Transportation Master Plan: failure at City Hall, Pt. II

Introduction

On the first of April, the City released its draft Transportation Master Plan, or TMP, and befitting this date, it's a complete joke. The TMP is a document that guides city planning on all transportation matters; this one is intended to go through 2046, though the document is irregularly updated.

This is the second part in my three-piece series on the new TMP. If you're not already familiar with it, take a read through part one to get an understanding of what the TMP is and how it came to be.

If you haven't read it, I encourage you to take a skim through the official TMP propaganda reports and get a sense of what I'm talking about.

Review

Let's start by reviewing the project lists.

The Needs-Based Network, and keep in mind this is the more ambitious version of the twenty year plan, includes Stage 3, which the city is on record asking other levels of government to fully pay for; six BRT lines costing a ludicrous total of $2.85 billion; three "dedicated transit corridors" (ie. bus lanes without BRT infrastructure) for an equally ludicrous sum of $580 million, O-Train improvements (a sum total of six infills and Walkley Station improvements on the line that opened this year) on existing lines for $853 million plus two uncosted projects at Trim and Dow's Lake; and $160 million for transit priority, which would be adequate even in Toronto but at these rates, enough for three half-corridors.

With the city's (stupid) 33% funding model, this represents a 20-year investment of $4.9 billion total, with $1.6 ($80 million/year) billion coming out of municipal coffers.

And a map:



The Priority Network, on the other hand, has seven (the South Transitway split in two) scaled back BRT projects for $1.537 billion. There would be no O-Train improvements except the $80 million for Walkley, while continuous bus lanes would get $871 million for seven projects. The $160 million for transit priority would remain the same. This is a total of $2.648 billion, with a municipal contribution of $885 million or slightly less than $45 million/year.

Stage 3 was included without anybody batting an eye. More on that later.

And a map, because everybody loves maps.

Axed and Removed ...

... vision and ambition, for one.

The appendix A to the Transit Network Development Report lists at least 40 (I didn't bother counting past two dozen) projects that were rejected for various reasons, the most common being "low ridership." I have criticisms of the methodology, but more on that soon.

These projects are:

• Airport Parkway bus lanes
• Albion Road bus lanes
• The western leg of the Innes-Industrial Transitway, studied in-depth during the late Larry O'Brien/early Jim Watson era
• Bank Street Subway, deemed more suitable for "transit priority measures" (most of the corridor is not included in the list of projects suitable for transit priority, and a current attempt is best described as a failure anyways)
• Beechwood/Hemlock transit priority, included in the 2013 TMP
• Belfast/Terminal transit priority, included in the 2013 TMP
• Blair Transit priority, included in the 2013 TMP
• Carling LRT, included in the 2013 TMP
• Line 2-style commuter rail on various lines, including the Beachburg Subdivision east of Carp; the Walkley Yard; the former M&O towards Navan; and the Smith Falls Subdivision to Barrhaven, removed mostly due to "low ridership" and interference with an anemic VIA waiting on high speed rail. Some of these lines were extensively studied in the late 1990s as part of the Light Rail Pilot Project that resulted in the O-Train, and were found to have similar, or higher, ridership potential ...
• Codd's transit priority, included in the 2013 TMP
• Cumberland Transitway east of Frank Kenny Road, included in the 2013 TMP
• Transit priority on Earl Armstrong
• Conroy Transitway, on a road with zero bus routes currently. This was downgraded to a $230 million bus lane in the final version.
• Transit priority for Route 14 on Gladstone, included in the 2013 TMP. Discarded due to "low ridership" despite the 14 carrying over 9000 daily riders, likely half of whom would benefit directly from transit priority (and all would benefit indirectly) in some fashion.
• Holland transit priority, included in the 2013 TMP. This was deleted due to "low ridership" on a corridor carrying four bus routes with a total of 13000 daily riders, all of whom would benefit from transit priority on congested Holland Avenue.
• Innes/Walkley transit priority, included in the 2013 TMP
• Transit priority on Kelly Park
• Leitrim bus lanes
• Lester bus lanes
• Merivale bus lanes south of Hunt Club
• East Transitway on Old Montreal, included in the 2013 TMP
• Line 2 extensions to Rideau, Gatineau (included in the 2013 TMP), and a Line 4 extension to Tremblay
• Queen Elizabeth Drive LRT
• A subway under Montreal Road
• Robert Grant Transitway, included in the 2013 TMP
• Transit priority on Robertson, included in the 2013 TMP
• LRT to Osgoode Village
• Greenbank Transitway extension, included in the 2013 TMP
• Tenth Line transit priority
• Terry Fox transit priority
• Tewin Transitway/commuter rail. This illustrates the city's myopic approach to suburban planning, by denying a suburb good transit connections from the outset (roads can't not be built! Those are important). Then they turn around and wonder why ridership is not increasing.
• Trim transit priority
• Transit priority on Wellington, included in the 2013 TMP. This would benefit STO more than it would benefit OC Transpo.
• Transit priority on Woodroffe, included in the 2013 TMP.

