The City of Ottawa will go to the polls to elect its next mayor on October 25, 2010. Nine candidates have come forward so far (Cesar Bello, Alex Cullen, Mike Maguire, Stanley Pioro, Sean Ryan, Jane Scharf, Charlie Taylor, Jim Watson, Samuel Wright, with current mayor Larry O'Brien non-committal), but it looks like a two-horse race between Alex Cullen and Jim Watson so far.
Given the C.V.'s of these two candidates, one must expect public transit would figure high on the list of election issues this year: Cullen is currently chair of the city's Transit Committee, while Watson (who in January resigned his position as provincial minister of municipal affairs and housing) has been openly uncertain, if not flat-out critical, of the city's current light-rail transit plan.
There's still plenty of time left in the campaign, but little has been said so far about OC Transpo and public transit in general in the city. I'm looking forward to hearing the plans of, and hopefully talking to, the city's mayoral candidates.
Took a walk around the current construction of the Southwest Transitway Extension, which includes a tunnel underneath Strandherd Avenue heading into the Barrhaven Marketplace. I've updated a few photos on the Transit Ottawa Flickr account; the one above is looking northwest towards the Strandherd Park'n'Ride.
A look the other way around, to the southeast, where there will (eventually) be a new transit hub at the southern endpoint of the Transitway.
I'll try and post some more photos of other parts of the project in the coming week.
Calling out the stops along OC Transpo bus routes has been a hot topic in Ottawa recently, made hotter by the $12,500 fine the city was assessed for failing to do so, as directed by the Canadian Transportation Authority (CTA). The city has voted to have automated stop-calling technology installed on its fleet, but that process will take some time; in the meantime, operators are expected to call out the stops themselves.
With 60-foot buses and sometimes dozens of riders to worry about, calling out stops isn't always at the front of operators' minds, but one driver in particular has found an ingenious way to get stops called automatically--apparently, there's an app for that.
A Centretown News reporter riding the 9 Hurdman noticed a robotic female voice calling out stops. When asked for a demonstration, the male driver pressed a button on his iPhone. The mechanical voice said “Vanier and Coventry.”
What a simple, effective solution to a problem that the city's spent almost two and a half years trying to solve--the CTA handed down their decision in November 2007, informing the City of Ottawa that not having 100% of stops called out posed an undue obstacle to the visually impaired, and that they would have to ensure that stops were called out. In the last few months, council finally decided on a $12M bus retrofit program to have stop-calling technology, among other upgrades installed on the fleet.
Having an iPhone call out stops may not have been a long-term solution for the issue at hand. But at least it was a solution.
UPDATE: JCL commented on this post offering some videos of another clever device one operator used to have stops called out on his or her bus: an mp3 player with the station names loaded in. Below is a video with a few stops being called out.
Mayor Larry O'Brien has recently called for OC Transpo management to be handed over to an independent transit commission rather than answer directly to city council, CTV.ca is reporting.
On Rogers 22's Talk Ottawa program on Monday night, O'Brien cited declining customer service ratings and the politicization and micro-management of OC Transpo as problems he's come to understand, and he believes an independent commission would help address them. He pointed to the recommendations of his 2007 Task Force on Transportation and also of a report by consulting firm Oliver Wyman in June 2008, both suggesting the city would benefit from establishing an independent commission.
Although O'Brien has yet to publicly say whether or not he's going to be running for re-election, a transit commission may figure to be a key issue in the upcoming municipal elections. Mayoral candidate Alex Cullen, currently Bay Ward Councillor and chair of the transit committee, challenged O'Brien's contention that the current management structure breeds politicization of the issues, and also questioned the accountability of an independent commission.
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.
The Canadian Transportation Agency fined the City of Ottawa $12,500 today for failing to call out stops along bus routes. The fine stems from a decision made back in 2007, where it was found that OC Transpo's failure to announce stop names posed an undue obstacle to the visually impaired, and is the second fine that has been levied on the city since said decision. In July of last year, Ottawa was fined $5,000 for failure to call out stops.
The city had made steps toward retrofitting their bus fleet with SmartBus technology, which would have met the requirements (and offered further technical benefits, including real-time location tracking) for $12M, but that was kiboshed by council when peculiarities in the bidding process raised the prospect of a lawsuit from opposing bidders. Since that October 2009 decision was made by council, nothing further has been done to address the problem. Although the deal was cancelled initially, council ultimately voted in favour of the SmartBus enhancements in order to avoid lawsuits.
