“It’s gross,” Ottawa transit riders surprised by 2026 fare increase

OC Transpo fares increased on the first day of the year and as CTV’s Kimberley Johnson reports, some transit users are not pleased.

OC Transpo implemented fare increases on New Year’s Day, and some transit riders say they’re not on board with the hiked prices.

Beginning on Jan. 1, transit fares increased by 2.5 per cent in Ottawa, which has some riders saying the cost to take a bus or the LRT in the capital is too high.

Aaron Dodge say he needs public transit for everything he does but he can’t afford a monthly pass.

“It’s not feasible to be able to do an entire pass in one sitting,” he says. “It might mean that I’m not able to eat later on in the day or later on in the week.”

Dodge says he lives in a shelter and is financially reliant on social assistance.

A monthly pass now costs a total of $138, up from $135 in 2025, a cost Dodge says is unaffordable. Instead of paying the lump sum for a monthly pass, Dodge uses single fares for every trip, scraping together every dollar he can.

But even the cost of a single fare has gone up.

“It’s not fair,” he says. “It isn’t. Because we don’t always have the money that we need, and we don’t always have the money to spare.”

OC Transpo has the fourth-highest adult monthly transit fare in Canada, behind the Toronto Transit Commission which charges $156 month, Brampton Transit which charges $141.25 and Mississauga’s MiWay which charges $141.

Rebecca Langley says she was caught off guard by the price increase when she and her husband paid for their tickets on Saturday morning.

“It looks like it’s $8.20 just for two of us one way,” she says. “Then we’ve got the other three. They’ve got their Presto passes. So, it’s going to be over 40 bucks for us to take the train there and back.”

Langley says she skips getting monthly passes for her children to get to school, because it doesn’t make financial sense.

“Sometimes we can drive them to school. Sometimes we can pick them up so that it saves us a bit of money that way,” she says.

“It’s gross. I didn’t know about the rates going up until just now, so that’s even grosser.”

O-Train extension

Fare increase are not the only changes coming to OC Transpo in 2026. Testing for the O-Train East Extension, which will extend service to Orléans, is also set to begin this month.

In December, while appearing on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s The Morning Rush with Bill Carroll, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said the next phase of the preparations to open the O-Train East extension will begin in January.

“Relatively early in the new year, we’re going to see the testing happening,” Sutcliffe said.

“You know you’ve got to meet certain criteria; once that’s done, we can open it to service.”

There’s no official opening date for the LRT extension to Trim Road, but Interim Transit Services general manager Troy Charter told the Transit Committee on Nov. 24 that OC Transpo and its partners have made “significant progress towards completing the testing and commissioning."

Charter suggested OC Transpo plans to open the O-Train East extension “early in the new year,” adding by the end of March is “achievable.”

• Sign up now for daily CTV News Ottawa newsletters
• The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App

John Dallar is a senior’s monthly pass holder, and he says he’s awaiting the opening of the line.

“I just like to go out there once in a while, and it would be handy to have the train going,” he explains.

Dallar says he understands the price hikes are standard.

“I don’t have a problem with it. It’s normal,” he says. “I don’t have any concerns financially, so it’s not really a problem for me.”

Changes coming to OC Transpo in 2026

Here is a look at the new transit fares for OC Transpo, as of Jan. 1, 2026:

• Adult monthly pass: $138.50/month ($135 in 2025)
• Senior monthly pass: $59.75 ($58.25 in 2025)
• U-Pass: $60.17 per month ($58.70 per month in 2025)
• 1-day pass: $12.25 ($12 in 2025)
• 3-day pass: $30.75 ($30 in 2025)
• 5-day pass: $49 ($47.75 in 2025)
• Adult single-fare ride (paid by card): $4.10 ($4 in 2025)
• Adult single-fare ride (paid by cash): $4.15 ($4.05 in 2025)
• Senior single-ride fare (paid by e-purse): $3.28 ($3.20 in 2025)
• Pre-teen single ride fare (paid by e-purse): $2.05 ($2 in 2025)

The EquiPass and Community monthly passes cost the same as in 2025.

Children under the age of 10 ride OC Transpo buses and the O-Train for free.

• Starting in April, trains on O-Train Line 1 will run every 6 minutes on weekdays between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., and every 7.5 minutes between 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on weekday evenings.
• Starting July 1, the transfer window for weekdays between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. will be extended from 90 minutes to 105 minutes.
• As of July 1, transit fares will be free for riders ages 18 and under on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.