Today I spent two hours at my “alma mata”, Carleton University.

It’s been 10 years since the Herzberg building was expanded, but I still think of it as new. For many, the O-train is still new, yet it will soon be old. Unless you do something about it.

I was giving out flyers about the cancellation of the O-train. http://otra.sandelman.ca/2006-09/

I talked to students arriving by O-train and bus about the cities’ plans to replace the widely successful O-train with a streetcar system. Most were very surprised.

OC-transpo doesn’t talk much about this, yet it is a critical part of the plan: by shutting things down for a long enough period, people will have to make new arrangements, and will therefore not care if the “replacement” train gets finished or not. It will be more expensive than buses (it’s designed to be), so, we’ll have to cancel it.

http://www.cs.unca.edu/~manns/intropatterns.html explains some of this method, but I don’t have the book in my hands, so I can’t tell you the name of this anti-pattern.

I wrote about this before, using a piece from Tim Lane, that really says is better than I ever could: http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/blog/2006/06/12#tim_lane_on_o-train

Now the Mayor seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting what the
diesel O-Train has accomplished, and is convinced that any future LRT has
to be the expensive kind.

He has forgotten that the #1 reason you bring in light rail, is TO REDUCE
THE COST OF OPERATING YOUR TRANSIT SYSTEM! 

The #2 reason, is to give your riders a FASTER, MORE RELIABLE TRIP, if
terms of travel time, and schedule adherence. 

The new North South LRT extension, looping through Riverside South before
entering Barrhaven from the south east, will, at enormous cost, provide
passengers with a slower trip from Barrhaven to downtown, than the
express buses on Woodroffe Avenue. 

The plans for the East West light rail lines, with proposals to run it
down busy city streets, rather than the existing, mostly grade separated
rail corridors, show that the purpose of LRT, now, is to enhance the
value of developers properties. 

The two real reasons for LRT, above, have been thrown out the window.