How Transpo Is Celebrating Its 50th: TOP 10 LIST
God bless The Voter for pointing out that it is the 50th anniversary of OC Transpo.
That immediately brings to mind … well … how are they celebrating?
Nothing public it seems.
Nevertheless, the Voter’s observant ways brought The Bulldog a wonderful opportunity for comedy. The things we threw out for Transpo’s celebration on the way to today’s Top 10 List below. You know … pin the tail on the Manconi … the Watson replica pinata … the Sutcliffe dart board … the special anniversary Hubley bobblehead … declaring casual Fridays anniversary stark-naked Fridays … leaving fewer “clients” at Hurdman station … enshrining Hubley’s former transit chair (one-owner, nearly new, hardly used) in Museum of History … souvenir broken LRT wheel hubs … a silent auction on the two-by-four used to measure the width of the track wrong … all-expense-paid vacation to Calgary to see actual, real working light-rail system … award-winning Transpo takes the Bell-Rogers Prize for least responsive oligopoly … the list is endless.
So here we go on our celebration of OC Transpo’s birthday. We do this by way of a Top 10 List:
TOP 10 WAYS OC TRANSPO IS CELEBRATING ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY
10. Free bed-bug giveaway;
9. Move LRT completion date up to 2083;
8. Cut back fewer routes;
7. Bet365 takes the over on your bus showing;
6. Raise fares;
5. “Take transit or we shoot this bus;”
4. Turn broken LRT axle pile into toboggan hill;
3. Free downtown parking promotion;
2. Make ’72 Pinto prize in Transpo raffle;
1. Put drivers on every bus.
Ken Gray
—
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
Happy 50th Birthday OC Transpo: THE VOTER
City Chooses Lansdowne Over Paramedics
Successful Test Conducted On Late Trillium Line
Don’t miss our regular features
Everything Ottawa Full Local Bulldog Canadian
Opinion Comments Breaking News Auto
Ontario World Get Cheap Gas Big Money
Pop Gossip Your Home Relax … Tech
Bulldog Weather Full Local Sports
TV/Movies Travel
Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Does the City of Ottawa even know what the “OC” in “OC Transpo” stands for? It stands for a non existent entity. And that fact telegraphs a lot about council’s transit knowledge and marketing.
David:
As I understand it, it stood for Ottawa-Carleton as in the regional government.
Because Transpo didn’t want the expense of changing the train paint jobs, it conveniently became Ottawa City.
Next trivia question.
cheers
kgray
WIKIPEDIA; The Ottawa-Carleton Regional Transit Commission is the public transport agency that operates an integrated hub-and-spoke system including bus rapid transit, light rail, conventional transit bus, and door-to-door paratransit in Ottawa.The province of Ontario ordered the amalgamation of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton and its component municipalities into a single City of Ottawa municipality. When the new local governance took effect in 2001, OC Transpo became a department of the new city.
Following amalgamation, a bilingual replacement backronym for “OC” was sought, but no suitable candidates have been found. The anachronistic acronym has been kept, instead of the costly task of replacing the decals on all buses, bus stops, bus stations, and promotional material. Thus, “OC” is an orphan initialism.
FYI david:
We weren’t allow to use Wikipedia at the Citizen because it was too inaccurate.
I got the OC business from a conversation with Bob Chiarelli a number of years ago.
cheers
kgray