The Story of Ottawa's Troubled Train
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- Опубликовано: 1 авг 2024
- With the O-Train back on track for a while now, this video showcases a walk we did of Line 1 back in the fall of 2021. We also provide some background on the problems the system has faced in recent times.
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#transit #ottawa #train
Transit in Ottawa is awful. Forgetting the trains, the busses sometimes just don't show up and there's no cancellation notice posted. When you're late to work for the 5th time in a month despite getting to the bus stop 10 minutes early, the average person decides they'd prefer to have a car. Combine that with some low density urban sprawl, and you have a big uphill climb to get over. It's great that progress is being made to fix it but I really don't blame people who are car-dependent there.
Transit is pretty rotten everywhere. We’re struggling with similar problems in LA to what you describe.
One of the things that’s helped us break that cycle is voting for extra funding via sales taxes and stuff. For instance, LA metro currently has crazy low fares and loads of projects in the works DESPITE declining ridership. Why?
Cause we voted for extra funding, and voted for the president who put in place the transportation secretary who approved a massive grant to LA metro.
Not saying that it’s perfect, but it’s what we’re trying to do in order to break the cycle.
OC Transpo needs new drivers but their hiring process is so stringent that barely any people end up making it through, and now with the new mandatory break policy there's a massive driver shortage leading to a crazy number of incomplete and cancelled routes.
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet Yes, in North America. But not in Europe.
I bike in Ottawa. To got to work, takes 20 minutes by car, 30 minutes by bicycle and an hour by train/bus if every goes well. Of course I average 25km/h maybe faster since I'm counting distance and time taken. I have stops and red light I got to stop at.
@@Shanker420 given the track record of some drivers... I can see why theyre stringent, the mandatory break probably might be making things worse and more stressful for the drivers, even if they're properly staffed in my opinion.
I also have a friend who was on board when when Lincoln Fields got that mishap a couple years back, been traumatized ever since.
"A government campus providing parking lots and empty grass, with a side of office space!"
I am in love with you guys!
Yeah 😂. I hate how accurate that comment is. I've seen some amazing places with great downtowns, but often govt buildings and train stations are surrounded by parking... Maybe a topic for a video 😂.
Well, anything that's a "campus" is going to be providing parking and empty grass, because it's usually on the periphery of the core and thus people are coming in from further out, that's where you want and need the parking, and because expanses of open ground are part and parcel of being a campus. Indeed, a regret of mine is when a field of unadorned grass is built on with a new building. Not least because the building will be fugly.
Unless you want to make everybody endure public transport, which is not unreasonable in the core of a busier city or even of Ottawa, why make suburbians give up their cars and pass half their lives on transit coming in from Stittsville or even Prince of Wales?
Let's note that most of central Ottawa is owned, planned by and constructed by the feds... With a complete disregard to residents.
The crazy thing to me, is that those derailments are likely triggering some politicians to say “see! Building more freeways is cheaper!”
When in reality, if you compare dollars spent per capacity then the public transit is WAY less expensive. I’m working on a video right now that specifically does that and public transit wins hands down!
Yes, a train is cheaper per ride, but the utility given to a driver using a freeway is much greater than a passenger on a train, as the driver doesn’t have to switch modes of transport to get where they’re going. Sometimes we forget how incredibly valuable having infrastructure for personal transport is.
@@EliStettner I’m not at all saying that we need to get rid of 100% of cars or anything, but we do need to get rid of this idea that it’s cheaper to build a freeway. Also, if we just admit that public transit is less expensive to build and maintain then we realize that we have loads of money left over to invest in all the support stuff that helps remove these minor issues from public transit.
In the calculations for my video I assess a small sliver in northern part of LA. It ends up costing 9.1B to build 35 miles of freeway (when you account for everyone being forced to purchase cars in order to use said freeway) vs 8.5B in order to build the same stretch of light rail.
So you’re left with half a Billion to invest in around 1000 buses so you can get a real system going rather than the halfway bus system that LA currently has.
In addition to that, the cost of using that stretch of freeway every year is equal to the cost that ALL of LA spends in order to maintain their whole light rail and bus system…but it’s only 55% of the same land area.
So yea, I’ll readily admit that there are some people who will always need the autonomy of a personal vehicle (salesmen, and plumbers come to mind as examples), but 100% of the population doesn’t fall into that category.
Edit: and there’s always the ability to layer on a robust car rental system in order to meet the occasional needs that your average citizen will encounter.
Luckily, bikes were invented.
But if you build the freeway you'll create more jobs!
Whatever you want to do will either cost too much money or not create enough jobs.
@@EliStettner In montreal the utility is greater without the car. When you have a metro that goes most places you need to go, combined with frequent bus services for the "laste mile" you can avoid climate change encouraging parking lots and expensive traffic lights, and just transit and walk everywhere!