If you were to do a search, "included in the 2013 TMP" would appear sixteen times in the above list. These are projects explicitly ruled out, mind you. We have an additional decade-and-a-half to complete these projects, with the most challenging and expensive portions built by the previous council already, and all we can do is say that it's too low ridership.

And isn't that the best representation of the total lack of vision for transit in this city. When transit is receiving two-star ratings from their users, and when we are facing a $120 million cliff, the approach from City Council and staff is to say, "we've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas!"

Actually, that's not true. Cutting projects from the previous TMP takes work.

Transit service is essential to provide fast trips across the city. It enables people of all ages, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and any other attribute to travel for work, school, shopping, entertainment, or because they just feel like it.

Rapid transit, and in an increasingly congested city, is critical to the city's functionality - and the TMP is lightweight on roads as well, so we are receiving easy driving in exchange for this broken transit "vision". This TMP is going to break Ottawa. We are also not tackling the challenges we have ahead of us in cost control (more on that soon), broken operations and prioritization, or lack of creativity. It's a total surrender to all three challenges.

To say, "the best we can do is a BRT every four years" and then cry poor when time comes to fund the BRT is no less than completely shameful. If I were a councilor involved in pushing for "affordability for taxpayers" (by, say, enabling them to reach better jobs at a lower cost) with this TMP, I'd resign in shame. City Council should be embarrassed at this show of ineptitude. Shame on all of us for electing a pack of leaderless dolts who pushed for this complete non-vision.

It gets worse.

Waving a White Flag to Cost Disease

During the public inquiry into the LRT, one criticism that emerged was the budget. Mayor Jim Watson pushed the $2.1 billion ($2.2 billion with contingency) budget, an early estimate, as a maximum budget. As a result, design changed on the fly, leading to problems with the project as it was delivered.

Now, we're going in the opposite direction. If you were reading carefully, you may have seen the cost estimates: $8.3 billion for Stage 3, and billions for BRT projects that should cost a fraction of that at most.

Let's start with Stage 3. The last project budget we saw was $4 billion for Barrhaven and $2.5 billion for Kanata, as reported by CTV as late as February (on the eve of the LRT upload announcement). Now the reported cost is $8.3 billion total, and as always, paid for by some other level of government in an attempt to elude responsibility for City Hall's political stunts. $0.9 billion of that is contingency, and it's not clear if the previous $6.5 billion includes that; if not, then the increase is "only" 14%, but if the $6.5 billion cost included contingency, then this represents a total cost escalation of 25% or more.

What is happening at City Hall?

Ignoring project prioritization for a moment (I know, I know), this is completely out of line with previous projects. In 2024 dollars, Stage 1 cost ~$190 million/km, and Stage 2 East/West cost $90 million/km.

