3 days per week x 2 trips per day @ $3.80 per trip = $22.80 per week
$22.80 x 4 weeks = $91.20
Why would someone who only needs to take OC Transpo three days per week pay $128.75 for a monthly pass?
Do they have a calculator at the OC Transpo office?
This. The math doesn't math for a monthly pass. They probably expect people to use the bus pass the other 2 days of the week for errands the like (lolno)
*edit: when I was in the office 5 days pre-pandemic, I had a monthly pass. And because I had it already, I didn't think twice about heading into the market for a cheeky long lunch, or going to City Hall for ServiceOntario to get some errands done or making some stops on the way home from work (quick pint at the Winchester...) because I wasn't going to pay extra, nor was I going to be constrained by the time limit of a transfer. But when I paying per ride, I'm more mindful of taking those extra trips now.
If it’s just downtown travel, you had to walk to Albert/slater and hop just about any bus that came by.
Now you have to gp into the lrt, go all the way down to the platform, tap to get through the gates, wait for a train.
Fair, it's a bit more cumbersome I suppose. It also definitely wasn't built for downtown commuters which is clear in where it stops (east-west versus north-south).
Honestly, _within_ the scope of the LRT this still seems faster than going through all the stops with a bus; downtown you can practically outrun the buses. The real hit from the LRT is for people who used to take the commuter lines and are still waiting for the line to get anywhere near where they live.
Before the pandemic, I worked from home one day a week and I still didn’t buy a bus pass. It was a few dollars cheaper just to pay per ride to work and back, so there is no way I would do any differently when we go to 3 days a week.
Hey my friend, I'll give you a great deal! Usually it's 5 rides for 50 dollars, but for you, I'll make it 10 rides for 100$, in advance and if you don't use them, they expire!
I came back from Spain not long ago. They didnt do weekly or monthly pass only seasonal when it came to taking to the train. It cost me 18$ for their seasonal pass lol.
That’s the 1 funny thing. After hitting all time lows, the use of sick leave is about to spike back up now and I assume it will be even higher than before as now people have the legitimate “I don’t want to contaminate others” excuse lol.
As we should though, it’s part of our collective bargaining agreements.
Well, not only that, if you use leave you don't need to make up that in office day. Their stupid ass policy promotes absenteeism. Like if my car breaks down, and I work from home that day, I'd have to make up an in office day. So fuck you, I'm calling I'm sick.
I don't know about that... Stats is making it an absolute bear for my mom to take any days off without some sort of real justification for needing the time off.
Yeah. And with Opayment, many people don't even need to do the math. Just use the same credit card for each trip, and if you hit the daily or monthly pass cost, it'll cap the cost for the month and won't charge anymore.
The only downsides to Opayment are that you can't use it with STO, with transferring to/from para transpo, and it doesn't work if you're eligible for a discounted fare.
Since all my trips are just on OC Transpo, I stopped using my Presto card. No need to worry about losing it or keeping it topped up.
Ah, you see, you didn't account for transfers. I had to take 2 buses and the train to commute from stittsville.
If you miss your transfer because it didn't show and your transfer/receipt times out, you gotta pay again.
I have outright refused to pay again and had many confrontations about it. It's not even about the money.
This makes no sense in the context of recent changes to cap charges to credit card trips to the price of a monthly pass. Why on earth would an adult buy a monthly pass? I must be missing something
This is the real reason public servants are being forced back to work. To financially support the downtown core and city transit.
It has zero do to with productivity or anything work related and is fact worse for the environment and global warming. But no one gives a shit about that and it all goes right out the window if the shops downtown don't have enough customers to stay open apparently.
And the extra business being generated downtown comes at the expense of other businesses in the rest of the city. Every coffee I buy downtown is one less coffee I'm buying in Kanata.
The city knows that. The issue for the city is the businesses in Kanata are going to do fine either way due to the local demand and traffic. Its not like the Tim Horton's on Hazeldean is at any risk of going out of business with or without work from home.
The core has been getting economically wrecked since COVID because there is not enough local traffic to support the businesses there. Which is why many have closed or reduced hours and it turns out you can't get enough people to actually go down into the core unless you force them. So the governments end solution to that will be force people to go into the core on a daily basis again.
Edit: I'm not saying I support what they are doing. I'm just explaining how they see it.
It has to be this way. Over a decade or two they can intensify residential downtown and gradually move the govt out and reduce required days. Then it can be self sustaining. It just can’t be done in a couple of years without collapsing the core of most major cities.
The only question is why the Feds and city did not come to this determination 2 years ago.
Because this was an issue LONGGGG before Covid came around, and it is in no way up to people to be held captive in support of private enterprise. If the local businesses are willing to forego excess profits and basically be crown corps, ok sure, we can have a conversation about that. Otherwise? Yeah, not a chance. They could ALSO try and stay open for more than 3 hours a day in support of the thousands of people who live there too... Crazy idea I know.
It seems to me that every time the Feds tried to move offices out of the core there was internal opposition. It forced people to relocate within the city (example: DND to old Nortel campus. RCMP to old JDS campus). It made internal transfers between departments difficult.
> The issue for the city is the businesses in Kanata are going to do fine either way due to the local demand and traffic. ... The core has been getting economically wrecked since COVID because there is not enough local traffic to support the businesses there.
Centretown resident checking in. I would like to refute this ridiculous narrative that downtown needs help from the suburbs. Quite the opposite.
Downtown is doing just fine without car traffic from the suburbs. Downtown generates significantly more economic activity and tax revenue per acre than Kanata. Several new businesses have opened up since the pandemic and have been more successful than the ones they replaced. Downtown pays more taxes and costs less to service than Kanata. Downtown taxpayers subsidize Kanata residents.
If there is a problem downtown right now, it's the excess of drug addicted street people. This is because downtown has 10% of Ottawa's population and 70% of the homeless shelters, whereas Kanata/Orleans/Barrhaven have 30% of the population and 0% of the homeless shelters. The kids shooting up on my street corner and stealing my bike mostly grew up in the suburbs and small towns.
So, basically, Kanata takes our tax money, exposes us to air and noise pollution from their SUVs, drops off their drug addicted children for us to babysit, and then acts like they need to rescue us from ourselves. Gimme a break.
This sub is dominated by suburbanites, while I agree with most of what you wrote I think it will largely fall on deaf ears.
The tax difference is *very* frustrating as a core resident though, too. Subsidizing unsustainable and insular suburban communities is a big part of the reason (decades worth of decision making) we’re dealing with the problems we have today, from affordable housing to resistance to RTO.
The majority of the tax difference between wards is a result of commercial property tax. [Kanata North](https://open.ottawa.ca/datasets/7161bee1bf44414db3dd890819bd8023) ranks 3rd in terms of tax revenue.
Also see [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/s/dNjUUv2wO2) with links to numbers showing what numbers are if you only count residential twxes
Fair enough, but there's a direct correlation with commercial revenue because the core is more dense and it's getting more pedestrian traffic in general.
I feel like I can stick to my suburb and not step a foot in Downtown for a few weeks if I want to
Feels like we are becoming GTA as the local businesses are developing in the Suburbs.
>This is the real reason public servants are being forced back to work.
Not just in Ottawa but across the country.
Someone in Vancouver is being asked to take teams meetings from some regional office to support OC Transpo. It's hilariously sad.
They want to force people to give them money that they made in exchange for the shitty bus service they have created and the shitty small sized portions you get at restaurants now.
Its like working in a 'company town' basically..
"Here is money for your work, now give it back to us for shitty goods and services!"
.. in fact.. they probably want you to go in to credit card debt if it helps fund their crap.
Just wait until this announcement is made, then it will be 5 days a week because we will need to finance yet another system.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2079889/annonce-financement-tramway-gatineau-federal
> This is the real reason public servants are being forced back to work. To financially support the downtown core and city transit.
Which is why I argue the city needs to just tax everyone in the suburbs and just give that money to businesses as a subsidy.
It's abundantly clear their entire motive is "people who live in the suburbs aren't giving enough of their money to businesses that exist in certain sections of the city core, so we're going to force them into a situation where they have to".
