The future of Ottawa's Transit

[lrt's friend]

I believe that a Carling Route doesn't have to be that slow, if we are willing to invest enough into an exclusive ROW. There are many other benefits:

1. There are more opportunities for TOD compared to the Ottawa River Parkway. This could stimulate redevelopment of tired 1950s and 1960s commercial areas.
2. There are transit destinations all along the route.
3. There are opportunities to share more track with the N-S route
4. The route is more central to the west end of the city. A larger catchment area from neighbouring residential communities within walking distance.
5. The Transitway will be fully functional during construction
6. We end up with a second rapid transit route to the west end. The Western Transitway can be kept open.
7. When the Western Transitway is converted to light rail, extra trains can be added along Carling to facilitate the fastest and cheapest switchover.
8. Better transfers between south and west end because the main transfer point will not be as far north.

The Montreal Road route will be more difficult because of the width of the roadway, but if we can get the east end bridge built, this would reduce traffic and that may allow us to take a lane for exclusive use of LRT. I believe the second route eastward should go via the Hospital complex and Innes Road towards the new growth areas.

[c_speed3108]

City budget
Rising transit revenue offsets city's soaring fuel costs
Jake Rupert, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, July 17, 2008

OTTAWA - If the price of fuel and people's changing habits stay about that same for the rest of the year, the city's budgets shouldn't be affected too badly, the municipality's treasurer said Thursday.

Marian Simulik said the recent drop in fuel prices will be beneficial, but that after reviewing the situation, she wasn't too worried about the affect of skyrocketing gas and diesel prices when it comes to the city's 2008 budget.

She said the reason for this is that as fuel prices increased rapidly over the last eight months, so too has the number of people taking public transit in order to save money.

Ms. Simulik said the city budgeted on spending 93 cent per litre of diesel this year, but that on average, it looks like the municipality will spend about 20 per cent more for the roughly 39 million litres of diesel it uses to power public transit.

This translates into an approximately $8 million over spending of the transit fuel budget, but, she said, as fuel prices have shot up, people have turned to public transit. Currently, the system is seeing five per cent more riders compared to last year.

If this holds until the end of the year, Ms. Simulik says, this should work out to about an $8-million increase in revenue for the transit company.

"We're lucky because where we use the most diesel, the transit system, is also a revenue generator, and that revenue seems to be rising in step with fuel prices and because of fuel prices. So one drives the other and we break even," she said.

However, she said, like the rest of us, the city can't escape the situation altogether.

The city uses about 10 million litres of fuel in its other operations, and those don't generate revenue. Because this other fuel is made up of a mix of gas, ethanol, diesel and other products, the city budgeted on spending a bit more than a dollar per litre.

Ms. Simulik said it's too early to know for sure what will happen, but that she expects these fuel budgets to be blown by roughly 20 to 30 per cent over the course of the year. This translates into $2 to $3 million in overruns.

"It's a little too early to tell exactly what's going to happen, but it seems there will be an impact," she said.


© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

.

[p_xavier]

At least I'm happy with this: "She said the proposed system is a grade-separated rapid transit system, and to build it along Carling Avenue would be "far more expensive on many fronts," compared with even the former streetcar line.""

I don't care whatever corridor they choose, as long as it's grade separated. I find Carling suitable for a streetcar line or a metro line. SkyTrain aerial routes are perfect for the Carling corridor, and they're not much higher than streetcar costs.


Deez also did a school project on the subject, and the Transitway corridor was still the most used.

[lrt's friend]

And yet another lively debate about transit on CFRA between Rick Chiarelli, Jan Harder, and Clive Harder, and surprisingly there was mostly a consensus of opinion. They all agreed that there are going to be problems with an Ottawa River Parkway route, whether it was getting a timely agreement from the NCC or the aestetic effect of a grade separated rail line (along with polls, wires and fences) along one of the city's most scenic routes, and the number of trees that will have to be cut down to make it happen. There was also general support for looking at other routes like Carling and they felt that it could be creatively designed to deliver fast service particularly during peak hours. There was also agreement that the pricetag for Option 4 will rise, and that comparatively speaking we will be doing less for the money because commodity prices have increased considerably since the 2006 contract was cancelled. They were also disappointed that rail service was not going to be delivered to the suburbs even after 23 years. Rick's main concern about the original project was cost effectiveness and he felt that the new plan was going in the wrong direction in that regard. He didn't elaborate how a more cost effective rail plan could be accomplished. Everybody really believed that Option 4 will be mostly a bus plan and that a rail tunnel even under the best of circumstances will not be completed for at least 10 years. It was also mentioned that downtown will face a traffic congestion wall within 7 years. Jan Harder also pointed out that a tunnel was also included in the Chiarelli plan although not the first stage.

