OC Transpo

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Let's talk about Westgate for a second. Off-peak, the 80 turns off its main route to reach the bus stop at the front doors of the mall. That loop easily adds about 3 minutes to the travel time especially northbound. I used to take that bus in midday a lot. Heading north you'd have 20 people on the bus before the bus got to Westgate, and typically 2 or 3 people would get on at Westgate. So 20 people are made to waste 3 mins of their time so 2 people don't have to walk 300m (about a 4 minute walk) to the street to get the bus. That costs a total of 60 person-minutes of time for through travellers to save Westgate users 8 person-minutes of time. Completely ridiculous. That bus loop should be eliminated. (Thankfully, it already has been at rush hour).

Frustratingly, OC Transpo continues to add their own bus loops that take buses off of Arterial corridors - my pet peeve:

• the overbuilt and nausea-inducing design of Lincoln Fields after Stage 2 (someone tell me one bus route that has to terminate at Lincoln Fields post Stage 2, yet they have something like 12 layover spaces! Keep the buses on Carling or Richmond!)... *EDIT - 10 layover spaces, see image
  
• or the 8 or so 90 degree bends route 88 will have to take to navigate through Baseline Station...
• or the several minutes wasted by bus 6 because of the placement of Billings Bridge Station.

[HighwayStar]

Yeah... Why don't they just build the station UNDER Carling and have the buses stop directly on Carling in each direction??? Faster transfers (i.e. no up and down over the tracks).. a more protected station.. no nausea loops.

Like seriously... who comes up with this stuff??

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by CityTech

All research says long walks to frequent/fast routes attracts more riders than short walks to infrequent/slow routes. In other words lengthening walks to increase frequency and speed will be a net gain on ridership.

Kingston is the most recent example. I've been reading on their highly successful transit redesign they've done the last few years. Its been all about focusing resources on fast, direct routes and prioritizing speed of service over walking distances. They introduced express buses that stick to arterials only (avoiding turn offs into neighbourhoods or Westgate-style mall parking lot stops) and stop only every 800m or so and in many cases paralleling or nearby local routes were cut in frequency or cancelled altogether as these express routes were introduced. And guess what: ridership skyrocketed.

Let's talk about Westgate for a second. Off-peak, the 80 turns off its main route to reach the bus stop at the front doors of the mall. That loop easily adds about 3 minutes to the travel time especially northbound. I used to take that bus in midday a lot. Heading north you'd have 20 people on the bus before the bus got to Westgate, and typically 2 or 3 people would get on at Westgate. So 20 people are made to waste 3 mins of their time so 2 people don't have to walk 300m (about a 4 minute walk) to the street to get the bus. That costs a total of 60 person-minutes of time for through travellers to save Westgate users 8 person-minutes of time. Completely ridiculous. That bus loop should be eliminated. (Thankfully, it already has been at rush hour).

Kingston invested more money in transit. They still have local neighbourhood buses. Overall, there are simply more buses and better frequency. Maybe Ottawa should follow that model, but they need to be willing to spend more.

[lrt's friend]

or the several minutes wasted by bus 6 because of the placement of Billings Bridge Station.

I am not sure what you can do about this. Billings Bridge is a major destination and transfer station. Route 6 cannot bypass this. You certainly cannot re-orient the station either just to serve Route 6. There are too many other routes coming from every direction here. I did at one point suggest that Route 6 should run south on the Transitway to South Keys and create a new bus route to run south of Billings Bridge on Bank Street.

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by phil235

You are right that there is a trade-off, although it would almost certainly increase ridership and serve more people.

I do think that we underestimate how far people can walk. I would bet that most seniors have no issue walking to the nearest arterial road without much difficulty. If they can count on a bus there within 5 minutes or so that goes directly to their destination/connection, I expect that they would also prefer that to waiting on a circuitous local route that comes every half hour (maybe). And on a public health level, some extra walking is good.

No doubt that we will need to beef up pedestrian infrastructure to arterials. We also need to consider service for people with mobility challenges, but I think that most of their needs are better addressed by Paratranspo than by the aforementioned infrequent local routes.

Big agree. Although Para Transpo is pretty horrible and unreliable right now. Nonetheless, we have limited resources, and they must be allocated in a way that benefits the majority of riders, even if that means throwing some folks under the bus.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I am not sure what you can do about this. Billings Bridge is a major destination and transfer station. Route 6 cannot bypass this. You certainly cannot re-orient the station either just to serve Route 6. There are too many other routes coming from every direction here. I did at one point suggest that Route 6 should run south on the Transitway to South Keys and create a new bus route to run south of Billings Bridge on Bank Street.

No, you are right, it is what it is... but it doesn't stop it from annoying me though when I'm on the 6. I do like your suggestion though of running the 6 south on the transitway (combined with an additional bank st south route).

