Why a single bus on route 7 during rush hour?

[u/Lower_Signature_3895]

They are always singles and we are packed like sardines on the bus

[u/JonathanWisconsin]

Elections (advance voting) this week. This is Sutcliffes transit. Vote wisely. 

[u/Cre_AK47 → u/JonathanWisconsin]

And just a reminder, there is only ONE mayoral candidate that has promised to reverse the New Few Ways to Bus cuts.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Cre_AK47]

Is there any who has offered specific ideas about improving bus service in central areas?

[u/Cre_AK47 → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

Officially Leiper has only promised to reverse the cuts, however, Leiper has been taking transit for many decades now and knows about other cuts that have deprived the core of good transit service especially seen in 2011. While no guarantee, if someone is going to further improve transit, it's going to be Leiper

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Cre_AK47]

But again, simply "reversing the cuts" does nothing to improve the running condition of buses on streets in the urban core.

We were completely boned in the latest iteration of the transit plan, and Leiper, like the rest of the central ward councillors, hasn't been stellar on the file.

[u/Cre_AK47 → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

You'd need to define running condition - missed buses/no shows, or the fact that the average age of the fleet is now 12 years old?

Councillors can vote against awful proposals, but Mark has already developed an inner-circle like Watson and will have NPC councillor that will blindly vote along his wishes to cut cut cut and to shoot down any investments from others to actually improve transit.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Cre_AK47]

The ambient conditions in which they move : the volume and flow of traffic and their interaction with it.

There is absolute shit for bus priority anywhere on the major downtown routes. If anything, we are making it worse for some stupid reason.

And yes, Sutcliffe is garbage on transit. Sadly, Leiper has had years to prove himself and hasn't. And he is offering nothing that I have seen to address the structural problems working against better bus service in the core. The transit plan is shit for us, but our councillors all went along with it.

[u/Gloomheart → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

But Jeff didn't. This isnt a jury where one dissident needs to come around and vote yes with everyone else. He has consistently voted against the cuts to transit, and it eas done anyway. Hes one guy - and being "one guy" only works in dictatorships.

Additionally, within the linked article, he does speak about his transit plan. It includes adding and maintaining more busses in the fleet, as well as pushing the Baseline corridor transit plans for BRT. He wants dedicated bus lanes back. More peak routes.

Its not just reversing the New Ways to Bus.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Gloomheart]

Baseline isn't in the city centre.

[u/Gloomheart → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

You think if people from further south in the city had better options for getting across it, that wouldn't benefit the core usage greatly?

[u/Cre_AK47]

Bus drivers can correct me if I'm wrong but Since DD's have been decommissioned, they've been throwing 60 footers where a DD used to operate and now overall lots of routes that should be getting 60 footers are only getting 40 footers because now there's this void of routes that need high capacity buses while there's not many high capacity buses to go around.

[u/KnifePartyError → u/Cre_AK47]

DDs and 60s have been interchangeable (except for a few routes that are incompatible with them such as the 45) for a very, very long time.

Also saying, this isn't necessarily because we retired all the DDs and now 60s are replacing them.

The bigger issue is that we are also retiring 60s en masse without 1:1 60-ft replacement. We're getting loads of 40s, but very few 60s. We're basically cutting our capacity in half.

The best we can hope for is to pressure council into buying more 60s on top of the ~50 bus batch we have on order, but they haven't been very responsive to said pressure so far.

[u/Pika3323 → u/KnifePartyError]

The best we can hope for is to pressure council into buying more 60s on top of the ~50 bus batch we have on order, but they haven't been very responsive to said pressure so far.

I don't think that's "the best" we can hope for.. it's the status quo!

We could also be pressuring council into expanding the fleet in general and increasing service levels to address the gap in capacity while also providing a substantial improvement to the quality and reliability of service on those routes.

Bonus: OC Transpo could also be forced to properly allocate its 60-footers where they're actually needed.

[u/KnifePartyError → u/Pika3323]

Of course, we should always be pressuring council for more, but right now we're in damage control mode and need to focus on first making the (scheduled) service we do have reliable.

As for your "bonus", there is actively work going on to do so. Progress will be slow on that front due to the amount of interlining within our paddles, but they (management and ATU 279) are working on it.

[u/Pika3323 → u/KnifePartyError]

I don't think we should be locking in long term fleet makeup as a damage control measure, and I don't think it should need to wait until service is "reliable" to push for improvements to service levels (because it is one of many ways to make service more "reliable").

Progress will be slow on that front due to the amount of interlining within our paddles, but they (management and ATU 279) are working on it.

