Tight budget could leave transit riders exposed to the elements
Joanne Chianello | CBC | Posted: February 28, 2023 9:00 AM | Last Updated: February 28, 2023
Protective scaffolding at Hurdman, Tunney's Pasture stations costing $700K a year
Temporary scaffolding that protects public transit riders from foul weather as they dash between the LRT and connecting buses at Hurdman and Tunney's Pasture stations is on the budget chopping block at Ottawa city hall this week.
Soon after the Confederation Line was launched in September 2019, the city erected the covered scaffolding on the bus platforms at the two stations, where the paths leading from the station doors to the buses are particularly long and riders found they were exposed to the elements.
The city has spent nearly $2 million to rent the scaffolding since it was erected. The price tag for this year alone is expected to be about $700,000.
Now, the temporary weather covering could come down as part of an effort to find $47 million in savings in this year's transit budget.
The possibility came as a surprise to a number of OC Transpo riders who say they often walk or stand under the protective scaffolding at Hurdman.
"Um, wow," said Phil Barbosa when told of the plan."The scaffolding is actually pretty useful."
Barbosa takes the train from Tunney's Pasture to Hurdman, where he catches a connecting bus that he says can sometimes take 30 or 40 minutes to arrive.
"If it's raining, it there's hail, it there's snow, it does provide shelter," he said of the scaffolding. "Walking from the station all the way down here can be quite a trek with the amount of people."
Harshit Tomar was similarly unimpressed.
"It's not a good idea," said the University of Ottawa student, who arrived from India only a few months ago. He works at Billings Bridge and said both buses he can take from Hurdman arrive at the far end of the bus platform.
"If this is gone and it's snowing, so how would you supposed to just walk over here?"
Amina Asad was also unhappy to hear the scaffolding might be coming down.
"When it's raining outside, if it's snowing, people can just walk underneath it and get away from the weather," she told CBC. "I use it all the time, so I think people should keep it as a permanent thing."
'Very worrisome,' councillor says
The plan to tear down the scaffolding also came as a surprise to Alta Vista Coun. Marty Carr who, like many residents in her ward, uses the station regularly as a transfer point.
"I wasn't aware and it's very worrisome to me that that's being considered," Carr told CBC following a marathon transit commission meeting earlier this month.
Ironically, that meeting began with a discussion about improving the scaffolding, which some find unsightly despite coloured tarps placed there by the city. In fact, the transit commission directed staff to report back on what a permanent covered pathway might look like, and what it might cost.
But Carr said she doesn't see how the current scaffolding can come down before a long-term solution is found.
"I think there'll be a lot of concern that the plan is actually to take the scaffolding away when residents have been asking for things to be made more permanent and to look better and be more reliable."
Tunney's temporary western terminus
At Tunney's Pasture, the city had to borrow federal land to expand the bus platform after the initial design proved too small to accommodate all the people who would be transferring between buses and the LRT. The larger platform means people have farther to go to get from the station to their bus stop, so the city erected the scaffolding to provide protection from the elements.
Tunney's is currently the western terminus of the Confederation Line, and has to accommodate all the buses from that side of the city. The Stage 2 western extension is currently slated to open in late 2026 — it's 17 months late so far — at which point the platform will be reduced and the scaffolding likely won't be needed any more.
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper, whose ward includes Tunney's Pasture, said he'd like to hear from riders about how important the scaffolding is to their commute.
Tight budget calls for savings
The fact that the scaffolding is on the chopping block is a sign of what Mayor Mark Sutcliffe called a "tight" 2023 draft budget, which council is set to approve on Wednesday.
There are plenty of signs of penny pinching in the city's $5.5-billion budget, from slightly shrinking the heritage planning spending — despite a looming deadline to designate potentially at-risk heritage properties — to increasing councillors' traffic-calming budgets by 25 per cent instead of doubling them as the mayor promised in last fall's election campaign.
But nowhere are the budget constraints more apparent than in transit.
Council has directed OC Transpo to freeze fares, raise taxes by just 2.5 per cent and maintain service. To that end, OC Transpo plans to hire 52 net new drivers, who should be able to help reduce the number of bus cancellations, which can reach 400 on a bad day.
At the same time, the transit department is contemplating a $53-million shortfall in revenue due to an expected ridership of just 70 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels.
OC Transpo has had to find ways to cut costs. It's saving millions by retiring 117 old buses it doesn't use, and another $42.7 million by deferring work on the delayed segments of Stage 2 and putting off annual contributions to certain capital funds.
Getting rid of the scaffolding is part of those savings, albeit a very small one. Even so, the city still needs at least $39 million from the provincial government to make the transit budget work this year.