Chapter 8 – Ridesharing Ridesharing is an alternative to driving, and can help the City meet its transportation goals. Ridesharing occurs when two or more people carpool in a private vehicle rather than making two independent trips. About 26% of cars have more than one occupant during Ottawa’s morning peak period, but not all of these multi-occupant automobiles are carpools — an example being a car driven by a parent to take their child to school, which is more of a "family taxi". Average North American automobile occupancies have declined gradually over several decades, for reasons that include demographic shifts and growing personal wealth. In Ottawa, the average daily auto occupancy (measured over the 12 busiest hours) has declined from 1.4 persons per vehicle in the 1960s to about 1.25 today; afternoon peak hour auto occupancies have declined from 1.39 persons per vehicle in 1989 to 1.29 in 2002. Looking more specifically at commuter carpools, the 1996 Canadian census found that 8.8% of employed workers in Ottawa-Gatineau traveled to work as an auto passenger while 64.3% drove — equivalent to an average occupancy of 1.14 workers per car. By 2001, just 7.4% of employed workers commuted as an auto passenger while 64.6% drove, for an average occupancy of 1.11 workers per car. In view of such downward momentum, the long-term goal of preserving or marginally increasing today’s auto occupancy levels should be viewed as ambitious. Ridesharing complements walking, cycling and transit as the main alternatives to driving alone. The markets for these modes overlap, although the degree to which they do is a complex issue with no simple answers. We do not know to what extent ridesharing initiatives might limit the City’s ability to meet its transit modal split objectives. This would be most worrisome in the downtown core — the "bread and butter" transit market — but downtown is also one area where City initiatives would be unlikely to significantly improve upon ridesharing’s natural incentive: shared parking costs. Transit also offers a level of independence to commuters that cannot be matched by ridesharing, where passengers and drivers are constrained by the need to follow a shared schedule. It is apparent that ridesharing plays a minor but still important role in serving peak period commuting travel. It also seems unlikely that ridesharing could capture a much larger share of the travel market in areas with high-quality transit service. However, there will always be many peak period trips for which transit cannot match the speed and convenience of automobile travel, even in a future where roads are more congested than today. For such trips, having commuters share a ride will be preferable to having them drive alone — and it is in these markets that ridesharing has its greatest potential. Even for trips well-served by transit, ridesharing is the "second best" choice for people whose trips are too long to walk or bike — and in a "worst case" future where transit funding is limited, the City may rely more on ridesharing to move commuters efficiently. The following sections describe various ways in which the City can encourage ridesharing through promotion, services and infrastructure. 8.1 Essential Supporting Measures A number of measures that can effectively encourage ridesharing will be delivered through the City’s transportation demand management program, as described in Section 4.2. The City will:
8.2 Carpool Parking Lots Carpool parking lots are usually located near the edge of urban areas. They offer a location for carpool participants to meet and consolidate into one car, leaving other vehicles behind. Carpool parking lots can facilitate ridesharing by rural residents who have long commutes and may live in isolated locations. The City of Ottawa operates one carpool parking lot on Carp Road south of Highway 417, while the Ontario Ministry of Transportation operates a number of lots in the rural area around Ottawa:
These existing lots are generally underutilized, a situation that may reflect the challenge of providing security for persons and vehicles in remote locations, and the difficulty of turning car-owning rural commuters into carpoolers. However, improved public awareness, ridematching services, security and other incentives could increase the usage of carpool lots. While the limited capacity of current Park & Ride lots means that carpool parking is not permitted there, it could be cost-effective to create joint Park & Ride and carpool lots at some future locations. The City will:
8.3 Carpool Lanes Carpool lanes are open to vehicles with a designated minimum number of occupants, usually two or three, and they are also open to buses regardless of occupancy. Such lanes may be restricted to eligible vehicles at selected times only. There are currently no carpool lanes in Ottawa, but area residents may be familiar with the carpool lanes on the Portage and Champlain Bridges across the Ottawa River, and on roads in Gatineau leading to those bridges. A recent study of Highway 417 by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation recommended the construction of carpool lanes as part of a general widening through the Kanata area, between Highway 7 and Highway 416. These lanes are currently scheduled to be built within five years or so, and their rate of use will depend on numerous factors including whether carpool lanes are eventually added to adjoining sections of Highway 417 (particularly to the east), or to the arterial roads leading to and from Highway 417. Although carpool lanes may, in some circumstances, help to reduce or defer the need to widen congested arterials, their implementation is usually complex and challenging. Negative public response has caused many carpool lanes in North America to be converted to mixed traffic use soon after opening. Carpool lanes can also impair effective transit operations, and in particular can be incompatible with transit priority measures. And while the effective enforcement of carpool lanes is critical to their success, it calls for the use of scarce policing resources and substantial public education. As part of the technical work supporting the Transportation Master Plan, a preliminary assessment of the City’s arterial road network has been conducted to identify travel corridors where carpool lanes might contribute to the City’s transportation objectives. The assessment was based on congestion levels, current transit and carpool demands, trip lengths, physical and operational constraints, and the presence of supportive land uses. Although the issue is largely conceptual at the present time, it is generally intended that carpool lanes would be created through conversion of an existing mixed traffic lane, or through designation of a newly-built lane that is identified in this plan as required for general capacity purposes. The results of the screening indicate that the following City roads have the most potential to support carpool lanes that encourage ridesharing:
The preliminary assessment also suggested further investigation into the possible provision of continuous carpool lanes along the Ottawa River Parkway between the Portage Bridge and Carling Avenue, with the cooperation of the National Capital Commission. It is important to note that these results are based on preliminary analysis only, and require much further study. Critically, some of the roads identified above are also shown on Map 4 as future transit priority corridors — a vital consideration that could make it physically or operationally infeasible to introduce carpool lanes in these corridors. The City will:
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