As OC Transpo misses targets, Ottawa riders left waiting in the cold

Carleton University student Brooke Anderson relies on OC Transpo for her long commutes to campus from Kanata but is often stuck waiting in the cold waiting for her bus to show up.

“I was recently waiting for a bus that didn’t arrive and my fingers were frozen,” Anderson said. “At the best of times, it’s insult to injury, and at the worst of times it’s an actual health issue.”

As OC Transpo continues to miss its reliability targets, experiences like Anderson’s have become common across the transit system.

While most bus stops offer little protection from Ottawa’s frigid temperatures, OC Transpo has heat lamps at a handful of major transit stations across the city to help keep riders warm. Could that be a way to help riders out of the cold?

River Ward Coun. Riley Brockington said adding more heat lamps to the network could be pricey, and the city needs to address the root cause of the problem.

“We have to increase the frequency of buses,” Brockington said. “Retrofitting our portable shelters with heaters is likely not possible.”

Riverside South-Findlay Creek Coun. Steve Desroches echoed that view, saying installing heat lamps at every stop is not practical. With more than 2,000 bus shelters across the city, Desroches said riders in suburban communities consistently tell him service expansion and reliability should come first.

Installing a heating element at an OC Transpo stop costs the city anywhere between $600 and $1,200, depending on the kilowatt and voltage, according to city spokesperson Katrina Camposarcone-Stubbs.

The cost to maintain OC Transpo’s current heat lamps ranges from about $40,000 to $100,000 every year, depending on the number of heat lamps that need replacing, Camposarcone-Stubbs confirmed to the Citizen.

Barrhaven East Coun. Wilson Lo, who is a former bus driver, said improving bus service should be the priority, but wants to explore implementing more shelters that are covered from the ground to ceiling.

“The chief complaints that I get about our existing bus shelters is that the wind rips right through them,” Lo said. “We used to have bus shelters that were sealed around the bottom, and at some of our busier transit stations, we still have that.”

“I think even something like that would make a lot of difference for people waiting inside the shelter,” he added.

Anderson said she understands the budget constraints the city faces but would like to see more done to make sure she isn’t waiting in the cold for a bus that may not even show up.

Earlier this year, Anderson founded a Carleton University branch of the advocacy group, Ottawa Transit Riders, to push for more reliable transportation for students.

The Carleton group has already made an appearance at the city’s transit committee and hopes to highlight the problems students face riding public transportation, including being stuck waiting in the cold.

“With the election coming up, I think there is the opportunity to make this a central issue,” Anderson said. “This is a system that can be great but only with the right investment and right leadership.”

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