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1. DISCONTINUATION OF OC TRANSPO BUS SERVICE SOUTH OF
MANOTICK VILLAGE (ROUTE #45)
suppression du service d’autobus
d’oc transpo au sud du village de manotick (circuit 45)
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Committee recommendation
No recommendation
Recommandation dU ComitÉ
Pas recommandation.
Documentation
1. Transit Committee report
dated 31 January 2008 (ACS2008-CCS-TTC-0002).
2. Extract of draft Minutes, 20 February
2008.
Report to / Rapport au:
Transit Committee
Comité du transport en commun
And Council / et au Conseil
31 January 2008 / le 31 janvier 2008
Submitted by / Soumis par: City Council / Conseil municipal
Contact / Personne-ressource : Anne-Marie Leung, Committee
Coordinator /
Coordonnatrice du comité,
City Clerk’s Branch/Direction du greffe
580-2424, Ext. / Poste :
21385, Anne-Marie.Leung@ottawa.ca
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City Wide / À l'échelle
de la Ville
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Ref
N°:
ACS2008-CCS-TTC-0002
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SUBJECT: DISCONTINUATION
OF OC TRANSPO BUS SERVICE SOUTH OF MANOTICK VILLAGE (ROUTE #45)
OBJET: suppression du service d’autobus d’oc transpo au sud du
village de manotick (circuit 45)
REPORT RECOMMENDATION
That
the Transit Committee recommend Council direct OC Transpo to discontinue its
bus service south of Manotick Village (Route #45), and to implement this change
as part of its next scheduled route change process in April 2008.
RECOMMANDATION DU RAPPORT
Que le Comité du transport
en commun recommande au Conseil d’enjoindre OC Transpo de supprimer son service
d’autobus au sud du village de Manotick (circuit 45) et de mettre ce changement
en œuvre dans le cadre du prochain processus de modification des circuits prévu
en avril 2008.
BACKGROUND
City
Council, during its consideration of the 2008 Budget on 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12
December 2007, considered the following motion raised by Councillor Brooks,
with respect to bus service south of Manotick Village.
WHEREAS the
residents of the former Rideau Ward, now part of Ward 21, have expressed their
clear desire to discontinue bus service south of Manotick Village; and
WHEREAS two
extensive surveys were conducted in the community which confirm that the
majority of respondents do not want transit service south of Manotick Village;
and
WHEREAS the
Councillor of the former Rideau Ward has met with the public regarding transit
service and confirms that the Community wishes to discontinue this service;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that OC Transpo
be directed to discontinue its bus service south of Manotick Village (Route
#45), and to implement this change as part of its next scheduled route change
process in April 2008.
At
that time, City Council referred the aforementioned motion to the Transit
Committee for consideration.
DISCUSSION
Current
ridership on the section of Route 45 south of Century Road is 11 customer-trips
per day.
Ridership
on the section of Route 45 in the rural transit area is high enough that the
service meets the Council-approved minimum financial performance standard.
Ridership on the section of Route 45 south of Century Road is, however, not
high enough that the service on this section meets the minimum standard;
ridership would need to be 15 customer-trips per day to meet the minimum
standard. It should be noted that previous decisions by Committee and Council
on the retention of services in the rural transit area have been based on the
overall performance of the route and not on a particular section of the route.
Removal
of the section of Route 45 south of Manotick would free-up approximately one
hour of budgeted service each day, which could be re-allocated to improve other
rural transit services.
If
this motion were to be adopted by Committee and Council, staff would recommend
that Route 45 be changed to start at Century Road and Manotick Main
Street, in order to accommodate customers traveling from the south part of
Manotick. Staff would recommend that the operating resources be re-allocated to
extend the second trip on Route 45 to start at Century Road rather than at the
Manotick Arena and to add new trips on Route 186 from Fallowfield Station to
Manotick at 8:45 a.m. and 2:45 p.m. and from Manotick to Fallowfield
Station at 9:09 a.m. and 3:09 p.m., to extend the hours during which
transit service is available in Manotick.
