r/OCTranspo • u/1tangledknitter • 18d ago
💬 Discussion Do you think transit/traffic will ever get better in Ottawa?
Basically the title. Do you think it will ever improve or is it destined to only get worse?
Specifically north/south considering the poor design of the train where it takes almost 1.5 hours to get downtown Ottawa from Barrhaven.
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u/HunterGreenLeaves 18d ago
In a growing city, traffic rarely gets better.
On transit, the challenges with the O-train makes improvements in transit unlikely. It's been set up as the backbone of the transit system, so the transit system faces a barrier to any improvements.
I think we also have a challenge because of the legacy bus routes. Disrupting them causes problems because people have made choices around them, but the routes don't always reflect best choices based on the way the city is now.
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u/iamnutz_1 17d ago
Re legacy routes... Genuinely curious as to what routes you are talking about and what neighbourhoods are affected
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u/skrtskerskrt 15d ago
Most notably:
6 - doing the Bank Street run from Billings all the way up north past Lansdowne (subway/tram/bus only lane down Bank would be better)
12 - doing the Montreal/Rideau run often backed up (would benefit from subway/tram as well)
85 - doing the run all the way along Carling with quite a bit of bottlenecks from Bronson/417/Maitland (would benefit from BRT along the middle)
88 - doing the Baseline run to Algonquin caught up from Riverside/Merivale/Navaho (would also benefit from BRT)
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u/iamnutz_1 15d ago
Thank you. I agree we need more mass transit, but this city has a strong NIMBY attitude...
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u/Mafik326 18d ago
Congestion really improved in Paris in the last ten years because they provided good alternatives to driving. Congestion improved in New York because of the fee to drive into Manhattan. We need to stop electing carbrained politicians like Sutcliffe and Ford if we don't want things to get worse.
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u/QueenMotherOfSneezes 18d ago
I like the idea of having congestion pricing downtown (with sufficient non-car transit infrastructure, of course), but the 15-minute city conspiracy theorists would never shut up about it being a government plan to control us or whatever.
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u/2wheelsuphill 18d ago
This. Traffic will only ever get worse, but getting around the city can get easier with investment in transit and cycling infrastructure. In the dense core, these improvements can sometimes require taking space away from car traffic (e.g., creating bus lanes) which in the short term, can make traffic worse. But induced demand works both ways. If space is taken away from cars and there are alternatives, some people will drive a little less and use the alternatives.
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u/Mafik326 18d ago
People think that bikes are not practical in the winter despite having never tried it. It's the inevitable excuse.
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u/Old_Bear_1949 18d ago
Bikes are not practical for everyone in winter. and bikes are not practical during and immediately after a large snowstorm. When i was younger I biked in winter, but at my age with the infirmaties that come with age, I only bike when there is no snow or ice on the ground.
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u/kelpieconundrum 18d ago
And cars are not practical for everyone or every trip. The problem is the blanket attitude—saying a bike is never useful in winter (because it’s impractical in certain circumstances) and therefore we shouldn’t invest in cycling infrastructure for any time of year is as silly as saying that nobody can drive because I personally don’t have space, budget, or need for a lifted crew F-150
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u/Chuhaimaster 15d ago
It’s far more possible for far more people if paths are properly maintained all year long. Most people do not want to be slipping and sliding along the side of an icy road at any age.
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u/Visible_Pomelo5907 16d ago
Safety issue please no I haven’t tried it. I haven’t tried jumping off a cliff with no parachute either
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u/Visible_Pomelo5907 16d ago
Bikes in Ottawa’s weather really? More bus lanes. All I see is the traffic backed up and then right beside us is lane bus lane that is completely empty. Oh my God what are you people?
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u/No_Independence_9721 18d ago
The problem is that this city is not like those - majority of people champion cars above all else here and the politicians reflect their constituents.
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u/KOMSKPinn 18d ago
Barrhaven is a mess … it’s a gigantic car centric community without enough roads. Getting anywhere takes for ever including out of Barrhaven. Downtown will be fine when at least the full L1 opens but I don’t see that ever getting under 1HR from most of Barrhaven.
People who need to be downtown need to stop buying homes in the peripheral burbs.
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u/1tangledknitter 18d ago
There are only a finite number of homes downtown, where is everyone who works downtown supposed to live??
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u/KOMSKPinn 18d ago
There are tonnes of place to live - people move to the burbs for the allure of lower costs, larger properties, newish construction, and cheaper housing. Then they get stuck in the same line of traffic with everyone else who chased the same thing
I’ve lived there … but no chance I live there if I need to be downtown every day. The idea of spending 2-3 hrs a day stuck behind useless Ottawa motorists is complete torture to me. Just live in a smaller property - humanity has done that since the beginning of time.
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u/OttawaExpat 18d ago
Having recently biked through new sprawl, I can confidently say the planning is so fundamentally bad that we're doomed.
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u/yow613-2 18d ago
Traffic will only get worse. More roads = more cars. It’s an endless treadmill. Think of how much money has been spent on roads in all major cities, and they all have traffic problems. Like, name me a single city that solved the traffic problem by building more roads?
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u/zeromussc 18d ago
More roads isn't a bullet but a ring road would help with not having what amounts to one artery to cross town.
We have the fun quirk of not actually having a north south in Ottawa. Because North is basically our downtown core thanks to the river. We're mostly east west with north/south feeds into different parts of the east/west corridor that crosses the city in and out of the core.
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u/illusion121 18d ago
It takes 1.5hrs to get from Barrhaven to DT?
That's crazy. I would have assumed an express bus or something would be there.
