All posts by Evan Przesiecki

Bus service unsatisfying in city’s east end, says residents

DataJournalism3_2016
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Nate Mailhot, a University of Ottawa master’s student, stands in front of his apartment building in the ByWard Market. Mailhot used to live in Avalon but moved after being fed up with the lack of transit service in his area of Orleans.

Nate Mailhot, 22, stands at the corner of his new apartment in downtown Ottawa. He lives in the ByWard Market – almost as central as living could be in Canada’s capital. But, life wasn’t always so close to the downtown core as it is now for him.

“I used to live in Avalon during the first 4 years of my undergrad and I spent a majority of that time – or the whole time, I should say – travelling back and forth between the University of Ottawa and my home back in Orleans,” he said.

Maillot used to be one of the estimated 1700 Avalon residents who would use public transit as his primary mode of transportation to and from work. According to an analysis of data from the 2011 census, the Orleans neighbourhood has the highest concentration of people in the city using public transit as a means to get to work.

The reason, he says, for moving to his new home in the Market was because of the lack of better service provided to his community in Orleans.

“I lived a bit more in the back of Avalon, so at that point it wasn’t just a matter of walking and catching the 94, which was a quicker route,” said Mailhot. “I had to wait for a local route which ran every 30 minutes. The difference that one or two kilometres can make for transit is huge especially with the poor layout of the local routes in Ottawa.”

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The largest concentration of Ottawa residents using public transit to get to work is in Avalon, on the east end of the city, according to census data.

Mailhot lived at home with his family in the suburbs. They moved into Avalon in 2002. His father currently works as an employee for Stats Canada and his mother works as a school teacher for the Ottawa Catholic School Board.

“It’s the definition of suburb,” Mailhot said. “A whole lot of nothing happening at one time. You can kinda get lost in how similar all the houses look.”

His father used to commute to work, but recently purchased a car to allow more freedom to his job at Stats Canada.

“If you only use transit to get to a place far away it is really tempting to use a car,” said Mailhot. “When you use a bus, it does save money. But in terms of quality of life and freedom how you get to a point, having a car can almost outweigh the cost.”

The cost of a U-Pass, a bus pass for full-time students at the University of Ottawa, costs $395.04, as of September 2016, according to the OC Transpo’s website. This compares to the rate of an eight-month parking permit at the University of Ottawa, which could cost $804.60, according to the University of Ottawa’s website. In 2011, the University of Ottawa was listed in Maclean’s as being one of the top 10 schools in the country with the most expensive parking permits. The current going rate for an adult monthly bus pass, including express routes, is $130.50. Mailhot says that while a U-Pass may be less expensive than a parking permit, the issue is more than money when it comes to taking public transit.

According to transit info on Google Maps, a commute from Avalon to the University of Ottawa could be as long as one hour. Mailhot reflects back on his life and undergrad years in the suburbs and the opportunities he claims he missed because of the distance between his home and the downtown core.

“It sucks,” he said. “You have some friends who live closer to downtown or live downtown and say, ‘Why don’t you come out tonight?’ Is it worth bussing two hours or sometimes more?”

In the recent 2017 City of Ottawa draft budget, John Manconi, the general manager of the OC Transpo, stated that the city transit service would be increasing services in 12 suburban wards across the city. Manconi could not be reached for comment for the piece.

In the Convent Glen area of Orleans, north of Avalon, University of Ottawa undergraduate student Alexander Dale had different experiences with transit during his university years. In his area, he described the availability of transit to be more frequent.

“I just used the express bus and that’s fine,” said Dale. “It just takes some time to get to Orleans in the evening, which used to be 25 minutes before the construction.”

He added that sometimes using a car could cost less than most students believe it could.

“I wouldn’t even bother getting the [parking] pass,” he said. “With a little bit of leg work you can park in Sandy Hill and if you’re there for just one or two classes you can find free parking there.”

Nonetheless, Mailhot looks back on his move to downtown with no regrets.

“It became a question of do I value the extra money per month versus the time I spend on the bus?” said Mailhot. “That’s the reason why I chose to move downtown.

“If you spend the majority of your working life and even your social life downtown, why would you wanna live an hour away? It isn’t a question of do I want to go there, it’s a question of do I want to bus there. That’s not a good mindset to have.”

 

Taxi complaints highest in two years since Uber, says data

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Complaints against taxis have been the highest they’ve ever been in the past two years, according to an analysis of data used by the City of Ottawa for 3-1-1 calls. The number of 3-1-1 calls to bylaw related to taxis increased from 662 in 2013 to 770 in 2015.

Ottawa taxi companies saw increased competition with the illegal arrival of Uber in October of 2014, which recently became the first officially licensed private transportation company in Ottawa after two years of illegal operations. For frequent cabbie passenger, Zach Whalen, the rise in complaints doesn’t come as a surprise.

“I’ve been in lots of rides with drivers who were talking on their cell phones – like holding their phones, not just a handset,” said Whalen. “Once a driver on his phone was so distracted pulling into the Queensway that he almost drove into a truck hauling a boat.

“The propellor hanging off the back was actually overtop of the hood. That’s how close we were.”

Of the wards in Ottawa, Somerset had the highest amount of taxi complaints to bylaw services in 2015, but Rideau-Vanier saw the most dramatic increase from 2014 to 2015. Between the two years alone, Rideau-Vanier saw a 40 percent increase in calls, from 87 to 122. For passengers like Whalen, the numbers could be higher if more people considered calling bylaw.

Whalen, himself, has never made a call.

“I should have a couple times,” he said. “But, mainly, I was just glad to get to my destination so I never called anybody in.”

For Ottawa resident Maxime Pigeon, it’s easier to scrutinize taxis than to scrutinize Uber.

