Which communities benefit and lose from ‘New Ways to Bus’

It’s been one week since “New Ways to Bus” was launched in Ottawa, the biggest overhaul in OC Transpo history. Roughly 80 per cent of routes saw changes, either because they were cancelled, altered, or had new ones added. 

There are some wins and some losses, but OC Transpo has said it expects the updated system to increase reliability with a goal of reaching 99.5 per cent, compared to 96.9 per cent in March 2025. 

But there are cuts: There will be 74,000 fewer bus transit service hours per year. That’s a 3.5 per cent reduction in service. A portion of those — but not all — will be reallocated to the light rail transit system. Dozens of routes were cancelled including the 200 series buses which took passengers from the suburbs to the downtown core. 

Will it be worth it? OC Transpo has argued that since it will now be working within its means, commuters will notice a positive impact on their buses showing up on time. But as Brigitte Pellerin highlighted in an Ottawa Citizen column, the transit agency doesn't have enough resources to begin with. 

“First is the number of buses available relative to how many are needed on any given day to provide the service. The need is 540 vehicles. We have 519, thanks to a long maintenance backlog and insufficient workforce to address it. You don’t have to be a math genius to know this doesn’t add up,” wrote Pellerin. 

• “Then the buses that are on the road aren’t on time. In the last 12 months, 10 percent of trips arrived more than one minute early, and 16 per cent were more than five minutes late.“

Transitioning to local routes: A big part of the plan is a  focus on localized bus routes within communities instead of transporting people directly downtown. Many routes were also changed to take buses to Phase 2 light rail stations, rather than directly downtown. 

“You will see a shift from downtown-focused bus routes to routes that improve connections to community hubs and key destinations. Some customers may have to go further to the bus stop, have additional transfers to buses or trains, and/or have faster travel times,” says the OC Transpo website. 

• “In addition to fewer Connexion routes, some routes will be retired due to low ridership and to improve connections to new routes and the O-Train. Retired routes will be replaced with alternative service nearby.”

The downside: Many commuters will need to take more than one bus or train to get where they are going. Roman Hebert told the CBC he used to take the 99 from Barrhaven to Hurdman station, but now that route will only go to Limebank Station, where he will then need to hop on the LRT. 

•  "If the train goes down (with) no backup then we're kind of left stranded," Hebert said. "If a bus went down, you could always wait for the next bus 15, 20 minutes later and then get on with your day."

Councillors weigh in with their thoughts 

Over the last few weeks the Ottawa Lookout has sat down with various councillors from across the city to hear their thoughts. Overwhelmingly, the opinion is “New Ways to Bus” will only make the system worse not better, but some do have optimism. 

Wins and losses in Barrhaven 

If you ask transit riders where the worst service was, most would probably say Barrhaven. The community has struggled for a few reasons: One, it has a population of 100,000 people and two, the Greenbelt means it has a physical divide from the rest of the city. 

Former Barrhaven West Councillor Jan Harder used to make a fuss about the fact that it would take about 45 minutes from Farm Boy on Woodroffe to her office at the Walter Baker Centre by bus. For comparison, walking would take 51 minutes, or seven minutes by car. 

Today, the distance isn’t much better. The trip would take between 29 and 37 minutes, and would include a five to 10 minute walk and two buses. Another option would be to take a 23-minute walk and then hop on route 70, which would have a total travel time of 34 minutes. 

Barrhaven East Coun. Wilson Lo, who used to work as a bus operator and in communications for OC Transpo, said his feelings are mostly negative about the new bus routes. 

Lo said, on paper, the new routes look fine with expanded coverage around Barrhaven and trips every few minutes from Fallowfield Station during peak periods. But that’s not how it’s shaping out. 

“The practice has been very different. You have roots that were apparently scheduled without enough time to do it on time. You have a lot of bunching that has now started to happen at Tunney’s Pasture. There are large gaps in the afternoon with departures in the busiest hour of the day,” Lo told the Lookout. 

“Rush hour, we knew that peak hour travel was going to suffer from all the cuts from all the peak routes, but we were assured that there would be good enough frequency to offset those concerns. We just aren’t seeing that,” he added. 

But he noted there have also been a few wins. 

“A lot of the local service and a lot of the weekend service have improved. In Barhaven East, you used to have the 171 that ran three trips on Saturday and on Sunday. They were three hours apart each,” said Lo. “Now you have Route 70 that runs all day. It has also eliminated the necessity to transfer when you're going east to west or west to east because previously everyone had to get off at Marketplace to continue west towards the Costco.”

A benefit to the east end 

In the east end of Ottawa, Beacon Hill-Cyrville Coun. Tim Tierney has a much more positive view of the updated system. 

“Before there were a lot of buses in my area that were cancelled, major spine routes, like the 12, for example, that were cancelled on a regular basis. While maybe the bus was running 20 minutes before, there was no guarantee that the bus would show up and that would turn into 40 minutes,” recalled Tierney. ”Touch on wood, I haven't had any cancellations yet. That is a big, big difference.”

Tierney did note that there are some areas that are facing tough impacts because of cancelled service. To help minimize that, he’d like to see on-demand service piloted in those areas, something that was originally started in Blackburn Hamlet. 

