Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Random Bureaucrats To Plan Your Commute

25 Replies to “Riding Mass Transit Is Like Inviting 30 Random Bureaucrats To Plan Your Commute”

1. Without going into a lot of details Edmonton’s LRT has been a gong show too.

2. Electric trains work well when operated indoors by children.

   1. HAM ILL TON
      Yer stupidity is noted!
      Vantaa to Tempere via electric train, quiet clean and 100 MPH, excellent service!

3. Not to worry! Elon Musk and the Boring Co. will simply put the entire system underground … in a pneumatic tube. Free of all those freezing weather inconveniences. The cost? Meh. Just increase the carbon tax another 50%.

4. Ottawa should change its name to Stoopid.
   Imagine if it was 25 years ago – the Big Ass Ice Storm. Remember that?
   The whole system would have been destroyed.
   And all these Climate Turd Politicians run around saying things need to be fortified against extreme weather events.
   Well WTF?
   Jim Watson and every councillor/bureaucrat who played a part in this Electrified Shit-show should be jailed in C.A.G.E. for the remainder of their stoopid lives.

   1. And they want the climate to get colder.

   2. At least some of this has occurred. Jimbo Watson was on a long term vacation out of country when the provincial auditor general’s report dropped. This was why he and a host of Ottawa City councilors did not run for re-election. It’s why the City Manager fled his post a few days before the audit report. This is what happens when a city deliberately chooses a contractor who failed the technical evaluation, and what happens when ignorant relatives make key technical and siting decisions.

      This is the horrific shambles that the new mayor Mark Sutcliffe will have to deal with during his term in office.

   3. I call it “Not-tawa.”

5. No one look too close at the company responsible for the next 30 years… nor the possibly corrupt way they got the contract

   https://rtg-rtm.com/en/rideau-transit-maintenance/

6. Still waiting for Toronto’s Eglinton East LRT to even begin service, 2 yrs late and billions over budget and no public explanation of the delays.

   Thanks Mayor WiffleWaffle!

   1. The Ford’s were ridiculed for suggesting that the TTC build subways instead of glorified streetcars. I retain a love for streetcars from my childhood in Montreal but realistically they are an 1890’s solution that largely died in the 1930’s and that struggled to survive in a few cities since then. They keep being dabbled with by scheming bureaucrats and politicians who strive for power.

   2. Drainage, or so the rumor goes

7. Don’t worry.. All our? government workers are ready for our carbon zero dystopian future.. The problem in this case is light rail is out in the open for everybody to see.. When we all know the real magic happens in computer models and committee rooms..

   1. But, but, but. There is a fix.
      Hire more govamint workers.

      John Ivison: The Phoenix problem got worse as Ottawa hired more civil servants. Now it must hire even more to fix it

8. The mayor at the time, Jim Watson, the city council and the senior Ottawa bureaucrats decided on a light rail transit technology that was unproven. It has now been proven to be unable to operate in Ottawa’s climate.

9. No pic of a stranded Maureen Huxter?
   Maybe in the next life.

10. I think the main problem is the bends are in places too sharp. The train screeches and squeels as it goes round them; no wonder there have been axle problems.

    1. That’s barely the beginning of it. As surveyed, the route ran right through a sinkhole that was never discovered by the survey. It resulted in a huge collapse of one of the busiest downtown intersections – Col. Bye Drive and Rideau Street. It was closed for months. The door-opening systems are defective. The signal systems are defective and not winter-resistant. The catenaries are defective and not winter weather-resistant. They have already started to have some corrosion problems almost as bad as those afflicting the New Flyer D60 LFRs.

11. A few year prior to covid, subsidy in Edmonton for transit (ET) was $1.48/rider. Edmonton also has a 2 – 3 year late LRT – which may never work, and a west LRT being built. Unknown to COE citizens is taxpayers $$ part of the over budget. Prove me wrong!
    I submit that ET/LRT fees are now 100% subsidized and if true financials were revealed COE is essentially bankrupt. Proof, $69M from Prov to keep ET working, increase in taxes, and increase in debt COE is allowed.
    Before these projects are approved citizens should know – how many businesses will be closed, how many current jobs will be lost, and if the City tax contribution is over say $80M then a vote must be held.

12. HONK HONK!!!

    (Too soon?)

13. No Rush to Fix.

    It’s Ottawa no one in the Government works at an office.

14. Waterloo region spent $900,000,000 to add about 30 buses worth of LRT capacity to the public transit system, while paring down the number of routes and stops in order to try to pay for it. I am willing to bet that ridership is down.
    During construction Kitchener and Waterloo were each split to the extent that even now I avoid driving to the other side of the city.
    Wait until the monorail circus comes to town.

15. The truck drivers last February had the wrong idea.

    Blockade Ottawa. Cut it off completely.

    The stupid will cull themselves off and within thirty-six hours the survivors would meet the demands of the rest of the country.

16. The issue is not public/mass transit as such, it is the incompetence and corruption of the various administrations involved (such as in Ottawa, Toronto, and elsewhere).
    Public/mass transit can for sure work very well, if done right. See for example my home city, Prague, with its mix of subways, trams, and buses, transporting people safely, reliably, and frequently.

17. Sidewalks are the new mass transit. IF they don’t’ prove too technically challenging to manage.