Ottawa

More on bus stop shelters

I don’t know if many readers follow the comments section of WestSideAction. There is often good material and alternate views in there.

After the story on improved bus stops, a reader wrote with info that I thought others might find interesting…

There are lots of different and interesting different OCTranspo shelters. The black one you chose to photograph at Slater and Metcalfe is interesting, as it is unique in the system and no other shelter is quite like it, with curved glass end panels. Other shelters with curved roofs all have a metal panel to allow identical rectangular glass to be used in all shelters.

All shelters in the OC Transpo system, save for some very old ones, use the same size of glass panels to simplify maintenance. All shelters are therefore fixed to being one or two panels of glass deep.

The shelters you picture at Tunney’s are unique to train stations, as the design matches. Blair, Hurdman and Tunney’s will all have some. They are also built with provisions for heat, though I believe only the night stop will be equipped initially.

The Trillium line shelters that were upgraded in 2013 all feature sealed bottoms, though the tops are vented as they don’t have doors or heat. One shelter was removed from each platform at Carleton U this past year, as part of the faregate project (they were replaced, just with four smaller shelters). I was pleased to see the reused shelter pop up on Data Centre road at Heron Station, with the sealed bottom intact.

Baseline has shelters similar to the ones installed along the Trillium line, but two glass panels deep. Doors, sealed bottoms and heat were retrofitted onto all of the shelters there last year. It doesn’t look as finished as the ones at Tunney’s, and the top is still vented, but it does the job.

You’re probably seen a few of the current shelters OC is installing at regular bus stops; silver, normal sized, and with a curved, transparent roof. The transparent roof is nice as light from streetlights can enter the shelter, but sun does as well on a hot summer day. Ventilation in these shelters is still important because of this.

The real-time arrival screens are very nice. As you notice, the screens at concourse level show all routes serving the station. At each individual stop though, the screens show only the routes serving that stop. The concourse level screen st Greenboro is absolutely gigantic, 72 inches or so. Overall, it seems the screen project was very well executed by OC.

8 thoughts on “More on bus stop shelters”

  1. I don’t care what kind of shelter it is, I just want one at stop 2574 (Montreasl Rd just east of Blair and across the road from my part time job) but pleas have gone unanswered by OCTranspo. The stop is open to howling winds in the winter and 4 minutes wait seems like forever. There used to be a stop at the South East corner of Albert and Preston close to a senior’s apartment building. The land for a shelter was so small the only thing that fir was one of the really old ones with the red panels at the bottom. But hey- it did it’s job and everyone was great foul for it. Since then OCTranspo has moved the “Preston” stop about a block and a half East which is actually closer to Rochester than Preston.

  2. I look forward to your articles, and the comments as well, while I’m out of town. Keeps me up to date with the antics in town!

  3. Photos would be nice for those of us outside of Ottawa. I’d especially like to see an image of an in-station schedule screen for all buses, which I haven’t seen anywhere. I’ve written about this issue a bunch, see the discussion at point #14 in this blog entry, summarizing Greater DC experience in the context of a review of the then new Takoma Langley Crossroads Transit Center.

    – http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2016/12/takoma-langley-crossroads-transit.html

    you might be interested in this too:

    http://urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com/2017/06/thinking-systematically-about-bus.html

    Plus this transit information application outside, as part of a rolling digital advertising installation.

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/rllayman/36387483825

  4. They just install similar bus shelter they have atTunney’s Pasture at the new Moodie station at Moodie/417. Which will open on Dec 24.

  6. While I am pleased to see that the new bus shelters are sealed at ground level, I wonder how long the ground level aluminum caps will survive, given the snow plow and salt damage that will be inflicted on them. Once damaged, will OC Transpo replace the facia on a timely basis, or will they suffer a similar indignity as Watson has inflicted with his asphalt patches on the concrete brickwork on various sidewalks and pedestrian routes (Sparks Street is down right embarrassing)?

    1. To be fair to Watson, and lord knows I am not in the business of being fair to him, the mismatched sidewalk-and-Sparks patching long predates him.

      It’s another reason to despise paving bricks and paving stones on pedestrian surfaces. Just use concrete or asphalt, prettyfied if must be, but not small objects prone to frost heave, plow damage, and other assorted destructive forces.

  7. The cost of those draft-resistant sealed bottoms is usually a couple of inches of slush, filth, and other assorted debris. Not a fan.

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