When Mayor Mark Sutcliffe stood in front of the podium last week alongside OC Transpo’s new general manager, Rick Leary, he once again asked riders for patience — a phrase transit users in Ottawa have heard repeatedly since the launch of the light-rail Confederation Line in 2019.
But after years of breakdowns, cancelled buses, route changes and declining confidence in the network, patience for public transit is wearing thin.
City officials are now hoping there could finally be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Leary, who previously headed the Toronto Transit Commission, has unveiled a 10-point “customer-first action plan” aimed at restoring confidence in Ottawa’s struggling transit system and improving reliability across buses, trains and Para Transpo.
“We are going to make service more reliable, we are going to put our customers first, we’re going to strengthen our financial stability, and we’re going to build a sustainable workforce,” Leary said during last week’s announcement.
Rick Leary has been named as the new general manager of OC Transpo. Photo credit: Mark Sutcliffe X
The plan comes at a critical moment for OC Transpo. O-Train Line 1 has been operating with single-car trains since late January after a spalling issue was discovered on some vehicles.
While frequency has increased during peak periods, riders have still faced crowding on trains and platforms at busy times.
Leary said his first priority is restoring regular two-car train service on Line 1 by mid-June. As of last week, OC Transpo said 27 vehicles remained below the 100,000-kilometre mileage limit that was put in place because of the spalling issue. Regular peak-period service requires 26 vehicles.
Leary said service could theoretically resume now, but he wants to ensure the system has enough available vehicles to operate reliably.
“We have to have enough spares, as you can imagine, to stay on top of the maintenance, to stay on top of the work that they’re doing,” he said.
The spalling issue has also delayed the east extension of Line 1 from Blair Station to Trim Road in Orléans. Although the extension reached substantial completion in March, trial running was delayed because there were not enough available trains. Leary said his immediate focus remains on restoring Line 1 before turning to the next steps for the extension.
For transit advocates, the question is not whether the plan identifies the right problems but whether OC Transpo has the money, vehicles and staff to follow through.
“I think overall, I’m pretty happy with what I see there,” Laura Shantz, chair of Ottawa Transit Riders, told the Ottawa Lookout. “I’d love to see a little more. I’d love to see some timelines.”
Shantz said many of the promises being made by OC Transpo are not new. Reliability targets and staffing improvements have been discussed for years, but financial pressures and vehicle shortages have repeatedly slowed progress.
“When push comes to shove, we simply haven’t had the vehicles or we haven’t had the money to staff up in a way that we need to to get the work done,” she said.
Re-scheduling of buses
For buses, Leary’s plan focuses on preventive maintenance, more realistic scheduling, new performance indicators and retiring the oldest, least reliable buses.
Sutcliffe said OC Transpo reached its target of delivering 99.5 per cent of scheduled bus trips last week, helped in part by new zero-emission buses entering the fleet. The city is expected to have more than 150 new zero-emission buses by the end of the year.
But Leary said the agency must change how it maintains its fleet.
“Right now, our team splits its time almost equally on corrective and preventive repairs. We need to change this, and we will,” he said. “We should spend about 80 per cent of our time on preventive maintenance and 20 per cent of our time on corrective maintenance.”
That means prioritizing vehicles that riders can actually depend on.
“We’re going to prioritize maintenance hours on vehicles that can be dependable for our customers, and we’re going to retire the least reliable buses that require the most frequent and intensive maintenance,” Leary said.
OC Transpo has hired nine mechanics since January and hopes to hire 20 new mechanics by the end of 2026. Leary said the agency will also review schedules that are currently not achievable.
“We want our customers to have schedules that they can rely on,” he said. “Allocating accurate travel time will mean the schedules are predictable for our customers.”
Shantz argued that staffing may be one of the hardest problems to solve.
Last summer, some days saw hundreds of bus trips cancelled due to a shortage of operators. Similar issues have impacted mechanics, maintenance workers and Para Transpo service providers.
Leary has also promised new key performance indicators that better reflect the customer experience, rather than only internal operational measures.
OC Transpo buses. Photo provided.
“By understanding what the customers experience daily, we can better address their concerns. And I’m going to introduce new KPIs at the transit committee that will reflect the customer’s experience,” he said.
Para Transpo will also be part of the review, with Leary promising a new consultation process to hear directly from users about how the service can be improved.
The plan also includes a financial component. OC Transpo’s budget still has a $47-million hole to fill, with the city hoping upper levels of government will help fill the gap. While the province has promised to upload some LRT costs — which could eventually save the city an estimated $85 million per year — Sutcliffe said that process will take time.
“We all wish it could happen sooner. The LRT is perhaps even more complicated than uploading Highway 174, so it’s going to take time,” he said.
In the meantime, Leary said OC Transpo is looking for more non-fare revenue, including digital advertising and partnerships with employers and organizations.
