OC Transpo

[DarthVader_1961]

I’m on line 2 now between walkley/Mooneys Bay stations.

Signalling issues.. train I’m
In is stalled because the system says there is another train in front of us and it’s to close for us to move forward

[DarthVader_1961]

Originally Posted by DarthVader_1961

I’m on line 2 now between walkley/Mooneys Bay stations.

Signalling issues.. train I’m
In is stalled because the system says there is another train in front of us and it’s to close for us to move forward

Seems to be resolved now

[Richard Eade]

Yes, apparently there were problems with Line 2:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/o-...nd-mooneys-bay-r2-bus-service-in-effect/

[ponyboycurtis]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

There was a video posted in the last couple of days. The next train arrives and goes to the far platform at Bayview and everybody goes there to board and once their, everybody is informed that the train is out of service so everybody has to walk back

I suspect scheduling problems required a spare train at Bayview. Line 2 trains are not always as punctual as we are led to believe.

Ha... funny.. I literally just watched that video before jumping on here.

I can only assume you are talking about this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY6Q3S4ZmaA

Sorry for being so negative in my last post but boy oh boy does this transit system every frustrate you at times.

As I was saying.. when it works it obviously works but at times I just cannot comprehend their operational decisions.

Same deal with the nexus of the 90 and old 92 criss crossing the front of my house. I arguably could have taken ANY of those busses to help me get on my way but you choose to have them all pass by with 5 minutes of each other. This has nothing to do with budget.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Yes, apparently there were problems with Line 2:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/o-...nd-mooneys-bay-r2-bus-service-in-effect/

I took Line 2 yesterday. Was not happy with the 24 mins between trains. Didn't know if that was normal. Or Weekend service. Or abnormal.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I took Line 2 yesterday. Was not happy with the 24 mins between trains. Didn't know if that was normal. Or Weekend service. Or abnormal.

Ample 'capacity' on a weekend. What more can be said?

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by ponyboycurtis

Ha... funny.. I literally just watched that video before jumping on here.

I can only assume you are talking about this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY6Q3S4ZmaA

Sorry for being so negative in my last post but boy oh boy does this transit system every frustrate you at times.

As I was saying.. when it works it obviously works but at times I just cannot comprehend their operational decisions.

Same deal with the nexus of the 90 and old 92 criss crossing the front of my house. I arguably could have taken ANY of those busses to help me get on my way but you choose to have them all pass by with 5 minutes of each other. This has nothing to do with budget.

Yep, that is the video.

The 92 bus is a disgrace. It offers token service and nothing more, and bypasses much of the area that it serves in the name of efficiency. A friend lives in the area. Her house is about 1.5 km from the closest bus stop, at least the current version. For decades, the bus ran much closer, but capacity planning and the desire to straighten the bus route made it useless for much of the local population, which is well inside the Greenbelt. My friend has had no alternative but to get a doctor's certificate to use Para Transpo. She can walk, but the current service is useless and much too far away. It is definitely true that you can straighten a bus route to uselessness when it avoids most of the local population. I have spoken years ago that the same occurred with the 49 bus in Alta Vista with the same result, service cuts to uselessness.

[DarthVader_1961]

CTV interview with new head of OC Transport..

https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/video/2026/05/14/extended-one-on-one-with-oc-transpo-gm-rick-leary/

[rocketphish]

'I came in at the right time': New OC Transpo chief says he feels set up for success
In a wide-ranging interview, Rick Leary says Ottawa will soon have a 'really good public transit system'

Arthur White-Crummey · CBC News
Posted: May 16, 2026 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

As Rick Leary settles into his new job heading OC Transpo, he feels like his timing couldn’t be better.

Even before the former Toronto Transit Commission CEO took over as Ottawa's general manager of transit services in late March, electric bus deliveries were finally starting to roll in, offering a path out of a bus cancellation crisis.

He also sees good news on the LRT. He’s confident in OC Transpo's plan to restore full service by mid-June, and that a promised upload to Metrolinx will save the agency millions.

“I came in at the right time,” he said.

