Nigro: Four ways to make Ottawa public transit more reliable

Ottawa is a place with so many good things happening. I fell in love with this city back in the 1980s when my elementary school in rural Niagara took a field trip here. Fast-forward to the 2010s and I jumped at the chance to move here. I don’t regret it.

As a woman who’s “carless by choice,” I like using transit, although the deteriorating quality of service is changing that feeling. It saddens me to see the fall in transit ridership since COVID, but we shouldn’t be surprised that people have stopped using it, given OC Transpo’s shortcomings. The idea of a steep fare hike that the mayor has floated feels like price-gouging and would likely turn more people away, especially our city’s most vulnerable – the ones who rely on transit because they can’t afford anything else.

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Why isn’t anyone thinking of improvements? There are things that can be done to turn the tide. The city could make real improvements for not much money.

One would be to expand and modernize bus shelters. More are needed, and please ensure they have seats. To further modernize, solar panels could be installed on their roofs to heat them during the winter and cool them in the summer. At night the panels could even light the shelters (I’ve seen the solar panel bus shelter lights at a bus stop in the small town I grew up in; if rural Niagara can do it, why not us?). Why not try piloting this innovation at a few stops?

A second would be to install more bus lanes to improve reliability and speed. Businesses: do not worry about losing customers if parking spaces are lost to bus lanes. Studies have shown that business increases when bus lanes are installed. People either find other places to park or start taking transit to their favourite places. Give humans more credit for being adaptable to changing urban landscapes.

A third would be to provide real-time information at bus stops, not just LRT stations. When I moved here, the travel planner was so accurate; now it’s just a mere estimate. What happened? The texting service doesn’t always function, and the most marginalized in our midst may not even have a cellphone to text with. I realize equipping stops with real-time info won’t always function either, but at least lower-income people will be serviced, and riders will have an alternate means to get information.

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Fourth, and finally, would be expanding off-peak service. When I moved here, route 11 was reliable and frequent. Now it couldn’t keep its schedule if a life depended on it. I don’t fault the drivers for this. They are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances. The 153 is a great connector route, especially for seniors, and it could take a lot of stress off the 11 if only it ran more frequently than every hour or two — or at all past 7:30 pm.

If OC Transpo wants to appeal to anyone outside the 9-to-5 commuter pool, it could take a cue from Edmonton and Calgary. Both places have increased off-peak service hours since COVID