Ottawa’s struggling transit system has become a daily frustration for riders, from the thousands of cancelled bus trips to ongoing light rail disruptions. Part of the issue has come from reducing service on some routes and running fewer buses.
In February, OC Transpo cancelled 6,501 bus trips, with another 1,020 trips cancelled during the week of March 1-7. After Line 1 LRT service was cancelled last week following damage caused by freezing rain, nearly 500 regular bus trips had to be cancelled and rerouted to replace rail service.
With so much uncertainty and turmoil, College Ward Coun. Laine Johnson fears the decrease in service will only keep riders away rather than helping OC Transpo sustain and then grow the system.
In a recent blog post, the Nepean councillor said the solution isn’t to scale back, but to double down and invest in transit so commuters see it as a realistic alternative to driving.
“We do not have enough space in the city to build enough roads to accommodate everyone buying a car. And that’s actually what we’re feeling right now. That is congestion,” Johnson told the Ottawa Lookout.
“So we’re in a transition, and we need to have the courage at council to try and make that transition as short as possible, which actually means being unapologetically devoted to investing in transit, even in the face of its challenges.”
To do that, Johnson said the city needs to re-evaluate how many buses are needed in the fleet to cover for maintenance issues and LRT replacement buses when the train system is down.
She also wants to see the re-establishment of commuter express routes — at least until the LRT east and west extensions are both fully operational and the system is running a full complement of trains and cars.
Many communities, including Bells Corners, saw many of their routes cut or eliminated during the pandemic. Later, the 200 series routes were eliminated when ‘New Ways to Bus’ was implemented last April.
Developing around transit
At a time when Ottawa is developing rapidly to keep up with forecasted population growth, Johnson wants to see the rejection of urban sprawl that forces the city to expand its transit services beyond its current limits.
Ottawa is poised to grow by half its current population of one million in the next 25 years. To keep up with demand, development applications are popping up across Ottawa, including in College Ward, where six buildings are proposed for the site where the current Ottawa Citizen building sits on Baxter Road near the Pinecrest Mall.
It would add about 1,400 units to the area, with planning documents stating its location next to the future LRT makes it an ideal spot for housing.
“Given this proximity, the expectation is that future residents will prioritize the benefits of a walking lifestyle and therefore the center of the community is focused on pedestrian paths and spaces,” the document read.
The development should be a good news story, said Johnson, who noted the response has been more negative because of the cynicism around transit.
“People are worried there's going to be 1,400 new cars trying to get in and out of Baxter, which is obviously a small road, not suited to accommodate that many folks,” she said. “That's a real bummer because this proposal has density near the Queensway, away from residential, which is doing all the things that our Official Plan is asking us to do.”
Progress on Baseline BRT
Another priority Johnson would like to see the city invest in is bus rapid transit. Several projects have already been envisioned, including a Carling and Baseline BRT.
When it’s fully built out, there will be dedicated bus-only lanes stretching from Bayshore through Baseline Station to the Herongate community. It would stretch 13.8 kilometres and add 24 new bus stations along the route.
Despite receiving council approval in 2017, the project has moved slowly. During this year's budget discussions, money was earmarked for the Baseline transit project, and it's included in the updated Transportation Master Plan, which sets a roadmap for what the council should prioritize over the next 25 years.
“The reason they did that [earmarked money] was that they had been working on putting in the application for the permanent transit fund for the federal portion,” said Johnson. “Since then, the federal government has folded the permanent transit fund into their community strong building infrastructure fund.
“It’s now a matter of pivoting that application to that new program, but it's still eligible,” she continued. “I think it’s closer than it’s ever been.”
Johnson said she recently spoke with a local MP, who left her hopeful that shovels will be in the ground once the financial commitment is made.
Currently, Baseline Road is slow-moving—if not stopped—during rush hour. That is also part of the reason why some bus trips get cancelled after getting stalled in traffic, said Johnson.
She has heard from residents in Briargreen who work in the federal office buildings near Baseline and Merivale Road. What should be an easy transit route is not, forcing them to drive their cars instead.
“It’s ridiculous because Route 88 is a straight shot down Baseline, and they don’t even need to transfer. But they don’t take it because of the connection,” noted Johnson.
When a previous Transportation Master Plan was released in 2013, Baseline Transitway was the highest-scoring Bus Rapid Transit project, and a report to council in 2025 found that the Baseline area has high transit ridership that exceeds pre-pandemic levels and recovered faster than other corridors.
The same report suggested that the BRT would help serve an estimated 24,000 new residents who are expected to move to the corridor.
