Staff Report #2
May 30, 2018
To All Commissioners
Re: 2018 Road Construction Update
Recommendation
The report be NOTED and FILED.
Background
At the March 28, 2018 meeting, Staff Report #10 set out the top ten major construction projects The City of London will be undertaking during the 2018 construction season. As noted, a number of the projects have significant impacts on transit service and require extensive detours or permanent re-routing of buses.
While most of the resulting detours impact a limited number of routes, the overall impacts of the construction are anticipated to cause schedule adherence issues for surrounding routes, most notably when work crosses major intersections, i.e. Wharncliffe at Oxford and Richmond at Dundas.
Detours
LTC administration has been 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 buses to operate in work zones where it is deemed safe to do so. LTC administration attends weekly meetings with Civic Administration, specifically to discuss the impacts of ongoing and upcoming downtown construction projects.
LTC administration has developed and implemented a communications strategy with respect to service interruptions in an effort to ensure passengers and Operators are aware of the detours with as much advance notice as possible, including stop level notifications of upcoming closures, website and InfoWeb alerts, Twitter and internal Marlin postings.
Buses off Dundas
As of April 29, 2018, all bus service has been permanently removed from Dundas between Ridout and Wellington. In order to assist passengers and Operators with the transition, Operations and Planning staff were in the downtown core during the week of April 29 to answer questions and help direct passengers to the correct locations to catch their bus, as well as to speak with Operators about how the new routes, transfers and connections were working. Information sheets including a map showing all of the new bus stop locations and the routes serving them were also distributed during this week, and the map is on the corporate website.
Overall the communication strategy with respect to the buses off Dundas, which included on-board posters, transit talks, website information and reminders via the corporate Twitter account was effective, noting very few customer complaints have been received to-date regarding the routing and schedule modifications in the core.
Wharncliffe and Western Construction
London Transit administration is in ongoing discussions with Civic administration with respect to how best mitigate the impacts of the Western/ Wharncliffe Road construction, especially in the fall with the return of students. Administration is currently working to identify the best manner in which to provide service to customers along this corridor while construction is ongoing. As soon as routing and stop locations have been identified, the information will be communicated to all stakeholders.
Recommended by:
Shawn Wilson, Director of Operations
Katie Burns, Director of Planning
Concurred in by:
Kelly S. Paleczny, General Manager