After her 10-hour retail shift at Tanger Outlets, the last thing Monique Obasi wanted to do was wait for her ride home to the Morgan Grant neighbourhood in Kanata. So, at 9:45 p.m., Obasi hurried to the nearest bus stop.
In the home stretch of her run, she watched the bus speed past her stop, right in front of her eyes.
Clutching her belongings, she called the OC Transpo route inquiry line. “I always call the numbers at the stop to know how long it’s going to be,” she said. “The operator said the next bus would get there in like 10 minutes.”
Obasi would wait an hour and a half on a chilly evening for the next bus to arrive. “I didn’t take a big jacket to work because I didn’t think I would be waiting that long,” she said.
Obasi lives with her mother and her children. She says she only makes it home for dinner a few times a week.
“My mom puts the kids to sleep,” she said. “But it would be nice to tuck my own kids in every once in a while instead of waiting outside for a bus.”
Obasi spends an average of three hours riding and waiting for OC Transpo every day. She relies on the service to get to and from work, the grocery store and her home.
“I’m always just so physically drained by the end of the day,” she said. “It’s like clocking in for a shift at work, only to clock in for another shift on the bus.”
Over the years, OC Transpo has implemented several system changes, including 74,000 hours of service cuts in November 2023 and the axing of more than 200 Connexion routes that had served suburban communities across Ottawa.
Now, on April 27, OC Transpo is implementing its New Ways to Bus plan. And though the transit agency says the overall impact will be positive, commuters from Orleans to Kanata to Barrhaven and all stops in between are bracing for problems — including longer waits for some users.
The City of Ottawa says this project will be “the largest bus service change in the City’s history, impacting most customers and bus routes.”
The project includes more than 100 new routes aimed at connecting communities to O-Train lines, some only recently opened. Only 26 routes will not change and several times that number will be altered or eliminated.
Jamie Hamlin said the new plan makes her “nervous.”
“This is great if I want to get downtown, but I need to get groceries and move around in my own neighbourhood,” the Barrhaven resident said. “They keep changing or getting rid of the routes people need.”
Hamlin said she hopes this plan provides fast and reliable routes within the suburbs so she can stop using Uber.
“At this point, I’d rather waste money than waste time,” she said.
“Uber is draining a hole in my bank account, but at least it doesn’t take me three hours to get 15 minutes up the road.”
According to OC Transpo’s website, some residents may have to walk farther to reach a bus stop, but they’ll gain more options for travelling within their own community once there.
“You will see a shift from downtown-focused bus routes to routes that improve connections to community hubs and key destinations,” the website reads.
In a joint statement to Instagram, Free Transit Ottawa and Horizon Ottawa say adding more transfers and longer commutes will make OC Transpo “even less convenient and accessible.”
“As long as it wasn’t cancelled, the service counts as delivered – no matter how late,” the statement reads. “Without addressing traffic delays, buses still won’t show up on time.”
Free Transit Ottawa also broke down the New Ways to Bus changes on their website.
Shanna Hobbs says she frequently uses public transit to commute throughout the city.
“I don’t have access to a car every day, so I really do rely on that bus showing up on time, especially if I’m going somewhere important like school,” the Carleton University student said.
“I’ve kind of gotten used to sitting on the bus for a long time. It’s the waiting, especially outside in the cold, that I find annoying,” she said. “It just sucks because I don’t want to pay for an Uber, but I can’t keep wasting this much time every day.”