With all that falling into place, he doesn’t have anything bad to say about the previous leadership at OC Transpo.

“They've set me up for success,” he said.

In a wide-ranging interview with CBC, Leary said he never hesitated about taking over OC Transpo, despite the dubious reputation of its LRT system, which has suffered from derailments, electrical breakdowns and is still running reduced service.

“What was happening here is no different than what happened in Boston and Toronto with the light rail vehicles,” said Leary, who also held a senior role with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority.

“Ottawa is not unique.”

<more>

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/i-...ys-he-feels-set-up-for-success-9.7201745

[Richard Eade]

And, of course, it is true. Anyone taking over OC Transpo at this point has the advantage of what has been set into motion by previous General Managers. Manconi (mostly) repaired the employee discontent, and created a very lean organization. Amilcar pointed out to Councilors just how bad a situation their continual underfunding of OC Transpo has created; revealing the underlying ‘structural’ issues with the financing.

Overall, I don’t have enough information to know whether Ms. Amilcar was a ‘good’ manager, but even her leaving after a relatively short tenure should have been a signal to Councilors that the status quo of continual cuts had built a ‘house of cards’ that was coming crashing down.

While a different manager MIGHT have been able to weather the storm better than Ms. Amilcar, when she arrived, there were a lot of factors stacked against her. The bus fleet had a large number of very old buses, with many that were at, or even past, their useful life; City Council had limited all new bus purchases to e-buses only; e-bus production was running years behind schedule, meaning long delays for deliveries; emergency funding from the Province was dwindling to nothing; and the City’s financial support was being reduced every year, even though costs were rising fast, in a time of high inflation. It was Ms. Amilcar that got the flack for those issues.

I think that, as interim General Manager, Mr. Charter did a reasonably good job of being the ‘Whipping Post’. He was honest about what was happening, and proposed realistic solutions to help reduce the harm – like removing 255 runs from the bus schedule. It was also Mr. Charter who, out of an abundance of caution, took almost all of the Line 1 vehicles off the tracks.

Now that the e-buses are being received at a reasonable pace, the oldest, least reliable, buses are being taken out of service. The axles on the Light Rail Vehicles (LRVs) are being swapped out, with the prediction of full service returning by about mid-June. The opening of the eastern extension of the Confederation Line is hoped to be soon after that, as more LRVs become available to test it. There is even talk of having redesigned axles for the LRVs – in several years.

All-in-all, past issues do seem to be clearing up for OC Transpo. It is a good time to be coming in as the General Manager. Let’s hope that Mr. Leary can keep the momentum going by conquering that last big hurdle – prying open the vault at City Hall, and getting proper funding for transit.

[Richard Eade]

Well, the union (ATU 278 – Operators and Mechanics) at OC Transpo is calling out the management on the issue of understaffing, according to this CBC article:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-lrt-staff-union-closure-otrain-9.7203455

Granted that this article was prompted by the shutting down of 2/3 of the O-Train lines this past Saturday, but the trains are just another example of under-staffing at OC Transpo. We have been able to see the same issue affecting the buses, by looking at OC Transpo’s Bus Service Delivery Action Plan Webpage:

https://www.octranspo.com/en/about-us/transparency/bus-service-delivery-action-plan

Here are their numbers itemizing why bus runs were not completed for the past four weeks:



Go to OC Transpo’s Bus Service Delivery Action Plan Webpage – which I very much appreciate them publishing and keeping updated – and you will see that Operator Availability has been a large component of why bus runs are canceled. Since the week of January 4, the numbers have ranged from 888 unavailable operators down to 104. The lower numbers are the more recent numbers, but as Bus Availability has improved DRASTICALLY, Operator Availability, has become the dominant reason for canceled bus runs – accounting for 39% of all canceled bus trips during the week of May 3-9.

It is possible that this past Saturday’s O-Train cancelations were the result of “It’s such a beautiful day, I’ll call in sick” flu – which, to my mind, would be a UNION DISCIPLINARY PROBLEM, since it should be promising to have reliable workers for the agreed bargaining result. (But that is a whole different rant, about how unions appear to have no responsibility except to take as much as they can from the employer.) But any way that I look at it, OC Transpo should have a chain of qualified back-up workers that can be called on, in an emergency.