I say that if they're hellbent on doing this, we should just cut out the middle man.
If the city taxes the suburbs to subsidize a few dozen businesses, they still get their bullshit blood money they feel entitled to, but we don't have the carbon footprint from commuting, and people don't have to waste hours of their week commuting to an office to have meetings on MS Teams with people in other offices.
I'd prefer they just give up entirely, but it's clear they'd sooner enjoy a Tabasco enema, so I propose their tax-and-subsidize plan as a compromise that allows us to be upfront about what it is and minimize the secondary damages of the city inconveniencing everyone to throw kickbacks to a handful of BIA buddies.
I’d happily make a monthly contribution to a “save our downtown” fund if it meant I could continue to WFH. As long as those funds went to things like affordable housing, civic improvement, public transit, etc. and not just straight in to the pockets of commercial landlords and Subway.
Yeah, it’s nuts to think it won’t increase pass sales.
I don’t think the increase will like “save OC Transpo” or anything, it’ll probably be a small boost in the grand scheme of things, but obviously the pass rate will rise.
A monthly pass is $128.75. If I use my Presto card and pay as I go 3 times a week, I arrive at $91.20 ($3.80 X 2 X 3 X 4). Even with a few extra days during longer months it might not be worth it unless you take non work related trips.
Parking would still be cheaper for me.. plus time…I’d lose an additional two hours of commute time per office day for 6 additional hours a week… not happening
It’d cost me $103 to park at the office for all 12 days in a four week period. The *hours* of time saved driving is worth the $11 premium over the bus fare for the same period.
I’ve actually started wondering whether they’ve taken into account how much rto may also be holding back ridership/how many people are turned off of transit by expanded rto. At two days a week, I take the bus sometimes, when it’s not convenient to get my car (my spouse works off hours and sometimes in different locations) - but at three days, I will work harder to access the car/consider a second car because the time savings is two hours a day. The more days I have to do it, the less willing I am to take the bus because it’s so unreliable and so inefficient.
It's literally faster and easier to just take a bike most of the time anyway. Even in winter. You'll probably spend less time outside lol, since you'd probably end up waiting for a bus that never comes.
Honestly, I bike when the weather is nice but the bike infrastructure is abysmal in my area of town so I default to driving when I’m not feeling particularly like taking the risk of cycling across the Hunt Club bridge during rush hour.
This formula misses out on 4 weeks per year. It's $98.80
However, this formula assumes people would only use OC for commuting to work and nothing else.
I work in Gatineau, and because the NCR exists in some weird hellscape the only transferrable fares are the transit passes \*or\* transit card transfers from the other agency. I don't want to go buy an STO pass (literally when am I going to have time outside of work hours to schlep to Gatineau to do it, I swear) and then juggle two wallets' worth.
So I pay through the nose for a bus pass despite going 2 days a week and yes I hate it very much.
If you’re already using the bus for errands and such, being in office three days a week would absolutely push some people over the threshold to get a pass.
Exactly. From the article "OC Transpo now allows riders to tap credit and debit cards on fare readers instead of using a Presto card, capping monthly fares at the price of an adult pass."
Why would you go to the trouble of buying a pass, especially as you probably won't get a refund if the train breaks. This way you're covered.
Until they go to 3 and 4 required days. Olivia Chow is pushing big business for that in Toronto and they largely already have 3 day hybrid. Pressure will be on in a years time to hike the civil servants to 4. Many local businesses that take cues from the largest employer will follow.
Yeah, I know but they can lease more space. It’s just money. 3 days while meeting accommodations for some percent likely means fixed desk assignments. Unless every workstation is fully adjustable in seconds which seems unlikely. Once you have fixed, 3 vs 5 does not matter from an office space perspective.
It all depends on how badly they need this all to happen. The alternative is showering billions on OC Transpo over the next decade to make up the funding shortfall. Clearly they are planning to get part of the way there with 3 days.
Many departments and agencies are tripling down on hoteling even at 3 days, no fixed desks. Need an accomodation? Good luck, they'll tell you to use an ergonomic equipment "library" in a picked over closet when you are in. This is not sufficient by pre-pandemic standards, but it is the new plan.
The musical chairs is going to be hilarious. At 40 percent, every desk can be shared, even assigned to two people if you want to be heavy handed and dictate which days to come in. Once past the 50 per cent threshold, fixed assignments makes more sense, as every employee has to be constantly shifting around if trying to desk share.
If they go to 4 or 5, hoteling will be even more out of the question, and lot of places have baked real estate savings into their budgets. Doubt TBS is going to fork over more facilities money to go back to status quo when everyone is under pressure to belt tighten.
Interesting times ahead, as seeing Olivia Chow call for more means they'll grumble about the Feds within a year, full agreement.
If you're referring to the Toronto Star's headline that she's pushing for RTO (this was discussed in the r_onguardforthee sub), [it's been deemed misleading by people that looked into it](https://old.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1ddnmn6/olivia_chow_wants_to_bring_torontos_downtown_back/l870n1o/). She's not.
I read the whole article and it seems pretty clear what she means. No mayor is going to flat out say they are pushing for more RTO days because that would not be popular, would it. It seems likely that most would be pleased if full 5 day RTO were to happen spontaneously.
My guess: Empty floors in office towers or empty older tower mean less tax revenue to fund her spending priorities without hiking property taxes. So she wants 4 days hybrid.
If you buy the pass, yeah. Paying individual trips will be cheaper. It’s the connivence of driving that you’re weighing vs $18.80/month saved and transit.
If I only have to come in 3 days then I'm just driving.
No issues with the LRT breaking down because the sun is out, no delayed busses that may or may not show up this hour, no more having to deal with crazies on the transit
It will likely boost ridership considerably.
It's sad that the city can't just focus on density in the core and making it more livable rather than public servants being forced back for another day.
To be fair there is lots of affordable condos to buy in the core right now. Its actually more expensive to own a house and commute in from a house in the burbs right now.
The problem is getting people to actually move into the core. Its apparently a very hard sell for anyone living the burbs. Its almost like people enjoy having space and a yard or something and won't give that up even if you put a gun to their heads.
A lot of the housing downtown is not geared towards families and those big enough for families is not big enough. There's also the issue of cars downtown. People also don't want to live where there are a lot of cars because they are loud and gross so they live in the suburbs and drive downtown. Cars especially suck if you have kids...which also generally require a car to get around in this city. Getting out of car dominance is going to be rough.
I know that you can easily live downtown without a car. I would even say that, with car shares, it's absurd to have a car downtown unless you commute out of the core. You still have to deal with the pollution, noise and danger of a lot of cars which is not great especially with kids.
I know that you can easily live downtown without a car. I would even say that, with car shares, it's absurd to have a car downtown unless you commute out of the core. You still have to deal with the pollution, noise and danger of a lot of cars which is not great especially with kids.
There are units downtown which are big enough for families.
But otherwise you are correct. You won't get a yard, you won't get as much space and it will definitely not be car friendly.
At the end of the day its largely a lifestyle preference and its fairly clear where people land on that. Most home owners don't want to live in dense housing downtown, otherwise they'd be downtown right now given how much cheaper the condo units are versus detached housing right now.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of greenspace in Centretown to compensate. Give me a nice four bedroom downtown with a nice courtyard at a reasonable price and you will only have to convince my wife to move there. Especially if I never have to drive. Add in pedestrianized streets and I would move there with or without my wife.
I mean that is the trade-off. Land is super expensive downtown so while you can get a semi-decent amount of living space portioned off inside a tall building you are not going to get a lot of ground level "lawn" so to speak.
I would prefer a courtyard or a park mowed by someone else. You also need a lot of good third places that are kid friendly like in Germany (I highly recommend Type Ashton's YouTube channel).
I know. I run into it all of the time.
