KANATA - Don’t expect more buses travelling from Kanata
to downtown Ottawa
anytime soon, said Pat Scrimgeour, manager of transit services for O.C.
Transpo.
The downtown core is already at full capacity during morning
and afternoon rush hours, with roughly 180 buses per hour carrying 12,500 people
passing through the city centre.
O.C. Transpo must look for creative ways to handle the
increasing demand for service in Kanata,
said Scrimgeour.
“We don’t have more space downtown,” said Scrimgeour. “All
we can do is realocate.”
Until the first stage of the light rail project is complete
in 2019, the city only has two options, said Scrimgeour: put bigger buses on
the road – either double deckers or articulated buses – or shuffle routes in Kanata.
“Every couple of years we need to consolidate routes,” he
said. “We can’t be creating new routes like we did. We have to create other
craftier ways to get people downtown.”
Currently, about one third of all buses going downtown are
articulated – by 2018 all of them will be, said Scrimgeour.
Both of Kanata’s
councillors oppose the suggested transit budget cuts.
“I am not voting to cancel any routes,” said Kanata North
Coun. Marianne Wilkinson. “To take that money out without doing any expansions
at all is backwards.”
Kanata South
Coun. Peggy Feltmate said ridership in the west end is rapidly
rising.
“Kanata
has an eight per cent increase in ridership (in 2009) and a 33 per cent
increase in 96 use, so obviously there’s a need for more service,” she said.
Scrimgeour was on hand for a meeting of the Briarbrook Morgan’s
Grant Community Association at the Old Town Hall on March Road on Jan. 20,
discussing plans for improved transit service in northern Kanata.
The city can’t increase the number of bus runs through
Morgan’s Grant and Briarbrook – such as Rt. 160, which travels down March Road
to the Eagleson park-and-ride – without reducing service somewhere else,” said
Scrimgeour.
“The only way we will be able to make extra trips for the
160 is to take them off some other route in the west end of Ottawa,” he said.
BUDGET
Transit has emerged as a hot-button issue during this year’
budget talks, with the City of Ottawa looking to combine express routes 63 and
64 in Kanata South, as they attempt to trim $3 million from O.C. Transpo’s
budget.
Combining the routes will result in five fewer express buses
running in the morning and three less in the afternoon. Direct service to
downtown Ottawa
would be removed from stops on Hazeldean
Road (Irwin Gate and Castlefrank Road) and Katimavik Road (Terry Fox Drive and
Castlefrank).
Meanwhile, the bus company wants to raise fares by 7.5 per
cent this year.
City council is now debating a suggested 3.9 per cent tax
hike, and there is little appetite for a further increase, say west-end
councillors.
DOUBLE DECKERS
The city hopes to complete construction of an east-west
light rail line from Blair to Tunney’s Pasture stations by 2019.
“If we don’t do this we can’t carry any extra people,”
Scrimgeour said.
In the meantime, the bus company is considering purchasing
double decker buses as early as 2012, large two-storey buses that can carry
more passengers.
“The trade off for that is the stairs, and they have only
one door, so they’re slow to load,” said Scrimgeour.
But once the first stage of the light rail project is
finished, the double deckers could travel from the west-end and finish at
Tunney’s Pasture, using it as a transfer point.
“So we might want the double deckers after the light rail
line opens,” Scrimgeour said.
“We just don’t know yet.”
But the buses aren’t suited for everyone, said a man at the
community association meeting on Jan. 20.
“For a tall guy like me, it’s a pain in the a**,” he said.
“I hit my head.”
Another person at the meeting said they refuse to take the Rt.
162, which passes by her house in Briar Ridge.
“The reason I don’t like it (is) getting off on Eagleson you
don’t have a seat,” she said.
CUTS
O.C. Transpo usually sees a three per cent jump in transit
use in Ottawa
every year, except for 2009, which showed no increase, following a lengthy bus
strike and a year of recession.
Rising costs are forcing the bus company to reduce the
number of routes it runs this year, said Scrimgeour.
Transit costs are going up due to labour costs and a
shortfall on the pension fund, which showed a sharp drop in value when the markets
fell in 2009.
The city must either reduce service or increase funding,
said Scrimgeour.
But the demand for transit is up, he added.
For instance, ridership on Rt. 96 heading downtown is up 33
per cent from 2008.
“It’s unheard of,” Scrimgeour said.
O.C. Transpo will increase the capacity of the 96, he said.
Part of the problem with improving service in suburbs like Kanata is the cost of
infrastructure increases as you move further away from the centre of the city,
said Scrimgeour.
“I suspect we’re falling down on our obligations to your
neighbours on the east side of March and we want to do better,” he said.
blair.edwards@metroland.com