The little things: Simple ways to make Ottawa better

Well, it’s been a while, and for that, I apologize. For whatever reason, I just haven’t been getting around to blogging over the past few months, but I’ve decided to make a return to form and start posting content again.

For today, I thought I’d get away from the big issues, quite literally, and look at a couple of little details that could make Ottawa a better place. For starters, there’s this post on the OC Transpo Livejournal community, which talks about how the City is potentially not scheduling its hybrid buses effectively. As the poster notes, there are more than enough buses to cover the downtown and core routes where they’d be most efficient, yet it seems they are not always being used on those runs. To me, it seems like it would be a relatively simple task to prioritize hybrids for those runs, so why isn’t OC Transpo doing so? I certainly don’t have the answer, but it would be nice to know their justification.

My second item for today is an even smaller one, but it could be seen as emblematic of a larger issue. I was crossing Elgin Street recently at Slater, and as I dashed across the last section to beat the sudden onset of the flashing hand, I began to wonder why all the crossings on Elgin from Laurier to the north are so poorly timed for pedestrians? Granted, that part of Elgin is one of the few places in the City with good pedestrian islands, but the crossings are done so that when the “Don’t walk” begins to flash, even a quick walker only has enough time to reach the island before the light changes.

The problem here is that, generally speaking, you should have enough time to fully cross the street when the signal begins to flash. Instead, if you begin crossing at that point on Elgin, you’ll find yourself stuck in the middle of traffic, forcing you to wait for at least one full traffic cycle to finish crossing—more, if you want to cross the perpendicular street, too. I believe it’s something the City should look into changing, or that they should at least consider installing countdown signals there, so that pedestrians won’t be surprised by the quick timing of the change. It would certainly be a big help towards improving one of the most unfortunately pedestrian-unfriendly streets in downtown Ottawa.

My question to you, then, reader, is what little things do you notice that could improve day-to-day life in Ottawa? I’m sure we all encounter them, and I’d love to hear what your ideas are.

Trains to return to Ottawa’s Union Station?

Ottawa’s Union Station: it’s a majestic old building, a half-scale replica of New York City’s old Penn Station, and unfortunately underused. Since 1966, when the National Capital Commission removed rail from downtown, the building has been used as a government conference centre, rather than a hub for rail travelers. However, a recent article on CBC News reported that trains may yet return to Union Station, in the form of a station on the new light rail system—taking the place of the Rideau\Sussex station in the proposal.

Ottawa's Union Station. Image by spotmaticfanatic on Flickr.

Certainly as it stands right now, Union Station is a tragically under-appreciated piece of infrastructure. As a government conference centre, the average Ottawan has few opportunities to go inside the structure. As the main hall of a transit station, commuters would be able to use this suddenly re-opened public space on a daily basis.

But in my mind, that’s not all that could be done with the station. I don’t know the interior dimensions of the building, but I would imagine that a transit station would only take up a small portion of the available volume, and other transportation infrastructure (commuter rail, and intercity bus and rail) probably won’t be able to serve the location, meaning no space would need to be set aside for them. So with that in mind, what could be done? One of the things that Ottawa lacks is a real civic place, one to celebrate Ottawa itself. Over the years as a national capital, the federal government has eclipsed the city, and it’s only been in the last few decades that we’ve really begun to find our identity as a municipality instead of as a capital.

So why not this: in our hypothetical, future train station, you walk in the front doors to a lobby, with transit facilities to one side, and perhaps benches and chairs with the odd cafe or two along the edges of the area. Taking up the rest of the space inside could be a City of Ottawa museum, celebrating our history, from rough logging town to major Canadian metropolis. It could even include artifacts that tie in with the location, like the old streetcars OC Transpo is slowly attempting to restore. Granted, we do already have the Bytown Museum, but it could still comfortably fill a role as a museum predominantly about the canal, while the Union Station museum could be about the rest of the city.

This, of course, is just a suggestion—a museum is just one option, but the overriding point is that we may have an opportunity to create a fantastic new public space, and the standard option of renting out space for shops and restaurants would be a tragic waste. The simple return of transit, of course, would benefit the building enormously by itself, but I can’t help but feel we could do so much more. These kinds of opportunities only come along once and a while, and I think it’s important to jump on it when and if we can.

Found: Animated TTC vehicle map

This comes from out of town, but I needed to pass it along. It’s a video of the Toronto Transit Corporation’s scheduled vehicle movements throughout the day. It’s cool and rather hypnotic watching the grid burst into life in the morning, move steadily through the day and then die off into the evening. Be interesting to see what this would look like for Ottawa—certainly not as neat and orderly as Toronto’s wide grids.

(I recommend watching this one full-screen, by the way as it’s hard to make out in the normal size)

City staff releases route for Downtown Transit Tunnel

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a route.

The map I threw together if you want to see it.

And the Citizen article I used as a source.

It looks like we’ll have stations at Lebreton (aboveground), between Bay and Lyon, between O’Connor and Metcalfe, around Rideau and Sussex and at Campus. The tunnel will go under Albert until Kent, where it will turn north to Rideau\Sussex and then swing south to go underneath Nicholas to the University of Ottawa. The official release of the plans takes place tomorrow, so we should have a more official-looking map tomorrow, I hope.

A couple of things I wanted to note. First, I find it interesting that there’s no station closer to Bank Street. I was certain they’d try to put one there, given that if the City ever wants to build a north\south rapid transit line through the core someday, Bank is the most logical alignment. I guess the logic was that a station between Bank and O’Connor would be too close to the one between Bay and Lyon. Second, I wonder if the City is hoping they might be able to use the old train station again. Take a look at a detail of where the line should go, if it runs in a straight line between Rideau and Sussex and Albert and Kent:

If the city can get the federal government to sell them Union Station back, then perhaps it can be reopened to trains; albeit a very different kind from what once went through there. That appears to be all that’s out there for now, but I’ll try to find more official-looking documentation tomorrow.