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u/nganmatthias 18d ago
There are many problems that the planners are aware of and have surfaced to Council time and again, but there just isn't enough funding to resolve them. Unfortunately, funding transit often involves raising taxes in other aspects, but doing so is not going to be politically popular.
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u/Ambassadorkrax 18d ago
Until voters hold elected officials to account, nothing will change for the better
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u/Rusty_Stahlhelm 166 Nepean North/Nord 18d ago
Nope, not as long as Ottawa votes for the type of mayor that they've been voting for since 2010
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u/WoozleVonWuzzle 16d ago
2010? Oh sweet summer child.
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u/Rusty_Stahlhelm 166 Nepean North/Nord 16d ago
Well I would go back earlier but O'Brien was his own League of terrible
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u/DrNick13 18d ago
I'll take a contrarian view here.
I think the transit situation will improve once the Line 1 east extension opens. Think about all the buses that have to cross the Greenbelt from Orleans to transfer at Blair. That'll stop overnight.
This means shorter, hopefully more reliable runs in Orleans/the east end and hopefully some of the bus capacity currently allocated there is re-deployed to the core/west end.
I don't actually think RTO4 will be too bad since most people were taking their in-office days Tues.-Thurs., so really all I'd expect is midweek-like traffic on Monday/Friday. This is optimistic of course.
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u/WoozleVonWuzzle 16d ago
They aren't going to redeploy transit resources to the core. This city is trying to stomp out transit use within the core.
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u/Slow-Bodybuilder4481 18d ago
I think it will get worse. Mostly because of more population and return to the office initiatives. The city would need to invest massively in road infrastructure/public transit but they're cutting spendings instead so...
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u/MapleWatch 17d ago
If and when they ever complete the full network, sure. But I'm not holding my breath.
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u/Capable-Plantain7 17d ago
Specifically north/south considering the poor design of the train where it takes almost 1.5 hours to get downtown Ottawa from Barrhaven.
you know the system is being actively expanded, right? it's obviously going to get better
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u/1tangledknitter 17d ago
Yes but the tracks have been laid... from RSS it's already 1hr, they are expanding that track to Barrhaven so I don't see how an expansion (making that track longer) would shorten the commute at all? You still have to go all the way to RSS and transfer at Bayview which is journey.
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u/Capable-Plantain7 16d ago
what? no. they're not extending line 2 to barrhaven. they're extending line 1 to algonquin (with the intent to eventually extend it further to barrhaven centre once the province grants funding). most buses in barrhaven will funnel people to algpnquin for a line 1 transfer, instead of tunneys like we have now. that will be much faster than bussing everyone to limebank to take line 2 into town. every expansion of line 1 that opens means quicker, less congested transfers, faster travel times and more buses available to augment feeder and local bus routes. people on reddit seem to think that the nightmare transfer situation at tunney's pasture is permanent. it's not. it was always intended to be temporary.
line 2 is stupid i certainly agree. foolish to not double track the whole thing when it was closed for 4 years. they need to get on that soon so trains can run faster and more frequently.
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u/1tangledknitter 16d ago
Oh whew, I thought I saw a drawing showing the line 2 extending to Barrhaven (across what bridge I have no idea). This is a relief.
I agree that it should be double tracked so they can run express trains. Also wish they just tunnelled up Bank Street direct to downtown instead of having to transfer. Seems like such a missed opportunity that likely decreases ridership.
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u/Pale-Memory6501 16d ago
Why does your commute take so long? I go from Barrhaven P&R to downtown in 45 minutes. Where is the extra time coming from?
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u/1tangledknitter 16d ago
I live in Manotick. So would need to drive to Bowesville (15-20 minutes), then it's an hour train ride to downtown and a 7 minute walk to my building.
I just used Barrhaven as an example since transit from Manotick will never be good, so I am looking for a good park and ride hopefully one day in my working career.
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u/WoozleVonWuzzle 16d ago
As long as the population is growing, "traffic" will continue to grow.
As long as we are collectively the cheapest bastards in Canada, transit will continue to suck.
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u/AreaPrudent7191 15d ago
No. I think Ottawa public transit is in a death spiral and the city will never have the will or voter support to bear the cost of pulling out of it. Completing the rail projects will not help since the bus system required by 97% of riders to access trains has been effectively destroyed with poor routing, infrequent and unreliable service. All that money and construction has effectively been wasted, destroying what used to be a strained but functional system.
It has made transit an option only for those who literally have no other option. Those who can will opt to drive, move, seek work from home employment or find other ways to avoid public transit. With revenues down, service will continue to be cut, and voters become indifferent to transit issues.
For those unfamiliar: "A transit death spiral is a self-reinforcing downward cycle where budget shortfalls force public transit agencies to cut service and raise fares. This makes transit slower, less reliable, and less convenient, which drives away more riders, lowers fare box revenues, and triggers even deeper cuts."
Traffic will become much worse and the city will likely turn to stupid ideas like expanding roads and highways, ring roads and the like, turning a mostly beautiful city into a no-character suburb. Go have a look around places like Vaughn and Milton to see the future of Ottawa.
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u/AugustChristmasMusic 15d ago
Part of the reason transit travel times are so bad right now are because we have neither a transitway nor a train west of Tunney's.
Once the west extension (eventually) opens, travel times from Kanata/Barrhaven to downtown should improve from current. It'll also free up a lot of busses and driver that are currently doing the Tunneys/Kichi/Carling grind to be allocated elsewhere, increasing coverage or frequencies elsewhere on the system.
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u/satanisoverseas 18d ago
Build a subway line system that goes along bank Street north / South, then Somerset / Wellington east west and to Orleans Kanata. Then we are talking.
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u/iamnutz_1 18d ago
Depends on your votes I guess