Amilcar Leaves A Faulty OC Transpo: GRAY

06/06/2025

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What do OC Transpo and the 1962 New York Mets have in common?

Both lousy teams. The Amazing Mets went 40 and 120. The baseball Mets were so bad that the quotable manager Casey Stengel once famously said in exasperation: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

And then there’s OC Transpo.

When outgoing general manager Renee Amilcar took over Team Transpo four years ago, its most famous play was derailment. More than 20 wins of the Mets? Not likely. Lots of losses? Oh yeah.

Amilcar inherited a team that was abysmal. Management was a mess. The new train was a mess. The bus system wasn’t a mess … it was in chaos. A smart manager tries to go to a poor team … it’s easier to show progress. Conversely, the best a new manager can do with a good team is keep it a good team. You can’t make a reputation there. So Amilcar made a good decision with OC Transpo at first blush.

However four years ago, light rail wasn’t just operating poorly, it was dangerous. The bus system had been ripped to pieces with its downsizing at the advent of LRT.

Furthermore, OC Transpo’s (and the city’s) reputation was, deservedly, putrid. Ethical, functional and morale woes. Leadership had failed. Good people won’t come to the City of Ottawa. They don’t want to ruin their careers in a dysfunctional operation.

That’s the situation Amilcar came into. OC Transpo was hopeless. Making OC Transpo a good team was beyond the skills of any one person.

At best, Amilcar could reduce the bleeding, not stop it. And that’s what she did.

The new GM didn’t fix the technical problems. Axles were breaking at such a rate that they had to be changed a whopping 750 times. Inspections were increased markedly to stem derailments. So at least the train was functional.

But was the train fixed during her time in office? No. Amilcar was there for four years. That’s a long time not to get a permanent fix. Worse, those faulty trains will be used on new lines once the extensions to Line 1 are completed.

And remember. The city and the province have agreed to let a provincial agency take over Ottawa’s trains. Not exactly a vote of confidence. More along the lines of “We can’t fix it. Here, you try it. It’s all yours.”

The buses? The service was decimated by the previous regime when they cut vehicles on the misplaced theory that fewer buses would be needed when the train was running. Except the trains didn’t work so, accordingly, there were not enough buses to operate a successful service. It was a disaster. Drivers were put out to pasture and most, understandably, didn’t come back when needed. You could hardly blame them. They’d been shown the door.

Then Amilcar had to take on the Covid and work-at-home passenger disasters. There was no quick fix. And while other transit systems are returning to pre-pandemic levels, OC Transpo is coming back much more slowly.

Transpo, at the same time, was rolling up substantial deficits. No doubt Amilcar was given strict orders to cut that monetary black hole. Her solution (not called bus-service reductions but instead New Ways To Bus) made for longer routes, longer walks to stops and longer bus trips. That’s not an improvement and only time will tell us if it reduces Transpo’s fiscal sinkhole.

So how did Amilcar do during her four years running Ottawa’s bus service. She didn’t fix the trains but at least got them running and not derailing. Under her watch, Transpo lost its rail service to the province. As for buses, they’re still a mess but at least Amilcar will be out of town when the big thud of New Ways To Bus falls.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer wrote the classic poem Casey at the Bat. In his poem, the mighty Casey struck out. At Transpo, Amilcar didn’t whiff on a third strike, she grounded to third.

Not pathetic like Casey, but not good enough.

Can’t anybody here play this game?

Ken Gray is an award-winning journalist who worked at five major Canadian newspapers. He is an educator, broadcaster and at present is the editor and founder of the 16-year-old pioneering internet publication, The Bulldog.