There is ALWAYS less value in inufastructure for cars.
Loved the video. As a regular transit rider in Ottawa I finally feel like the conversation in public transit is moving away from the O trains previous failures. Now it's reorienting around how awful the bus system has gotten 😭
The bus system has always been awful, I can't even count how much times busses were extremely late, or never even shown up. Even before the O train
@@freshwater7633 these people are too incompetent to install a gps tracker so you can check up on when your bus will arrive. people like my neighbor make excuses why it can't be done.. but in reality it's extremely cheap and easy. the problem is too much red tape, too much bureaucracy and corrupt leaders trying to skim money by giving contracts to their connections.
@@chrishayes5755 I thought the buses DID have them. Otherwise how do those apps work?
@@chrishayes5755 OC Transpo buses do have GPS trackers, the issue is drivers like to turn them off when they're running late.
@@freshwater7633 at least the 95 was helpful wish they would bring it back
It bothers me how many people in this city see the problems with the train and say "see this is why we should never have built it".
Of course we should have never built it with the doofuses we have in City hall and at the head of OC Transpo. Why do you think it's a mess? The contract should have been better made and so many other things.
No it’s not that we shouldn’t have built it because IT is bad but because the city of Ottawa sucks and anyone with common sense knew we would get a more expensive less efferent transitway. It should have never been built because it was always going to be sub par with the current city hall.
Same people and mentality that gives us the current mess on Parliament Hill.
@@DNANDROID Built no doubt by Trudeaus friends at Bombardier.
I never had a problem with it being built but hiring corrupt firms to build it was where the problems started. Does SNC Lavallin ring a bell?
After staying in Copenhagen for 3 weeks, you quickly realize how behind transit systems are in Canada.
Not just Denmark, but most of Europe is super sophisticated and decades ahead of US and Canada. They don't respect people here and don't learn from the best in the world on how to improve on everything .
And then there’s America, one step below Canada.
I was in Copenhagen with my parents (the reasons why aren’t important) and loved the fact that it’s possible to take a train from the airport Io downtown Copenhagen. The train was clean and efficient!
I lived and worked in Ottawa for a few months. Seeing clips of it makes me feel a bit nostalgic, but I also can never get over how bleak Ontario can be. They love to make giant, sprawling, brutalist constructions that solve ONE problem at a time without ever planning for the future or thinking about creating nice spaces for people.
I am excited about the phase 2 expansion of the O-Train. I hope that this will encourage people to take public transit instead of driving everywhere in the Ottawa-Gatineau area! I wish the original Ottawa streetcar wasn’t ripped up.
I wonder if the system will be able to keep up or be flooded with passengers.
I to am excited for it. Especially for the Kanata line: though I don't know where the station will even be. I think someone once said that the Queensway bridge was gonna be a station, as on the side with the hotel has a built in space under the bridge. Or maybe they will connect it with the very under used Terry Fox station.
@@maydayace5651 it stops at Moodie … boooo :( phase 3 will be yearsssss away..
It totally blows my mind that they can close a metro line for several years.
as long as it keeps politicians in gravy when retired , it will be a success , no?
Thanks for doing a video about our city! As someone who lives here, I love Ottawa, but our city's management is genuinely atrocious. A ton of local routes were shut down when the LRT went live, so a bunch of folks went from bad transit to literally none. Worse, a massive number of bus drivers were laid off and then re-hired at a premium when it turned out the train wouldn't open on schedule.
Plus, the RTG proposal was accepted because of its cost despite not meeting the technical requirements. I seem to recall the other companies also failed to meet the specified requirements, but you seriously get what you pay for. This was right around the time Jim Watson started to become cagey and obstructed forward motion on other city issues, too.
I do worry a bit that expanding the LRT outwards - which already puts several stops in the middle of nowhere - is going to fuel the outward sprawl of the city instead of focusing transit needs inwards where car removal is the most needed, but I suppose we'll see.
We live in Ottawa. I bike year-round (good cycle linfra), so transit isn't an issue. Our daughters take the bus - except when we drive them because the bus has again failed to show up. The now-finished inquiry has confirmed your comments.
One thing that might not be obvious to non residents of Ottawa is the potential of the area called LeBreton Flats. This relatively large area is just west of the downtown core and on the river with a bridge across to Gatineau. Now that the train is positioned with two stations in that area it is ideal for really smart urban development...and yes hopefully the new NHL sized facility. People would be able to access this area from every direction using transit. It would be sweet to add a line across the river to link Gatineau. So much potential.
There is even the potential of 50,000 outflow from the arena within an hour. That is better than other cities provide.
