Montreal-Blair Road Transit Priority Corridor [St. Laurent Blvd to Shefford Rd]

[JHikka]

Needs to be at worst 10mins frequency through the day. Anything 15mins and beyond is too much of a hassle and too inconsistent to rely upon.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Needs to be at worst 10mins frequency through the day. Anything 15mins and beyond is too much of a hassle and too inconsistent to rely upon.

I've said this before and gotten pushback that this is too ambitious for Ottawa.

Simply maintaining the current bus fleet size would allow for a massive increase in frequencies, now that the LRT does most of the long-haul pax-km. Especially after Stage 2.

[Nowhere]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I've said this before and gotten pushback that this is too ambitious for Ottawa.

Simply maintaining the current bus fleet size would allow for a massive increase in frequencies, now that the LRT does most of the long-haul pax-km. Especially after Stage 2.

The question is : how do we fund this ? Tolling the highways ? A massive municipal tax increase for people living beyond the Greenbelt ? While I would support both of these, this would be extremely unpopular politically, so we can forget about it.

[Nowhere]

I guess that removing the left turns on Montréal Road would have been too politically unpopular. Very disappointed that the median transitway option was rejected. It's going to be hard to bring people back to OC Transpo post-covid if we refuse to remove some car lanes to make room for rapid transit.

If we want transit to be more than a social service for the poor and students in a world where office jobs will be increasingly done remotely or simply automated, the travel time with OC Transpo needs to be competitive with driving and ideally faster than the traffic jams that will be increasingly common with all the sprawl beyond the greenbelt. If buses are stuck in these traffic jams, it's going to be hard to convince people to take transit, which will make traffic even worse.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

The question is : how do we fund this ?

Funny how this question doesn't come up for road expansion and the massive amount of maintenance costs that drives.

It wouldn't be a huge tax increase to maintain the current fleet size post Stage 2. And that level of service may actually drive enough ridership to offset some of the increased costs.

Ultimately, we need to decide how serious we actually are as a city, about building transit that can be an alternative to car ownership. And bus routes that run 20-30 mins headways off-peak isn't an alternative to car ownership for the middle class. It's the bare minimum crap that you build out of obligation to students and the poor.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Funny how this question doesn't come up for road expansion and the massive amount of maintenance costs that drives.

On the operating side, the transit budget is 647M, the transportation budget (mostly roads) is 209M.

On the capital side, transit is 154M, transportation is 141M.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

On the operating side, the transit budget is 647M, the transportation budget (mostly roads) is 209M.

On the capital side, transit is 154M, transportation is 141M.

What's the lost productivity from having increased traffic? What's the net economic impact of forcing families in a mostly suburbanized car dependent city to often keep and maintain multiple vehicles? I would thought the 2008 strike would have taught people in Ottawa a few lessons about the value of transport and the relief it provides to traffic. Apparently not....

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

What's the lost productivity from having increased traffic? What's the net economic impact of forcing families in a mostly suburbanized car dependent city to often keep and maintain multiple vehicles? I would thought the 2008 strike would have taught people in Ottawa a few lessons about the value of transport and the relief it provides to traffic. Apparently not....

Running frequent nearly-empty buses in non-rush hour times does not really relieve congestion, and since Ottawa is loathe to build bus lanes the buses are stuck in the same congestion.

I realize there are externalities, but from a purely economic perspective, keeping and maintaining two cars is good for the economy, particularly if they are built in Canada.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I would thought the 2008 strike would have taught people in Ottawa a few lessons about the value of transport and the relief it provides to traffic. Apparently not....

The unfortunate reality is the 2008 strike (as well as the 1996 strike) taught people that you can't rely on transit and you need to have a car. We bought our first car in late 96 because of the looming strike. Had there not been a strike, we wouldn't have bought a car then. I can't say for sure we would never have bought one, but it certainly accelerated it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Running frequent nearly-empty buses in non-rush hour times does not really relieve congestion, and since Ottawa is loathe to build bus lanes the buses are stuck in the same congestion.

I realize there are externalities, but from a purely economic perspective, keeping and maintaining two cars is good for the economy, particularly if they are built in Canada.

1) Those cars usually aren't built in Canada anymore.

2) What's good for Ottawa residents and the broader Canadian economy are different things. I assume you don't think the same way (about business for Canadian manufacturers) when you hear about cities sole-sourcing transit vehicles to Canadian OEMs solely for patriotic reasons.

