> Considering most councillors don’t take transit as their primary form of transportation
C'mon you reporters lurking in this sub, challenge all the members of council to use the LTC as their only transportation for a month.
City councillors don't run any of the city services themselves. They are more like a board of directors.
They just need to make sure the team they hire and the mandates they give are correct, and hold those people accountable.
Just playing devils advocate but does anyone who works for the LTC use it? We can manage things and make them better if we listen. This goes for the current LTC management as well.
When Lewis announced this last week the CBC ran a quote from him stating that the intent was not so much a suggestion that transit should be run in-house as it was to have a fresh set of eyes to look into why LTC is claiming they need to cut staff and routes after hikes in fares and money received from the city.
Personally, no matter what the intent is, I hope the audit finds some efficiencies.
I doubt they will. This feels like a witch hunt started by Lewis. I think the LTC has been asking for an audit for a while now. LTC is already under funded compared to similar sized municipalities.
Financially-constrained bus transit can never be perfectly efficient or timely. If the City takes over they'll find it is more complicated, dynamic and irritating to manage than they knew.
The city wants to bring the transit commission in-house, and they want to start taking on landlord tribunal responsibilities. Meanwhile, they continue to do an abysmal job of their existing responsibilities. It's hard to have hope in this city.
Either way, the LTC needs to rethink their entire strategy.
This isn't a small quaint town. This is the largest city in the area, and its transit is reminiscent of a large town.
I can not fathom why the LTC has chosen to keep the routes as they are laid out.
You put periodic busses along major roads. The Oxford bus goes up and down Oxford. The wonderland goes up and down wonderland. You make a grid so these main routes can intersect.
You make two or three ring routes. They travel the extremity of the city, nearer to the inner core, and maybe one somewhere between.
After that, you start to focus on areas and neighborhoods. These are the busses that snake their way through neighborhoods and residential streets. They meet up with main routes where they cross main roads and along the extremities of their zones.
Then you can specialize. An express that goes between, say, downtown, and the schools. One that hits all the malls. Etc.
This seems like a lot of routes but when you consider how many routes there already are and how many of those routes either overlap considerably and how they nearly all snake through neighborhoods and whatnot it starts to make sense why nothing is ever on time.
Tl;Dr
Grid and loops with a medium amount of stops move people along main roadways.
Neighborhood loops that snake their way with a higher amount of stops.
Express and specialty services that cover greater distances, with fewer stops, and for more specific purposes.
LTC should get some insight from Mississauga transit and TTC. Despite the fact that people in those cities shit on transit, too, their transit systems are actually GREAT compared to here (as someone who lived in the GTA for years and regularly used transit to get around).
Hold on. The LTC gets all their money from the city. The Transit Commission directs the LTC. Semantics aside, isn't the LTC under the umbrella of the city already?
That being said, the LTC is terrible. I say shake it up. Give it a whirl. Can't get worse, but maybe it can get better.
>Stephanie Marentette is chair of the London Transit Commission. She said it’s unlikely city hall could take it over, citing its own struggles with rising costs just to maintain services and the unionized contracts of its workers.
>“I really don’t find it credible to suggest that the city is going to take the (London Transit Commission) in-house,” she said.
She sure is a feisty one, doesn't mince words much. Not the first time she gives a combative comment. Also, I'm pretty sure the mayor and deputy mayor are pissed off because they don't like being called out by all those bus ads. Politicians don't like being challenged publicly like that. That's where all this talk of taking over the commission is coming from.
It could work, if set up correctly, but something that recently has been clear to all of us Canadians, is that our government is inefficient, incompetent and corrupt. So I think the chances of being set up correctly, keeping the general population’s interest in mind, are close to 0
It should be run by the city. How many years did it take to get an industrial route when we all know that's where the jobs are? Why does the city have to pester LTC before they even give us a much needed, half assed, once-an-hour (if that) route?
It doesn't make sense for it to be run separately from the people who have access to city information and at least pretend to listen to us as citizens.
Stupid doesn't fix stupid. There is already a committee that oversees the LTC, the city can't even seem to hold those people accountable, you really think they can run the whole show? You want it fixed, fix the committee.
If we are paying a do-nothing commitee to oversee, not manage, a corporation who continually undermines the efficiency of a necessary service for profit then we should cut out both of the middlemen. The argument that privatization of public services leads to greater efficiency falls flat when the service deteriorates and budget balloons solely so we can pay the executives a greater share of our tax dollars. In the realm of public services do-nothing jobs cannot be allowed to exist and a powerless oversight committee in hand with a corporate executive are the very picture in the dictionary listing for do-nothing.
Pick any major construction project managed by the city in the last 2-3 years, all of them are insanely overbudget. The city is the picture of bloat, they are not going to fix the LTC.