It may be true that a lot of the stations aren't close to homes, but then again, a lot of them seem to have loads of empty space that'd be perfect for residential/mixed-use developments. Ottawa's future would seem bright if they plan to wisely use all that space!
The alignment is terrible. One problem is that for most of the alignment it follows an expressway that’s a barrier to cross and most of the stations are surrounded by 6 lane stroads. It is easy to access the mall from the station but you can’t walk to the mall or the station from the neighborhood surrounding. These malls are also surrounded by car centric big box stores. Most of that empty land is owned by the NCC and designated as a Greenbelt where development is prohibited. Near Hurdman the land is polluted and development is prohibited. The Greenbelt is a failure because it encouraged sprawl. Also it costs a lot of money to demolish malls to rebuild something else there.
Yeah we desperately need to rezone these areas for mixed-use development
@@maximazorreguietacerruti5856 What did they do near Hurdman in order for the land to basically become a Superfund site? (I know that term only applies to the US, but bear with me.)
The problem in Ottawa is that places like Barrhaven, Kanata, Manotic won't get proper transit system because the developers build them without thinking how the masses are going to commute to Ottawa's core. The current system of roads is inadequate for rush hours traffic, and there's no space for building LRT without destroying something in it's way. Hopefully once the LRT phase 2 is built, communities will grow around it, not the other way around.
@@sonicboy678 It’s the old Ottawa city dump. Sealed up and slowly moulding away.
The derailments also hurt other cities like mine (Hamilton) with LRT projects in the works, but without a current rail system. Once you have a working system, people will fight for more since it is legitimately great, but for cities like Hamilton without an LRT it is hard to get the first one built, and with Ottawa giving a bad example it gave ammunition to the anti-transit people.
Couldn’t agree more. People love to fight something that doesn’t exist yet, but once they actually try it out they often go, “yea it’s not bad i guess”.
Getting that first route built is such a huge hurdle.
Similarly, the total bungling of Honolulu’s light metro gives ammunition to anti transit people to oppose any similar, SkyTrain style system. That technology would be such an outstanding choice for connecting all the Manhattan-bound lines of Bronx-Queens-Brooklyn.
@@Zzrdemon6633 thankfully the LRT will be around for 100 more years than construction took, and the city likely for at least a thousand more, so 2 years of construction is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme. Imagine if Toronto hadn't built it's subways systems because of "inconvenience" lmao
@@Zzrdemon6633 okay 😐
I was going to school in Ottawa when only the Trillium line existed and it was widely hailed as the "Train from nowhere, to nowhere." Glad to see there's been so much expansion since.
I actually found that rail line more useful than the Transitway, given that it only had 5 stops from South Keys to Bayview. Made getting to the downtown transit corridor easy from the south end, instead of going serpentine through the south end to Hurdman Station.
I took that train to Carleton University. Most users were students.
its so great to see urbanist content about where i live, this channel is the best
i will never forget the first week of the LRT opened, lines around the block, trains constantly delayed, replacement buses full and chaotic..... i would get halfway to class just to give up and turn around again.
The same thing happened in Vancouver, the very first day Skytrain opened, stalls that happen even to this day at a rate that continues to be similar to what Ottawa likes to criticize .. But the mantra in Vancouver, which functionally is the same as Ottawa's system is BUILD MORE SKYTRAIN. Skytrain's responses have gotten better, and with their network size, pocket track infrastructure locations and attendants, effects became minimized.
Great for you to reference Reece here. Also, I think this video has more jokes per minute than any others you have ever made 😁
We had some fun with this one!
It had time to mature.
I hope its troubles are behind it! The thought of being able to catch transit to downtown that runs every five minutes is so alluring... this will definitely affect where people choose to live/develop housing too, and with any luck the city will be smart enough to encourage that.
I currently live down a train line from where I work and it’s awesome! Currently only taking the train into work once a week, but I’m saving up to buy an Ebike so that I can make it a daily thing.
Also, once you get people doing their commute via transit they now have this monthly pass in their pocket. So they start using public transit even more simply because it “doesn’t cost them anything” at that point.
I take the metro daily and I have to say, it's a heck lot more reliable now.
I'm so glad to see some urban design videos dedicated to Ottawa. You guys are great :)
As much as I like cycling along the canal downtown, I will forever begrudge the removal of tracks from the downtown core. It would have been such a great transportation hub in retrospect if the LRT connected with a central station situated downtown. We'll have to take what we can get I guess.
I like trains too, but look at those old photos. Downtown Ottawa with the tracks, even if you leave decent buildings like the Shaw Centre in place where once ugly industry stood, was pretty ugly. Col. By Drive and the canalside green space is much nicer. Too small and cramped to have a downtown station AND an attractive urban space in the same real estate. It'd be like having Union Station located at Yonge and Dundas.
