In another instalment of CTV News Ottawa’s return-to-office stress test, I took OC Transpo from the Katimavik-Hazeldean area of central Kanata to our downtown studio while my colleague, Peter Szperling, drove the same general route. I was scheduled to take route 60, from McCurdy Drive to Tunney’s Pasture station, then transfer to the LRT and continue downtown. The bus was supposed to arrive at 8:15 a.m. It showed up four minutes late and while that may not sound like much, regular riders, like uOttawa student Tony Isa, say delays are common. “It’s frustrating and sometimes I find that it gets canceled too,” he says. “Incorporating more buses and having them come more often would be very helpful so that if someone misses the bus, they don’t have to wait like 30 minutes for the next one.” It took 43 minutes to get from Kanata to Tunney’s Pasture Station, and I was counting on the LRT to make up some time — it did not. When I arrived at the Line 1 platform, there was a growing group of commuters waiting for the train to arrive. The overhead schedule board simply said “held” in place of any times. A train had to be pulled out of service, according to OC Transpo, and although another train arrived fairly quickly, we sat at the station for nearly 10 minutes before leaving. Meanwhile, Szperling was dealing with a couple of crashes and slow traffic on the highway. Still, he arrived downtown first. I arrived at the CTV News Ottawa studio on George Street at 9:27 a.m., roughly 20 minutes after Peter. My total transit commute took 68 minutes. For this morning’s stress-test, driving won the race.
