City rejects "misleading" critical bus ads

The Ottawa Taxpayer Advocacy Group, a coalition of citizens concerned with transit workers' pay, have been blocked by Ottawa city staff from buying ads that are critical of them on OC Transpo buses.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the group's initial draft for the e-mail was amended based on the city's criticisms, but was still rejected. The most recent proposal would have displayed the following text:

OC Transpo average wage (salary, wage, overtime, employer benefits, contributions & allowances): up 80 per cent in six years to $74,748. Fed up with rising taxes and bus fares? Join us...

The debate harkens back to some recent advertising controversies, including the Atheist Bus Campaign and Virgin Radio spots, but is markedly different based on the fact that it's directly critical of the city service it's running on, rather than simply controversial based on morals or values.

With regards to the proposed advertisement, the City had opposed the 'average wage' terminology, suggesting that it misleads those who view the advertisements into thinking that was the base salary, while it covers a bit more, according to City Treasurer Marian Simulik (quoted in the above-linked article):

"The figures represent total employer costs, including salaries as well as benefits, pension contributions, shift premium payments, post-employer benefits and other allowances."

The OTAG has taken their case to court, citing concerns that the City is attempting to "conceal the truth" by blocking their advertisements. Whenever a resolution comes, it should be interesting to see.

Public initiatives: Preserve route 245

A group of Manotick-area residents are rallying to preserve service of route 245, a rural express route which serves the area, from being cut by Ottawa city council. From the Ottawa Citizen:

During budget deliberations late last month, Rideau-Goulbourn Councillor Glenn Brooks moved that the No. 245 be cancelled because it delivers only four rides a day. Cutting it would reduce the rural transit budget by $27,700. At the time, OC Transpo officials confirmed that the route was little used.

The movement is similar to one which grew out of 2008's budget deliberations, "Keep the 23", where Chapel Hill South residents rallied to save route 23 from being cut. They were ultimately successful.

Andrew Geraghty, who's behind the campaign, started a Facebook group called "My Ottawa includes all of Ward 21 Rideau Goulbourn", and started a petition to gain the attention of city council. His work has gotten the issue onto the March 1, 2010 meeting of the city's transit committee. It remains to be seen whether or not they will successfully preserve the route.

Grassroots campaign pops up in opposition to age limits for student bus passes

Five days ago, Carleton student Will Samuel was "cursing and swearing" at OC Transpo's policy that prohibits students over 27 years old from acquiring student bus passes. And he wasn't going to let Ottawa's public transit provider get away with it without a fight.

Indeed, the 32-year-old Samuel created a Facebook group five days ago that protests the decision. It took just a matter of hours to attract hundreds of followers and has since surpassed 1,000 members. The group is something of a focal point for like-minded students from various Ottawa campuses.

The policy passed city council as part of a much larger motion during budget deliberations last December, but it has just now mobilized a growing number of students.

Ottawa's Metro has taken the lead on mainstream coverage, running two stories in the past four days. The paper quotes student union presidents at Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. They both oppose the policy and have promised to mobilize their student bodies.

Carleton University Students' Association Erik Halliwell is the only student leader so far to get in touch with Samuel, but others -- including Student Federation of the University of Ottawa vice-president university affairs Ted Horton -- are members of the group.

Samuel told TransitOttawa.ca that he was shocked by the waves made by his initiative, which he expected to top out at about 100. But he had words of warning for council.

"The city is grossly underestimating the ability of students to band together," he said.

The city's pedestrian and transit advisory committee will speak about the issue at its meeting this Thursday. The citizen-led body could pass a motion advising council to repeal the policy, though councillors are in no way bound to honour it.

Committee vice-chair Shawn Menard, who is currently the president of the Centretown Citizens' Community Association, is also a past-president of CUSA. He didn't express an opinion about the discussion in the story, but he did acknowledge the opposition.

"It is becoming an issue, and legitimately so," he said.

Samuel hopes that the discussion at the advisory committee sticks to the age-limit discussion. He is worried that it could be at least partially swallowed up by the debate about a Universal Bus Pass for students, another transit issue that many students have pushed quite strongly over the last couple of years.

Public Initiatives: GoBiking.ca

Attention cyclists in the Ottawa area, whether experienced or beginners: Ignore GoBiking.ca, an Ottawa-based cycling hub, at your own expense.

The website, managed by Michael McGoldrick, includes a huge number of links to local cycling resources, as well as a discussion forum and a few great rides folks in the Ottawa area can take--through Ottawa's east end, all the way out to Manotick, or for the more adventurous, even right out to Kingston.

