OC Transpo

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Some decent stuff there. That transfer window should be off peak though when frequencies on train and bus is terrible.

Agreed. I really like the free Youth Transit, though there seems to be some confusion about the details. I somehow got on Shawn Menard's mailing list and he said on Wednesday:

Working with other council members, the mayor and city staff during this budget, we were able to see the establishment of a Youth Pass that will start on July 1st, 2026. The pass will provide free transit on all weekday evenings after 5:00 pm, all day on Saturdays and Sundays, all day on Holidays, and all day every day during the summer months of July and August.

(emphasis added by me)

Personally I think it should be free for youth all day, every day, but that gets complicated from a funding perspective for students who use OC Transpo as their school bus.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by roger1818

Agreed. I really like the free Youth Transit, though there seems to be some confusion about the details. I somehow got on Shawn Menard's mailing list and he said on Wednesday:


(emphasis added by me)

Personally I think it should be free for youth all day, every day, but that gets complicated from a funding perspective for students who use OC Transpo as their school bus.

I heard after 5pm is being considered, but not approved yet. Not sure what's what.

But yeah, just make it free across the board to simplify things, because this is a logistical nightmare. The reason for this though is to squeeze out money from the school boards.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The reason for this though is to squeeze out money from the school boards.

And parents who can't pick their kids up at school when they stay late for extra curricular activities or live less than 3.2 km (2 miles) from the school, thus aren't eligible for a school bus (heaven forbit kids from actually using the bus instead of walking for 40 minutes).

[Dundas]

So, OC has installed hard shell seats in a Nova bus. I believe they will pitch this idea to City Council to convert the entire fleet from fabric seats to hard shell. It looks good, they just removed the fabric and clicked in the hard shell. Much cleaner than fabric! Really hope this gets approved

[vtecyo]

Originally Posted by Dundas

So, OC has installed hard shell seats in a Nova bus. I believe they will pitch this idea to City Council to convert the entire fleet from fabric seats to hard shell. It looks good, they just removed the fabric and clicked in the hard shell. Much cleaner than fabric! Really hope this gets approved

How slippery are the hard shell seats? It's already hard enough to keep from sliding out of the cloth covered seats when the driver slams on the brakes. I can't imagine it will be any easier if there's even less grip on the seats.

[sseguin]

I'd definitely love to see this happen. Hard seats are much easier to keep clean. The cloth seats on the buses and trains can easily rip or are often dirty or can be hiding bugs that no one wants to bring home. The trains for sure should have hard seats, like on the Metro and REM in Montreal.Being honest, yes they do not feel quite as comfortable as the cloth ones, and cloth only give a slight increase in time before they begin to feel uncomfortable. I'd take hard plastic seats any day.

[rocketphish]

As Ottawa transit fares go up again, some wonder if it's worth it
Single pass fare went up by 10 cents to $4.10 on Jan. 1

Nathan Fung · CBC News
Posted: Jan 03, 2026 12:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 10 hours ago

It's going to be more expensive to take transit in Ottawa in 2026, and some worry riders may feel the latest fare hike simply isn't worth it.

A 2.5 per cent hike to most transit fares arrived on New Year's Day. The price of a single ride went up from $4 to $4.10, while the cost of an adult monthly fare went from $135 to $138.50.

While the single-ride fare still has value for long trips, the hike could deter people from taking OC Transpo for shorter rides, said Laura Shantz of the advocacy group Ottawa Transit Riders.

"If you think about me trying to get to the grocery store in my own community, $4.10 is not a great price. All of a sudden that seems really steep for something I could walk in 15 minutes," she said.

Ottawa has some of the highest transit levies compared to other major Canadian cities, Shantz noted.

<more>

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/as...n-some-wonder-if-it-s-worth-it-9.7030387

[lrt's friend]

The biggest mistake ever made was doing away of Express fares outside the Greenbelt. We now have an unsustainable revenue base which is one factor in declining bus service. Politically, it is impossible to bring in zone fares and we can't even prepare for eventual introduction. Meanwhile, we can't even fund short distance service improvements inside the Greenbelt even as we bring in zoning changes and even more random intensification.

[Richard Eade]

I agree that the old Express service was a great thing – for the riders. I don’t know if it actually paid for itself though. I suspect that dead-heading buses out to the suburbs and running them with far less than crush-capacity was not covered by the Express fare premium.

That said, I also suspect that the premium paid could have been increased to cover more of that cost – if it had been possible to maintain the service.

