Saturday, September 25, 2010

Haydon drops the gloves

Before spending Millions of your dollars on a needless venture I would like to provide Mr. Watson with the opportunity of defending his position on this very important, and expensive venture.

I am willing to make myself available, any time, any place of Mr. Watson's choosing.
That's what mayoral candidate Andy Haydon challenged Jim Watson with in a blog post lat last week. Haydon, as has been much publicized, is very much in favour of bus rapid transit (BRT), and very much against light-rail transit (LRT), while Watson, after initially expressing skepticism about Ottawa's LRT plan, has recently come out in favour of it. Not sure if Watson will take Haydon up on his challenge, but tomorrow's environmental debate of mayoral candidates (which TransitOttawa.ca is co-sponsoring, and takes place at 6:30 at St. Paul's University's Laframboise Dining Hall at 233 Mann) offers them a perfect opportunity.

3 comments:

gordon said...

One of the goals of Ottawa's LRT plan is to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads, which are already approaching capacity during rushhour. A transit plan that involves putting more buses on the road is simply not viable.

RealGrouchy said...

No matter how talented its operator, a bus can only hold so many passengers. That limits the amount of economy of scale you can get as ridership grows.

In other words, as we take in more money in fares from more people riding the bus, we have to spend just as much to pay operators to carry them.

It's little wonder that Andy Haydon has labour's support, since his BRT plan would require a lot more operators than any LRT plan.

- RG>

Anonymous said...

RE gordon said...
One of the goals of Ottawa's LRT plan is to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads.......

With all due respect, isn't this a bit of a 'red haring' ? BRT will NOT be 'on the roads', but on the dedicated transit way, just like any proposed Tram/LRT system.

GRP