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Have any of you on here taken this train? If so what are the good and bad points about it? Are you pleased with the service so far? What do you think can be done to improve it? It seems to get a lot of negative feedback and reviews online.
pre covid and work from home I used it every weekday, i live in Orleans approx. 25 km from my office in Gatineau, I still had to bus for approx. 13 k to get the the closest LRT station and them transfer onto a train to downtown Ottawa then walk or bus across the bridge into Gatineau, total journey time approx. 90 mins, pre LRT my two bus journey to about 70 mins so it wasn't much quicker for me. Phase 2 of the project will see LRT much closer to where i live so if I ever return to the office we will have to see how that goes....it cost a lot of money and has not really improved commuting for most people, it has taken some buses off the roads BUT is has a lot of reliability issues with frequent periods of no service ( which puts buses back on the roads) so all together it has not been a success The whole contracting issue was botched and the group responsible for maintaining the service dont seem very good at it
Have any of you on here taken this train? If so what are the good and bad points about it? Are you pleased with the service so far? What do you think can be done to improve it? It seems to get a lot of negative feedback and reviews online.
I live in Gatineau across the river and have taken the O-Train a half-dozen times.
My main observation is that it is slow compared to other metro and rapid transit systems I have taken.
Not just in the amount of time it takes to get places but just in terms of the speed you feel like you are travelling at. It almost seems like you're on one of those tourist monorails at Disney World.
Other than that, the O-Train is quite nice inside the cars. Very modern and sleek.
The stations that aren't underground (ie most of them) are extremely cold in the winter and little consideration seems to have been given to the fact that Ottawa is frigid for 3-4 months in the year.
It's can also be very noisy on one particular segment (a big curve between Lees and Hurdman stations) which was quite surprising to me as it's a brand-new system.
Overall I think it's still a big plus for Ottawa over the long-term, but there are still lots of bugs to be worked out.
As porterjack alluded to, Ottawa already had a pretty good BRT (bus rapid transit) system before the O-Train, and so far the train isn't a huge improvement in terms of travel times for most people.
The decision to switch to trains was probably still the right one, but one wonders if tweaking the BRT (like with a downtown tunnel) might not have been sufficient.
As a transit buff, I'd still like to ride the Confederation Line the next time I'm in Ottawa. I've already ridden the Trillium Line. Now if they can only connect Gatineau to Ottawa by rapid transit, that would also be nice. Easier said than done I understand.
As a transit buff, I'd still like to ride the Confederation Line the next time I'm in Ottawa. I've already ridden the Trillium Line. Now if they can only connect Gatineau to Ottawa by rapid transit, that would also be nice. Easier said than done I understand.
I believe there are long term plans to do just that we have a disused railway bridge (The Prince of Wales, I believe) that could be used
I believe there are long term plans to do just that we have a disused railway bridge (The Prince of Wales, I believe) that could be used
I think the mostly likely project in the medium term is a downtown rail loop along the ceremonial Confederation Boulevard routing which is basically Wellington in Ottawa and Laurier in Gatineau (Hull) via two bridges on the east and west sides (neither of which is the Prince of Wales).
The loop could be integrated with the last leg of a tramway project that is in the planning stages for western parts of Gatineau through Hull, the Plateau and Aylmer.
Given everything that has happened since 2020 (pandemic, work from home, public finances) not sure this will ever get off the ground, but apparently they will try to make it happen.
As for the Prince of Wales Bridge, my guess it's more in the long-term that it might be used. I don't see it as Plan A for a rail transit solution across the river.
It was or is being converted for recreational-only use I believe.
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