@@randomobserver8168 I get what you're saying, but I'm not of a mind that old pictures of the old rail yards are somehow set in stone and that improvements could not have been made over time. Things just would have evolved differently, in ways that we'll never really know. Looking at train videos from the netherlands, there are lots of ways to make the rain infrastructure less intrusive. They probably could have built some cut and cover tunnels to bury the lines for a portion of the downtown core. Not really feasible anymore however.
I also feel that the alignment of line 1 is unfortunate. It doesn’t really go through any neighborhoods and follows an expressway that is hard to cross. It also goes to some empty lands at Pimisi, Cyrville and future Montreal Rd station. It seems that it only connects malls to eachother.
Part of that is building in residential areas. It's not easy. Just look at how much work they have to do at iris while setting up the next line. The next few extensions do plan to help that tho, extending to baseline and place dorleans gives alot more access to suburbs
@@Bigjar420 Why not just build the train under a main road? They do this in every other city. Also Place Dorleans is beside the Queensway and not walkable to Orleans neighborhoods.
Such a good video! I'm biased though 😊
Most people are. Most of everyone does not want to recognize their own biases though, especially professionals that also have biases yet want to believe the biases are impartial.
I was so frustrated with Ottawa and it's crappy infrastructure coupled with insane house prices that I moved to Montreal. Really sad to see what's been happening to my hometown...
ottawa is a terrible city compared to mtl
Meh... you'll be back
When the technical evaluation team hired by the City confirmed this vendor did not meet the minimum score and recommended they are disqualified, why did Mayor Watson ignore their advice and allow them to move forward in the selection process? What is the point of having a technical team of experts if management are not going to listen to them?
$$$
Corruption.
I am guessing we will need a January 6 style committee to review this. If this is true then shame on mayor Watson. I would still like to get 100% proof before jumping to conclusions.
Because he is corrupt and incompetent
I love the conversationesque style of your videos, jumping back and forth between both speakers keeps the content really engaging! Thanks for the great vids!
I really wish that Edmonton would have turned the tracks CN just gave the city into something like this, instead of tearing them up and putting up bike paths. Sure, bike paths are nice, but an LRT with the tracks already built? That would be a steal.
I’m similarly conflicted. I love the rails to trails projects because they give us beautiful multi use paths, but I’d also love to just have a train or light rail instead!
@@SaveMoneySavethePlanet Indianapolis threw away its best rights of way for transit for trails. The Monon Trail and future Nickel Plate Trail are good trails in a vacuum but leave such a bad taste in my mouth due to the squandered transit potential, especially as our metro area sees BILLIONS of $ in highway projects commence.
Montreal went even more stupid. Ripped up the old train tracks in east end residential area decades ago to put little used bike paths and now want to put electric train on monstrous 2-3 story high cement pylons that will run 23hrs a day. Needless to say, poor residents aren't happy. Especially when it would run parralel to existing Metro lone less than 1km away.
Very interesting video on a troubled but promising system. And such soothing voices too!
Managing fares is expensive too.
Having ticket shops control points and staff is really intensive and takes lot of effort this would mostly not be needed when trains are free at the point of access to service.
That usually accounts for about 10% of system costs.
I remember visiting Ottawa in 2021 and seeing the O-Train! Was told by a friend that it was convenient but a bit of a joke. Would love to check it out the next time I'm in town!
I grew up in Ottawa left when I was 19 and only returned for short visits since 1993. I enjoyed seeing this.
Just an FYI Rideau is pronounced similar to the French way ree-doh by locals, and also by the in-train stop announcements. Hearing it pronouncing is rih-doh, was very strange and odd to me. Reminded me of when we had that convoy come in with all the out of towners 😬
Anyways great content as usual!
Out of towners - very politely said ;)
thanks i was curious about that, i seemed odd to me but i thought maybe my French had skewed me the wrong way.
just went to relisten, even weirder as they pronounce Rideau Canal properly @7:41
Thanks for more well-researched, quality content! I feel like this would do well on r/ottawa
An impressive synopsis of how we feel about the LRT in Ottawa. The other side of it at the moment is that the construction for the rest of it has ruined a broad range of paths to the east and west. Years of this has worn thin. Great job to all who worked on the video.
You two are my spirit mammals. I smile when I hear you. I think of future and not death. Also you guys are so hilarious and cu next tuesdays to Nimblies. Love it
Born and raised in Ottawa but I’ve been living overseas for 6 years - love videos like these 🥺🇨🇦
Thank you!
the dry canadian humour of this channel is absolutely top notch
This video convinced me to subscribe. Thanks for the great summary of the O-Train!
i take it all the time and have never seen issues! i love it and think it’s great.
Great tour! I enjoyed that a lot. Thank you.
Just found your channel recently, it's nice to see local content! Thank you!
