Orléans Transit Rant re: 4 September 2011
Sep. 12th, 2011 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dewlineThis particular piece is written from a place of anger born of inconvenience.
A bit of explanation: On the night of September 4th, I had just walked some ten to fifteen minutes home from being dropped off in my neighbourhood thanks to the kindness of perfect strangers whose names I may never know in splitting a taxi fare. That taxi ride was the indirect consequence of decisions made by myself and by the city transit committee regarding the realignment of OC Transpo's route system.
That realignment, as most people living in Ottawa-Gatineau know, took effect this morning. The warnings about these changes had been put out by OC Transpo management and city hall over the past three months. A considerable amount of time and effort was put into consulting the public on the plans. However, Councillor Diane Deans, in her role as head of the transit committee, and city hall as a whole were firm: these changes in the routes and schedules were going to happen.
And they have.
Quite possibly, I should have paid closer attention to the schedules. I've always been wary about making travel plans that take me out of Orléans on Sunday mornings or afternoons. There's always the chance that such commitments can stretch into the occasional Sunday evening, and that's when getting back home again becomes more difficult.
I use public transit exclusively, you see. I don't own or rent a car, and if ever the day comes that I can afford either course of action, it's doubtful that I'll put out the cash for it.
And there's the simple fact that trips-per-hour frequency is usually cut back on Sunday evenings. For the local routes running within Orléans, it goes from every half-hour to every hour.
Every hour.
It's quite possible that I should have taken the hint when I saw on the schedule updater screen that Sunday morning service feeding into and out of Place d'Orléans Transitway Station constituted a grand total of four routes. Five if you allow for the # 131 being a circular route that has buses running in both directions.
(Note: Not all the active routes are logged into the computers feeding to those screens yet as I write this parenthetical today on Sept. 12th. Nor is the 613-560-1000 system updated in full as of this date. When I phoned to check the schedule as I waited to start my bus ride home from CAN-CON the spec-fic convention this morning, the routes cited did not mach the routes I saw on the bus stop's numbered sign.)
You can suggest that I should have gone straight home after the computer user group meeting in the Market. You can also suggest that I should not have gone to that restaurant on Elgin to watch the Labour Day Classic featuring Saskatchewan versus Winnipeg with assorted friends, acquaintances and strangers. It may even have been folly to go to one of the coffee-houses across the street afterwards for about a half-hour or so to check my e-mail and take care of other errands over a light snack.
All of those choices were certainly mine, and possibly mistakes to be avoided.
Between that, and the route realignments...I quite possibly should have anticipated arriving back at Place d'Orléans at a point when the next bus to bring me to within reasonable walking distance of home would take 40 minutes to arrive, and the next such bus would take another fifteen minutes beyond that.
I do have to wonder why it is that people in the suburbs outside of the Green Belt seem expected to keep their lives confined to their respective home suburbs on Sundays if we don't own or rent cars, or prevail upon the kindness of whatever relatives or neighbours that might be willing to accommodate us.
If that expectation exists at city hall, it is an unreasonable expectation.
One that should end, and at best possible speed.
A bit of explanation: On the night of September 4th, I had just walked some ten to fifteen minutes home from being dropped off in my neighbourhood thanks to the kindness of perfect strangers whose names I may never know in splitting a taxi fare. That taxi ride was the indirect consequence of decisions made by myself and by the city transit committee regarding the realignment of OC Transpo's route system.
That realignment, as most people living in Ottawa-Gatineau know, took effect this morning. The warnings about these changes had been put out by OC Transpo management and city hall over the past three months. A considerable amount of time and effort was put into consulting the public on the plans. However, Councillor Diane Deans, in her role as head of the transit committee, and city hall as a whole were firm: these changes in the routes and schedules were going to happen.
And they have.
Quite possibly, I should have paid closer attention to the schedules. I've always been wary about making travel plans that take me out of Orléans on Sunday mornings or afternoons. There's always the chance that such commitments can stretch into the occasional Sunday evening, and that's when getting back home again becomes more difficult.
I use public transit exclusively, you see. I don't own or rent a car, and if ever the day comes that I can afford either course of action, it's doubtful that I'll put out the cash for it.
And there's the simple fact that trips-per-hour frequency is usually cut back on Sunday evenings. For the local routes running within Orléans, it goes from every half-hour to every hour.
Every hour.
It's quite possible that I should have taken the hint when I saw on the schedule updater screen that Sunday morning service feeding into and out of Place d'Orléans Transitway Station constituted a grand total of four routes. Five if you allow for the # 131 being a circular route that has buses running in both directions.
(Note: Not all the active routes are logged into the computers feeding to those screens yet as I write this parenthetical today on Sept. 12th. Nor is the 613-560-1000 system updated in full as of this date. When I phoned to check the schedule as I waited to start my bus ride home from CAN-CON the spec-fic convention this morning, the routes cited did not mach the routes I saw on the bus stop's numbered sign.)
You can suggest that I should have gone straight home after the computer user group meeting in the Market. You can also suggest that I should not have gone to that restaurant on Elgin to watch the Labour Day Classic featuring Saskatchewan versus Winnipeg with assorted friends, acquaintances and strangers. It may even have been folly to go to one of the coffee-houses across the street afterwards for about a half-hour or so to check my e-mail and take care of other errands over a light snack.
All of those choices were certainly mine, and possibly mistakes to be avoided.
Between that, and the route realignments...I quite possibly should have anticipated arriving back at Place d'Orléans at a point when the next bus to bring me to within reasonable walking distance of home would take 40 minutes to arrive, and the next such bus would take another fifteen minutes beyond that.
I do have to wonder why it is that people in the suburbs outside of the Green Belt seem expected to keep their lives confined to their respective home suburbs on Sundays if we don't own or rent cars, or prevail upon the kindness of whatever relatives or neighbours that might be willing to accommodate us.
If that expectation exists at city hall, it is an unreasonable expectation.
One that should end, and at best possible speed.
