Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by SidetrackedSue

Since you take the train from Tunney's can you comment on the number of people exiting the train in the morning, or trying to get down to the trains in the evening?

The 600 on the platform is great, as long as there aren't 400 trying to get off the platform and up to work in the morning.

I haven't been there so haven't seen for myself if the numbers arriving to work at Tunney's are making the crowded platforms even more crowded.

I travel through Tunney's at about 7 am and 4pm daily. In the morning there aren't that many people that get off the train, I estimate it takes less than 5 seconds for everyone to get off before we start loading, and there is enough room for folks to stand back and let them through. The train is fairly crowded leaving but usually not jammed completely full.

Afternoons the trains again seem to be fairly full arriving at Tunney's, but once again not jam packed. There are people on the platform, but not so many that they impede the folks exiting the train, they are able to stand back far enough to let a stream of people through to the exits.

In the last month I have always been able to get onto the first train that arrived, even when there were issues elsewhere on the line, such as last Friday. I never had to wait more than about 3-4 minutes for a train if I just missed one, and quite often there is a train sitting at the platform since they have a long dwell time at Tunney's.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

Parallel R1 service would be overkill, but it wasn't necessary to make the network discontinuous without a trip on the LRT. We should have continued to have all bus routes downtown meet at a central transfer point, rather than requiring a silly (and time consuming considering the depth of the stations) transfer onto the LRT for a 400m distance between the 10 and 11 for example. They could have made Parliament the central transfer if they must, or the war monument, but it's silly. This pattern is repeated all over, the LRT is and should be a trunk route, but it's not necessary to route every single trip via it.

I agree. OC Transpo has been trying to shoe horn everyone onto the Confederation Line, even if it isn't the best routing for them. We need to have better connectivity between the downtown bus routes. That doesn't mean that you need all routes to go to connect at that same transfer point as long as you can transfer from any downtown bus to any other downtown bus somewhere.

That is where having bus routes terminate downtown is a bad idea. Having them travel through town gives more options for transfer points. Also, by having them travel through downtown, the same bus serves a double purpose (a bus to downtown and a bus from downtown).

[NOWINYOW]

Originally Posted by Charles5

That is simply creating an R1 route by another name on a permanent basis.

The issues concerning the Confederation line are not about capacity but rather about reliability. Creating a parallel system will simply add unnecessary surplus capacity at extra cost. When the LRT is running properly that extra capacity is not required and is a waste of money. When the LRT fails, that extra capacity will be insufficient to meet the demand regardless and thus defeats the purpose.

Creating a parallel system may make people feel better, but doesn't really solve any problems and increase costs.

The solutions to the problems we have are to work to increase the reliability of the LRT system overall. And when there are problems the response needs to be targeted specifically to the problem areas exactly as OC Transpo is currently doing. That is to single line the LRT around a problem area; add R1 buses to shuttle people around the problem; and if necessary extend the routes of some buses like the 200 series.

My idea for a solution can begin today and end when your solution takes hold. In the meantime, people are arriving into work late, getting stressed out and in some cases, finding alternative ways into the core, such as a car; a vehicle that moves with little uncertainty.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by NOWINYOW

My idea for a solution can begin today and end when your solution takes hold. In the meantime, people are arriving into work late, getting stressed out and in some cases, finding alternative ways into the core, such as a car; a vehicle that moves with little uncertainty.

If you're going downtown, there's plenty of uncertainty when driving. Parking isn't exactly plentiful, and while I haven't driven downtown in rush hour since the service changes at least the homebound commute is always terrible.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

If you're going downtown, there's plenty of uncertainty when driving. Parking isn't exactly plentiful, and while I haven't driven downtown in rush hour since the service changes at least the homebound commute is always terrible.

Morning is just about the same as before. Just harder to get into the Queen Street garages.

I can attest, the evening commute is still absolutely terrible.

We park at Place de Ville, and it is now extremely difficult to get in and out of the parking garage from the Queen entrances. The Lyon exit is better since we can no longer turn onto Lyon, but Wellington is hit-and-miss. The exit on Albert isn't any better if you need to turn left onto Lyon.

It's easier to turn right from Slater now that the buses are gone, but going straight is no different. The Mackenzie-King Bridge is clear, simplifying the right turn to Nicholas, but left onto Waller is unchanged.

For the most part, I imagine it's much easier to get in and out of any parking garage with entrance/exit along the old Transitway (with that minor PdV exception I mentioned).

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I can attest, the evening commute is still absolutely terrible.
.

It's actually why I don't commute by car. The morning commute is fine, but the evening one get my blood boiling, I don't get stressed out the same when taking the train, even when it's full, I'm quite content to stand or sit there and listen to music passively. For other people I'm sure it's different, they are more content to sit in their car even when stuck in traffic then on a busy train/bus.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

It's actually why I don't commute by car. The morning commute is fine, but the evening one get my blood boiling, I don't get stressed out the same when taking the train, even when it's full, I'm quite content to stand or sit there and listen to music passively. For other people I'm sure it's different, they are more content to sit in their car even when stuck in traffic then on a busy train/bus.