Again, the central section – the missing tunnel – was the problem. The make-shift bus lanes along Albert and Slater were not able to handle the number of buses that would be required to have an Express service that carried all of the passengers who would be taking it. OC Transpo was moving about 10,000 passengers per hour, per direction, along those lanes during the morning peak period. The bus throughput on each of Albert and Slater could not be increased to more than about 200 buses per hour. Thus, each bus, on average, needed to carry at least 50 passengers. This meant packing more people onto each bus, and reducing the ‘Premium’ service that the Express buses provided. The routes weaved around more streets and made more stops than before so that they could be fuller. Eventually, OC Transpo admitted that the Express service was no longer an express service, so it could no longer command a premium price.

Now, of course, the train is the priority, so buses weave around, collecting passengers to be dropped at the nearest train station, for a transfer. It would not be possible to reinstate the old Express Bus service, since buses can no longer race to downtown on a segregated Transitway. Now, the closest equivalent would be an ‘express’ ride to the closest train station – which is not available on the current bus routes, so folks drive their own vehicle to the Park & Ride.

[Truenorth00]

Prices are all relative. What's the cost of parking, gas and car payments right now?

Nobody who uses transit regularly will stop for a 10 cent increase. The biggest problem continues to be the crappy service. By that I mean unreliable, infrequent and overcrowded. Suburbanites aren't driving because OC Transpo is > $160/month. They are driving because OC Transpo can't get them to work reliably in a reasonable amount of time. Not just to work. But just about anywhere in the city.

[Richard Eade]

I agree. OC Transpo is not providing what many people NEED. That NEED varies by person. If they are only going in to an office a few times a week, they might not NEED to worry about the cost of driving/parking. If a person’s NEED is for minimizing travel time, then OC Transpo’s routing might not be best for them. If transportation reliability is the NEED, then, again, OC Transpo may not provide enough of that.

Going back to the Express Bus service; it provided a reliable, fast, service in relative comfort. People were willing to pay extra for that service. I think that that is a good indication that, if people deem a service to be worth an extra cost, they will pay for it. In the present term, OC Transpo is having trouble providing the service that it has scheduled. I believe that that is the context of the complaint that an increase of 10¢ per ride makes traveling on OC Transpo ‘not worth it’.

I feel that it is not the 10¢ price increase specifically that most people are complaining about. It is a price increase for a service that they already find to be more expensive that it is worth to them. ‘Shrink-flation’ might remove a cookie from the package, but it is, at least the same price. If they also bumped the price up along with removing a cookie, them the complaints become louder and some refuse to buy the cookies (except if they are Tim-Tam cookies – which are worth almost any price, I hear).

[Richard Eade]

In fairness, OC Transpo is in a tough position. It has had to make do with less and less money for the last couple of decades, while costs continued to increase. It has had to endure severe route and timing changes while its primary feature, the Transitway, was removed. The population and city size has continued to increase. A large portion of its historic ridership was told that it no longer needed to use transit. OC Transpo is trying to adjust to include different modes and kinds of transit vehicles (i.e., trains and e-buses). And it has a City Council that makes random decisions that are binding for OC Transpo.

I am, frankly, surprized that OC Transpo can provide as much service as it does.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of things that will need to stabilize before OC Transpo can get much better:

• With an on-again-off-again ridership base, OC Transpo really can’t make plans as to how much service to offer. Are workers returning to the office? Will those offices be in the same locations as they used to be?
  
• The LRT needs to be finished so that OC Transpo can use it more effectively. The need to bus large numbers of people to/from the current termini means buses are tied up away from more local service.
  
• OC Transpo needs to provide City Council with more and better information so that Council is aware of the consequences of its decisions – including information about effective reductions in the operating budget.
  
• OC Transpo should begin to dismantle the ’house of cards’ that it has built. Because OC Transpo has had to do more with less for so long, it has leaned (too) heavily on interlining and minimizing maintenance to try to maximize bus utilization. While that sounds like a laudable goal, this strategy has gotten OC Transpo into a hole. The supply-line problems for parts and buses, for example, has resulted in the inability to fulfil the scheduled service. If the wind blows the wrong way, those cards begin to fall.

