Transit Committee Comité du transport en commun Minutes
44 / Procès-verbal 44 Wednesday, 21 April 2010, 9:30 a.m. le mercredi 21 avril 2010, 9 h 30 Andrew S. Haydon Hall, 110
Laurier Avenue West Salle Andrew S. Haydon, 110, avenue Laurier ouest |
Present / Présents : A. Cullen
(Chair/Président), M. Wilkinson (Vice-Chair/Vice-présidente ), G. Bédard,
R. Bloess, C. Doucet, C. Leadman, J. Legendre, D. Thompson
DECLARATIONS
OF INTEREST
DÉCLARATIONS
D’INTÉRÊT
No
declarations of interest were filed.
CONFIRMATION
OF MINUTES
Ratification
dU PROCÈS-VERBAL
Joint Minutes 12 from the Joint Transportation and
Transit Committee Meeting of 8 February 2010 and Minutes 43 from the Transit
Committee Meeting of 1 March 2010 were confirmed.
COMMUNICATIONS
COMMUNICATIONS
Responses to Inquiries: / Réponses aux demandes de renseignements:
TTC
03-10 Life-time Transit Pass for
Veterans / Laissez-passer de transport en commun à vie pour les anciens
combattants
RECEIVED
INFRASTRUCTURE
SERVICES AND COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY
SERVICES DES INFRASTRUCTURES ET LES SERVICES DE VIABILITÉ DES
COLLECTIVITÉS
1. IMPROVED TRANSIT SERVICES FOR SENIORS
AND PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN RURAL AREAS
AMÉLIORATION
DES SERVICES DE TRANSPORT EN COMMUN POUR LES AÎNÉS ET LES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES
DES SECTEURS RURAUX
ACS2010-ICS-TRA-0001 CITY WIDE / À L'ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
Mr. Alain Mercier, General Manager of Transit
Services, introduced Mr. Pat Scrimgeour, Manager of Transit Service Design. Mr. Scrimgeour then spoke to a PowerPoint
presentation, which served to provide Committee with a detailed overview of the
report. A copy of this presentation is
held on file with the City Clerk.
Chair Cullen asked if it would be fair to characterize
the report as some modest changes to the current system as opposed to a radical
overhaul of how Para Transpo services were delivered in rural areas. Mr. Scrimgeour responded affirmatively.
Ms. Adele Muldoon spoke on behalf of Lori Pulsifer, a gentleman who had been
scheduled to address Committee but had been unable to attend the meeting
because he had taken a fall and been hospitalized. She indicated Mr. Pulsifer believed he was
the longest living patient on dialysis in Canada and that he had been waiting
more than two years for the opportunity to address this matter with
Committee. She advised that Mr. Pulsifer
found the price of Para Transpo to be unfair, noting that he lived in Zone 2
and had to pay $9.50 for a trip in to dialysis at the Civic Hospital whereas
someone living just a little way down the road, in Morgan’s Grant, could take
Para Transpo from her home to Orléans for $3.
She reported that Mr. Pulsifer had resorted to Para Transpo when the
cost of his transportation through the community resource centre was raised to
$40 per trip, which he could not afford three time weekly. As a result, he had switched to Para Transpo
and was glad it was available, though it had been difficult for him. She informed Committee that after his
dialysis, Mr. Pulsifer was very tired and needed to get home right away,
whereas Para Transpo sometimes took him on a long winding road. Sometimes they didn’t appear and he sat there
waiting and then had to start calling around to find someone else to pick him
up and take him home. She submitted Para
Transpo was not a convenient service, but it was good to have it for people who
really needed it. She explained that Mr.
Pulsifer was picked up by Para Transpo, through a taxi, at 9:00 a.m. and had to
be at dialysis by 10:30 a.m. However, if
the driver had another passenger to pick up at 9:30, he would go to the next
passenger’s house and sit there with the meter running until 9:30. Further, if the driver had a third passenger
to pick up at 10:00 a.m., this would be repeated at the third passenger’s
house, leaving Mr. Pulsifer sitting in frustration wondering whether he would
make it on time for his dialysis appointment because if he did not get on
dialysis on time, then he would not got off on time for his ride home.
Ms. Dianne Breton, Chair of the Seniors’ Advisory
Committee, recalled that in October
2007, the Seniors’ Advisory Committee (SAC) had approved a motion requesting
that the issue of parity for rural seniors and people with disabilities be
reviewed prior to the City taking over Para Transpo in January of 2008 to
ensure that they would not be paying more for trips than urban users. She noted the Transit Committee had responded
to these concerns promptly and in November 2007, had approved the following
motions: that Transit Committee direct
staff to review the issue of parity for rural seniors and people with
disabilities using Para Transpo, to ensure that they are receiving a service
that is affordable for all, especially those of low, fixed incomes and report
back to Committee by May 2008; and that this report include a review of the
pre-amalgamation practice of purchasing service from a local community resource
centre as a means of providing Para-like services. She noted the first motion had been moved by Councillor
Wilkinson whereas the second had been moved by Councillor Legendre. She also noted that the second motion was not
addressed in the current report. She
remarked that despite these directions and the SAC’s efforts, there had been no
response until the previous month, when the SAC had the Para Transpo
recommendations. In this regard, she
offered the following comments:
·
The issue of
Transit Parity is more than dollars and cents. It is instead an issue of
providing equally accessible transportation for eligible Para Transpo riders
living within the boundaries of the City of Ottawa.
·
Para Transpo is a
public service and must focus on providing access as a first priority.
·
The Seniors’
Advisory Committee and the Ottawa Seniors’ Transportation Committee believe
that all Ottawa seniors, those who are disabled, and the most vulnerable should
have access to affordable transportation in their city.
·
The report states
that if fares are reduced across the rural area, there would be an increase in
demand, with an equivalent increase in funding. These recommendations suggest some reduced
fares, in some selected areas. They
suggest simplifying an impossibly complicated fare structure by removing some
subzones. The conclusion is that some
parts of Ottawa will continue to receive more accessible transit service than
others at an unbalanced rate.
·
Staff is
recommending including a few areas, such as Winding Way, Honey Gables and the
Carleton Raceway, into the urban area, benefiting a few and making it cheaper for
urban residents to gamble at the Raceway.
·
Another
suggestion is to have disabled rural residents book trips as a group. This is a step in the right direction, but
maybe impractical for many disabled users who will find it difficult to
coordinate hospital and medical appointments for the same day and time.
·
Still another
proposal is to run weekly trips for shopping from selected villages such as
Carp, Richmond and Osgoode. Again, this
is a good idea and would benefit a few but does little to address the overall
problem.
·
Staff is
proposing reducing the 16 zones and subzones to 8. While this might make the rate chart easier to
read, it does not reduce the inequity in the zone-based system.
·
The acceptance of
an aging in-place model for Ontario seniors means that there will be an
increasing demand on transportation systems to maintain healthy lifestyles of
our aging population, in both urban and rural areas.
·
The Para Transpo
recommendations avoid recognition of the health and social issues attached to
this special service provided by Para Transpo.
·
The proposed
model changes remain based on Council’s direction from 2004, which proposed
cost recovery from 90 percent rural taxes and 10 percent from fares. This is the same formula as urban Para Transpo.
However, zone-based fares are not based
solely on distance but on the closest zone location to a client’s home, costing
up to $37.50 per return trip.
·
The
recommendations continue to base fares on distance and cost rather than on
service and accessibility related to fairness and equity. Current Para Transpo fares in the urban areas
are almost the same as regular OC Transpo fares, while the rural fares are 3 to
5 times as much.
·
What is needed is
for Committee and Council to enunciate a clear policy direction on the
availability of Para Transpo service for all Ottawa residents. A formula will
need to be devised that is fair and does not unduly burden Ottawa’s rural
residents of all ages.
In closing, Ms. Breton suggested that Para Transpo
work with Ottawa’s rural and disabled communities to find workable solutions
and that the City establish an age-friendly transit parity goal, where zones
and subzones could disappear and ticket prices could be understandable and
fair.
Councillor Bloess felt the speaker had raised some
valid points about trying to achieve some level of equity in terms of how Para
services were provided. However, he
referenced the way Transit was funded, noting that urban residents paid
considerably more on their tax bill per household than rural residents. He also noted that the further out a resident
lived, the more it would cost to provide the service. He wondered if the SAC would, at some point,
be recommending that the City charge the same transit levy across the whole
City. Ms. Breton stated she could not
answer the question because she did not have the numbers. However, she noted that there were currently
300 eligible riders in the rural areas.
Therefore, although the discussion was about increased demand, she was
unsure as to all the variables. She
maintained the SAC was suggesting that, as a long term goal in an amalgamated
Ottawa, the City should be trying to achieve parity.
Councillor Bloess submitted there was a flip side to
this and he believed Mr. Scrimgeour had done a good job of describing the
issues of supply, demand and costs. He
maintained there was no doubt that unless there was a certain density of
population or critical mass to provide a service, then providing that service
cost more. He wondered if the City was
prepared to pay that higher cost and he felt this would be the debate. Ms. Breton indicated she understood this,
noting that Ottawa had a very large rural area.
