Dang. Just read this morning that the Light Rail System that was been developed for Ottawa has been erased from existence.
This plain sucks. I was hoping for some zipping train to bring me to Kanata in 45 minutes. But alas, no, this is not the case. Granted, the case of zipping me to Kanata would have taken 15 years to build, but that’s besides the point.
What are my feelings on public transit personally? Well…I can’t complain about the system there is now. It literally takes me 30 minutes from my Park & Ride spot to the front door of my building. Let’s tack on another 10 minutes in my car to get to the front door of my house. But I don’t really count that time because I feel that I’m at home as soon as I hit the car. I can zip to the grocery store or do other things I need to do.
30 minutes is not a legitimate complaint when living in a city. So, in my position, I find public transit great.
Will they ever be able to solve the awful wait times in the suburbs? No! They aren’t about to put more shifts on a local route just to pick up a few extra stragglers who missed their bus by a few minutes. Sure, it would be great, but what’s the benefit to them?
I think that maybe coming from the West side of town could be improved upon as I remember going out there from work would take a good 45-50 minutes and it’s a shorter distance than the East trip I take now. However, they may have fixed this problem as there is a route that avoids the Lincoln Fields/Carling/Bayshore fiasco and zips down the Queensway for a bit to hit up Bayshore. Man, I wish that line was around when I was living there.
I can’t speak for the south or Kanata, but the O-Train already runs south and I’ve used it a few times to get down to South Keys and I loved it. Saved me so much time rather than going through downtown.
To me, downtown is the problem. You have this mass exodus approaching it in the morning and late afternoon. Even with dedicated bus lanes, they still have traffic lights and regular traffic patterns that they deal with. The only way I can think of solving this problem is to avoid those situations altogether – via an underground, perhaps a dedicated ‘transitway’ through downtown, or something else. I am not too sure.
All I know is that I had these grand visions of the Light Rail transit zooming me to work in the morning, but now it’s just a memory. I agreed with their plans to extend it North-South at first…it only makes sense. That’s where it exists now. AND the South *is* becoming a huge mass. A huge similar looking mass according to Trish, Mike and Ryan as we got lost going to Ferda’s birthday party a few weeks ago.
What should we all do? Move to Quebec. Houses are cheaper and you can bike to work. Awesome.
iplaying: Bario Alto – Thievery Corporation (Pure Chill Out, Volume 2)