They also discussed the article about transit fuel costs and revenue and they believed that the current situation of matching new costs with new revenue is temporary and is being achieved by not delivering significant new service. As passenger volumes continue to increase, they felt that across the board service improvements will be needed, and this particularly applied to areas away from downtown and in off peak hours as employment outside of downtown increases and more people decide to give up their cars because of fuel costs. Clive re-iterated that the new plan does not deliver new transit service, just upgrades existing service

Now, if only we could tap into this general consensus of opinion.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Now, if only we could tap into this general consensus of opinion.

They are the councillors, they should have done their jobs. A cut and cover tunnel under Byron would probably be cheaper than a SkyTrain on Carling. If they don't want to see buses, they just had to remove the BRT sections. I'm tired of blaming. They keep complaining but they can't find solutions, and when they can, it's too late. The most recent plan doesn't have BRT to suburbs, it's rail when it's needed. I don't know why they say it's a bus plan.

Did they vote for a 6 month environmental assessment for the tunnel? No. Did they vote to advance the transit plan? No.

[adam-machiavelli]

One thing I'm finding very amusing about the debate over transit along the Ottawa River west of downtown is everyone dislikes a (lower emissions) rail line running along the shore but no one ever criticizes the fact that there is a (high emissions) freeway running along that same route. I'd support a parkway route if they reduced the Ottawa River Parkway to 2-lanes.

[c_speed3108]

All aboard Carling

Sending light rail down centre of busy street popular with commuters, residents

By SCOTT TAYLOR, SUN MEDIA

With three councillors now calling for light-rail transit down the centre of Carling Ave., those who live and work in the area weighed in yesterday with their opinions -- and advice.

For those who travel by car from the east end, the notion of a quick, direct route to work was welcomed with open arms.

"I live in Orleans and it would help me get into work like you wouldn't believe," said Joan Rajette, an associate at Norwalk The Furniture Idea on Carling.

"I lived in Calgary and I loved the system they have there. I had a place in suburbia and travelled downtown and the light rail got me there wonderfully."

She said her upscale store isn't so much a spontaneous stop as it is a place people plan to visit, so anything that could make it easier for customers to arrive there was fine with her.


"We're more of a destination than a walk-in store. We do a lot of business by appointment, so vehicle traffic doesn't necessarily help us."

She shook her head at the thought of the massive volume of traffic she sees every weekday morning. "I cannot get over the stop-and-go of the commute, which really is more stop than go."

Bill Flowers lives near Carling Ave. and said he supports anything that would help alleviate the gridlock.

'I'M ALL FOR IT'

"This could be a damn great thing. Carling is so busy, no matter what they do to it, the result has to be better than what we have now. If they bring the train in and the traffic goes down, then I'm all for it. Plus, the buses are crappy, so we need something else."

At First Choice Haircutters on Carling, stylist Ngoc Dieu Vo said the train could help business if it led to less cars on the road -- and in her cramped parking lot.

"Less cars would be great for us. We need customers in the door, but right now they have no place to park. I think that if there was a station nearby, we'd be much more busy."

Coreen Parry works at a dental office at Carling and Maitland avenues. While most of her clientele are seniors who wouldn't likely take the train, Parry says she would love to avoid the morning deluge of vehicles during her commute from Orleans.

"That's if it was easy and straightforward, but if I have to get on here, get off there, get on here and then find a bus, I wouldn't take it. It has to be direct and dependable. If so, it would be fantastic."

The city's current light-rail plan is to take the rail line down the western portion of the Ottawa River Parkway, which several councillors have said will destroy its environmental integrity.

