Ottawa's Development Pattern is Biting Back

I love Ottawa. Sure, it gets a reputation of being a boring city, but it's where my family is from so I love visiting. Every time I do visit, I make sure to spend some time exploring, and learning about places throughout. Obviously, I do not drive this, and taking transit everywhere in Ottawa is... difficult at best. 

In this piece, I will argue that Ottawa's development pattern has had, and will have, significant impact on transit planning and transit operations for decades to come. Decisions made back in the 1940s and 1950s have made mobility in Ottawa incredibly difficult. Past literature has focussed on the obvious of car-centric mobility; this will be more specific to the unique Ottawa case.

Understanding Ottawa

I assume most people reading this have little-to-no understanding of Ottawa. So, for the sake of this article, I have very-roughly divided the city as seen below.

In green, is Centretown, as well as some of the older streetcar suburbs, like Vanier and Hintonburg. Centretown is home to many government offices. The yellow zone are the older suburbs, and include places like Alta Vista, Nepean, and Bells Corners. These older areas tend to have a mix of housing types, including townhomes and apartments. The red zone outlines Kanata and Stittsville, the blue Barrhaven, and the purple Orleans, which are all newer suburban areas that are nearly entirely single-family homes. The last area is the brown periphery. This is most rural, but features some newer suburban developments like Findlay Creek and Manotick. To the north of the city is Gatineau, in Quebec. Functionally, the cities have separate transit systems, and separate governments, but operate together.

As is very clear, the 'urban' part of Ottawa is incredibly tiny. I want to make it clear, however, that suburban areas are not inherently bad for transit, and provide many opportunities (see: Scarborough & Brampton). 

Context

Ottawa's history since the World War II is very important here. While simplified, the general process has been followed for the past 80 years: a growing public service with employment centered on the downtown core (and later, Gatineau's core) required a need for housing, and since it was the 50s, suburbs were seen as the way to go. There have been small deviations here and there, such as the technology industry driving a lot of growth in Kanata. 

As such, the prioritized, and arguably dominant, transportation pattern was from suburb to downtown in the morning, and back in the afternoon. This ignored a lot of employment outside of the core, but this was viewed as acceptable because downtown was such a destination. Ottawa's Transitway, a BRT network, was open, meaning that local routes could pick up in the suburbs, on local residential streets, and drop off right downtown. Those onwards to Gatineau either switched buses once, or were even lucky enough to have a route that crossed the border. Many people had one-seat trips from their houses to work, which gave Ottawa a high transit modal share. While this is less than Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, it is important to remember that this is without any rail. Much of the suburban network were the Connexion routes, serving the newer suburban areas. These routes used the 417 and the transitway to bypass much of the city. The trade-off was that these routes tended to run rush-hour only, in the peak direction. This produced a situation where transit was used for employment and school access, but rarely for errands and recreation. As such, overall modal share was at 20% in 2016, but likely much higher during peaks. 

Disgraced Ottawa mayor Jim Watson has long been obsessed with rail. This, coupled with the fact that the Transitway is fully on-street downtown, creating lots of congestion (I once counted 68 buses in a row), made the case for converting the central Transitway to a rail line. As such, in 2019, the Confederation Line, the O-Train's Line 1 opened between Tunney's Pasture and Blair. (I totally forgot to mention Line 2 already existed. It really matters little in the broader landscape of Ottawa, until the near future). The line has had... teething issues, which is definitely understating it. I won't rehash it, but Fatima Syed does an amazing job of summing it up here. This has had a huge impact on the overall trust in the system, but I argue that the O-Train has made some other problems apparent.

Map of the current O-Train network.

Because of the O-Train, few buses had to go downtown. As such, most routes, including Connexion routes, were cut back to key stations: routes in the west and southwest terminate at Tunney's Pasture, in the south at Hurdman, and in the east at Blair, forcing a transfer to the train. This has saved a number of vehicles that, theoretically, have been used elsewhere (untrue).

Hurdman, one of the three main transfer points on the network.

Ottawa is currently in the process of extending service on Line 1 to Trim in the east and Algonquin in the west, and adding a parallel Line 3 from Trim to Moodie. Line 2 will be extended to Limebank with infill stations, and a new Line 4 will shuttle customers from South Keys to the Airport. 

The future O-Train network.

What's the Big Issue?