In the CTVNews article of the same O-Train cancelations incident, more of the union’s grievances are revealed. It claims that OC Transpo is not paying an appropriate (if any) benefit for workers to get the required additional accreditation:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/o-...fter-lines-1-and-4-shutdown-on-saturday/

Whatever the reasons, this is just another issue that Mr. Leary needs to look into. Cancelation of trains or buses due to staffing shortages should be VERY exceptional, not the norm.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by ponyboycurtis

Same deal with the nexus of the 90 and old 92 criss crossing the front of my house. I arguably could have taken ANY of those busses to help me get on my way but you choose to have them all pass by with 5 minutes of each other.

See also: 6 and 7; 19 and 20.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Now that the e-buses are being received at a reasonable pace, the oldest, least reliable, buses are being taken out of service.

Now that the e-buses are being received at a reasonable pace, the overcrowding and poor schedule adherence and pacing of routes 6, 7, and 12 is getting worse than it already was.

[Richard Eade]

A while ago (mid-May, I think), OC Transpo released a Customer First Action Plan – what Mayor Sutcliffe took pride in presenting as Ottawa’s 10-Point Plan for Better Transit. (It’s nice, for him, that he gets to present such improvement plans in competition against those who have registered for the Mayoral election. There should be a ‘Lame-Mayor’ rule that starts with the opening of the election campaign.)

How reasonable is that plan?

First, here is The 10-Point Plan:

Make Service Reliable

1. Restore Line 1 capacity by mid-June
2. Improve Maintenance to be 80% Preventative
3. Make bus schedules realistic
4. Make Para Transpo more ‘on-demand’

Put Customers First

1. Build the most customer-focused service in Canada
2. Host customer townhalls
3. Have Special Constables mingle with the public
4. Clean up Rideau Station
5. Communicate more regularly and effectively with the public
6. Introduce new KPIs

Strengthen Financial Stability

1. Upload LRT to Province
2. Use advertising for revenue
3. Develop a 10-year Capital Investment Plan

Build a Sustainable Work Force

1. Make OC Transpo the top transit employer in Canada
2. Hire 20 more mechanics
3. Listen to employee feedback to improve transit

The first thing that struck me is that there are 16 points in their 10-Point Plan. So, right off the bat, things are not adding up. Anyway . . .

I think that most of these points – regardless of how many there actually are – are really just words that sound good. The devil will be in the details. For example, one goal is to restore Line 1 to capacity. Great. Maybe we can finally get what we paid for? But, maybe not, if making all of the trains 2-cars long means reducing the frequency again – because of ‘Capacity Planning’. Notice that none of the points specifically mentions building up ridership. That MIGHT happen over time, IF they are successful in improving service, but increased ridership, itself, is not a goal. Thus, Capacity Planning says that 2-car trains can run at half the frequency of single cars. Getting 2-car trains back may not be an improvement.

The inrush of e-buses should go a long way to helping shift maintenance work from being 49% corrective (fixing the broken and worn-out parts of older buses) to being 80% preventative maintenance. Keeping newer buses in a state of good repair should be a better use of time than trying to put old buses that are past their expected service life back on the road after something breaks. There is a place for old, nostalgic, buses, but it is as advertising and charters, generating additional cash – see point 12. (Maybe OC Transpo can actually make use of its historical fleet?)

Another example of Devilish Details is point 3, making the schedules actually match the road conditions that the buses have to endure. That is, if road congestion routinely slows buses to the point that runs are canceled (On Street Adjustments, as OC Transpo calls them) then the schedule is not realistic. However, drawing up a realistic schedule, that takes into account slow bus movement, will, likely, require additional buses to be deployed to maintain the frequency. More buses means more bus operators, and more cost. Without an increase in both the Capital Budget (buying additional buses) and the Operating Budget (for more drivers and fuel) adjusting schedules to reflect longer run times translates to a reduction in service. Yes, customers will be able to have more faith in when their bus comes, but there will be fewer buses coming.

