Transit Committee - 14 May, 2026

Transit Committee met for the fourth this year on 14 May. The frequency of meetings has increased since last year, likely in response to criticism that the Committee was not working hard enough to solve Ottawa's transit problems. 

This meeting brings mostly good news. An end to the 100,000 km limit on the Line 1 Cartridge Bearing Assemblies (CBAs) is in sight, and bus reliability continues to slowly climb upwards. However, service delivery will remain a problem in the foreseeable future, and general manager Rick Leary will continue to face difficult choices. 

Note: after I finished writing this post, but before I posted it, OC Transpo announced the return of full double-car service on Line 1 on 8 June. 

The video link to the meeting is here. 

Documents: 

• Update Presentation (English) 
• Inquiry - Number of conventional buses that have caught fire   
• Inquiry - Compensation for Transit Users 
• Transit Services 5-Year Roadmap: SCORECARD
• Annual Update – Transit Services 5-Year Roadmap

Our new GM: a brief history of Rick Leary

Ten months after the departure of former general manager Renée Amilcar, OC Transpo has a new head: Rick Leary. 

You can watch the city's press conference introducing him here. 

Mr. Leary has held executive positions in Boston, York Region, and Toronto. According to the memo City Manager Wendy Stephenson sent to Council: 

Rick has extensive experience overseeing integrated bus, light rail, subway, and streetcar systems, with responsibility for operations, maintenance, safety, and long‑term asset management ... [his] experience includes managing aging infrastructure, supporting the integration of new and expanding services, and ensuring the successful delivery of capital projects.  

Given his extensive experience, I am confident that Rick is well positioned to lead the Transit Services department in an inspiring and empowering way while strengthening Ottawa’s growing multi-modal transit system.  

Actually, Mr. Leary has extensive experience in obfuscating service quality, hiding safety issues, and agency mismanagement. With his record, Council should question the hiring process that led to his appointment.  

Transit Committee - 12 February, 2026

On the 12th of February, Transit Committee met for the first time in 2026. The video of this meeting can be found here. 

Since the last Transit Committee in November, bus service has continued to deteriorate, and adding to OC Transpo's troubles, most of the Line 1 fleet was ordered out of service after spalling was discovered on the cartridge bearing assemblies (CBAs). There is currently no timeline to return the trains to service. Most of this meeting was, understandably, dedicated to these two crises.

Despite the quixotic self-congratulations from OC Transpo and from Transit Committee, delegations and the state of service reveal a system full of problems. As long as councillors do not feel urgency on this file, transit will continue to be a whack-a-mole of acute and chronic problems. 

Documents from this meeting: 

• Electric Bus program inquiry
• Outstanding motions and inquiries
  

Priorities at City Hall: OC Transpo in 2026

As we roll out of 2025 and into 2026, transit in Ottawa drifts forwards without a coherent vision. 

OC Transpo is changing from the Transitway days, and it is not clear what it will become. The first part of Stage 2 opened last year, with another set to open this year; meanwhile, the bus network is in an apparent state of meltdown, and with one problem solved (operator shortage), another has appeared (fleet shortage). It remains to be seen whether the situation will improve or not. 

This year is also a municipal election year. As 20% of the city budget and the most visible signal of dysfunction at the City of Ottawa, transit will be a headline issue this campaign season. It is therefore essential that candidates and City institutions create and present a coherent vision of transit. 

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. 

How do we measure reliability?

Introduction

At Transit Committee (TC) on the 10th of April, reliability was the big issue of the day. Reliability statistics, reliability breakdowns, reliability plans, the discussion was centered around reliability even if the solutions were not found that day. 

In light of this, and in light of my own criticism of OC Transpo's reporting of reliability, I wanted to ask the question: how do we measure reliability? And how should we? 

Transit Committee - 10 April, 2025

Introduction

On Thursday, the 10th of April 2025, Transit Committee held its third meeting of the year. Video link here, the meeting begins at 20:45. 

This meeting was a head-turner, and featured some good discussion of OC Transpo's reliability problems, and the hard questions needed to turn the service around. Unfortunately, there were no hard answers - but this is the closest they have gotten in a while, and I hope future meetings continue to push on this front. 

Though they could stand to be a little shorter!  

And a documents list, all linked to the City of Ottawa's website. I provide no guarantees this stuff won't link rot over time ... 

Staff update presentation (PDF) 

Light rail monitoring and compliance (PDF) 
Five-year roadmap update (PDF)

LRT Sub-Committee disbands; the City of Ottawa must create a transparency culture

Introduction

The LRT Sub-Committee formed in February 2023, following the release of the province's Ottawa Light Rail Transit Inquiry, which among other things, found that City Council's oversight of Phase One was inadequate, partly blocked by the Mayor for political reasons. 

According to the City, the Sub-Committee's mandate is 

[To] provide oversight and focused attention on non-operational matters related to Ottawa’s light rail systems (LRT), including all light rail construction projects, as well as the City’s action plan in response to the Ottawa Light Rail Public Inquiry and other third-party reviews of the light-rail transit system.

Basically, the Sub-Committee is in charge of oversight of capital projects for the LRT project, which currently includes 2.5 projects (Stage 2 East, West, and the nearly-completed South). The group (I'm not typing out "sub-committee" over and over) met eleven times since its founding a little less than two years ago, and have reported on progress on the inquiry recommendations, as well as providing updates on construction. 

The Sub-Committee is made of councillors Steve Desroches, Cathy Curry, Glen Gower, Theresa Kavanagh, Jeff Leiper, and Tim Tierney, with Mark Sutcliffe as mayor. 

The City cited a high workload on councillors, as well as their progress in following the inquiry recommendations; the Line 2/4 opening exercise has been proclaimed a success, it seems, at the City of Ottawa. 

OC Transpo: a transit agenda for the New Year

It's 2025, the first segment of Stage 2 has launched, and another network semi-redesign is imminent. OC Transpo is in crisis mode again, with federal dollars not appearing, a crisis of confidence, and a city that wants to cut, cut, cut. 

What next? 

In this post, I will set out some priority items that City Council and OC Transpo should work towards. These represent my opinion only; but I believe that their implementation will go a long way in making Ottawa a transit city.