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  #5041  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2012, 2:44 AM
Capital Shaun Capital Shaun is offline
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Originally Posted by Cre47 View Post
Hum maybe should be a good idea to extend the bus-only lanes for the 12 on Montreal Road (see the Citizen article for proof), in light of the insanity this week related to the Highway 174 problems? I'm sure Uhuniau will agree on that one.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/pi...182/story.html

I wish they would do this as well for the stretch of Wellington between Elgin and the Portage Bridge (well at least westbound). With the new bike lane, they've a traffic light at the start of the bus lane of the bridge, slowing even further bus movement in the afternoon.
And the first comment is someone complaining that one westbound lane has been temporarily converted to eastbound lane for buses during the afternoon/evening.

As for the 12... I'm just glad it's not February so I can still cycling to/from work.
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  #5042  
Old Posted Sep 7, 2012, 2:43 PM
eternallyme eternallyme is offline
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Originally Posted by Cre47 View Post
Hum maybe should be a good idea to extend the bus-only lanes for the 12 on Montreal Road (see the Citizen article for proof), in light of the insanity this week related to the Highway 174 problems? I'm sure Uhuniau will agree on that one.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/pi...182/story.html

I wish they would do this as well for the stretch of Wellington between Elgin and the Portage Bridge (well at least westbound). With the new bike lane, they've a traffic light at the start of the bus lane of the bridge, slowing even further bus movement in the afternoon.
Not a bad idea, but they need to be enforced to work well. Realistically, any large-scale solution on that corridor needs to go underground.
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  #5043  
Old Posted Sep 8, 2012, 11:30 PM
JCL JCL is offline
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I recorded several videos on Thursday and Friday of Highway 174 when buses were permitted to use the westbound lanes to go east (i.e. buses travelling on the wrong side the highway).

Link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...H&feature=plcp
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  #5044  
Old Posted Sep 10, 2012, 3:41 AM
Uhuniau Uhuniau is offline
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Originally Posted by Cre47 View Post
Hum maybe should be a good idea to extend the bus-only lanes for the 12 on Montreal Road (see the Citizen article for proof), in light of the insanity this week related to the Highway 174 problems? I'm sure Uhuniau will agree on that one.
Yes! (Also, build a subway under Rideau-Montreal plz.)
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  #5045  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 3:49 AM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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It has been published that OC Transpo ridership has declined by 4.23% during the 2nd quarter compared to the same period last year.

I suspect that this is the result of:

1. Federal job cuts
2. A general increase in unemployment in Ottawa
3. The effects of route optimization that had been masked by the unipass program for the first 6 months.
4. The lingering effects of the transit strike that drove away many choice transit riders. This was again masked by the growth of ridership resulting from the unipass program.
5. The gradual movement of federal jobs from central and transit friendly locations to the suburbs.
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  #5046  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 5:01 AM
S-Man S-Man is offline
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Unemployment has really risen that much, you think? If anything, people who had jobs with cars are now taking the bus to cut down on vehicle expense! That being said, there are always a lot of factors at work.
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  #5047  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 5:04 AM
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  #5048  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 1:08 PM
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Also, wasn't it an early and mild spring this year? 3-season cyclists may have switched away from transit earlier than normal.
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  #5049  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 4:46 PM
eternallyme eternallyme is offline
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I highly doubt gas prices played a role, since they were not lower. I agree about those mentioned factors.

Other issues:

1) Overcrowded Transitway routes may have driven people away, since they don't want to go on a bus only to stand in a pack of sardines. As much as those cuts in 2011 are mentioned, residential local routes only make up a very small percentage of ridership. The 95 alone probably has more ridership than all the residential local routes combined.

2) Likewise, downtown crowding on the Transitway is another problem, slowing buses considerably.

3) Fares are among the highest in Canada for short trips. Since a large percentage of ridership lies in the urban core, that means paying nearly $100 a month for passes when they rarely travel more than 5 to 8 km away. Such trips are clearly more economical for many to use by bicycle.