What a fresh video i have long not been this fast.
The expansions connecting the east and west ends will be a great game changer and hopefully help curb the rush hour traffic on the queensway.
I remember one day I went to St Laurent via this path way on my bike and found out the hard way that the elevators were not big enough at this station to put my bike into. I ended up walking my bike up the stairs so I could safely lock it up and do my shopping. Other than that it was a pleasant bike ride from Sandy Hill cause of all the MUP connections. Now if I need to get to that mall I now take the walking bridge over the highway then take the bike lane on Convertry to get there, only gripe is that bike parking is lacking on the parking lot side of the mall.
So taking either way is a bit a inconvenience and shows the disconnect between active and public transit that gets over looked a lot in Ottawa.
Mind you going from Sandy Hill to Tunney's is by far a more pleasant experience due to the easy access to the MUP along the canal and Ottawa river.
That seems like a pretty big oversight! Public transit definitely always needs to be built with the idea in mind that people may show up with non-car means of transportation. Otherwise, we’ll never be able to rid ourselves of our car dependency!
I've always loved the Otrain
When I was in highschool I'd buy a day pass on Sundays which turned into a family pass. My sisters and I would go to the mall to grab snacks and then go on the original train line going back and forth until we got bored and went back home.
With the new line it is so much easier to just take it two stops from viarial to my moms house whereas before it was so annoying I would often contemplate paying for an uber.
Winnipeg built a rapid transit corridor, most people that have used it LOVE it. I appreciate the multi use pathway that follows next to it as well
While I love having multi use pathways along transit lines, I really do think most of them need to be perpendicular.
Afterall, when you think about it, I need a safe way to get to the station on my bike and it’s more likely that I live away from the station rather than just further down the line.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand that governments likely do this because that’s land that they already own…but still…
Rumour is the LeBreton Flats is being considered again for relocating the Senators' arena... although this has happened before...
Thank you for making this video. I didn't know about the history of rail around the canal, and I really appreciate the work you put into these.
It won’t happen until the Senators have a new owner.
I like that it was to be called Kettleman's Basilica. Where the masses gather to worship the bagel.
I just realized I wish more YT videos had two narrators
Excellent presentation. love it
Thank you!
I'm hoping the REM people in Montreal are taking notes so we can avoid those problems here. Especially since everyone on the south shore between longeuil and candiac are now forced into taking this train across the Champlain bridge.
Very different system. The REM is an actual proper light metro instead of a weird stadtbahn style system that uses inappropriate vehicles (all low floor street tram vehicles) on a grade separated route where high floor would have been much less harder on the trackage.
I hope the Eglinton Crosstown team is taking notes.
@@esecours Unlike Ottawa, Toronto has fairly extensive experience with light rail and streetcars.
The O'train turned my wifes 45 min commute into 1 hour and 15 min commute - so an extra 1 hour per day travelling to work and back each day - plus it was more expensive. She used to be dropped off right at her works door step, now she has to walk 5 city blocks there and back. Ok during the summer but terrible during the winter.
Buy a car
@@DoubletroublePaintball We own 2 vehicles. She works from home now.
Ottawa... I used to live there though unlike most of my friends, I moved there from somewhere with sensible transit. It's left such an impact on me that nearly two decades later, I still rant about how bad the experience was.
At first I was excited because I was told it was a world class public transportation network, and they just opened their first train line. I tried public transportation for a while, then I gave up on it in favor of walking because some of the time it was only a couple minutes different and I could leave when I wanted instead of on their schedule. Winter wasn't going to change my mind as I continued virtually unimpeded while transit goers faced many delays. It wasn't even a short walk, and I wasn't in a strange suburban fringe. I was spending nearly an hour each way going across the middle of the city.
The time that it was on paper worth it, I happened to be going between two spots on a route that was supposed to run every 6 or 8 minutes at peak times. After work, we frequently had a group of us that just sort of all hung out at the bus stop for an hour, hour and a half or so, that was supposed to be there every couple minutes.
Then there was my hurdman station experience. It was the transit way hub at the time, a constant stream of busses coming and going. What could go wrong? Surely going between transitway station couldn't go wrong. It felt very weird to be stuck at a place with a constant stream of busses coming and going and for over two hours every single one of them was packed so tight that it was impossible to board. It wasn't a snow storm, there was no major traffic incident, not rush hour, lovely sunny day, conditions could not be more ideal, and I was spending it at hurdman station.
To put the cherry on top, they were always dismissive of my complaints. Imagine experiencing my hurdman station nightmare only to be told that the transit system is under utilized so it's not economical to offer higher levels of service.
