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Ajax couple loses battle against bus

From The Star of October 15, 2008:

Transit officials side with dozens of residents in decision to keep subdivision route intact

Carola Vyhnak
Urban affairs reporter

The bus stops here. And there. And over there.

And at 5:30 this morning, Rashna Dadachanji will happily climb on board Route 222 to get to work. Not so happily, Wayne and Sandra Cassidy will hear the bus rumble past their bedroom window, having just lost a months-long battle to stop it.

Yesterday, Durham Region Transit's executive committee sided with Dadachanji and dozens of riders in the south Ajax subdivision and made a swift decision to keep the route intact. That means the bus will continue its run past the Cassidys' lakefront house every half-hour during rush hours.

The Audley Rd. S. couple had asked the transit commission to eliminate a loop of several blocks, arguing the bus is smelly, exceeds noise standards (they paid to have sound studies done), and poses a safety hazard on the narrow street. They also said the three bus stops along the loop were barely used.

Phil Meagher, DRT's deputy general manager of operations, said the loop averages 28 riders per hour.

But Wayne Cassidy told commissioners his own survey disproves the numbers. "I'm there every day at 5:30 and I'm not seeing anyone get on the bus."

Transit users must be wearing "invisible cloaks," he said.

Cassidy said rerouting the bus would only mean an extra minute's walk for a handful of people.

But Dadachanji argued the longer walk in howling winds along ice- and snow-covered streets would take some "at least 15 minutes."

"The service is a benefit and convenience to the entire community."

Not so for John Fisico, who supported the Cassidys' proposal.

"It's a slam dunk," he told commissioners. "I'd rather have more peacefulness than convenience."

Shortening the route, he pointed out, would save buses five to six hours of driving time a week.

For Vivian Huang, who goes to work in Toronto every day, it's faster to take the bus to the GO station than drive there, find parking and walk back to the train. Route 222 connects to the rest of Ajax and the GTA, and "is really appreciated in the winter" by workers, students and senior citizens alike, she said.

Route 222 was added in 2006 as part of a mandate to offer service within 400 metres of customers.

Ajax Councillor Scott Crawford said he'd never seen so much correspondence from residents on a single transit issue. The majority urged them not to change the route.
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kEiThZ said:
If it's 10 houses, how are they getting 28 riders per hour? Something's strange here...
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According to the article in the local paper, it's 23 riders per *day* getting on/off within the loop. Obviously more ride through.

http://www.newsdurhamregion.com/news/ajax/article/110736

BTW, this is actually my local route. Those numbers seem consistent with my experience. Boardings within the loop are pretty low.
 
kEiThZ said:
If it's 10 houses, how are they getting 28 riders per hour? Something's strange here...
Click to expand...

There's about a dozen houses beyond the 400m mark that they [erroneously] consider to be the maximum bus stop threshold...a few dozen more are served by the loop. Removing the loop would affect, literally, less than 23 riders a day, though even then these most "distant" dozen people would be barely a 5 minute walk away from the bus.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
There's about a dozen houses beyond the 400m mark that they [erroneously] consider to be the maximum bus stop threshold...a few dozen more are served by the loop. Removing the loop would affect, literally, less than 23 riders a day, though even then these most "distant" dozen people would be barely a 5 minute walk away from the bus.
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Yep. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other places that are more - sometimes much more - than the 400m mark. And even this little section of the neighbourhood is NOT served by evening or Sunday service buses which avoid the very same loop that is in question here.
 
Bus goes boldly to where NIMBY has no bounds

From The Star of October 20, 2008:

October 20, 2008
Christopher Hume

Truth isn't just stranger than fiction; it's a lot nastier.

Take the case of Sandra and Wayne Cassidy, an Ajax couple who have spent months trying to alter the route of a bus that goes past their lakefront home.

The bus, they argued, is noisy, smelly and dangerous.

Come to think of it, it's a threat to their mental, emotional and physical health. Oh, and let's not forget, it's also a neighbourhood destroyer, a subdivision killer and bad for property values.

It also goes past the Cassidys' house every 30 minutes during rush hour.

Whose idea was it to unleash such destruction on this quiet, peaceful community? Who says these people need public transit? Or want it? Isn't that why they moved to the suburbs in the first place?

According to Cassidys – and they should know – nobody takes the bus anyway.

Well, okay, so there are a few neighbours down the road and around the corner who actually do use public transit – every working day in fact. But maybe it's time they smartened up and started driving to work like everyone else.

Forget all that bunk about global warming, saving the planet, cutting down on vehicular traffic, and the rest of it; no one must be inconvenienced. The bus must be stopped.