Before taking over OC Transpo, he served as CEO of the TTC in Toronto, where he developed a reputation as an aggressive manager willing to make difficult operational decisions. His tenure also included public clashes with unions and criticism from some transit advocates over service levels and workplace relations.
The announcement of his hiring drew mixed reactions at Ottawa’s city hall; some praised his experience managing a large and complex transit network, while others raised concerns about his past labour disputes.
Shantz said she believes he deserves an opportunity to prove himself.
“He does have some experience that would be helpful,” she said. “In terms of the questions about the past, I really do think people deserve to have a chance to prove themselves and not just be judged by past actions.”
Improving the bus network
The new general manager has also signalled he wants to revisit elements of OC Transpo’s bus network — something many riders have been demanding since the rollout of “New Ways to Bus” in April 2025, which brought the biggest overhaul of route changes in the transit agency’s history.
The overhaul was intended to simplify routes and improve efficiency, but for many riders, it instead introduced additional transfers and longer travel times.
“The feedback I get from a lot of folks is that some people saw some real improvements, some people saw some real streamlining,” Shantz said. “And for many other people, it meant additional transfers.”
Some riders, she said, felt the redesign was less about improving service and more about pushing passengers onto the Confederation Line.
Transit advocates argue Ottawa’s network has become too focused on funneling commuters downtown during traditional office hours while neglecting other travel patterns across the city.
OC Transpo’s largest user group remains students, including university, college and high school riders, said Shantz.
“You have a chance here to build a generation of transit riders,” she said. “What we’re doing — is it meeting their needs? Or are we just locked into that nine-to-five commuting downtown mentality?”
Travel times remain another major source of frustration. Shantz said trips across Ottawa can often take far longer by transit than by car, bike or even a combination of other modes.
A trip from Nepean to Place d’ Orléans could take an estimated hour and a half today, whereas the same trip a few years ago would only take an hour. For context, Google Maps says the same route could be biked in 10 minutes less.
Shantz, who lives in Vanier, said she, too, has experienced long commute times.
“I have a kid who needs to go to the children's hospital from time to time. That's 15 minutes by car, 25 minutes by bike, or an hour on the bus,” she said. “And you can guess I am not taking public transit to work because it takes so long, I’d need to take a full day off.
“If transit isn't seen as a quality choice, people will make other choices,” she continued. “Transit works well when people see it as quick, convenient, and honestly, not a headache.”
When did the issues start?
Before the eastern Transitway was converted into rail, express bus trips from downtown to Orléans could take around 25 minutes. Today, some commuters say the same journey can take nearly twice as long.
The shift is reflected in ridership numbers. While Ottawa’s population has grown significantly since 2019, transit use has struggled to recover.
OC Transpo reported 70.6 million trips in 2025, up 3.9 per cent from 2024, when there were 67.9 million passenger trips. But it’s still considerably below 2019 levels, which saw 97.4 million trips.
“People have been burned,” said Shantz. “People are not eager to take a chance on transit, especially when there are high-stakes things on the line like getting to an appointment on time, getting to work on time, getting to your exam on time.”
A 2024 survey conducted by TRANS Committee found that of commuters in Ottawa, public transit users were the least satisfied — only 36 per cent. By contrast, lone drivers and carpoolers were 71 per cent and 62 per cent satisfied, and less than a quarter of active transportation users were unsatisfied.
Of the transit riders, 86 per cent said the city needed a more reliable transit system, and 77 per cent said they would like more frequent service.
Commuters who are drivers or use taxis or rideshares said they would consider using public transit if there was faster and more direct service (83 per cent) and more reliable transit service (78 per cent).
The city recently concluded its most recent OC Transpo public satisfaction survey, and the results will be presented to the city’s transit committee.
It wasn’t always this way; Ottawa’s transit system was once considered among the best in North America. During the 1980s and 1990s, the city’s Transitway network was widely praised as a model for bus rapid transit.
Shantz believes many of today’s issues stem from years of political decisions that prioritized compromise over long-term transit planning. She pointed to debates over rail routing and decisions to run parts of the LRT system through highway corridors instead of denser urban neighbourhoods.
“What did we do? We threw it up in the middle of a highway where nobody can walk to transit.”
Despite the challenges, both city officials and transit advocates say there is still hope that the system can recover. Leary said the plan is less about starting from scratch and more about redirecting the organization.
“OC Transpo has a solid foundation. There are good people here. They have the skills and passion to deliver quality service,” he said. “From here, we can build a transit system that our customers deserve and expect.”
For Sutcliffe, rebuilding trust will take time.
“People have been waiting a long time to see progress. I think what we’re trying to show people is there’s no overnight solution to problems that have been years in the making,” he said. “We want to show people that we’re making progress and, as Rick said, the foundation is in place for a brighter future for OC Transpo and for our customers.”