However, she maintained that Ottawa was an amalgamated City and its
rural residents should be able to expect the same services.
Councillor Jellett remarked that the real issue came
down to $1M and whether this additional cost should be paid exclusively by
rural residents or whether it should be spread across the entire City. Ms. Breton stated that she did not have an
answer to this. She maintained that the
SAC was talking about a goal; about what it should be.
Councillor Thompson noted this was a complicated
issue. He felt there were some areas
where the city could help, though not necessarily through Para Transpo. He referenced home support groups and
volunteers who provided cost-effective transportation for people needing to get
to and from appointments. He wondered if
this was something the SAC had considered. Ms. Breton believed the City should examine
all possibilities in order to move people around and meet their needs.
Mr. Nathan Hauch, Champlain Spinal Cord Injury
Solutions Alliance, talked about a
working group on the issue of transportation, with participation from social service
agencies and the Ottawa Community Support Coalition, which included seniors and
persons living with disabilities. With
respect to the report, he welcomed the extension of some rural zones to urban
ones. However, he referenced some
challenges, noting that the report did not offer a strategy for addressing
alternative transit needs for people in rural areas over the long term. He felt this was crucial in the context of an
impending demographic shift of an aging population and the fact that people would
like to be able to live in their communities.
He also noted that the report talked about pre- and post-amalgamation
challenges and, while he appreciated that amalgamation had presented
challenges, he maintained that with amalgamation came an expectation of fair
service levels regardless of residency. Given
that many people Para Transpo users could not readily access other
transportation options because of costs, he submitted that the added costs
associated with the rural zone fares did not meet this expectation. He suggested the City shift to a paradigm of
viewing public transportation for the function it served; a social service to
aid with quality of life issues such as employment, education, health and
reducing social isolation. He also
challenged the view put forward in the report, that Rideau Carleton Raceway was
the single most important location in the rural areas to which Para Transpo
customers travelled. He suggested this
may be true in terms of the number of calls put forward, however many people
had needs that were not being met and in this context, it could be argued that
the focus should be on providing transportation as a social service aid in
terms of quality of life. He referenced
a statement in the report with respect to the current zone fare system serving
as a form of demand management. He
maintained that while this may be true, it did not address the challenges faced
by financially vulnerable populations in these areas. He submitted that if residents’ needs were
not being met, it was incumbent upon Council to find ways to meet those
needs. He felt the report provided some
way forward but did not go far enough.
He suggested investigating other transportation options.
Ms. Judy Little
stated that as someone who was wheelchair dependant, she felt blessed and happy
to have Para Transpo. She advised that
she lived one kilometre past the Trim Road boundary and that her fare was
$9.50. Therefore, because she regularly
went to church, one meeting and three functions, her monthly cost was $102 in
Para Transpo fares. She noted that there
had been a lot of talk about people needing Para Transpo to get to medical
appointments. However, she maintained
that quality of life was also important.
She submitted that although she was a senior, she still wanted to have a
life and be able to go out when occasions arose. She felt it was unfair that someone else
could go from Kanata to the Casino in Hull on just regular fare whereas she had
to pay $141.75 for her monthly bus pass plus $102 in Para fares just so she
could have a life. Further, she did
believe the casino qualified as an “appointment”. Therefore, if the City was opening it up and
getting less revenue for people going to the casino, she suggested the City
should give this more thought. In
closing, she remarked that if people had to use Para Transpo to get to regular
appointments for critical medical treatments, she did not know how they could
afford it, particularly if they were on fixed incomes.
Responding to a question from Councillor Legendre, Ms.
Little confirmed that she was in favour of the simpler fare structure being
proposed by staff. However, she
referenced the number of people who pay taxes and indicated she had always been
told the reason for the higher fares in rural areas was due to the fact that
rural residents did not pay the extra taxes for Para. She submitted that a lot of taxpayers across
the City were subsidizing the service and not using it. Therefore, she suggested rural Para Transpo
users should also be subsidized, not just urban users.
In response to a follow-up question from the
Councillor, Mr. Scrimgeour confirmed that rural Para Transpo users were subsidized
at the same rate as urban Para Transpo users; about 92% of the cost from taxes
and 8% of the cost from direct fares.
Ms. Catherine Gardner spoke from a written submission. In her presentation, she expressed
disappointment with the fact that the Accessibility Advisory Committee and Para
Transpo users had not been consulted in this report’s preparation. She then listed six reasons why she believed
the proposed changes would not help to improve transit services for seniors and
persons with disabilities: reducing some
fares while increasing others would discourage any new users; the Rideau
Carleton fare change would only assist those travelling from urban areas and
not those travelling from rural areas; low floor buses limited those using
wheelchairs and/or scooters so the proposal to use these to increase shopping
trips would be of little help; encouraging people to get together with
non-registered users to share trip costs could result in a higher refusal rate
of registered users; and users were often
not informed of fare adjustments until they actually got on the Para
Transpo bus or taxi. A copy of Ms.
Gardner’s presentation is held on file with the City Clerk.
Chair Cullen noted that the delegation had raised a
valid point about the consultation on this report. He recognized that the report responded to an
issue raised by the Seniors’ Advisory Committee. However, he wondered why the Accessibility
Advisory Committee had not been consulted.
Mr. Scrimgeour noted that a number of Advisory Committees could have had
an interest; Accessibility, Rural Issues, Pedestrian and Transit. He submitted that consulting all of them
would have taking longer and staff felt the report represented the views heard
from these different groups without having specifically gone to the various
Advisory Committees’ meetings.
As a follow-up, Councillor Wilkinson asked for a
commitment from staff that in the future, when bringing forward a report, they
would consult all of the Advisory Committees having a potential interest in the
item before presenting it to Standing Committee.
Chair Cullen believed staff would take this as
direction.
Mr. Klaus Beltzner indicated he had a problem with the report title as he saw very little
benefit for rural users. In fact, he
submitted the benefits were all for urban users. He did not believe the City should be
reducing the rate to go to a casino under the rubric of improving rural
service. He stated that the need for a
rural resident to access dialysis versus the desire of an urban resident to go
to a rural casino posed a mental problem I his mind. He referenced the notion that reducing the
fares for roughly 25 percent would result in increased demand in those
populations and therefore reduced availability of Para Transpo for all other
users. He submitted that the
recommendation was in effect reducing the availability of Para Transpo to the
rural areas by roughly 25%. He felt this
was wrong. He expressed a desire to have
his piece of the tax bill pay for actual services to rural Para Transpo users. He remarked the only thing being given to
rural users through this report was the likelihood of a study. He suggested this was nice but there was no
actual implementation plan or budget associated with it. Therefore, he re-iterated his feeling that
the current report did nothing for rural Para Transpo users.
Ms. Adele Muldoon remarked that
the current report had been a long time coming.
She told Committee about someone who had contacted her the previous year
for assistance with transportation to get to medical appointments. She
indicated she had told him that staff was working on a report on this
subject. In response, he had expressed a
desire to state his case at City Hall.
She reported that the individual in question had passed away the
previous month and had spend his last months in pain and suffering, but also in
great anxiety over arranging for drives to his appointments. She submitted that the changes being
recommended by staff in the current report would do nothing to help someone in
such circumstances. She believed Para
Transpo staff viewed their service solely as a transportation service. However, she maintained that in rural areas,
transportation to medical appointments was the most significant social service
required to ensure the health and
well being of the most vulnerable citizens. She believed staff had been restricted by
Council’s directive to charge users 10% of the cost of their trip. In the urban areas, staff simply established
a fare and tax dollars covered the balance, regardless of trip length. However, in the rural areas, staff chose to
divide the territory into three zones and came up with a very complicated
system to determine fare rates. She submitted it was neither user, driver or
administration-friendly and she asked that Transit Committee recommend Council
change their directive to staff and to charge all users the same fare. If this recommendation was accepted, she felt
the City should make it clear that urban taxpayers would be paying the tax
portion of all urban residents’ Para Transpo trips and rural taxpayers would be
paying the tax portion of all rural residents’ Para Transpo trips. She believed that if rural taxpayers were not
charged 90% of the cost for urban residents to go to the Rideau-Carleton
Raceway or anywhere else in the rural area, there would be more than enough
money to cover the cost of a fare reduction and any resulting service increase.
She referenced staff’s assumption that
reducing fares and granting parity would result in increased demand. She believed this was unfounded because of
the sparse population and the limited number of people who qualified for Para
Transpo service. She remarked that Para
Transpo was not a service of choice for rural users, but of necessity. She advised that rural users had found Para
difficult to book, not always dependable and that they were sometimes taken on
inexplicably long drives. She suggested
that, as a City, Ottawa had to stop punishing some people for living where they
did. She recalled that prior to
amalgamation, the Township of West Carleton had purchased the service of a
community resource centre and provided free drives to medical appointments for
all seniors. She indicated that users
continued to rely on the community resource centre’s service, but that the
costs had gone up to $45 per trip, which meant $90 for a return trip. She talked about a draft report presented by Yolande
Cremer to the Seniors’ Advisory Committee, which showed that on a per capita
basis, a great deal more money was spent on urban seniors than on rural
seniors. She also noted that several
years ago, Council had passed a motion to deliver social service in each area
of the city, urban, suburban and rural, according to the needs of the residents
in each area, and that this had been ignored.
