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Most striking Ottawa transit workers want their work deemed essential: bus driver
Last Updated: Thursday, January 22, 2009 | 9:58 AM ET Comments0Recommend2
CBC News
The vast majority of striking transit workers would like Ottawa's transit services to be declared essential, a driver walking the picket line said Thursday morning, the 44th day of the strike.
"I think about 99 per cent of us would love it to be essential service," said Tony Mitchell, who has been driving transit buses for 29 years and is on strike for the third time.
"Just look at all the people that are in the city here that have no way of transportation, trying to go to doctor's appointments, cancer patients, that sort of thing. That's a shame. Forty-three days now? What's the matter with those people over there?"
At least three other transit workers picketing at OC Transpo headquarters on St. Laurent Boulevard said they also think transit should be declared an essential service, although none of them would give their full names.
If transit were essential, binding arbitration would likely be forced on both sides — something Mitchell said he is willing to accept.
"Well, maybe we'll have to sacrifice on certain things regarding the schedule, but at least both sides would be doing it, both sides would … have to give a little bit," he said.
There are certain aspects of worker scheduling, the main issue of disagreement between the two sides, that transit workers are willing to budge on, Mitchell said.
Informal discussions
About 2,300 transit drivers, dispatchers and maintenance workers walked off the job on Dec. 10. No talks have been held since Dec. 23 between the City of Ottawa and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, which represents the striking workers.
But Mayor Larry O'Brien said Wednesday that both parties have been holding informal discussions with federal mediators since last week "in an effort to keep dialogue open on a possible settlement."
Earlier the same day, federal Labour Minister Rona Ambrose said the federal government had no plans to legislate transit workers back to work.
Transit workers could still be forced back to work by an order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board, if the board finds there is an immediate and serious danger to the health and safety of the public.
The board is reviewing submissions from the public, the city and the union. However, the city's solicitor told city council Wednesday that his own analysis concluded that the strike posed no immediate and serious danger.
On Jan. 8, union members voted 75 per cent against the city's most recent offer, which was issued on Dec. 23. Since then, both sides have suggested limited arbitration, but have been unable to agree on the conditions.
Most striking Ottawa transit workers want their work deemed essential: bus driver
- Routes 45, 123, 137, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 147, 164, 165, 167, 179, 181, 186, 187, 188, 194, 193, 197 would be cut.
- Service along the Transitway would be reduced by 25%.
- Service to the rest of the city would also be reduced by 25%.
- Morning service to Riverside South would be eliminated.
http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndR
The trial has started a couple of weeks ago and was used on several different routes/runs but has been on the same run on route 33 during the late-afternoon on three of the past four days. I have not rode it just yet, but if it persists on doing the 33 each and every weekday then I could ride it one time.
I know for sure this bus will be useful for the Route 67/77 corridor where often buses are packed, some for the Aylmer and Le Plateau rush hour routes and trips that serve the Hull CEGEP (i.e 33, 49)
The one thing that would be interesting to see ,if STO decides to permanently have articulated buses, is their performance during the winter months. As we all know ,New Flyer articulated buses are having a hard time in Ottawa. I know RTC in Quebec City used to have NovaBus articulated buses and I think STM in Montreal has also tried an articulated bus in the past.
Anyways, do you see articulated buses in the STO fleet in the future and which routes according to you would it be more suitable. Note though that it is likely that they will throw artics on basically any route even the low-ridership local routes (i.e 63, 66, 76, etc)
http://www.sto.ca/actus_vie/autobus_art
Each, the City of Ottawa proposes a series of changes to the Transit System via a Transplan consultation process which consists of either public meetings and/or on-line or in-mail comments from the public. With the rising number of complaints on some of its crosstown routes such as the 2 and the 85, changes were proposed to several major routes inside the Greenbelt.
Among those, Route 85, which was voted second worst route in an Ottawa Citizen poll, was shorten to end at Hurdman Station instead of St. Laurent Station. Route 106 would serve CHEO and Elmvale but not St. Laurent.
Route 111 would also be split at Billing Bridge with Route 112 to run between Billing Bridge and Elmvale while route 111 would end at Hurdman. Route 121 would serve the Trainyards big-box complex at the Via Rail Station and the link to St-Laurent but does not connect to the 112.
Route C84 would be renumbered Route 114 and provide the only direct link from Elmvale to St. Laurent. E84 would be replaced by route 98 which would run from Hawthorne Road to Tunney's Pasture and would be the link from the Greenboro community to downtown at all times.
Other minor changes included a new peak-route 162 in Kanata from the new Brookside community (north of the Kanata North business Park to Eagleson. Route 171 would extended during peak hours to newer areas in Barrhaven, while 158 (currently the 107) would offer two-way peak service. Service on Colonnade for both routes 3 and 158 would become two-way instead of a loop. Route 316 would also be split in two with the 316 serving Sandy Hill and Route 153 serving the centretown area but not the Rideau Centre.
