{"id":6008,"date":"2011-06-07T09:37:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T13:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingottawa.ca\/?p=6008"},"modified":"2013-01-21T09:07:21","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T14:07:21","slug":"doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/","title":{"rendered":"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Departures every minute: this airport is for buses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Once you get into the details, there are so many things that are different about Turkey\u2019s shared transport system from Ottawa\u2019s that it\u2019s difficult to know where to start. For example, in Ankara, there are two kinds of buses those for passengers with passes called \u2018ego\u2019 and those cash fare \u2013 only buses. The cash fare buses have conductors which from an Ottawa perspective seems unnecessary, but when you see a full-on transit system operating at capacity 18 hours a day, it\u2019s a whole different thing.<\/p>\n

Consider that an articulated bus costs more than half a million dollars. An Ankara conductor can load 25 people faster than it can take an Ottawa bus driver to load two passengers looking for change or one mother with a stroller. The speed differential at bus stops is phenomenal. I\u2019d guess it\u2019s something like 20 to 25 % faster at every stop \u2013 that\u2019s 20 per cent more productivity out of a half million dollar capital investment. Multiply that by how many buses you\u2019ve got in your fleet, let\u2019s say a 1,000 and suddenly you\u2019ve got 200 more buses on the road.<\/p>\n

But this is just a detail, what I\u2019ve come to conclude is more important than the details is a fundamental difference in philosophy between Turkey\u2019s approach to \u2018shared\u2019 transportation and Ottawa\u2019s which can by summed up by one phrase – \u2018Fix the Transitway\u2019. What they have in Turkey is a more comprehensive and coherent idea about the role of transit in society. It\u2019s all about \u2018moving people\u2019. The notion that you have every transit dollar invested in one transportation possibility would strike the Turkish transit planner as ludicrous. As would the idea of a month long transit strike. You could no more turn off the Ankara or Istanbul transit systems for a month than you could shut off the water system for a month. One cannot imagine these cities without public transit.<\/p>\n

Does that mean it’s perfect? Of course not, the buses, trams and subways are jammed from dawn to dusk. At rush-hour, it\u2019s sardine time and the buses, trams and subways are built to be packed. The bus seating is configured like a subway car. There is a large standing area in the middle by the exit and by the conductor which allows people to pack in as you would on subway and stand. Seating is primarily for the elderly, the disabled and the lucky. Ankara and Istanbuli bus drivers don\u2019t multi-task. Their job is to drive safely and quickly to your destination.<\/p>\n

The Turkish transit planners approach to transit planning is a \u2018take no prisoners\u2019 attitude. They throw everything they can at increasing capacity. There are no sacred cows. They\u2019ve got 30 year old buses functioning alongside, vehicles just off the assembly line. Double hitched Bombardier trams scoot 600 passengers with one driver. Everywhere, they innovate like crazy. They\u2019ve got private\/public partnerships with shared taxi lines (Dolumses), Metro buses and large connecting hubs everywhere. The Ankara subway takes you directly to the Ankara bus station which is larger than Ottawa\u2019s International Airport. Everywhere you see the animating idea of Turkish transit is \u2018move people\u2019.<\/p>\n

The mantra in Ottawa is a \u2018Fix the Transitway!\u2019 \u2018Fix the Transitway!\u2019 Ottawa transit planners have been fixated on their Transitway for decades. It must be improved. It must be built and re-built and built again until Ottawa has created – the world\u2019s perfect transitway. Dig an underpass! Build a tunnel! Build two tunnels! Get more double decker buses! If a local route can\u2019t feed the transitway, cut it! Be tough! For God\u2019s sake will someone please fix the transitway!<\/p>\n

Pat and I visited a bronze age site about 60 kilometers outside of Ankara. We took the city bus to the city centre metro stop. The end of the metro going west is the intercity bus station. From there we caught an inter-city bus to a town about 60 kilometers from Ankara which is close to Gordion, where King Midas of the golden touch was buried and Alexander the Great cut the Gordion knot. The last few kilometers were done by taxi. Wasn\u2019t a big deal. Wasn\u2019t expensive and no transfer took longer than the walk to it.<\/p>\n

