Good evening, Kitchissippi. I’m writing tonight on vacation and from the road – Motor City, Detroit MI – and will keep this brief. Over the past few days, I’ve learned with the rest of residents that OC Transpo intends to drastically reduce the frequency of LRT outside of certain peak periods. I’ve posted the most recent memo we’ve received here.
There is no sugar-coating that our transit service faces a major funding gap. I am on a working group that is exploring various options for closing that gap that was outlined in a memo maybe a week ago. We’re looking at things like fare hikes, parking fees, tax increases, the sale of development rights and more to fund transit to the degree to which it needs to be funded. A major part of the City’s work has to be to secure greater and ongoing funding from other levels of government. But as I read about these LRT frequency reductions and exchange briefly with colleagues about them, I am increasingly convinced that they are wrong-headed and contrary to the direction in which we need to take transit in order to make it sustainable.
I’ll say it again: Kitchissippi won’t work without great transit. Our Official Plan doesn’t work without great transit. Transit has to be a first choice for residents if we’re going to achieve our goal of an affordable and sustainable city. The LRT has to be our centrepiece in that effort.
I use transit for about a quarter of my trips. One of the best parts of my travel is LRT frequency during the week. I think nothing of waiting a couple of minutes for a train, or hopping off and on it. But when frequency moves to 10 minutes, transit can become a chore. A few weekends ago I combined short bike rides at either end of my train trip to get to a specialty store on Main, then into the Market for some more shopping. During that trip, I just missed the LRT at Lees that would have taken me to Rideau, and waited 10 minutes. When I left Rideau after some shopping, I just missed the train and waited 10 minutes. Waiting for the train took longer than riding it to run a couple of errands.
When that’s the experience of transit, I’m much less likely to take it. I’ll cycle or scoot instead. Many will drive.
We are still evidently thinking about capacity within a paradigm of getting office workers downtown. But that’s short-sighted as the key to growing transit usage is reliability and convenience.
Here in Detroit, Natalie and I have used the new(ish) QLine a couple of times to get from midtown to downtown and stops between. It’s a free service, but it only runs every 15 minutes, and twice when we’ve gone to use it it’s been disrupted by traffic. We’ve chosen to Uber and drive to a few destinations instead. The big picture message that residents who don’t want to parse out the details of each announcement are hearing about our LRT as a result of these service cuts is that LRT is similarly inconvenient, slow, and doesn’t work – and that they should drive.
What ails transit is going to take some strong medicine to cure. But we have to be careful not to poison the patient. I believe at least some of my colleagues will be joining me in pushing back at this when next Council meets, and I’m looking forward to undertaking that in earnest when I’m back in Ottawa mid-month. Everyone understands that impacts to service will be part of the mix and councillors by and large supported the recent route review to restore reliability and a measure of affordability to our bus network. Reducing LRT frequency when that is one of its most compelling attributes, though, seems comparatively to be neither worth the pain nor in the direction of reliable, convenient transit that we know we need to achieve.