The big issue is that Ottawa's plans to expand the O-Train, which cuts routes back to stations, promotes the development of a stronger gridded bus network. This, however, is in direct conflict with Ottawa's development pattern being entirely sprawl, with a weak grid network in the suburbs. While a gridded system would promote transit use outside of work hours, this is easier said than done.

Specific Issues

This problem is not unique to Ottawa, but there are ten key issues that affect this city specifically. This section will outline them.

#1: Dependence on Connexion routes

For years, the dependence on the Connexion routes (200-series) is what brought people to work. However, as the O-Train gets closer and closer to suburbs, the rationale behind having a distinct branding for long-haul routes gets less and less necessary. The inevitable replacement of Connexion routes with regular routes must make OC Transpo wonder: are we going to make the former routes all-day, every-day, at good frequencies, or settle with a network of rush-only trips? In areas like Stittsville, where the majority of the service is provided by the Connexions, the transit network seems sparse. I argue that the Connexion routes should have been seen as temporary until either: 1) transit demand grew to a point of requiring expansion of service hours, on a route-by-route basis; and 2) the O-Train got close enough to the suburbs to justify a local route.

By not doing either of the above, you have areas even in the older suburbs, close to downtown, that are still only served by Connexion routes. The one that comes to mind is the Fielding/Southmore loop, served only by route 290. 

#2: Empty Grid

Ottawa's suburban areas, new and old, are far from the city, but also far from each other. What this means is that there are major streets that could (and should) justify transit service, as they run between developed areas, but have long stretches of nothing in-between. You might say, hey, that's fine, but is it? If you have a bunch of routes running down Greenbank for example, you waste vehicles in the empty section. In addition, you cannot assume that travel patterns follow those empty sections, and you wouldn't know because, well, there are no destinations there! So while this may be a straight line from Pinecrest Station in a few years, will it actually make sense to run Barrhaven services this way? Filling in gaps along Montreal Road, Greenbank, Woodroffe, Innes, and Robertson would make a world of difference in improving transit.

Greenbank has stuff, nothing, then stuff. Do people wish to travel this way?

In the map above, I had mentioned the brown areas. Findlay Creek has service at all hours (but at 60-minute headways on Sundays), Manotick has rush-only service, yet the rural areas have nothing. If we are committed to one city that is Ottawa, how do we make meaningful connections over empty expanses? If we think Carp and Dunrobin are in the city, despite being rural, how do we assess what transit looks like there?

#3: Weak Arterial Grid in Suburbs

When you look at Scarborough, and even newer GTA suburbs, you can clearly see a grid of roads that run the length of the municipality. In Scarborough, east-west roads are situated two kilometres from each other, with secondary roads like Huntingwood dividing that distance (but only further north).

Ottawa does not have this. Look at the map of Orleans below. The major roads either twist and turn, curve to wide distances from the previous, or just don't get all the way up or down. These grids are super weak, and do not allow for a basic network of routes to be implemented. 

What you get are routes that twist and turn through suburbia in order to serve everything, since there are no arterials to provide service on, and if there are, they are not friendly to transit. In Barrhaven, you can't travel through on Strandherd, but you can take the 170, as seen below.

This does everything and nothing at the same time.

#4: Crosstown or Downtown?

One key thing that helps promote transit usage are trips that do not go downtown, and bypass to serve other destinations. In Ottawa, many routes close to downtown detour up to end there. For example, the 85, along Carling, turns up Preston towards the core. However, a good crosstown trip would see the 85 extend over the 56's route at least until Lees, providing an option to cross downtown other than the O-Train. However, many people would reasonably be annoyed by the additional transit, as they have for years not had to do it. The question remains what OC Transpo prioritizes: a focus on the downtown core, or trips that provide options across the city.

#5: The Southeast Transitway

Much of Transitway will be replaced with the expansion of the O-Train, but a key section will not. The Southeast Transitway runs from Hurdman, on Line 1, to South Keys on Line 2. I have long suggested they have Line 4 run the Transitway, allowing for a more direct trip to the airport, but this is clearly not a priority. What this creates is a big gap. Many routes currently run along the Transitway from the south of the city. If these routes are cut back to South Keys, a new transfer is forced to another bus, not a rail line. If the routes are not cut back, we waste buses duplicating a large number of routes. 