4) Poor development planning may have also played a role with employment, i.e. moving DND to the old JDS Uniphase campus, which is not well-served by transit. The DND at the old Nortel site is another issue there (if it also involved Nortel Corkstown, then Route 96 could directly connect).
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  #5050  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 8:24 PM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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1) Overcrowded Transitway routes may have driven people away, since they don't want to go on a bus only to stand in a pack of sardines. As much as those cuts in 2011 are mentioned, residential local routes only make up a very small percentage of ridership. The 95 alone probably has more ridership than all the residential local routes combined.
I agree that overcrowded Transitway routes are a turn off but suburban routes and surburban passengers accessing the Transitway by various means are the driving force behind ridership on the 95 etc. I think that you will find that local residents who are walking from their homes make up a small proportion of the ridership on the 95 etc. Just look where the busy stations are. They are the transfer stations and not the residential stations. Most passengers are connecting from other routes, or using a park n ride or being dropped off. This is exactly the reason why LRT in many American cities do not have good ridership. There is a lack of a good connecting bus network.

The key to the future is not LRT itself but the connecting suburban bus routes. This is where most of the population growth will continue to be and the potential for ridership growth. The connections between LRT and local routes is vital as is the design of suburban routes.

What we saw with route optimization was simply cost cutting. The goal of straightening routes for the most part was NOT achieved. In fact, for each route straightened, I expect you will find that more than one was made more convoluted. The more convoluted the route becomes, the longer it takes to get to your destination.

I think it is a mistake to simply say that the 95 has more ridership than all the suburban locals combined. Of course that may be true, because so many passengers are being fed into the 95 from all over the city by design.

Last edited by lrt's friend; Sep 21, 2012 at 8:36 PM.
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  #5051  
Old Posted Sep 21, 2012, 11:46 PM
KHOOLE KHOOLE is offline
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Happy riders are paying riders

I agree.

A decline in ridership is directly related to a decline in service and inversely related to an increase in cost.

A very basic concept to increase sales in retail business is to increase service or to decrease the price or do both.
Ridership will only increase if a trip is frequent enough to tolerate, comfortable enough to appreciate and accessible enough to use. All of this at an accessible price.

This may require a rethink in urban design and transit methods. Suburban streets should no longer be spaggetti mazes and should allow public transportation to pick up and deposit passengers close to their homes. Much smaller and more frequent buses should be circulating through these residential areas that will evidently keep on growing with no end in sight.

LRT should be between suburban areas as well as between suburbs and places of work, which are not necessarily in the centre of town. The downtown area would be better serviced with smaller buses (or streetcars) that would circulate throughout the area.

Ottawa was created as a two-parts town from the very beginning. It is still a city made of two parts: east end and west end. The transit LRT end points should be the Rideau Centre for the east end and the Bayview Yards for the west end. With the O-Train and the POW Bridge, the Bayview Yards can be and should be the transit nucleus for all of the west, south and north transit routes. With Little Italy, Chinatown, Hintonburg and Westboro nearby, this area is an commercial and social entity of its own, just like the Rideau Centre, the Convention Centre, Sussex St and the Market have their own vibes and aura.

Moreover, public transportation should have only one single reasonable fare for all. Passengers pay for the space they occupy on a vehicle and, if the price is very reasonable and acceptable, it should be the same for all, students and seniors included.

How to pay for all this? There's the rub!

City streets are the most subsidized amenity in town. Nobody ever pays for driving on a street built and maintained by the City using funds provided by all taxpayers. Driving is the biggest freebie in town.

We have to come to terms with ourselves and start to realize that street users should pay a greater share of the costs of using city streets. Tolls may have to be re-introduced.

This is a dilemna that is common to all urban areas of the western world. We can longer afford to build and maintain the urban road infrastructures that we have come to take for granted for the past 100 years, when the automobile came to be.

City planners are promoting residential intensification and public transportation.

So, let's get with it: provide a good, convenient, safe, comfortable and well-priced mode of transportation acceptable to all and the cost of road building and maintenance will decrease due to a decrease in the use of automobiles.
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  #5052  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2012, 1:17 AM
lrt's friend lrt's friend is offline
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On the same day that it was announced that OC Transpo ridership was down, CTV News compared a trip by car, bike and transit. It was not a good news day for transit. Transit came in last (10 minutes after the bike and 13 minutes after the car) and that was on a route well served by transit, between St. Laurent and the Market. I can tell you that if the route chosen had not followed the Transitway, more or less, transit would have done much worse.