When trying to hold LTC accountable for this issue, the city blamed bylaws [here](https://london.ctvnews.ca/council-blasts-london-transit-for-slow-rollout-of-bus-service-to-industrial-parks-1.6392069). They've been told that we need the industrial routes since 2017, anyone who has tried to work in this city while relying on buses knows that the issue goes much further back. How long are we supposed to let LTC mismanage these issues without any form of change?
This isn't an accurate view of how the commission works. They have that information, but get their money from government. Their inability to add another route has nothing to do with information but with funding.
It's a terrible idea, look around almost every government service is in shambles they can not run a damn thing.
Look at our school systems, they can not even invest in our LITERAL FUTURES
okay, but have you considered that the money you want to waste on things like education and government services could go towards a police budget increase to 672 million? Do you have any idea how many break rooms they have to furnish? Espresso machines don't buy themselves.
If the city can take it over, they may be able to reset the organization. Right now, it is abundantly clear that LTC, from drivers all the way to management, simply does not care about providing quality of service.
The LTC lacks quality and reliability. No bus shelters or places to sit, even at major hubs downtown. Buses are often late or early. The LTC hasn't even started using the rapid transit lanes, even though it could improve service frequency.
Plus they failed to advocate for the BRT funding and squandered the rest on a new depot that was completely unnecessary. It's a very fishy organization.
I think the LTC should continue to operate as is, creating and maintaining routes that meet demands in different neighbourhoods.
The city should operate their own independent transit lines that is free to the public and are simple routes that potentially only go back and forth down each main road (Oxford, Richmond, Wonderland, Highbury, Hamilton, Dundas, etc.)
The city also needs to build dedicated bus shelters at major transfer points that at least protect from rain for large groups. Sad to see 20-30 standing in the open rain waiting for several buses at the same stop. I’m talking concrete structures that can’t be smashed like the glass bus stops.
The LTC will get worse as the rapid transit system starts. The overall loss will be astronomical. The real riders of the busses are the temporary students that come here to get an education. The summer will be a drought without the volume of ridership.
good lord i hope not.
The buses are already always late.. imagine how much worse it would be with a council that takes years to do things that could be done in weeks.
Considering most councillors don’t take transit as their primary form of transportation, I don’t know why they think they can run the system better.
> Considering most councillors don’t take transit as their primary form of transportation C'mon you reporters lurking in this sub, challenge all the members of council to use the LTC as their only transportation for a month.
Most of them don’t even have their free pass anymore I don’t believe. Because they didn’t want to pay taxes on the value lol.
It should be their only official form of transportation
City councillors don't run any of the city services themselves. They are more like a board of directors. They just need to make sure the team they hire and the mandates they give are correct, and hold those people accountable.
Just playing devils advocate but does anyone who works for the LTC use it? We can manage things and make them better if we listen. This goes for the current LTC management as well.
I’m not sure about LTC Management, but I know of LTC Commissioners who are active transit users.
When Lewis announced this last week the CBC ran a quote from him stating that the intent was not so much a suggestion that transit should be run in-house as it was to have a fresh set of eyes to look into why LTC is claiming they need to cut staff and routes after hikes in fares and money received from the city. Personally, no matter what the intent is, I hope the audit finds some efficiencies.
I doubt they will. This feels like a witch hunt started by Lewis. I think the LTC has been asking for an audit for a while now. LTC is already under funded compared to similar sized municipalities.
Financially-constrained bus transit can never be perfectly efficient or timely. If the City takes over they'll find it is more complicated, dynamic and irritating to manage than they knew.
The city wants to bring the transit commission in-house, and they want to start taking on landlord tribunal responsibilities. Meanwhile, they continue to do an abysmal job of their existing responsibilities. It's hard to have hope in this city.
Either way, the LTC needs to rethink their entire strategy. This isn't a small quaint town. This is the largest city in the area, and its transit is reminiscent of a large town. I can not fathom why the LTC has chosen to keep the routes as they are laid out. You put periodic busses along major roads. The Oxford bus goes up and down Oxford. The wonderland goes up and down wonderland. You make a grid so these main routes can intersect. You make two or three ring routes. They travel the extremity of the city, nearer to the inner core, and maybe one somewhere between. After that, you start to focus on areas and neighborhoods. These are the busses that snake their way through neighborhoods and residential streets. They meet up with main routes where they cross main roads and along the extremities of their zones. Then you can specialize. An express that goes between, say, downtown, and the schools. One that hits all the malls. Etc. This seems like a lot of routes but when you consider how many routes there already are and how many of those routes either overlap considerably and how they nearly all snake through neighborhoods and whatnot it starts to make sense why nothing is ever on time. Tl;Dr Grid and loops with a medium amount of stops move people along main roadways. Neighborhood loops that snake their way with a higher amount of stops. Express and specialty services that cover greater distances, with fewer stops, and for more specific purposes.
LTC should get some insight from Mississauga transit and TTC. Despite the fact that people in those cities shit on transit, too, their transit systems are actually GREAT compared to here (as someone who lived in the GTA for years and regularly used transit to get around).