.

[adam-machiavelli]

I'm amused by the thinking of the people interviewed for this article. Very few of them actually praise the convenience of the train for their own commutes or other travel. They like the Carling route because it means *other* people will take light rail, but never themselves -reducing the potential for automobile gridlock. So it means they can arrive by car at their destination 2 or 3 minutes sooner. The only other place I heard/read the "support rapid transit so you can drive your car faster" argument was in Los Angeles.
Oh god! We're such a car-centric city!

[lrt's friend]

They are the councillors, they should have done their jobs. A cut and cover tunnel under Byron would probably be cheaper than a SkyTrain on Carling. If they don't want to see buses, they just had to remove the BRT sections. I'm tired of blaming. They keep complaining but they can't find solutions, and when they can, it's too late. The most recent plan doesn't have BRT to suburbs, it's rail when it's needed. I don't know why they say it's a bus plan.

Did they vote for a 6 month environmental assessment for the tunnel? No. Did they vote to advance the transit plan? No.

The problem has been that councillors and the public have been mostly been cut out of this process so far. All they (and we) have been allowed to do is rubber stamp things. So, our councillors have not been allowed to do their jobs. We have had 1 vote, compared to dozens on the previous project, so this shouldn't dictate that everything is engraved in stone. It should not be 'too late' for anything. If we end up with a better plan, then we should let it happen. We have to understand that many councillors grudgingly voted in favour during the May vote, since they didn't want to 'press the reset button' again. There were many additional studies requested as part of the May vote, which should give us an indication that our councillors are not entirely satisfied with the information supplied so far nor are they entirely satisfied with the routing.

You many say that the latest plan is a rail plan but simply putting dashed red lines on a map means nothing if buses will be running on those lines for the next 25, 30, 40 or 50 years. Why some are concerned that we are approving a bus plan relates to the cost of the whole plan and whether the city will be able to fund it. If the city cannot fund it entirely, the rail components are vulnerable to cancellation because of the cost of the tunnel and because the tunnel in itself will not generate new ridership. Also the time line, makes the bus Transitway improvements more likely to be given priority. We don't have to wait 10 years, to build some of the Transitway components and see transit improvements that the public are going to be demanding.

As far as the Environmental assessment, I don't think it was realistic to believe that a 6 month assessment is possible for the tunnel. This is a complex project and we don't even know the precise location of the tunnel yet. If we were laying surface track somewhere, perhaps 6 months would have been enough.

Did Council vote to advance the project? I say yes they did. They voted to study further details on the plan to determine what is possible and at what cost. If we want to develop priorities, our council needs this information. They also need information on the secondary routes since this is supposed to be an overall transit plan. I think it was unrealistic to believe that based on 1 vote, that construction would commence soon. The various studies and the beginning of Environmental assessments are the next logical steps in the process and this is now happening. With this amount of money at stake, and with federal and provincial money needed, a clear case must be built to support the plan. This cannot happen overnight.

The problem with the Ottawa River Parkway versus Byron versus Carling debate; we do not have enough information to determine what is the best choice based on service or cost. These choices have not been studied properly and until this is done, there will continue to be second guessing. One thing is for certain, we need to make a choice soon, or as suggested by the Peer Review Panel, build both the Transitway and Carling routes.

[the capital urbanite]

quite frankly there's very little difference between a route along Carling vs. a route along the Byron Avenue corridor.

There is plenty of space in both corridors for a grade-separated LRT.

Both routes are in close proximity to commercial centres and residential neighbourhoods.

The only difference is cost...where a grade-separated LRT along Carling would cost much more than a Byron LRT

Should the parkway route not work, the Byron corridor is the only sensible alternative.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

City budget
Rising transit revenue offsets city's soaring fuel costs
Jake Rupert, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, July 17, 2008

OTTAWA - If the price of fuel and people's changing habits stay about that same for the rest of the year, the city's budgets shouldn't be affected too badly, the municipality's treasurer said Thursday.

Marian Simulik said the recent drop in fuel prices will be beneficial, but that after reviewing the situation, she wasn't too worried about the affect of skyrocketing gas and diesel prices when it comes to the city's 2008 budget.

