OC Transpo

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Prometheus188

That was the plan. But they decided to bring some back into service to deal with the bus issues. It's a temporary measure, and those buses will be gone as soon as they have enough other buses. But the city is still asking other cities for extra buses, so they'll probably stick around for at least a couple months.

They didn't bring any back. From the cptdb: any hybrids that were retired did not come back because their MTO inspections had expired. The D40i's that were brought back still had valid inspections.

Not all hybrids were immediately retired, they had been retiring many D40i's as well.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I think they were supposed to be getting 20 going into service in January plus more arriving later.

Maybe they have been able to move up the ones that were not supposed to come until later?

It may have been that the order was originally supposed to arrive early next year, but it's been moved up to this month for a while now. Well before LRT launched.

On that note, the first 11 new Nova's were officially delivered to OC Transpo yesterday.

[Capital Shaun]

Originally Posted by Prometheus188

I don't know if what I'm about to say is actually what the scheduling issues are about, but I'll tell you about my experiences. As recently as a couple weeks ago (and for months before that), I biked to Place d'Orleans, and caught a bus to Blair, and hopped on the train. Since the Oct 6th service change, those buses at Place d'Orleans heading to Blair are always 5 minutes early. If they were 5 minutes late, I wouldn't really care. But 5 minutes early is catastrophic. Because if I miss the bus, i have to wait 30 minutes for the next one.

Even though there are multiple routes running along the stretch from Place to Blair. Routes like the 39 and 35 run every 30 minutes all day, and other routes like the 37 and 33 run throughout the day as well, with weird, sporadic service. I'm only speaking about off peak by the way. You'd think that this would result in a bare minimum of 15 minute service via the 39 and 35 running every 30 minutes, but that's not how it works out. They're not staggered. The 35 and 39 always show up within 5 minutes of each other. Just today, I was planning on catching a 39 from Place to Blair at 2:00 PM. I missed it, even though I was at the station at 1:55. it came 6 minutes early.

And to add insult to injury, the 37 and 35 also just passed within the last 5 minutes. So I was stuck waiting 25 minutes for the next bus, which happened to be a 35. It's ridiculous. They could easily stagger these buses to allow semi frequent service from Place to Blair, at least 15 minute service. But instead all the buses show up at the same time, and you wait 20-30 minutes for the next batch of 3-5 buses at a time.

The lack of staggering in the schedule of routes travelling in the same direction is just ridiculously poor planning. It's been going on for years.
I live in Beacon Hill. In the morning, the 12/24 heading towards Blair travel down Ogilvie road a minute apart. If you miss both, you're waiting up to 15 minutes. If they were staggered properly, Ogilvie road would have 7.5 minutes service towards Blair.
The afternoons leaving Blair are a bit better with a 5 or 10 minute gap between the two routes.

To add: Service between Blair & Place d'Orleans, especially outside peak, has gone downhill since the big service change. It's not even close to what the 91/95 were providing before.

[Kitchissippi]

OC Transpo has been blind to the sensibility of staggering bus routes for decades, not just years. It's happened on almost all the main streets where routes converge. It's particularly stupid on Bank street where they can have consistently spaced frequency service between Lansdowne and Parliament station just by properly scheduling the 6 and 7. But no.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

Yep... the only value in these lands is that the City is forced to hold on to valuable lands along transit corridors, which they can hopefully one day develop into housing and community services.

With the O-Train being extended I wonder if there will be excess capacity to develop a piece of the Greenboro lot. Ahh who am I kidding, current OC Transpo management will never let go of any of their P&Rs, they are obsessed with P&Rs.

Outside the Greenbelt. From what I have heard, OC Transpo is planing to close the Park&Rides inside the greenbelt. I know they plan to close the Baseline lot after Stage 2 and I seem to remember hearing that they will also close Blair and Greenboro as well.

