Regional and Intercity Bus\Rail Transportation

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Such flexibility would most likely require that you rent for as long as you work.

It's a hard sell to most people.

What is being advocated here mostly works for single childless people.

Throw a spouse and especially kids in the mix and the solutions aren't so black and white.

[Acajack]

Finding a job that's either close to home or at least with a relatively painless commute is a long-term objective for many, and of those many never achieve it.

And once you do achieve you're vulnerable to job losses, transfers or relocations, that threaten your "prize".

Having everyone move every time they change jobs can also be detrimental to local community life, as fewer people will put down roots in neighbourhoods.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

That's not my problem. If people don't want to make themselves flexible thats's thier problem. Job environments change from year to year which requires more flexibilty. People nowadays knows they wont stay in the same job until retirement. Every person I have worked with have changed jobs or been transfered at least a few times.

In a town full of bureaucrats I am not sure that is a common viewpoint.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by Acajack

What is being advocated here mostly works for single childless people.

Throw a spouse and especially kids in the mix and the solutions aren't so black and white.

Actually yes it is black and white its called a choice.

Im pretty sure people in the military and the RCMP have lots of people who have families and they move around alot. There are also many other people with other jobs that have families that move around alot.

Im begining to see what Truenorth is talking about is alot of people here have complained about suburban growth but are making excuses for it. Well there are no excuses, id rather see 80% of the population live within the greenbelt which is exactly why we have one. Its time for the suburbs and the exurbs to pay for thier own costs and stop expecting urban dwellers to pay for it.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Acajack

What is being advocated here mostly works for single childless people.

Throw a spouse and especially kids in the mix and the solutions aren't so black and white.

Originally Posted by Acajack

Finding a job that's either close to home or at least with a relatively painless commute is a long-term objective for many, and of those many never achieve it.

And once you do achieve you're vulnerable to job losses, transfers or relocations, that threaten your "prize".

Having everyone move every time they change jobs can also be detrimental to local community life, as fewer people will put down roots in neighbourhoods.

I think some people here just want those families to live in RV's all their life. In that case, parking bylaw will be a huge headache.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I think some people here just want those families to live in RV's all their life. In that case, parking bylaw will be a huge headache.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

Actually yes it is black and white its called a choice.

Im pretty sure people in the military and the RCMP have lots of people who have families and they move around alot. There are also many other people with other jobs that have families that move around alot.

Im begining to see what Truenorth is talking about is alot of people here have complained about suburban growth but are making excuses for it. Well there are no excuses, id rather see 80% of the population live within the greenbelt which is exactly why we have one. Its time for the suburbs and the exurbs to pay for thier own costs and stop expecting urban dwellers to pay for it.

No one is talking about pulling out all the stops so people can get to CSIS at Blair and Ogilvie in half an hour from their 1-acre homestead in Kemptville.

Even in a denser inner city you still need a good multi-modal transportation system so people can get to jobs from one end of the *city* to the other, instead of telling them to move house or move jobs with a frequency that's impractical and undesirable to 80+% of us.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Acajack

No one is talking about pulling out all the stops so people can get to CSIS at Blair and Ogilvie in half an hour from their 1-acre homestead in Kemptville.

When some here advocate hundreds of millions on rural rail, they are actually aiming towards this kind of goal. Why else would they be advocating for rural rail?

Originally Posted by Acajack

Even in a denser inner city you still need a good multi-modal transportation system so people can get to jobs from one end of the *city* to the other, instead of telling them to move house or move jobs with a frequency that's impractical and undesirable to 80+% of us.

I agree that moving isn't practical for most. However, what we see in Ottawa are people deliberately picking locations that are wholly inconvenient to them, for more space. Let's not pretend that couples where both work outside their burb or in the core, are uncommon.

And I don't think some of you who keep arguing for better transport networks really understand how insidious sprawl is and how it works against your goal.

The further out someone is, the longer their commute. The longer their commute, the longer they are on the system. This means you need higher capacity for more of the network. Instead of 5km of triple lane expressway, you now need 10km. Instead of just a central rail corridor with 20 000 pphpd, you now need branches with 10 000 pphpd. And the last mile for everything from rail to sewers to roads becomes extremely cost inefficient because of low densities. Massive escalations in both the capital cost to build and the annual costs to maintain. Inevitably this means worse service for most.