In closing, she suggested this
was Council’s opportunity to see that rural seniors received the service they
needed the most using tax dollars already collected from rural residents.
Responding to a question from Councillor Cullen with
respect to the notion of equivalency of service in urban and rural areas, the
way the Transit levy was charged and the fact that it contributed funds to Para
Transpo, Ms. Muldoon indicated she did not think the transit levy would be fair
City-wide because OC Transpo did not service rural areas as it served urban and
suburban areas. However, she maintained
that the tax portion of the Para trips of urban residents should be paid by
urban dwellers and the tax portion of the Para trips of rural residents should
be paid by rural dwellers. She remarked
that up to now, rural residents had been paying 90% of the fares of all urban
Para users going out to the Rideau-Carleton Raceway or elsewhere.
Following-up on the delegation’s position with respect
to parity for rural residents and rural taxpayers subsidizing the costs for
rural users, Councillor Wilkinson assumed that if a flat rate was charged in
rural areas, as was done in urban areas, this would result in a higher taxation
for rural dwellers to subsidize the service in the rural areas. Mr. Scrimgeour confirmed that reducing rural
Para fares to $3.25 across the entire rural area would result in approximately
$90,000 less per year being collected through fares, which could be put onto
the rural Para Transit tax portion, costing all rural rate payers more. He estimated this would result in rural Para
services being subsidized at a rate of approximately 98% instead of the current
92%.
Councillor Legendre referenced the speaker’s comment
about Council punishing certain people for living where they did. He noted that there were advantages and disadvantages
of living in a rural area just as there were advantages and disadvantages of
living in an urban area and that when one made the choice to live in one
setting versus the other, it was with this knowledge. Therefore, he asked for clarification on the
issue of taxation, noting that it cost more to provide the service in rural
areas. Ms. Muldoon argued that although
trips were longer in rural areas, there was less demand. Therefore, she believed that on a per capita
basis, the cost was not greater in rural areas than in the urban area.
Responding to a follow-up question from the Councillor
with respect to the cost of providing Para services in urban versus rural
areas, Mr. Scrimgeour acknowledged that the cost per mile of moving the vehicle
was the same regardless of the location.
However, he indicated the cost to move the passenger was higher for two
reasons: the longer distance of the
trip, on average; and the lower population density in the area, which meant
there was less ability for the vehicle to carry more than one passenger at the
same time. The result was that these
trips cost between $100 and $200 each compared to an average of $35 per trip in
the urban area.
At this juncture, Ms. Muldoon asked if she could pose
a question of staff with respect to the overall costs of providing Para Transpo
in the rural area versus the overall costs of providing Para Transpo in the
urban area. Chair Cullen advised that
this was not permitted. However, he
believed a member of Committee may be willing to ask the question.
Councillor Thompson then asked staff to speak to the
overall costs of providing Para Transpo in the rural area versus the overall
costs of providing Para Transpo in the urban area. Mr. Scrimgeour advised that the total amount
of money spent on providing Para Transpo services across the entire City was
approximately $27 million per year and within that, just over $1.7M was to
provide Para Transpo service to and from the rural parts of the city.
Chair Cullen referenced the notion of providing
equivalent service, bearing in mind the differences in terms of population
density and travel distance. He noted
that the report suggested there would be additional costs of about $1M and he
wondered if this would come from the rural tax contribution to Para
Transpo. Mr. Scrimgeour confirmed that
this would be consistent with Council’s previous decisions; that additional
costs would be entirely collected from rural property taxes.
Responding to questions from Councillor Leadman, Mr.
Scrimgeour re-iterated that if the fare were reduced to be $3.25 across the
entire rural area, there would be an increase in demand by 6,400 trips per year
and the fare revenue would be reduced by approximately $90,000 per year. With respect to trips to the Rideau-Carleton
Raceway, he indicated these were being made primarily by people who live in the
urban area. He explained that the cost
of these trips was slightly more than the cost to provide a trip to Riverside
South because the distance was a little further. Therefore, on the same interest of equity
that lead staff to recommend the urban fare zone include the properties along
Prince of Wales and River Road, this would be another economical way of bringing
down the cost to the customer of a commonly made trip to and from the rural
area. Speaking to the Service’s mandate,
he stated Para Transpo’s purpose was to provide a public transit service for
those who were physically unable to use the conventional transit service. He explained there was a certain standard of
disability that one had to meet to qualify.
He indicated the difference in the way the department provided Para
Transpo versus OC Transpo was that Para Transpo services were provided across
the entire expanse of the City whereas OC Transpo service was only provided in
locations where there was enough population density to support its
operation. He advised that it was rare
for a Para service to be provided over such a large geographic area but that OC
Transpo had been able to do it because Para trips did not run every half hour
or every hour but rather on demand.
Councillor Leadman advised that she would be putting
forward a motion to refer this report to the Accessibility Advisory Committee
and the Rural Issues Advisory Committee for a report back to the Transit
Committee in July.
Councillor Legendre referenced the second motion
contained in the Background section of the report, noting that it had not been
actioned. Mr. Scrimgeour indicated
Transit Services staff had discussed it with their colleagues in Social
Services and he advised that there were no records or corporate memory left of
what each individual municipality did before amalgamation on social subsidies
for medical trips. However, staff had reported on what was done strictly with
Para Transpo service and certain of the rural municipalities before
amalgamation.
Responding to a follow-up question from the
Councillor, Mr. Scrimgeour submitted staff had read the motion simply as a
direction to review the pre-amalgamation practices and re-iterated that,
although there was anecdotal information, there were no records.
Councillor Legendre expressed frustration and wondered
why staff would have interpreted the motion so narrowly rather than examining
the notion of alternate means of providing “para-like” service, particularly as
the motions referenced in the Background section dated back to November
2007. Therefore, he wondered if anything
would be done about this, noting that the current report did not provide any
insight as to whether or not something of this nature could be done and if not,
why not. He urged staff to do this,
noting that in his view, the motion, which had been a direction from Council,
was not fulfilled.
Councillor Legendre referenced the first delegation,
who had talked about Para Transpo drivers waiting for their next passenger with
the “meter running”. He asked for
clarification on this. Ms. Laurie
Blackstone, Manager of Transit Operations, explained that Para Transpo
contracted with the taxi industry for some of its services. She believed the delegation’s comment related
to this and she confirmed that Para Transpo paid for the trip based on the
meter.
Councillor Wilkinson referenced the original motion
with respect to pre-amalgamation practices and she wondered if staff had
contacted the community resource centres, as they were the agencies that had
provided these services. Ms. Yolande
Cremer, Program Manager of Customer Relations and Development, responded
affirmatively.
In reply to a follow-up question from the Councillor,
she confirmed that in one municipality, they had a wheelchair accessible van,
which they used to transport people. She
advised that this vehicle was no longer in use because the costs had become too
high in terms of insurance, maintenance and so on. She added that staff had checked 13 centres
to ask what they did. She reported that
some did not respond and some indicated they had used different means at
different times.
Councillor Wilkinson noted that some community
resource centres were still providing the service, though they now charged
because they had to pay the drivers. She
wondered how the City’s costs compared to those of the community resource
centres, particularly in terms of using taxis for Para services, and whether it
would be worthwhile to assist the resource centres on some of those trips. Ms. Cremer confirmed that the City did
provide some trips to the rural areas by taxis and she advised this was a
lesser burden for the City because of not having to pay for the cab to go out
to the rural area as opposed to paying for a Para van to travel empty to the
rural area and then return with a passenger.
Councillor Wilkinson indicated she would be asking
that staff report back on the feasibility of working with the community resource
centres in order to provide some of these trips and same money, either as an
alternative or as a supplementary service.
She noted that this may or may not work, but members of Council did not
have the information because staff had not provided it in response to the
second motion referenced in the Background section of the report.
Based on Councillors Legendre’s and Wilkinson’s
comments, Chair Cullen submitted that the work needed to be done to response to
the second motion from November 2007. He
suggested staff do the work and inform the Committee of the results so that
members would then be able to bring forward any action if there was action to
bring forward.
Councillor Wilkinson then referenced an e-mail
received from Klaus Beltzner in which he questioned the assumption that if
fares were reduced, demand would increase.
She inquired as to the source of this information. Mr. Scrimgeour explained that the calculation
was based on some very extensive research done in the United States, through
the Transit Cooperative Research Program, which found very clear trends in how one
could predict the demand for Para Transit service as fares were either
increased or lowered. He reported that
staff had applied this finding to the Ottawa case. Therefore, he was quite certain that it pointed
to the right scale and the right direction. He noted that since the availability of Para
service across the entire rural area in 2002, the demand had quadrupled without
any significant changes in fare rates.
