OC Transpo Woes Continue: DEVINE

It’s been just less than a month since OC Transpo launched New Ways to Bus, a new system for our bus route network, described by OC Transpo as “the largest transformation of bus service in Ottawa’s history, designed to adapt to changing travel patterns, post-pandemic.”

Another description: “some customers may need to travel further to reach bus stops or may experience additional transfers, but the overall goal is to improve travel times and service reliability.”

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This newsletter excerpt from Knoxdale-Merivale Councillor Sean Devine is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours

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Judging by emails I’m receiving; Ottawa residents are … less optimistic. Certainly, we need more time to have a true sense of how the new system is performing, but some early indicators are not reassuring.

Residents across Ward 9 describe not only having to make additional transfers for their route – as expected – but new routes that are significantly longer than before the change, and noting the same problems of multiple buses from the same route stacked up one after the other.

My staff and I are taking notes on each complaint so we can identify where main problem areas are and advocate for improvements. We’ve also scheduled our own “audit” of bus system reliability where we’ll be conducting a series of reliability tests throughout June.

To date, I’ve not been a supporter of New Ways to Bus. If it can deliver on promised results, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. But it’s hard not to see this change simply as a cost-saving measure dressed up as innovation and efficiency. New Ways to Bus relied on the elimination of many bus routes, resulting in over 75,000 fewer hours of service, which is clearly an urgent move to address OC Transpo’s massive financial deficits.

Ultimately, problems OC Transpo continues to face are systemic: we got rid of too many buses from our fleet in advance of LRT, and now we have significant gaps in the number of operators and mechanics to drive and maintain an ageing, depleted fleet. Add the fact that our bus operators are required to adhere to a work schedule that may work on paper, but in real life sees multiple buses stacked up one after another. It’s the reason that I and another councillor advocated for the auditor general to add a review of OC Transpo’s bus route scheduling system to her workplan.

All of this is very upsetting, especially to transit riders. All residents of Ottawa should be concerned because a failing transit system will have consequences for us all. But it’s Ottawa’s frequently neglected – some would say abused – transit riders who have been left in the lurch. Their frustration should be directed at the ones that hold ultimate control over what happens, which is city council. Here’s what one reader wrote to say:

“Problems at OC Transpo are a result of failure of leadership at the political, city management and OC Transpo level. If leadership doesn’t care, then front line staff don’t have to care. The failures are massive: procurement, driver training, planning, filthy buses, smelly trains, fare theft is common, incidents of violence are up, and poor service is everywhere because nobody has to care.  Since there are no consequences for failure, failure is an acceptable outcome.”

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