Introduction
It is orthodoxy in Ottawa's transit advocacy circles that OC Transpo is underfunded. Advocacy groups from Ottawa Transit Riders and Strong Towns Ottawa to Free Transit Ottawa and Horizon Ottawa use phrases like "underfund", "properly fund", and "neglected to fund" to describe OC Transpo. This extends to some politicians, including mayoral candidate and current MPP Catherine McKenney, who said that OC Transpo has suffered from "years of underfunding," as well as the media, who describe OC Transpo's various budget crises which these days seem to be the most regularly scheduled event at OC Transpo (these are not the same as "underfunding") - see this year's $56 million in "fake money" from bogus ridership projections and phantom spending by other levels of government. I have no doubt we will have another budget crisis sometime this year.
Independent of these regularly occurring crises, which incidentally would make a great investigative journalism piece for someone with lots of connections to staff at City Hall, the mayor and City Council have so far resisted the urge make drastic increases to the budget, though many may disagree. (11.4% is a large increase, but the 4% increase that comes from real money is much smaller.)
