Rural Commuter Rail

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by roger1818

...there would be some quid pro quo as OC Transpo customers would be able to use Moose

Bingo.

If OC-Transpo riders can freely transfer to the MOOSE system, it would not make a lot of sense that MOOSE passengers would need to pay more to get onto OC-Transpo's services.

Is there any reason to expect a high number of transfers in one or the other direction?

None of us will know the net effects on OC-Transpo & STO revenues and overall ridership until we complete some collaborative modeling. It's a genuinely complex system. Our sense is that the benefits of the network effect for OC-Transpo in pursuit of its mandate will outweigh any negative factors from whole-region rail integration of the type we're describing.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Bingo.

If OC-Transpo riders can freely transfer to the MOOSE system, it would not make a lot of sense that MOOSE passengers would need to pay more to get onto OC-Transpo's services.

Is there any reason to expect a high number of transfers in one or the other direction?

None of us will know the net effects on OC-Transpo & STO revenues and overall ridership until we complete some collaborative modeling. It's a genuinely complex system. Our sense is that the benefits of the network effect for OC-Transpo in pursuit of its mandate will outweigh any negative factors from whole-region rail integration of the type we're describing.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

Uhhh... duh! Almost all Moose customers would have to transfer onto the Confederation Line, as there is no Moose line serving Ottawa's downtown core which is by far the most popular destination.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Uhhh... duh! Almost all Moose customers would have to transfer onto the Confederation Line, as there is no Moose line serving Ottawa's downtown core which is by far the most popular destination.

Yeah, he says a lot of things that stretch credulity - this one I think takes the cake.

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Yeah, he says a lot of things that stretch credulity - this one I think takes the cake.

I tried to address that issue when i asked him about building a tunnel under bank street and the Rideau Montreal corridor and he responded by saying it would be feasible after he starts his initial 3 lines. Check check the previous posts to know what im talking about.

I meant to quote someone else in this forum

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Uhhh... duh! Almost all Moose customers would have to transfer onto the Confederation Line, as there is no Moose line serving Ottawa's downtown core which is by far the most popular destination.

I tried to address that issue when i asked him about building a tunnel under bank street and the Rideau Montreal corridor and he responded by saying it would be feasible after he starts his initial 3 lines. Check the previous posts to know what im talking about.

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Uhhh... duh! Almost all Moose customers would have to transfer onto the Confederation Line, as there is no Moose line serving Ottawa's downtown core which is by far the most popular destination.

Yup. And most of those are round trips, correct? Which means there would be an equal number of MOOSE>OC-Transpo transfers as OC-Transpo>MOOSE transfers.

You disagree?

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by OtrainUser

I tried to address that issue when i asked him about building a tunnel under bank street and the Rideau Montreal corridor and he responded by saying it would be feasible after he starts his initial 3 lines. Check the previous posts to know what im talking about.

Yes, would someone please try to find me saying that? I'd have said that any additional lines beyond what is currently mapped would come after the primary routes. You're saying that I offered a concept for a tunnel under Bank Street?

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Charles5

Sometimes the debate on this forum seems to suggest that if we can’t have rail then we are condemned to have everyone driving around in their cars. I would suggest that we need to look at this not as an all or a nothing scenario but a scalable one. As population increases we need to look at the best method of moving people around. To illustrate that, I’ve done up a quick example below showing how different methods of transportation could be utilized as commuters increase by an order of magnitude.

Please don’t read too much into the actual numbers, it’s just a representative example.

#commuters per hour along a corridor | mode(s) of transportation
2 | individual cars
20 | carpooling and individual cars
200 | buses, carpooling, and individual cars
2,000 | train, buses, carpooling and individual cars
20,000 | hyperloops, hovercraft, teleporting, etc, etc, etc…

In my previous arguments, I simply suggest that we are not anywhere near close to the point where a train would make sense. In a lot of cases I believe that we are sitting at the tipping point to have regional bus services.

Bus services won't get MOOSE the land value capture they want. This is not a scheme for transit. This is a real estate scheme with transit as the loss leader if you will.

Remember when the developers wanted LRT to Riverside South? Joseph Potvin is attempting a re-run.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Yup. And most of those are round trips, correct? Which means there would be an equal number of MOOSE>OC-Transpo transfers as OC-Transpo>MOOSE transfers.

Actually Joseph I do disagree, and I could do the math to demonstrate it if necessary. But a few simple examples will do. Since almost every trip people do, regardless of which networks, is a round trip, the argument could be made that no one should ever have to pay after the first leg of any journey, regardless of the number of connections after that. So, I could run a shuttle service from my neighbourhood to the nearest OC Transpo LRT station, and expect everyone to get free transportation after that. Does that actually make sense to you. If you want to push the example to the extreme, every person who drives their car to a park and ride should get a free ride after that, since the transfers from the cars to the transit system equal out in both directions. I could pay for my taxi to the airport but not for the plane afterwards since it's equal transfers back and forth.

I realize how silly my examples sound, but the theory is the same as yours. Unless there is equal value gained from both parties, it doesn't matter if it's a return journey or not. It's not the transfers back and forth that matters, it's how much of a service is provided vs how much is alleviated by the other network.

