It is the annual Doors Open weekend in Ottawa, where various public buildings – churches, embassies, museums and other public and private places of interest – are open for free tours. You can’t possibly squeeze them all in.

I’ve probably been in about half of them before anyway, and it being a busy weekend already, I only took in one location on Saturday, and that one becasue it was literally across the street from my house. I should have stayed home.

Not that there was anything wrong with the revamped Greenboro LRT station slated to open by August 2022 (that isn’t a typo). It looked nice enough and there was a shiny new train parked t it for people to walk through. But the information I gleaned was depressing.

Not only is the train line, now officially scheduled for completion by October 2023, not going to open until January 2024, but there are some aspects of the ride I hadn’t realized before.

Today, if I want to go to the airport, I can walk across the street and take a direct bus that gets me there in about ten minutes. It is very convenient and the bus runs round the clock.

Once the train is finished, I can hop on the train, but it won’t go to the airport. I’ll have to transfer to another train – the new ones are too big for the airport station. And, the train will stop at 1 a.m. That means if I am not sure what will happen if I come in late at night – which has happened a few times recently. Maybe there will be a replacement bus, maybe I’ll have to take a cab.

OC Transpo, the transit operator, has talked about being able to take the train from downtown to the airport, a real convenience for travelers. (Before the brought in the train it was one bus from the airport to downtown, but they don’t mention that.)

What they don’t emphasize is that to take the train to a downtown hotel will not be a smooth on and off trip. It will require two transfers from one train to another. Will anyone with a lot of luggage be interested in that? Or will they pay for the convenience of a taxi or shuttle service.

When they introduced the east-west train line it lengthened my commute downtown from 30 minutes to 40-45. When they introduce the airport train my trip will, from what I can understand, also be doubled in length.

The LRT was billed as making people’s commutes faster. Hasn’t been for me. And that’s on the days when it runs properly. We won’t get into those woes – there are going to be frequent shutdowns the next two weeks for maintenance. Which, given the track record of this project, are sure to be extended.