Document
1 is a map of the current service outlining the Councillor’s recommendation.
If
this motion were to be adopted by Committee and Council, the service change
could begin on June 23, 2008. The final date to make changes to the April
schedules will have passed by the time Committee and Council have considered
this report.
CONSULTATION
This
item was advertised in the local dailies as part of the Public Meeting
Advertisement on the Friday preceding the Transit Committee Meeting.
FINANCIAL
IMPLICATIONS
If this
motion were to be adopted by Council, staff would recommend re-allocating the
operating resources made available to improve transit services from Manotick,
as described above. In this case, there would be no change to the financial
position of the City. As an
alternative, the operating resources for the service south of Manotick could be
removed from the budget; this would reduce the operating budget by
approximately $10,000 in 2008, which would reduce the transit levy on a typical
residential property in Rural Transit Area A by less than a dollar.
SUPPORTING
DOCUMENTATION
Document
1 Map Showing Route 45 Service
DISPOSITION
Staff to take appropriate action
as directed by the Committee and Council.
MAP SHOWING ROUTE 45 SERVICE DOCUMENT
1
DISCONTINUATION OF OC TRANSPO BUS SERVICE
SOUTH OF MANOTICK VILLAGE (ROUTE #45)
abandon du service
d’autobus d’oc transpo au sud du village de manotick (circuit 45)
ACS2008-CCS-TTC-0002 Rideau-Goulbourn (21)
Alain Mercier, Director of Transit
Services, Planning, Transit and the Environment was present to answer questions
on this matter. He explained that while
staff was not prepared to give a presentation on the report, their position is
clearly outlined in the report in that they provided the salient information
regarding the operation of Route 45 south of Century Road in terms of confirming
the ridership and explaining the impacts and consequences of the elimination of
that segment of the route would be to transfer those resources to Route 186,
which would improve transportation between the urban part of Barrhaven and
Manotick.
Councillor Brooks, at the Chair’s
request, provided background information on the issue and explained his reasons
for bringing this matter to Committee for consideration. He clarified that it is a long-standing
issue, dating back to 2000, with many of the residents in the former Rideau
Ward that targets the areas of Carleton Golf and Yacht, Kars and North
Gower. He explained that a committee
was stuck to look at this issue and it went to the university conducting a science-based
survey. As a result, a petition was
presented to Councillor Brooks containing about 1,000 signatures of area
residents who requested that the bus be cancelled due to low usage. He noted that the issue has been previously
discussed with pertinent staff and he felt it was relevant to bring it to
Committee for debate.
When asked
by Councillor Bédard why the residents want to get rid of this route,
Councillor Brooks explained the route is much under-used and residents do not
want to continue being taxed for an empty bus.
In
response to questions from Councillor Bédard, Mr. Mercier responded as follows:
·
The community forms part of the rural area and
therefore pays a rural transit levy for the service
·
Cancellation of the route in question would result
in a potential reduction of the tax levy paid by that area
·
Staff does not have a position with respect to the
recommendation and is more neutral in their approach because neither the
operating cost burden nor the equivalent tax implication are significant,
should this service be cancelled. The
financial implications section of the report explains that the impact on
Transit Services budget would be in the order of $10,000 because the
recommendation only deals with a segment of a route that operates a few times a
day. Staff would, however, caution
Committee about looking at segments of routes within the community.
Councillor
Legendre questioned if the service was cut but the resources were reallocated
to improve Route 186, whether there would be any change to the levy in the
Rural Transit Area A (RTA-A). Mr.
Mercier explained the levy paid by all residents in the RTA-A would slightly
decrease.