Cycling is just another form of transit, and Ottawa's got some great paths which anyone can take advantage of.

EDIT: McGlodrick got back to me with a few notes on his website, and about his feelings about the state of cycling in Ottawa:

The basic goal of the web site is simply to get more people out on their bikes, whether it be for sport, recreation or transportation. It attempts to provide a context in which people can maximize the use of their bicycles and discover the pleasures and benefits of cycling. It is one thing to take a leisurely ride around the neighbourhood or to pedal few kilometres on the local bicycle path, but going out on a bike ride for a couple of hours usually takes a destination and a little planning. That’s where the articles and photos about what people can expect with various paths and routes comes in very handy.

It is worth pointing out that a 20 kilometre ride will seem like a lot for someone who is just starting off. However, most people quickly get used to riding such a distance, and before long they will be covering 30 kilometers, 40 kilometres, and so on. Once people are comfortable cycling 40 to 50 kilometres without giving it a second thought, it becomes a simple matter for them to start using their bikes to commute to work or to take vacations. (Organized bicycle tours for all ages is one of the faster growing segments of today’s travel industry.)

As for my opinion about cycling in Ottawa - it's true that the region is a great place for biking, mainly because of the excellent network of pathways that have been put in place by the NCC. To a limited extend, these are supplemented by multi-use paths established by the city. As a result, Ottawa likes to bill itself as "one of the best cities in North America for cycling". But I think it is living on its laurels .

For the most part, the City of Ottawa still treats cycling as a recreational activity. For example, the city makes almost no accommodations for people looking for a safe and convenient route for cycling into the downtown core. To see what's
possible, one only needs to look at what Montreal has done with its wide, well though out, and well signed bicycle lanes for moving a large number of cyclists through its downtown area. In Ottawa key bicycle paths remain snow covered
throughout the winter. Both Montreal and Toronto are committed to keep their main bicycle paths open during the winter. At one point in Montreal motorists started complaining that downtown bicycle lanes were being cleared faster than the roads. Needless to say, there are more examples of how Ottawa is quickly falling behind in sustaining itself as "one of the best cities in North America for cycling".

Watch out octranspo.com, octranspo.net is watching your back

Just a note to readers who take the bus:

Craig Davey over at octranspo.net has updated bus schedules on his site. For those of you who haven't seen his site, it's a very useful tool that catalogues every schedule at every Transitway station and every street-side stop in the city.

So if you want to know when your bus of choice will pull in to any Transitway station or bus stop near or far, check it out. Craig has deliberately made the site very easy to use.

Public initiative: Petition to end strike

Some Ottawans have chosen to humour all of us transit users during this transit strike, and others have used their resources to take a more traditional approach to influencing debate. And it has worked.

Ecology Ottawa launched an online petition on Monday that, without taking sides in the debate, urges both sides to return seriously to the bargaining table.

Steering committee member Mike Buckthought told TransitOttawa.ca that in just the last few days, the petition has garnered over 2,700 signatures--mostly online, as paper petitions haven't been circulated very much. The group plans to present the petition to the City on Jan. 28.

Buckthought appeared on CBC Radio and the free daily Metro also covered the petition yesterday.

Public initiatives: Is the Bus Strike Over Yet?

Glorious. Is the Bus Strike Over Yet?, an Ottawa-based website, does a terrific job of succinctly summing up the frustration the public has with the current OC Transpo strike, now through its 42nd day.

Most people, it seems, are becoming so frustrated with the politicking and posturing from both sides that they wake up every day with only one question: Is the bus strike over yet? The website answers that question, in simplest terms.

ADDENDUM: After speaking with Matt Davidson, founder of Is the Bus Strike Over Yet?, he gave me the following information about his intentions with the website, and what he hopes it may do for his fellow transit users:

"Believe it or not I have been thinking of launching this since the strike started but hadn't gotten around to it yet. I am a web developer in Ottawa and used to rely on public transit to get to work. This website actually represents a growing trend in the web industry of simple websites that have a one word message (see http://isobamapresident.com/). I found the concept humorous and was inspired what most people seem to care about when it comes to this transit strike (will they be able to take the bus tomorrow or not).

"To most of us it doesn't really matter why the ATU is on strike, and many are mis-informed as to why. I figured this was the perfect summarization of the strike up to now.