In all the efforts by the city to achieve transit cost efficiency, they have forgotten that they are in competition for riders. OC Transpo also needs to be efficient in delivering passengers to their destination quickly.
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  #5053  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2012, 2:25 PM
eternallyme eternallyme is offline
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Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
On the same day that it was announced that OC Transpo ridership was down, CTV News compared a trip by car, bike and transit. It was not a good news day for transit. Transit came in last (10 minutes after the bike and 13 minutes after the car) and that was on a route well served by transit, between St. Laurent and the Market. I can tell you that if the route chosen had not followed the Transitway, more or less, transit would have done much worse.

In all the efforts by the city to achieve transit cost efficiency, they have forgotten that they are in competition for riders. OC Transpo also needs to be efficient in delivering passengers to their destination quickly.
The inner city needs faster and more frequent transit, that is for sure. Few would otherwise pay $3.30 a ride for a short, slow trip. Overall potential ridership is always bound to be much higher in the inner city than in the suburbs (except directly near transit stations). More bus-only lanes on inner city streets are necessary if possible, and perhaps it is time to dust off old subway plans.

Another thought is to change the fare system, and reduce the per-ride fare, from $3.30 to, say, $2.00 or less, but with no access to transfers (i.e. only valid on a single bus boarding). The only problem with that is that it discriminates against those with no routes to downtown but two short routes, as opposed to a single long route. Unfortunately, no clear inner-city (or local areas beyond the inner city) zone boundary exists that would make it easy to reduce fares on short trips (the most logical would be the O-Train line and the Rideau River, but so many routes cross it at many points it would be very difficult to administer).

A sensible fare zone boundary does exist in the Greenbelt, but that only impacts riders crossing it into or out of the core area, which is about 20% during peak periods and less than 10% during off-peak periods. Such would work well to substitute for the express routes, and cover everyone crossing that distance, but would be quite controversial as well.
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  #5054  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2012, 3:36 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lrt's friend View Post
On the same day that it was announced that OC Transpo ridership was down, CTV News compared a trip by car, bike and transit. It was not a good news day for transit. Transit came in last (10 minutes after the bike and 13 minutes after the car) and that was on a route well served by transit, between St. Laurent and the Market. I can tell you that if the route chosen had not followed the Transitway, more or less, transit would have done much worse.

In all the efforts by the city to achieve transit cost efficiency, they have forgotten that they are in competition for riders. OC Transpo also needs to be efficient in delivering passengers to their destination quickly.
I was surprised that bike beat bus and that it came close to car. But I think that if they would have done this in rush hour, bus would have come up on top.
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  #5055  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2012, 3:46 PM
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Originally Posted by eternallyme View Post
The inner city needs faster and more frequent transit, that is for sure. Few would otherwise pay $3.30 a ride for a short, slow trip. Overall potential ridership is always bound to be much higher in the inner city than in the suburbs (except directly near transit stations). More bus-only lanes on inner city streets are necessary if possible, and perhaps it is time to dust off old subway plans.

Another thought is to change the fare system, and reduce the per-ride fare, from $3.30 to, say, $2.00 or less, but with no access to transfers (i.e. only valid on a single bus boarding). The only problem with that is that it discriminates against those with no routes to downtown but two short routes, as opposed to a single long route. Unfortunately, no clear inner-city (or local areas beyond the inner city) zone boundary exists that would make it easy to reduce fares on short trips (the most logical would be the O-Train line and the Rideau River, but so many routes cross it at many points it would be very difficult to administer).

A sensible fare zone boundary does exist in the Greenbelt, but that only impacts riders crossing it into or out of the core area, which is about 20% during peak periods and less than 10% during off-peak periods. Such would work well to substitute for the express routes, and cover everyone crossing that distance, but would be quite controversial as well.
If the ORT (I will forever drop the "light") ever extends to the outer greenbelt, we should implement zones like Vancouver and many other cities; inside the greenbelt; outside the greenbelt. And no buses crossing the greenbelt so to not have that confusion. Price goes by location of the trip you start at (or if you buy a bus pass or "Presto" bus pass equivalent, where you live).
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  #5056  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2012, 4:44 PM
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Notice the big omission in this article: September 4, 2011 (which is probably the biggest factor instead) is not even mentioned. Of course, eventually the ridiculous cuts of last year would eventually bite them hard in the ridership department, this was a no-doubter
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  #5057  
Old Posted Sep 22, 2012, 10:03 PM
eternallyme eternallyme is offline
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Originally Posted by Cre47 View Post
Notice the big omission in this article: September 4, 2011 (which is probably the biggest factor instead) is not even mentioned. Of course, eventually the ridiculous cuts of last year would eventually bite them hard in the ridership department, this was a no-doubter
A lot of the factors come back to it - overcrowded Transitway routes, poor local connections forcing everyone on them, poor connections sending people to their bikes for short trips or cars for long trips...
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  #5058  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2012, 3:53 AM
KHOOLE KHOOLE is offline
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Less cars better public transit