[lrt's friend]

I will explain why running transit only on arterials will not be satisfactory by relating my own section of the city Hunt Club-Blossom Park. The arterials are Hawthorne, Conroy, Bank, Riverside and Hunt Club. You can run buses every 5 minutes on those roads, but how does this provide decent coverage? All the north-south routes except Bank barely provide access to the community. Even Bank, better serves the dead than the living on part of its route through the area.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I will explain why running transit only on arterials will not be satisfactory by relating my own section of the city Hunt Club-Blossom Park. The arterials are Hawthorne, Conroy, Bank, Riverside and Hunt Club. You can run buses every 5 minutes on those roads, but how does this provide decent coverage? All the north-south routes except Bank barely provide access to the community. Even Bank, better serves the dead than the living on part of its route through the area.

No doubt that there are some communities that have been designed in a way that makes it almost impossible to provide decent transit service. I don't think that anyone is suggesting that local routes be eliminated entirely - just that more resources be put into high-frequency trunk routes. Perhaps that includes better service on a select group of smaller arterials, provided that the route can be direct and avoid loops etc.

I would still think that if you put good service on all of those arterials, a good percentage of the population would still be within a 10 minute walk of a frequent bus line. And frankly, if a community is designed to be so inward looking that it isn't possible to walk to an arterial road in that time, we shouldn't be bending over backwards to make sure it gets transit service. If we stop devoting huge resources to serving this type of development, it will start to be reflected in house prices and developers will have to pay more attention to transit accessibility.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I will explain why running transit only on arterials will not be satisfactory by relating my own section of the city Hunt Club-Blossom Park. The arterials are Hawthorne, Conroy, Bank, Riverside and Hunt Club. You can run buses every 5 minutes on those roads, but how does this provide decent coverage? All the north-south routes except Bank barely provide access to the community. Even Bank, better serves the dead than the living on part of its route through the area.

No one is saying ONLY on arterials, just that there is a sliding scale of coverage and frequency, and Ottawa might be able to make some changes away from coverage and towards frequency.

In Greenboro for instance, I'd personally keep the 98 exactly as-is, but the 40's loop east of Conroy is an overall negative to this route IMO.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

No one is saying ONLY on arterials, just that there is a sliding scale of coverage and frequency, and Ottawa might be able to make some changes away from coverage and towards frequency.

In Greenboro for instance, I'd personally keep the 98 exactly as-is, but the 40's loop east of Conroy is an overall negative to this route IMO.

Route 40 does what it does because running buses down more direct streets where nobody lives does not attract ridership. Streamlining routes can be self-defeating if they are skipping ridership potential. We streamlined Route 49 (Pleasant Park) to the point that it skipped most of the locations where their was ridership potential. So, in the old days, we had a route that was indirect but could support a bus every 30 minutes. Now, we have a direct route that receives only token service.

Also, if Route 40 did not follow its current route east of Conroy, then Route 98 would have to follow an even more indirect route. In many cases road patterns dictate where bus routes need to be. There could also be pedestrian impediments.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

No doubt that there are some communities that have been designed in a way that makes it almost impossible to provide decent transit service. I don't think that anyone is suggesting that local routes be eliminated entirely - just that more resources be put into high-frequency trunk routes. Perhaps that includes better service on a select group of smaller arterials, provided that the route can be direct and avoid loops etc.

I would still think that if you put good service on all of those arterials, a good percentage of the population would still be within a 10 minute walk of a frequent bus line. And frankly, if a community is designed to be so inward looking that it isn't possible to walk to an arterial road in that time, we shouldn't be bending over backwards to make sure it gets transit service. If we stop devoting huge resources to serving this type of development, it will start to be reflected in house prices and developers will have to pay more attention to transit accessibility.

Be careful. The area I mention has relatively high transit usage. Hunt Club is designed as a pseudo highway with development facing away from it. Nobody wants to live on a traffic sewer. Unfortunately, all suburbs are designed this way out of necessity. Bus routes need to serve people not highways. The theory that has been presented will only be effective in pre-war parts of the city where businesses follow the arterials and access to the neighbouring residential areas is very good, ie many cross streets.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Be careful. The area I mention has relatively high transit usage. Hunt Club is designed as a pseudo highway with development facing away from it. Nobody wants to live on a traffic sewer. Unfortunately, all suburbs are designed this way out of necessity. Bus routes need to serve people not highways. The theory that has been presented will only be effective in pre-war parts of the city where businesses follow the arterials and access to the neighbouring residential areas is very good, ie many cross streets.

I don't claim to know that area very well, so I can't comment on specifics. I just don't agree that suburbs are designed with arterials with nothing on them an no easy access "out of necessity". That is just poor, car-oriented planning and nothing else.