[Charles5]

Just to demonstrate that folks that take regional buses don't get to ride OC Transpo "for free", here's a link to Transcollines. You will see that they have different rates for different types of passes. Only the "combined" pass allows you to transfer, and for that pass you pay a higher rate. It's not a huge increase, but it is still a higher fare to travel the extra leg of the journey.

http://transcollines.ca/transco-2/
http://transcollines.ca/fares-points-service/#grille

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by Charles5

Here’s my first attempt at a ‘simple’ formula. ... ((#seats X total distance travelled) / (# passengers X distance per passenger)) X (total operating costs) .

Accepting all your caveats, please advise if you agree that the relevant assessment of efficiency would need to break out the data more or less as follows?

#seats

• Automobiles
• Buses
• Trains

total distance travelled

• Automobiles
• Buses
• Trains

# passengers

• Automobiles
• Buses
• Trains

distance per passenger

• Automobiles
• Buses
• Trains

total operating costs

• Automobiles
• Buses
• Trains

I'd add some caveats of my own, such as the ease of taking bikes on trains, and the fact that the notion "car" comes packaged with the notion "parking space" which ought to be included in any efficiency quantification.

Last I checked, the average occupancy rate of private automobiles is about 1.3 persons. We could try to track down rough comparisons for buses and metropolitan trains.

I trust you do realize that you're applying a type of efficiency measure to MOOSE which is unrelated to the Property-Powered Rail rationale, yes? That's okay, it's a useful thing to do. But I just want to emphasize that the elements you're choosing would be to form an external assessment, and won't provide any insight to internal financing rationale. This is deliberate. It is because I have not seen any evidence that a large enough proportion of any population will care enough about ecosystem and resource degradation to make the lifestyle changes that have any hope of reducing or reversing the degradation. Such objectives are therefore designed into the PPR as positive externalities to the business.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Charles5

Actually Joseph I do disagree, and I could do the math to demonstrate it if necessary. But a few simple examples will do. Since almost every trip people do, regardless of which networks, is a round trip, the argument could be made that no one should ever have to pay after the first leg of any journey, regardless of the number of connections after that. So, I could run a shuttle service from my neighbourhood to the nearest OC Transpo LRT station, and expect everyone to get free transportation after that. Does that actually make sense to you. If you want to push the example to the extreme, every person who drives their car to a park and ride should get a free ride after that, since the transfers from the cars to the transit system equal out in both directions. I could pay for my taxi to the airport but not for the plane afterwards since it's equal transfers back and forth.

I realize how silly my examples sound, but the theory is the same as yours. Unless there is equal value gained from both parties, it doesn't matter if it's a return journey or not. It's not the transfers back and forth that matters, it's how much of a service is provided vs how much is alleviated by the other network.

The thing to note is that unlike a a taxi/plane, in the context of OC Transpo you're talking more about monthly passes which is a flat rate. If someone were to take MOOSE all throughout this month of November for example (in which there are 22 work days), then someone paying return trip fares would be paying for $73.7 worth of transit service (using the PRESTO fare). A monthly pass only costs $113.75. Now, this does still leave ~$40 worth of service unpaid for, and I don't really know how that would end up being paid to the city, I just wanted to point out the fact that we're dealing with a flat monthly rate (like in the previously mentioned agreement between rural buses and OC Transpo).

Fun fact, if you're foolish enough to try, you can get well over $1500 worth of transit service using a pass that only costs $113!

Edit: To integrate it better with your first example, in the real world you get a "free/discounted" transfer from your car to a bus by buying a monthly pass. You're still paying the $74 return fee, but you end up only paying ~$40 to transfer from the car to the bus. There's still $40, so I know it's not free.

In conclusion, I'm sure MOOSE will try to get as little of an extra cost to them to allow their passengers "free" transfers to OC Transpo. I just personally have no idea how they'd go about doing that.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Last I checked, the average occupancy rate of private automobiles is about 1.3 persons. We could try to track down rough comparisons for buses and metropolitan trains.

How convenient that you ignore the fact that there's very little travel between most of the outlying areas and Ottawa today. And since there is very little travel, the occupancy rate of vehicles is irrelevant.

What causes more congestion? 10 cars on the road with 1 passenger, or 100 cars on the road with 2 passengers?

The occupancy rate only becomes relevant if those communities grow substantially and are filled with commuters to Ottawa. Of course, the best way to avoid this problem is not to build a rural rail service, but to increase densities in existing areas and to promote a broad shift to transit, so that we don't have lots of people commuting from far away in the first place.

As a bonus instead of those commuters relying on hourly commuter trains, if they live closer to the city, they can rely on LRTs that occur with frequencies measured in minutes.

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

I trust you do realize that you're applying a type of efficiency measure to MOOSE which is unrelated to the Property-Powered Rail rationale, yes?

And this is why I encourage others to stop seeing Moose as a transport system and more as an advertising effort for rural developers.