3) Families having two cars forces a spiral of car dependency that makes a lot of other things worse. Even if you don't give a shit about the environment (as per our past conversations), the sprawl and housing affordability crisis that comes with high car dependency is hardly a minor impact on the quality of life of residents.

4) There's no way to actually get people to give up a car without having a transit network that is designed for use beyond just peak (as you are advocating for here). Indeed, a big part of the reason these buses are "empty" now is because the service is so crappy and unreliable that it isn't an alternative to secondary vehicle ownership, let alone primary vehicle ownership. Heck, even our LRT ridership will be lower than it could be, because the feeder network sucks.

5) While buses getting stuck in traffic sucks, that has very little to do with providing a reasonable baseline level of off-peak service. Again, the TTC does this across a huge chunk of suburban sprawl (416 suburbs) that really wouldn't be all that different from most of Ottawa. And they often do it without bus lanes too. Prior to the LRT, this would have been expensive to do because the bus fleet was supplying a lot of the long haul pax-kms. Now? Not so much. Route lengths after Stage 2 should be lower everywhere but in Kanata, Stittsville and Barrhaven. So it most certainly wouldn't cost a lot to provide 15 mins all day and 10 min peak service on most routes.

To anybody who thinks what we're doing right now is sustainable, I simply say look at the GTA and the 24/7 traffic mess that it is. Now just imagine what Ottawa will be like in 2040 at current growth rates but non-work transit modal share lower than Toronto.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

1) Those cars usually aren't built in Canada anymore.

2) What's good for Ottawa residents and the broader Canadian economy are different things. I assume you don't think the same way (about business for Canadian manufacturers) when you hear about cities sole-sourcing transit vehicles to Canadian OEMs solely for patriotic reasons.

3) Families having two cars forces a spiral of car dependency that makes a lot of other things worse. Even if you don't give a shit about the environment (as per our past conversations), the sprawl and housing affordability crisis that comes with high car dependency is hardly a minor impact on the quality of life of residents.

4) There's no way to actually get people to give up a car without having a transit network that is designed for use beyond just peak (as you are advocating for here). Indeed, a big part of the reason these buses are "empty" now is because the service is so crappy and unreliable that it isn't an alternative to secondary vehicle ownership, let alone primary vehicle ownership. Heck, even our LRT ridership will be lower than it could be, because the feeder network sucks.

5) While buses getting stuck in traffic sucks, that has very little to do with providing a reasonable baseline level of off-peak service. Again, the TTC does this across a huge chunk of suburban sprawl (416 suburbs) that really wouldn't be all that different from most of Ottawa. And they often do it without bus lanes too. Prior to the LRT, this would have been expensive to do because the bus fleet was supplying a lot of the long haul pax-kms. Now? Not so much. Route lengths after Stage 2 should be lower everywhere but in Kanata, Stittsville and Barrhaven. So it most certainly wouldn't cost a lot to provide 15 mins all day and 10 min peak service on most routes.

To anybody who thinks what we're doing right now is sustainable, I simply say look at the GTA and the 24/7 traffic mess that it is. Now just imagine what Ottawa will be like in 2040 at current growth rates but non-work transit modal share lower than Toronto.

5 of the top 10 selling vehicles in Canada are still built here (Sierra, Silverado, RAV4, CRV, Civic).

Middle class people in Ottawa are not willing to take the bus for errands, whether it comes every 10 minutes or not. We lived in an infill townhouse project in the east end. Walking distance to the transitway and several local bus routes of varying frequency, and all sorts of stores within a 15 minute walk. Ours was practically the only house in the neighborhood with only one car. People who worked downtown took the bus to commute, besides that everyone drove everywhere. I generally agree with you on the need to change that culture, but buses are not the tool to do it.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Middle class people in Ottawa are not willing to take the bus for errands, whether it comes every 10 minutes or not.

How do we know this, when we've literally never had this in Ottawa? I'm not talking about a handful of high frequency Transitway routes. I'm talking about 10 mins on peak/15 mins off peak across the city, almost like what Toronto does (Toronto does much better than that in many parts).

Originally Posted by acottawa

We lived in an infill townhouse project in the east end. Walking distance to the transitway and several local bus routes of varying frequency, and all sorts of stores within a 15 minute walk. Ours was practically the only house in the neighborhood with only one car. People who worked downtown took the bus to commute, besides that everyone drove everywhere. I generally agree with you on the need to change that culture, but buses are not the tool to do it.

