From My Bottom Step

How Much?

City Hall tries to pretend that building more roads will be healthy and reduce traffic.

Transfer Complaint

From the LTC’s perspective, there’s no problem unless customers actually file complaints.

Infrastructure Spending

In recent years, London has received many millions of dollars from the two senior levels of government in transfer payments for infrastructure spending. But pedestrians saw scarcely any of it.

Now it appears that city staff is scurrying around trying to ensure what any future transfers will be spent on.

A 2008/12/10 report to the Board of Control lays “a foundation of identifying specific projects” in case more federal and/or provincial … Continue Reading

Mid-Block LTC Stops

LTC General Manager Larry Ducharme is ready to flaunt a decision by the Ontario Human Rights Commission which requires that public transit operators call out the names of all stops as of 2008/06/30. And as Philip McLeod wrote in this week’s The Londoner, nobody knows how the HRC will react to Mr. Ducharme’s deliberate violation of it’s order. I’m willing to go out on a limb and guess that … Continue Reading

‘Permanent’ Gas Tax Transfers

The federal government’s Building Canada program was promoted as providing “stable, predictable, and flexible funding which will allow Canadian municipalities, provinces and territories to plan for the longer term—allowing them to address their ongoing infrastructure needs.”
As usual though, and I say it often, the devil’s in the details. “Over half of the funding…will be provided as base funding…” (the Gas Tax Fund and the Goods … Continue Reading

Tomorrow’s LTC

Whoa!
“Buses are sort of like teleporters with a time delay. Think about it; you arrive at a certain location, enter a steel vessel, wait a few minutes, exit the vessel, and you’re at a completely different location from where you entered. I’m telling you, kids, the future is now.” (source: Phronk)Although the promise of a ‘new and improved’ public transportation … Continue Reading

2006 Fowler Election Platform – Taxes

as originally posted on my Election Website

I believe that there is a very serious problem with the way that municipalities are expected to finance their operations. “While the federal government racks up huge surpluses, the cities fall deeper into debt. Is it any wonder we are falling further behind the rest of the world? This approach to governance no longer makes sense, if it ever did.” … Continue Reading

LTC Transfer Requests

ACK! Could it be that somebody at LTC is paying attention?

This, from Ms Kurowski…

“Thank you for your email regarding a transfer connection on October 11, 2005 at the intersection of Dundas and Adelaide Streets. It would appear that no transfer request call was made by the operator at the time specified… On behalf of London Transit I apologize for any inconvenience this situation caused you.

If … Continue Reading

More About LTC Transfer Requests

Another complaint letter sent to the LTC today. You think they’re getting tired of hearing from me yet?

According to Ms Joanna Kurowski (LTC Manager of Service Quality), “Our operators will notify the transfer bus operator that they have customer transferring to their bus, if requested by a passenger to do so.”

Well, I beg to differ.

This afternoon, I boarded a Dundas eastbound at Dundas/Clarence, and was told by the operator in … Continue Reading

Another LTC Complaint Letter

I wrote another complaint letter to the LTC today, and once again it was about transferring to another bus.

Having done some shopping at the Dundas St. E. White Rose, I first caught the #2 Dundas westbound at that location. There was a stopover of several minutes when we got to Argyle Mall, but that was to be expected since I think it’s a major transfer point.

I arrived … Continue Reading