The reason? According to OC Transpo, the bus service inside the Greenbelt is good enough that people don't need a Park & Ride and they don't want people outside the Greenbelt to drive through it but instead park at one of the outer ones and use transit to go through it.

Speaking of Park & Rides, I know a lot of people here complain that they are expensive to build and maintain, but I am curious how that compares to the cost of providing suburban local service to it? During peak periods, when the buses will fill up, I can see the buses being cheaper, but during off peak, I am not so sure. Granted they will need to provide skeleton bus service, but with 30 to 60 minute service, it isn't convenient enough to make it feasible for anyone who has the choice.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Prometheus188

That was the plan. But they decided to bring some back into service to deal with the bus issues. It's a temporary measure, and those buses will be gone as soon as they have enough other buses. But the city is still asking other cities for extra buses, so they'll probably stick around for at least a couple months.

I understood the 40 that got un-retired were all Inveros. That's why I'm confused.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Capital Shaun

The lack of staggering in the schedule of routes travelling in the same direction is just ridiculously poor planning. It's been going on for years.
I live in Beacon Hill. In the morning, the 12/24 heading towards Blair travel down Ogilvie road a minute apart. If you miss both, you're waiting up to 15 minutes. If they were staggered properly, Ogilvie road would have 7.5 minutes service towards Blair.
The afternoons leaving Blair are a bit better with a 5 or 10 minute gap between the two routes.

To add: Service between Blair & Place d'Orleans, especially outside peak, has gone downhill since the big service change. It's not even close to what the 91/95 were providing before.

See also 6/7 (formerly 1/7) both on Beechwood eastbound and again on Bank Street in both directions. The 19/20 where they serve similar parts of Vanier, and the 12/15 on Montreal Road, are trending the same way.

Coupled with the stupidity with local bus stops in the downtown core, the end-user bus frequencies for trips within the old city of Ottawa and nearby urban areas has been reduced, in some cases even if on paper the frequency of buses has increased.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

I understood the 40 that got un-retired were all Inveros. That's why I'm confused.

Over the weekend I rode one of them that looks suspiciously like it was put back into service in a hurry: one of the two-seat forward-facing "benches" was lacking actual seats.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

See also 6/7 (formerly 1/7) both on Beechwood eastbound and again on Bank Street in both directions. The 19/20 where they serve similar parts of Vanier, and the 12/15 on Montreal Road, are trending the same way.

Coupled with the stupidity with local bus stops in the downtown core, the end-user bus frequencies for trips within the old city of Ottawa and nearby urban areas has been reduced, in some cases even if on paper the frequency of buses has increased.

OTOH (playing devils advocate here), if you want the different routes to have a common transfer point, it would be best to have all routes be scheduled to arrive/depart at the same time. Having said that, I don't think OC Transpo is doing a good job of that either.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Outside the Greenbelt. From what I have heard, OC Transpo is planing to close the Park&Rides inside the greenbelt. I know they plan to close the Baseline lot after Stage 2 and I seem to remember hearing that they will also close Blair and Greenboro as well.

The reason? According to OC Transpo, the bus service inside the Greenbelt is good enough that people don't need a Park & Ride and they don't want people outside the Greenbelt to drive through it but instead park at one of the outer ones and use transit to go through it.

Speaking of Park & Rides, I know a lot of people here complain that they are expensive to build and maintain, but I am curious how that compares to the cost of providing suburban local service to it? During peak periods, when the buses will fill up, I can see the buses being cheaper, but during off peak, I am not so sure. Granted they will need to provide skeleton bus service, but with 30 to 60 minute service, it isn't convenient enough to make it feasible for anyone who has the choice.

If they close Greenboro P&R, then special event service has no value, whether it is for going to Sens games, going to Lansdowne, Bluesfest or Canada Day ceremonies. I am not waiting up to half an hour for a connecting local bus at 11 p.m or any other time for that matter.

