As OC Transpo cuts trips to accommodate aging fleet, transit riders say they’re tired of delays

OC Transpo is trying to find ways to improve reliability, and users say delays are an all too familiar experience. CTV’s Kimberley Johnson reports.

OC Transpo is temporarily cutting hundreds of trips to improve service reliability as it deals with an aging bus fleet and maintenance issues, but transit riders in Ottawa say they’re tired of facing delays.

In a memo sent to City Council Friday afternoon, OC Transpo implemented a revised bus schedule on January 12, which includes a reduction of 255 weekday trips.

OC Transpo says it will deliver 7,224 trips each weekday and the reductions will require the use of 20 fewer buses.

• OC Transpo cancels 255 trips amid bus shortage

“This step was taken to respond to customer concerns about unreliable trip planning information,” Troy Charter, interim general manager of Transit Services, wrote. “Moving forward, customers will see this revised and updated trip schedule in travel planning tools.”

On Sunday, transit users CTV News Ottawa spoke to said it wasn’t unusual to come up against delays for the bus.

Levi Malloy said he had been waiting for the 86 bus for more than half an hour.

“It’s luckily sunny out,” he says. “I’m on my way to church, but apparently I’m going to be really late.”

It’s a trip that should take 20 minutes from his stop near Tunney’s Pasture, but he says delays are not unusual.

“I like the O-Train,” he says. “I encourage people to take it, but the busses have been honestly just kind of unreliable in many ways. Super late all the time.”

The move comes after hundreds of bus trips were cancelled this month, leaving passengers in the cold.

Coun. Jeff Leiper says the plan is meant to help riders have a more reliable consistent schedule until the city can add more buses to its fleet.

“What that’s resulting in right now is buses that are just not showing up, and that has some really staggering real world implications for people who rely on transit to get around,” he explains.

Leiper says that OC Transpo has said that the changes could be in effect until the spring or summer.

“It’s highly unlikely that we can throw a bunch of money at the problem and fix it within a few weeks,” he explains. “We really need those zero emission buses to begin arriving much more quickly in the city, and that’s something that we just have to wait for.”

OC transpo is also working to hire more mechanics.

Lauren Jones says she’s faced major delays on her bus routes and is not sure the changes will make a difference.

“I’d have to see it with my own eyes to believe it,” she says.

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