Subject: Re: [foto-exec] Friends of the O-Train Proposals
From: David Jeanes
To: "Hunter, Gord W"

On 2007/01/31 21:38, "Hunter, Gord W" wrote:
> I don't know whether to call your proposal a spider web of
> transit or a mixed pasta bowl of transit. In either case any
> system that has my express bus riders or 95 riders having to
> transfer before they get to their downtown destination is a
> 'no go' with them and therefore with me. You are not saving
> $340 Million you are just finding another way to waste
> $660 million!

Gord:

Spider Web is a good term. I have often felt that the OC Transpo bus route map was just that, but made by a highly intoxicated spider.

I know the mix is controversial, but OC Transpo already has very many incompatible bus types, and with the new artics, the hybrids, the natural gas, and the double deckers, will be getting even more. By contrast we wanted only two, relatively compatible vehicle types. From two of the three leading manufacturers, Diesel LRT and Electric LRT are in fact available asthe same trains with different power modules.

Diesel and electric light rail trains in Europe share the same tracks and stations.

I would like to talk with you about the express buses. I believe that they were responsible for creating Ottawa's success story in transit use in the 1970¹s, well before the Transitway was built, and are essential to future transit growth in Ottawa.

The Transitway itself did not generate ridership growth. In fact we lost over 10 million annual passengers from the numbers achieved with express buses on the parkways and the Queensway.

I also want to promote your idea that the Transitway from downtown to South Keys via Billings is the right candidate for north-south electric LRT. It and the O-Train route can cover each other for any disruption during construction, but with its present fairly low bus volumes it would be much less disruptive to convert than the east-west transitways. And it has all the necessary bridges.

When the hub and spoke plan was proposed by staff, I objected to it, because many express routes would be eliminated and a good deal of monthly unipass revenue would be lost, as those who did still use the service would be paying only for the regular transpass.

I am very sensitive to the needs of suburban commuters. My brother lives east of Tenth Line in Cumberland and commutes to downtown by Express bus.

But for the 27 years that I worked at BNR/Nortel and took the bus to work, I had to face usually not one, but two transfers, at Carlingwood and again at Lincoln Fields or at Bayshore.

But I was one of the 77% of Ottawa residents whose morning commute is NOT from suburb to downtown, as revealed by the origin-destination survey just completed. OC Transpo is still focussed on the 23% of trips that are to downtown, even though it has already captured most of this market.

I believe that express bus services should be maintained from throughout the residential neighbourhoods, along the full length of the transitway, so long as reasonable load factors can be achieved on the buses, and as long as the transitways themselves don¹t become congested.

However OC Transpo has to do something to deal with the fact that at last report, the express buses only recovered 45% on the farebox, compared to 55% for buses on average, and much higher for the 95, 2, 85, etc. And this may not even account for the deadheading time for the expresses.

But the expresses can be made a better product, by not stopping to pick up people close in to the central area, who only delay these buses that are the most expensive per minute to run. Give the users a true express ride, and they may even be prepared to pay closer to the real cost.

But having non-express buses (numbered 100+) congest the downtown, half empty, with non-premium fare passengers, is not good use of either these buses or the scarce street space. By putting more articulated bus capacity on the overcrowded 95, 97, etc. these buses really could short turn as soon as they reach the Transitway, and get more passengers from their neighbourhoods.

The worst aspect of transferring in Ottawa is that the 95 is so frequent, but the neighbourhood buses that it connects to are so infrequent and the connecting times so unpredicatable, that it really is a horrible experience.

But the Friends were really focussed on the downtown portion where there is no transitway and where there are many traffic lights. Here the bus volumes reached saturation in 2004 and OC Transpo had to start culling lower volume routes and forcing transfers at, yes, Hurdman.

The volume of transferring that now happened at Hurdman is astonishing. But it is actually a nicer place to wait for a bus than any of the bus stops along Slater Street.

If light rail went to Hurdman, it would be doing exactly what the Toronto subway did in 1954 when it allowed the TTC to terminate all the inbound bus routes in multiple sheltered bus bays at Eglinton. This story has been repeated with every expansion of the Toronto and Montreal subway/Metro as the longer haul bus routes are progressively cut back towards the suburbs as mass transit reaches further out. The same process has been followed more
recently for cities with surface light rail.

In Montreal, the 10 major metro terminal stations have over 150 bus bays, terminating over 250 suburban bus routes. The only buses you see in downtown Montreal are the circulator buses and the ones on arterial roads which don't yet have metro lines.

It is pretty much the same in Toronto. They continued a Yonge bus running above the subway and stopping every block for some years, but then gave it up due to non-use. They gave up the surface streetcars on Bloor as soon as the subway went in under it.

We could move twice as many people across downtown with light rail trains on the surface, perhaps even more in tunnel, (though the stairs and escalators would be a bottleneck). There would be no localized pollution and would be faster cross-town travel times.

The buses are basically at the limit unless we eliminate all stopping and parking so we can divide the bus stops among different blocks and dedicate two lanes per street to buses. (We are actually already doing that to some extent with the deadhead buses).

So in summary my goal would be terminate ALL local buses at the first Transitway station they reach, (as they do with the LRT in Calgary), and provide enough capacity with articulated buses on the transitway to make the transfer acceptable.

Don't waste articulated buses running out half empty to Trim Road,
Strandherd and Stittsville, just so that people who are not paying express fares can still have a transfer free ride. This is not Bus Rapid Transit.
Once they are off the Transitway buses are local routes, regardless of the number on the front.

Do make the express buses true limited stop expresses to get to the Central area as fast as possible, and get back out to the suburbs for another trip.
While there is still enough capacity for them and the 90-series buses on Albert and Slater, by all means run them through town.

But when they cause congestion for each other and for (LRT if it is there too), fix the problem the way every other city with mass transit has.

I would be glad to talk with you about this. I think we actually agree on many things.

David Jeanes