2023 Transportation Master Plan

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Really Carling, Baseline/Heron and Hunt Club should all have protected curbside bus lanes

I would rather see the planned median transitway on Baseline with bike lanes than curbside bus lanes. I would say that we should spend hundreds of millions in transit and cycling infrastructure that will benefit a 21 000 students college campus before we spend 2.6 billions to replace the Barrhaven transitway, which does its job for now.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

I don't see the point of a Carling LRT, since people would have to transfer twice over a short distance to get downtown, including a Trillium Line transfer that might take 12 minutes. As long as the Trillium Line is single-tracked, I'm not sure that it would be able to handle the extra ridership anyway. There's also the issue of service shutdowns caused by people crashing their cars in trains, like in Waterloo or Calgary.

I doubt that we're going to see a Carling BRT either, since the city and voters are probably not willing to pay hundreds of millions to move curbside bus lanes to the median, even if it would improve service, not having to deal with turning cars. Maybe a BRT will happen when Carling will need a full rebuild.

You are providing a perfect example of my point. The map shows Carling LRT only from Lincoln Fields to the Trillium Line. BRT to the east, buses in mixed traffic to the west. So, just a trip along Carling, say from Richmond Road to Bronson will involve 2 transfers. And then your comment on getting downtown from Carling as well. This is a transit improvement? This is the kind of thing being designed by people who do not ride transit to get around the city.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

I would rather see the planned median transitway on Baseline with bike lanes than curbside bus lanes. I would say that we should spend hundreds of millions in transit and cycling infrastructure that will benefit a 21 000 students college campus before we spend 2.6 billions to replace the Barrhaven transitway, which does its job for now.

The heresy of building the 'missing link' between the southeast and southwest Transitways and actually serving people who live inside of the Greenbelt. We all know where that fits in current priorities.

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

BRT doesn't necessarily need to mean "median" BRT (though even Carling is getting a little bit of that, between Dow's Lake and Bronson).

Just look at the way Albert and Slater used to be arranged. In that regard, Carling will have sans-transit priority BRT in just a few years.



You've missed the biggest one of all: The 85.

I'm not sure that we could call discontinuous chunks of bus lanes "BRT". Better than nothing, but not something that I would call "rapid transit".

Yeah, I should have added the 85 to my list. I was thinking of the secondary bus routes of Carling that would suffer from this planned LRT, while the central portion of the main route, the 85, would be replaced entirely by the LRT.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The map shows Carling LRT only from Lincoln Fields to the Trillium Line. BRT to the east, buses in mixed traffic to the west. So, just a trip along Carling, say from Richmond Road to Bronson will involve 2 transfers.

A change in priority infrastructure doesn't imply a transfer.

Did you forget about all those express buses that used to trundle around suburban neighbourhoods before getting on the Transitway?

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

A change in priority infrastructure doesn't imply a transfer.

Did you forget about all those express buses that used to trundle around suburban neighbourhoods before getting on the Transitway?

He was talking of the Carling LRT scenario.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

In Ottawa, we seem to think that 2 or 3 transfers are acceptable for a normal trip. When we create that kind of service, few people will make those complicated trips no matter the frequency. Of course, in Ottawa, frequency is usually pretty crappy as well.

In almost all cities 2-3 transfers is considered a normal trip. Sometimes small cities (Guelph comes to mind) have a system where nearly all of the routes go downtown, but that is rare for a city of more than a few hundred thousand.

Ottawa does some things to make it worse, such as poor frequency on routes in relatively dense areas and awful suburban transfer facilities.

[kmcamp]

I think people are reading far too much into this. OC transpo is likely to run your local bus down these new transitways to the rail transfer point. It's highly unlikely you're going to going bus-bus-train with them. There won't be any more transfers then there are currently in the system.

I suppose if you're walking distance to the bus "station" (which is just a bus stop in a reserved lane, not the grandiose old red transitway stations) it might be annoying that you don't get rail right there, but that won't be the majority of people

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

I think people are reading far too much into this. OC transpo is likely to run your local bus down these new transitways to the rail transfer point. It's highly unlikely you're going to going bus-bus-train with them. There won't be any more transfers then there are currently in the system.

I suppose if you're walking distance to the bus "station" (which is just a bus stop in a reserved lane, not the grandiose old red transitway stations) it might be annoying that you don't get rail right there, but that won't be the majority of people

That is exactly the scenario that exists in my own neighbourhood today.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by acottawa

In almost all cities 2-3 transfers is considered a normal trip. Sometimes small cities (Guelph comes to mind) have a system where nearly all of the routes go downtown, but that is rare for a city of more than a few hundred thousand.

Ottawa does some things to make it worse, such as poor frequency on routes in relatively dense areas and awful suburban transfer facilities.

I highly doubt that this is a 'normal trip' for most riders, no matter the city. One transfer would be considered normal. 2 or 3 transfers is just a pain for most people and you will find that usage drops off tremendously at that point. This is exactly why the SRC is being converted to a subway extension, to eliminate a transfer at Kennedy for Scarborough residents going to central Toronto.

The reality is that 2 or 3 transfers makes for a very unpredictable trip especially when frequencies are not good and that is certainly the case in Ottawa including Line 2, the supposed north-south rapid transit spine, on the odd time that it is actually operating.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

That is exactly the scenario that exists in my own neighbourhood today.

This is just poor design and can be mitigated without capital investment.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

This is exactly why the SRC is being converted to a subway extension, to eliminate a transfer at Kennedy for Scarborough residents going to central Toronto.

This is one of the reasons. Not the sole reason. There's also the SRT reaching end of life and the overcrowding on the SRT. Going back to the 90s the SRT was always somewhere right on the fence for demand near subway levels.

