Monday rush hour flowing smoothly as OC Transpo riders face first major test of major service changes
Tom Spears, Megan Gillis & Aedan Helmer, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: October 7, 2019
Things were flowing smoothly on both ends of Ottawa’s LRT system early on the first Monday morning commute after OC Transpo made massive changes to bus routes.
It was the first major test of the changes that see many routes retired, replaced or split in two. The number of buses dropping passengers off in the downtown core has been slashed because commuters can now use the LRT system.
Early in the rush hour, commuters were going smoothly from buses to trains at both Tunney’s station in the west and Blair station in the east on the LRT system.
The LRT station at Tunney’s was busy during the rush hour, with passengers crowded onto the platform, but traffic was orderly and there were plenty of OC Transpo staff on hand to answer questions.
Commuters streamed off buses from the suburbs, many headed straight to work at Tunney’s Pasture, one of the civil service’s biggest office complexes.
Those heading downtown from Tunney’s station had a legion of red-vested OC Transpo employees to guide them as they descended to the platforms, which were full but emptied like clockwork every five minutes as trains departed.
OC Transpo John Marconi was spotted at the station coordinating part of the morning’s commute by cell phone.
The pinch point cited by several commuters arriving at Tunney’s Pasture wasn’t the train – it was the bus connections.
Annette Everett, for example, said her bus from Chapel Hill to Blair Station is “hit or miss” and it eats up the train’s time savings.
“The train is great but our bus would normally take 15 minutes to get to Blair,” she said. “We were nearly 45 minutes waiting.”
Everett said that the train is clean, dependable so far and a pleasant ride but “feeder buses are the issue.”
Olivia Lamarre, who travelled from Blackburn Hamlet to the Blair LRT Station and on to Tunney’s, said the train was jammed until she got to Parliament Station downtown. She said there might not be room for people boarding with wheelchairs or strollers or trying to bike and ride. She’d also like to see straps that shorter patrons could hang onto while they stand on the train.
“It was packed,” she said, wondering why full trains don’t bypass stations like jammed buses. “Hopefully it’s just growing pains.”
Sergio Rosé, who gets a ride as far as Cyrville Station then rides the train to Tunney’s, said that the LRT system has takes 20 minutes off his commute. “It’s the best thing to happen to this city in a long time.”
Monday’s bus services changes were a boon to Yinka Bolarinwa, who last week had to bus to Rideau Station from her home in Centretown but now has a direct bus almost from her front door to Tunney’s Pasture.
“Now it’s one straight route for me,” she said.
The Blair LRT station was much less busy early Monday morning.
“I’ve been avoiding (the LRT system) until now because I know the bus and I am comfortable with it,” said Eric Nadeau, who travelled to Blair Station from his home near Tenth Line Road. “But now that I’m here I’ve seen it working and it’s easy.
“I thought it might be too crowded, all those buses arriving together. But it’s fine.”
The train is better than driving, said commuter Kathryn Ellison, pointed at cars stuck in traffic on Road 174 just south of Blair station. Ellison took a short bus ride to Blair.
Like Nadeau, she wondered whether the bus route changes might bring a mob scene to the LRT platform. She needn’t have worried. Blair station was not particularly busy.
Ellison said that while she sometimes has to stand on the LRT train, it’s easier to keep her balance than on the bus because the ride is smoother.
However, it was more congested for westbound commuters at Hurdman station, where many buses drop off passengers. A few passengers couldn’t find a door with space to squeeze in before the doors closed.
While all passengers arrive at Hurdman in the centre of the platform, it’s easier to board closer to the front or back of the train.
An electronic voice at Hurdman kept asking people to move farther down the platform “for safe and efficient boarding.” Just about everyone ignored it, though.
In the much-anticipated rollout of the OC Transpo changes, more than 100 route changes will affect 240,000 customer trips each day, with most routes featuring new and revised schedules.
Trip times and frequencies “have been adjusted to provide good connections” with the O-Train “and to meet current passenger volumes,” OC Transpo states on an exhaustive list of changes on its website.
In an effort to counter any confusion from riders as the changes take effect, OC Transpo dispatched staff in bright red vests to numerous transit hubs across the city Monday to assist riders with the transition and guide them through the route changes. The city will also stage a media event Monday to provide an update on the service changes.
Many of the changes, which took effect Sunday, are designed to reduce routes bringing riders into the downtown core, reducing downtown congestion and “bus jams” by travelling instead to LRT hubs.
The major bus-train transfer stations will be Tunney’s Pasture for buses arriving from the west and southwest, Hurdman for buses arriving from the southeast and Blair for buses arriving from the east.
Commuter Marie Alice Botelho said she was furious Monday morning because the door leading to the St. Laurent LRT station was locked when she arrived at 6:30 a.m. The problem didn’t appear to be related to the bus route changes, though, because she said the same thing happened last Monday morning. Last week she was able to hop on a bus instead, but that route has now been cancelled, she said. “So I’m kind of stuck.”
Botelho said she wasn’t sure what buses she would need to take to get to her job in Gatineau, so she decided to stay home from work on Monday. “I tried to phone OC Transpo but you are on hold forever, trying to get through.”
She phoned her councillor to complain, she said. “I just don’t want this to happen again, to be stuck.”
Sunday saw several well-travelled bus routes making their final runs, with routes 94, 95, 101 and many others retiring as the route map is redrawn to take advantage of the crosstown LRT system.
The iconic 95 bus has already been memorialized by local artist and historian Andrew King in a commemorative T-shirt and in dozens of social media posts reminiscing about the fabled crosstown route.
On Sunday OC Transpo also ended temporary routes that ran parallel to the LRT’s Line 1 during a three-week transition period as customers adapt to the newly minted light rail system and, as transportation general manager John Manconi suggested to council last week, riders “have developed a momentum.”
With files from Jon Willing
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Twitter: @helmera
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...ders-brace-for-really-big-service-change
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