My partner wants to switch. I'm on the fence due to the reliability issues. We also have two old, but reliable cars so we try to balance their usage but don't want to get rid of either one in case the other conks out. If one car craps out, it will make the decision to take transit a whole lot easier.

Timing wise, transit and driving are pretty equal during normal commutes. If there are delays with the train, or an accident on the Queensway, one mode will beat the other handily. Cost wise, parking is cheaper than two transit passes by $20-$30.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

If you're going downtown, there's plenty of uncertainty when driving. Parking isn't exactly plentiful, and while I haven't driven downtown in rush hour since the service changes at least the homebound commute is always terrible.

In what seems like another life at this point, once upon a time I commuted daily by car across the river about 25 km in each direction all within the urban area on heavily trafficked routes.

I found it very draining to always have to be extremely alert in stop-and-go-traffic for 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon. Snail along. Speed up. Slow down suddenly. Speed up again. Slow down suddenly. Snail's pace again. Every day.

As soon as a I got a job that was remotely transit-accessible I switched immediately to that mode.

That said, I don't mind commuting by car over short distances if there is little to no traffic. But who doesn't?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Charles5

The line is not "underbuilt", if by that you mean it has insufficient capacity for the amount of passengers. There is more than enough capacity to meet demand and significant room for growth*. The problems are caused by reliability issues (both technical and human caused) that have caused delays and reduced the frequency of service. When you are moving 10,000 people an hour in each direction, even a delay of a few minutes will lead to huge backups.

Pictures can be deceiving as well. Each train can hold 600 people, which is a lot and so pictures of hundreds of people waiting at Blair or Tunney's can seem like a bit deal. However, that crowd can disappear with a single train.

*The O-Train Confederation Line has a planned peak capacity of 10,700 passengers per hour in each direction, with the potential to grow to over 18,000 passengers per hour in each direction by 2031 and ultimately 24,000 passengers per hour in each direction. (ref)

Originally Posted by PHrenetic

Good Day.

Well.... I do not know about -underbuilt-, and I concur with your problem analysis (as do many),
(although it sure looks underbuilt to me, as well - I have commented on the tight platforms before, with that exact Toronto comparison)
but......It sure has a capacity problem right now :

Ottawa Sun, Blair Crawford, Saturday November 2 2019, quoting Jimbo :



https://ottawasun.com/news/local-news/40...wcm/af6d8db0-0630-4bd5-ab19-ff24f63058cb

Gee, he's so good at leading from behind !!

To me, a full platform that just matches a jam-packed full train, is simply asking for problems.
Esp. when at so many stations they had clear opportunity to build larger at (to my eye) very little additional cost
(but yet another example of cheap-out penny-wise pound-foolish).

Yes, it has expansion capability for future growth, but that is then. We now have a real problem, now.

We need better service reliability on more trains (15 +) and better reliability on buses (frequency, on-time).
Beats me why OC was so all-fired quick to pull and decommission all those buses: so so so quick.

NoJoy here !

If you look at most stations on a metro/subway, even during rush hour, the states generally are not packed, and if they all missed one train, they would not cause this much congestion.

It doesn't matter the pph, or anything like that. Except for the interchange stations, no station should back up that bad with one missed train. That is a recipe for disaster and shows that it was under built.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

If you look at most stations on a metro/subway, even during rush hour, the states generally are not packed, and if they all missed one train, they would not cause this much congestion.

It doesn't matter the pph, or anything like that. Except for the interchange stations, no station should back up that bad with one missed train. That is a recipe for disaster and shows that it was under built.

Yeah, that caught my eye too, seing people packed up the stairs. I've never even saw that in Montréal...

[613Steve]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

If you look at most stations on a metro/subway, even during rush hour, the states generally are not packed, and if they all missed one train, they would not cause this much congestion.

It doesn't matter the pph, or anything like that. Except for the interchange stations, no station should back up that bad with one missed train. That is a recipe for disaster and shows that it was under built.

I think it's hard to say it's under built right now when we aren't even up to 15 train sets. If everything sorts out like it's supposed to and train frequencies improve, we should be fine for years to come.

[le calmar]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In what seems like another life at this point, once upon a time I commuted daily by car across the river about 25 km in each direction all within the urban area on heavily trafficked routes.

I found it very draining to always have to be extremely alert in stop-and-go-traffic for 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the afternoon. Snail along. Speed up. Slow down suddenly. Speed up again. Slow down suddenly. Snail's pace again. Every day.

As soon as a I got a job that was remotely transit-accessible I switched immediately to that mode.

That said, I don't mind commuting by car over short distances if there is little to no traffic. But who doesn't?

My commute was similar to what you describe, once upon a time (or not really... that was two years ago). 40 minutes in the morning and 50-55 in the afternoon. Afternoon has always been worse to me in terms of commuting.

I can't say I am 100% satisfied with OC Transpo service, but I've been commuting exclusively by bus and occasionally by train for the past 2 weeks. There has been too many major irritants such as way too many cancelled buses. Last Friday for some obscure reason, the 75 didn't show up for 45 minutes during rush hour (3 cancelled buses in a row).

