Tranzwatching the royals in Ottawa, Capital city of Canada
A mid-summer public holiday and national day, Canada Day usually sees buses operating to a Sunday timetable with services free after 10pm.
With the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (unofficially,William and Kate to millions) touring Canada and due to be Ottawa on Canada day, the Ottawa authorities saw it coming months ago and pumped an extra $300,000 worth of additional buses into the system.
Good foresight but still not good enough it proved!
As hundreds of thousands of people poured into the route of the Royal Tourists zone, buses had closed their overfill doors before they even left the outer suburbs, and services were running 30-40 minutes late. According to this report in the Ottawa Citizen, Twitter was alive with messages, passengers each advising each other of delays on this or that route and sometimes criticism of the organisation ""It doesn't make sense that buses would be on a Sunday schedule when they expect over half a million people going downtown today #octranspo," wrote Stephen_Yardy.
A happy event but a timely warning to transit authorities in every place the popular couple may make official visits - they sure can whip up a storm!
ps. This one floated through my workplace - in case you have ever wondered where designers for royal weddings get their inspiration
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