Barks and bikes on the LRT? Colour me skeptical
Paws and pedals on our new light-rail trains — are we on track for trouble?
The city’s transit commission this week recommended that bicycles and pets in reasonably sized containers should be permitted on our spiffy new train system, even during rush hours.
I’m skeptical about the plan, for one main reason. We’re spending $2 billion (and counting) on a rail system that is supposed to be smoother, cleaner, more comfortable and reliable, more spacious and more accommodating than what we have today.
In other words, the whole transit experience should be better. For the money we’re spending and the ripping up of the city we’ve endured, this thing damn well better work, part of which means getting ridership way up, lest we’re running ghost trains.
Thousands of you know better than me about taking the bus at rush hour. Oh, it’s a million laughs, especially in winter when nothing ’s on time. The windows are fogged up or covered in crud, commuters are standing shoulder to shoulder, swaying around like colliding bears, and somewhere else is where everyone wants to be.
(Not part of the earbud generation, I’m always startled by the number of passengers who are just sullenly zoned out on their digital devices, as though trying to be insulated from the human race. But we shan’t digress.)
All of which is to say, when LRT launches sometime after Nov. 2, the goal, surely, is to make it better than a bus full of sour-faced sardines.
I’m not sure how introducing bicycles and pets — when the train is already full — is going to enhance travel and keep riders coming back.
By the way, what’s a bicycle? Can you bring on the tandem two-seaters? How about those European-style cargo bikes, the kind that can haul a load of bricks? Can you bring the bike with the kid trailer behind? Electric bikes? Tricycles? Fat bikes? Bikes dripping grease and slush from the great outdoors? Can you bring a dog in a carrier on a bike?
Now throw in rush hour and winter and more than one bike and people in a January mood and Rover going No. 1. Oh, the gladness in the choo-choo aisles!
There’s much to admire about Coun. Jeff Leiper but this statement about transit riders sure stopped me cold: “I have absolute confidence that the residents of Ottawa will figure out how to get on and off the train in a way that minimizes those potential risks.”
There are days when you feel as though you’ve lived too long. I have absolute confidence there’s a jackass or two on every bus or train. Has history not taught us the transit system is the place where people get swarmed, robbed, stabbed, spat upon, punched or verbally abused? Now, throw in a bunch of bikes?
The proposal by transit staff is the prudent one. Let the system get up and running, introduce bikes in non-peak hours and evaluate as you go along.
As for pets, I suppose a small furry animal in a hard plastic carrier is pretty harmless, though allergies could be an issue. And the idea of fitting on one’s lap will be open to interpretation when a St. Bernard shows up in an old stove box, or is banned and claims size discrimination.
Having owned a dog for 13 years, I will venture this: Some people really don’t like them, don’t want to be around them and certainly don’t want to sit beside them. And, news flash, they can bark and growl and make major wee-wee.
Further, does Ottawa Public Health know something we don’t? “OPH requests that a procedure be set up to ensure all bite/scratching incidents that could potentially occur on the transit system be reported to the city,” the report to the commission says, going on to mention rabies-control protocol.
The issue of service dogs is also alive. Such dogs are now permitted on buses, but as I discovered in a column some months back, the definition of service dog is pretty loosey-goosey. Anyone can order a service animal vest and ID card off the internet, no questions asked.
To make it official, get a letter from a nurse, a doctor or even a chiropractor that says: “Buddy here needs a service animal.” Presto, the parrot is on the Confederation Line.
Four furry legs, two greasy wheels, 600 pairs of feet, one train. All aboard? Not sure about this puppy.