If the municipal transit wasn’t a giant maelstrom of unreliability with a side order of randomly stabby, more of us might consider taking it again. Tomorrow morning during rush hour traffic I’d be a 28 minute drive to work, 1h7 by transit. 26 added hours and $130 a month for a pass for that privilege. No thanks.
Ontario Majority Government 2022-2026 (?)
- Thread starter The Bread Guy
- Start date
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Fair. But downtown residents (the area that generates a disproportionate amount of municipal tax revenue) should be able to have front lawns and roads that are not filled with speeders. Restricting streets to force people on to transit is a legitimate approach.
We need more more employment hubs outside of the downtown core. I think of times I’ve warndered urbanities like London or Paris, and there’s a solid mix of mid density residential and commercial all over the place. But we won’t see any significant evolution to that; the suburbs and commuting are here to stay. Trying to force us onto transit that doesn’t work or barely exists will just result in a reflexive voting out entirely of politicians so inclined.
Put systems in place that don’t suck ass and THEN incentivize a transition in commuting patterns.
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My commute to work would be 1h 20min each way, at best, if I used public transit. Instead, I go in early so it takes me 17-20 min to get in, and 30-40 min to get home. I'm not saving money, but I'm saving a lot of time, and time is worth more than a few dollars a month.
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Charge drivers instead of giving them a free ride to incentivize them to change their behaviours; reinvest those resources into transit.
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If the only way to get people to act the way you want them to is to punish them, then maybe you need to re-evaluate what you want them to do.
Punishing people, just to maybe fund a system that makes their lives slightly less shit, is a great way to ensure that you never get re-elected. Just ask all the people running on a "more bike lanes" platform in the last Ottawa municipal election...
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Charging drivers for the cost of the infrastructure they use is hardly "punishing" them.
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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If more transit is wanted, charge high enough fares to cover operating costs of what is there and capital costs of more of it.
As long as each km of rail transit needs subsidization, each additional km increases the amount of subsidy needed.
As long as each km of rail transit needs subsidization, each additional km increases the amount of subsidy needed.
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As long as each km of roads needs subsidization, each additional km increases the amount of subsidy needed.
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Drivers already pay for the infrastructure, via gas, property, and income taxes.
Maybe transit users should pay more based on the benefits they receive from the gas taxes car drivers pay.
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Maybe drivers should pay more for transit since they benefit from fewer cars on the road.
Transit users also pay property and income taxes.
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Maybe everyone that uses the roads, whether PMC, transit or bicycles should pay what car owners have to pay including, the additional road tax put on gas and diesel. If roads need to be shared equally, they should be paid for equally.
On another note, bicyclists who run stop signs, dodge in and out of traffic and ignore other rules need to be ticketed and treated like any other motorist. Same heavy fines and loss of vehicle just like car drivers.
On another note, bicyclists who run stop signs, dodge in and out of traffic and ignore other rules need to be ticketed and treated like any other motorist. Same heavy fines and loss of vehicle just like car drivers.
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Not in Ottawa... OC Transpo managed to turn me back into a driver after spending years riding transit or walking to work.
Remember, I'm not some bumpkin making remarks based on never having to deal with city traffic, or having no experience as a pedestrian and transit rider in a major city.
I have experienced all sides of this debate, and find myself lacking sympathy for cyclists most of all. When cyclists have to be insured to ride on the streets, and be a danger to pedestrians, I'll have slightly more sympathy for them.
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Why bother charging drivers more on top of the taxes on fuel, just go straight to banning cars from people outside the downtown core. Have permits that allow car owners in the gentrified areas with stone front lawns to use their cars when they’re not using their e-bikes and just tow the cars of suburbanites and auction them off to add even more bike lanes to down town.
deepblue202
Guest
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It's the city of Ottawa that pulls the strings at OC Transpo and have under funded the bus side of the operation to it's failure we see now. They have not bought a new bus of any time for any years except for four electric buses and the future orders have been delayed two years.
The older double decker buses had to be retired due to black mold and most of the 60 foot buses also need to be replaced but city does not want to buy new ones even if they are the work horse of the whole fleet. They sacrificed the life of fleet trying to make up for massive mistakes of the LRT and finally they will get less electric buses so transit will not recover.
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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We mostly don't subsidize roads. We publicly pay to build them and maintain them directly, and anyone - including transit authorities - can use them for pretty much any transportation purpose. Having transit users pay for all the capital and operating costs of their rides - equipment, fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc - would essentially be the same situation facing private auto users - buy a car, fuel it, maintain it, insure it, etc. We could add or not add road tolling for both classes of user. Rail routes would have to remain an exception covered by the transit users unless someone figures out a way to share the rail routes with private auto users.
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Who forced governments at all levels to "go green"? It wasn't the people who rely on their cars to get around. It was the urban activists who imagined that electric busses and unicorn farts would turn a sprawling city like Ottawa into Amsterdam, a city 0.08 times the size of Ottawa.
If the city wasn't bound to silly "net-zero" ideals and could just buy diesel busses, we wouldn't be in this predicament. The same people who are now demanding that we give up our cars for their terrible transit system, are the people who are the creators of the terrible transit system.
The LRT, for all of it's faults, is likely the one thing that will save OC Transpo in the end. When a reliable train service from Orleans to Kanata exists, people might actually make use of it. As it stands, the LRT is a joke that goes nowhere near far enough, and the busses feeding it are unreliable.
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Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
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Is it expected to be a revenue-generating service, or not?
Rail transit systems are expensive, and if they aren't revenue generators, a common outcome is cannibalization of bus services to pay for rail services.
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Bus services also lose money, the difference is, a train moves a lot of people around very efficiently. Busses move at the whims/fortunes of traffic, or cost a lot extra for their special transit ways to be maintained.
With public transit there is no free ride. We all pay a bit to subsidize transit. We can choose efficient and effective rail transit, or we can pretend that busses are good enough on their own.
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