The Barrhaven leg will be $420 million/km for an easier alignment with the right of way pre-cleared south of West Hunt Club (the Transitway). Apparently, "TMP modeling identified high ridership along the entire length of this corridor, although travel time savings are limited in the south section given the high quality of service on the existing Southwest Transitway."

The Kanata leg is not much better: it will cost $300 million/km, admittedly over a more challenging alignment than Barrhaven. According to the TMP, "TMP modeling identified high ridership from Moodie Station to Terry Fox Station based on the 2046 land use projections. Ridership forecasts are lower between Terry Fox Station and Hazeldean Station within the 2046 horizon."

I do not know how we would go about cutting the Stage 3 (and BRT) budget to something that is reasonable for the transit we are getting. Less of the mega-grade separation for drivers, probably; I have seen research indicating that contingency and soft costs are to blame in Montreal and Toronto, but the design (soft costs) is complete and the contingency is not that high on these projects.

Perhaps it is that the City has burnt through its reputation with the botching of the LRT contracts, and nobody will do business with them anymore.

I will remain stumped.



The picture is not much rosier on the BRT side.

The Baseline BRT is the best illustrator of this problem. In January, city staff presented the first update to the project in years. The budget for the initial Billings Bridge-Algonquin segment was estimated at $140 million in 2017, and this escalated to $160 million by 2019. After a gap of six years, the new budget, presented this January was $290 million, a cost of nearly $40 million/km for BRT. This is an increase of 80% over six years.

The TMP provides some new, rosier cost estimates. $360 million is now the estimated cost of the Baseline BRT, explicitly stated as "Algonquin College to Billings Bridge." This is escalation of 25% in two months, which is just totally ridiculous. I can't even begin to guess how and why that happened - especially since the design was finished in 2021, or so I'm told. There should be no shocks left in store. Perhaps it was a surprise squirrel invasion?

If costs continue to rise, we'll be building the Baseline BRT in 2031 for $1.7 billion as a consolation prize after the cancellation of the $16 billion Stage 3.

Had we bit the bullet and built the Baseline BRT in 2017, the cost for a 100% municipal contribution would have been only $20 million less than a 33% contribution today, and likely even less differential by the time this begins construction. We could even have used the advanced tactic known as blackmail ("fund our project or we will attack you for not funding our project") to get an upper level contribution - even 75% of $140 million is less than 33% of $360 million.

By sitting on their arses and claiming fiscal prudence today, Council is surrendering its responsibility to future governments who will have to deal with their fiscal recklessness tomorrow.

Other examples of cost craziness include:

$32 million to complete the link of the Chapman Mills Transitway from Longfields to Greenbank. This is a length of under a kilometre, with a short segment already built. (and I cannot stress enough, the studies were completed a while ago. If we keep delaying this we'll need a new EA)

$210 million to convert two lanes (presumably) of March Road, a six-lane speedway, to BRT over less than five kilometres.

$230 million for "continuous bus lanes" on Conroy Road over six-and-a-half kilometres, on road segments with zero ridership as they do not even merit bus service.


BRT is just a two-lane road with paint, signs, and bus shelters - basic ones, if necessary to keep costs down. It's not clear to me why our costs are escalating like this - in the near future, we may need to shift our advocacy to demanding answers from city staff.

Project Prioritization

Not only does the TMP lack ambition and have prohibitive costs, but the prioritization of projects itself is also no less than scandalous - and reeks of political interference from councilors who want to """respect the taxpayer""" while still serving their own kingdom, I mean, ward.

There's one quick exercise to illustrate the city's total inability to prioritize the right projects.

In 2023, the city released a map of equity "Priority Neighbourhoods," which also happen to match to some of the busiest bus routes in the city - the 88, 6, 7, 12, 85, 14, 111, and so on. These communities are both in need of higher-order transit, with the tripmaking to prove their high demand already. They declared that the priority for rapid transit would go to these areas.

