OC Transpo appears to have taken another step away from its zero-emission bus plan with the approval of a motion to consider buying diesel and diesel-electric buses in the future.
Barrhaven East Coun. Wilson Lo submitted the motion to the transit committee in September. Originally, his motion would have made staff consider buying zero-emission buses only in 2026, but he changed the motion to apply it to all future procurements, during a committee meeting on Nov. 24.
The motion passes unanimously.
Lo told Capital Current city staff will now have more flexibility when deciding which buses to purchase. It doesn’t prevent them from buying e-buses, but staff can now buy diesel alternatives if needed, he said.
“When we start procuring new buses, and if it turns out by then that the electric option is the best option … then city staff are still free to pursue that,” Lo said.
But the decision doesn’t get OC Transpo any closer to meeting its 2036 goal of a zero-emission bus fleet.
In 2021, OC Transpo launched its zero-emission bus program, pledging to have 450 e-buses on the road by 2027 and a zero-emission fleet by 2036. The plan was to phase out OC Transpo’s aging diesel fleet with e-buses.
Since then, OC Transpo has encountered numerous delays with e-bus deliveries.
These delays have been caused by a number of complications, including pandemic-era supply chain issues and restrictions on in-person factory work, tariffs, high demand as many cities look to transition to e-buses, and the extensive customization required for every e-bus order.
In 2024, the transit company adjusted its e-bus plans for 2027 to 350 e-buses on the road. To meet its most recent timeline, OC Transpo should have 106 total e-buses before the end of the year.
Currently, it has 31.
Also in 2024, OC Transpo pivoted from buying a mix of 60- and 40-foot e-buses to exclusively 40-foot ones.
According to a report, the city decided to abandon 60-foot e-buses because they are largely unavailable in the market, as only a few manufacturers make high-capacity e-buses. Additionally, they have not had much, if any, real-world testing.
But instead of buying double the number of 40-foot e-buses, the city decided in November to buy 50 diesel 60-foot buses.
Lo said replacing bigger e-buses with multiple shorter ones wouldn’t be possible with the number of available bus drivers and also wouldn’t help with overcrowding on popular routes.
“The person who’s left behind at a stop [because of overcrowded buses] is still going to be waiting,” he said.
OC Transpo’s bus fleet is in a “dire situation,” Lo said.
Many of OC Transpo’s buses have reached the end of their lifespan, so replacement buses are needed. E-bus delivery delays have only stretched the company thinner.
“We don’t even have enough vehicles right now to operate the service that’s advertised, let alone improve and expand on the service,” Lo said.
Angela Keller-Herzog, the executive director for Community Action for Environmental Sustainability, said Lo’s motion was disappointing.
“It breaks the direction that we’re trying to move to — a 100 per cent electric fleet,” she said. “There is a past council decision that we’re on the path to electrifying our buses, and that should be affirmed, that should not be undermined.”
“The electrification of bus strategy is very much in the City of Ottawa’s interest,” she added. “So we’ll have lower costs. We’ll have less pollution.”
Nick Grover, climate change organizer at Ecology Ottawa, said his major concern is with OC Transpo having enough buses to deliver service, not with whether they are electric or diesel.
“What we really need is more buses, period,” Grover said. “If it’s electric, great, if it’s diesel, that’s still good because the more frequent bus service becomes, the more people will actually start to take it and they will stop driving their cars, which is the biggest source of emissions that we have.”
The City of Ottawa last looked at greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, and back then, transportation was the second biggest cause of community emissions. Buildings took first place.
Alexandra Mallett, a Carleton University professor of sustainable energy and climate, said that transportation emissions decreased a lot in 2020 because of the pandemic and lockdown, and she would expect current numbers to be a lot higher.
For the city’s own emissions, transit was the highest source.
Mallett said that OC Transpo will need to do more than just rely on e-buses to reduce emissions.
“I think if OC Transpo paid more attention to reliability and convenience and keeping the cost down … it would be beneficial in the long run,” she said.
Mallett said e-buses are better than diesel for the environment, but if OC Transpo’s ridership continues to dwindle, it won’t really matter how many e-buses are running.
“If you need some diesel buses or hybrid buses, hybrid-electric, I say go for it, because the more that people get out of public transit and depend on a car, then they might not go back to it,” she said.
“People need to be confident … that it’s going to be reliable, convenient, etc. And so if people don’t have that perception, then they’re going to move more towards private vehicles,” Mallett said.
With its present fleet riddled with maintenance and availability issues, focusing on its e-bus fleet over reliability will be more of a “detriment” for OC Transpo, Mallett added.
Lo said that while he doesn’t think OC Transpo will have a zero-emission fleet by 2036, he thinks the transit company will meet the City of Ottawa’s target of 2040.
“I think the zero emissions, the electric bus goal, is something that we should continue to aspire towards. But we also need to put a more realistic lens on, in terms of being able to provide that service.” Lo said.
OC Transpo did not respond to questions about e-bus targets in time for publication.