On the externalities bit. You'd effectively be increasing the built-up area of the region and reducing density. How is that a positive externality?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

In conclusion, I'm sure MOOSE will try to get as little of an extra cost to them to allow their passengers "free" transfers to OC Transpo. I just personally have no idea how they'd go about doing that.

According to them, there will be no user fares for riding Moose. So I assume, if this scheme ever came to pass, would be paying for their riders transfer at Bayview.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

According to them, there will be no user fares for riding Moose. So I assume, if this scheme ever came to pass, would be paying for their riders transfer at Bayview.

I know that MOOSE wouldn't charge fares, but if MOOSE were to ever operate, no matter how that happens (whether it's completely replacing the trillium line, or operating alonside it, or whatever) it would make the most sense (and has apparently already been stated by OC Transpo executives) that MOOSE passengers wouldn't need to pay to transfer to OC Transpo.

The question I'm addressing is, would MOOSE need to pay OC Transpo for this? If so, how much?

[OtrainUser]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Yes, would someone please try to find me saying that? I'd have said that any additional lines beyond what is currently mapped would come after the primary routes. You're saying that I offered a concept for a tunnel under Bank Street?

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

No I asked you if you would consider doing that which is why I said I tried to address the issue. But your above answer is how you answered me earlier.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Accepting all your caveats, please advise if you agree that the relevant assessment of efficiency would need to break out the data more or less as follows?...

Yes. You asked for a simple formula and I gave you one. As I also suggested, each mode of transportation and each network needs to be summed together to come up with the efficiency of the overall system. Also, as previously mentioned, sometimes making one network less efficient to make others significantly more efficient is of overall benefit to the system as a whole.

Your caveats about taking bikes with you and parking costs fall into the "total operating costs" part of the formula.

I trust you do realize that you're applying a type of efficiency measure to MOOSE which is unrelated to the Property-Powered Rail rationale, yes? That's okay, it's a useful thing to do. But I just want to emphasize that the elements you're choosing would be to form an external assessment, and won't provide any insight to internal financing rationale. This is deliberate. It is because I have not seen any evidence that a large enough proportion of any population will care enough about ecosystem and resource degradation to make the lifestyle changes that have any hope of reducing or reversing the degradation. Such objectives are therefore designed into the PPR as positive externalities to the business.

This is what concerns me most about MOOSE. The fact that you don't really care that much about the efficiency and benefits of the network, that you are purely looking at the property development aspects and using rail as the stimulus. I've already demonstrated that the property based funding model is unsustainable after the initial bump in property value. Your counterargument that people will be willing to pay a subscription fee on an ongoing basis in return for a value added service goes out the window if that service does not provide value for money (ie: is more efficient and effective than the one it replaces).

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

...November for example (in which there are 22 work days), then someone paying return trip fares would be paying for $73.7 worth of transit service (using the PRESTO fare). A monthly pass only costs $113.75. Now, this does still leave ~$40 worth of service unpaid for,...

Edit: To integrate it better with your first example, in the real world you get a "free/discounted" transfer from your car to a bus by buying a monthly pass. You're still paying the $74 return fee, but you end up only paying ~$40 to transfer from the car to the bus. There's still $40, so I know it's not free.

You need to work on your math, and your understanding of the issue.

A Presto fare is $3.35/trip, but for a return journey you have to pay the fare a second time leading to a daily cost of $7.70, and for 22 days that comes out to $147.40. Your position that a monthly fare costs you $40 above what you would get for individual fares is completely inaccurate.

In addition, your continuing argument that we pay a flat rate for a trip regardless of distance is a distraction. The costs of operating the network have to be recovered somewhere. The fees go up as costs go up, it's just spread among the overall passenger base rather than assigned to individual passengers based on individual trips. I use the taxi analogy frequently to give a better understanding to the passenger of the overall costs of travel.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Bus services won't get MOOSE the land value capture they want. This is not a scheme for transit. This is a real estate scheme with transit as the loss leader if you will.

I don't think it is a loss leader. Rural subdivisions are not nearly lucrative enough to take a loss of that magnitude. To the extent there is any rationale behind it (and I'm not sure there is, the Dragon's Den theory may well explain it all), I would anticipate it is bait for zoning. Once "it's not sprawl, it is property powered rail" gets agricultural land rezoned then they move onto "sorry, the federal government did not want to initiate a constitutional crisis, so no rail." Meanwhile the zonings are re-done and sprawl can proceed.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

Uhhh... duh! Almost all Moose customers would have to transfer onto the Confederation Line, as there is no Moose line serving Ottawa's downtown core which is by far the most popular destination.

True, but playing devil's advocate, OCTranspo will have a much larger rider base, so a fraction of their riders is equal to 100% of Moose's riders.

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Yup. And most of those are round trips, correct? Which means there would be an equal number of MOOSE>OC-Transpo transfers as OC-Transpo>MOOSE transfers.

You disagree?

Actually I do. That would be true for riders who are paying cash, but presumably most will have a monthly pass, so a Moose rider starting their trip downtown would still be a Moose customer. Only someone who has an OC Transpo pass or pays an OC Transpo cash fare would be considered an OC Transpo rider.