Winter strike cost OC Transpo $5.9M

According to the City of Ottawa's Auditor General Lalonde, the winter 2008-09 transit strike ended up costing the city about $5.9M in direct costs. While the city saved $21.5M in expenses over the course of the 53-day transit strike, they lost $27.4M in revenue, resulting in a net loss to the city.
According to the Ottawa Citizen:

The audit report found that wage and fuel savings were more than offset by lost pass and ticket revenue. City council gave transit riders generous deals to entice them back to transit after the 58-day stoppage of service.

But the city also had increased costs, such as $558,000 for increased snow removal, $362,000 for increased security and $400,000 to compensate colleges and universities to operate shuttle services.

The $5.9M estimate, however, doesn't likely come close to measuring the cost incurred by average citizens and businesses whose income was negatively impacted by the 58 days of no service.

For more reading:

• Ottawa Citizen (further coverage)
• Ottawa Sun
• Metro Ottawa
• Ottawa Business Journal
• 580 CFRA

Two minutes late is right on time

Earlier this week, the Ottawa Citizen published an article about OC Transpo's new efforts to get buses arriving at their stops with more reliability. The story was deceptively headlined "Too punctual, OC Transpo drivers told to show up late", although punctuality wasn't the issue; the crux of the policies, according to OC Transpo General Manager Alain Mercier, is that it's better for a bus to be a couple of minutes late than a couple of minutes early. As Mercier said, from that Citizen article:

“We’re in a major campaign to break the psychology of trying to be always on the zero mark because it’s impossible to be on the zero mark all the time.

“We’d rather them run two minutes late.”

From a rider's perspective, it's definitely better for the bus to be late--at least if it's not too late--than early. There's nothing more frustrating than arriving at your bus stop right on time (or even a minute or two early) only to find that you've missed your route because it was by early. Public transit is one of the few services where being early isn't a good thing, and it's better to be (slightly) late if you can't be on time.

A new organizational structure for OC Transpo

In the Ottawa Citizen this past weekend, columnist Randall Denley penned an opinion piece opining the politicians responsible for managing our city's transit authority. In short:

"In the perfect world, the bus company called OC Transpo would be run by a board of directors consisting of people who know something about transit and something about business. Instead, we have city councillors whose business experience is negligible to non-existent and who think their job is to be hands-on managers of the bus company, even though they're not qualified for the job."

Denley went on to describe why, exactly, he feels that "These people simply can't run a bus company": Councillors aren't qualified transit planners; they fail to see the big picture, because they have short mandates; they base decisions on political considerations, such as the routes that run in their wards, rather than efficiency and economy; they sometimes (perhaps often) disregard the input of their staff. Although not all councillors are guilty of these weaknesses, some can be, and that inhibits the decisions made for OC Transpo.

Denley's recommendation is certainly interesting, and timely, but he's not the first to make the suggestion. In Moving Ottawa: The Mayor's Task Force on Transportation, which was commissioned by Larry O'Brien after the cancellation of the city's north-south light rail project and delivered on June 1, 2007, one of the chief recommendations of the task force was "to set up an arm’s-length operating company, in most cases reporting to an independent board of directors appointed by the City Council." The argument presented is convincing:

"Public transportation in cities is one of the major challenges of urban life and as such deserves a dedicated entity within the City government—as opposed to a division of a City department that is dependent on many other departments to achieve performance. OC Transpo is currently a department of City government reporting to Council via the City Manager. This arrangement is not optimal. OC Transpo staff and management complain that bureaucratic obstacles, caused by the fragmentation of management and operational functions, reduce their ability to serve the interest of citizens. An independent governance model incorporating OC Transpo would help ameliorate current problems associated with cumbersome decision-making, cost control, supply of services, union relations and operational decisions relating to route planning."

Most important, however, was that the task force declared re-organizing the management structure of OC Transpo as one of the most important recommendations, suggesting it be complete within 6-12 months. Although that may have been an ambitious timeline, it has been over two years and four months since the report was delivered, and there has been no indication of political will or urgency to institute what the mayor's task force--which Mayor O'Brien has been vocally proud of--recommended with such urgency.

On this website, I've asked before whether or not city council is micro-managing public transit in the city. It looks like some, at least Denley and the Mayor's task force, are concluding that it is, and that something has to be done to get public transit run more efficiently and effectively in Ottawa.

Toronto looking to raise fares, too

Similar to OC Transpo's proposed fare hikes for the upcoming year, the Toronto Transit Commission is looking at raising fares across the board for Toronto transit users, according to the Globe and Mail.