I think that it will be great IF OC Transpo can actually get the Special Constable to spend time walking around OC Transpo properties, instead of spending so much time sitting in their isolating bubble of a car, waiting for a call. It could even be part of the goal to communicate better with customers. The Special Constable don’t need to only have an enforcement roll. They can also be ambassadors for OC Transpo.

I was amused by the goal to introduce new KPIs. Yes, that point came immediately after the one about communicating more effectively with the public. And, yes, the point uses an acronym that a large portion of the public will have no idea what it stands for. Great start, Guys.

Of course, for those in-the-know, a KPI is a Key Performance Indicator. OC Transpo keeps statistics on a large number of performance indicators. The biggest problem that I can see with adding new ones is that they will, likely, not be shared with the public any more than the existing ones are. There is no indication that the newly created KPIs will be made public. How about, instead of creating new KPIs, OC Transpo just becomes a paragon of transparency and provides access to all of the data that it already monitors? Nah. That would expose OC Transpo to too much criticism about its performance.

Of course, some of the points (maybe most of them) are things that should be done as a matter of course – like cleaning up Rideau Station (Why only that one? Maybe Mr. Leary should visit ALL of the OC Transpo stops and stations.), and listening to feed-back (from customers and employees). That makes these goals, effectively, simply to do their jobs.

However, a couple of their objectives seem purely aspirational. Does OC Transpo have a shot at becoming the most customer-focused service (not limited to just TRANSIT SERVICE, I notice) in Canada? Or the top transit employer in Canada? I think that if OC Transpo is really aiming for those heights, they will probably need to do more than just what should be routine.

[Uhuniau]

And when they say "clean up Rideau Station", does that include "cleaning up" the surface-level bus passenger facility, such as it is, and improving the experience, including security?

It's bad. And I have a high tolerance for bad.

[Truenorth00]

Federal officials worried OC Transpo can't handle return-to-office: memo

Officials managing the federal government's return-to-office plans are concerned about the ability of Ottawa's troubled transit system to actually get public servants to their workplaces, an internal memo shows.

Canada's top public servant, Privy Council Clerk Michael Sabia, and Deputy Clerk Isabelle Mondou met with Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe on Feb. 19 to discuss the city's readiness to support an increased on-site presence across the federal public service.

The meeting focused on how the city could help the effort succeed and addressed public transit, roads, parking and office space, said Tahera Mufti, the mayor's director of communications.

....

"The bus network is the primary source of frustration for commuters, consistently failing to meet its performance targets," says a section of the document devoted to the service standards of OC Transpo.

Ottawa's public transit system, which connects across the Ottawa River to Gatineau, Que., has been struggling with reliability for most of 2026.

....

Spokespeople for PSPC and the city said they continue to work closely to support the federal return-to-office plans.

Privy Council Office spokesman Pierre-Alain Bujold said the federal government appreciates the efforts of the Ottawa and Gatineau to improve the availability and reliability of transit.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc-transpo-ottawa-public-servant-office-9.7207102?cmp=rss

Exactly what I said in the Carling Campus thread.

And this city wants 3500 bankers and their families added to the count.....

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And this city wants 3500 bankers and their families added to the count.....

What's the issue?

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

What's the issue?

Doesn't make a good impression for getting some highly paid folks to set up here when you can't get the existing Public Service to their cubicle farm within any decent timeframe.

Carling Campus has the added flavour of DND incompetence where you get to play the tow lottery after paying $75 for a parking pass.

[Uhuniau]

I'm not sure the current transit situation in 2026 is a reason to not attract the bankers at some point in the future, a time which is not now.

[dougvdh]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Doesn't make a good impression for getting some highly paid folks to set up here when you can't get the existing Public Service to their cubicle farm within any decent timeframe.

Carling Campus has the added flavour of DND incompetence where you get to play the tow lottery after paying $75 for a parking pass.

One would like to think that the Carling DND campus has been enough of a learning experience to know that if we get the defense bank, it needs to somewhere more central like around Riverside / Vanier Parkway, Tunneys, or Bayview? All those locations have available (federal) land that is close to transit.