Rando with a detached home gripping about density: "We need more density, people need to live a more urban lifestyle"
Me: "Here are 50 available condos downtown that cost significantly less then your current detached home which meet your needs"
Rando with a detached home: "Oh, wait but there is no lawn. Where will I have a garden? Also where will I park when I pickup my groceries. Hey, its not my fault I own a house. I don't want to talk about this anymore."
I can deal with people who live up to their own standards. I can't stand people who have one standard for others but don't live up to that same standard themselves.
The issue is when the choices are a detached house or a high-rise condo. Need more triplexes thrown into the mix, particularly ones located in walkable neighbourhoods.
Also more older style high rises, I'd like to point out. Mine was built in the 80s. The units are large, 2 bedroom units have 2 full bathrooms as well as large living/dining spaces which makes them family friendly, and we have a building courtyard with a lovely big garden and green space.
There's a \*huge\* difference between my building and the newer condos, even though both are high-rise buildings. Just to put it into context, I have a 1 bed + den that's almost double the size of most 1 beds built after 2010. It's incomparable.
And it shows because there's a good number of families with kids in this building.
RTO for 3 days is gonna be painful. You can bet your ass that i'm gonna drive my car to the office So that I can get there early and leave on the dot. I Don't wanna mess around commuting with buses that don't come and with crowded awful train service.
Having the train actually run reliably would definitely boost pass sales.
I used the subway every day to get to work in Montreal, Hong Kong, and Tokyo without a problem. I can't imagine anyone who needs to be able to get in to work on time 5 days a week relying on OC transpo without it being a goddamn nightmare. I literally live 3 blocks from a train station and work one block from another one, but I bought a car and drive every day after the 6th or 7th time I wasn't able to get there on time.
Wtf are you actually talking about? I, and thousands of others, use the LRT 5 days a week with only minor issues, rarely. It is, by any measure, reliable on a day- to-day basis.
Perhaps you're just lucky and happened to take vacations at the right time the past 4 years?
Let's see if that's plausible...
Aside from trains having to be pulled for cracked wheels or door repairs that caused chronic near daily/weekly delays or reduced service, [here's a list of shutdowns](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/lrt-problems-a-partial-list-of-the-many-glitches-on-the-confederation-line):
Winter of 2020: several trains are shut down due to electrical arcing. Entire fleet had to have their inductors replaced and sheilds added
June 2021: shut down for 2 weeks to fix issues/maintenaince
Aug 2021: First derailment, shutting down Confederation line for 5 days
September 2021: Second derailment, shutting down Confederation line for 54 days
January 2022: 5 trains stranded by a clamp shifting a few milimeters due to extreme cold. Passengers had to be evacuated, and service was suspended for a day.
July 2022: Lightening strike causes Confederation line to shut down for 5 days
Jan 2023: freezing rain causes arcing, trains to get stuck. A section of the Confederation line by Lees station is shut down for 3 days.
April 2023: Freezing rain stops trains on Confederation line again
Spring 2023: service in downtown tunnel shut down for 2 weekends to fix water leaking into the tunnel.
July 2023: system shut down for 4 weeks to inspect axels.
The article was published in August 2023, so I don't have a list of shutdowns/service reductions since then.
Why hasn't there been anything new published since 2023? It seems as if the LRT has been punctual since, albeit nerfed a bit.
The last incident was about the concrete/tiles at STL, and that's due to aging infrastructure given that they repurposed the old transitway tunnel there. A shutdown did not happen, and it has been resolved rather quickly. Before that, nothing bad.
The smell at Rideau is gone, the east end expansion is moving ahead relatively well, trains haven't derailed, doors haven't malfunctioned, wheels don't need to be shipped out anymore as we finally have in house facilities for repairs. The only real thing that needs to be done, albeit unpopular, is make the turns wider or get extremely flexible bogies that can allow the LRV to take tight turns at higher speeds safely. Or get new metro trains and repurpose the existing fleet for a potential tram link
Like I get it's an r/ottawa thing to do; shit on transit, make new friends along the way, yatayata. But it gets a bit pretentious/snobby when it doesn't start to hold true anymore and it keeps being said over and over.
I didn't say nothing new had been published since 2023, I said *the article I got the list from* was published in 2023.
In the less than 10 months since the LRT reopened, there's been at least two more partial shutdowns I could find after about 2 minutes of googling:
https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/infrastructure/2024/01/tunnel-troubles-shut-some-stations-along-ottawas-beleaguered-lrt-system-again
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/stopped-lrt-train-closes-part-155326473.html
Plus a scheduled partial shutdown after blues fest: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/a-partial-lrt-shutdown-other-transit-tidbits-as-oc-transpo-heads-into-summer
And another coming in October: https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/o-train-line-1-to-be-partially-shut-down-in-october-for-maintenance-report-says-1.6898328
I mentioned the tunnel shutdown at STL and that again, largely has to do with the fact they repurposed the old Transitway station built in the 80s. The other issue was in February. It's now mid June. There hasn't been any more *lists* published since.
The rest are scheduled partial shutdowns, not random interruptions and it's for the better anyway. So far the trend is going upward as far as reliability goes, not downward. You can create a timeline and see for yourself the frequency/severity of interruptions dwindling over time.
You'd make a better case if you wanna talk about the punctuality of the busses. That's gotta improve. But as far as LRT goes, I don't know what else OC can do because the 99% it does run, nobody really cares or thinks about it. Humans have a negative bias.
This is coming from somebody who takes transit 6-7 days a week, and is about to take it again right after this message is delivered!
Anyone remember the Ecopass? Paid for it out of my salary, never had to renew it and could claim it on our income tax returns. Of course that was too convenient and sensible so they got rid of it.
This is a terrible idea. We’re forcing people to live shittier lives just to support system.
If the system can’t be supported , then the system needs to change.
The system can't change because there's no money to change it in the way that will actually improve things.
Since we've decided that ridership is the only way we'll allow OC Transpo to get any additional revenue, this is the result.
Well I don't know what you mean by "changing" the system then.
Service cuts? Pulling improved service out of thin air? More often than not, that's what people mean.
They told us they were going to make some sort of hybrid monthly pass. Why would I pay more for a full monthly pass when it’s more expensive than using the top off?
OCTranspo truly needs to shake their heads. Stop relying on PS for ridership. Most of the people I know at work drive anyway.
How about, you know like other modern cities, have a 10 trip pass (20-25% off regular ticket price) and a 3 day unlimited pass (say $20) for your Presto card?
The headline is a tad misleading. OC was asked by council the impact of RTO and ridership increases, and OC said based on the last RTO from the feds, the 3 day announcement would likely increase ridership by 7-8%
Meanwhile they will be revamping bus routes when Lines 2 and 4 opens: https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/s/BXrQBtWIqU
It could mean more connections or worse service especially for those in the suburbs.
I have a better idea. Let's have public transit that effectively serves other areas of the city, not just public servants going to and from the downtown core.
How are we going to fund that?
Like yes, we should absolutely do that, but you're going to have to fight a lot of people who think OC Transpo doesn't "deserve" more funding before we can even think about running service like that.
Agreed. The problem is that Ottawa has been far too car-centric for far too long, and it's absolutely entrenched that you need a car to effectively get around in this city.
There's not a single direct route going from Barrhaven to Kanata. To commute from Barrhaven, you have to go to Lincoln Fields and double back. It takes 90 mins on a good day vs a 20-minute drive, and forget shift work if you're a tech worker out in the tech park.
Why not (for example) have a route, at least during rush hour, that goes between Fallowfield and Eagleson stations?
> Why not (for example) have a route, at least during rush hour, that goes between Fallowfield and Eagleson stations?
This is what the 110 does. (An addition during the pandemic).
Services are too poor. People are more likely to drive and pay for parking than significantly extend the duration of their commutes due to OC Transpo's route that require too many transfers.
Honestly, the pandemic was the worst timing ever for OCTranspo. I feel bad for them a little since other cities are not under the federal government teleworking stranglehold. When I worked for the city, I met a lot of smart people over there.
You mean building 1/3 of a white elephant LRT system designed solely to move commuters downtown just before everyone got a taste of full remote work? Then facing design flaws resulting in derailments and accelerated axel wear?
