Kettle Island discourages public transit
Contributed by Judy Lishman:
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The Kettle Island corridor would be the poorest performing corridor for encouraging transit ridership. According to the consultant’s own conclusion in his Transit Report of July, 2008 “The least useful interprovincial crossing for transit is Crossing 5 Kettle Island – there are no benefits for route travel time or ridership criteria”. In fact, a bridge at Kettle Island would discourage transit travel and encourage automobile travel.
Transit ridership only increases if it is convenient and results in a shorter ride time than automobile. The best way to increase transit ridership is to provide dedicated transit facilities on the bridges (either bus lanes or rail) so that transit is separated from car traffic.
The City of Ottawa has just approved a transit plan that incorporates both Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). A major rail/bus transfer station will be located at the Blair Station close to the Greenbelt and Highway 174. The Kettle Island corridor would not directly connect with either rail or bus transit. It would not promote transit ridership and therefore would not increase the modal split (M/S) i.e. the split between transit travel and automobile travel. Corridors east of the Blair Station could enhance transit ridership from Gatineau significantly and thereby increase the M/S and reduce the requirement for future bridge capacity. There is little sense in selecting a bridge corridor that fails to connect to transit.
The NCC has recently commissioned the Interprovincial Rapid Transit Integration Strategic Planning Study. It would seem prudent, if the proponents are serious about promoting public transit, to integrate the transit study with the Interprovincial Crossings Study in order to rationalize the decisions about public transit and a new crossing corridor.
To demonstrate how little value the consultant has placed on the importance of transit in the National Capital Region, the combined weight given to the ability of a corridor to encourage automobile use is 13.4% while the weight given to encourage transit use is 2.3%. This distortion in the weighting has led to the selection of a corridor that, in fact, discourages transit use. For this reason, a bridge at Kettle Island should be rejected.
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February 8th, 2009 at 8:32 am
I have a coworker who lives in Gatineau (not close to the Kettle Island corridor). He drives to work in Ottawa. His opinion is that he doesn’t know why they are building a bridge in the city. He says they should build one on the outskirts for the trucks. He says they should focus on improving public transit from Gatineau into the city of Ottawa (he mentions light rail).
It’s interesting that when you go to the King Edward bridge outside of rush hour (and construction is completed) that there is manageable traffic around that area.
It is very sad that we don’t see surveys showing what the people of Ottawa and Gatineau want!!!!!