I think the derecho storm that destroyed much of Ottawa's power infrastructure is the first significant outage of the O-Train since they re-established service after the derailment. It operated successfully throughout the last winter and was actually much more reliable than the buses during winter storm events.
seemed to be unreliable to me, at least, in December with the "free" month... Then, again, the bus system was lacking there, too, 1/2 hour service on 3 routes near my place ... was left to 1.5 hour waits... Wasn't worth the effort to collect the free rides.
Alas I moved away from Ottawa before the O-Train was in operation... would've been great to have it as an option (especially since it stopped on campus). And Rideau street without the bus mall must be grand! :) Thanks for the video and here's to years of success and growing ridership for Ottawa's trains!
There are still a fair number of buses on Rideau. The train mainly replaced the buses that went to the McKenzie King station between the Rideau Centre and NDHQ. Albert and Slater are no longer full of buses though.
@@wizardsuth -nodnods- I'd imagine it must be less than when it was part of the transitway though, and with the bus mall gone (looking at street view) it seems to have much more open sidewalks and bike lanes. And was Rideau 2 lanes of street traffic in each direction before? :)
You guys are awesome, I wish someone from city hall watches your videos
Time for O-Train Line 3: a suburban ring line bringing transit to suburbs on both sides of the river and connecting them to the existing two lines. And Line 4: an inner ring downtown.
Lines 3 and 4 are already under construction, the former running between Moodie and Trim and the latter between South Keys and the airport. Line 1 will be extended east to Trim and southwest to Baseline (which will be renamed Algonquin). Meanwhile Line 2 will be extended south and west to Limebank. But yes, I've often wondered why Ottawa transit is designed to send everyone through the downtown instead of directly from one side of the city to the other. Maybe it's the expense of bridges over the Rideau river?
Having a line from Baseline to Barrhaven would be great, but I just don't see it coming, without destroying some buildings along it's path. I guess the current bus line along Woodroffe serves the area well. I wonder if the existing tracks of Via Rail as extension of Trillium line could be used for LRT. Most European cities share their tracks for different usage. Why run the LRT all the way to Limebank at this point, I asked myself, possibly it may serve larger future community in Ottawa South and unload Barrhaven expansion. I guess we're slowly running out of space.
Went on it today for the first time. It’s impressive
Once it hits the most eastern and western points of the city, it'll really come into its own.
Fingers crossed. That end point at Tunney's Station is jarring, and moving commuters from the bus to the train line is bumpy, due to the overlapping/ inconsistent arrival times of the transfers. Once it's extended through Nepean and out to Kanata it should *hopefully* run more smoothly. At this point it's disjointed, and the regular maintenance failures are just so disappointing. Seemed like every decision they made with the first phase was always the wrong choice.
I moved from Ottawa about 4-5 yrs ago, the OCT buses were ok. Buses every 10-15 min apart. It worked for me if u left 30 mins early for anything. Was bummed out I couldn’t ride the Otrain. Always took bus 86 but I think it’s now 46 that goes by industrial.. good times
Thanks for this!
Excellent video!
I left Ottawa in 2016, but used the transit a lot in the 7 years I lived there. It was so bad that it's what got me bike commuting instead. I could take a 45min bus ride (where I always had to aim for at least one ride early or risk being late for work) or I could bike and it would only take 30min and I didn't have to worry about a bus no-showing or being overcrowded. So, I'm glad it got me back into biking, but that's not the right way to encourage active transit
The concept seems very similar to the Stadtbahn concept you see all over Germany (not to be confused with S-Bahn). Light rail that goes above or below ground as necessary. It usually has its own right of way, but sometimes shares it with cars where it used to be a regular tram or traffic is low.
No mention that they cancelled half the buses after opening the LTR?
The LRT actually made transit worst for half the population of Ottawa, because it only hit certain spots AND they cancelled SOOOO many buses.
The whole point of the train was to reduce the need for buses, especially through downtown, no? If you have any resources on erroneous bus cancellations I'm happy to take a look though!
@@OhTheUrbanity What's described above is due to deferred hiring, deviate routing and lack of investment to ensure a truly frequent bus network though, not due to LRT. But, it was to better manage vehicles on the spine network, not being able to meet 2030s capacity needs with buses because bi-articulated buses weren't (and aren't) an option. On the spine, instead of running 120-210 buses an hour, you run a more scalable and still frequent 12-24 spacious capacity trains an hour that allows closer to 90 second headways during times of peak demand, faster with ATO.
When the train was being build , my friend at the residence was having visitors her son who was working on the train system. He nonchalantly said, “if that train works I’d be surprised “. Talk to employees in total confidence.
I actually went on it before it was open to public since my dad was working for ottawa and family was invited, worked perfectly and was pretty epic. Didnt know that it would be ghis bad..
I watch another channel that talks a lot about the transits and cycle paths in the Newtherlands and I feel like we're so far behind. At least we're starting to have a train... but there are so many great examples in the world that we should take inspiration from.