However, my attention turns to other routes that were approved by City Staff but not by the City Commitee. Those changes involved routes 2 and 3. Route 2 was proposed to be split in two routes one serving areas east of downtown towards Blair and the other serving from downtown to Bayshore. Route 3 was proposed to be split in two as well with one portions serving the areas along the Vanier Parkway and New Edinburgh towards Hurdman and the other serving Preston, Prince of Wales, Fisher Glen and Colonnade. All along the current routing of the two routes.
The reason why it was deferred to a future meeting in two weeks. Because the Downtown Rideau Business Association who said that it would lost 12 parking spaces because of a new terminal planned for routes 1X, 2, 3, 4, 6, 306, 316 and some route 15 trips. 12 parking spaces being more important then improvements to a very large population? Why is the City thinking one this one? Does anyone realize that the Rideau Street area would have much more customers if those changes are improved rather then keeping 12 stupid parking spaces? This is obviously a pathetic act by the Business Association and hopefully it will cost them unless they decide to accept those changes. It will be at their advantage not to depend to much on car traffic. All because of this stupid attitude, changes might not be in effect this fall and may deffer for several weeks, months perhaps up to one year and we know for sure that the 2 will still continue to have unreliable service at most times.
Hopefully, they would proceed with the splitting anyways, they can either end the 2 and 3 around the U of O area or at Hurdman via King Edward or at the STO lay-up area near Rideau or King Edward or at Lebreton Station or somewhere downtown.
I have little hope that Council will not overturn the Commitee vote next week even though I would like to see that happening regardless of what the Association or any other special interest or lobbyist groups thinks.
The answer to urban traffic congestion? Cars
NEIL REYNOLDS
Globe and Mail Update
E-mail Neil Reynolds | Read Bio | Latest Columns
May 23, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
Every weekday, here in the heart of the nation's capital – within two blocks of Parliament Hill and one block of the urban-chic Byward Market – 18-wheeler transport trucks and gargantuan double-length “articulated” public transit buses clog Ottawa's main drag, relentlessly spewing exhaust fumes from idling engines into gridlocked intersections. For people in cars, trapped between trucks and buses, passage through this greenhouse gas dumping ground requires a significant sacrifice of life span. In accordance with orthodox wisdom, buses are pampered (exclusive lanes, high-priority right-of-way); cars are punished.
Think of it. For roughly the cost that Panama will incur to double the capacity of the Panama Canal ($5-billion U.S.), Ottawa will build itself a fashionable public transit system that will probably waste more energy and will likely discharge more greenhouses gases – though perhaps not directly up the noses of the parliamentarians.
Buying bulk people-movers is old paradigm. As U.S. environmental economist Randal O'Toole observed in this space the other day, light-rail service was a fad of the past generation that sought to replace heavy buses (average weight: 13,600 kilograms) with heavier rail cars (average weight: 45,360 kg). With few exceptions, the
Road to hell is paved with public transit
Exclusive bus-only lanes, like the semi-exclusive HOV (“high-occupancy vehicle”) lanes that are common in the
From an environmental perspective, highway construction makes a relatively good investment. Mr. O'Toole: “Each mile of urban highway typically provides far more passenger miles of travel than a mile of light-rail transit line. The average mile of
Worst of all, big light-rail projects require a generational commitment. You're building something that must last for 40 or 50 years to make any economic sense. You must necessarily build with today's technology – and then you must necessarily forgo technical advances that become available in the decades ahead.
“Can you imagine trying to write a transit plan for today 20 years ago,” Mr. O'Toole asks, “when no one had heard of the Internet, and all the ramifications of the Internet? Yet we see governments all the time, sitting down and writing 20-, 30- and 50-year plans for their cities – which is totally absurd.”
Mr. O'Toole advises cities, instead, to help cars operate efficiently. He proposes tolls on all future highways and advocates toll lanes on expressways. He favours peak-hour tolls in all congested parts of town. He calls for the smartest traffic-light technology that money can buy. Congestion, he says, is not the fault of cars; rather, he says, it is the fault of urban planners.
As for the environment, Mr. O'Toole says a 1-per-cent increase in new-model cars on the road produces more benefits – in energy efficiency and in greenhouse gas reductions – than any light-rail system can produce. This kind of transformation, he suggests, can be accomplished with “minimal incentives.” Further, hybrid-electric cars save energy and cut CO{-2} emissions far more effectively than trying to induce people to use public transit.
In the end, Mr. O'Toole's theory is persuasive because cars are the urban transit system that can most quickly exploit technological advances and the only urban transit option that can be simultaneously light and rapid.
Yesterday, the City's Joint Transportation and Transit Committee approved massively in favor of Option 4 buy a vote of 9 to 1. The plan has you may know will include a transit tunnel that will cross the downtown core under Albert and Slater Streets where congestion is hampering the system during the afternoon rush hour particularly eastbound towards the east end as well as the Southeast Transitway. It would also convert the Transitway from Baseline Station to Blair Station to light rail as well as converting the existing O-Train to light rail as well as a second track. It will also be extended south to Leitrim and the Airport.
In addition the Transitway segments will be built from the Southwest Transitway to near Stittsville and Kanata North, from Baseline Station to Barrhaven South (the under construction Half Moon Bay subdivision), from Blair to Trim and Millenium Stations (South Orleans) and from South Keys to Barrhaven Center via Riverside South. All for the cost of about $3.8 billion over a 20+ year period.