As we are seeing, all the emphasis is on improving peak period service, again capacity planning. It has been off-peak service that was cut the most but nothing is being done about it.

What we are now learning is that these trains are extremely expensive to operate, yet there was always an assumption that we would save a mint on not running buses downtown. Not true. We may actually be spending more on trains than the buses ever cost us. This is the budget pickle that we now face, and why it became necessary to reduce frequency on so many neighbourhood bus routes.

[lrt's friend]

OC Transpo does not coordinate service between routes. My local route at one time was a two way loop that was designed to depart from Greenboro every 15 minutes. Then they renumbered each looping route and the buses departed 5 minutes apart then a 25 minute gap. Useless and there were complaints. The solution was to merge the routes with more convoluted routing and cut service to every 30 minutes. During peak periods there was a Connexion route that was not at all coordinated with the local route. Now they have a common route number with many different variations but at least the schedule is now coordinated.

So what is happening in Orleans is no surprise. The only way around this is to merge route numbers, maybe a 39 and 39A. Then OC Transpo will coordinate schedules.

Many years ago, the bus route to Carleton was numbered 1A. At that time there was an attempt to coordinate schedules so that there were not big service gaps especially when buses didn't run as frequently in the evening and on weekends. Much better service was delivered overall. At this point, our main concern is simply getting people to Tunney's, Hurdman and Blair. The rest of the network just doesn't work well anymore. For example, the lack of connections between downtown routes is just a terrible way to plan things but absolutely nothing is being said that they will fix it. The squeaky wheel (suburban riders) are getting all the oil.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

If they close Greenboro P&R, then special event service has no value, whether it is for going to Sens games, going to Lansdowne, Bluesfest or Canada Day ceremonies. I am not waiting up to half an hour for a connecting local bus at 11 p.m or any other time for that matter.

They could very easily just move the start of the special event service to Leitrim or Earl Armstrong and the problem is solved.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

They could very easily just move the start of the special event service to Leitrim or Earl Armstrong and the problem is solved.

Who said that the bulk of the users are from out there? What about the users who live in Greenboro/Hunt Club/Blossom Park? I am not going to drive out of town in horrible rush hour traffic just to go back into the city. I have a better idea. I will drive to events and when that doesn't work, I will spend my money elsewhere. We are making transit unusable.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

OC Transpo does not coordinate service between routes. My local route at one time was a two way loop that was designed to depart from Greenboro every 15 minutes. Then they renumbered each looping route and the buses departed 5 minutes apart then a 25 minute gap. Useless and there were complaints. The solution was to merge the routes with more convoluted routing and cut service to every 30 minutes. During peak periods there was a Connexion route that was not at all coordinated with the local route. Now they have a common route number with many different variations but at least the schedule is now coordinated.

So what is happening in Orleans is no surprise. The only way around this is to merge route numbers, maybe a 39 and 39A. Then OC Transpo will coordinate schedules.

Many years ago, the bus route to Carleton was numbered 1A. At that time there was an attempt to coordinate schedules so that there were not big service gaps especially when buses didn't run as frequently in the evening and on weekends. Much better service was delivered overall. At this point, our main concern is simply getting people to Tunney's, Hurdman and Blair. The rest of the network just doesn't work well anymore. For example, the lack of connections between downtown routes is just a terrible way to plan things but absolutely nothing is being said that they will fix it. The squeaky wheel (suburban riders) are getting all the oil.

The problem is that on routes like Bank St., they will still consider it frequent service even though the routes are not coordinated. In rush hour, the 6/7 will have 8 trips an hour, so they claim 7-8 minute service on average, which sounds great. In reality, the buses follow each other up the street, so the gap between buses is 15 minutes. I'm not a transit planner, but there has to be a way of differentiating between those two scenarios.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

The problem is that on routes like Bank St., they will still consider it frequent service even though the routes are not coordinated. In rush hour, the 6/7 will have 8 trips an hour, so they claim 7-8 minute service on average, which sounds great. In reality, the buses follow each other up the street, so the gap between buses is 15 minutes. I'm not a transit planner, but there has to be a way of differentiating between those two scenarios.