Councillor Wilkinson referenced the requirements in
terms of residents qualifying for Para Transpo and she maintained that demand
could increase because people were getting older and becoming more infirm. She submitted part of the problem was that
this was being looked at as a financial issue instead of a human issue. In closing, she expressed agreement with
Councillor Leadman’s motion to refer this matter to the Rural Affairs
Committee. However, she asked for
confirmation that when bringing the matter to them, staff would be able to
provide information with respect to potential cost to rural rate payers if the
fare was adjusted to be the same for all users.
Mr. Scrimgeour responded affirmatively.
Councillor Bloess believed the right steps were taken
in the past in terms of using taxis for this instead of big vans because it
provided a more efficient and less costly service. However, he indicated he had also been
confused by some of the comments heard with respect to meters running, taxis
not picking people up or hanging around.
Therefore, he asked staff to clarify this and then talk about how they
could further integrate the service. Mr. Scrimgeour explained there were three
ways the taxi industry entered into this issue:
1. He confirmed that the Service used taxis
rather than Para Transpo vans and this had brought costs down. However, he noted this was limited by
individual passengers’ mobility limitations.
This being said, he advised that most of the rural trips were already
operated with taxis.
2. Secondly, he reported that those people who
had a Para Transpo registration were able to receive tax chits, which reduced
their price for any taxi trip, regardless of whether or not it was booked
through Para Transpo.
3. Finally, he noted that when someone booked
their own trip with a cab, it was a cheaper total cost to provide than for the
City to provide the service using a Para Transpo van, though they would have to
pay 100% of it instead of being subsidized by the City.
Councillor Bloess noted that, regardless of whether it
was because of an aging population or more people with disabilities, demand was
increasing but that the City had limited capacity and limited resources to
provide this service. Therefore, he
asked whether the Department was looking at further adapting the taxi services
to Para Transpo. Mr. Mercier referenced
actions taken in the last two to three years, noting that staff’s goal had been
to produce more available transportation in the context of limited financial
resources. He acknowledged that the taxi
industry had contributed significantly to the Service’s ability to reach this
goal. He noted that the ability to
provide accessible plates in the industry had been a major boon. He believed the message received from
Committee members during the current discussion was to go out and be more
creative. He reported that staff had
successfully renegotiated contracts with the taxi industry to reduce
administrative costs and these benefits were being put into more service on the
road. Therefore, he submitted inroads
had been made in the last couple of years through internal improvements and he
acknowledged that taxi industry had played a part in this.
Responding to questions from Councillor Thompson with
respect to the fare reduction to the Rideau-Carleton Raceway, Mr. Scrimgeour
re-iterated that any time fares were reduced dramatically for the same
transportation service, demand would increase.
He indicated the Service was currently carrying about 960 trips per year
to and from the Raceway and expected this number to go up substantially as a
result of the proposed fare adjustment.
Speaking to whether this increased demand would translate into less
availability of the service in rural areas, he explained that there would be
more trips to and from the Raceway, that some of these trips might be brand new
trips on the system and if so, they might be displacing other trips currently
being made to other locations where passengers might decide that they prefer to
go to the Raceway.
Councillor Thompson maintained that by helping out in
one way, this recommendation could end up causing some downturn in service
availability. Mr. Scrimgeour submitted
that any time demand increased, the Service could either meet it by increasing
service, which would cost more, or not increase service, which would increase
disappointment.
In reply to a question from the Councillor with
respect to the $90,000 costs referenced earlier in the discussion, Mr.
Scrimgeour explained that right now, it cost $1.75M to provide Para Transpo
trips to and from rural destinations and $134,000 of this came from fares while
the remaining $1.6M came from property taxes.
He advised that if fares were reduced and the same trips were made,
there would be $44,000 coming in from fare revenues and the other $90,000 would
have to be replaced by increased property taxes.
Councillor Thompson then requested clarification on
the use of taxis and the costs associated with this. Mr. Scrimgeour explained that generally
speaking, it was cheaper for Transit Services to use a taxi rather than one of
their own vans. However, in the urban
area, where there was more opportunity to accommodate multiple passengers per
trip, they could get more productive use out of a van than a taxi. Therefore, he submitted that it depended on
the circumstances and the particular physical requirements of the customer
booking the trip. If someone was using a
wheelchair, the vehicle had to be able to accommodate the wheelchairs, which
sometimes prevented the use of a taxi.
This being said, he maintained that in general, the cost was lower if
using a taxi rather than the Service’s own vans.
The Councillor referenced some of the other
transportation services available in outlying areas, either in terms of
retirement home buses, home support program’s vans or taxi services in outlying
areas. He wondered if this was something
the City could enhance, with some in-depth study to see what was available, in
order to perhaps reduce the need for Para Transpo in the rural areas. Mr. Scrimgeour suggested that it was very
difficult to integrate such resources into the Para public transit services,
which was a public transit service.
However, he acknowledged that it may be possible. He agreed that this was a good angle to
explore further.
To this end, Councillor Thompson suggested the rural
Councillors would likely be willing to work with staff by sharing their
knowledge of facilities and services available in their areas with which Para
could potential partner. In closing, the
Councillor asked whether Para Transpo transported passengers to areas outside
of the City, such as the Winchester or the Arnprior hospitals. Mr. Scrimgeour responded in the negative,
explaining that the only destinations outside of the City of Ottawa limits were
in Gatineau, because this was an area also served by OC Transpo.
Councillor El-Chantiry asked whether Councillor
Leadman would amend her motion in order to have the follow-up report rise to
both Transit Committee and the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee as he
believed rural Councillors should have the opportunity to discuss this matter
with their community. He also expressed
concern over the timetable and the referenced in the motion of a report back in
July.
On procedure, Chair Cullen believed the intent of the
motion was to make sure the Advisory Committees were informed and had an
opportunity to have input. In terms of
the follow-up report that would result from this, he advised that he would be
proposing a joint meeting of the Transit and Agriculture and Rural Affairs
Committees, at a time to be agreed upon by himself, as Chair of Transit
Committee, and Councillor Thompson, as Chair of the Agriculture and Rural
Affairs Committee.
Councillor El-Chantiry maintained the importance of
allowing Councillors representing rural wards to go back to their communities
and have a frank discussion on the topic before making any decisions that could
increase rural residents’ taxes.
Responding to a question from Councillor El-Chantiry
with respect to timelines for consulting with rural Councillors and their
constituents further to recommendation 2 of the report, Mr. Scrimgeour
indicated this would be done in time for staff to be able to develop any
recommendations for Council’s consideration in time to be included in the 2011
budget. In terms of timelines and
process, he envisioned starting as soon as practical and doing it through the
Councillors’ offices.
Chair Cullen referenced the motion put forward by
Councillor Leadman and asked staff about the timelines for consulting the
Advisory Committees and reporting back to Standing Committee. Mr. Mercier submitted that if staff could
schedule the consultations with the Advisory Committees expeditiously, the
timelines should not be a problem.
However, he requested clarification on the report back; whether the
intent was for the report to come back as is.
Chair Cullen assumed that if the Advisory Committees
offered recommendations, staff would need to provide some kind of comment or
context in response to these recommendations, therefore it would not simply be
a matter of bringing back the same report.
He re-iterated his intention to work with Councillor Thompson to set-up
a joint meeting of the Transit and the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committees
once staff was ready to report back.
Councillor Legendre noted that if the referral motion
was approved, staff would have some additional time. He referenced the second motion found in the
report’s Background section and suggested staff investigate possible
partnerships with community resource centres and include this in the follow-up
report.
Moved
by Councillor C. Leadman
Therefore
be it resolved that the report titled “Improved Transit Services for Seniors
and People with Disabilities in Rural Areas” (ACS2010-ICS-TRA-0001) be referred
to the Accessibility Advisory Committee and the Rural Issues Advisory Committee
for a report back to Standing Committee(s).
carried
The
following written submissions were received by Committee and are held on file
with the City Clerk:
·
E-mail from Ken
Holmes dated 20 April 2010; and
·
E-mail from Klaus
Beltzner dated 16 April 2010.
That the Transit Committee recommend Council approve:
1. Urban Para
Transpo service and fares be expanded to cover the entire Urban Policy Area plus
the Rideau-Carleton Raceway, as detailed in this report;
2. A
consultation process be carried out with residents of rural villages to plan up
to four new once-a-week bus trips from rural villages to shopping destinations
in the urban part of the City; and
3. The Para
Transpo rural fare zone boundaries be revised, as detailed in this report, to
simplify fares by removing specialized sub-zones that are little-used.
REFERRED
2. Update: Accessibility Audit of Transit Services Facilities
MISE À JOUR: VÉRIFICATION DE
L’ACCESSIBILITÉ DANS LES INSTALLATIONS DE TRANSPORT EN COMMUN
ACS2010-ICS-TRA-0002 CITY WIDE / À L'ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
Mr.
Alain Mercier, General Manager of Transit Services, introduced Ms. Ann Marie
Foley, Program Manager of Business Services, Transit Services. Ms. Foley spoke to a PowerPoint presentation,
which served to provide Committee with a detailed presentation of the
report. A copy of this presentation is
held on file with the City Clerk.