Obviously, this issue is resolved if Line 4 is extended, but until that happens, OC Transpo must deal with one of the above options.

#6: Infrastructural Lock-In

Infrastructural lock-in is this idea that if a piece of infrastructure is built, it has to be used meaningfully. Why would you abandon a bridge just built, or a new subway line? A lot of this deals with finances and expenditure, but it fails to keep up with the fact that patterns inevitably change, and they change quickly. We return to Orleans to see how this is playing out.

The extension of Line 1 to Trim will follow the Transitway, parallel to Highway 417. This is allows it to serve a number of park-and-ride lots, as well. However, this means it is very far north in Orleans, when nearly all growth is happening in the south. Routing the line along St. Joseph would make a world more of sense, as it serves developed areas away from the highway, and is closer to the newest housing in Orleans. This is not happening because it will make the old Transitway and its park-and-ride lots 'not worth the cost,' despite years of good use that worked for an old model. Instead, we have stations no one can walk to, and where transit connections may not be great. I understand the park-and-ride lots are popular, and parking is something that can be offered, but good connecting bus routes should be the first offering.

Place d'Orléans Station, bridging the highway, anchored by parking.

OC Transpo's newest park-and-ride lot is Chapel Hill, located at Navan and Brian Coburn. Routes are forced to detour through this, despite there not being reason to. Customers on the 34 have a few minutes extra looping to serve to lot for few people (during the first month, as few as 14 of 263 parking spaces were being used daily), which adds up over time. The routes serving the station have already been described as being milk runs. Bypassing it is apparently not an option, as it cost $8.5 million to build. The article linked above mentions growth nearby coming soon, which is fine, but if the bus routes are being adjusted to serve the new growth anyways, why build the lot?

#7: Downtown Routes

In spite of all the efforts to rid the core of buses, there are people downtown who still use the buses there. The question remains of how these buses fit into the broader network. If routes are cut back to O-Train stations, do these routes become isolate? Do we force a transfer onto and off of the O-Train just to access a more localized service?

#8: STO Routes

Gatineau's transit agency is STO. Currently, routes travel in a big loop through the downtown core, dropping off at Rideau and picking up at Lyon. Transfers to OC Transpo are free. The issue with them is similar to the downtown routes: are we isolating them downtown is everything is cut back?

With the O-Train being extended west, there is an option that some Aylmer routes travel Island Park to end at Westboro. This makes trips into Ottawa (particularly Kanata), easier, but makes it harder to travel across Gatineau. It may also miss transfers to the Gatineau Rapibus, and so we create a situation similar to #4: do we prioritize downtown or crosstown trips?

#9: Inter-Suburbia

One thing that has failed to be mentioned here is about trips between the newer suburbs. OC Transpo's first inter-suburban route was the 110, introduced during the pandemic, only because the new Amazon Distribution Centre in Barrhaven needed linkages to Kanata. 

The much-needed 110.

This is a great start, but how do we account for trips between suburban areas? Jobs, including government jobs, are now located in these areas, and so the model of downtown-serving-everyone really doesn't work. Especially considering the aforementioned technological industries in Kanata, economic growth in Ottawa is being stunted through this. 

Also, what if my friend lives in another suburb? Simple, leisurely trips like this are given a 'NO' by OC Transpo.

#10: Segregation of Land Uses

This last issue focusses very locally. If we are saying that grocery stores in the suburb can only be built in specific location on arterials, how do we get transit to service that? It's almost as if we are forcing routes to duplicate each other and congregate on specific sites to reach service because we ban them elsewhere. If Ottawa truly wants good transit, it needs to let services be situated elsewhere than just a few lots on an arterial, but within neighbourhoods, or at the least, on every arterial so no one had to travel far for a loaf of bread.

Where do we go from here?

Unfortunately, Ottawa has not given me any evidence that any of the ten are being taken into account. Suburban growth is happening the same way it always has, routes are being extended in twisty routings during limited hours, all while they aim to build a better rapid transit network. More than any other city in North America, Ottawa is failing to align objectives for urban improvement. 

I wish there would be a time we have frequent service and short waits at O-Train stations, and I can get to Stittsville at 1am on a Sunday, but I don't see it happening. I guess when the O-Train gets extended, and especially so when LRT reaches Kanata, Barrhaven, and the Southeast Transitway, Ottawa will have to sit down and decide what the bus network should look like.