Maybe Ottawa transit planners need to worry less about the transitway and more about moving people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once you get into the details, there are so many things that are different about Turkey\u2019s shared transport system from Ottawa\u2019s that it\u2019s difficult to know where to start. For example, in Ankara, there are two kinds of buses those for passengers with passes called \u2018ego\u2019 and those cash fare \u2013 only buses. The cashContinue reading “DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7083,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5302,373],"tags":[3513,3446,3508,3511,3514,3517,485,3510,1650,3403,3515,772,394,3509,3512,3520,3507,3519,348,3518,3516,725],"class_list":["post-6008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-transit","tag-alexander-the-great","tag-ankara","tag-ankara-conductor","tag-ankara-subway","tag-bombardier","tag-bronze-age-site","tag-clive-doucet-on-cities","tag-conductor","tag-driver","tag-istanbul","tag-istanbuli","tag-king","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-bus-driver","tag-ottawas-international-airport","tag-subway-car","tag-transit-planner","tag-transit-systems","tag-transportation","tag-transportation-possibility","tag-turkey","tag-usd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway - Spacing Ottawa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway - Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Once you get into the details, there are so many things that are different about Turkey\u2019s shared transport system from Ottawa\u2019s that it\u2019s difficult to know where to start. For example, in Ankara, there are two kinds of buses those for passengers with passes called \u2018ego\u2019 and those cash fare \u2013 only buses. The cashContinue reading "DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Spacing Ottawa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-07T13:37:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-01-21T14:07:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Clive Doucet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Spacing\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Clive Doucet\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/\",\"name\":\"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway - Spacing Ottawa\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-06-07T13:37:48+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-01-21T14:07:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/f6f9222a5f24c92459553e1b77795de2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/\",\"name\":\"Spacing Ottawa\",\"description\":\"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Ottawa Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/f6f9222a5f24c92459553e1b77795de2\",\"name\":\"Clive Doucet\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf3654c45b7a1c2f882df434aa7b5b1e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf3654c45b7a1c2f882df434aa7b5b1e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Clive Doucet\"},\"description\":\"Writer, philosopher, poet, athlete, politician -- Clive Doucet has been a renaissance man too interested in life\u2019s many possibilities to ever settle down \u2013- except for his passion for cities. He has been a disciple of Jane Jacobs, first meeting her when he was a student in the Stop Spadina Movement.\u00a0 Their admiration turned out to be mutual.\u00a0 She quoted Clive in Dark Age Ahead, and wrote to support his last book \u2018Urban Meltdown\u2019.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/author\/clivedoucet\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway - Spacing Ottawa","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway - Spacing Ottawa","og_description":"Once you get into the details, there are so many things that are different about Turkey\u2019s shared transport system from Ottawa\u2019s that it\u2019s difficult to know where to start. For example, in Ankara, there are two kinds of buses those for passengers with passes called \u2018ego\u2019 and those cash fare \u2013 only buses. The cashContinue reading \"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway\"","og_url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/","og_site_name":"Spacing Ottawa","article_published_time":"2011-06-07T13:37:48+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-01-21T14:07:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Clive Doucet","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Spacing","twitter_site":"@Spacing","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Clive Doucet","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/","name":"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway - Spacing Ottawa","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg","datePublished":"2011-06-07T13:37:48+00:00","dateModified":"2013-01-21T14:07:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/f6f9222a5f24c92459553e1b77795de2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5149\/5807850807_b5338bc04b_z.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/2011\/06\/07\/doucet-turkish-transit-part-2-moving-people-versus-fixing-the-transitway\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"DOUCET: Turkish transit Part 2: Moving People versus Fixing the Transitway"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#website","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/","name":"Spacing Ottawa","description":"Canadian Urbanism Uncovered | Ottawa Architecture, Urban Design, Public Transit, City Hall, Parks, Walking, Bikes, Streetscape, History, Waterfront, Maps, Public Spaces","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/f6f9222a5f24c92459553e1b77795de2","name":"Clive Doucet","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf3654c45b7a1c2f882df434aa7b5b1e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf3654c45b7a1c2f882df434aa7b5b1e?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Clive Doucet"},"description":"Writer, philosopher, poet, athlete, politician -- Clive Doucet has been a renaissance man too interested in life\u2019s many possibilities to ever settle down \u2013- except for his passion for cities. He has been a disciple of Jane Jacobs, first meeting her when he was a student in the Stop Spadina Movement.\u00a0 Their admiration turned out to be mutual.\u00a0 She quoted Clive in Dark Age Ahead, and wrote to support his last book \u2018Urban Meltdown\u2019.","url":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/author\/clivedoucet\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7083"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6008"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9495,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6008\/revisions\/9495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/ottawa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}