In
response to questions from Councillor McRae, Mr. Mercier provided the following
clarifications:
·
The resulting improvements to Route 186 would only
be an increase in frequency during the peak period, not an expansion in the
service
·
The incremental costs that would be allocated to
Route 186 would fall within the Urban Transit Area (UTA) alignment
·
The reduction in the RTA-A transit levy would be
less than $1.00
·
Route 45 currently has 11 customer trips per day and
would need to be at 15 per day to reach the City standard and negate the need
for debate on cancellation.
The Committee then heard from the following delegations:
John Cree noted he
is a resident of North Gower and has been a regular rider of Route 45 south of
Manotick since its inception. He
commented that he feels very strongly about the availability and use of public
transit, a view in complete agreement with the Ottawa 20/20 growth management
strategy. He explained that he started
using the route because he was unable to drive for medical reasons at that time
and was very grateful for the service.
He noted the service has had detractors since its inception before
ridership was even established, some still hoping for de-amalgamation of the
City of Ottawa and consequently complaining about existing service and / or its
lack thereof. He suggested those
complainants have found a sympathetic ear in the former Mayor of Rideau
Township, Councillor Brooks, and that is the reason the issue has been brought
forward. He commented that by the end
of its first year of operation, the ridership on Route 45 easily exceeded the
current criteria and was steadily increasing.
In light of some critical views at that time, the route was altered to
make it more profitable. It was
directed through Riverside South, adding another 20 minutes or more each way to
the ride, which resulted in a near immediate severe drop in ridership. He commented that the latest proposal has
come about through quite an arbitrary process for consideration of cancellation
of a segment of a bus route. He asked
Committee to remember, when considering the report recommendation, that Route
45 is the only route serving the area and it has only one run in the morning
and one run in the evening. He
explained that the riders are mainly rural express pass holders who cannot take
an earlier or later bus and have no other alternative. In addition, he noted that eliminating the
ridership from the furthest segment of this route removes those riders from the
nearest segment of the route and that may render it not financially viable as
well. In concluding, he suggested the
current proposal is incomplete; it lacks suggestions for increasing financial
viability of the route by increasing ridership, or at a minimum, alternatives
for meeting the transit demand from the area.
He feels that endorsement of this proposal would be very shortsighted
considering the steady development under way in the service area, including two
new developments in North Gower, one in Kars, not to mention the hundreds of
new homes south of Manotick. He
suggested that if the service is cancelled it would have to be reinstated in
some form in the near future with the entire controversial process re-opened,
whereas now most people have come to accept the existing service and
accompanying small transit levy that has been in place for more than five
years. He also reminded members that
their decision on this issue could have an impact on other wards through
traffic congestion and space taken up at park and rides. He asked Committee to reject the proposal
and work towards a real solution providing effective transit service to the
area. He offered to work with OC
Transpo to provide suggestions for service improvements, and offered to submit
some suggestions in the near future.
In
response to questions from Councillor McRae, Mr. Cree responded that he might
be willing to pay a higher transit levy if the service were sufficiently improved
to reflect it, not just increased in frequency.
Responding
to further questions from Councillor McRae, Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager
of Planning, Transit and the Environment and Mr. Mercier provided the following
comments:
·
The decision to put in any new service would be done
as part of the Transplan process, which would include consultation.
·
In terms of growing ridership, it is often the case
that development is occurring in the urban area where there are not enough
homes in that area to sustain the numbers and some developers front-end the
cost to help grow the ridership from day one.
It is an important consideration that when you get rid of a service, you
lose the riders but you are back to square one in terms of the ability to hope
to attract new riders when they are making choices on where they will live and
work.
·
At this time the population justification for Route
45 is there in terms of the quantity of homes, the population base and the
amount of people that are reached by the network. The issue here is that it is a low intensity development where
people are using their vehicles more than transit.
·
The report refers to the ridership on just one
segment of the route. Normally, the
practice is not to review a route on a section-by-section basis but rather on
the overall route.
·
The requirements for the service demand are met to
operate Route 45 in its entirety.
Looking at this under a normal review, staff would continue to operate
the service.