Chair
Cullen requested confirmation that this was a progress report on the
Accessibility Audit and that staff would be coming back with a plan, including
specifics and budget elements. Ms. Foley
explained the audit had been completed and the divisions had been
identified. She advised that in the next
couple of months, staff would be developing the actual road map and determining
how the budget would be spent. She
indicated the roadmap would be rolled out through the actual initiatives
identified in the City of Ottawa’s Municipal Accessibility Plan (COMAP).
Responding
to a follow-up question from the Chair, Ms. Foley anticipated staff would be
able to bring the roadmap forward in September.
Ms.
Catherine Gardner spoke from a written submission. In her presentation, she expressed concern
that this audit was not comprehensive of the Transit system, as requested by
the Accessibility Advisory Committee (AAC) in February of 2008. She submitted that a facilities audit only
addressed one element of the Transit system and therefore missed other systemic
barriers that existed in terms of fare policies, communication policies,
training and so on. Further, she felt
that as a built environment audit, it was also lacking because it failed to
include buses, bus stops and bus shelters.
She talked about the fact that staff reviewed any new facilities at
various stages of the planning and design but indicated staff had refused to
allow members of the AAC be part of this process. She pointed to the Bayshore Transitway
station and the temporary station at Baseline and submitted that major flaws at
these facilities could have been avoided had members of the disabled community
been involved in the planning process.
She remarked that the audit failed to address issues such as posting
information relative to elevators being out of order and it failed to include
Para Transpo. She then talked about the
fact that the Transit Accessibility Specialist used to attend monthly AAC
meetings so members could be updated on OC Transpo and Para Transpo issues but
that this no longer occurred. This meant
that updates were no longer provided and AAC members often found out about
issues by viewing other committees’ agendas.
A copy of Ms. Gardner’s presentation is held on file with the City
Clerk.
Responding
to a question from Chair Cullen, Mr. Mercier confirmed that staff intended to
consult the Accessibility Advisory Committee during the development of the
policies and procedures that would flow from the current report.
Councillor
Leadman asked why Para Transpo had not been included in this audit. Ms. Foley explained that Para Transpo was
included in the review of the Policy and Procedures section. However, because Para Transpo provides
door-to-door service, there was no physical part of the audit conducted for
Para.
Responding
to follow-up questions from the Councillor with respect to bus shelters, Ms.
Foley explained there currently was nothing in legislation that said how large
a bus shelter should be. Therefore, in
lieu of this, staff did some best-practice research and was presented with
information as to what a perfect bus shelter would look like, which would be
taken into consideration. She confirmed
that there would be further consultation with the AAC with respect to those
parameters.
Councillor
Leadman then posted questions with respect to the elevators to be updated in
2011. Ms. Foley indicated the elevators
that were on the life cycle program for 2010 were those at the Blair Road
Station, those at the Queensway Transit Station and those at Lincoln Fields. She advised that work had been completed on
the elevators at Westboro.
Following these exchanges, Committee voted to receive
the report.
RECEIVED
3. CANADIAN URBAN TRANSIT ASSOCIATION (CUTA) ANNUAL CONFERENCE ATTENDENCE
CARRIED
4. FLEET ACQUISITION STRATEGY
STRATÉGIE
D’ACQUISITION Du parc de VÉHICULES
ACS2010-ICS-TRA-0005 CITY WIDE / À L'ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
Moved by Councillor G. Bédard
That the Transit Committee approve the addition of
Item 4, Fleet Acquisition Strategy (ACS2020-1CS-TRA-0005) for consideration by
the Committee at this meeting pursuant to section 84(3) of the Procedure
By-law, as there is an immediate and finite time period available for Council
to consider this issue and staff were unable to complete the report earlier.
CARRIED
Ms. Nancy
Schepers, Deputy City Manager of Infrastructure and Community Sustainability,
introduced the item, after which Mr. Alain Mercier, General Manager of Transit
Services, Mr. Larry Atkinson, Chief of Transit Maintenance, and Ms. Marian
Simulik, City Treasurer, spoke to a PowerPoint presentation which service to
provide Committee with a detailed overview of the proposal. A copy of the presentation is held on file
with the City Clerk.
Mr. Brian Tobin, Chairman of the Board of New Flyer
Industries, introduced Mr. Paul Soubry,
President and CEO of New Flyer Industries.
He explained that New Flyer traced its roots back to 1930 and contended
it was the only true Canadian bus champion, headquartered in Winnipeg and
publicly traded on the TSX. He expressed
the unequivocal support of the New Flyer Board of Directors for the proposal
currently before Committee, which he viewed as revolutionary as it contained
many firsts for the transit industry. He
noted that New Flyer had been doing business with OC Transpo for over 20 years
and had come into the media spotlight the previous year when the maintenance
and reliability of the 60-foot articulated bus fleet had issues resulting in
poor performance and reliability. He
advised that this had been a major concern for New Flyer’s board and its
management. He expressed pleasure over
New Flyer staff’s response to the problem because Mr. Soubry and his team had
come to Ottawa, met with Mr. Mercier and his team and had negotiated a
settlement agreement. This had resulted
in New Flyer establishing a local service centre in Arnprior to support the
maintenance and retrofit of the applicable fleets. He submitted that New Flyer took seriously
its need to perform as promised and its reputation across Canada and the United
States, but particularly in the national capital. He reported that since last year, New Flyer
had continuously met with OC Transpo staff to develop a number of creative
programs in support of parts, maintenance and reliability improvements. Speaking to the proposal currently before
Committee, he explained that in 2009, a significant U.S. based customer had
deferred a substantial order due to a lack of funding. As a result, New Flyer
had significant capacity sitting in its line.
The company was faced with the choice of ratcheting down or finding
another customer. Because the company
did not want to ratchet down, it came forward with what he believed was a
win-win proposal for the City of Ottawa.
With the current OC Transpo 60-foot fleet capacity approaching its
midlife, the City of Ottawa faced a 2 or 3 year window of very expensive and
disruptive mid-life upgrades and a continually increasing maintenance cost due
to the aging fleet. In addition, while
OC Transpo was progressing towards its stated goal of a 90% fleet dispatch availability,
he believed further improvements would require a fundamental change in
approach, from reactive maintenance to cooperative partnership with the OEM,
where state-of-the-art technology and tools would be deployed to monitor the
fleet health and performance. He added
that a further opportunity existed to standardize to all Cummins engine fleet,
which would substantially improve fuel economy and enhance the environmental
footprint. He then reviewed the details
of the proposal and in closing, he re-iterated his belief that this was a
win-win partnership and assured members of Council that the New Flyer team was
dedicated to it.
Responding to questions from Councillor Doucet, Mr.
Rick O’Connor, City Clerk and Solicitor, confirmed that this was not a
sole-source proposal because the City currently had a contract with New Flyer,
which would expire on December 31, 2010.
Therefore, it was the continuation of a contract that was entered into
following a competitive process.
Councillor Doucet suggested part of the reason this
proposal looked so great for the City of Ottawa was that the previous buses had
caused such problems. He indicated that
he liked the bumper-to-bumper warranty but he wondered how New Flyer could
promise that the City of Ottawa would not be getting bus with problems, like
the last ones. Mr. Tobin replied that
the agreement had New Flyer taking on an obligation relative to the operation
of the vehicle for a warranty period.
Therefore, he submitted that he behoved them to make sure the warranty
provision was not drawn down by producing the best possible product. Mr. Soubry added that the company had
invested over $10M in the redesign and optimization of its facilities in the
past year and that the bus model that was the subject of the current proposal,
though it was a descendent of the previous model, had many upgrades, including
an articulated joint and engines with guaranteed fuel performance. Therefore, while it was based on the same
platform, it was a different bus. He
also referenced the five-year warranty, noting that industry standards were one
or two years.
Councillor Doucet stated that in spite of his first
remarks, he was pleased with the proposal, noting there was a lot to like about
it; it would save money and provide better fuel economy. That being said, he requested a staff comment
on the operating claims being put forward in the proposal. Mr. Mercier indicated there had been a lot of
discussion about what had caused the problems with the original articulated buses
and he remarked that New Flyer had done extensive work to redesign this
bus. He advised that over the past two
years, OC Transpo had taken 53 of the redesigned articulated buses into its
fleet and these had performed exceptionally well. He noted that the data on fuel had come
directly from measuring OC Transpo’s own engines; that staff knew what the
differences were between the fuel consumption in the first generation buses
versus the second generation buses. He
indicated the Cummins engine was becoming an industry standard and OC Transpo
staff had almost six years of experience with it and it was working as
expected.
Councillor Bloess wondered how this proposal compared
to the current market, in terms of purchase price. Mr. Atkinson indicated staff had checked with
other cities in terms of their recent purchased and he reported that the
proposal was significantly below anything staff had seen on articulated buses
in Canada.
