Transit Committee - 11 June, 2026

 On Thursday 11 June, Transit Committee gathered for its June meeting. The meeting link can be found here.

The meeting centered around the Customer First Action Plan announced last month, and provided reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic. The spalling problem seems to be receding into the rearview mirror, and the fleet is slowly improving, albeit with the temporarily cancelled trips (TCTs) still in place. However, this is not OC Transpo's first brush with great-sounding action plans which have not worked so well in reality, and their capacity for long-term planning and Council's ability to supervise such an undertaking remains in question.

The Stage 2 update and related talk has been quarantined into its own post again. That should hopefully be posted in a few days.

Documents list:

• OC Transpo Update - English
• Stage 2 Light Rail Transit Project
• OC Transpo Public Safety Strategy
• Motion - Saturday Service on OC Transpo Route 92
• Desroches - Response to Inquiry - Community Feedback for Limebank, Bowesville, and Leitrim Stations
• Carr - Response to Inquiry - Transit Station Elevators
• Carr - Response to Inquiry - OC Transpo Peak Ridership Definition and Service Planning

Budget Holes and Money Pits

The draft 2026 budget has finally been released, after Mayor Mark Sutcliffe bragged about it being the most transparent budget in the history of the city. It's true - hot air is transparent, and it creates mirages of fiscal responsibility and responsible governance. 

The mayor's press statements brag about fiscal responsibility and transparency, but the transit budget stands in opposition to his empty claims. Among the misleading or inaccurate statements are a third  "one-time" expectation for $47 million of "required" funding from upper levels of government which has never materialized ever; fare revenue increases bordering on magical; and the hiding of OC Transpo's subsidy behind the aforementioned false numbers and misleading budgeting. 

With this budget, the total operating cost reaches $939 million in 2026. Despite this, there is zero attempt to reorganize scheduling, a pathetic attempt at transit priority measures, and little attempt at financial transparency, which creates true image of fiscal indulgence and a lack of regard for long-term planning. 

OC Transpo will require even more money over the coming few years. Overprojecting revenue has become an annual ritual at City Hall - with a hostile mayoralty or province in charge, transit runs the risk of becoming a target. 

 

The City must right the fiscal ship, come clean about the looming danger, and City Council be resolute in demanding that this be done with the utmost transparency and accountability. 

Improving Bus Service Reliability Report (Transit Committee) - 11 September, 2025

As part of Transit Committee's motion requesting a plan to achieve reliable service by the end of 2027, staff presented a report on improving bus service reliability at Transit Committee on 11 September.  

The relevant document is the report, linked in PDF form. 

OC Transpo defines reliability with three headline statistics, which bundles the entire network into one number. The trips delivery metric measures the percentage of trips which were not cancelled and ran at all; regularity measures the gap between buses on frequent routes [it is not clear if this is applied to frequent routes outside frequent operating periods], with a wide band of 40% allowance; and punctuality, which is on-time performance for less frequent routes, with an allowance of one minute early/five minutes late. 

Both Transit Committee and OC Transpo love to talk about their commitment to reliable service for Ottawa residents. But OC Transpo has a poor track record of presenting good information to Transit Committee that would enable action; Transit Committee has a poor track record of taking action to improve reliability. To improve bus service reliability, Council must begin to understand that there is no free lunch, and make the difficult choices to improve service. 

Renee Amilcar leaves OC Transpo, path forward is unclear

Introduction 

Renée Amilcar announced early this month that she would resign from her position as General Manager at OC Transpo, and move to Montreal as head of Mobilé Infra Québec. This has both written annd unwritten implications for the future of OC Transpo. This indicates problems bubbling beneath the surface, ones that will be increasingly hard to fix as the institution continues to fossilize. We need reform, and we need reform now if we want to pursue a successful transit policy in Ottawa. 

(I apologize for any weird formatting issues and the short length. I am abroad, so this is hastily written from my phone as opposed to my laptop, as usual) 

Transportation Master Plan: failure at City Hall, Pt. III

Introduction

On the first of April, the city released its Transportation Master Plan update. This is the third and final article in a three-part series on this joke. The first, link here, covers the contents of the plan. The second, link here, is a detailed rant on why this plan is terrible as a "Transportation Master Plan" (as opposed to, say, a feasibility study). This article will focus on how I think we got to this point, and what can be done about it. 

This article contains much speculation. You have been warned. 

Transportation Master Plan: failure at City Hall, Pt. II

Introduction

On the first of April, the City released its draft Transportation Master Plan, or TMP, and befitting this date, it's a complete joke. The TMP is a document that guides city planning on all transportation matters; this one is intended to go through 2046, though the document is irregularly updated.

This is the second part in my three-piece series on the new TMP. If you're not already familiar with it, take a read through part one to get an understanding of what the TMP is and how it came to be.

If you haven't read it, I encourage you to take a skim through the official TMP propaganda reports and get a sense of what I'm talking about.

Transportation Master Plan: failure at City Hall, Pt. I

Introduction

The City's new Transportation Master Plan (TMP) for transit and roads came out on the first of April after a last-minute delay from the day before. That the TMP was hastily pushed for a release on April Fool's is a level of symbolism that says everything essential about this bungled plan. 

Before we start, I think it should be clear that I strongly dislike the new TMP. I will oppose it as much as I can, and I encourage you to do so as well.