That's great! I hope it will cut the number of articulated buses that the fleet needs so that those resources can be used to buy even more non-articulated buses.

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/Cre_AK47]

I think there is a few double deckers left but basically the entire fleet of them has been wiped out

[u/KnifePartyError → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

Correct. Last I heard, we have either 8 or 9.

[u/nganmatthias → u/KnifePartyError]

10, but only 5 will be in service at any time.

[u/KnifePartyError → u/nganmatthias]

Originally, yes, the plan was to have 10, but then an additional one was retired (I wanna say due to a fire?), so at most we have 9.

The wiki is out of date atm.

[u/bluenoser613 → u/KnifePartyError]

That's 8 or 9 too many. They were trash.

[u/KnifePartyError → u/bluenoser613]

100% agreed lmfao. Usually I'd mourn the loss of buses given the thinness of our fleet, but good fuckin riddance.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/bluenoser613]

I like them

[u/Pure_Ad_957 → u/Cre_AK47]

There are still some DDs in use. I don't think the are entirely decommissioned

[u/BatFuture1948]

What is happening at OC Transpo is our high capacity buses are quite old. Many D60LFR are being retired monthly.

Yes we are receiver new XD60s but only 52 of them. And most of the new buses will be 40ft electric buses.

This will be a daily occurrence in many routes.

[u/Pseudonym_613]

Because it serves passengers inside the greenbelt.

[u/PatrickOttawa]

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/PatrickOttawa]

Disgusting we really need more longer buses.

[u/Pika3323 → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

We need more frequent service more than anything, which can be done with any kind of bus.

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/Pika3323]

Yes but buses are still crowded so imagine making the buses hold less people now?

[u/Pika3323 → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

But imagine making the bus run twice as often so the crowd is split across twice as many buses..?

We're talking about routes that run every 15 minutes here!

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/Pika3323]

15 minutes isn’t “rapid” transit. Rapid transit at the bare minimum should be 10 minutes.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

Also, "15 minute buses" are only that in theory. In practice they bunch uo with service gaps, and we are too cheap and wimpy as a society to do anything to give buses more priority where they need it most.

[u/Pika3323 → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

Right! So why do we need articulated buses for non-rapid transit service?

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/Pika3323]

Because that’s the fastest transit we have.

[u/Pika3323 → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

And you won't think we should try and make it a little more "rapid"..?

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/Pika3323]

Yeah it’s called no voting for mark shitcliffe

[u/FrancoSvenska → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

Should be 7-10mins (5-7mins during peak times on major routes). Like the many trams and buses in places like München, Stockholm, Oslo, Vienna and Bern — to name a few.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Pika3323]

They can't be done with non existent drivers.

[u/Pika3323 → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

Just like our non-existent buses!

Obviously the point is to get more drivers to use more buses. But if I must spell it out to you and everyone else every single time, I will.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Pika3323]

I'd like to have more frequency AND capacity, and it's telling that we only give ourselves permission to imagine one of them.

[u/Pika3323 → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

I think that's only because you don't seem to consider frequency to mean more capacity?

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Pika3323]

Individual buses need more capacity, even if they are running notionally more frequently, in an of itself, but also because we refuse to do anything to allow short buses to run with regulatory. We need the flex space. Short buses are themselves a contributor to bad schedule adherence and brigading.

[u/Ok_Finding_5758 → u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

Well it’s the company’s fault for laying off so many people when they opened line 1.

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle → u/Ok_Finding_5758]

It's a department of the city government.

[u/CainOfElahan]

Solidarity. Standing on an 85 that's standing room only and drove past two bus stops ATM. [One of the new buses.]

[u/Lower_Signature_3895 → u/CainOfElahan]

So annoying ! Ugh

[u/LordOnionRingle]

I got this one covered. The other buses are stuck in traffic, they cant all be 60' buses, interlining, new driver, running late from another run, bus broke down. They would run 60s and accommodate everyone if they could.

[u/Wildydude12 → u/LordOnionRingle]

They have been actively replacing 60s with 40s for years now. If I had to guess I would assume it is LRT related, but the stock is shifting shorter on average.

[u/RedWizard78]

Because OC Transpo.

[u/Technical-Music5015]

They don’t have enough busses it’s going to get worse as half the fleet is 40
Foot electric busses eventually..

[u/WoozleVonWuzzle]

You're not a commuter from the far suburbs. Complaint denied!

[u/bluenoser613]

LPT that single bus will also not show up.

If you want to get somewhere reliably, don't use OCT.
If you want to get somewhere quickly, don't use OCT.
If you want to get somewhere comfortably, don't use OCT.