“You regularly see them [taxis] fail to signal, roll their stops, cut people off and weave,” says Pigeon. “In their defence, Uber cars are not marked so one cannot notice bad Uber drivers.”

Ottawa cabbies, incidentally, are arguing that taxis are in fact safer than ride-sharing services like Uber, says Ottawa cabbie Watany Ben Jamil.

“With Uber you don’t have a camera in the car to make sure in case of harassment or abuse,” says Jamil. “Forget about the price, it’s the service. You have all the good features [with taxis]: camera, security and insurance. You are fully covered. What else does the customer want?”

The most current Vehicle for Hire By-law, which was enacted on Sept. 30, 2016, proposes that Uber vehicles do not require cameras, despite efforts by councillors to make them compulsory. Council will be re-visiting the issue of cameras in the fall of 2017. In the current bylaw, however, taxis must operate with a security camera.

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Section 67 of the current Vehicle for Hire Bylaw only makes cameras mandatory for taxi services. Source: City of Ottawa.

Uber arrived in Ottawa in October of 2014 as an illegal ride-sharing service that wasn’t recognized under Ottawa bylaws. The same year, the number of bylaw taxi complaints declined from 662 in 2013 to a low of 592 in 2014. A change in the amount of complaints could be because of a number of factors, including an increase in Uber rides, says Dr. Tripat Gill, an expert on consumer behaviour at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University.

“Usually when there’s a new competitor you do compare the options,” says Gill. “In other product categories, like new smartphones that have many more features than the other one, then you may re-assess your attitude toward the other options. It could just be a matter of consequence of competition.”

Uber has earned significantly higher customer service ratings, according to studies done by the City of Ottawa in Oct. 2015. According to participants in the city’s Taxicab and Limousine Regulations and Service Review, participants rated their overall taxi experiences 3.9 on a scale of 10. That’s in contrast with Uber’s rating of 9.1. Customers reported taxi drivers as uncaring and spent more time on their phones.

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Secondary factors affecting customer service experiences, according to the Taxi and Limousine Regulations Review. Source: City of Ottawa.

Canadians Leaving Country For Terrorism Now Four Times Higher, Statistics Say

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Recent statistics have shown that the amount of Canadians leaving the country to join terrorist organizations has increased exponentially over the past two years.

Terrorism incidents in Canada have more than doubled between 2014 and 2015, according to incident-based crime statistics from StatsCan in 2015. Out of the 173 reported incidents in 2015, the amount of Canadian nationals leaving the country to participate in the activity of a terrorist group quadrupled from 2014.

That’s 28 nationals leaving Canada in 2015 compared to 7 in 2014. Experts are attributing the rise in numbers to ISIS’ self-proclaimed status as a state as compared to being a traditional terrorist organization.

“10 years ago there was no organization actively telling people to come and join them,” says Meriem Rebbani-Gosselin, a research officer at Montreal’s Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence.  The institution was the first of its kind in the nation and offers 24/7 support to families, teachers and social workers concerned with individuals who may be shifting toward radical, violent thought.

“It’s not so much, ‘I’m going to show up there and it’s going to be up to fate.’ A lot of people are very certain that they’ll arrive there in a legitimate country.”

Cities that saw the highest increases of Canadians leaving to join a terrorist group included Ottawa/Gatineau, Vancouver and Montreal, which went from having one Canadian national leaving in 2014 to seven in 2015.

But other experts are questioning the terrorist organization’s legitimacy as a state and wondering if, in fact, numbers are truly on the rise.

Statistics should only be taken with a grain of salt, some terrorists experts are claiming. Jan Fedorowicz, who teaches the history of terrorism at Carleton University, says that while ISIS propaganda has been effective and attracted Western nationals, the number of Canadians leaving to join organizations like ISIS has most likely declined.

“They positioned themselves as winners,” Fedorowicz said. “They were expanding and moved into various cities suddenly and that appealed to people lost and disaffected. ISIS is now on the defensive.

“One of the attractive aspects of ISIS used to be social programs and they offered serious money to recruits. For unemployed or desperate people that appealed. They don’t have those resources anymore.”

Another troubling speculation about the statistics are the discrepancies StatsCan has with other reports. The Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS) estimated that 62 nationals left Canada to fight for terrorist groups as of March 2016, while the 2016 Public Report On The Terrorist Threat To Canada reported as many as 180.

For Gosselin, inaccuracies in data can be attributed to the idea that it’s almost impossible to track all Canadians leaving with the intention of going to Syria for terrorist reasons, especially since direct travel to Syria is almost impossible.

“When we talk about rape statistics, of course you can have sexual abuse statistics but these will never be the actual number of victims because there’s a lot of people who don’t report. It’s the same thing with the number of people who left for Syria.

“It’s hard to hide the fact that someone got on a plane and left the country, but there has to be a number of people who got on a plane to another country and reached Syria by other means.”

The means of getting to Syria have become much more difficult since Turkey closed its border with Syria. This has led to a decline in nationals leaving to join ISIS as well, experts say.

“The numbers are going down but I wouldn’t say it’s because of a fall off in demand,” said Dr. Lorne Dawson, Director of TSAS. “The numbers are going down because it’s so much harder to go.”

Dawson and TSAS, between May 2014 and March 2016, have researched and drawn their own statistics claiming that 62 Canadians have left the country for terrorist activities in the Middle East from interviewing foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, jihadists and people who want to go to Syria and Iraq. He claims that, while inaccuracies may exist, the threat no matter the size should not be ignored.

“ISIS itself has now for about the last six months repeated the statement, ‘Don’t come.’ ISIS is telling people to stay at home and do something there.”

“Terrorism, statistically, continues to be a small phenomenon and we’re not as inflicted as other countries. But I always stress to people, while we’re better off than most countries, it would be a total elusory to think we don’t have a serious problem here.”