However, the City has also added that further rail extensions will be provided if demand and funding is sufficient. By my estimates in 2031, Riverside South will have about 50 000 people, Kanata/Stittsville at least 200 000, Barrhaven over 100 000 and Orleans over 150 000. It seems already clear that the demand will be sufficient enough in East-West suburbs then South.
In the plans, this is also potential future transit corridors including towards Gatineau, which might assume includes a potential STO Rapibus Transit Bridge from the UQO to Bayview and also an east-west corridor by-passing downtown and another passing near the General Hospital and CHEO.
The plan is submitted for City Council vote next Wednesday (May 28) and will likely pass by the looks of it. Then Council will decide on where to start construction this fall and this may be subject to debate. Hopefully, Council will not stage a war like what is happening in the US Democratic Party Presidential Nomination.
The only dissent in the Committee was Clive Doucet who've thought that the rail expansion wasn't enough and that initially there was no secondary plan in case a failure occurs (although I think the majority of the people are fed up that nothing is done so they want to do something). He proposed extensions to Kanata and Orleans and rail service along Carling Avenue. Granted, there is a need of an emergency backup plan if something goes really wrong afterwards however Carling Avenue might not be a viable option for rail although a streetcar route can be done there and could be part as a cross-town street car by-passing downtown. Running rail on Carling Avenue to commute to work (as I saw some comments in the Citizen) will take 25 minutes only on that road with an extra transfer to the N-S rail line. That is a very good way to speed up service to run along an arterial full of traffic lights and parking entrances. Some just don't get it.
Steve Desroches seem to have a motion on extending the North-South section to Riverside Centre and claim that the cancellation of the initial light project hampered development in this Ward. Marianne Wilkinson said in the Kanata Kourier that she would not support any rail extensions to a community of 9 000 (but she forgot the 2031 projections likely) and had a plan similar to Option 3, which included to not convert to the O-Train to light-rail but with a slight extension to Leitrim. Apparently, at the meeting she realized that doing a war of words will not move the city ahead and the risks for doing nothing was too high, so she supported Option 4 at the Committee Meeting. With that, if there is no flip-floppers, there is only the need for four more councillors/the mayor to be in favor. As far as I know, I think there will be like 18 yeas perhaps more. It may even be as much 21 yeas with only 3 nays.
Many councillors (i.e Marianne Wilkinson, Jan Harder, Steve Desroches, Christine Leadman, etc.) are also concerned about service not running to the suburbs and that also people would have to transfer anyways. Even if the train service would have to be extended to the suburbs, most residents would have to transfer from/to feeder buses or park and rides to/from rail service. I don't know about the frequencies planned for the feeder routes but I don't see how much different it will be then the current express routes however, the shorter the feeder route is, the more likelihood the frequency will not be as good.
Peggy Feltmate wrote in the Kanata Kourier a few weeks ago that if nothing is done, a hub-and-spoke system would be needed and thus requiring a transfer anyways. A hub-and-spoke system will definitely work. In the morning it will not be a problem at all since their transfer will be less then a few minutes as rail service will be likely have frequencies similar to the 95 and/or 96 or perhaps more frequent but with a lot more capacity. Afternoon transfers might be a bitter more difficult but with likely more reliable local service, frequent rail service and careful planning, I don't think it will be an issue. This would likely be the same thing for non-peak hours and weekends
Another concern involves NIMBYs in Westboro who are afraid that light-rail will affect the greenspace in the Ottawa River Parkway and access to the river. The NCC is also reluctant to let build something there but hopefully they will let it proceed. Didn't the move by the NCC several decades ago to wipe out greenspace to built the Ottawa River Parkway, Colonel By Drive, Queen Elizabeth Drive and Rockliffe Parkway was even more damaging to the greenspace and represents an obstacle to access the River or the Canal then what could rail could do? Certainly! Why would a light-rail be more a problem then heavy car traffic and numerous buses. Rail will be possibly using one lane of traffic. I don't think cars need all four lanes between Carling and the Transitway at Westboro. It jams closer to Island Park much further east. It does not make sense at all this concern. Why not built more pedestrian underpass/tunnels or overpasses or more traffic signals like at Woodroffe Avenue. It will not increase transit traffic there two. Also, Westboro Beach is east of the Transitway intersection, so they will still have easy access to the bridge.
Even though my preference is extensions to suburbs, it is a good step forward and there will be chances that some or all extensions will be made anyways before 2031. It will be more reliable then the current system thus any transfers will likely be made smoothly during peak hours. Obviously, this plan is a better improvement then now and hopefully the provincial and especially the anti-transit federal government will support this plan and give us the dollars needed. If the feds can afford to spend billions of dollars for a war which most are opposed and with the excessive surpluses they make each year. Plus, I've seen that it will creates thousands of jobs for the project and I'm sure that new employment zones will be created along many corridors like near Nortel/Moodie, Riverside South, South Orleans, near Scotiabank Place and maybe even parts of Barrhaven. The project will likely have a positive impact on employment and environment.
