Students commuting on the morning after the Labour Day long weekend were met with major delays due to a new bus configuration at Hurdman Station, a major connection point for many bus routes.
The 4 route, which serves students commuting to Carleton and the University of Ottawa, was among the routes affected Sept. 8, according to Troy Charter, assistant general manager of transit operations at the City of Ottawa.
Photos shared on social media showed dozens of buses lined up bumper-to-bumper for about a kilometre entering the station on the Transitway. Many university students were late to classes that morning.
The new bus configuration at Hurdman Station was due to construction of new platforms, according to Charter. The old platforms are currently being demolished to make way for a light rail transit platform, as part of the construction of the Confederation Line for Ottawa’s second light rail transit route.
“Service with all the other changes worked well city wide up until 7:30 a.m. when bus volumes started to build at Hurdman, causing the system to back up in all directions,” Charter said. “The buses going through the station had new maneuvers, stop locations, and yield procedures to deal with.”
Kamran Karim, a second-year actuarial science student at Carleton, called his Tuesday commute “horrible,” but said it “definitely got better as the week went on.”
By the afternoon of Sept. 8, OC Transpo had dispatched special constables to Hurdman Station and changes to the new configuration were made to allow buses to access the station easier, Charter said.
With commuters returning back to school and work and OC Transpo’s resumption of non-summer service, it was not a normal day, according to Peter Raaymakers, a local transit expert and creator of ottawatransit.ca.
“It went to full service,” he said. “Which means there were a heck of a lot more buses and a heck of a lot more people on the buses.”
Raaymakers said the problems occurring at Hurdman Station are “short-term pain for long-term gain.”
“When you’re converting a major transit line from bus to rail,” he said, “you’re going to see disruptions.”
