Quote:
Originally Posted by gjhall
Frankly, when I went to the CE Centre for the Planning Summit, I took the 97, requested to stop at Uplands, and it drops you at the southwest corner of the parking lot. With the landscaping complete and a proper pedestrian path to that stop, I see it as a better solution than a local bus that takes you on a loopdy loop of CFB Ottawa and Hunt Club Road. If they upgraded the stop at Uplands from on-request to a normal stop, that would work out fine for most everyone.
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Simply put, they should improve it to a full Transitway station (similar to, say, Jeanne d'Arc) with full amenities, and also improve the pedestrian links over the overpass. All 97 trips should serve that stop in both directions. Voila, you have service every 15 minutes or better most of the day easily accessible!
As a 2-lane rural collector road, Uplands certainly is not designed for the traffic volumes necessary. Short of widening Uplands (while that sounds easy, the Hunt Club intersection really cannot be widened as no room exists for an intersection with an Uplands arterial, unless the intersection is relocated to the west as a 3-way T-intersection and split), transit needs to be seriously encouraged during busy events.
Route 147 COULD be increased, but the fact that it primarily serves the Uplands community (even though ridership is low there) and it runs into traffic, it is best to focus more on the higher frequency major routes and not compromise the local route. By improving the stops and connections, Route 99 could return to the Airport Parkway.