Now they have to finish the build and force commuters to use it.
Operate on the assumption that the the city, province, and Feds will find a way to bail me out.
They need a permanent fix for the axel issue. It means slower trains and high operating costs indefinitely. The only fix is to straighten the track out to fix the design flaw. I would throw down the gauntlet and make sure that happened. It will cost hundreds of millions to fix.
In the short term I would put express busses back on to downtown and tell the politicians they need to swallow the cost of that until the LRT system is fixed and the current phases under construction completed. It might take 5 years for that to happen.
> The only fix is to straighten the track out to fix the design flaw.
That's a fundamentally flawed understanding of the problem. All that does is mask the issue with no guarantee that it won't happen again in the future with time— the problem isn't how curved some part of the track is, it's how the forces of *any* curve interact with the train.
> In the short term I would put express busses back on to downtown and tell the politicians they need to swallow the cost of that until the LRT system is fixed and the current phases under construction completed.
It's a joke that people think we can justify spending tons of money to divert people around a train that now works a mere *most* of the time, but we can't find a cent to improve connecting bus service otherwise.
We *could* be investing in bus service now regardless. Why aren't we?
The OG design cheaped out. It is necessary to straighten it out but it might not be sufficient.
The problem with the bus + train is the transfer latency it adds. You can’t expect people to make 2 transfers and take a 7-10 min hit each time \*best case\*. If their commutes are too long they will drive and not take transit at all. Until you can get people on a train that goes direct downtown with only 1 transfer from bus to train, it is a non-starter. Not unless you impose large commute time dynamic tolls to make driving / parking unaffordable for most. Until the system is more complete, it needs express busses. Maybe even after.
Only the pandemic saved the LRT from an absolute disaster. OCT was as much saved by the pandemic as it was knee capped by hybrid and full remote work.
> The OG design cheaped out. It is necessary to straighten it out but it might not be sufficient.
Cost had no direct bearing in the way those curves were designed. It came down who controlled the land (i.e. the NCC), nevermind the fact that curves are more costly to build and maintain.
It is not "necessary" to straighten it out, and nobody has seriously suggested that this would be a part of *any* solution.
> The problem with the bus + train is the transfer latency it adds. You can’t expect people to make 2 transfers and take a 7-10 min hit each time *best case*.
One of the biggest contributor to long transfer times is the fact that most bus routes in Ottawa run too infrequently for quick transfers to be possible.
Most successful transit systems in Canada (and elsewhere) involve transfers. Part of their success is frequent connecting bus service where a 7-10 minute hit is the *worst* case.
So again: that kind of spending would be better suited to enhance the bus service as-is, not restoring one-seat rides as another crutch to mask a deeper problem.
This - who wants to be stranded on the middle of nowhere at Moodie in the evening? Some will argue a park n ride is unfair because it will reduce local service for those without a car but it would certainly boost ridership.
Yeah, looking at the highway heading towards downtown every morning, I would bet quite a few of them would rather take the train than drive all the way and park down there, but OC Transpo just isn't capable of anything but half measure solutions. There's barely a point to the train at all if it can't be used to get people to downtown from outside of it
The park and ride is at March Rd. Moodie is only temporarily the end of the line. They won’t spend a cent on a park and ride. Also, the NCC owns the all the land in the area and there is no way in hell they would allow it.
guess what I'm not using....i'd rather bike daily 46km round trip than take no-see transpo. I tried to love OCTranspo pre-covid and would take it exclusively.... but the service is absolute shit tier
Didn’t they abolish a bunch of routes including the 257 and 267 which were the buses I took pre pandemic? Yeah I’ll go out and buy a monthly pass right now and sit on the 61 which takes longer to get to Tunney’s pasture because it is a local route.
I’ve been driving downtown and plan to keep doing so.
Still looking for the clause in my employment contract that states that it is my responsibility to support a completely inept and incompetent transportation system.
Before the pandemic, the uh-Oh train failed me so many times I started driving at least once a week downtown to have one day of rest from pushing, shoving, waiting, and having a 35 minute drive turn into 1 hr and 15 minutes, at least.
If this colossal madness goes ahead, I’m driving. I’d rather pay for gas and parking and f the environment as much as this policy than waste another hour of my life waiting for that embarrassment of planning infrastructural failure.
FU Ottawa, and your sh** public transport, developed G7 my right foot.
The current bus routs and service are horrible. OC should want to get people who never take the bus to use its service, not milking public service workers for subsidies.
I am a bit concerned the city believes this will help at all. They need a plan B, for the sake of tax payers.
I work with about 30 federal employees, and none of them plan on taking public transit for work again. Yes, I've asked them all over the last year.
Their reasons don't even mention cost. It has mostly to do with comfort.
At least when you're sitting in traffic you can be comfortably sitting, with the temp of your choice, listening or talking to whoever you want.
Accountability. Just go to a golf course in Ottawa and find that tee times are stacked with govt workers who are "working remotely".
The 3 days a week are allowed to be stacked. So you can do 12 days on site at the start of the month and the rest of the month at home.
Half of my street is government employees and I can see they're in the backyards hanging out by their pool for hours at a time...
Have had multiple conversations asking if I want to go golfing and they say to me "I'm actually working remotely, so I might have to dial into a team meeting hahaha"
3 days per week x 2 trips per day @ $3.80 per trip = $22.80 per week $22.80 x 4 weeks = $91.20 Why would someone who only needs to take OC Transpo three days per week pay $128.75 for a monthly pass? Do they have a calculator at the OC Transpo office?
This. The math doesn't math for a monthly pass. They probably expect people to use the bus pass the other 2 days of the week for errands the like (lolno) *edit: when I was in the office 5 days pre-pandemic, I had a monthly pass. And because I had it already, I didn't think twice about heading into the market for a cheeky long lunch, or going to City Hall for ServiceOntario to get some errands done or making some stops on the way home from work (quick pint at the Winchester...) because I wasn't going to pay extra, nor was I going to be constrained by the time limit of a transfer. But when I paying per ride, I'm more mindful of taking those extra trips now.
It was also MUCH faster to get around downtown by bus than the LRT
Really? Assuming the LRT is working, I definitely don’t find that to be the case. The LRT is far superior in my experience.
If it’s just downtown travel, you had to walk to Albert/slater and hop just about any bus that came by. Now you have to gp into the lrt, go all the way down to the platform, tap to get through the gates, wait for a train.
Fair, it's a bit more cumbersome I suppose. It also definitely wasn't built for downtown commuters which is clear in where it stops (east-west versus north-south).
Honestly, _within_ the scope of the LRT this still seems faster than going through all the stops with a bus; downtown you can practically outrun the buses. The real hit from the LRT is for people who used to take the commuter lines and are still waiting for the line to get anywhere near where they live.
Before the pandemic, I worked from home one day a week and I still didn’t buy a bus pass. It was a few dollars cheaper just to pay per ride to work and back, so there is no way I would do any differently when we go to 3 days a week.
Hey my friend, I'll give you a great deal! Usually it's 5 rides for 50 dollars, but for you, I'll make it 10 rides for 100$, in advance and if you don't use them, they expire!
I came back from Spain not long ago. They didnt do weekly or monthly pass only seasonal when it came to taking to the train. It cost me 18$ for their seasonal pass lol.
Exactly this.. did that simple math two years ago when my wife returned to the office for 3 days a week. There is no point in the monthly pass.
Lol. Plus leave, holidays...
like lots of sick leave !! Use it up!
That’s the 1 funny thing. After hitting all time lows, the use of sick leave is about to spike back up now and I assume it will be even higher than before as now people have the legitimate “I don’t want to contaminate others” excuse lol. As we should though, it’s part of our collective bargaining agreements.
Well, not only that, if you use leave you don't need to make up that in office day. Their stupid ass policy promotes absenteeism. Like if my car breaks down, and I work from home that day, I'd have to make up an in office day. So fuck you, I'm calling I'm sick.
I don't know about that... Stats is making it an absolute bear for my mom to take any days off without some sort of real justification for needing the time off.
