{"id":488872,"date":"2026-02-21T01:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488872\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T01:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T01:24:09","slug":"ottawas-bus-and-lrt-service-heres-the-latest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/488872\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa’s bus and LRT service: Here’s the latest"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OC Transpo says it’s hopeful Ottawa’s bus service will return to normal by early spring.<\/p>\n

But a month since it pulled several LRT train cars off Line 1 because of a newly detected wheel assembly issue, OC Transpo says it remains difficult to predict when that line will get back to full capacity. <\/p>\n

“We’ll do so when it’s safe to do so,” Troy Charter, the city’s acting head of transit services, said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Charter’s update came during the latest weekly briefing to bring Ottawans up to speed on the service’s ongoing bus and LRT performance issues.<\/p>\n

Bus reliability hit a low point in early January, with hundreds of trips cancelled. A fleet of aging buses requiring maintenance work is a factor there. <\/p>\n

There’s a seemingly daunting backlog of required work, as a slide presented to city council’s transit committee last week suggested. <\/p>\n

\"It'sIt’s the red part that’s key. Those bars refer to the backlog of needed labour required on OC Transpo buses, a trend that’s expected to improve as new buses are brought online. (OC Transpo)<\/p>\n

As new buses, including electric buses, finally get delivered to Ottawa, that situation is expected to improve. <\/p>\n

Charter added on Friday that four new buses are now available for service, which will help increase the number of available buses. <\/p>\n

Beyond that, 89 new e-buses are expected to be available for service by the end of March. <\/p>\n

“I think we’re still going to be challenged a little bit for several more weeks,” Charter said. “I expect that [by] early spring … customers will really start to notice a difference in terms of the performance.”<\/p>\n

\"TroyTroy Charter, the acting head of OC Transpo, speaks during the latest briefing on transit service on Friday. (CBC)Still at 21 train cars on Line 1<\/p>\n

When it comes to Ottawa’s LRT service, Line 1 is down from the usual 26 train cars needed to meet regular peak demand.<\/p>\n

That’s been the case since late January when OC Transpo pulled a number of cars off the line after it detected a new wheel assembly issue \u2014 different from the problem that caused a pair of Line 1 derailments in 2021.<\/p>\n

OC Transpo continues to work with Rideau Transit Group (RTG), the consortium responsible for maintaining Line 1, and Alstom, the train manufacturer, on a fix for both performance issues, Charter said on Friday.<\/p>\n

Only 21 train cars are currently operating on Line 1, which has been the case for more than a week, though Charter said Line 1 service continues to operate at three- to four-minute frequency during peak periods.<\/p>\n

“I know that customers want to see immediate improvements in the service, but the work we’re undertaking is complex and unfortunately it cannot be rushed,” Charter said. <\/p>\n

RTG and Alstom have both been asked to join Charter during a future weekly briefing, he added.<\/p>\n

“They do want to [speak] to it. But at this point in time it’s a little bit too early for them to come forward because we’re still doing all that analysis [into the problems] and determining the path forward.” <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-488872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}