Three years from now, things should be different. Workers will be back at the office. Routine travel patterns will be formed. New e-buses will have arrived. And the O-Trains will run to Moodie, Algonquin, Trim, and Riverside South. All of this should allow OC Transpo to better handle what is needed. That is, assuming that City Council recognizes that transit must be properly funded, and that OC Transpo uses the money to design more reliable operations. This is what the next (as yet unchosen) General Manager of OC Transpo has to look forward to.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The biggest mistake ever made was doing away of Express fares outside the Greenbelt. We now have an unsustainable revenue base which is one factor in declining bus service. Politically, it is impossible to bring in zone fares and we can't even prepare for eventual introduction. Meanwhile, we can't even fund short distance service improvements inside the Greenbelt even as we bring in zoning changes and even more random intensification.

What, you mean you don't like paying the same fare for a 3km trip along Bank Street that a suburban commuter pays to get downtown from Kanata or Orleans?

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

• OC Transpo needs to provide City Council with more and better information so that Council is aware of the consequences of its decisions – including information about effective reductions in the operating budget.

OC Transpo also needs to provide the public with more and better information. Alas, the data secrecy continues, and there is no champion on council for more data openness, even among the councillors who I used to think would be all over that issue.

[DarthVader_1961]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

OC Transpo also needs to provide the public with more and better information. Alas, the data secrecy continues, and there is no champion on council for more data openness, even among the councillors who I used to think would be all over that issue.

A small step forward might be to have users tap out ( no deductions from card at this point ) when they leave the LRT stations. This would at least provide better volume if use data for the LRT.

you could even have this implemented on buses so you can plan frequencies better.

After users get used to tapping to get out/off at stops, you could implement distance pricing.

[Truenorth00]

Zoned fares were always going to be difficult in the post-LRT world. Unless we get rid of all buses crossing the greenbelt and force tap ins and outs of stations, including for bus-rail transfers.

[rocketphish]

OC Transpo apologizes after surge of bus cancellations this week
At least 700 trips cancelled as memo blames maintenance work, staffing challenges, delayed orders

Arthur White-Crummey · CBC News
Posted: Jan 09, 2026 4:06 PM EST | Last Updated: 23 minutes ago

OC Transpo is apologizing for a sharp deterioration in bus reliability, as it cancelled far more bus trips than usual over the course of this week.

Transit services general manager Troy Charter is assuring councillors he has a plan to deal with the problem, but warned that OC Transpo will be challenged for months.

The news first came in a Friday afternoon memo to councillors. It blamed the recent increase in cancelled bus trips on "an increased number of buses requiring maintenance work."

"This has resulted in longer wait times for customers during winter weather, unpredictable commute times, and has resulted in an increase in undelivered trips," the transit agency said.

"This does not meet our service standards and we feel for our customers at this time."

Charter explained the problem in more detail in an interview with CBC late Friday. OC Transpo usually cancels about two or three per cent of trips, a rate that's already short of its target.

But Charter said the agency saw things get worse after the holidays. The problem spiked on Monday, when the agency cancelled about 700 to 800 trips. That's almost one in 10 of the 7,500 trips OC Transpo has scheduled on a daily basis.

Reliability improved after Monday, but with cancellations averaging six to seven percent over the course of the week, Charter said it still isn't acceptable.

"As a lifelong Ottawa resident, I really care about the service, so I'm sorry that they're going through these challenges," he said. "I'm trying to explain why we are where we are. I'm not making excuses, but I want to assure people that we do have the plans."

<more>

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc...of-bus-cancellations-this-week-9.7040194

[lrt's friend]

I understand that this is in a dilemma, much caused by council decisions and putting too many eggs in one basket. We keep getting told that it will get better but it doesn't. Service cuts will deliver better reliability but it didn't happen.

Yesterday, I listened to a Larry O'Brien interview from 2023 offering advice to Sutcliffe and stressing the need to fix transit. His advice was ignored. The point being that billions in investment should have given us a much better transit system. It is obviously far worse and there is no solution that is affordable.

Council has failed miserably in the last 20 years and apologies are no longer enough

[Truenorth00]

Council is doing what voters in this city want.

That's why I say nothing will be fixed until people sit in rush hour traffic for 2 hrs each way.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by DarthVader_1961

A small step forward might be to have users tap out ( no deductions from card at this point ) when they leave the LRT stations. This would at least provide better volume if use data for the LRT.

you could even have this implemented on buses so you can plan frequencies better.

After users get used to tapping to get out/off at stops, you could implement distance pricing.

I would just like to see regular and fine-grained data on ridership and revenue, as well as maybe some GIS files.

Under Jim Watson, the city went massively backwards on open data.