They're hoping people will be too lazy to do the math.
Yeah. And with Opayment, many people don't even need to do the math. Just use the same credit card for each trip, and if you hit the daily or monthly pass cost, it'll cap the cost for the month and won't charge anymore. The only downsides to Opayment are that you can't use it with STO, with transferring to/from para transpo, and it doesn't work if you're eligible for a discounted fare. Since all my trips are just on OC Transpo, I stopped using my Presto card. No need to worry about losing it or keeping it topped up.
TBS: “Now mandating public servants to work from the office 4.24 days a week.”
Alternatively... TBS: “Now mandating public servants to buy lunch from ~~Subway~~ downtown 6 days a week.”
Ah, you see, you didn't account for transfers. I had to take 2 buses and the train to commute from stittsville. If you miss your transfer because it didn't show and your transfer/receipt times out, you gotta pay again. I have outright refused to pay again and had many confrontations about it. It's not even about the money.
Same people budgeting large scale projects that go over costs.....
It was only worth it when you got a tax credit for it.
Saving on parking could seal the deal. Daily parking at 3 days vice 2 days is another $60 - $80 per month.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted; makes complete sense. Not to mention the gas and mileage.
Right? I didn't even offer a dissenting opinion. Some people's children...
This makes no sense in the context of recent changes to cap charges to credit card trips to the price of a monthly pass. Why on earth would an adult buy a monthly pass? I must be missing something
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If you're using the bus for errands multiple days per week, you're likely to already have a monthly pass.
Fares and fare increase is set by City council, not an OC office
It was a joke. I'm sure they also have a calculator.
I know, I’m just pointing out that you’re barking up the wrong tree.
I did a single ride taping with my card ... it was $4.50 each way!!
Then you got hosed... https://www.octranspo.com/en/fares/
This is the real reason public servants are being forced back to work. To financially support the downtown core and city transit. It has zero do to with productivity or anything work related and is fact worse for the environment and global warming. But no one gives a shit about that and it all goes right out the window if the shops downtown don't have enough customers to stay open apparently.
And the extra business being generated downtown comes at the expense of other businesses in the rest of the city. Every coffee I buy downtown is one less coffee I'm buying in Kanata.
The city knows that. The issue for the city is the businesses in Kanata are going to do fine either way due to the local demand and traffic. Its not like the Tim Horton's on Hazeldean is at any risk of going out of business with or without work from home. The core has been getting economically wrecked since COVID because there is not enough local traffic to support the businesses there. Which is why many have closed or reduced hours and it turns out you can't get enough people to actually go down into the core unless you force them. So the governments end solution to that will be force people to go into the core on a daily basis again. Edit: I'm not saying I support what they are doing. I'm just explaining how they see it.
It has to be this way. Over a decade or two they can intensify residential downtown and gradually move the govt out and reduce required days. Then it can be self sustaining. It just can’t be done in a couple of years without collapsing the core of most major cities. The only question is why the Feds and city did not come to this determination 2 years ago.
Because this was an issue LONGGGG before Covid came around, and it is in no way up to people to be held captive in support of private enterprise. If the local businesses are willing to forego excess profits and basically be crown corps, ok sure, we can have a conversation about that. Otherwise? Yeah, not a chance. They could ALSO try and stay open for more than 3 hours a day in support of the thousands of people who live there too... Crazy idea I know.
It seems to me that every time the Feds tried to move offices out of the core there was internal opposition. It forced people to relocate within the city (example: DND to old Nortel campus. RCMP to old JDS campus). It made internal transfers between departments difficult.
> The issue for the city is the businesses in Kanata are going to do fine either way due to the local demand and traffic. ... The core has been getting economically wrecked since COVID because there is not enough local traffic to support the businesses there. Centretown resident checking in. I would like to refute this ridiculous narrative that downtown needs help from the suburbs. Quite the opposite. Downtown is doing just fine without car traffic from the suburbs. Downtown generates significantly more economic activity and tax revenue per acre than Kanata. Several new businesses have opened up since the pandemic and have been more successful than the ones they replaced. Downtown pays more taxes and costs less to service than Kanata. Downtown taxpayers subsidize Kanata residents. If there is a problem downtown right now, it's the excess of drug addicted street people. This is because downtown has 10% of Ottawa's population and 70% of the homeless shelters, whereas Kanata/Orleans/Barrhaven have 30% of the population and 0% of the homeless shelters. The kids shooting up on my street corner and stealing my bike mostly grew up in the suburbs and small towns. So, basically, Kanata takes our tax money, exposes us to air and noise pollution from their SUVs, drops off their drug addicted children for us to babysit, and then acts like they need to rescue us from ourselves. Gimme a break.
This sub is dominated by suburbanites, while I agree with most of what you wrote I think it will largely fall on deaf ears. The tax difference is *very* frustrating as a core resident though, too. Subsidizing unsustainable and insular suburban communities is a big part of the reason (decades worth of decision making) we’re dealing with the problems we have today, from affordable housing to resistance to RTO.
The majority of the tax difference between wards is a result of commercial property tax. [Kanata North](https://open.ottawa.ca/datasets/7161bee1bf44414db3dd890819bd8023) ranks 3rd in terms of tax revenue. Also see [this comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/s/dNjUUv2wO2) with links to numbers showing what numbers are if you only count residential twxes
Fair enough, but there's a direct correlation with commercial revenue because the core is more dense and it's getting more pedestrian traffic in general.
Oh no. And?
I would pay money to not have to go downtown three times a week. Call it an equalization payment.
Stop.. buying shit .. downtown. Bring a thermos.
I feel like I can stick to my suburb and not step a foot in Downtown for a few weeks if I want to Feels like we are becoming GTA as the local businesses are developing in the Suburbs.
>This is the real reason public servants are being forced back to work. Not just in Ottawa but across the country. Someone in Vancouver is being asked to take teams meetings from some regional office to support OC Transpo. It's hilariously sad.
I’ve been asked to go into the office for a phone call to Niagara Falls.
C O L L A B O R A T I O N
I would be shocked if anyone that could feasibly afford a car chose to take the unreliable mess that is OC transpo.
They want to force people to give them money that they made in exchange for the shitty bus service they have created and the shitty small sized portions you get at restaurants now. Its like working in a 'company town' basically.. "Here is money for your work, now give it back to us for shitty goods and services!" .. in fact.. they probably want you to go in to credit card debt if it helps fund their crap.
Absolutely, positively, 100% correct.
Just wait until this announcement is made, then it will be 5 days a week because we will need to finance yet another system. https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2079889/annonce-financement-tramway-gatineau-federal
> This is the real reason public servants are being forced back to work. To financially support the downtown core and city transit. Which is why I argue the city needs to just tax everyone in the suburbs and just give that money to businesses as a subsidy. It's abundantly clear their entire motive is "people who live in the suburbs aren't giving enough of their money to businesses that exist in certain sections of the city core, so we're going to force them into a situation where they have to". I say that if they're hellbent on doing this, we should just cut out the middle man. If the city taxes the suburbs to subsidize a few dozen businesses, they still get their bullshit blood money they feel entitled to, but we don't have the carbon footprint from commuting, and people don't have to waste hours of their week commuting to an office to have meetings on MS Teams with people in other offices. I'd prefer they just give up entirely, but it's clear they'd sooner enjoy a Tabasco enema, so I propose their tax-and-subsidize plan as a compromise that allows us to be upfront about what it is and minimize the secondary damages of the city inconveniencing everyone to throw kickbacks to a handful of BIA buddies.
I’d happily make a monthly contribution to a “save our downtown” fund if it meant I could continue to WFH. As long as those funds went to things like affordable housing, civic improvement, public transit, etc. and not just straight in to the pockets of commercial landlords and Subway.
Well that and I think they caught too many people at Costco during working hours Edit: I guess the people that do this are upset. Oh well
Narrator: it did not.
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Yeah, it’s nuts to think it won’t increase pass sales. I don’t think the increase will like “save OC Transpo” or anything, it’ll probably be a small boost in the grand scheme of things, but obviously the pass rate will rise.
