the 5km magic solution.

This 5 km measure is BS indeed. This includes people who have to travel that 5 km in the opposite direction to their trip. How is that attractive? For example, if you live in Vanier, 5 km to LRT means taking a trip south to Hurdman or going downtown, which may be your destination anyways. Wow! Either go the wrong way or go to Rideau to take the train one stop. I can see all the new riders with this arrangement.

In my case, I live within 5 km of the Trillium Line but neither does it go downtown nor does it help one bit to get me to work. Yet I am getting the big benefit of LRT. Yeah, sure!

I took the rail survey on the OC Transpo website. What a joke. The questions are so restricted to simply be 100% supportive of the plan. There was no options to tell them how to make transit better in Ottawa even in a 100% constructive way. Well look here, we just want pats on the back for the perfect plan, was there any doubt?

[lrt's friend]

Calgary's bus network is not well liked but they got one thing right. Many bus routes connecting to the C-Train follow looping routes. The benefit of this is that if you miss the bus to your destination, the next one goes around the same loop in the opposite direction. It may take a little longer to get to your destination going around the loop the opposite way, but at least you are not waiting at the station for a half hour. Are we considering doing this? Nope! Wait the half hour. That meets the demand. Who cares about your time. But then, the Confederation Line is not designed to be central to the city's neighbourhoods and the Trillium Line does not go downtown, so how do you make looping routes work?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

calgary's bus network is not well liked but they got one thing right. Many bus routes connecting to the c-train follow looping routes. The benefit of this is that if you miss the bus to your destination, the next one goes around the same loop in the opposite direction. It may take a little longer to get to your destination going around the loop the opposite way, but at least you are not waiting at the station for a half hour. Are we considering doing this? Nope! Wait the half hour. That meets the demand. Who cares about your time. But then, the confederation line is not designed to be central to the city's neighbourhoods and the trillium line does not go downtown, so how do you make looping routes work?

this!!!!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Calgary's bus network is not well liked but they got one thing right. Many bus routes connecting to the C-Train follow looping routes. The benefit of this is that if you miss the bus to your destination, the next one goes around the same loop in the opposite direction. It may take a little longer to get to your destination going around the loop the opposite way, but at least you are not waiting at the station for a half hour. Are we considering doing this? Nope! Wait the half hour. That meets the demand. Who cares about your time. But then, the Confederation Line is not designed to be central to the city's neighbourhoods and the Trillium Line does not go downtown, so how do you make looping routes work?

Not sure if this is what you have in mind, but in my part of Gatineau most of the local feeder routes terminate at two different Rapibus stations.

So if I am on my way home, I know that if I miss the feeder route at one station, I have the option of staying on the Rapibus for one or two stations down the line and taking the same route that will take me home but departing in the other direction.

It helps takes a bit of the sting out of low frequencies on local routes during off-peak times.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

This 5 km measure is BS indeed. This includes people who have to travel that 5 km in the opposite direction to their trip. How is that attractive? For example, if you live in Vanier, 5 km to LRT means taking a trip south to Hurdman or going downtown, which may be your destination anyways.

For fun I drew a map of the 5 km perimeter of both the Confederation and Trillium lines. The Glebe is another example of a location that officially is in prime LRT land, but residents will hardly use it. Considering the line is only 12.5 km long, a 5km radius seems rather generous.



Optimally a tapered catchment should be used where the radius gets larger, the further you get from the core.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not sure if this is what you have in mind, but in my part of Gatineau most of the local feeder routes terminate at two different Rapibus stations.

So if I am on my way home, I know that if I miss the feeder route at one station, I have the option of staying on the Rapibus for one or two stations down the line and taking the same route that will take me home but departing in the other direction.

It helps takes a bit of the sting out of low frequencies on local routes during off-peak times.

Not exactly. The routes in suburban Calgary do a loop from the same C-Train station and I expect the schedules are offset. So 30 minute service really means 15 minute service with a bus departing clockwise say on the hour and half hour and the counterclockwise route departing on the quarter hour and three quarter hour. This might be service in off-peak hours. In peak hours, the buses would be on 15 minute frequency so effectively every 7 to 8 minutes with an offsetting schedule. It is an effective way of delivering better service to the customer. And by using the same station for each direction, there is no guessing for the rider and no bus scheduling issues either.

[kmcamp]

The much more realistic catchment area is visible in geoottawa if you go under Layers->Planning->600m bylaw area around transit.

People will probably take a bus to a train from elsewhere willingly, but generally people aren't willing to do bus->train->bus on one trip.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

The much more realistic catchment area is visible in geoottawa if you go under Layers->Planning->600m bylaw area around transit.

People will probably take a bus to a train from elsewhere willingly, but generally people aren't willing to do bus->train->bus on one trip.

I think people do not want to do two transfers regardless of mode. Unfortunately, this is what we are creating because Ottawa's employment is quite decentralized.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by roger1818

For fun I drew a map of the 5 km perimeter of both the Confederation and Trillium lines. The Glebe is another example of a location that officially is in prime LRT land, but residents will hardly use it. Considering the line is only 12.5 km long, a 5km radius seems rather generous.



Optimally a tapered catchment should be used where the radius gets larger, the further you get from the core.

5 km makes it very easy to cover wide parts of the city.