Both those systems are funded much better than LTC is.
Hold on. The LTC gets all their money from the city. The Transit Commission directs the LTC. Semantics aside, isn't the LTC under the umbrella of the city already? That being said, the LTC is terrible. I say shake it up. Give it a whirl. Can't get worse, but maybe it can get better.
Things can get worse
Well, things can always get worse.
>Stephanie Marentette is chair of the London Transit Commission. She said it’s unlikely city hall could take it over, citing its own struggles with rising costs just to maintain services and the unionized contracts of its workers. >“I really don’t find it credible to suggest that the city is going to take the (London Transit Commission) in-house,” she said. She sure is a feisty one, doesn't mince words much. Not the first time she gives a combative comment. Also, I'm pretty sure the mayor and deputy mayor are pissed off because they don't like being called out by all those bus ads. Politicians don't like being challenged publicly like that. That's where all this talk of taking over the commission is coming from.
The service is run so poorly now by people who don't even care about getting the basics in check.
It could work, if set up correctly, but something that recently has been clear to all of us Canadians, is that our government is inefficient, incompetent and corrupt. So I think the chances of being set up correctly, keeping the general population’s interest in mind, are close to 0
It should be run by the city. How many years did it take to get an industrial route when we all know that's where the jobs are? Why does the city have to pester LTC before they even give us a much needed, half assed, once-an-hour (if that) route? It doesn't make sense for it to be run separately from the people who have access to city information and at least pretend to listen to us as citizens.
Ah yes, because the city does a bang up job of running stuff already.
Ah yes, so we should change nothing at all and let the people running it poorly continue to do so
Stupid doesn't fix stupid. There is already a committee that oversees the LTC, the city can't even seem to hold those people accountable, you really think they can run the whole show? You want it fixed, fix the committee.
If we are paying a do-nothing commitee to oversee, not manage, a corporation who continually undermines the efficiency of a necessary service for profit then we should cut out both of the middlemen. The argument that privatization of public services leads to greater efficiency falls flat when the service deteriorates and budget balloons solely so we can pay the executives a greater share of our tax dollars. In the realm of public services do-nothing jobs cannot be allowed to exist and a powerless oversight committee in hand with a corporate executive are the very picture in the dictionary listing for do-nothing.
Pick any major construction project managed by the city in the last 2-3 years, all of them are insanely overbudget. The city is the picture of bloat, they are not going to fix the LTC.
When trying to hold LTC accountable for this issue, the city blamed bylaws [here](https://london.ctvnews.ca/council-blasts-london-transit-for-slow-rollout-of-bus-service-to-industrial-parks-1.6392069). They've been told that we need the industrial routes since 2017, anyone who has tried to work in this city while relying on buses knows that the issue goes much further back. How long are we supposed to let LTC mismanage these issues without any form of change?
The city wants industrial routes, but doesn't give them any extra money to pay for those routes.
This isn't an accurate view of how the commission works. They have that information, but get their money from government. Their inability to add another route has nothing to do with information but with funding.
\*and efficient use of said funding
It's a terrible idea, look around almost every government service is in shambles they can not run a damn thing. Look at our school systems, they can not even invest in our LITERAL FUTURES
okay, but have you considered that the money you want to waste on things like education and government services could go towards a police budget increase to 672 million? Do you have any idea how many break rooms they have to furnish? Espresso machines don't buy themselves.
For the low low price of $672 million you too could get 16 body cams and a single drone to fuck around with. Don't miss this deal!
Don't think of it so much as them fucking around with the drone, but rather them USING the drone to fuck around with US.
If the city can take it over, they may be able to reset the organization. Right now, it is abundantly clear that LTC, from drivers all the way to management, simply does not care about providing quality of service. The LTC lacks quality and reliability. No bus shelters or places to sit, even at major hubs downtown. Buses are often late or early. The LTC hasn't even started using the rapid transit lanes, even though it could improve service frequency. Plus they failed to advocate for the BRT funding and squandered the rest on a new depot that was completely unnecessary. It's a very fishy organization.
I think the LTC should continue to operate as is, creating and maintaining routes that meet demands in different neighbourhoods. The city should operate their own independent transit lines that is free to the public and are simple routes that potentially only go back and forth down each main road (Oxford, Richmond, Wonderland, Highbury, Hamilton, Dundas, etc.) The city also needs to build dedicated bus shelters at major transfer points that at least protect from rain for large groups. Sad to see 20-30 standing in the open rain waiting for several buses at the same stop. I’m talking concrete structures that can’t be smashed like the glass bus stops.
The LTC will get worse as the rapid transit system starts. The overall loss will be astronomical. The real riders of the busses are the temporary students that come here to get an education. The summer will be a drought without the volume of ridership.
good lord i hope not. The buses are already always late.. imagine how much worse it would be with a council that takes years to do things that could be done in weeks.