OC Transpo’s O-Train celebrated its 10-year anniversary this month, a decade in which it has become “an integral part of the OC Transpo network,” says transit commission chair Coun. Diane Deans.
The train system, which originally started as a pilot project and was expected to bring in 6,400 riders per day, is now averaging almost double that, the city announced in September.
The O-Train’s success is one of the reasons it has lasted so long, Mayor Jim Watson said at an Oct. 18 event celebrating the anniversary. The O-Train has also brought better transit service to students at Carleton University and commuters coming from the city’s south end, he added.
The train’s reliability and its close link to the bus system have been big factors in the train’s success, says OC Transpo general manager Alain Mercier.
“More and more, we’re connecting the bus system to the O-Train, and people are seeing that that’s a great alternative,” he says.
The O-Train line, which forms Centretown’s western boundary, runs from Bayview Station in the north to Greenboro Station in the south.
In June, the city’s transit commission approved a $59-million expansion of the O-Train system, which will include the building of two new tracks along the existing line and the purchase of six new Alstom Coradia Lint trains. This is being done, in part, to cut the trains’ arrival times from 15 minutes down to eight,
One reason the Alstom trains were chosen was because of their success in Europe, Mercier says.
“The Deutsche Bahn (German National Railway) is the main operator of these trains, plus other independent operators in Europe. They’re very popular,” he says. “We’re very pleased with the quality. They’ve built over 500 of those trains operating in Germany.”
He added that there are “no plans to sell (the three current Bombardier Talent trains) at this time.”
The transit commission is currently examining whether or not to expand the line to Leitrim Road and Riverside South, Deans noted. Upgrades will also be made to O-Train stations, Mercier says, to “make sure that passenger boarding area(s) are sufficient and safe.
“When we do the shutdown to add additional tracks for more capacity, that will be the time we’ll schedule all the work in that window,” he says, adding that the “original plan was to be ready for September 2014, and we’re working now with engineers in the industry to see if we can better that date.”
The O-Train will also be instrumental to OC Transpo while construction is done on Ottawa’s planned light rail transit system. Hurdman Station, a main point on the southeast Transitway leading into downtown, will be “decommissioned for a period of time,” Mercier says.
“The O-Train will have to be the workhorse to pick up much of that traffic coming from the south so that people can get into downtown much faster,” he says.