·
The expectation of the recommendation is that the cancellation
would result in improvements to Route 186.
There would be alternative route to replace Route 45 via OC Transpo, but
there is another operator that comes through that area from outside the urban
boundary of the City and picks up customers in the area. Staff is not aware of the identity of that
operator or the fees charged.
·
If the service in this segment were cancelled, staff
would get a signal from the community at some point in the future that new
service is required and is warranted by population, and staff would then seek
budget approval from Committee and Council to start operating a run, just as is
the practice with any other area in the City.
Councillor
Doucet asked Mr. Cree for clarification on the travel time for users of Route
45 from the area in question. Mr. Cree
explained the round trip, after being modified to run through Riverside South,
takes approximately three hours (90 minutes each way).
With
respect to the alternative operator mentioned by staff, Mr. Cree enlightened
that it is operated by Howard Bus Lines and runs from Kemptville and goes
through North Gower. He believed that
the operator has received an offer to integrate service with OC Transpo in
terms of providing transfers and was not willing to do so. He was not certain what the cost of that
service is now, but he noted that about ten years ago, when he used the
service, it was about $7.00 each direction, in addition to the cost of then
transferring to an OC Transpo bus to complete the trip.
In
response to questions from Councillor Thompson, Mr. Cree responded that
residents might be open to working with OC Transpo and private operators to
reach an integrated solution to meet their service needs, although he noted
there is a very small and vocal opposition to it at present from some
residents.
Following
up on this, Councillor Thompson asked staff to clarify what would happen
financially if this service were cancelled.
Mr. Mercier responded that given the cost impacts and the service demand
north of Manotick to Barrhaven, staff feels that if the service were cancelled
for this segment, it would be best to reallocate the associated costs to
improving service for Route 186 and move that $10, 000 from the RTA-A to the
UTA. However, Committee could choose to
simply cancel the service on that segment of Route 45 and not improve the
service on Route 186 thus reducing the budget by $10,000.
When asked
by Councillor Wilkinson, Mr. Cree clarified that the regular users of this
Route are using it continuously.
Responding
to questions from Councillor Brooks, Mr. Cree provided the following
clarifications:
§
He was part of the science-based study that
determined that Kars and North Gower did not warrant the continuance of the
bus.
§
He would not support the extension of the UTA into
former Rideau Ward and would prefer it remain a Rural Transit Area.
Alan
Holtz, Co-Chairperson, Rideau Bus Advisory Group (RBAG) provided
some background to the situation. He
explained that almost seventeen years ago Councillor Brooks, at that time the Mayor
of Rideau Township, supported a recommendation to cancel Bus Route 220, which
offered express service from the ward to downtown Ottawa. The rebirth of the bus system through the
2002-2003 timeframe met with some opposition.
Misinformed communication happened from the powers to be and through
persistence and determination, OC Transpo operations had the upper hand in
implementing the new service. This did
not last too long without political tinkering and little to no consultation
with the actual users of the system.
Directors of operation at the time were frustrated by the political
interference and the wrong messages that were being interpreted as technical
data of the day. The express bus
started to pick up the interior of Riverside South and the rest is history, at
least until next September. Through
ongoing discussions with OC Transpo staff over the last few years, RBAG has
developed a much needed and user-friendly relationship. Examples of this was the Group’s suggestion
to support the transit survey that Stonebridge, for example, with the
Homeowners Association involvement created a separate bus that is now in
service and operating daily to service that area. The consequence and no interference politically to this day has
sped up the service of Route 186 and increased ridership. He feels that removing the southern portion
of Route 45 south of Century Road is extremely shortsighted because many people
use this service and depend on it. They
are in the range of four customer trips per day that would allow this segment
to meet that minimal financial performance standard as outlined in the old
criteria of transit efficiency. He
believes with proper marketing in place, those buses would be full and would at
least be paying for themselves. In conclusion,
he suggested that we must work together; we must communicate more because we
have to be committed to have a reliable, timely cost effective public transit
to meet the needs of Rideau Ward residents.