I made a quick map of the Priority Neighbourhoods superimposed onto the Priority Transit Network. Grey lines are anything built already built or under construction, and thus, has nothing to do with this TMP. Do take special note of the $8.3 billion Stage 3 investment and its relationship to the Priority Neighbourhoods. (hint: there's NO relationship!)


These neighbourhoods are identified in the Official Plan, which, by the way, the City is legally required to follow.

We can repeat this exercise for the Needs-Based Network.












There's really two threads to weave on project prioritization. The first is the question of, how did projects get included on the Needs-Based Network? The second is to ask, what metrics were used to determine projects for the Priority Network?


The first question is answered in Appendix A of "Transit Network Development Report." The report does not actually cite any real figures, but it is enlightening to see what the brain trust at Transportation Planning came up with. I do not have the data used in this "analysis"/sandbagging, but I do want to highlight a few pieces of "analysis" that show the true depths of ineptitude at the TMP team.


This has four clauses to it. Let's tackle the visible ones first.

Low ridership, on two routes with combined ridership of 22000. Given that OC Transpo runs most trips through Rideau, one must assume decent ridership on Beechwood. What is the ridership? Is it higher or lower than the zero riders on Conroy south of Queensdale after NWTB? Who knows, because Transportation Planning has their heads stuck so far up their arse they can see the light from the other side.

Limited ability to improve transit travel times - here I want to take a brief detour to the city's Transit Facility Type Planning Guidelines, a set of lies that the city uses to determine usefulness.

I do not have insider data. But I would bet money that Beechwood runs at 12 km/h on Sunday evenings, so Transportation Planning said that was good enough for them.

There are two more clauses. The first is reliability. I am not a believer in the theory that reliability cannot be achieved with only physical infrastructure (operations are more important), but they can provide a boost in a competent organization. Transit priority also benefits riders along an entire route, even if it only operates on half the route. We already know that the city does not value reliability, so the total lack of clarity of thinking on this subject does not surprise me.

The other clause implies that no faux-analysis was performed west of the St. Patrick Bridge, even though St. Patrick and Murray are wide arterials that could certainly use a dose of narrowing and transit priority.


Technical feasibility is certainly a problem. This is something that should be tackled in a business case, in an Environmental Assessment (EA), or in a design document. The TMP is a document for envisioning how we want our city's transit network to look, it's not a feasibility analysis. City staff, in using this line, have shown themselves to be visionless and direction-less, only considering the petty implications. It seems as though the culture set at the top has permeated Transportation Planning fully.

I want to see the city's communication with VIA Rail. Have they asked VIA Rail? Has VIA Rail rejected it outright, or did they ask for physical modifications that could theoretically be delivered? Did they talk to the HFR teams at the three consortiums? Did they talk to the Cadence team, now ALTO? Have they asked for considerations to be taken into account when planning a possible replacement of the century-old CNOR Rideau River bridge? Have VIA said no? 

These, and more, are questions we must ask before rejecting a project for "technical feasibility." 

This is city staff saying "we've tried nothing and we're out of ideas!" They certainly haven't been trying very hard.


One more highlight, and then I will move on to the city's "projections."
Ridership levels more suited to transit priority measures - Rideau/Montreal has at least 15000 riders/day. This is certainly adequate to justify BRT, and probably surface rail (of which there is absolutely none in this TMP) if we were actually competent. I read the TMP and come away with the impression that the authors do not look at their own ridership statistics.

Extremely high cost - yes, because we are apparently unable to build anything for a low cost.

Competes with Line 1 - it's true that it's parallel. I do not actually know how much ridership it would take away from Line 1, and if it does, then that means people prefer the Montreal Subway as a faster/more convenient path of travel.

We certainly do not measure road projects in this manner. For example, the Innes-Walkley connection, which is directly parallel to Highway 417, has this note: "Bypasses congested section of Innes Road and provides direct connection between Orléans and Walkley / Hunt Club."