She said the reason for this is that as fuel prices increased rapidly over the last eight months, so too has the number of people taking public transit in order to save money.

Ms. Simulik said the city budgeted on spending 93 cent per litre of diesel this year, but that on average, it looks like the municipality will spend about 20 per cent more for the roughly 39 million litres of diesel it uses to power public transit.

This translates into an approximately $8 million over spending of the transit fuel budget, but, she said, as fuel prices have shot up, people have turned to public transit. Currently, the system is seeing five per cent more riders compared to last year.

If this holds until the end of the year, Ms. Simulik says, this should work out to about an $8-million increase in revenue for the transit company.

"We're lucky because where we use the most diesel, the transit system, is also a revenue generator, and that revenue seems to be rising in step with fuel prices and because of fuel prices. So one drives the other and we break even," she said.

However, she said, like the rest of us, the city can't escape the situation altogether.

The city uses about 10 million litres of fuel in its other operations, and those don't generate revenue. Because this other fuel is made up of a mix of gas, ethanol, diesel and other products, the city budgeted on spending a bit more than a dollar per litre.

Ms. Simulik said it's too early to know for sure what will happen, but that she expects these fuel budgets to be blown by roughly 20 to 30 per cent over the course of the year. This translates into $2 to $3 million in overruns.

"It's a little too early to tell exactly what's going to happen, but it seems there will be an impact," she said.


© The Ottawa Citizen 2008

Who else has problems with these statements from Marian Simulik, the municipality's treasurer?

OC Transpo uses about 39 million litres of fuel so the $0.93 cent estimate was $36.27M. Upping the cost by 20% gives roughly $1.116 cents per Litre so, for 39 million litres, the cost is about $43.524M, or an increase of $7.254M
A little less than $8M, but maybe she rounded up.

Since the fares were recently increased to cover 50% of the original estimated cost, this increase in cost leads to the fares actually covering less than 50% of the current costs, again. I agree that OC Transpo is a revenue generator, but that revenue doesn't even cover half of the costs.

If we add enough new riders to generate an additional $8M, doesn't it cost OC Transpo over $16M to provide that extra service?

Either I, or Ms. Simulik, have missed something. Can anyone throw some light on this for me?

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

If we add enough new riders to generate an additional $8M, doesn't it cost OC Transpo over $16M to provide that extra service?

Either I, or Ms. Simulik, have missed something. Can anyone throw some light on this for me?

It's simple, more crowded buses.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

As far as the Environmental assessment, I don't think it was realistic to believe that a 6 month assessment is possible for the tunnel. This is a complex project and we don't even know the precise location of the tunnel yet. If we were laying surface track somewhere, perhaps 6 months would have been enough.

The precise location is exactly selected with the environmental assessment. A tunnel EA is actually shorter to do, because there is no environment; it's underground, compared to a at-grade LRT line. A tunnel may seem more complicated because it's more expensive, but it's the complete opposite.

Also the EA isn't the engineering studies, this usually takes another 6 months for the exact plan, and is done after the tendering.

The problem with the Ottawa River Parkway versus Byron versus Carling debate; we do not have enough information to determine what is the best choice based on service or cost. These choices have not been studied properly and until this is done, there will continue to be second guessing. One thing is for certain, we need to make a choice soon, or as suggested by the Peer Review Panel, build both the Transitway and Carling routes.

The problem is that people think that these numbers are hard to get and calculate; there are simulators available that give you the results in 2 hours. It's definitely not a hard thing to do, and not something that takes months to get.

With the current planning, I feel the feminine touch of the planners. They want to discuss and discuss and discuss, but refuse to change things. It's such a waste of time it's unbelievable.

Another issue is that to find if a route is correct or not, they do the whole effing EA. NO, you calculate the ridership of the potential route and you make your decision from there. It's so silly it's unbelievable.


Simple question:
What is the potential ridership on Carling, then on Byron. Then approximate the costs per new user.

[c_speed3108]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

It's simple, more crowded buses.

This is exactly what has happened. Oc has added no new service/bus to match the increase in demand., therefore there are more passengers per bus.