I lived near Pimisi, the O-train was amazing for the first year or so. I took it to Loblaws at Blair every Saturday (in the past I had to walk to Bank&Somerset, or bike to Real Canadian Superstore on Richmond Rd.)
Now I live in Vanier and haven't taken the O-Train once, it's about a half hour walk to either Tremblay or University stations.
I mean it’s all dependent on where you are/where you’re going. I also live in vanier and take the train everyday.
@@juliac4974 Do you take a bus to Rideau station? The train is a long ass-walk from where I am.
I was almost 2 hours late to my first ever university midterm despite leaving home a half hour early. the whole system was backed up and blair station was lined up out the front door
"Lie-on" instead of "Lee-on" caught me offguard when I visited Ottawa. Thank you for explaining the origin of the name!
They got that one right but no anglophone who grew up in Ottawa pronounces Rideau or St. Laurent that way. 😃 The "ou" in Ottawa's Dalhousie St. is unusual too - oo not ow.
@@tobhomott how would you pronounce Rideau or St. Laurent? I’ve pretty much only heard Rideau as “ree-dough.” I have heard St. Laurent said in a more English sounding way a few times
@@mr.pinkbread REE-dough rather than ree-DOUGH, just a slight difference of emphasis.
Recently visited Ottawa for a rugby tournament and they provided a pass on Ottawa public transit. The train provided an easy way to the pitch each way.
As a public transit advocate I still feel that the o train represents a unique opportunity despite its flaws. I’d kill for every 5 minutes service in San Francisco
It's awesome that a medium sized city has a transit system like this at all. I wonder if they will build new Transitways to new corridors that might not have enough ridership for an LRT
"Continuing down Queen Street we find the second downtown station, Parliament, although no one's quite sure what it's named after."
That's some dry, dry humour. I appreciate it!
It’s named after a Funk band
fronted by George Clinton.
I always thought it was named after a group of owls.
@@allanjmcpherson Owls Are wise, no wisdom on the hill.
Looks amazing
Interesting... This system seems very similar to the one in Porto, where you have light rail vehicles in 70 km of segregated rights of way, including a downtown tunel, but with no known accidents like these ones since it opened back in 2002!
The original O Train line (now dubbed Line 2 / Trillium) ran for about 20 years with only one minor accident.
I’ve been to both cities. Porto’s public train is much better
Tbh the trillium line's train was bomb af. Hope to see it again sometime
I'd love if you could do a video discussing the Transit Loop proposal for linking streetcars from Aylmer/Hull to downtown Ottawa. Thanks!
I'm one of the people who ultimately bought a car because of the O-Train. I missed two major college tests in the same week due to train difficulties and was furious because the city got rid of my bus route to "encourage" people to ride the train. My quiet 40 minute bus ride was suddenly a 1h 45m bus+walk+train+second bus ride which was packed with people. I rode it for the rest of the semester, spending hours each week jumping from broken train to R bus, and eventually turned in my College presto card because I had enough. Until they finish the eastern expansion, and it is deemed actually good, I am never touching the train again.
I loved taking the O train when I was at uOttawa.
I work in Ottawa but live on the Gatineau side close to Ottawa, I really hope one day we’ll have a train the can cross over to Ottawa so I can go to work downtown instead of driving or busing (I’m not a fan of the bus)
my dad was one of the first drivers for the LRT but quit back to the bus a little while ago. he says that the two different companies that were working for the city had no communication with each other and had no idea what the other guys were doing at times. now that line one is completed, everything works fine but this was the fault of the contractors not the city
I used it for a couple of months before COVID hit (October to March) , and when it works, it's extraordinary. :( What a mess. Another mess that is often miss is the lack of buses; see they were so happy to get the trains that they sold a lot of buses when they launched it, considering they would not be needed anymore. The thing is, even when the train worked, there was a major issue at Blair station, the current last station in the East (before phase 3 is built to Orléans). Blair station is not designed to be a major station, it is smaller than Tunneys, but many, many, MAAAAAANY people were coming from the East, and there was not enough buses and space to welcome all those people at rush hour. Colleagues told me it was jungle-like before COVID hit (since we all work from home since then, we don't know if the situation improved...but I guess it did if less people go downtown). On my end, I was living in the west of the city (close to Merivale/Carling), so I just had to take a bus to get there. It was pretty quick. But when they realized the problem in the East, they cut buses in the west, so my bus was 30 minutes too early or 45 minutes late everyday, it was completely random because they removed like 4 buses on my line. The result was I decided to walk 3 km to get to the old transitway in Westboro and get a bus there. For me it was a nice walk, but I was 28 y old, I was ABLE and willing to do it, but it's not everyone's reality. And also, having no other solution but to walk 3 km back and forth to get a decent bus service when you live relatively "central" in a million people capital city is very sad. I suspect many new systems have hiccups, but the O-Train is unfortunate.