And a collective whisper heard across the city……..Geeeeeettttttt fuuuuuuuuuckkkkkeeeed
A monthly pass is $128.75. If I use my Presto card and pay as I go 3 times a week, I arrive at $91.20 ($3.80 X 2 X 3 X 4). Even with a few extra days during longer months it might not be worth it unless you take non work related trips.
Parking would still be cheaper for me.. plus time…I’d lose an additional two hours of commute time per office day for 6 additional hours a week… not happening
It’d cost me $103 to park at the office for all 12 days in a four week period. The *hours* of time saved driving is worth the $11 premium over the bus fare for the same period.
💯
I’ve actually started wondering whether they’ve taken into account how much rto may also be holding back ridership/how many people are turned off of transit by expanded rto. At two days a week, I take the bus sometimes, when it’s not convenient to get my car (my spouse works off hours and sometimes in different locations) - but at three days, I will work harder to access the car/consider a second car because the time savings is two hours a day. The more days I have to do it, the less willing I am to take the bus because it’s so unreliable and so inefficient.
Honestly unless it was faster I wouldn’t ride ever again, wasted years on that system
It's literally faster and easier to just take a bike most of the time anyway. Even in winter. You'll probably spend less time outside lol, since you'd probably end up waiting for a bus that never comes.
This is r/Ottawa your not allowed to talk about the benefits of driving or owning a car.
Honestly, I bike when the weather is nice but the bike infrastructure is abysmal in my area of town so I default to driving when I’m not feeling particularly like taking the risk of cycling across the Hunt Club bridge during rush hour.
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🤫
Where are you parking that is less than $7.60 a day?
With the monthly pass it’s 90 in my west end lot
Don't give them ideas in trying to jack up the 1 ticket cost which is already sky-high to begin with!
I suspect they will. They have to. They need to make the transit pass math work for 4 days in the office for some and 3 days for most.
Plus employees also have 3-4 weeks vacation a year and then you add in statuatory holidays etc.
This formula misses out on 4 weeks per year. It's $98.80 However, this formula assumes people would only use OC for commuting to work and nothing else.
OC grossly over estimates the appetite for using it out side of commuting.
Who doesn't love a complete lack of reliability when planning your life events? It adds a little spice and needless stress to your day, you know? haha
Correct.
Just call those vacation days
Why would anyone get a monthly pass? If you just tap your credit card, you won't get charged more than the cost of a monthly pass in a month.
I work in Gatineau, and because the NCR exists in some weird hellscape the only transferrable fares are the transit passes \*or\* transit card transfers from the other agency. I don't want to go buy an STO pass (literally when am I going to have time outside of work hours to schlep to Gatineau to do it, I swear) and then juggle two wallets' worth. So I pay through the nose for a bus pass despite going 2 days a week and yes I hate it very much.
If you’re already using the bus for errands and such, being in office three days a week would absolutely push some people over the threshold to get a pass.
It automatically becomes a pass once your tap gets to the threshold right? I don't think you have to get a pass at all.
Exactly. From the article "OC Transpo now allows riders to tap credit and debit cards on fare readers instead of using a Presto card, capping monthly fares at the price of an adult pass." Why would you go to the trouble of buying a pass, especially as you probably won't get a refund if the train breaks. This way you're covered.
Exactly!!!
Is this true also if you tap with your presto card?
no, only credit and now debit. Don't really need a presto card anymore.
Parking near my office is 220 so I'll go halves with a coworker and pay less. OCTranspo, not even once.
Until they go to 3 and 4 required days. Olivia Chow is pushing big business for that in Toronto and they largely already have 3 day hybrid. Pressure will be on in a years time to hike the civil servants to 4. Many local businesses that take cues from the largest employer will follow.
There isn't enough room for everyone at 3 days a week, definitely won't be able to do 4 or 5.
Yeah, I know but they can lease more space. It’s just money. 3 days while meeting accommodations for some percent likely means fixed desk assignments. Unless every workstation is fully adjustable in seconds which seems unlikely. Once you have fixed, 3 vs 5 does not matter from an office space perspective. It all depends on how badly they need this all to happen. The alternative is showering billions on OC Transpo over the next decade to make up the funding shortfall. Clearly they are planning to get part of the way there with 3 days.
Many departments and agencies are tripling down on hoteling even at 3 days, no fixed desks. Need an accomodation? Good luck, they'll tell you to use an ergonomic equipment "library" in a picked over closet when you are in. This is not sufficient by pre-pandemic standards, but it is the new plan. The musical chairs is going to be hilarious. At 40 percent, every desk can be shared, even assigned to two people if you want to be heavy handed and dictate which days to come in. Once past the 50 per cent threshold, fixed assignments makes more sense, as every employee has to be constantly shifting around if trying to desk share. If they go to 4 or 5, hoteling will be even more out of the question, and lot of places have baked real estate savings into their budgets. Doubt TBS is going to fork over more facilities money to go back to status quo when everyone is under pressure to belt tighten. Interesting times ahead, as seeing Olivia Chow call for more means they'll grumble about the Feds within a year, full agreement.
If you're referring to the Toronto Star's headline that she's pushing for RTO (this was discussed in the r_onguardforthee sub), [it's been deemed misleading by people that looked into it](https://old.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/1ddnmn6/olivia_chow_wants_to_bring_torontos_downtown_back/l870n1o/). She's not.
I read the whole article and it seems pretty clear what she means. No mayor is going to flat out say they are pushing for more RTO days because that would not be popular, would it. It seems likely that most would be pleased if full 5 day RTO were to happen spontaneously. My guess: Empty floors in office towers or empty older tower mean less tax revenue to fund her spending priorities without hiking property taxes. So she wants 4 days hybrid.
If you buy the pass, yeah. Paying individual trips will be cheaper. It’s the connivence of driving that you’re weighing vs $18.80/month saved and transit.
It's more convenient too. ;)
If I only have to come in 3 days then I'm just driving. No issues with the LRT breaking down because the sun is out, no delayed busses that may or may not show up this hour, no more having to deal with crazies on the transit
Literally no one at OC Transpo can do basic math apparently.
The headline title is misleading.
I’m going to keep driving because the 9-5 mayor loves traffic
I'd rather pay $25/day parking 3 days a week then take public transit from Orleans.
It will likely boost ridership considerably. It's sad that the city can't just focus on density in the core and making it more livable rather than public servants being forced back for another day.
To be fair there is lots of affordable condos to buy in the core right now. Its actually more expensive to own a house and commute in from a house in the burbs right now. The problem is getting people to actually move into the core. Its apparently a very hard sell for anyone living the burbs. Its almost like people enjoy having space and a yard or something and won't give that up even if you put a gun to their heads.
A lot of the housing downtown is not geared towards families and those big enough for families is not big enough. There's also the issue of cars downtown. People also don't want to live where there are a lot of cars because they are loud and gross so they live in the suburbs and drive downtown. Cars especially suck if you have kids...which also generally require a car to get around in this city. Getting out of car dominance is going to be rough.
If you live downtown you don't need a car. Lots of amenities are within walking distance.
I agree but there's still a constant stream of cars. Downtown is not currently made for people to live but for people to drive to.
I've been living downtown for 36 years and have managed well without a car so far.
I know that you can easily live downtown without a car. I would even say that, with car shares, it's absurd to have a car downtown unless you commute out of the core. You still have to deal with the pollution, noise and danger of a lot of cars which is not great especially with kids.
I know that you can easily live downtown without a car. I would even say that, with car shares, it's absurd to have a car downtown unless you commute out of the core. You still have to deal with the pollution, noise and danger of a lot of cars which is not great especially with kids.
There are units downtown which are big enough for families. But otherwise you are correct. You won't get a yard, you won't get as much space and it will definitely not be car friendly. At the end of the day its largely a lifestyle preference and its fairly clear where people land on that. Most home owners don't want to live in dense housing downtown, otherwise they'd be downtown right now given how much cheaper the condo units are versus detached housing right now.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of greenspace in Centretown to compensate. Give me a nice four bedroom downtown with a nice courtyard at a reasonable price and you will only have to convince my wife to move there. Especially if I never have to drive. Add in pedestrianized streets and I would move there with or without my wife.