Y'all think it's bad now? If this keeps up quite a few homeowners will be paying 5-digit tax bills like a lot of the 905 while watching infrastructure and services deteriorate. Check out some of the sprawlicious areas of the GTA and how much they pay and compare it to Toronto proper:

https://www.zoocasa.com/blog/the-gta...x-infographic/

Halifax priced out the cost of sprawl. I suggest reading this:

The most sprawling areas impose three times the annual cost per household as the most compact areas. For hard infrastructure like water, sewers, and roads, the high cost of sprawl is even more stark — “ten times the cost of other patterns” over the lifecycle of the investment, according to the authors.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/...t-development/

This is what I'm talking about when I say we need to stop subsidizing sprawl. Bad enough that we subsidize Kanata, Orleans, Barrhaven and Stittsville. But now some of you want to give discounts to people who live in Rockland. Why? I'm starting to wonder if some of you pay property taxes at all. Cause the mentality on display leads me to think y'all think money grows on trees, with zero consideration to the efficiency of spending and even insistence that less efficient problems and solutions be prioritized.

We may be here to discuss transit. But transit can't be separated from development in the long run. And a vibrant city with good public transit requires a minimum level of density to support it.

The other issue I see here repeated ad nauseum is that somehow denser living doesn't work for families. That is pure ignorance from people who think density = shoebox condos in high-rises. Density does not require high rises or even a ban on single family homes.

On topic, this comes down to priorities. Do we prioritize the core and density or do we divert resources to the suburbs (or the exurbs as per this topic. Do you want Ottawa to be more like Montreal or more like Winnipeg? Do you want a city that is more European in character and lifestyle or more American? That is what it comes down to.

[OtrainUser]

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Tok...!4d139.6917064

Thats what a truely dense city that can support any level of transit looks like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transp..._Greater_Tokyo

I hope people read the part about their commuter service. The commuter towns that they serve are very dense which is how its supposed to be not like what people are proposing here.

[acottawa]

Tokyo has 30M people.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Tokyo has 30M people.

30M is the metro population the city population is just over 17M

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

30M is the metro population the city population is just over 17M

So why would that be a useful model in a city with 900k people?

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I agree that moving isn't practical for most. .

The ideas that people should frequently move house for employment reasons or that they can easily change jobs at the drop of a hat are the ones I really have a huge problem with on here.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

"What if one person has to get a new job?"

Sure. But that doesn't explain why you bought a house in Stittsville when both of you work downtown. What does explain your decision is that you wanted a McMansion on your $90k combined. And now you think the government owes it to you, to bring transit to your hood and widen the highways till your exit.

I'm curious. How many couples do you know who live in Stittsville where both work downtown? I live in Stittsville and don't know any (not to say they don't exist). In fact, fewer than half of the families I know have even one of them work downtown. Granted it is a small sample size and biased by the industry I work in, but I really don't think it is the massive problem you make it out to be.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I've been very clear on my views. I didn't like the idea of LRT leaving the greenbelt. But if it was inevitable then let it go to a suburb with high ridership first.

If I had a magic wand, LRT would have never left the greenbelt and those funds would have been used to twin track and electrify the Trillium Line and build parking structures at all the terminus to go with the taxes on core parking spots.

Initially I was also opposed to the idea of the "LRT" (I hate calling it that) leaving the greenbelt, but then I realized that by extending it a tiny bit further, through the greenbelt into the suburbs, we can save hundreds of buses and thousands of cars from having to drive those 5-10km through the greenbelt. That has a huge environmental benefit.

And that's exactly what Stage 2 and Stage 3 will do. Why commuter rail is needed on top of the billions spend on LRT is beyond me. You know what is needed in the burbs? Buses.

No argument from me on that one.

Also, let's not forget the topic of this thread: rural bus service. And as I keep saying, showing me why we should subsidize this. I am not opposed to CRT running buses to Ottawa. I just don't see why they should get discounted passes on top of that.

I agree that we shouldn't be subsidizing rural bus service, but we need to find a way of encouraging rural commuters to use a bus rather than drive without encouraging more rural commuters. IMHO, we should have HOV lanes on the 417 and 174 (which would also useful for Ottawa residents).

[CityTech]

In today's times, with people tending to switch jobs fairly frequently (outside of the federal government, which only employs a minority of the city's population, jobs-for-life don't exist anymore really), and both partners working, people have a lot less control over their commute than they used to.

Some people who live in rural areas have one partner working in Ottawa, but another partner working somewhere else entirely. A coworker of mine works in Ottawa with me but his wife works in Perth; they compromised by living in Carleton Place, a decision they made when he worked in Kanata. However, he works downtown now, so that commute sucks. They considered moving to Kanata-Stittsville area to be more midway between Perth and DT Ottawa but the cost of housing there is preventing them from doing that.