Yes, bus routes need to serve people, However, the point is that infrequent meandering routes that go right to where people live are not providing worthwhile service, and therefore they tend to see little ridership outside of peak periods. I would argue that frequent service routes, despite being further away, provide better service and will attract more people. If the connectivity in the neighbourhood is so poor that people can't easily access their adjacent arterials, then that needs to change. We can never expect to improve ridership with the status quo - it's been tried for decades without success.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Route 40 does what it does because running buses down more direct streets where nobody lives does not attract ridership. Streamlining routes can be self-defeating if they are skipping ridership potential. We streamlined Route 49 (Pleasant Park) to the point that it skipped most of the locations where their was ridership potential. So, in the old days, we had a route that was indirect but could support a bus every 30 minutes. Now, we have a direct route that receives only token service.

Also, if Route 40 did not follow its current route east of Conroy, then Route 98 would have to follow an even more indirect route. In many cases road patterns dictate where bus routes need to be. There could also be pedestrian impediments.

Disagree. Route 40 is a perfect example of what we're talking about. I'm willing to bet that segment of Route 40 stunts its ridership, it adds 5 minutes to a trip between Greenboro and St. Laurent - are the extra riders it picks up worth it? Not in my opinion.

If you want to keep walking distance manageable for houses around Johnston east of Conroy, running Route 98 down Karsh instead of the parallel segment of Blohm is not a big travel time difference for that route.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by phil235

I don't claim to know that area very well, so I can't comment on specifics. I just don't agree that suburbs are designed with arterials with nothing on them an no easy access "out of necessity". That is just poor, car-oriented planning and nothing else.

Yes, bus routes need to serve people, However, the point is that infrequent meandering routes that go right to where people live are not providing worthwhile service, and therefore they tend to see little ridership outside of peak periods. I would argue that frequent service routes, despite being further away, provide better service and will attract more people. If the connectivity in the neighbourhood is so poor that people can't easily access their adjacent arterials, then that needs to change. We can never expect to improve ridership with the status quo - it's been tried for decades without success.

Yes, I understand your point and I fully agree that we need to design better suburbs. In the older parts of the city with a street grid, it is easy to run transit at reasonable intervals and in straight lines. In postwar suburbs, there is only the old survey grid, where roads were placed at 2 km intervals. Those roads are not always continuous, and have been modified over the decades to meet modern needs. There are also pedestrian impediments in between that could be topographic, waterways, railways, and expressways. In order to deal with that, collector roads were used to connect neighbourhoods to the survey grid. That is where transit has been placed when too far from the survey grid. We could force people to walk to the survey grid, but walks could be well over 1 km if there are pedestrian impediments. I am not sure what we achieve by making people walk that far. If walks become so lengthy, people will not use transit even it ran every 2 minutes. That has to be considered.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

Disagree. Route 40 is a perfect example of what we're talking about. I'm willing to bet that segment of Route 40 stunts its ridership, it adds 5 minutes to a trip between Greenboro and St. Laurent - are the extra riders it picks up worth it? Not in my opinion.

If you want to keep walking distance manageable for houses around Johnston east of Conroy, running Route 98 down Karsh instead of the parallel segment of Blohm is not a big travel time difference for that route.

Who are you serving on Route 40 especially at the south end? It is the people who are living in Greenboro and Hunt Club. The route is designed for people in Greenboro and Hunt Club to go west to South Keys (and downtown in peak hours) and to go north to St. Laurent. It is also designed for commuters between the Ottawa Business Park and St. Laurent. What market do you believe this bus route is designed to serve?

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Who are you serving on Route 40 especially at the south end? It is the people who are living in Greenboro and Hunt Club. The route is designed for people in Greenboro and Hunt Club to go west to South Keys (and downtown in peak hours) and to go north to St. Laurent. It is also designed for commuters between the Ottawa Business Park and St. Laurent. What market do you believe this bus route is designed to serve?

What about people in Greenboro/South Keys/Sawmill Creek/Hunt Club that want to get to the Ottawa Business Park? What if those people want to get to the Museum of Science? If Route 40 was 5 minutes faster, it would actually be an attractive option. I honestly think you'd gain ridership by cutting off that loop.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

What about people in Greenboro/South Keys/Sawmill Creek/Hunt Club that want to get to the Ottawa Business Park? What if those people want to get to the Museum of Science? If Route 40 was 5 minutes faster, it would actually be an attractive option. I honestly think you'd gain ridership by cutting off that loop.

Agreed. The thing with these circular routes is that often times the extra time it adds to the route causes ridership to drop.

[J.OT13]

With Stage 1 opening in less than 2 weeks and Stage 2 rolling out in increments over the next 6 years, OC Transpo will likely be reducing their bus fleet significantly. I wonder if they plan on unloading one of their 5 bus garages. Pinecrest would be the most logical since it will be served by a rapid-transit station however, they would no longer have a bus facility in the west end.

[eltodesukane]

Route 40 Map

[lrt's friend]

Route 40 is a little odd because it is a trunk route for the north 2/3 but a neighbourhood route for the south 1/3