Better Transit Ottawa

A City Council motion that says: WHEREAS staff are recommending a downward revision to the Draft 2026 Operating and Capital diesel budget price from $1.16/L to $1.10/L; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT: That fares for riders ages 18 and under shall be free on Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays, effective July 1, 2026; That staff be directed to explore the technical feasibility to implement free fares after 5:00pm to riders ages 18 and under, effective July 1, 2026; That the user fee table be amended to provide that seniors aged 65+ using Para Transpo be provided a credit each month of four standard urban fares (in 2026, $3.28), for up to four urban trips at no charge or for trips to or from the rural area at a reduced cost (in 2026, $7.72). The credits would expire at the end of each month and would not carry over into subsequent months; Transfer time for weekdays between 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. shall be extended to 105 minutes. This measure would be temporary until the launch of LRT Stage 2 West to Algonquin Station and Moodie Station, expected in 2027; and

A chart that shows WTI crude prices rising by 50% since the beginning of the month

With oil prices rising, it's such a good thing City Council funded so many initiatives out of fuel price savings rather than general revenues.

What could go wrong with that plan?

Social Gathering—February · Luma Join us for our monthly social gathering, have some food/drinks, and have a good time!

Reminder we have our monthly social get together coming up this Friday at Braumeister! Come chat about Ottawa related urbanism, or whatever sparks your interest, with local members!

No need to RSVP, but info can be found at the link below!

luma.com/kyq3f7ic?tk=...

We are very frustrated that this is continually being delayed over and over again. People who want to sign up to delegate have to set aside time to be able to do so, constantly pushing things back makes things harder for the people trying to make their communities better.

How is council ensuring this is not a budget cut for OC Transpo's operations?

Transit data webinar HD 720p YouTube video by Kitchissippi Ward

I was very pleased to host @railfans.ca and @bettertransitottawa.ca online for a webinar on transit tracking data. Watch that here.

This is today!

They've cut 396 trips from the schedule this month. Even still, they have trips like yours that are cancelled every day

And this doesn't even count the trips that are full because of cancellations. Yesterday, the 85 I was trying to take had a full bus that passed our bus stop sandwiched between two cancellations

Cancellations on January 19th

Bus availability on January 19th

Cancellations on January 19th

These numbers neglect to mention that most cancellations happen during peak periods, and if you look at trips at those times, trips are over 20% undelivered

OC Transpo cut 396 trips from the schedule this month to be more honest (which is a good thing), but even after these cuts, the cancellation rates are insane. It shows you how deep the problem really is.

Cancellation statistics during morning peak of Monday January 26th 2026

Our cancellation tracker now can filter for peak periods. This is when most people experience the system, and when most cancellations occur

This morning:
On the 15: 63% of trips cancelled
On the 5: 56% of trips cancelled
On the 41: 48% of trips cancelled

bettertransitottawa.ca/tracker/canc...

Join @railfans.ca, @bettertransitottawa.ca and Jeff for a webinar exploring citizen-led data tools that provide insight into public transit in Ottawa on February 2 at 7 pm. Use the QR code in the flyer below to register or kitchissippiward.ca.

Trips removed: hastebin.ianhon.com/aba6

Another schedule update was posted today.

141 trips were removed from the schedule, but we still don't have enough buses for even that as we already have plenty of cancellations today

Cancellation stats for route 7 and 88

A block diagram for block 88-11 and 901-704. A “block” generally is the path one bus will take throughout the day. This diagram shows how a bus was pulled from one block to another block to complete a higher priority school run. This resulted in all other trips being cancelled.

We now have a bus cancellation tracker available at bettertransitottawa.ca/tracker/canc...

This dashboard lets you view the cancellations on each route for each day and see the gaps in service that get created by each cancellation. You can also see the percentage of cancelled trips per route.

- Hire and retain more mechanics with improved pay and working conditions in order to keep our existing buses in service
- Reach out to other transit agencies to loan any temporary buses they can spare

OC Transpo needs to do everything it can to resolve the fleet shortage as soon as possible

We are asking OC Transpo and council to:
- Work to create emergency bus lane and transit priority measures on key corridors to ensure our working buses are used as efficiently as possible

Having sufficient buses to respond to problems with our train is essential.

Instead, because of a newly discovered issue with our trains, we are stuck dealing with both a bus shortage and a train shortage at the same time with no ability to roll out supplemental buses.

Better Transit Ottawa Let's make public transit in Ottawa better

At pop-up hours today, Ajay Ramachandran showed me the data visualizations he's been working on using GTFS data on bus delivery. Bus by bus, scheduling block by scheduling block, Better Transit Ottawa has built an incredible tool to dig deep into trip delivery and reliability.
bettertransitottawa.ca

Delays cause the next trip to be cancelled or require using one of the very limited spare buses available

We need emergency bus lane and transit priority measures enacted on key corridors to ensure our working buses are used as efficiently as possible. We can't have our limited bus fleet standing still in traffic.

Delays cause the next trip to be cancelled or require using one of the very limited spare buses available

3) Emergency bus lane and transit priority measures need to be enacted on key corridors to ensure our working buses are used as efficiently as possible. We can't have our limited bus fleet standing still in traffic.

We need a replacement strategy that understands that a shorter bus can't carry as many people as a longer bus, and that an electric bus will need more time to charge throughout the day.

A 1 for 1 replacement of high capacity buses with low capacity electric buses does not do that.

300 high capacity buses like this one are reaching 16 years of age this year, which is past the expected lifetime of a bus. Another 40 buses will be turning 18.

We can't expect to replace them with just 50 new high capacity buses, and we can't expect shorter electric buses to replace them 1 for 1

We are excited about the new articulated buses and the used buses! However, 50 buses is not going to replace 350 end-of-life buses.

The used buses are exciting as well, but OC ordered them in June, and 6 months later only a few have made it to active service. What is the timeline on the remainder?

tok eep

@glengower.ca @jleiper.bsky.social @stevedesroches.bsky.social @riverwardriley.bsky.social @shawnmenard.bsky.social @timtierney.ca

- Hire and retain additional mechanics with improved pay and working conditions in order to keep our existing buses in service

We are asking OC Transpo to:
- Order more high-capacity buses to properly expand and replace our aging fleet
- Increase funding for transit priority measures on corridors such as Bank St, Carling Ave, and Baseline Rd to use our limited buses as efficiently as possible