City of Gatineau Transit - the STO

City of Gatineau busses - what is the real cost?

A lot of people seem to think public transit is an affordable means of transportation. I think that the bus service in Gatineau (and many other cities) are starting to get out of hand price-wise.

To start with, the "Express" service from Gatineau to Ottawa is actually quite good. The major flaw that I can see is that some routes have been diverted off the surface streets with bus lanes onto the highways 5 and 50, contributing to the gridlock (more about that in another post). That being said, lets look at the cost of taking the bus in Gatineau.

As of today, a bus pass costs $69.00 of a city pass and $84.50 for an "Express" pass.

In addition, a portion of your annual municipal (property) taxes go directly to support Gatineau Transit (the STO). Last year, for me, it was $1000.

So the total for the year? Bus passes for me and my wife $169 x 12 months = $2028
STO portion of property taxes = $1000
Total = $3028

Total km per day = 16km
Average work year: 240 days

$3028 / 16km / 240 / 2 riders = $0.39 per km per adult.

UPDATE: Both my wife an I have changed jobs and now work in Gatineau proper. Bussing is no longer an option because in order to get to work (6km travel) I would have to take 2 busses and then walk 15 minutes. For my wife, there is an Express that would take her to work in the morning (8km), but the Express does not pass her workplace in the evening (thats right, the same bus takes a different route in the morning and afternoon), so it's 2 busses and a 20 minute walk to get home, or 3 busses from a tranfer spot past our area.

But I still have to give STO $1000 a year for a service I can't realistically use, even if I wanted!

Time for Gatineau Transit to revisit their public transit mangement plan.

City of Gatineau Noise Bylaws

Here is an open note to the construction team that started work at 7am at 192 rue de la Plaine on Sunday Nov 18th.

Please familiarize yourself with Bylaw 44-2003 :

CHAPITRE 5
TRAVAUX
7. En raison de la nature irritante du bruit (sirènes, ondes de choc, impacts répétitifs, etc.), les travaux sur un chantier de construction, de rénovation ou de démolition, qui se situe à moins de 150 mètres d’un immeuble servant d’hébergement, ne peuvent s’effectuer que du lundi au samedi, entre 7 h et 21 h, sauf dans le cas de travaux d’urgence sur des infrastructures publiques ou de travaux qui ont été expressément autorisés par le Comité exécutif.

Dear fellow citizens, the City continually refuses to enforce this with bylaw enforcement officers and expect us to call the already overworked Police Services to enforce this law.

Please be sure to report ANY violations until the Police force the city to take action. Only when citizens get serious will the city get serious.

BTW, on Wednesday and Friday I witnessed drug deals on my street. Next time I will post the license plate of the offender in this spot.