“Route 26, specifically, was eliminated. I feel it's a little disingenuous, when they say, it's five minutes to get to a local bus. If you go to Google Maps, it's very clear it's at least 11 minutes to walk to a bus. And if you're a senior — which we do have many in the Pineview area — that is not acceptable,” said Tierney. “I've got a commitment from OC Transpo general manager René Amilcar, who’s going to speak to the community next month. It’s my hope we could put on-demand service there.” 

The city has recently received some maintenance costs from the federal government and there is talk of the province soon taking over the costs of Ottawa’s light rail transit system. While neither are direct operating costs, money can be redistributed to free up funds to help with initiatives such as on-demand transit. 

Difficulty for students in Gloucester-Southgate 

In Gloucester-Southgate, one of the most significant changes is with route 93 which took students from Blossom Park to St. Francis Xavier High School in Riverside South. 

As South Keys area resident Joshua Lovell told CTV in April, his 12-year-old daughter used to take the roughly 35-minute bus ride from their home to the school. But current changes will mean the Grade 7 student will need to take two buses with a transfer at the LRT station, resulting in a one hour journey. 

“She freaked out. She was crying. She didn’t want to go to school,” said Lovell. “We don’t know what’s going to happen anymore because the biggest thing was there was security knowing she was on a bus that was only for students.”

The Ottawa Catholic School Board has expressed concerns with the route. In total, about 20,000 middle and high school students from across the city take public transit to and from school.  

Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Jessica Bradley said they are currently working on a solution. She also noted she’s less than impressed with the route review. 

“When you introduce high-capacity rail into a community, which we did, we got four new stations within Gloucester-Southgate alone. But then also as you go further south, OC Transpo tends to take their bus network and push everyone to rail to get onto the high capacity system,” Bradley told the Lookout. ”So where we may have had more direct routes to different areas, now you're likely introducing a commute to get from rail to wherever you were going and then you might have another bus at the end.”

Bradley said she understands the need for OC Transpo to work within its means, but said cutting service is not a way to bring in new riders. (OC Transpo argues they can bring in new riders if people give the system a chance, therefore generating more revenue). 

“We've created this Official Plan where we are trying to support vibrant communities, give developers options, and reduce the cost of housing. If we want to support the policies that we set out in our Official Plan and in our new zoning bylaws, then let's provide the funding and investments required,” said Bradley. 

A mixed bag in River Ward 

Next door in River Ward, Coun. Riley Brockington said while the overall feeling of “New Ways to Bus" is negative, there are some wins and losses. A con? Some shorter routes have been cancelled altogether. But a win is that ervice has been restored along the Prince of Wales corridor. 

“There's an old bus route three that was disbanded in 2011. As soon as I came into office that was the number one transit priority to bring service to the Hogs Back and Carleton Heights communities. So that is good news,” said Brockington. 

But no matter how OC Transpo tries to spin it as a positive, Brockington said this will bring further negatives to an already struggling transit organization. 

“We have not hit rock bottom yet — at least that was until ‘New Ways to Bus' was implemented on April 27,” he said. 

The River Ward representative said he’s fine cutting service temporarily if it means taking the savings and using them later to enhance routes. But is that what’s really happening? 

“OC Transpo’s standard line is ‘well, we'll monitor the situation and, you know, after X number of months make some tweaks here and there.’ There's just no big giant pot of money to start adding service to any great degree unless there's some sort of budget amendment,” said Brockington. 

He also noted concerns about the lack of advertising around the service changes. Brockington said he hosted two trade fairs at Brookfield and St. Pius X. High School where he said students were surprised to hear their routes would be changing. 

A reduction of service in Alta Vista 

Alta Vista Ward Coun. Marty Carr said service was better in her neighbourhood before light rail transit ever opened in the city. She said while the city has been putting most of its investment in the trains, it is providing little relief to her residents. 

“There's a small piece of my ward served by Tremblay Station, but for the most part, most of us used to travel on buses directly downtown. Then with the introduction of the LRT, we all had to bus to Herdman,” said Carr. “In some cases, now we'll have to take two buses to get to Herman, so you've turned a trip downtown into three trips when it used to be only one.”

A rollback of service in Kitchissippi 

Jeff Leiper, the city councillor for Kitchissippi Ward, said he doesn’t want anyone to be under the false illusion that “New Ways to Bus” will bring more frequent service or more comprehensive service to commuters. 

“We are losing route 53. For folks who are used to catching a bus on Churchill, there are some significant numbers of people who are going to need to walk to Kirkwood to catch a bus,” noted Leiper. “The other big change that I'm nervous about is that the number 11 is going to start serving Bayview Station, which means there are additional movements for the bus turns that I am hoping will not significantly delay it. They are adjusting the schedule to take that extra time into account.”

For residents in the northern section of Mechanicsville, they are seeing service cuts due to low ridership. For commuters there, they will need to walk further to catch a bus to Tunney’s Pasture.  

Leiper believes a more reliable service will help bring back commuters, but it can’t be the only saving grace for transit. 

”We need to start looking at how we make the system truly attractive and not just a last resort. That means more comprehensive, more frequent routes. And we need to start holding the line on price as well,” said Leiper. “We had a significant fare increase in this budget. I know that it was necessary in order to try to stabilize public transit's revenues. But we cannot continue to have high price hikes without turning riders away. But when you squint, you can see what public transit could be.“

To ride public transit in Ottawa, it will now cost $4.00 per person. An adult pass has climbed to $135, a youth pass is $104, and a seniors pass is $58.25.