Staff Report #13
March 27, 2019
To All Commissioners
Re: Impact of 2019 Road Construction – Conventional Transit Service
Recommendation
The report be NOTED and FILED.
Background
The City of London will be undertaking a large number of road, water, and wastewater infrastructure projects for the 2019 construction season. As set out in the table below, the city has prioritized the top 14 major construction projects for this year and 10 of them will have significant impacts on transit service. The majority of the projects are scheduled to commence in the spring and are projected to continue until Fall/Winter 2019.
Transit Impacts of Summer Construction Projects
| Project | Construction Limits | Duration | Impacted Routes |
| York Street Phase II | York between Talbot & Clarence
Talbot between King & York |
Spring 2019 to Fall 2019 | N/A |
| King Street Bike Lanes | Ridout to Colborne | Spring 2019 | 2, 3A, 5, 9, 7, 12, 19, 20, 102- Noting detouring may not be required but there will be an impact to transit service |
| Dundas Place | Richmond to Wellington | Spring 2019 to Winter 2019 | N/A |
| Southdale | Wharncliffe to White Oak Road and White Oak Road between Southdale and Dingman | Spring 2019 | 10
Potentially Route 28 depending on completion timeframe |
| Pond Mills | Buchanan to Enterprise | Spring 2019 | 30 |
| Egerton | South of the tracks (including Brydges) to Douglas | Spring 2019 | All in and out of Garage Routing |
| Colonel Talbot | Four Winds to Diane | Spring 2019 | N/A |
| Dundas | McCormick to Pottersburg Creek | Spring 2019 | 2 |
| Cavendish Phase II | Wyatt to Mount Pleasant | Spring 2019 | 9, 19, 20 |
| Oxford | 200m west of Proudfoot to Platt’s Lane- including full closure of the Cherryhill Intersection for a portion of the construction | 2 Phases
Phase 1- April 8- June 18 Phase 2- July 24- Aug 1 |
17, 20, 33, 91, Community Bus |
| Wharncliffe | Springbank to Elmwood | April 16-June 11 | 12 |
| Wellington | Commissioners to Southdale | June 18-Aug 13 | 13, 90 |
| Wharncliffe | Campbell to Exeter and Wharncliffe Intersection | June 18- July 23 | 28 |
| Grenfell | Adelaide to Devos | Spring 2019 | 25 |
While most of the construction projects only impact a limited number of routes, the overall impacts of the construction are anticipated to cause schedule adherence issues for surrounding routes, especially when work crosses major intersections (i.e. Oxford and Cherryhill). Additionally, as was the case in 2018, the construction work in the downtown will have a significant impact on reliability for all routes travelling through the area as other vehicles are diverted along transit routes.
The 2019 operating budget includes approximately 1,800 hours for additional tripper buses relating to construction-related detours. The hours and use of tripper buses are intended to mitigate the impact on schedule adherence for routes impacted by the construction and on the service overall; however given the magnitude of some of the construction projects and related detours, the addition of tripper buses will have minimal impact. The impact on route schedules and service reliability also fluctuate on a daily basis.
Detours
At the time of report writing, the extent and duration of any potential detours was not known. LTC administration will be working closely with civic administration as well as the specific contractors on each project to ensure regular communication regarding the status of the projects in an effort to mitigate the impact of construction on service and ridership by allowing bus traffic in work zones where it is deemed safe to operate.
It should be noted that coordination of the construction scheduled along Pond Mills Road will be extremely important as this will have an additional impact on Route 30 which is already detoured due to road work along Wilton Grove Road. The current construction along Wilton Grove Road is not scheduled to be completed until late May or early June.
Administration will be developing a communications plan to ensure passengers and Operators are aware of the detours with as much advance notice as possible. An on-board poster campaign will begin in April to provide advance notice to passengers of the upcoming construction season and provide information regarding ways to stay up-to-date on detours and service impacts, including signing up for route and stops alerts, following London Transit on Twitter and regularly checking the London Transit website The Automatic Vehicle Location/Communication system (AVLC) will be programmed to automatically announce when a route is going on detour and when it has returned to regular routing as well as all of the temporary stop locations for any detours that are known in advance. Stop level notifications will also be posted at each affected stop along the construction routes.
Shelter Removals/Re-installations
It is currently anticipated that six shelters will need to be removed for the major construction projects noted above. Under the current shelter agreement, London Transit is responsible for all shelter removals/re-installations at a cost of $750 for each removal and $600 for each re-installation. Funding for shelter removals/re-installations is included in the 2019 operating budget. Concrete shelter pads and accessible bus stop pads are installed by the City of London wherever concrete curb and/or sidewalk is required.
Recommended by:
Katie Burns, Director of Planning
Shawn Wilson, Director of Operations
Concurred in by:
Kelly S. Paleczny, General Manager