You see this as evidence of people unwilling to use the bus. I see this as an indictment of the transit system. When it comes to actually reducing car ownership, what determines usability is not just whether you have access to a relatively frequent bus route, but whether the system as a whole, is reliable. If the route on your street runs every 10 mins, but you have to connect to another bus that runs every 30 mins, you'll avoid transit. Again, this isn't rocket science. The TTC runs an entire suburban bus network in areas that look really similar to most of Ottawa.

Also, I would say that culture is changing substantially. When we're getting to the point that condos can be built with zero parking on Cyrville, I'd say folks are starting to move past car culture. The City should support that trend.

[lrt's friend]

The problem is that the cost of running LRT is about the same as buses. Increasing frequency requires additional investment. Hopefully we would increase ridership and revenue

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

How do we know this, when we've literally never had this in Ottawa? I'm not talking about a handful of high frequency Transitway routes. I'm talking about 10 mins on peak/15 mins off peak across the city, almost like what Toronto does (Toronto does much better than that in many parts).



You see this as evidence of people unwilling to use the bus. I see this as an indictment of the transit system. When it comes to actually reducing car ownership, what determines usability is not just whether you have access to a relatively frequent bus route, but whether the system as a whole, is reliable. If the route on your street runs every 10 mins, but you have to connect to another bus that runs every 30 mins, you'll avoid transit. Again, this isn't rocket science. The TTC runs an entire suburban bus network in areas that look really similar to most of Ottawa.

Also, I would say that culture is changing substantially. When we're getting to the point that condos can be built with zero parking on Cyrville, I'd say folks are starting to move past car culture. The City should support that trend.

A proposal for a novelty 6 story apartment building (whose proponent has since sold the land without developing it) isn’t exactly a trend. When Claridge starts building car free buildings it might be a trend.

The 416 suburbs are vastly denser than the Ottawa suburbs. There are commie block apartment buildings everywhere. North York (the whole thing) has the density of the Glebe. If you want an Ottawa analogue look to the outer 905, where there is no 10 minute frequency.

[acottawa]

What they should do is establish 10 minute off peak frequency on some of reasonably dense streets (and reasonable generators of off peak ridership) inside the greenbelt (St. Laurent, Carling, Bronson, Montreal/Rideau)

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

A proposal for a novelty 6 story apartment building (whose proponent has since sold the land without developing it) isn’t exactly a trend. When Claridge starts building car free buildings it might be a trend.

Maybe not car free, but there's plenty of projects now with less than 1:1 ratio for resident parking. Especially in the denser parts of the city and near O-Train stops. So to cast this as some weird one off is a bit unfair. I brought it up as an example, because that building is an area that most would view as car dependent.

Originally Posted by acottawa

The 416 suburbs are vastly denser than the Ottawa suburbs. There are commie block apartment buildings everywhere. North York (the whole thing) has the density of the Glebe. If you want an Ottawa analogue look to the outer 905, where there is no 10 minute frequency.

Sure the 416 suburbs are denser than Ottawa suburbs. But they aren't that much denser than a lot of the areas inside the Greenbelt where there are still plenty of 30 min headway routes off-peak.

Also, North York isn't the only 416 suburb. Most of Scarborough, for example, looks a lot like the corridor (and surrounding areas) being discussed here.

Originally Posted by acottawa

What they should do is establish 10 minute off peak frequency on some of reasonably dense streets (and reasonable generators of off peak ridership) inside the greenbelt (St. Laurent, Carling, Bronson, Montreal/Rideau)

This would be a good start. The TTC runs the Blue night network on major avenues. 24/7 service. And those same routes are high frequency. That would go a long way to making transit more usable in Ottawa. Waiting 10-15 mins for a bus on St-Laurent or Bank is pretty fucking ridiculous.

[J.OT13]

Any news on this one I might have missed. Or a rough timeline. I could not find anything on the City website.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I generally agree with you on the need to change that culture, but buses are not the tool to do it.

Then, within the transit part of the equation... what is that tool?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The 416 suburbs are vastly denser than the Ottawa suburbs.

The vastness of their greater density is a lot less vast when you adjust for the Greenbelt Problem in Ottawa.

[J.OT13]

Two years ago, but it wasn't directly posted on here at the time.

• Video Link