OC Transpo wants feedback from residents on their Bus Route Review. The review may have impacts on our immediate community and on transit service levels across the City.
Here’s what the CBLCA Transportation, Transit, and Infrastructure Committee is telling OC Transpo. If you have a better idea, let us know. Better still, let OC Transpo know.
Crystal Beach Lakeview—what we have now
What Crystal Beach Lakeview has now is two frustrating stubs of bus routes that don’t get us to our centre of commerce. Bells Corners holds our grocery stores, library, banks, restaurants, liquor store, hardware store, high schools, a public school, and places of worship. It’s just a quick hop by car to the other side of the Queensway, but for someone with a bundle buggy forced to take two buses to get her groceries, it’s a challenge. At one time the route 166 bus circled around our neighbourhood, picking up Lakeview Crystal Beach residents and taking us to Bells Corners on one bus. That 166 route was split up in the re-organization a few years ago.
What we want—”pearls on a string”
We want one bus route that loops through Crystal Beach Lakeview and through Bells Corners, then turns around and goes back the other way. Combine the 57 and 58 and whack off the eastern ramblings (or keep them as peak hour extensions). You can probably use pretty much the same routes you currently have that go to the Queensway Carleton Hospital, all three grocery stores, the library, the churches, and the mosque, but maybe, for the 58-route CBLCA part, tweak the route, so it goes down Moodie Drive to DND and then along Carling for a bit. The combined 58-57 route will be a milk run, but it will be thorough.
Why it will work for OC Transpo
You will be making good use of the train as the spine of the service. With the LRT in place, the eastern parts of routes 57 and 58 will be redundant. Much of what they do is already duplicated by other routes. We will be able to take the train to get to downtown. We can maybe transfer to another community’s “pearl on the string”. For example, we might take another “pearl” to get to Ikea, the Pinecrest Recreation Centre, the Queensview Goodlife, or the Boy’s and Girls
Club. It is likely that other communities will want their own loops to get to parts of their communities barricaded off by the Queensway and—let’s face it—by the LRT.
Some considerations
In addition to the “pearls on string” concept, a couple of other thoughts need consideration.
The 85 is a spine too
We should probably keep the 85 pretty much as it is. It’s a well functioning popular bus that takes people across Carling to stores and restaurants and medical service—and does it frequently. It’s a spine route too and at one time, Carling was seriously considered as the route the LRT should take. So much of what people still want was already on that road.
The 258-rush-hour bus
The 258-rush-hour bus has a devoted following from this community. If you get rid of the 258, you might not be very popular. If, however, people can get to Bayshore or Moodie stations quickly and easily to catch the train, and if we are confident of having seats for that long trip to downtown and Gatineau, the change might be acceptable.
High-school-specific buses
Keep the high-school-specific buses too, if only so students don’t clog up the “pearls” and make life impossible for the person with the bundle buggy. (Bless their lovely student hearts.)
To Kanata and beyond
Until we have a train extending west from Moodie station to string more “pearls” on, we will need the 88, 61, 62, 63, 64, and 66, or something similar, to handle all the directions we want to go in Kanata.
I hope this is helpful. We appreciate your work on what must be a difficult file and we look forward to updated and satisfactory bus routes.
If you have questions, or want more details, I would be glad to talk to you.
How to give feedback on routes to OC Transpo
OC Transpo has organized in-person open houses and one virtual event. If you can’t attend those, you can complete a survey, send feedback by email, or you can phone. If you have any interest in public transit, the Crystal Beach Lakeview Community Association encourages you have your say through one of these methods.
You can find more information and the information you need to register or complete the surveys here.
In-person open house events
One open house is still available on Thursday, June 1, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm, City Hall, Champlain
room, 110 Laurier Avenue West. You must register.
Survey
You can get involved by completing a short survey asking about how you use the transit system and what you think the future of our transit system should look like. The survey is available in English, French, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Arabic on the web site.
Email or telephone
If you cannot attend the sessions listed above, you can also email your feedback to routereview@ottawa.ca or you can call 613-560-5000.
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