[Tesladom]

I admit that I am not a user of public transit in Ottawa, probably only used the service 5 times in the last 25 years, primarily to go to RedBlacks game using the special bus service. However, I do believe that effective and reliable Public Transit is a necessity in our city, and supportive of the investments we have made (in principle at least). I will profess to drive a personal vehicle as primary transportation 99.9% of the time

Today I was without a vehicle 3 blocks away from Pimisi Station, I was going to Uber back home in Orleans but decided to try the LRT and transfer on bus at Blair that literally drops off 3 doors down from my house (#30). This is straightforward (or so I thought…)

8:22AM – I leave by point of origin on Rochester Street, nice walk to Pimisi, purchased ticket at the machine and walked down just as LRT arrives 8:29AM. Perfect! Great service!

I only rode the LRT once before and this was my first experience riding end-to-end (or close to anyway: Pimisi to Blair). The train is nice and clean, but OMG this thing is so slow!!!! I rode on other systems and they go fast, I was on Canada Line in Vancouver YVR to Downtown and that thing was flying. The LRT needs to slow to a crawl at every corner, and the system is full of corners, loud screeching noises etc… Yikes!! To make matters worse, it seems to stop at each station for too long, waiting with open doors at stations that have nobody there (like Tremblay, Cyrville etc.. ) In winter this must be brutal. There’s no need to stop for so long.

Regardless, I made it to Blair at 8:59AM, so 30 minutes.. meh! That would have been no more than 10-12 minutes by car but acceptable I guess. I was now transferring to the route 30 which should be a high frequency route since it folloows large arterial roads through Orleans (Jeanne d’Arc – Mer Bleue - Brian Coburn). This is where the system breaks down. Apparently, this bus comes every 30 minutes based on OC Transpo app, but it said 9:20AM was next bus so I waited, along with a bunch of other people… bus never came. I pulled out my phone to check Uber since this was ridiculous, but the fare to my house was a staggering $34.00, so I decided to wait it out. Finally at 9:39AM, a full 40 minutes after arriving at Blair it shows up (by the way the app was now saying 9:48).

Rode a double-decker bus for the first time (The things rattles a shakes worse than an old Dodge), and witnessed something so awful I can’t get over: Along Jeanne d’Arc, and older lady with difficulty walking was stumbling to get to bus stop, about 50 meters from it, She was clearly waving at the bus to stop to pick her up, he kept going. I feel so bad for that lady, she probably had to wait another hour or whenever the bus may come by again. I respect that OC Transpo buses should only stop at designated but stops but this just does not feel right, the bus should have stopped to let her in

Made it to my stop at 10:02AM and another 30 seconds walk to my house. All in all, 1hour 40 minutes… Based on Google Maps that trip by car is 26 minutes. I though it would be 50-60 minutes tops

I’m writing this because it is obvious that the system is broken, I keep hearing this from the people who use the system, and many who have basically quit the system and opting for cars… I can’t blame them, and as a taxpayer, this is really insulting as a Basic Service. I lot of people on this board advocate public transit, while I agree it is part of our solution, this system is not; the LRT is too slow, too many stops, and feeder bus network is not reliable and very uncomfortable to ride. The sad part is that many people who rely on this service can’t afford a car, and use it to commute to work or school. We are letting them down.

This system sucks, glad I have a car, I feel sorry for those who don’t and have to endure this BS every day