But yeah, when things go as planned, I much prefer using transit.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by 613Steve

I think it's hard to say it's under built right now when we aren't even up to 15 train sets. If everything sorts out like it's supposed to and train frequencies improve, we should be fine for years to come.

Opening day, and for the first year, people should not be so packed in. Who cares how many are running or what the headway could be. Right now, as it stands, it is under built.

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Opening day, and for the first year, people should not be so packed in. Who cares how many are running or what the headway could be. Right now, as it stands, it is under built.

It's going up the stairs because we're running it right at the limit with the number of trains. It's underbuilt in terms of number of trains, because OC Transpo decided to start with barely enough trains (arguably not enough). Other systems don't backup other than TTCs line 1 because nobody is running so close to the line by choice. It's not underbuilt in terms of station size, they are fairly typical.

That bring said, I think OC Transpo went wrong with thinking of doing longer trains later down the line. It's much harder operationally to increase frequency than increase train size, though the later obviously has an upfront capital cost. Maybe they should aim for 120m rather than 2 minutes first and add in the 5th modules and platform extensions as part of stage 2.

That bring said, there's not another example anywhere else that I can think of like Tunney's pasture, where we take every bus in the West end of the city and do a forced transfer onto the train at a single point. Not even Finch in North York is equivalent. Hurdman's only real fault is the bus loop itself, circulation up and down is fine, I transfer there every day. They should have just left the west end connexion routes going downtown until Stage 2, where things would be more distributed through Lincoln Fields, Baseline, and Moodie.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I agree. OC Transpo has been trying to shoe horn everyone onto the Confederation Line, even if it isn't the best routing for them. We need to have better connectivity between the downtown bus routes. That doesn't mean that you need all routes to go to connect at that same transfer point as long as you can transfer from any downtown bus to any other downtown bus somewhere.

That is where having bus routes terminate downtown is a bad idea. Having them travel through town gives more options for transfer points. Also, by having them travel through downtown, the same bus serves a double purpose (a bus to downtown and a bus from downtown).

I think part of the issue is feeder frequency too. Something brought up often enough here, but never really addressed by OC Transpo. Higher frequency means a smoother distribution of pax load over time reducing crowding. If your feeder bus is every 15-20 mins and several routes like that show up at once at Tunney's or Blair during rush, it can all seem very crowded.

It'll get sorted out in due course, but a lot more pressure has to be put on OCT to really start getting feeder services to what you see in TTC's suburban services in Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by 613Steve

I think it's hard to say it's under built right now when we aren't even up to 15 train sets. If everything sorts out like it's supposed to and train frequencies improve, we should be fine for years to come.

That kinda proves that their launch was poorly planned and that they should have waited for 15 trains.....

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

That kinda proves that their launch was poorly planned and that they should have waited for 15 trains.....

I think everyone's in agreement OC Transpo really borked the launch. It isn't as bad as Edmonton's Metro line fiasco, and much of it was incompetence or arrogance on the ciy's part, especially the blame the riders thing at the beginning.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I think part of the issue is feeder frequency too. Something brought up often enough here, but never really addressed by OC Transpo. Higher frequency means a smoother distribution of pax load over time reducing crowding. If your feeder bus is every 15-20 mins and several routes like that show up at once at Tunney's or Blair during rush, it can all seem very crowded.

Increased frequencies also have a social engineering value. If your one bus to Kanata is only ever 30 minutes (and that's on paper), passengers have every inducement to rush that bus and cram into every available square inch, making the trip as miserable as possible for everyone. If you up the frequency to Freedom levels, it induces people to maybe just wait a few minutes until the next one. Low-frequency "rapid" routes are... just beyond stupid.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

I think everyone's in agreement OC Transpo really borked the launch. It isn't as bad as Edmonton's Metro line fiasco, and much of it was incompetence or arrogance on the ciy's part, especially the blame the riders thing at the beginning.

Given that the same problem seems to keep happening in the same places at the same time of day, and coupled with Really Stupid Passenger Behaviour I'm seeing all the time, I don't think blame-the-riders is completely misplaced.

Maybe you can't say it out loud. But it ain't totally wrong.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Given that the same problem seems to keep happening in the same places at the same time of day, and coupled with Really Stupid Passenger Behaviour I'm seeing all the time, I don't think blame-the-riders is completely misplaced.

Maybe you can't say it out loud. But it ain't totally wrong.

Some interesting links. Just so that you don't think Ottawa is so terrible and other systems are perfect, here are two links to articles on Montreal's Metro and the Toronto TTC.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/stm-metro-delays-open-data-clients-berri-uqam-1.5260177
https://globalnews.ca/news/1428761/interactive-why-your-subway-train-was-late/

Both systems see to have about 5000 delays a year, of which about 2000 of those are caused by riders.

And for those folks who thought the concept of fining people for holding open doors was outrageous, see the following two links for fines in Montreal and Toronto. Fine for holding open door in Montreal is $150-$500 while Toronto is $195. (ref1, ref 2)