OC Transpo has plenty to fix on the LRT file
There is no doubt that the city has badly fumbled the launch of its $2.1-billion light-rail system. The question now is what are councillors going to do about it?
In the first six weeks of the bright new age of public transit, which LRT was supposed to bring, performance has been markedly worse than what even longtime OC Transpo skeptics would have expected. OK, the mechanical problems with the doors are not the transit agency’s fault, but what about the failure to allow enough time for people to get on and off the train before the doors close? People weren’t grabbing doors for the fun of it. There must be industry standards for this kind of thing.
Even more surprising was the failure to anticipate the human gridlock that train and bus delays have created at the undersized stations at Tunney’s Pasture and Blair. Surely OC Transpo thinkers couldn’t have thought that opening the LRT would magically make the buses themselves reliable and yet the system is designed to fail if they are not.
A shiny new train service intended to attract people to public transit is instead doing everything it can to repel them. Who can forget the pictures of passengers climbing over fences to escape the clutches of OC Transpo?
Throughout all of this, Transpo’s communications have been too slow, too vague, too defensive. Again, not a surprise from a city agency whose indifference to bus-riding plebes would be the envy of the snootiest head waiter.
Throughout all of this, Mayor Jim Watson has alternated between perky and perturbed, while the city’s transit commission has not given the impression that it has its hands on the wheel.
Its most vocal member is Sarah Wright-Gilbert, an appointed citizen commissioner who this week tweeted, “I am not going to be a cheerleader for a system that clearly has serious reliability issues and a complete lack of transparency and communication.”
It could be worse. The entire train system did not spontaneously combust.
What’s the fix? Coun. Allan Hubley, the transit commission chair, has some ideas about that. The commission’s job is to set performance standards for OC Transpo and make sure they are met. That has been forgotten in the last few years as Transpo managers stopped reporting on most performance metrics, using the blanket excuse of delays caused by Stage 1 LRT construction. Detailed new reporting on Transpo’s performance will be in place early in the new year, Hubley said in an interview.
That’s an important first step toward long-absent performance transparency and accountability to the public, but it won’t fix performance problems in itself. Part of the solution there is more money and more buses, Hubley said. He’s hoping to see that when the city’s draft budget is released next week. Again, money won’t help without a solid plan to improve bus routes.
Some physical modifications have been made to ease the congestion at Tunney’s, Hubley said, and more are coming for Blair. The city also is hiring an experienced communications person who will be dedicated to informing the public about transit issues.
These are all good things, but they won’t solve a fundamental problem built into the plan for a short, first-phase LRT line. People note that commute times have lengthened and transit isn’t always taking them as close to their ultimate destination as it used to. That’s bad, but not unexpected. Transferring to the train is a built-in delay that will be partly alleviated when Stage 2 LRT is complete, but a system that connects buses to trains will never be as customer friendly as a bus that took people directly downtown. That’s a thing of the past, unfortunately, but it was inevitable. The city had reached bus capacity in the core. That’s why LRT is necessary.
Despite a horrendous first impression, LRT is still the right thing to do. OC Transpo’s challenge is to make it work.
Randall Denley is an Ottawa political commentator and author. Learn about his new book, Spiked, at randalldenley.com. Contact him at randalldenley1@gmail.com