There is however a breaking point to this where the buses start to get to the point where they are full (as some already are) and then more buses are needed and then cost skyrockets (fuel, bus and driver!)

What they should have pointed out was that this is pretty well a temporary bit of budget luck, unless people suddenly start using the service on under utilized routes with no increase on the busy ones - and at busy times.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

It's simple, more crowded buses.

For a system which was supposed to be 'at capacity' for the past few years, there was obviously at least 5% unused capacity. I wonder how many more riders OC Transpo can absorb before there is an increase in costs? (Apart from fuel costs, of course.) I still see a lot of Express buses leaving downtown which are not as packed as the 9x buses.

On that note, do you think that we could consolidate some of the Express Buses? If, for example, two Express Buses go to adjacent neighbourhoods in Orleans, if those routes were combined, would people from the farther streets mind crusing through the closer areas? They would still not need to transfer, but their journey might take a few minutes longer and the bus would be a bit more crowded. But, the bus frequency might increase a bit.

What do you think of combining some Express Bus routes?

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by c_speed3108

...What they should have pointed out was that this is pretty well a temporary bit of budget luck, unless people suddenly start using the service on under utilized routes with no increase on the busy ones - and at busy times.

I guess this is my point too. But I am starting to understand why the City is in the mess it is when the Treasurer doesn't appear to understand this.

[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I guess this is my point too. But I am starting to understand why the City is in the mess it is when the Treasurer doesn't appear to understand this.

Good thing that I finally decided to stay in Ottawa, and will fight for the proletariat! Salaries in MTL are low

But yeah, it's pure luck that the operation costs haven't increased drastically. I totally support the idea of local-loop routes then express routes. This gives more service to local areas, can be optimized faster, and goes to a transfer station. I know it's not fun for the additional transfers, but it really optimizes a system.

[lrt's friend]

What do you think of combining some Express Bus routes?

I will tell you this is precisely why I quit using transit. They combined 2 express routes together. Sure, we ended up with better service frequency, but the route ended up being far more indirect. What used to be a 5 minute bus ride to where I transfer has become a 20 minute ride.

I think the concept of combining routes and adding more transfers is a dangerous path to take. We are adding inconvenience. With growing ridership, we should be looking at ways at making transit more convenient. That means more routes (not less) going more places (to reduce transfers) on more direct routes (to save time). Out of necessity, we will need to deal with downtown congestion, but we must work hard to make sure that if transfers are added, then we try to compensate for this by making the feeder buses more frequent AND more direct.

[Richard Eade]

Originally Posted by d_jeffrey

...I totally support the idea of local-loop routes then express routes. This gives more service to local areas, can be optimized faster, and goes to a transfer station. I know it's not fun for the additional transfers, but it really optimizes a system.

Yes, I agree that moving to local loops and then transfering onto direct to downtown 'Expresses' should give a jump in efficiency. This is one of the reasons, I think, that there would be a savings by moving to a rail based system: The hub & spoke configuration would be naturally achieved. (Even better if the trains went into the suburbs, through which the local buses ran.)

What I was wondering, more specifically however, was keeping the single ride to downtown from the local bus stop, but instead of two Express Buses going to different streets within a neighbourhood, a single Express bus would go from downtown and then meander more thoroughly through that neighbourhood. For example, the Barrhaven portions of #70 and #76 could be combined, as could the Barrhaven parts of #71 and #73. Basically creating a larger catchment for each Express Bus. We have 10 years to run buses before we have trains so we are going to need efficiency improvements.

I am thinking that this type of change would be gradule and might increase capacity without scaring off riders by adding a transfer. Then, when we do go to a hub & spoke system, travel times might actually improve despite the added transfer since there would be less meandering of the local buses to the transfer points: Everyone would think the H&S was an improved service model.

I think that there are going to be some pychological games needed to get people to readily accept adding a transfer into their route, if we don't want them to feel that the level of service has declined.

[Franky]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

I think that there are going to be some pychological games needed to get people to readily accept adding a transfer into their route, if we don't want them to feel that the level of service has declined.

Hub and spoke systems should have climate controlled transfer points. Part of the yuk of transferring is having to wait in the freezing cold or blistering heat.