Also, even after the subway extension it's still two transfers to the core for most people.

1) Bus to Line 2.
2) Line 2 to Line 1 at Yonge-Bloor or Ontario Line at Pape.

It is 3 transfers with the SRT at present. Unless you're connecting to Line 1, it normally takes at least two transfers to get to downtown Toronto from the outer 416.

[Hybrid247]

Originally Posted by acottawa

In almost all cities 2-3 transfers is considered a normal trip. Sometimes small cities (Guelph comes to mind) have a system where nearly all of the routes go downtown, but that is rare for a city of more than a few hundred thousand.

Ottawa does some things to make it worse, such as poor frequency on routes in relatively dense areas and awful suburban transfer facilities.

Three transfers is borderline unacceptable IMO and I don't think many people would put up with that kind of daily commute for long if they had a choice. I've taken transit my whole life and would hardly call that normal.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I highly doubt that this is a 'normal trip' for most riders, no matter the city. One transfer would be considered normal. 2 or 3 transfers is just a pain for most people and you will find that usage drops off tremendously at that point. This is exactly why the SRC is being converted to a subway extension, to eliminate a transfer at Kennedy for Scarborough residents going to central Toronto.

The reality is that 2 or 3 transfers makes for a very unpredictable trip especially when frequencies are not good and that is certainly the case in Ottawa including Line 2, the supposed north-south rapid transit spine, on the odd time that it is actually operating.

It is still 2-3 transfers. Unless you live near a subway station you have to take a bus to a subway and then two subways to get downtown. If your destination is. not on a subway line there is a 3rd transfer. When the Ontario line opens in some future decade it might be one transfer.

I certainly agree line 2 is a mess. That is less of a transfer problem than a frequency and technology problem.

[Floppa]

Originally Posted by Hybrid247

Three transfers is borderline unacceptable IMO and I don't think many people would put up with that kind of daily commute for long if they had a choice. I've taken transit my whole life and would hardly call that normal.

This. People think that as long as we're doing better than Toronto, we're okay. This is not the case, and we should remove any unnecessary transfers, particularly non-modal transfers. Any transfer is painful, no matter how seamless. No one is arguing for a transfer-free ride between all points in the city.

Let's also remember that as bad as Ottawa is getting, we still are nowhere near as bad in terms of congestion as Toronto or Montreal, who have gridlock all hours of the day and not just at rush hour. So transfers in a smaller city like ours are more likely to drive away ridership.

[Floppa]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

I think people are reading far too much into this. OC transpo is likely to run your local bus down these new transitways to the rail transfer point.

If that's the case, fine with me. But it doesn't always work like that. OC Transpo are literally building Park&Rides for neighbourhood bus routes.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Floppa

Let's also remember that as bad as Ottawa is getting, we still are nowhere near as bad in terms of congestion as Toronto or Montreal, who have gridlock all hours of the day and not just at rush hour. So transfers in a smaller city like ours are more likely to drive away ridership.

It doesn't help that OC Transpo broke up the single downtown bus hub on Rideau for all the downtown/inner city bus routes, puts stops (and shelters, if there are any) at transfer points in awkward and stupid locations, and shelters (if there are any) are of a design that suits some suburban bureaucrat's idea of a bus shelter, not an actual human bus-dependent passenger's one.

[originalmuffins]

Lol I don't agree at all with all the hard objection to Stage 3 to include Barrhaven (especially considering it's not planned to be done before 2030). Most major suburbs are within the plan to be apart of Stage 2 and 3 (Orleans, Kanata, Riverside South, etc.). Don't see why they wouldn't include one of the fastest growing areas in the city with an actual plan for densification in its core as well. The city boundaries are already grown. The baseline BRT is still within the plans so it's not one or the other. Really weird to see the insistence that it is one or the other. Both are in the plans to get done.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Floppa

Let's also remember that as bad as Ottawa is getting, we still are nowhere near as bad in terms of congestion as Toronto or Montreal, who have gridlock all hours of the day and not just at rush hour. So transfers in a smaller city like ours are more likely to drive away ridership.

Ottawa's also nowhere near the size of either of those cities. I don't think it's a reasonable argument to say 'yeah our traffic is bad but it's not as bad as there!'. Surely solutions can be found within Ottawa that suit Ottawa more than simply looking across the street at other cities for comparables.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I highly doubt that this is a 'normal trip' for most riders, no matter the city. One transfer would be considered normal. 2 or 3 transfers is just a pain for most people and you will find that usage drops off tremendously at that point. This is exactly why the SRC is being converted to a subway extension, to eliminate a transfer at Kennedy for Scarborough residents going to central Toronto.

The reality is that 2 or 3 transfers makes for a very unpredictable trip especially when frequencies are not good and that is certainly the case in Ottawa including Line 2, the supposed north-south rapid transit spine, on the odd time that it is actually operating.

Here is how I see it

• 0 transfers is great, but unrealistic for most
• 1 transfer is good,
• 2 transfers is acceptable, especially if service frequency and reliability are good.
• 3 transfers is poor, and could be problematic
• 4+ transfers is unacceptable.

After Stage 2, most bus routes during peak periods should travel to a train station (and even more after Stage 3), so unless you need to take a bus at both ends of your trip and you need to use both rail lines, I can't think of many peak period trips that couldn't easily be done with 2 or fewer transfers. Outside of peak periods, it will get a bit more difficult for some admittedly.

The biggest issues will likely be getting to Gatineau or one of the suburban business parks not near a train station, by transit, especially if you need to transfer to line 2 en route.