18 Apr, 2009
How many buses should it take to get downtown if you live in Westboro?
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Ottawa
The answer, apparently, is two.
I received this email from a Fishbowl reader:
“… they’re proposed scrapping the westward portion of route 16, and replacing it with a local route that goes from Brittania to Tunney’s. I am aghast and think it would be a royal pain to have to take two buses downtown – it’s all well when you are on your own and can walk it to the 2 or 85, but if you are with a couple of kids or who knows, this is not going to happen, so a 2 or 3 bus ride to town is your ride – which is quite nutty considering how close we are to downtown.
I think if more people knew about the changes, then OCTranspo would get more feedback telling them to stop that nonsense. I know lots of people from the neighbourhood read your blog, so I thought that might help – especially since I have not seen any info on this on the buses themselves.”
She’s right. Looking at the map of proposed changesit looks like Westboro peeps would have to take a bus to Westboro station and TRANSFER to another bus to get downtown. The number two bus would continue to be a nightmare, despite increased frequency. Here’s all the info on the OcTranspo site.
City of Ottawa needs to swallow some of the costs and make public transit more appealing to a wider group of users: add more buses, plan out some logical routes, and bring in cheaper fares. They need to make public transit sexy and useful, and every single thing they do runs completely in the opposite direction. I am stunned that they’ve been unable to find a solution already. Perhaps this is oversimplying, but why can’t someone just find successful model (SURELY THERE IS SOME FORWARD-THINKING CITY WHO HAS MANAGED TO MAKE IT WORK) and just copy it? It is crazymaking.
I urge you to help spread the word, and most importantly, email your comments about the proposed routes and let OCTranspo know how you feel. Deadline for comments is April 25th.