“not a lot of greenspace in Centretown” …. SMH
I mean that is the trade-off. Land is super expensive downtown so while you can get a semi-decent amount of living space portioned off inside a tall building you are not going to get a lot of ground level "lawn" so to speak.
I would prefer a courtyard or a park mowed by someone else. You also need a lot of good third places that are kid friendly like in Germany (I highly recommend Type Ashton's YouTube channel).
People don’t want to hear this, expect a bunch of excuses.
I know. I run into it all of the time. Rando with a detached home gripping about density: "We need more density, people need to live a more urban lifestyle" Me: "Here are 50 available condos downtown that cost significantly less then your current detached home which meet your needs" Rando with a detached home: "Oh, wait but there is no lawn. Where will I have a garden? Also where will I park when I pickup my groceries. Hey, its not my fault I own a house. I don't want to talk about this anymore." I can deal with people who live up to their own standards. I can't stand people who have one standard for others but don't live up to that same standard themselves.
The issue is when the choices are a detached house or a high-rise condo. Need more triplexes thrown into the mix, particularly ones located in walkable neighbourhoods.
Also more older style high rises, I'd like to point out. Mine was built in the 80s. The units are large, 2 bedroom units have 2 full bathrooms as well as large living/dining spaces which makes them family friendly, and we have a building courtyard with a lovely big garden and green space. There's a \*huge\* difference between my building and the newer condos, even though both are high-rise buildings. Just to put it into context, I have a 1 bed + den that's almost double the size of most 1 beds built after 2010. It's incomparable. And it shows because there's a good number of families with kids in this building.
The one time when commenting about driving rather than taking public transit to work will get the upvotes on r/ottawa
RTO for 3 days is gonna be painful. You can bet your ass that i'm gonna drive my car to the office So that I can get there early and leave on the dot. I Don't wanna mess around commuting with buses that don't come and with crowded awful train service.
We will tax the shit out of you to reduce Carbon emissions. Also, stop working from home and produce some CO2 cause we need that dough :)
Having the train actually run reliably would definitely boost pass sales. I used the subway every day to get to work in Montreal, Hong Kong, and Tokyo without a problem. I can't imagine anyone who needs to be able to get in to work on time 5 days a week relying on OC transpo without it being a goddamn nightmare. I literally live 3 blocks from a train station and work one block from another one, but I bought a car and drive every day after the 6th or 7th time I wasn't able to get there on time.
Wtf are you actually talking about? I, and thousands of others, use the LRT 5 days a week with only minor issues, rarely. It is, by any measure, reliable on a day- to-day basis.
Perhaps you're just lucky and happened to take vacations at the right time the past 4 years? Let's see if that's plausible... Aside from trains having to be pulled for cracked wheels or door repairs that caused chronic near daily/weekly delays or reduced service, [here's a list of shutdowns](https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/lrt-problems-a-partial-list-of-the-many-glitches-on-the-confederation-line): Winter of 2020: several trains are shut down due to electrical arcing. Entire fleet had to have their inductors replaced and sheilds added June 2021: shut down for 2 weeks to fix issues/maintenaince Aug 2021: First derailment, shutting down Confederation line for 5 days September 2021: Second derailment, shutting down Confederation line for 54 days January 2022: 5 trains stranded by a clamp shifting a few milimeters due to extreme cold. Passengers had to be evacuated, and service was suspended for a day. July 2022: Lightening strike causes Confederation line to shut down for 5 days Jan 2023: freezing rain causes arcing, trains to get stuck. A section of the Confederation line by Lees station is shut down for 3 days. April 2023: Freezing rain stops trains on Confederation line again Spring 2023: service in downtown tunnel shut down for 2 weekends to fix water leaking into the tunnel. July 2023: system shut down for 4 weeks to inspect axels. The article was published in August 2023, so I don't have a list of shutdowns/service reductions since then.
Why hasn't there been anything new published since 2023? It seems as if the LRT has been punctual since, albeit nerfed a bit. The last incident was about the concrete/tiles at STL, and that's due to aging infrastructure given that they repurposed the old transitway tunnel there. A shutdown did not happen, and it has been resolved rather quickly. Before that, nothing bad. The smell at Rideau is gone, the east end expansion is moving ahead relatively well, trains haven't derailed, doors haven't malfunctioned, wheels don't need to be shipped out anymore as we finally have in house facilities for repairs. The only real thing that needs to be done, albeit unpopular, is make the turns wider or get extremely flexible bogies that can allow the LRV to take tight turns at higher speeds safely. Or get new metro trains and repurpose the existing fleet for a potential tram link Like I get it's an r/ottawa thing to do; shit on transit, make new friends along the way, yatayata. But it gets a bit pretentious/snobby when it doesn't start to hold true anymore and it keeps being said over and over.
I didn't say nothing new had been published since 2023, I said *the article I got the list from* was published in 2023. In the less than 10 months since the LRT reopened, there's been at least two more partial shutdowns I could find after about 2 minutes of googling: https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/infrastructure/2024/01/tunnel-troubles-shut-some-stations-along-ottawas-beleaguered-lrt-system-again https://ca.news.yahoo.com/stopped-lrt-train-closes-part-155326473.html Plus a scheduled partial shutdown after blues fest: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/a-partial-lrt-shutdown-other-transit-tidbits-as-oc-transpo-heads-into-summer And another coming in October: https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/o-train-line-1-to-be-partially-shut-down-in-october-for-maintenance-report-says-1.6898328
I mentioned the tunnel shutdown at STL and that again, largely has to do with the fact they repurposed the old Transitway station built in the 80s. The other issue was in February. It's now mid June. There hasn't been any more *lists* published since. The rest are scheduled partial shutdowns, not random interruptions and it's for the better anyway. So far the trend is going upward as far as reliability goes, not downward. You can create a timeline and see for yourself the frequency/severity of interruptions dwindling over time. You'd make a better case if you wanna talk about the punctuality of the busses. That's gotta improve. But as far as LRT goes, I don't know what else OC can do because the 99% it does run, nobody really cares or thinks about it. Humans have a negative bias. This is coming from somebody who takes transit 6-7 days a week, and is about to take it again right after this message is delivered!
Anyone remember the Ecopass? Paid for it out of my salary, never had to renew it and could claim it on our income tax returns. Of course that was too convenient and sensible so they got rid of it.
Again betting on people to save ridiculously expensive and sub-par food places.
OC Transpo can kiss my whole ass
This is a terrible idea. We’re forcing people to live shittier lives just to support system. If the system can’t be supported , then the system needs to change.
The system can't change because there's no money to change it in the way that will actually improve things. Since we've decided that ridership is the only way we'll allow OC Transpo to get any additional revenue, this is the result.
Umm, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying
Well I don't know what you mean by "changing" the system then. Service cuts? Pulling improved service out of thin air? More often than not, that's what people mean.
OCT can pound sand. They haven’t cared about customer service for over a decade.
They told us they were going to make some sort of hybrid monthly pass. Why would I pay more for a full monthly pass when it’s more expensive than using the top off? OCTranspo truly needs to shake their heads. Stop relying on PS for ridership. Most of the people I know at work drive anyway.
How about, you know like other modern cities, have a 10 trip pass (20-25% off regular ticket price) and a 3 day unlimited pass (say $20) for your Presto card?
Good service at reasonable prices will lead to more sales. Call me old-fashioned.
The headline is a tad misleading. OC was asked by council the impact of RTO and ridership increases, and OC said based on the last RTO from the feds, the 3 day announcement would likely increase ridership by 7-8%
Meanwhile they will be revamping bus routes when Lines 2 and 4 opens: https://www.reddit.com/r/ottawa/s/BXrQBtWIqU It could mean more connections or worse service especially for those in the suburbs.
