Yesterday, Ottawa city council (wisely) decided to cancelled the RFP for a call-announcement system. see http://www.cfra.com/?cat=1&nid=68965

The original $8M dollar investment so that operators would not have to use the microphones they already have, was bad money. Worse money was that the price was now $17M for a "CleverDevices" system that would not have helped.

A member of Friends of the O-Train writes anecdoctally of an experience almost every transit user has had: buses do not show up, and nobody knows where they are.

===

Last Friday evening, in very cold & wet conditions, I & many other people waited in Ottawa South for over 50 mins for not just one, but ultimately two late #1s.

Three calls to customer service were made including one to the supervisor. The first call looked up the bus and found it at Bank & 1st running 14 minutes late.

Mr. Larry O'Brien, Mayor,
City of Ottawa

Re: Ottawa transit is approaching a milestone, Ottawa Citizen, October 20, 2009

Dear Mr. O'Brien,

In your column of October 20, 2009 you state that "In recent weeks there
have been many opinions expressed about Ottawa's transit future.
Unfortunately a lot of facts are being ignored".

I have written two recent reports about Ottawa's LRT plans which are posted
on the Transport 2000 Canada website, and which can be viewed at
transport2000.ca. The reports are titled Questions, Questions, and More
Questions about Ottawa's LRT Plans, and Analysis of Responses to Questions,
Questions, and More Questions about Ottawa's LRT Plans.

In the initial report I asked ten questions about the downtown segment of
LRT plans, and eight questions about the use of the Western Parkway as an
LRT route. The City of Ottawa responded to the questions after a delay of
eleven (11) months.

A member asked for a copy of the Mayor's task force. We realized that it was not available, and another member had a CDrom. Here are the four files:

http://www.friendsoftheotrain.org/documents/mtf/execsumm.pdf
http://www.friendsoftheotrain.org/documents/mtf/maps_eng.pdf
http://www.friendsoftheotrain.org/documents/mtf/maps_fre.pdf
http://www.friendsoftheotrain.org/documents/mtf/report_e.pdf

this is the document that was presented on 2009-10-27.

http://www.friendsoftheotrain.org/documents/DOTT_CG5_Oct2109_Final.pdf

See:

http://thepitchfork.blogspot.com/2009/10/time-for-trusteeship-were-you-s...

and my comments at:
http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/blog/2009/10/25#the_pitchfork_is_skeptical_a...

Neither blog has comments enabled, so make your comments here.

We have asked all levels of government and media to watch these three videos on how to have an LRT system that does not cost an extra $2.1B.

Please let David Jeanes, President T2000 know if you have any questions.

These videos were done by T2000.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jhIawdxxWo

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vln_fxNK798&NR=1

Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alKrRIHAZAk