Ottawa city council says no to shorter LRT wait times, here’s why

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A motion to reverse service cuts on the Confederation Line LRT was narrowly defeated by city council Wednesday, with Mayor Mark Sutcliffe casting the deciding vote.

Council voted 13-12 to defeat a motion by Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Sean Devine that would have immediately increased off-peak service on the Confederation Line to one train every seven minutes instead of the current 10-minute intervals. Trains had been running every five minutes on the line until July, when OC Transpo reduced frequency to every 10 minutes between 9 a.m and 3 p.m. and from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

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The cut — Transit General Manager Renée Amilcar calls it a “service adjustment” — will save $600,000 in 2024 and $1.6 million over a full year. Running trains every eight minutes at off-peak hours would save $1.2 million annually and every seven minutes would save $800,000.

OC Transpo is facing a $25-million operating deficit this year.

Sutcliffe said he voted against Devine’s motion as a “matter of principle” and to give Amilcar and OC Transpo the freedom to decide the best way to operate.

“We have a team at OC Transpo that we’ve delegated authority to make decisions about the frequency of service. They’re the experts,” Sutcliffe told reporters after Wednesday’s meeting.

“They made the decision to reduce the frequency … based on what they view as in the best interest of the service, a sustainable service, and the best interest of their passengers. They made those decisions. We’re not going to make them for them.”

The vote came after a lengthy debate and considerable legislative manoeuvring. Initially Coun. Jeff Leiper brought a motion to restore five-minute service on the Confederation Line once the north-south Trillium Line began running. That motion was upended by another motion from transit commission chair Glen Gower to have OC Transpo review and possibly adjust train frequency once it had solid data on how the return to office by federal public servants three days a week was affecting ridership. (Devine’s defeated motion would also have allowed OC Transpo to adjust its train schedule after assessing back-to-office ridership.)

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Gower’s motion was passed by council in a 14-11 vote, largely divided along council’s urban and suburban/rural split.

Urban councillors said a 10-minute wait for a train was too long and broke the city’s original promise of “rapid and frequent” LRT service. Shift workers and university students, whose travel times don’t coincide with morning and afternoon rush hours, are particularly affected by the less frequent trains.

Suburban councillors, meanwhile, complained of overloaded buses heading downtown and residents left stranded at park-and-rides.

“We don’t have an unlimited amount of money,” Gower told reporters after the meeting. “We’re already well over budget. We want to make sure we focus on areas where the need is greatest, and right now that need is greatest in our bus network, less so in off-peak hours of LRT.”

Gower said councillors needed more information and shouldn’t be making decisions “based on our gut feeling.”

“It’s too early right now to understand the effect of return to office, not just on the LRT, but on bus ridership across the whole network. So I want to see more information before we jump in and make a decision,” he said.

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There was one glimmer of hope for train riders. Fixes for the troublesome wheels on Confederation Line trains and improvements to the tracks should eventually eliminate the need for speed reductions that have been in place near uOttawa and Hurdman stations, slowing trains to a jogging pace. When those restrictions are removed, the 10-minute frequency should be reduced to eight minutes, Pat Scrimgeour, OC Transpo’s director of transit customer systems and planning, told councillors.

Scrimgeour could not say, however, when the speed restrictions might end.

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