Over in the Confederation Line west thread, the discussion headed in the direction of service to the DND campus at Carling, and I asked the question about why the busway through the campus only has service in one direction.
The effect of this is that the westbound route 66, which serves Carling campus before heading west to Kanata, must complete the full loop twice:
The bus turns left from Moodie to Carling, left into DND, left back onto Moodie, left from Moodie to Carling AGAIN, and then continues to Kanata.
The Travel Planner even lets us quantify how much time this takes, because each trip serves the Carling/Grandview stop twice, once on each loop, 3 minutes apart:
But, wait, route 58 to Lincoln Fields does almost the exact same thing! Left from Moodie to Carling, left into DND, left back onto Moodie, and then right from Moodie to Carling:
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So how much is it costing per year to go around in circles?
We know that the loop adds 3 minutes to each trip.
There are 16 trips on route 66 to Kanata each weekday.
There are 35 trips on route 58 Lincoln Fields each weekday that serve Carling Campus.
In total, 51 trips per day doing the loop.
There are 261 working days per year
3 minutes * 51 trips * 261 working days = 39,933 minutes on weekdays
Saturdays: 3 * 15 trips * 52 = 2,340 minutes
Sundays: 3 * 10 trips * 52 (excluding holidays) = 1,560 minutes
Total: 43,833 minutes or 730.55 service hours
Assuming the cost per service hour is approx. $130 (see
here), then the yearly cost for this loop is nearly $95,000.
What's silly is that the bus platform already exists on the opposite side of the busway road at DND:
Literally all that needs to be done is to paint a crosswalk, install a bus stop flag, possibly a shelter, and voila- the routes can run in both directions on the busway and avoid the loop. Faster trip for customers and $95K per year saved.