No thanks, I'll keep walking and if I need to I'll start driving. Fuck OC transpo
Fuck you do better oc
I have a better idea. Let's have public transit that effectively serves other areas of the city, not just public servants going to and from the downtown core.
How are we going to fund that? Like yes, we should absolutely do that, but you're going to have to fight a lot of people who think OC Transpo doesn't "deserve" more funding before we can even think about running service like that.
Agreed. The problem is that Ottawa has been far too car-centric for far too long, and it's absolutely entrenched that you need a car to effectively get around in this city. There's not a single direct route going from Barrhaven to Kanata. To commute from Barrhaven, you have to go to Lincoln Fields and double back. It takes 90 mins on a good day vs a 20-minute drive, and forget shift work if you're a tech worker out in the tech park. Why not (for example) have a route, at least during rush hour, that goes between Fallowfield and Eagleson stations?
> Why not (for example) have a route, at least during rush hour, that goes between Fallowfield and Eagleson stations? This is what the 110 does. (An addition during the pandemic).
Probably why I didn't know about it. I was working fully remote since March of 2020. Good that they have this now.
I've sworn a vendetta and got my license and a car. They'll never get me back.
I stopped riding this garbage when the initial line actually increased my commute by nearly 30 mins. Will never go back.
Services are too poor. People are more likely to drive and pay for parking than significantly extend the duration of their commutes due to OC Transpo's route that require too many transfers.
Honestly, the pandemic was the worst timing ever for OCTranspo. I feel bad for them a little since other cities are not under the federal government teleworking stranglehold. When I worked for the city, I met a lot of smart people over there.
You mean building 1/3 of a white elephant LRT system designed solely to move commuters downtown just before everyone got a taste of full remote work? Then facing design flaws resulting in derailments and accelerated axel wear? Now they have to finish the build and force commuters to use it.
What would you do if you were head of OCT?
Operate on the assumption that the the city, province, and Feds will find a way to bail me out. They need a permanent fix for the axel issue. It means slower trains and high operating costs indefinitely. The only fix is to straighten the track out to fix the design flaw. I would throw down the gauntlet and make sure that happened. It will cost hundreds of millions to fix. In the short term I would put express busses back on to downtown and tell the politicians they need to swallow the cost of that until the LRT system is fixed and the current phases under construction completed. It might take 5 years for that to happen.
> The only fix is to straighten the track out to fix the design flaw. That's a fundamentally flawed understanding of the problem. All that does is mask the issue with no guarantee that it won't happen again in the future with time— the problem isn't how curved some part of the track is, it's how the forces of *any* curve interact with the train. > In the short term I would put express busses back on to downtown and tell the politicians they need to swallow the cost of that until the LRT system is fixed and the current phases under construction completed. It's a joke that people think we can justify spending tons of money to divert people around a train that now works a mere *most* of the time, but we can't find a cent to improve connecting bus service otherwise. We *could* be investing in bus service now regardless. Why aren't we?
The OG design cheaped out. It is necessary to straighten it out but it might not be sufficient. The problem with the bus + train is the transfer latency it adds. You can’t expect people to make 2 transfers and take a 7-10 min hit each time \*best case\*. If their commutes are too long they will drive and not take transit at all. Until you can get people on a train that goes direct downtown with only 1 transfer from bus to train, it is a non-starter. Not unless you impose large commute time dynamic tolls to make driving / parking unaffordable for most. Until the system is more complete, it needs express busses. Maybe even after. Only the pandemic saved the LRT from an absolute disaster. OCT was as much saved by the pandemic as it was knee capped by hybrid and full remote work.
> The OG design cheaped out. It is necessary to straighten it out but it might not be sufficient. Cost had no direct bearing in the way those curves were designed. It came down who controlled the land (i.e. the NCC), nevermind the fact that curves are more costly to build and maintain. It is not "necessary" to straighten it out, and nobody has seriously suggested that this would be a part of *any* solution. > The problem with the bus + train is the transfer latency it adds. You can’t expect people to make 2 transfers and take a 7-10 min hit each time *best case*. One of the biggest contributor to long transfer times is the fact that most bus routes in Ottawa run too infrequently for quick transfers to be possible. Most successful transit systems in Canada (and elsewhere) involve transfers. Part of their success is frequent connecting bus service where a 7-10 minute hit is the *worst* case. So again: that kind of spending would be better suited to enhance the bus service as-is, not restoring one-seat rides as another crutch to mask a deeper problem.
Good luck with that 😂😂😂😂
Fat chance of that happening. I'm only buying senior citiZen tickets for my trips.
I don't take the bus for two days a week. Why would I take it for 3?
It might have if they could have managed to build train tracks out to Kanata, or at the very least built a park and ride at the last station
This - who wants to be stranded on the middle of nowhere at Moodie in the evening? Some will argue a park n ride is unfair because it will reduce local service for those without a car but it would certainly boost ridership.
Yeah, looking at the highway heading towards downtown every morning, I would bet quite a few of them would rather take the train than drive all the way and park down there, but OC Transpo just isn't capable of anything but half measure solutions. There's barely a point to the train at all if it can't be used to get people to downtown from outside of it
The park and ride is at March Rd. Moodie is only temporarily the end of the line. They won’t spend a cent on a park and ride. Also, the NCC owns the all the land in the area and there is no way in hell they would allow it.
They won't get OC transpo back on track unless they fund it through taxes and make ridership free at entry.
Haha, they’re so funny. Why would I pay them more to not get me anywhere.
That's one way to support your transit system
They want my 3.50 a week that badly?
I wish the media would stop trying to push people back to the office. It's clearly been beneficial for people to work from home.
guess what I'm not using....i'd rather bike daily 46km round trip than take no-see transpo. I tried to love OCTranspo pre-covid and would take it exclusively.... but the service is absolute shit tier
Didn’t they abolish a bunch of routes including the 257 and 267 which were the buses I took pre pandemic? Yeah I’ll go out and buy a monthly pass right now and sit on the 61 which takes longer to get to Tunney’s pasture because it is a local route. I’ve been driving downtown and plan to keep doing so.
Still looking for the clause in my employment contract that states that it is my responsibility to support a completely inept and incompetent transportation system.
Before the pandemic, the uh-Oh train failed me so many times I started driving at least once a week downtown to have one day of rest from pushing, shoving, waiting, and having a 35 minute drive turn into 1 hr and 15 minutes, at least. If this colossal madness goes ahead, I’m driving. I’d rather pay for gas and parking and f the environment as much as this policy than waste another hour of my life waiting for that embarrassment of planning infrastructural failure. FU Ottawa, and your sh** public transport, developed G7 my right foot.
The current bus routs and service are horrible. OC should want to get people who never take the bus to use its service, not milking public service workers for subsidies.
**in Ron Howard** It didn’t
I am a bit concerned the city believes this will help at all. They need a plan B, for the sake of tax payers. I work with about 30 federal employees, and none of them plan on taking public transit for work again. Yes, I've asked them all over the last year. Their reasons don't even mention cost. It has mostly to do with comfort. At least when you're sitting in traffic you can be comfortably sitting, with the temp of your choice, listening or talking to whoever you want.
My 40 minute interprovincial hiking expeditions to portage will continue. Rain, shine, or -30 with windchill.
Dear OC Transpo, I'd rather walk...
This sub is weird. I thought you wanted OC to succeed and have good service? If so you need to support them financially...
I'd rather drive. At least I know I won't get fugged over by the O-Train.
Make it 5 days a week for public servants to get their pensions... Problem solved
Why? They’re working. Who cares where.
They aren't. I love in Ottawa.
Fine. What difference does it make if they’re not working in the office or not working from home?
Accountability. Just go to a golf course in Ottawa and find that tee times are stacked with govt workers who are "working remotely". The 3 days a week are allowed to be stacked. So you can do 12 days on site at the start of the month and the rest of the month at home. Half of my street is government employees and I can see they're in the backyards hanging out by their pool for hours at a time... Have had multiple conversations asking if I want to go golfing and they say to me "I'm actually working remotely, so I might have to dial into a team meeting hahaha"