He also suggested the following guiding principles – public
transportation is an essential service and not a privilege; it is vital to the
economic growth of Rideau; and a benefit to all.
In
response to Councillor McRae’s questions, staff and the delegation provided the
following clarifications:
·
When assessing ridership, staff always considers the
whole route not only a segment.
·
The former Township of Rideau before amalgamation,
not the City of Ottawa eliminated the express bus service in this area, which
resulted in people driving downtown.
Andrew Geraghty, a
resident of the south end of Manotick and a Rural Ecopass holder began his
presentation by noting that he lived in New York City, Toronto and London,
England, all of these three cities have world-class transit. He is the sole income provider for a family
of five and owns one vehicle. He also
noted that he is the Director of Web communications for the Bank of Canada
conveying that statistics and Internet communications are his business. He found Councillor Brooks’ Internet survey
and statistics unreliable and his ability to protect and implement good public
policy inadequate. He disagrees with
the Ward Councillor’s proposal because it is against the City’s stated
policies, guidelines, and visions for the future as stated in the Ottawa 20/20
Growth Management Strategy. He believes
that now is the time to develop transit services that encourage the people of
Ottawa to reduce their dependency on cars and putting more emphasis on public
transportation would be a wasted effort if we do not plan transit into
communities. The City of Ottawa should
support improvement and sustainable growth in transit. In terms of Route 45, he suggested the City
should consider sustainable support services to accommodate urban travel at
reduced financial costs to both the individual and the taxpayer. Land use planning - the transit system must
be integrated into the community designed to promote appropriate community
density as well as an effective connection to the downtown. Equity - access to transportation should be
provided for those who cannot and choose not to drive, and all citizens of the
City of Ottawa should have public transit options that allow them to
participate in these social and economic opportunities of the City. With respect to infrastructure and strategy
requirements, he also suggested in order to increase the proportion of people
using public transit is to make it a viable option. Congestion – this point is obvious. Ecological responsibilities - we need to pay more attention and
less lip service to our commitment to protect environmentally sensitive
areas. He noted the citizens of Ottawa
no longer accept the inevitability of ever increase of auto and noise
pollution; energy consumption; urban sprawl; and land consumptions. The continued growth of our City and its
changing demographics of its population are already generating an increased
demand for better public transit. He
believes that these should be enough reasons to encourage Manotick, Ward 21,
and its surrounding area to use transit, not take it away. He suggested if not enough of people are
using the transit provided, removing it is not the answer, encouraging it
is. He agrees with John Cree that it is
reasonable to assume based on ridership trends that many Route 45 residents
have been forced by the limited transit service currently offered to
reluctantly get back behind the wheel of their cars. He thinks we should reverse these trends and not simply throw our
arms up and say we tried it.
In
response to questions from Councillor Bloess, the delegation provided the
following clarifications:
·
Living in the rural is his choice.
·
The number of riders on the bus varies; when he gets
on the bus in the morning; there are usually four people. Depending on events, if it is a holiday
weekend, and weather conditions, there can be as many as a dozen people on the
bus. The bus is full by the time it
gets to the City.
·
Route 45 has two different parts to it. He has to catch the bus at 7 a.m. and gets
home at 6:30 p.m. because the 5:15 p.m. bus from downtown is the only part of
the Route 45 that goes all the way out to where he lives. There is an earlier Route 45 that stops in
Manotick as being proposed and he cannot take that bus.
Susan
Rosidi commented that she has two cars but prefers to take the bus. She explained that she lives in Manotick and
began using Route 45 when it was implemented.
She noted that for the first year there were about a dozen riders on the
bus before it even got into Manotick.