You should also cover the flithy states of the train stations. (EG Parliment) I walk by the same crusty substance that has been running down the walls for months. I am thinking of buying a frame for it to see if notice that.
When the confederation line opened, a ton of urban bus routes were cancelled, or rerouted to unnecessarily link up with it. I used to take the 12 to Montfort Hospital all the time. It was an easy trip from downtown. Now its a huge hassle, and with the routine shuttle replacement service on line 1, tons of trips get cancelled. The train was never meant to replace these bus routes, and yet routes are cut, service eroded, and for the trouble we get a more expensive fare on top. If its out of walking distance these days, I just take a cab.
I laughed really hard at the Fully Pedestrianized Byward Market joke haha, would be great!
One more added bonus about the LRT is that it gave a new small talk subject at office, like ... "Can you believe the LRT derailed AGAIN"
You guys need to do another version..still so much trouble with the train..lol
its amazing how i feel really great on days that i avoid OCTranspo, and really terrible that most of my bad days are caused by riding OCTranspo. sometimes i have a really awesome day that gets absolutely ruined by riding OCTranspo home after work. our high fares do not equate to better service!!
You guys should have mentioned how for a while now, Rideau station smells like rotten eggs and there has been no announcements in fixing it.
It was the same way during construction. From what I remember, there was a crack where water was coming into the tunnel that never seemed to heal. The stains and mineral buildup on the concrete around the crack was caused by sulphur. Clearly, it's still a problem.
Nice video, I love cities that are planed around more environmentally efficient transpo! One small point of correction, at the end of the video you refer to Ottawa as a smaller Canadian city. While it certainly has the small city feel Ottawa is in fact the 4th largest city in Canada and the 2nd largest in Ontario.
Two major derailments in the first two years of service, plus the lack of rush hour capacity pre-Covid, plus the poor transit system prior to the train, plus the unnecessary redo of the only functional part of the system (Bayview to South Keys) makes me think the mistakes aren't just growing pains.
One day, within the first month or so of the train being in service I had a midterm at my university and I was running a bit late but luckily I got to class in time. The train right after me broke down and several students came into the midterm late and had significantly less time. Luckily the prof let them redo the test because it was the train's fault.
Aside from the difficulties they've had, I like the train it's convenient how quickly it comes and it encourages more people to use public transit instead of driving.
i had the same experience, i remember for the next midterm my prof said we will just have to pray it doesn’t happened again
The bus system here can be a nightmare. When I had to bus to work the busses were often late or just didn't show up, with no notice. So I started leaving extra early and gave myself a "backup bus" to take, and even that wouldn't always be reliable and I'd still be late. And my boss, who drives, couldn't appreciate that I was doing everything I reasonably could to be on time and I'd get in trouble. Really frustrating.
One of the added benefits of the MUP along the line @ 6:15 is that it can be used by the fire department when they have to rescue stranded O-train riders. This is the section where most of the breakdowns happen.
Dang it! You made me want to rewatch Aviator!
Great video! After travelling to Montreal and Toronto this year, I quickly realized how great other transit systems are, and how embarrassingly awful Ottawa's transit system is.
We went from no cars to 2 cars and soon 3 because of the transit system in Ottawa. Could not rely on it when it was just buses to get to uni on time, let alone for during exams. Buses used to drive by full after 6 stops then the next one was a no show. Unless it's rush hour it's one bus every 40 minutes. Next one sure to be full too. And they do not warn you ever, no matter that you are waiting in an unprotected "bus stop" at -42C and arrived 10 minutes early. Now with the broken train and the still chaotic bus appearances we've gone from getting to Rideau in 15 minutes or less to 45-50 minutes only if the stars are aligned properly. How does an "improvement" make things slower and more clunky? So yeah, Ottawa looooves cars and will keep on loving cars forever and ever and ever. Nice going Ottawa, you make no sense.
Imagine building a fully grade-separated urban metro line with large stations and design it completely around low-floor LRT vehicles.
5:30 that dark underpass used to be a homeless hangout until some kid got stabbed there. After that homicide, the city installed the fences you see under the overpass.
Creative thumbnail title. I like it.
My city has one of those " modern streetcars" that is mostly a development tool- and it used to cost around 8 fucking USD. 8$ for a short streetcar with over frequent stops. however it's showing something that even a system like that got called a "massive success".
Everything is a "massive success" these days, even if it's an out right failure, just like the beginning of Ottawa's LRT.
Why am I enjoying a video about trains 😂
kinda glossed over the fact that prior to the transit way, it was originally railway from Ottawa Central and Ottawa Union (now the conference center)