Contrasting Ottawa's LRT problems with Kitchener-Waterloo's success story
It is a tale of two light rail transit systems. In Ottawa, ridership levels have not recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, but in Kitchener-Waterloo, levels are at record highs.
According to numbers from the city of Ottawa, overall ridership in September was at 72 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, with bus boardings at 85 per cent and O-Train boardings at 49 per cent.
Pat Scrimgeour, director of transit customer systems and planning, says "Downtown-oriented, long distance commuter-oriented are down with so many people working from home either all of the time, or some of the time, so train ridership is a little lower, and bus ridership a little higher than the system average."
The Confederation Line taking a brunt of the low ridership. "The train is serving mostly people who are traveling to, though, and from downtown and downtown is very heavily office employment, and those are the people we understand are working from home."
In the region of Kitchener-Waterloo, their transit service had its busiest month ever in September, with ridership peaking at 2.9 million customer trips. Ridership is up 33 per cent over September 2019, and 44 per cent over 2022. Boarding numbers are also up according to officials. In September, boardings were 43 per cent higher than the average month this year, hitting 3.8 million. An average month for the region is 2.6 million boardings.
The Kitchener-Waterloo LRT launched only three months before Ottawa's.
Colleen James is a councillor with Waterloo region, and says the transit system did take a big hit during the pandemic, but has built back a strong ridership.
"Part of our big success, has to do with the students who we have here. Students are taking transit, cars are too expensive, gas is expensive, and really pushing and building a system that works to get people right through the corridor, which is what we are building, as well."
Unlike Ottawa's problem-plagued system that has included derailments, major outages, and now single-car trains that run more slowly, Kitchener has been relatively problem-free. James says there were growing pains, as well as adjustment for all drivers, but providing public transit options grew their base.
"Making sure there are options and building a route that really goes through our corridor, building development around there as well," James says, "It works, it is dependable. Building trust around the system is a huge part of why people use the system."
Light rail in Kitchener runs along a 19-kilometer track and has 19 stops. Ottawa's Confederation line is 12.5 kiometers and has 13 stops. Scrimgeour says, "They are a different city and their ridership patterns are different. We have historically had very high transit numbers for a city our size and that high ridership has come from a lot of office workers choosing transit."
"Like us, their university based, or school based ridership is likely as high as it was pre-pandemic or perhaps higher."
But Scrimgeour admits that boosting Ottawa's ridership also needs to be about improving the system overall. "We need to be here to move the people who have somewhere to go, in order to do that we need to have a service that is reliable, useful, and comfortable that people can count on. That means we need to have bus service reliability that is better than it has been and it definitely means we need to have train reliability than we have had the past couple of years."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'Looking over our shoulders': A killing looms large in a little B.C. town
Something shifted in the pretty little village of Lumby, B.C., after Tatjana Stefanski vanished. It used to be the sort of place where parents let their kids roam free or play in the local creek, but everything has changed.
Toronto man falls off his chair after seeing $70M Lotto Max win in his bank account
A Toronto man who won $70 million in a recent Lotto Max draw literally fell off his chair when he saw the funds in his bank account.
Montreal-area high school students protest 'sexist' dress code
Students at Curé-Antoine-Labelle High School near Montreal are protesting after they say their school's administration started pushing what they call a 'sexist' dress code.
Officer who arrested Scottie Scheffler is being disciplined for not having bodycam activated
The Kentucky police officer who arrested top-ranked golfer Scottie Scheffler outside the PGA Championship is receiving 'corrective action' for failing to have his body-worn camera activated.
'I won't stop,' Celine Dion says in trailer for upcoming doc about her health woes
Celine Dion's fans are getting a first glimpse of the superstar's struggle with a rare neurological disorder in an emotional trailer for an upcoming documentary about her career and life.
Air travel is expensive. WestJet wants the government to do more to change that
WestJet is asking the federal government to put measures in place to lower ticket costs for travellers, but questions remain on who would foot the bill.
Hundreds have applied for this 'adventurer' job in Banff National Park
Coined as Banff's 'ultimate summer job,' the Moraine Lake Bus Company says hundreds of people from across the world have applied for its adventurer position.
Ottawa police investigating death of a gosling in Kanata
Ottawa police are investigating after someone allegedly stomped on a gosling in Kanata. Police say it appears that Canada geese laid eggs in the area, 'and on May 21, a suspect stomped on one of the hatched babies.'
Treasury Board president urges managers to be flexible on exemptions for new 3-day office mandate
The president of the Treasury Board is standing by the federal government's new hybrid office mandate for federal public servants, but is urging managers to be flexible for staff requiring exemptions.