Realistically, this situation can not continue. Obviously, it's not desirable to continue being fined by the CTA, particularly given the fact that the fines are increasing. There's also the ethical fact that this failure is posing an undue obstacle to those with visual impairments. The city needs to get serious about one (or both) of two things: Either get serious about installing some automatic system to have stops called out [Ed: or get serious about getting it done quickly], whether that's covered under SmartBus technology or something else; or get serious about ensuring operators are consistently calling out stops. Until one of those is implemented, we're going to continue hearing about this--and continue paying for it.
Users of OC Transpo are now dealing with the most recent fare hike for the service, an average increase of 7.5 per cent for cash, tickets, and passes. It's the second fare hike since July 1, 2009, which city councillors say is a move towards recovering 50 per cent of transit costs from users to balance out the other half from taxpayers.
Councillor Alex Cullen, chair of city council’s transit committee, said by phone Monday that the fee hike moves the transit system toward a city council goal of having it funding half by property taxes, half by rider fares.
He said the taxpayers’ share is necessary because even people who don’t use public transit benefit from it, citing less road congestion and pollution as examples. Cullen also said investing in transit is much less expensive than the alternative — more roads and road maintenance for more cars.
Not to say that the OC Transpo fare hike isn't significant for users of our local service, it's nothing like the 25 per cent fare increase for NJ Transit; a hike that's coupled with service cuts, to boot. Executives with NJ Transit said the hikes and cuts were necessary due to the "hard economic times" lowering state and federal transit subsidies.
The 25-percent proposed increase would be the highest in the 30-year history of NJ Transit, the nation’s third largest public transit system. Other increases over the years, including the last one in 2007, have been in the 10 percent range.
"We recognize that any increase is a burden for our customers, particularly during a recession," [NJ Transit executive director Jim] Weinstein said. "However, we have worked to keep local bus fares below the regional average and preserved some important discounts for seniors and people with disabilities, as well as for students and others who are among the most transit dependent."
He said that with a reduced state subsidy of $33 million, the loss of $150 million in one-time federal stimulus money, a 4-percent decrease in ridership due to the economic downturn and contract obligations, there was no choice but to raise fares.
So... not many are happy about the 7.5 per cent OC Transpo fare hike, but at least we can be happy we're not dealing with the 25 per cent fare hike down in New Jersey.
Those of you who've read the first issue of the Journal of Public Transit in Ottawa [.pdf] probably got a look at the Martin Prosperity Institute's white paper, "Making high-speed rail work for Ottawa". In it, authors Ian Swain, Patrick Adler, and Kevin Stolarick examined the potential benefits of regional high-speed rail line through Ottawa, and what the city would be well-served doing to maximize its efficiency.
This should not be considered a blanket endorsement of high-speed rail or current proposals to build it. As outlined in the white paper, such projects must be built wisely, in the right places, with the right accompanying factors such as robust transit access and strategically sited stations. But to reject high-speed rail out of hand based on conventional cost-benefit variables ignores both the long-term shifts the economy is undergoing and the broader transformative effects of high-speed rail.
Ottawa and the region does offer a strong case for high-speed rail. A line from Quebec City through Montreal into Ottawa, and then onward to Toronto and Windsor, offers strong benefits to industrial, commercial, and governmental concerns, and would most certainly benefit the city and the region--if, as stipulated, it's implemented properly.
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.
Very neat infographic on Good.is last week, comparing the United States' largest transit systems by the numbers in a head-to-head format. I can only find two of the four 2008 statistics to measure OC Transpo against these systems: Average speed, which was 16.47 mph (or 26.5 km/h), which would rank fifth of the six; and average daily ridership, which was 257,260 riders/day, lower than all the five but in a significantly smaller city (numbers from OC Transpo's 2008 annual report).
Of the US systems, particularly noteworthy was the stats on BART, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system, which had the lowest daily ridership of the four, but averaged a higher speed and higher miles per trip than any other.
I mostly just wanted to post the link to the infographic, and express my desire to see something similar comparing Canada's transit systems--do any readers have the time, resources, and technical abilities to do one up? That would be amazing.