"Needless to say I have no goals for this website other than to create a chuckle among fellow transit riders. I hope people enjoy the humor behind my message and visit back to see what it changes to when the strike is over."

I think the humour behind Mr. Davidson's undertaking is pretty evident. It's a refreshingly light-hearted expression of frustration with the two sides negotiating in this conflict.

Public Initiatives: Bail Out the Transit Utilities

Not at all an Ottawa (or even a Canada) -based Public Initiative, but the Bail Out the People Movement seems to be pretty big in the United States. The Huffington Post, the self-described "Internet Newspaper", had a column about the movement, which outlined the fact that the $7.7T USD bailout of the US financial sector would translate into roughly $55,000 per US citizen. As author Dale Pendell said, that amount of money would go a long way for individuals:

Some will save the money, which will solve the bank liquidity crisis. Some, of course will spend it or lose it at the racetrack. Either way, that's a great boon to business. But most will produce and invest, in themselves and in their friends. Companies will form, with the resources pooled into partnerships.

There's another way to use that money to "bail out the people", though, and that's by investing it into the public transit utilities which desperately need money -- like New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), whose recent budget includes rises in fares, layoffs uf staff, and significant service cuts. Worker's World, an independent news source dedicated to workers and oppressed peoples, suggested that the banks (including specifically American International Group [AIG]) which have benefitted from the federal bailout pass their good fortune onto transit utilities such as the MTA by offering debt relief:

Holding signs reading, “The banks should bail out the MTA,” members of the Bail Out the People Movement and transit workers held a press conference on Nov. 20 outside a public hearing where the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced the cuts. The Straphangers Campaign carried giant petitions signed by subway riders. One protester disrupted the hearing.

The media are attempting to address this public outrage by claiming that the hikes and cuts are necessary–that the financial crisis has drastically reduced the revenues
state and city governments get from corporate taxes. But the MTA’s officially stated deficit has nothing to do with state and city budgets. The MTA really owes all that money to the banks—most of it for interest payments.

Somehow I doubt many banks will run with this idea, but it sure sounds like it's got some merit.

Public initiatives: OC Transpo Network

Craig Davey, local software designer and transit enthusiast, recenty launched the OC Transpo Network (http://octranspo.net) as an alternative to the transit utility's official website. Dissatisfied with the customer service provided at the official website, Davey created the OC Transpo Network with an intuitive, browser-friendly presentation and a very simple-to-use search function: Either enter your stop number or a street name, and all connections pop up with their destinations and upcoming scheduled arrivals.

Here's what Davey had to say about what got him started on his project, and what he hopes people can get out of it:

"I created the OC Transpo Network because I was frustrated by all of the other timetable services I could find. I wanted bus stop pages that I could bookmark and I wanted timetables that were optimized for now. None of the official sites or unoffical hacks cut it so I crafted my own.

"I’m hoping that people find the site useful and convenient. I’m also hoping that a little bit of competition might push OC Transpo to improve their existing web services. In my opinion “customer service starts with http://” and the customer service at OCTranspo.com sucks.

"It’s a shame because I find the rest of their services are pretty good but the impression you get from their website is that they haven’t got a clue."

If you haven't visited the website yet, do it: http://octranspo.net. It's really, really impressive, and it's an easy website that's not bogged down by unnecessary content: It's a travel-planning utility that is not just easy but also pleasant to use. The feature of 'Bookmarking your bus stop' is also very useful, as you can quickly access your most commonly-used bus stops for quick schedule-checking.

EDIT: Unfortunately, Mr. Davey told me that there programming difficulties that come with using his service in Internet Explorer, so anyone using that browser is automatically re-routed to the official site. If you're using or have access to another browser, such as Firefox or Safari, you should be fine with accessing--and enjoying--OCTranspo.net.

Public initiatives: Keep The 23

In response to budgetary recommendations for OC Transpo route cuts, a group of interested individuals started up a website campaign to preserve the service of bus route #23.

The group, calling themselves Keep The 23 (www.keepthe23.ca), have launched an official website and are asking any sympathetic fellow riders to get involved by offering feedback to the city and/or distributing mini-flyers (which are available for download on the website) door-to-door in the neighbourhood.

Route 23 is an express-fare route that serves the communities of Chapel Hill South in the east end of Ottawa, bringing commuters directly through the downtown core. It is unknown whether or not the city would compensate for a cut of the 23 by re-directing another route through the area.

To get involved, visit the group's website to sign up for distributing flyers or offer encouragement, or offer your feedback directly to the city. For a map of Route 23, click here.