She gets on at Bridge Street and the dozen people that are already on
the bus at that point are the ones that used to take the private bus service
but switched to OC Transpo when Route 45 was put in place to service North
Gower and Kars. She felt the ridership would
be there if OC Transpo were allowed to do its job and work at increasing
ridership. She said that riders were
lost when the bus was diverted through Riverside South and took on three big
loops through the residential neighbourhood because that extra 20 minutes of
riding time was too much for many people.
She noted as well that although there was an increase in travel time to
those residents, there was no corresponding decrease in the price of the bus
pass because it was still being classed and charged as a rural express
route. She felt that OC Transpo has
been very responsive to the community because they have already changed the
route to avoid the backlog at River Road and Limebank, and she understood they
are talking about streamlining the route to go right through the major route
that bisects Riverside South instead of going through all those loops. She commented that as a person who lives in
Manotick and can hardly get her car out on Bridge Street, the less cars that
come through the town the better. She
said it makes her feel vulnerable when she hears speculation of canceling the
route south of Manotick because without those people on the bus when it arrives
in Manotick, it leaves Manotick ridership vulnerable. She felt the solution is to increase ridership by offering better
service to the area by making the trip to downtown faster, or to put a small
bus (such as a 20-seater) on that route so people would not complain about big
empty buses. She also pointed out that
there will always be an empty bus because it has to get to Kars from Ottawa and
it will be empty as it goes through the village until it begins picking people
up.
Ms. Rosidi
also submitted comments to Committee via email prior to the meeting, a copy of
which is held on file with the City Clerk.
Klaus
Beltzner felt that the big issue is finding ways to increase ridership, not find
ways to decrease it. By making the
route longer before arriving downtown, it has served to decrease
ridership. He pointed out that some
people between North Gower and Manotick are absolutely dependent on that
route. He suggested that the City needs
to do its transit planning better so that those people can also get downtown
faster, and noted there are routes that will achieve that. He asked that OC Transpo go back and look at
that issue. He believes one solution
might be to segment the routes so the part of the route going through Riverside
South, where transit is absolutely needed, could start there, separate from the
segment for Kars, North Gower, and Manotick.
In
response to questions from Councillor Bloess, Mr. Beltzner provided the
following clarifications:
§
To decrease the costs associated with OC Transpo,
its bus fleet, and etcetera, he feels the solution is to shorten routes. He felt there is no reason to have a bus
from North Gower, Kars and Manotick start there and end at the Strandherd
Station, which is the first Transitway Station where the #95 goes, and to
increase the frequency of the #95 to that station to pick up those
passengers. The routes do not have to
go all the way into town.
§
When weighing the correlation between route distance
and costs, the policy direction to increase ridership should be
considered. That direction can be
interpreted to say the service will be brought to where people live, or to say
people must find their way to the nearest major hub. Personally, he feels transit should be provided at the least cost
with the best service.
§
He would like to see a transit levy for everybody in
the city so that the City can afford a transportation and transit system that makes
sense for everyone. One bus in the
morning and one bus in the evening that takes an hour and a half to get into
town do not make much sense and do not provide the kind of ridership that the
City wants to generate.
§
He does not disagree that there is a correlation
between a rider’s origin and destination and the time it takes to get there
(i.e. the further one lives away from the core, the longer the ride will take),
or that service frequency cannot be increased if there is not sufficient
ridership to warrant it.
That the Transit Committee
recommend Council direct staff to discontinue its bus service south of Manotick
Village (Route #45), and to implement this change as part of its next scheduled
route change process in April 2008.
LOST
yeas (2): councillors R. Bloess, D. Thompson
NAYS (7): Councillors G. Bédard,
J. Legendre, C. Leadman, M. McRae, C. Doucet, M. Wilkinson, Chair
A. Cullen
Chair Cullen clarified to members that the motion, having lost at
Committee, would not rise to Council unless Committee so desired, and none of
the members expressed any such request.
After the meeting, it was
determined that procedurally since Council referred this motion to Committee,
it requires the Committee to report back to Council, regardless of whether the motion
is carried or lost.