Yes! That's why having a common route number when there are large sections of overlap will promote the schedulers to do a better job on coordinating schedules.

Didn't I read in the last few days that OC Transpo farms out scheduling to a Montreal firm, which may cause problems if they are not as familiar with Ottawa geography.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Didn't I read in the last few days that OC Transpo farms out scheduling to a Montreal firm, which may cause problems if they are not as familiar with Ottawa geography.

I think this is a misunderstanding. I know they use a software package from GIRO, which is a major vendor of transit scheduling software that is based in Montreal. That doesn't mean GIRO is actually doing the scheduling.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Who said that the bulk of the users are from out there? What about the users who live in Greenboro/Hunt Club/Blossom Park? I am not going to drive out of town in horrible rush hour traffic just to go back into the city. I have a better idea. I will drive to events and when that doesn't work, I will spend my money elsewhere. We are making transit unusable.

Too bad, you are inside the Greenbelt - take local transit or drive if you are really that put-off by not having a P&R. Greenboro P&R is a waste of space. There should be no P&Rs inside the Greenbelt.

Should local off-peak transit be better than it is currently? Absolutely, but think if Greenboro P&R didn't exist, then OC Transpo would be more likely to increase service on the 92, 98, 93, 40, etc... which is exactly what we want.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by roger1818

OTOH (playing devils advocate here), if you want the different routes to have a common transfer point, it would be best to have all routes be scheduled to arrive/depart at the same time. Having said that, I don't think OC Transpo is doing a good job of that either.

Given the difficulties of keeping buses running on time in the core, particularly when the city has zero interest in taking any serious measures to implement transit priority, it would be far better to aim for better staggering of the buses by design, and keeping them staggered through operational changes, AND operating them at high frequencies, than it would be to aim for (and fail at) timed transfers.

The upshot will still be the same: transfer wait times would be minimized, but there'd be other benefits to the end user.

Having common transfer points (and other transfer-conveniences like making sure intersecting routes have stops placed close to one another at those intersections) are a benefit that is completely independent from decisions about frequency, spacing, scheduling, etc. Even low-frequency and badly timed routes benefit from common or convenient transfer points.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

Should local off-peak transit be better than it is currently? Absolutely, but think if Greenboro P&R didn't exist, then OC Transpo would be more likely to increase service on the 92, 98, 93, 40, etc... which is exactly what we want.

I agree with this. I think redevelopment of Greenboro P&R is several years away but it will definitely come at some point.

OC should maybe consider making deals with commercial plaza owners to designate some spots in their parking lots for Park & Ride. I could see the Blossom Park Plaza, the Conroy Mall at Conroy / Lorry Greenberg and the Greenboro Library as places that could work if they each had 10-15 spots.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

Too bad, you are inside the Greenbelt - take local transit or drive if you are really that put-off by not having a P&R. Greenboro P&R is a waste of space. There should be no P&Rs inside the Greenbelt.

Should local off-peak transit be better than it is currently? Absolutely, but think if Greenboro P&R didn't exist, then OC Transpo would be more likely to increase service on the 92, 98, 93, 40, etc... which is exactly what we want.

I am sorry but the trend is towards less off-peak service. OC Transpo is not going to beef up service in absence of Greenboro P&R. Maybe they might add one trip in peak periods but they are not going to run more buses into neighbourhoods for occasional events late at night or on weekends. The cost would be enormous.

I use event service because it is convenient. If it is not, I will drive or not go at all. And I am someone more amenable to using transit than the average citizen. This is reality. The average user will not tolerate adding possibly 30 or more minutes to their travel times.

The situation regarding the Greenboro P&R is not at all the same as the Baseline P&R. It is more like the Terry Fox or Orleans P&R.