Councillor Bloess referenced slide 12 of the staff
presentation and the last bullet, noting that it talked about the reduced need
for new bus purchases in 2011, which was not included in the net present value
(NPV) analysis. He wondered why this had
not been factored into the NPV. Ms.
Simulik explained there were two reasons for not including it. Staff wanted to be conservative in the
analysis and not assume that everything was going to change and the
refurbishment had already been built into the capital program. She acknowledged that it would make a big
difference. However, she noted it was a
short term benefit because, although the City would not be buying buses in
2011, it would start buying some again in 2012.
Secondly, staff ran out of time in terms of building every possible savings
into the analysis.
The Councillor talked about the financial aspects of
getting the older buses out of the City’s hands and submitted this was not
spelled out as clearly as he would have liked.
Ms. Simulik maintained the financial advantage was the new present value
overall and she submitted that as a minimum, the City had a positive financial
impact of $1.2M. She advised that the
consultant hired to review the proposal had come up with a significantly higher
NPV; closer to $20M.
Councillor Bloess then referenced the service and
reliability issues relative to the older articulated buses and he wondered if
staff could quantify what this proposal would mean in this regard. Mr. Atkinson indicated staff had not had time
to go into that level of analysis. He
indicated this level of analysis would be very time consuming. He advised that when staff got to the point,
in developing the business case, where they realized that there would be a
positive NPV, they decided to not spend a lot of effort in trying to nail it
down to that level of detail as there was already so much good in the
proposal. However, he submitted that
overall, new buses would give the Service better reliability than nine year-old
buses.
Responding to a final question from the Councillor,
Mr. Atkinson advised that the City would be receiving the new buses with all of
the Smart Bus features wired in and ready to hit the road.
Councillor Leadman expressed concerns with the timing
of this in terms of how much time members of Council had to consider the
report. She noted this was not a small
matter, it was a detailed report and there were a lot of elements to
consider. Further, Committee was hearing
that there was a compressed timeframe.
She asked staff to provide details with respect to how long it took to
put the proposal together. Mr. Mercier
re-iterated that, as part of OC Transpo’s capital budget, the Service already
had a plan to procure buses and was planning to buy high capacity buses. He indicated the department wanted as many
high capacity buses delivered as early this year as possible. On March 4th, staff was approached
by New Flyer to prompt execution of an early order in the year. This was the first indication that there was
a need, from New Flyer’s perspective, to confirm the order booked for this
year.
Councillor Leadman asked whether this meant New Flyer
was asking the City to move its order up or earlier than anticipated. Mr. Mercier responded in the negative,
advising that it was quite normal in the industry that when a buyer had a
contract to procure buses, they worked with the manufacturer to confirm
production slots and the City had indicated the delivery schedule it wanted for
2010. He re-iterated that staff was
approached by New Flyer with a letter asking of OC Transpo would be willing to
take delivery this year. He explained
that from this point on, staff started the internal process of looking at their
own numbers in terms of the capital requirements for refurbishing. Staff also understood that there was an
opportunity and asked New Flyer whether there was an opportunity some of the
greater problems in terms of the older buses with obsolete engines, which were
a source of risk and a financial preoccupation for the department. From that point in time until April 16, staff
was in draft discussions with New Flyer in terms of how OC Transpo could make a
financial investment that would make sense to the taxpayers. He reported that staff had done a lot of
research on some of the new 2010 engines and on fuel in order to confirm the
savings with other transit systems.
Further, Transit Services staff had relied on Financial Services staff
to ensure that there was a positive return.
He submitted all of this had taken time and at any moment, staff could
have determined that it would not be financially viable, in which case the
report would not have come forward for Committee’s consideration.
Councillor Leadman inquired as to the reasons for the
April 30 deadline. Mr. Tobin believed it
came down to the fact that New Flyer had capacity in its plant for a supply of
buses because the City of Chicago had deferred its order. He referenced the size of the New Flyer
operation and indicated that they could not simply turn the tap off. They had to run a schedule. He submitted it was a convergence of, on the
one hand New Flyer having a capacity problem because of the cancelled order and
on the other hand, OC Transpo having a desire to upgrade its fleet and get to
more than 90% capability in terms of the accessibility of buses. He noted this had encouraged New Flyer to put
together a record-breaking series of proposals.
He re-iterated that the company either had to use its extra capacity or
defer it, but that it could not turn the shop on and off. This was the only reason for the timeline
constraint.
Councillor Leadman asked whether staff had considered
building into the timelines or this proposal a two-week period so that the
report could be tabled, knowing the usual Committee and Council process and the
optics of this. Ms. Schepers apologized
for not giving members of Council the time they would normally have to consider
such an important decision. In terms of
the time frame, she re-iterated that up until April 16, staff was in
discussions and at any time, could have decided that the proposal was not going
to work. She indicated Transit Services
needed Finance and Legal at the table to ensure this would work and a number of
staff had been working evenings and weekends so the proposal could be before
Committee and supported by credible information. She agreed with the Councillor in terms of
the importance of the decision and she indicated that she would have liked to
provide the two weeks. However, she
understood the time commitments and the urgency from New Flyer and therefore
staff had agreed to bring it forward as they had. In closing, she stated that she felt it was a
great opportunity and that it needed to be in front of Committee today.
Responding to follow-up questions from Councillor
Leadman with respect to the fleet, Mr. Mercier advised that as part of their
tactical fleet plan, Transit Services would continue to replace its older
buses. He explained the average life
span of a bus in the OC Transpo fleet was 18 years, which was significantly
longer than the industry standard, noting the buses were designed for 12
years. Further, he advised that OC
Transpo’s experience was only with refurbishing 40-foot buses. They had never refurbished articulated buses
because their design was relatively new in the industry. As a result, this opportunity had forced
staff to spend a lot of time understanding the risks and the costs associated
with refurbishing articulated buses. In
terms of the composition of the fleet, he noted staff had given Council a
detailed fleet plan that would see the last of the high-floor buses
disappearing and 90% of the fleet being low floor buses by the end of this year
and 100% by 2014. He indicated this
opportunity dealt with a segment of the fleet that had been giving the Service
some grief over the years in terms of its design performance; some of which was
due to OC Transpo’s own specifications back in 2000. He confirmed that New Flyer was the
manufacturer of the 226 articulated buses that were not performing,
re-iterating that at the time, articulated buses were new, design problems had
been resolved and today, articulated buses were the work horse of OC Transpo’s
fleet as well as many other transit services’ fleets across North America. He explained that the engines in the original
2001 series buses did not have enough horse power to climb certain hills in the
City so OC Transpo had asked the manufacturer to modify them. As a result, the City of Ottawa was unique in
owning a turbo-charged Detroit diesel engine.
Because the manufacturer was no longer making this model of engine,
Transit Services staff was dependent on finding after market solutions for many
of their parts, which would be risky going forward in the next 10 years.
Councillor Leadman posed a series of questions with
respect to the existing contract. In
reply, Mr. O’Connor advised that the contract did not specify the number of
buses to be purchased in 2010 but was worded to say that the number was “to be
determined”. He added that for 2010, the
number would be based on whatever Mr. Mercier got through his capital budget
and Council’s approval. Mr. Mercier
confirmed that the contract did not state a number of buses, rather it related
to those buses that were approved through Transit Services’ funding capacity to
buy. He confirmed that the funding
capacity approved as part of the budget was for 80 buses. He also confirmed that pursuant to the
contract, whatever articulated buses OC Transpo purchased in 2010 had to be
purchased from New Flyer.
Councillor Leadman referenced the litigation matter
that was the subject of a 2009 report and she wondered how this positioned the
City of Ottawa in terms of the current agreement. Mr. O’Connor felt it positioned the City well
because the City had been able to resolve that litigation with New Flyer and
come up with a warranty support agreement.
Responding to questions from the Councillor with
respect to the debenture, Ms. Simulik indicated it would be a 15 year
debenture. She explained that the City
currently ran its buses for 18 years, though they were built to run a minimum
of 12 years. Based on these timelines,
staff had placed the debenture to be somewhere in between. She advised that this was the industry
standard. She reported that the cost of
the debenture would be $14M per year over 15 years, based on a 5.5% interest
rate. However, she noted that interest
rates were currently lower than 5.5% but staff had built in a higher number,
just for security.
Councillor Wilkinson noted that gas tax money would be
used towards this purchase. She
referenced other expenditures for which gas tax money was proposed to be used
and she asked for assurances that gas tax money was not being
double-counted. Ms. Simulik responding
affirmatively, explaining that for this purchase, staff would be using the gas
tax money that would have been used to buy more buses in 2011 and 2012, which
would no longer be needed because of no longer needing to refurbish the old
fleet.
Councillor Wilkinson talked about the 5.5% interest
rate built into the proposal, noting that interest rates were on the rise. She wondered if this would be enough of a
cushion. Ms. Simulik explained that
short-term interest rates had been rising (1, 2 and 5 year) but longer-term rates
had remained stable (10, 15 and 30 years).
She remarked that the City typically did not debenture for anything
under 10 years.