A cousin of mine grew up in the sticks east of the city, but that's because his dad works downtown but his mom works in Cornwall.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I'm curious. How many couples do you know who live in Stittsville where both work downtown? I live in Stittsville and don't know any (not to say they don't exist). In fact, fewer than half of the families I know have even one of them work downtown. Granted it is a small sample size and biased by the industry I work in, but I really don't think it is the massive problem you make it out to be.

I think Orleans is the only major suburb where it's common/normal for both spouses to work downtown. Many people who buy in Orleans now are people who both work downtown, because it's a fairly affordable place to find an SFH and the commute downtown from there is easy enough, about to get way easier with the two phase of LRT.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Tok...!4d139.6917064

Thats what a truely dense city that can support any level of transit looks like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transp..._Greater_Tokyo

I hope people read the part about their commuter service. The commuter towns that they serve are very dense which is how its supposed to be not like what people are proposing here.

This is the kind of FUD I'm talking about. Are you suggesting that the mid sized cities all over Western Europe can't support transit with their densities?

We don't need to be Tokyo to have decent transit. Dublin, Sofia, Helsinki, Glasgow, Nantes are reasonably close examples in population size.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

m begining to see what Truenorth is talking about is alot of people here have complained about suburban growth but are making excuses for it. Well there are no excuses, id rather see 80% of the population live within the greenbelt which is exactly why we have one. Its time for the suburbs and the exurbs to pay for thier own costs and stop expecting urban dwellers to pay for it.

Why 80%? I doubt if 80% of the jobs in Ottawa work within the greenbelt (an assumption on my part so please prove me wrong if you can). Are you advocating for more people to commute to the suburbs than commute into the city?

I'm advocating for people to live closer to where they work, though that isn't always possible.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I agree that moving isn't practical for most. However, what we see in Ottawa are people deliberately picking locations that are wholly inconvenient to them, for more space. Let's not pretend that couples where both work outside their burb or in the core, are uncommon.

Do you have any evidence that is is common? People only know who they associate with. If you live and work downtown, the only people you likely know who live in the suburbs work downtown, so your perspective of who lives there is biased by the demographics of those you meet.

This is what I'm talking about when I say we need to stop subsidizing sprawl. Bad enough that we subsidize Kanata, Orleans, Barrhaven and Stittsville. But now some of you want to give discounts to people who live in Rockland. Why? I'm starting to wonder if some of you pay property taxes at all. Cause the mentality on display leads me to think y'all think money grows on trees, with zero consideration to the efficiency of spending and even insistence that less efficient problems and solutions be prioritized.

Yet you have been defending the Confederation line extension to Trim Rd, with the argument that we should be rewarding Orleans. However, with it being at the eastern most edge of Orleans, it will be primarily of benefit to rural residents east of Orleans (like Rockland). Similarly, when I suggested that Stage 3 be limited to Terry Fox (reducing the cost from $1.85B to $710M) because of escalating costs per km combed with significantly lower ridership, you strongly opposed my view, saying it should be extended to Stittsville right away.

You seem to give out mixed messages, saying we shouldn't encourage sprawl but then fight for infrastructure that will do just that.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by CityTech

I think Orleans is the only major suburb where it's common/normal for both spouses to work downtown. Many people who buy in Orleans now are people who both work downtown, because it's a fairly affordable place to find an SFH and the commute downtown from there is easy enough, about to get way easier with the two phase of LRT.

I'd say you have lots of couples with both working downtown all over Ottawa and its suburbs. Yes, Orleans skews higher towards that than Kanata due to the extremely low level of local employment in Orleans (relative to Kanata anyway).

But sure, a lot of couples will have one working downtown, and the other working as a teacher in the suburb itself. Or perhaps at a hospital like Queensway-Carleton (for Kanata) or Montfort or CHEO/General for Orleans. Or one working downtown and the other working at a major employment centre a bit closer in like DND (Moodie) or CSIS-CSEC (Ogilvie) or CMHC, NRC, etc.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

Actually yes it is black and white its called a choice.

Im pretty sure people in the military and the RCMP have lots of people who have families and they move around alot. There are also many other people with other jobs that have families that move around alot.

Im begining to see what Truenorth is talking about is alot of people here have complained about suburban growth but are making excuses for it. Well there are no excuses, id rather see 80% of the population live within the greenbelt which is exactly why we have one. Its time for the suburbs and the exurbs to pay for thier own costs and stop expecting urban dwellers to pay for it.

Just remember that Truenorth is in the military or that is what he says. A transient lifestyle is not for everybody. In fact, I would say that it is not for the majority.

I have to ask you, if what you say is true, then why haven't you moved to near Hurdman or Elmvale. That is much closer to Trainyards.