(Full disclosure: I am going to be starting a summer position with OC Transpo on Monday.)

*shakes head*

I try to be an advocate for this city as much as possible, but it’s difficult, sometimes.

City revises bus rider incentives (after canceling them altogether, at one point)

Council meeting spirals out of control

As far as the bus incentives are concered, their decision is basically the worst of both worlds. Discounted bus fars won’t be anywhere near as effective at luring people back onto buses, but at the same time the transit budget will still be way out of balance. On top of that, I’m that transit riders are probably going to end up confused by all the changes and back and forth.

On a positive note, at least the Lower Duck Island bridge proposal seems to have been quashed, and hopefully for good. Of course, the fact that they’ve left it open to reconsideration means that it will probably be put back on the table and then dropped again at least two or three more times.

In short, it’s a wonder that this Council gets anything done sometimes. Reading the Citizen’s coverage of the meeting makes it sound as if it routinely dissolved into petty squabling and sniping across the room. And you know what, guys? That isn’t the way to run a city. City Council should be all about working together, and finding solutions that work for everyone (or at least as many people as possible). It’s time for City Councilors to start taking a holistic view, and working out what’s best for the city as a whole, not just for the constituents of their ward. I realize that it’s a political balancing act, but something obviously needs to be done, as I think it’s fairly self-evident that the confidence most Ottawans have in their city’s government is starting to slip.

Clive Doucet calls out Mayor on transit strike

I may not agree with everything Clive Doucet says or does, but I’m entirely in agreement with him on the issue of the strike, and I’ll always respect his willingness to speak out. In an article in the Citizen, Doucet is quoted saying that “[City Council] screwed up. We need to get going with Plan B. Plan A is not working.”

He also notes that he feels Larry O’Brien deceived City Council into thinking that scheduling was not as big an issue to union members as it is in reality.

This may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, if other Councillors follow Doucet’s lead. If that should happen, we’re likely to see the city come back to the negotiating table with a lot more flexibility on the scheduling issue, which might be the fastest way to end this strike. At this point, we can only hope.

The Ottawa Project in Spacing

If anyone’s curious, I’ve been published on Spacing’s blog today. I wrote an overview of the strike, and what’s been happening in the city so far. It’s probably nothing new to most of you, but I’ve always enjoyed Spacing, so I recommend heading over and taking a look around if you’re at all interested in urban issues.

City gearing up for public consultation on transit tunnel

In some positive transit-related news, the website for Ottawa’s new transit tunnel has launched under the cutely acronymed name of Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT for short). The Citizen also has a short write-up, including a map of one of the proposed routes here.

I like the looks of the route posted in the map, which goes more or less straight across from LeBreton Flats station to Kent Street underneath Albert Street. From there, it angles north somewhat to hit Union Station and archs around to Nicholas Street before rejoining the existing Transitway right-of-way between Desmaris Hall and Taberet Hall at the University of Ottawa. The prospect of having rail transit again running through Union Station is certainly an exciting one. It could easily be connected to OC Transpo and STO bus routes running along Rideau\Wellington, and would make for a great hub for the new system.

As an aside, I’ll try to write about some non-transit related issues sometime soon, but as it’s been dominating the news lately it’s been hard to avoid focusing on transit issues.

Transit privatization

I’ve seen some talk around the Internet regarding privatizing OC Transpo, with the thinking being that it would be better able to handle the current dispute. That may very well be so, but overall, privatizing transit in Ottawa would likely be a disastrous move.

For starters, any private company has one basic, overarching goal: to turn a profit. And OC Transpo is anything but profitable. One of the current goals of the City is to recover 50% of OC Tranpo’s operating costs from the farebox. Naturally, that means that the other 50% must come from two sources; advertising and the City budget. I don’t know exactly how much revenue comes from advertising, but I can promise you that it isn’t enough to make up the difference.

So if you’re a company that’s purchased OC Transpo, what do you see? Massive losses, and the need to cut expenses and raise profits. So how do you do that? Well first, you’d probably raise fares, because $3 per ride is practically letting people on for free. Next, you’d probably want to maximize your profit per bus (consquently cutting expenses, as well), so you’d probably cut back on trip frequencies so that buses are full more of the time. It’s at this point that you’d also begin to eliminate non-profitable routes, so say goodbye to local buses during non-peak hours and buses running with any kind of reliable frequency during the evening. You’d probably cap it all off by liquidating your assets, selling off dozens of now-uneeded buses in the fleet.

In short, we’d end up with higher fares and reduced service, overall. Take a look at almost any example of privatized bus transit in the UK, and you’ll see a similar patterm emerge. Intraurban bus transit simply is not a good business proposition, as buses have a high overhead operating cost and a very slim profit margin. Private bus transit simply will not work in Ottawa, and a solution needs to be found within the confines of the system, instead.

EDIT: I just wanted to add in a quick link to Transit Ottawa’s look at media coverage of the strike. As a journalist, it’s pretty interesting to see how the coverage has changed and evolved over the short period that the strike has lasted so far, as well as the contrast between the Sun’s somewhat sensationalist coverage and the Citizen’s more measured coverage.

OC Transpo Strike, Day 1

A lone commuter waits for a bus that isn't coming at Bank station.

Since midnight last night, OC Transpo has been on strike. This combined with a heavy snowstorm and a half-closed Chaudière Bridge led to a pretty terrible combination for Ottawa today. I was in Centretown between about 2:30 and 3:30, and I didn’t notice any excessive chaos, though I did find traffic was noticeably heavier than normal. I don’t really have much else to say about the whole thing at the moment, but here are a few more pictures I took, after the jump.