The specifics of Toronto's fare hike will come later (Ottawa's is an average of 7.5 percent), but a couple of numbers mentioned are $126 for a regular adult monthly pass (compared to the proposed $91.50 for OC Transpo) and $3 for a cash fare (compared to the $3.25 cash fare for OC Transpo). If someone's willing to pre-purchase tickets in Ottawa, it would cost $2.50, meaning that OC Transpo compares favourably in both regards to the TTC (although comparing the service provided for either utilities might be a different story).

Council to vote on proposed fare hike

According to a report in the Ottawa Sun, OC Transpo management is recommending a series of fare hikes in order to try and balance the amount the transit utility collects from fares with the amount it receives from the city's tax base. According to the report, the average fare hike will be 7.5 percent, but isn't evenly distributed across the different fare and pass types, with the percentage raise in brackets (numbers from the Sun):

• Regular Adult Pass: $91.50 (8.0%)
• Express Adult Pass: $114.00 (7.5%)
• Rural Adult Pass: $141.75 (7.6%)
• Regular Student Pass: $73.25 (12.3%)
• Express Student Pass: $85.50 (11.8%)
• Regular Student Semester Pass: $250.00 (3.3%)
• Express Student Semester Pass: $290.00 (2.3%)
• Rural Student Pass: $110.75 (7.5%)
• Senior Pass: $36.00 (13.4%)
• Day Pass: $7.50 (7.1%)
• Cash Adult: $3.25 (8.3%)
• Cash Express Route: $4.25 (6.3%)
• Cash Rural Express: $5.25 (5.0%)
• Cash Child (6-11 yrs.): $1.60 (6.7%)
• Ticket Adult: $2.50 (8.7%)
• Ticket Express Route: $3.75 (8.7%)
• Ticket Rural Express: $5.00 (8.7%)
• Ticket Child (6-11 yrs): $1.25 (8.7%)
• Regular Student Annual Pass: $650.00 (3.8%)
• Express Student Annual Pass: $762.00 (3.8%)
• Senior Annual Pass: $395.00 (3.7%)
• Adult Regular Annual Pass: $930.00 (3.9%)
• Adult Express Annual Pass: $1,164.00 (4.0%)
• Adult Regular Ecopass: $80.52 (8.0%)
• Adult Express Ecopass: $100.32 (7.5%)
• Rural Ecopass: $124.74 (7.6%)
• Senior Ecopass: $31.68 (13.4%)
• Community Pass: $32.00 (5.3%)
• O-Train fare: $2.75 (10.0%)

Ottawa's bus fares were comparable to other major cities in Canada recently, but these consistent hikes will certainly affect that. On July 1, 2009, most fares went up fairly significantly; this proposed fare hike for July 1, 2010 compounds that.

SmartBus a no-go with council

Even though city staff recommended Ottawa go forward with the installation of SmartBus technology on OC Transpo buses, and paying the $17M tab that goes with it, a potential lawsuit put the decision on hold--and possibly off the table.

From 580 CFRA:

A contract to install an automated next-stop announcement system on OC Transpo buses has been parked.

City Council voted 11-10 against a $17 million contact with US-based Clever Devices to install the system on all OC Transpo buses.

West Side Action takes an in-depth look at the downtown tunnel

West Side Action, a great local blog focusing on the west side of Ottawa's downtown, has been taking a very thorough examination into the impact the Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel (DOTT) will have on residents in the area bounded by downtown's western edge, Bayview, the Ottawa River, and Dow's Lake.

Rather than attempt to paraphrase Eric Darwin's terrific in-depth look--which includes everything from discussions of the effects boring tailings might have on the neighbourhood to the "hidden subsidies" to single-occupancy cars built in to Ottawa's transit tab--so take some time to look at the chapters he's published so far:

• DOTT plans affect west side residents (i): Preston St
  
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (ii): Tunnel entrance
  
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (iii): Albert Street widening planned
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (iv): closing the transitway during construction
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (v): when the transitway ends at Tunney's
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (vi): Bayview Station revised
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (vii): Bayview Rapibus Station?
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (viii): Tunney's station
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (ix): downtown west station
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (x): Campus Station
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (xi): BikeWest
• DOTT plans affect west side residents (xii): Booth Station
  

The series seems to be ongoing, and I'm not sure how long Eric will keep it going. Either way, it makes for some interesting reading while we watch the bureaucratic processes about actualizing the transit plan work their way through.

