For the past several years OC Transpo has been reorganizing the city’s bus routes into a more rigorous grid pattern. The grid pattern is in accord with the standard international practice of replacing meandering every-point-to-every-point bus routes common to smaller cities (many routes, low frequency, awkward transfers) with a higher-frequency grid pattern that actually makes more points and places available to more people with more frequent service. More transfers are required, but this should be offset by the increased frequency of service available on the grid making connection times shorter.

Of course not every route can operate at high frequencies 24/7, and there are always anguished objections from people who lose a convenient legacy route. I feel your pain, as a west sider a number of my now -one-bus trips are being replaced by trips that involve both a bus and a train, or bus-train-bus, with the attendant time loss of making the connections and the time spent traversing the stations.

What I lose in local service is offset by my lesser-frequented longer trips which the trains should make faster, once Phase 2 opens (should I live that long). And in honesty I have to look at the big city wide picture and acknowledge the system is moving in the right direction.

Here is the Sept 2018 urban area bus route map:

Note that we already well into the evolution towards a grid route network, with changes over the last few years focused on shifting routes into feeders for the east-west Confederation Line (line 1). I can’t say I have noticed any evolution into feeders for the north-south Trillium Line or SE Transitway (Hurdman south to wherever…).

Here is the map as of November 2018, once the Confederation Line opens:

The new map really emphasizes the grid like pattern. Even in Alta Vista and Overbrook (east of the Rideau River)  it’s a grid, just rotated a bit to match the dominant street pattern.

You can go to OC Transpo to see the map live, complete with + and – buttons so you can zoom in to see particular trip bits that excite you:      http://www.octranspo.com/ready4rail/system_map_zoom              http://www.octranspo.com/ready4rail/system_map_zoom

Note that the route colouring is now more obvious and meaningful, and the rail spines are highlighted in thick red (Confederation) and green (Trillium) lines.

Routes are still being runumbered, as part of a multi-year ongoing process. I notice that when the Trillium Line isn’t running, the parallel bus route will be called the R2 (replacement). When the Confederation Line trains aren’t running late at night, and presumably occasionally in the day due to teething problems, the parallel bus route is labelled N1 (night).

For the benefit of west siders, here are some closer-ups of the routes on the core and west half of the urban area:

and here’s the detailed look for local west siders:

Note that the #85 (starting in November, not this weekend !) will go from Preston to Pimisi Station to Gatineau (not downtown Ottawa).

The #11 route change to terminate at Confederation Square and not service the Rideau Centre, starts this weekend, Sept 2.