Responding to questions from the Councillor with
respect to the warranty and past warranty issues, Mr. Atkinson talked about the
challenge OC Transpo had in administering the warranty internally. He advised a big part of this proposal
related to changing the relationship with New Flyer and putting a joint team on
the ground to manage the warranties on a daily basis, which would eliminate
past problems the Service has had with managing warranties.
The Councillor posed questions with respect to fuel
consumption and the ability to install the stop call-out system. Mr. Atkinson explained that the projected
fuel savings would be driven by the type of engine in the new buses as well as
the fact of getting rid of the turbo engines found in the old buses. He indicated the stop call-out system that
had been ordered for the old buses would simply be installed directly into the
new buses instead and they would be delivered ready to go into service.
Councillor Wilkinson inquired as to the relationship
with the Arnprior facility. Mr. Atkinson
explained that for the purposes of this proposal, it would provide a point of
exchange for the buses, which would be very efficient because OC Transpo would
drive the old buses in, transfer any OC dedicated parts across to the new bus,
and drive the new bus out and directly into service.
Responding to a final question from the Councillor,
Mr. Atkinson confirmed that with the new garage, the Service would have room
for all of these buses.
Councillor Legendre posed questions with respect to
the plant capacity to produce the number of buses and whether it would push the
company’s limits. Mr. Tobin explained
this related to a combination of plant capacity, supplies, equipment and
materials on hand. Mr. Soubry explained
that normally, there was a 6-month window between receiving customer
specifications and producing a final product.
In this situation, he indicated there was a 2-month window. He advised that he variable capacity in their
facility was somewhere between 35 to 40 units per week all the way up to 60
units per week and that they had multiple facilities. He noted part of the juggling act was to make
sure they balanced the load level of those facilities and capability. He reported that 70% of what went on a bus
came from sub-contractors and suppliers so it was not just a matter of managing
capacity, it was managing the network.
Councillor Legendre wondered if the manufacturer could
produce all of the buses in this calendar year.
Mr. Soubry confirmed that, in theory, they could. However, he maintained that they had other
customers and other parts of their capacity had been spoken for. The other reality was that the last thing
they wanted to do was spike up their facility to ram an order through in 2010
and then drop down, which would cause tremendous labour disruptions.
Councillor Legendre inquired as to the 2-month
window. Mr Soubry explained that the
company had to get ready to start building these buses and the scheduled on
which New Flyer had been working with staff had a line entry date in late
July. If approval was given to proceed,
they would need to finish the non-recurrent engineering, have it approved by OC
Transpo, then start building those buses for the August delivery.
Responding to follow-up questions from Councillor
Legendre, Mr. O’Connor confirmed that although the current contract with New
Flyer stated all articulated buses bought in 2010 had to be purchased from New
Flyer, what mattered, in terms of abiding by that contract, was the date on
which the buses were ordered, which would be in 2010 under the current
proposal. However, he re-iterated that
Legal Services staff would continue to review this matter.
Councillor Legendre noted that these buses would all
be diesel fuelled. He noted there was
some referenced in the presentation about adding urea to diminish the
particulates. However, he believed there
was some health information on the emanation from diesel engines; that they were
actually toxic. He wondered if anyone
could address this issue. Mr. Mercier
advised that if the Councillor was looking for medical support on emissions,
staff was not prepared with experts in this field. However, he referenced the availability of
excellent presentations on the urea technology and the emissions output with
use of urea, which had become the standard for diesel engines, and he offered
to make these available to members of Council.
Councillor Legendre expressed appreciation for
this. However, he maintained that he
would like staff to ask Dr. Levy for his input on this prior to the item rising
to Council.
Mr. David Jeanes noted the report indicated there was no impact on taxpayers. He wondered if it was true that there would
be no impact on transit users. He
indicated he was not necessarily opposed to the proposal, having heard some
excellent reasons why there would be benefits to the City and why it was
important to move quickly. However, he
had some questions. He wondered about
the average age of the fleet and whether this major purchase would be setting
the City up for major problems 10 to 12 years out when a huge portion of the
fleet would come up to reaching end of life.
He referenced the three bullets found in the report under the heading
“City Strategic Plan” and indicated he did not quite understand how this
proposal would achieve these objectives.
In terms of the 30% modal split by 2021, since this was a fleet
replacement, he did not see how there would be more capacity to help the City
meet this objective. With respect to a
100% accessible transit fleet by 2017, he indicated he had not heard anything
to suggest these buses were any more handicap accessible than the buses they
were replacing one for one. About
achieving a state-of-the-art fuel and environmental efficiency by 2012, he
noted this proposal offered 26% improvement, which had been well
explained. He noted this was in the same
range as what was expected from the hybrid buses but a report had yet to come
forward on their performance. He
reported having asked the Toronto Transit Commission Chair about their
experience and his response was that they had been hoping for 30% but only got
12%. Finally, he asked how these
articulated buses would be used. He
referenced a 2005 report that suggested moving to using articulated buses in
the downtown transitway in order to increase capacity per bus moving through
downtown. However, he believed the
Service was seeing that the best fuel efficiency from the hybrid fleet was when
they were used on those stop/start downtown routes.
Mr. John E. Martin spoke to a PowerPoint presentation, which served to introduce
Committee to new technologies in public transit: ultracapacitor technology with
battery use. In terms of fuel efficiency,
he indicated this would move the City to 100% solar-based renewable
energy. A copy of his presentation is
held on file. At the conclusion of his
presentation, he submitted the point was that there may be room to explore
other technologies, which would be prevented in subsequent years by the excess
replacement under the current proposal.
He asked for an opportunity to put a comprehensive proposal before
Committee.
With respect to a proposal, Chair Cullen suggested Mr.
Martin speak to staff.
Mr. David Gladstone indicated he was seriously concerned with what seemed to be a
single-sourcing of a major acquisition.
He was also concerned with the presumption that the future of the City’s
transit was based on buses. He
referenced the miles of unused railway line, suggested the roadway and
transitway systems were completely at capacity with these articulated buses,
and maintained the need to start seriously using the railway lines.
Councillor Leadman indicated she had more questions on
the proposal but that she would submit them to staff. She re-iterated her concern that Committee
had not been given the opportunity to really have time to review the report,
digest the information and formulate questions.
Chair Cullen acknowledged that it was unfortunate the
current circumstances precluded the usual process. However, he advised that when staff brought
to his attention that there may be this opportunity and the tight timelines, he
felt he would be doing the City and the community a disservice had he refused
to bring the matter forward because of process constraints. He remarked that staff had done considerable
work in terms of due diligence and ensuring this was a viable proposal.
Councillor Bédard agreed that this was an unusual
situation, brought forward by the current market situation. He indicated having read the report and
discussed the proposal with staff and he was confident that this proposal was a
good deal for the City of Ottawa.
Although he agreed with the concerns expressed relative to the time
constraints to review and digest the information, he maintained that sometimes
members of Council had to make these kinds of decisions. He was confident that staff had really looked
at this, that the questions posed during the course of the meeting had flushed
out the issues and items that were important, and that this was a positive
return. He noted that the City would be
getting rid of old buses that had been causing no end of trouble for years. He reviewed some of the information provided
in the staff presentation and in response to members’ questions following the
presentation in terms of the benefits to the City and he submitted that if the
City was not going to take advantage of this opportunity, he did not know why
not. He did not see any disadvantages,
other than the fact that the usual process and timelines were not
followed. He encouraged members of
Committee to move ahead on this one and take advantage of the market, take
advantage of the savings and take advantage of the reduction in problems at OC
Transpo.
Councillor Doucet indicated he had terrific sympathy
for those who felt there was not enough time to review and digest the
information presented as part of this proposal.
However, he submitted this contract was not anything new. He maintained it was not a new contract, it
was a recall of buses that had been problematic. He also reviewed some of the information
provided as part of the staff presentation and in response to questions in
terms of the details of the proposal. He
praised New Flyer for taking advantage of their cancelled contract to make such
an offer and restore the relationship with Ottawa and he praised staff for
taking advantage of the offer and bringing it forward. He submitted this Committee was about delivering
services to residents and that this contract would deliver better service for
the next 10 to 20 years. In closing, he
introduced a motion calling on staff to provide an annual report describing the
costs and savings of the New Flyer articulated bus purchase.
Responding to a question from Chair Cullen, Mr.
Mercier confirmed that producing such an annual report would not be a problem.
Councillor Wilkinson felt the timing of such reports
was important and she pressed staff for a commitment with respect to when a
report would come forward.
A brief discussion ensued, at the conclusion of which
Mr. Mercier suggested staff could come forward in the first quarter of
2011.
At this juncture, Committee voted on the motion.
Moved by Councillor C. Doucet
That an annual report be provided to Transit Committee that
will describe the operating costs and savings of the New Flyer articulated bus
purchase.
