Peace and Environment News* March 1998
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Peace and Environment News * March 1998 |
by Michael C. Richardson
"I was standing at the bus stop. Waiting. I looked at my watch. It said 9:37. I looked at the bus schedule posted at the stop. It said that my bus would arrive at 9:31, and the next one at 9:46. My watch said 9:25 when I arrived a t the stop. Before, at home, I phoned, and was told that the bus would arrive in 11 minutes. That was at 9:20. Where is the bus?"
 A familiar sight in Ottawa. Could the bus system work better? Photo: Linda Archibald. |
"Oh look another bus. What number is it? 95. And the one behind it? 85. Wait. Oh, here comes the 96, and two buses out of service, and an express bus. Wait. Is rush hour coming up? Some of the buses look really full, and some look completely empty, too bad the empty ones don't go quite where I want. I could take one, but I'd just have to wait for my bus again at another transitway station."
Do either of these situations sound familiar to you? If so, then you might be suffering from what I call "cross-town bus chaos,: sometimes known as "every trip deserves its own route." This method of determining bus routes and schedules is enough to turn a lot of people off the bus system. The resulting lack of reliable, consistent bus service has caused a lot of people to opt out of public transit and purchase a car, or learn to winter cycle.
Cross-town bus chaos is a self-perpetuating problem. Buses cross town because people don't want to transfer. People don't want to transfer because the schedule is so bad that one rarely can make a transfer without a 20 minute wait. The scheduling is unreliable because a lot of the buses cross most of the town. Chaos, to a mathematician, is anything where a small initial occurrence causes a result that is out of proportion to the impact one would expect.
It is surprising to learn that if an express bus from Orleans is late in the morning (an accident on the Queensway, or construction), then people from Kanata may not arrive at work on time. This may not make any sense until one realizes that the bus from Orleans (say, the 38) will change its number to the 182, pick up Nortel/Newbridge people at Lebreton Flats, travel to northern Kanata, change its number to become the 60. Looking at a map, this makes sense: why have an empty bus travel back from Kanata (deadhead) to downtown to make its next run as the 182? The problem is with the underlying assumption that the buses (#60, #182) must travel all the way downtown in the first place.
A more sensible, and more reliable system would have a bus route that connected northern Kanata with Nortel Carling and the transitway. Instead of having two express routes with two schedules, there would be one route that would be useful. If the route was designed well, it would require only a single bus and driver.
The key to such a system is being able to transfer passengers conveniently and efficiently. The two buses need to either wait for each other, or one of them has to run at such frequent intervals that there is practically always a bus available. (The 95 currently operates in this fashion).
To a certain extent, the 161, 165 and 162 in Kanata operate this way already, by linking up with the 97. The only problem is that the routes that each take are long and circuitous. These routes also suffer from the other planning problem that OC Transpo has: not enough time at the end of the routes. Most of the time, the bus drivers get to the end of their route, and have to turn around and head out again immediately. Often they don't finish the route on time, so the next run is late. And the one after that is later. And finally, the only way to catch up is to just have a long coffee break, and—a run.
When you look at the OC Transpo map, you see a whole bunch of black lines. They run everywhere. The purple lines of the transitway are there, but are almost lost. The map of an efficient system would look very different. There should be prominent purple lines of the transitway, and surrounding each station, there should be a knot of black lines looking somewhat like beads on a string.
This system would be easier for travellers to figure out, faster, and more reliable. You would need to know the schedule for the bus near your house, and that's it. In most neighbourhoods a single bus and driver could serve most of the transit needs: whether going to a nearby shopping area, or transferring to or from the transitway.
The increase in convenience for current transit users is already a powerful reason for changing the system. The need for change becomes even more vital when we consider the global need to increase transit use to fulfill our CO2 emission reduction targets.
(Thanks to Sandra Hoffman, who helped me make sure this article made sense.)
Converted September 18, 1999 - Lg
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