Recommended Reading: Eric Drawin on interprovincial transit

Eric Darwin has a great post on his West Side Action blog about some of the ideas and issues regarding interprovincial transit in Ottawa/Gatineau . ** ** He was at a transit study meeting earlier this week and made some notes. A couple interesting points he brings up (these are all direct quotes from the blog):

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Why do transit users get put underground and motorists get the street surface and river views? Would a transit service with nice scenery attract more users?
  

  


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Go under water. The canal is shallow, and could easily be opened up and a LRT line burried a few feet down, then the canal refilled. Stations would double as canal crossings. Suddenly transit would open up a whole new urban environment that cars cannot access.
  

  


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The sucess of the O-train. Is it a conspiracy or not? The City avoids mentioning the O-Train like the plague. Yet a demo project, derrided as going from nowhere to nowhere, grandiously projected to carry 7,000 people a day by 2020, carries today over 10,000 passengers a day. Why isn't the frequency being increased (this doesn't require more trains or track)? Why isn't it being extended to Gatineau where it would offer the fastest interprovincial commuting?

** Also worth a read: ** Eric’s thoughts on the p roblems with the public consultation process . **

Related: ** Ottawa OC Transpo Guide