Transit plan first phase price tag climbs to $2.1B

Tentatively predicted to run the City of Ottawa $1.8B, it turns out the more realistic cost estimate for the first phase of Ottawa's ambitious transit plan is around $2.1B, according to CBC.ca:

Light rail between Blair Road and Tunney's Pasture, including a three-kilometre downtown tunnel, will cost $2.1 billion, city staff estimated Friday. That's $400 million more than their December 2008 estimate and $300 million more than the estimate in the city's recent funding request to the federal and provincial governments.

In initial discussions of potential direction for Ottawa's transit plan, the above-mentioned first phase of the was estimated to cost $1.4B. In recent weeks, reports indicated it would climb due to unforeseen design changes and land procurement costs. After a more thorough examination, which included consultations with "experienced firms involved in transportation and tunnelling projects" and a review, according to the above-linked CBC story, seems likely to be the best estimate, which City officials will present when appealing to federal and provincial governments for funding.

Although federal officials have been rather quiet in awaiting an official request with hard numbers, Ontario Municipal Affairs Minister and Ottawa West-Nepean MPP Jim Watson has for weeks been announcing his concern with the affordability of Ottawa's transit plan. This past weekend, as reported in the Ottawa Citizen, Watson re-iterated his concerns:

"I'm becoming increasingly worried about the city's capacity to bring this project to a conclusion," said Watson, the MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean. "We're very, very concerned. I have to simply question the affordability of this plan."

[...]

"They've designed the plan without an upper-limit budget. The price just keeps going up," said Watson. "We cannot simply send a blank cheque to the City of Ottawa."

Although Watson is concerned with the city's ability to pay for its third of the transit plan, the recently-unveiled $24.7B provincial deficit in Ontario, which will undoubtedly affect the province's ability to offer cash to municipalities. The deficit is the largest the province has ever carried, according to the Ottawa Citizen. The City is looking for at least one-third of the capital cost of the project from each of the provincial and federal governments, meaning $700M from each level over the course of the first phase.

Funding partners--including, albeit on a smaller scale, citizens of Ottawa--are all likely mindful of the (mostly negative) perceptions of staff and decision makers in this city, which combine to make what Steve Collins refers to as a "trust deficit" in the Ottawa Metro. That scepticism certainly shines through in Watson's comments. It remains to be seen what federal ministers, particularly Ottawa West-Nepean MP and Infrastructure Minister John Baird, have to say about the recently-announced cost increase.

City staff are convinced that Ottawa can foot their portion of the transit plan.

The cost for the full four-stage transit plan is now an estimated $6.6B, up from the initially-predicted roughly $5B price tag.

Staff recommends light-rail, council to vote Nov. 18

Looks like the staff-favoured option for Ottawa's transit plan is light rail powered by overhead electricity lines, rather than heavy rail. Council will vote on whether or not they agree with staff assessments on November 18, 2009.

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Council and its planners have for years wanted to use light-rail technology and this is to be confirmed Wednesday, a senior city official said. Light rail with overhead wires means Ottawa would not have to ensure that the whole system is grade-separated.

Therefore, future extensions of the rail corridor into outlying communities would allow the rail cars to run at road level, if necessary.

The technology choice, to be confirmed by councillors Nov. 18, sets the stage for more detailed planning and negotiations for the transit project, which sees: a downtown tunnel; the bus transitway converted to rail from Blair Station to Tunney’s Pasture; rail extended eventually to Baseline Station, as well as to the south; and expansions of the bus system in suburban areas.

The wheels are in motion, apparently.

Stop-calling gets worse as SmartBus upgrade put on hold

The compliance rate for OC Transpo drivers calling out stops on buses hit its lowest point of the year in September, dropping to 78 per cent according to OCTranspo.com. The City of Ottawa was fined $5000 in July for failing to achieve 100 per cent compliance with stop announcements, and has yet to address the problem.

Attempts to address the problem, however, have recently hit a snag. While the City decided they were willing to pay nearly $12M to Clever Devices to install SmartBus technology across the OC Transpo fleet, Bell Canada has threatened legal action stemming from the City's bidding process, according to Metro Ottawa. While the city put out a call for bids on a system to call out stops, Clever Devices' bid included a number of other technological upgrades which were not included in the "scope of request" for the bidding process.

Who knows what'll happen. Another setback for the necessary upgrade to the bus fleet, risking another fine from the Canadian Transit Authority, and--more importantly--continued accessibility barriers for transit users.