CARRIED
In closing, Chair Cullen thanked staff for coming to
him, as Chair of this Committee, and presenting this opportunity. He advised staff had been unsure whether or
not Council would have the appetite to deal with such a large purchase under
such time constraints. He indicated he
and staff were sensitive to the fact of due process. Unfortunately, they were not in control of
the circumstances to ensure such an opportunity would come forward in the
proper course of doing business, with a report being published a week before a
committee meeting and everything that would flow from that. However, he believed the opportunity was too
valuable to let be lost because of procedural constraints, particularly as this
was not new territory. It was a bus
purchase and Committee and Council had done this before. It dealt with issues with which members of
Council were familiar. He noted the
difference was the quantum and some of the major improvements being
presented. He reviewed some of the
proposal’s benefits in terms of purchase price, fuel consumption and
maintenance costs. He believed Committee
would endorse the initiative because it had tremendous payback for the public
and would provide much better service.
He thanked staff for the due diligence they had provided and he thanked
his colleagues for their questions because he believed something like this should
not just fly through and be rubber stamped.
Committee then voted on the item as amended.
That Transit Committee recommend Council approve:
1. The
purchase of 226 New Flyer buses (model D60LFR) from New Flyer under the
existing agreement, as outlined in this report;
2. Delegate
authority to the General Manager, Transit Services, to amend the current
warranty support agreement with New Flyer to incorporate the new vendor support
agreement;
3. Delegate
Finance the authority to seek alternative funding sources and report back to
Council with the results; and
4. That an
annual report be provided to Transit Committee that will describe the operating
costs and savings of the New Flyer articulated bus purchase.
CARRIED
as amended
CITY
MANAGER’S OFFICE
BUREAU
DU DIRECTEUR MUNICIPAL
CITY CLERK’S and LEgal
services
DIRECTION
DU GREFFIER MUNICIPAL et des contentieux
5. Status Update –
TransIT Committee Inquiries and Motions for the period ending april
12, 2010
RAPPORT DE SITUATION - DEMANDES DE RENSEIGNEMENTS ET MOTIONS DU
COMITE Du transport en commun POUR LA PÉRIODE SE TERMINANT le 12 avril 2010
ACS2010-CMR-CCB-0038 City Wide / a l’échelle de la ville
That the Transit Committee receive this report for information.
RECEIVED
CITY
OPERATIONS
OPÉRATIONS MUNICIPALES
6. QUARTERLY PERFORMANCE REPORT TO COUNCIL, q4:
October 1 – December 31, 2009
rapport TRIMESTRIEL SUR LE rendement présenté au
conseil POUR LE 4E TRIMESTRE, du 1ER OCTOBRE AU 31
DÉCEMBRE 2009
ACS2010-CCS-TTC-0007 CITY WIDE/À
L'ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
Mr. David Jeanes talked about the increased use of Park and Rides, which had raised 2
concerns for him. He noted the place
where capacity was being added to Park and Rides was far outside the greenbelt,
which encouraged driving to places where people could board express buses to go
downtown. He submitted this was the most
expensive form of transit offered by the City because of the rather low
recovery costs of those very long trips.
He remarked that the City was not doing anything to plan any Park and
Ride capacity in conjunction with the stations associated with the light rail,
the downtown transit tunnel. He also
talked about there being no increase in Park and Ride capacity for users of the
O-Train since 2001, which he believed was an area the City was neglecting. He suggesting worrying about improving the
transit modal split for people living inside the greenbelt and of maintaining
and improving service inside the greenbelt, including designing rapid transit
and dealing with local routes. He
thought the City had foregone some important opportunity that could have
increased the capacity and usability of the O-train. He felt should have been extended to the Park
and Ride location being built at Leitrim Road, which he believed would have
solved the capacity constraint imposed by the full Park and Ride at
Greenboro. He thought there were other
ridership growth issues that were not being addressed for the O-train, which
was essentially running at capacity. He referenced some money being spent on it
this summer, which would not add any capacity.
He felt this was a significant omission.
Responding to questions from Councillor Wilkinson with
respect to the Quarterly Performance Report, Mr. Vincent Patterson, Manager of
Performance and Quality Management, indicated the report reflected increased
ridership but decreased occupancy rates because occupancy rates for core routes
were rounded. He advised that the figure
was actually slightly up. In terms of
actual passengers, he submitted it was substantial because these were core
routes. He explained that the Service
had increased a lot of the seats available on those routes throughout the day
but the demand had not materialized yet in the fourth quarter of 2009. He pointed to this gradually increasing
towards the tail end of the year, which was why December ridership had broken
an all-time record. With respect to
on-time performance and the need for express routes to keep going once they
reached a point where passengers were descending rather than boarding the bus,
he took the Councillor’s point and advised that the Service was increasingly
making this clear to operators. He
submitted that not running early mattered when being early hurt the customer
but when it was an advantage to be early, such as once an express route had
gotten to the transitway, there was no question to hold back. He explained that the way on-time performance
was reported for express routes reflected this philosophy.
In response to a question from the Councillor with
respect to the rate of mechanical failures, Mr. Mercier confirmed that OC
Transpo’s numbers did not compare well with other transit systems. He advised that this was an area on which Mr.
Atkinson was focused, as was evidenced by the re-alignment of staff to the
servicing organization. He reported that the Service had just finished
introducing new work methods at the Merivale maintenance facility and was
starting to see improvements. He advised
that preventive maintenance was increasing and the Service was on the right
track to start seeing improvements in terms of mechanical failures.
Following these exchanges, Committee voted to receive
the item.
That the Transit Committee receive this report for
further review and discussion of the service areas’ performance results, as
outlined in Document 2.
RECEIVED
COUNCILLOR’S ITEM
ARTICLE
D’UN CONSEILLER
COUNCILLOR’S
ITEM
ARTICLE D’UN CONSEILLER
Councillor / Conseiller A. Cullen
7. ENDORSEMENT
OF BILL C-466
APPUI AU PROJET DE LOI C-466
ACS2010-CCS-TTC-0008 CITY-WIDE
/ À L’ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
That the
Transit Committee recommend Council send a letter to the Federal Minister of Finance
and Federal Minister of Transport to support Bill C-466 “An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act: transportation
benefits.”
CARRIED
INFORMATION PREVIOUSLY DISTRIBUTED
INFORMATION DISTRIBUÉE AUPARAVANT
A. BILL 118 UPDATE
PROJET
DE LOI 118 : MISE À JOUR
ACS2010-ICS-TRA-0003-IPD CITY
WIDE / À L'ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
RECEIVED
IN CAMERA ITEMS*
POINTS EN HUIT CLOS*
CITY MANAGER’S OFFICE
BUREAU DU DIRECTEUR MUNICIPAL
CITY
TREASURER AND FINANCE
TRÉSORIE
ET FINANCE DE LA VILLE
1. GENERAL ACCOUNTS –
WRITE-OFFS 2009 - IN CAMERA –
SETTLEMENT TO RESOLVE LITIGATION MATTER INCLUDING MATTERS before administrative
tribunal AFFECTING THE cITY, – reporting out date: 30 days after final
settlement is reached
ACS2010-CMR-FIN-0021 CITY
WIDE / À L'ÉCHELLE DE LA VILLE
Moved
by Councillor M. Wilkinson
That the
meeting of the Transit Committee move In
Camera pursuant to Section 13(1)(e) and (f) of the Procedure By-law being
Litigation or potential litigation affecting the City and the receiving of
advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege with respect to: General Accounts – Write-Offs 2009.
CARRIED
Committee resolved In Camera at 3:40 p.m.
Committee resumed in open session at 3:50 p.m.
Upon resuming in open session, Chair Cullen indicated
Committee had met In-Camera with respect to the above-noted matter to
receive information from staff and that there were no motions considered during
the In Camera session.
NOTICES OF MOTION (FOR CONSIDERATION AT SUBSEQUENT MEETING)
AVIS DE MOTION (POUR EXAMEN LORS D’UNE RÉUNION
SUBSÉQUENTE)
Councillor /
Conseiller A. Cullen
WHEREAS recently the last surviving
veteran from World War I passed away;
AND WHEREAS it is important to recognize
and honour the contributions of our senior veterans from World War II and the
Korean War to the preservation of freedom in Canada;
AND WHEREAS the average age of such
veterans in Ottawa is 87 years of age (WWII) and 82 years of age (Korean War):
AND WHEREAS other municipalities
(notably in Waterloo Region) have recognized the contributions of such veterans
by providing a life-time transit pass free of charge to World War II and Korean
War veterans aged 65 and older;
AND WHEREAS it is estimated that the
cost of providing such a free life-time transit pass for veterans resident in
Ottawa is $250,000;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Transit
Committee direct staff to prepare a budget submission for the 2011 City of
Ottawa Budget for approval that would provide for such free life-time transit
passes for World War II and Korean War veterans aged 65 and older.
INQUIRIES
DEMANDES DE RENSEIGNEMENTS
Councillor Cullen submitted the following inquiry:
Some months ago, Councillors were canvassed to
recommend sites for bus shelters with garbage bins. What is the status of this? When will we see these bins in these
shelters?
ADJOURNMENT
LEVÉE DE LA SÉANCE
The meeting adjourned at 3:55
p.m.
Original Signed By Original
Signed By
D. Blais A.
Cullen
Committee
Coordinator Chair