Even in a part of the world where the NIMBYs know no bounds, this case stands apart.

This couple has gone well beyond the call of normal self-interest to keep the world from intruding into their backyard.

Forget all those homeowners who show up at public meetings to protest the opening down the street of a home for single mothers, or those fighting valiantly to halt a homeless shelter, halfway house or, worst of all, a condo more than three storeys tall. Nice try but strictly routine, knee-jerk NIMBYism. The Cassidys, those nattering nabobs of NIMBYism, have taken things to a whole new level.

NOT IN THEIR BACKYARD.

Now that Durham Region Transit has dismissed their complaint, life must be awful. They had to hire noise measurement experts – at their own expense, thank you very much – to document the extent of the racket. It's only a matter of time before someone – probably a kid – is deafened, run over or killed.

Let's be honest; both kids and buses should be banned. The roads belong to cars, not people and certainly not bus passengers.

By the way, one wonders if the Cassidys have ever seen – or heard – a Toronto streetcar? Each one is a veritable hell on wheels. Talk about traffic blockers; they're always in the way. Good thing there aren't any in Ajax.

Good thing, too, the Cassidys don't live in Mississauga, where Mayor Hazel McCallion has spoken openly about her frustration with residents who want to keep public transit from their neighbourhood. Their excuse, McCallion explained, was that the arrival of buses would mean a drop in property values.

The fact is that, urban or suburban, the NIMBY impulse comes from deep within. It's not pretty, but it's entirely human, and most of us realize that. The difference is that most of us manage to keep it in check. Given that we belong to a larger community, we quickly figure out it's best to find a balance between selfishness and selflessness.

As appalling as NIMBYism may be, we have empowered it. The bus continues, but only after the expenditure of considerable time and public money. Meetings were held, flyers sent out and consultants hired, all to reconfirm the obvious and keep the buses running.
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Mustapha said:
Hooray and kudos to Durham transit.:D
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Meanwhile, this is the same group of politicians that voted two weeks ago to cut the targeted 2009 tax increase increase from 4.9% to 4.0% (a difference of $80 on the average house), putting at risk DRT's plans for service increases in 2009. This, after 2008 service increases were cancelled.

Compared to this, the Hoile loop story is irrelevant.
 
Durham Region Long Term Transit Study

It's time to start a thread on this. DRT has a long term transit study being done by iTrans to determine the long term network for the Region. This not only includes the Highway 2 BRT but other possible "rapid transit" routes, enhanced regular routes, general service increases, marketing, etc. In short, the end result will be a blueprint to be followed - assuming that money can be found to do any of it.

I'm a member of the Community Advisory Committee for this, and we have a meeting next week to hear about technology choices and draft routings.

However, the Town of Ajax posted a report containing a map of the draft strategy, and I've linked to it below.

73a.jpg


The full Ajax report at http://www.townofajax.com/AssetFactory.aspx?did=7678

The red lines are "rapid transit" which may be BRT or LRT (no decisions made yet) while the blue lines are regional bus routes with priority measures. It does show the 407 transitway in purple but it's not clear what service would be provided along the 407 - and it's not clear when that would be constructed in any case.

One point of clarification is that the Salem/Harwood route shown would use Achilles to travel between the two.

Any feedback is welcome; I will try to represent comments at the Committee meeting next week.

In addition, there will be public open houses on this later in the month. Details are at http://www.townofajax.com/AssetFactory.aspx?did=7539
 
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Wow, that actually looks quite promising.

All that I want to beat down is that they should really be using the Waterfront Go corridor as the backbone of the region's transit. I think there could be a bit of an opportunity for some more suburban expansion, but the "future growth areas" labeled in that map looks a fair bit excessive. Seaton and maybe an expansion of the Brooklin area in Whitby are acceptable, but Whitby certainly shouldn't be that big, and I don't like the look of "North Pickering" or "Oshawa" growth areas. All the cities should look at densification instead, Pickering and Ajax especially (I think they by far have the most potential.)

If they can actually build that many RT corridors though, I'd be impressed. Again, I have to question the necessity of the 407 expansion in the first place though. I don't think they should continue it, and I hope it doesn't happen. If it does, at the least they could make the highway small and build a good transitway on it.
 
Interesting that it also shows the Lakeshore East line deviating up to the CP line in Oshawa, whereas there had only been talk before of going up to the CP line to hit downtown Bomanville. I don't really see what the advantage is of moving the Oshawa station north of the 401, although it would improve walkability to the station and place it in a more "urban" setting.
 
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