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Originally Posted by J.OT13 View Post
If the ORT (I will forever drop the "light") ever extends to the outer greenbelt, we should implement zones like Vancouver and many other cities; inside the greenbelt; outside the greenbelt. And no buses crossing the greenbelt so to not have that confusion. Price goes by location of the trip you start at (or if you buy a bus pass or "Presto" bus pass equivalent, where you live).
I do not agree.

The idea is to get cars off the roads and have as many people as possible to leave their cars at home and use public transportation to get to where they need to go, whether it is for work, medical attention, education, church, visiting, shopping or entertainment. This includes those who live in distant suburbs and even outside the city limits.

There should be one and one only fare at low cost and with transfers for all residents of the City of Ottawa going in one direction, no matter what. Moreover, the ride should be reasonably frequent, comfortable, pleasant and safe. Not too long ago, I was criss-crossing across Barcelona for one euro a ride. A $2 ride in Ottawa is not unreasonable.

Use of the city streets are entirely subsidized by Ottawa taxpayers. Why not have tolls for use of publicly-owned streets?

With RFID technology (radio frequency identification), it would not be hard to impose use of such transmitters by cars traveling within the city limits. The city is in dire need of additional income simply for maintenance of its assets and going cap-in-hand to provincial and federal sources (still taxpayers’ money) is no longer an option. Cities as well as individuals have borrowed too much and our anticipated incomes are not enough to pay off our debts.

Moreover, Ottawa is a Capital City with government buildings and offices, elected and statutory officials, embassies and visiting dignitaries. World-wide events have made our city vulnerable to intimidation and terrorism. It is not impossible in the not too distant future that private and commercial vehicles traveling in the central core will be monitored more closely. Use of RFIDs in the city is a possibility.

Intensification downtown does not automatically mean that the new residents will walk to work. Work may be further away than a walking distance and a car would be necessary for school, shopping and entertainment. Intensification may actually worsen the downtown gridlock at certain hours.

We have to get out of this car mentality that has become a scourge for the past two generations. There is a financial and social limit to commuting in our cities. If we can barely afford to repair and maintain our infrastructures, what will it be in 10 and 20 years from now?

Suburbia has to be much better serviced with public transportation. Such transportation has to be timely, comfortable, safe and affordable by all. If municipalities are no longer able to provide such an amenity to its citizens, one and all, then they should find other sources of income to do so.

Use of public-private partnerships to generate revenues from the use of city streets by all vehicles is such a source of income. This income would help pay for the maintenance of these streets as well as providing a reasonable and acceptable public transportation service.
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  #5059  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2012, 4:24 AM
S-Man S-Man is offline
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Maybe if local routes through the urban area went past 12:30 a.m., people would take more transit knowing they could get home on it. It's amazing that all non-Transitway buses vacate the downtown no later than 12:30 or thereabouts. Wellington, Bronson, Gladstone and all other close-to-downtown places should have a late run bus. Am I the only person who feels this?

All I know is I walked a lot this summer, mainly because I could never find a store that sells bus tickets, or because the bus was early/late, or because the bus had stopped running.
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  #5060  
Old Posted Sep 23, 2012, 3:48 PM
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Before we implement tolls on public roads or have people pay for the privilege of driving in the city, we need to implement a proper, complete public transit system.

As I'm sure most of you know, London (England) implemented a car tax to drive thru the central area a while ago. But of course, they also have hundreds of kilometers of rapid transit lines criss-crossing the city, making transit more than just an alternative to rush hour driving.

Also, Ottawa is still in its infancy when compared to places like London, a city 10 times our size, so tolls and rapid transit at that magnitude are not yet warranted.

As for S-Man's comment on late night routes, I agree. The 90 series as well as the routes running on the main urban arteries (Bank, Bronson, Wellington-Richmond, Richmond-Montreal, St-Laurent...) need to run til' at least 2h30 am, to encourage people to stay in the city after work and to catch the bar crowed and prevent drunk driving.
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