How do projects get prioritized once they make the Needs-Based network? If your belief as a transit rider is that the City values you exactly not at all, you'd be correct! Existing riders get no consideration in the weighting, even if existing riders will leave transit if you provide them with an inferior product.


This is apparently a lesson that repeated beatings have yet to teach OC Transpo, as they continue to forget that latent demand goes both ways when you cut transit service - we don't project ridership (and therefore, revenue) decreases from cut service and/or increased fares.


To justify inclusion in the Needs-Based Network, a project needs to score highly on a criteria of 100 points. Most of these are normalized to the highest scoring project. They are as follows: 

35 points for Ridership. If you think this means your busy route is getting an improvement, you are wrong! It is 35 points for ridership growth, meaning urban losers ... I mean, citizens on their packed bus get zero consideration. 

This may explain the ridiculous BRTs to empty fields and parking lots. 

25 points for Service Improvement. No, not to existing riders, that would be intelligent. This metric is weighted by ridership growth, a "change" from the original 2023 framework which was explicitly for existing riders only. This measures the change in travel time compared to the do-nothing scenario. 

25 points for "City Building Impacts" - I think that Transportation Planning may need to turn off Cities: Skylines for a minute. Of these, 7.5 points were allocated for Equity (after already failing to build projects to Priority Neighbourhoods in the Needs-Based Network) - remember, this analysis only covers projects in the Needs-Based Network; 5 points for Natural Systems, meaning the distance a project has to natural systems - there is so much wrong with this that I don't even know where to start; and 7.5 points for "Major Destinations" as if major destinations wouldn't already generate ridership if they were transit friendly. 

20 points for cost - because nobody in this town has heard of relative opportunity cost. 

If you ask me, the only metric that matters is cost/rider. Existing riders will leave transit if it is an inferior option (yes they will), and their ridership matters to OC Transpo's fiscal health and the health of the city. It's not a win if we gain new transit riders, but lose an equal number of existing ones to driving. 

The scores of the lines chosen for advancement can be seen below: 

If you think some of these are bulls-, and also that you want to see the scoring of projects that did not make the list, you would be right. 

What the team should have done is modelled total ridership projections under various scenarios, weigh them by likelihood, and assign a "cost per benefit" rating normalized to the best project. 

The report includes some jokes to tell yourself. Feel free to laugh with me. 

The reports include a review of the Carling and Cumberland Transitways and a smattering of infill station and station improvements on the O-Train network. 

Stage 3

You may have noticed the absence of the elephant in the room. 

The elephant's name is, of course, Stage 3. 

Stage 3's total cost for all three phases is $8.3 billion. Of this, $4.2 billion is slated for Barrhaven, $3.2 billion is slated for Kanata, and $0.9 billion is for contingency and soft costs for both extensions with what I'd assume to be close to a 50/50 split. 

The TMP apparently did not model any of the costs or benefits for the Stage 3 projects. I will have more to say about the reasoning behind this in part three; the short of it is, likely some combination of institutional inertia and political interference. 

Needless to say, a pair of extensions taking 80% of the Priority network budget should be closely examined for cost-effectiveness and ridership targets - after all, the TMP itself says that the ridership potential of the western half of Kanata LRT is not high. 

City staff need to take a second look at their flagship project, and control for both costs and the ridership potential. If we are going to have a single project suck up all the transit oxygen in the city for the next two decades, it had better be for an excellent line, and Stage 3 is not that. 

Conclusion

The TMP's contents are damning. Even a surface-level investigation reveals faults in the thinking behind it. The project selection is as nonsensical as it could be, rejecting anything that could show a modicum of vision for this city; the criteria for project advancement is beyond belief, seemingly lacking in any understanding of what a transit project is for. 

With the release of this TMP, city staff have clearly demonstrated that they are either incompetent or willing to hide political embarrassments, probably both; and Council has demonstrated their total lack of leadership on ... anything, but in this case, transit specifically. I have some speculation on why that is, which will form part three of this series. 

Until next time.