“We recognize that this has been disruptive and time consuming for residents and all road users,” said an OC Transpo representative. “We know that traffic disruptions have been impactful and frustrating for everyone.”

“My team is focused on doing better for residents,” they said. “We are taking a detailed review of our procedures for planning, coordinating, and communicating traffic impacts.”

Despite delays, work is moving forward on both east and west end extensions. For the west extension, transit staff highlighted that testing, commissions, and Line 1 integration is done.

The next step will be trial running, but this is paused until a sufficient number of carriages can be made ready.

“So, right now we’ve got 33–34 single car trains that are available for service,” said Troy Charter, Associate General Manager of OC Transpo. “We need a minimum of 46 single car trains to go into trial running to assess the service levels outlined in the project agreement.”

On the west end extension, OC Transpo staff was able to provide a more concrete timeline. “Bus loop construction is underway at Algonquin, Bayshore, Moody, Pine Crest, Lincoln Fields, and Westboro Stations, and is expected to be near completion by the end of the year,” a staff member said.

Coun. Wilson Lo (Barrhaven East) wondered about possible synergies between east and west extensions.

“When the east launches – the changes to the bus network in the east – is that going to free up any resources that we can reallocate perhaps to benefit the west?” asked Lo.

OC Transpo representatives explained that it would depend on the city’s needs.

“There will be a small number of buses that will be freed up,” they said. “What we do with them will depend on the observed travel needs at that time, and the state of the bus fleet.”

Exact timelines for various upgrades to the O-Train will be clarified at the next technical briefing. So far, city councillors generally agree that work on the project is progressing.

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The Master Plan (TMP) is the city’s long-range strategy that is meant to guide Ottawa’s transportation system up until 2046, and council has officially approved Part 2 of the plan, which focuses on capital infrastructure.

While Part 1 was approved in April 2023 and outlines policies and priorities for transportation in Ottawa, Part 2 is based on travel demand forecasting and includes approximately $3.4 billion in city-led transportation projects.

The plan outlines $2.3 billion in transit projects and $1.6 billion in road projects, with active transportation projects like pedestrian and cycling networks accounting for $350 million.

According to the city’s Official Plan, Ottawa is projected to increase by over 400,000 residents over the next 20 years, with 47 per cent of new dwellings built with intensification, mostly inside the city’s Greenbelt. According to the staff report, the TMP identifies the transportation policies and investments that will be required to support the projected growth.

The forecasts for transportation in Ottawa also take into account post-pandemic shifts to working from home, leading to “evolving and diverse transportation needs”, the report says.

The plan allocates $8 million annually to implement “the most critical isolated measures”.

During the mayoral election, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe campaigned largely on road-centred infrastructure and shared priorities among drivers, especially those living in suburban neighbourhoods. But according to the TMP, road investments were only considered “where transit would not be sufficient to meet demand.”

Some of the projects among “highest-priority” are the Baseline-Heron, Cumberland and Kanata North Transitways and bus lanes on Carling Avenue, Blair Road, St-Laurent Boulevard and Montreal Road, as are the O-Train extensions.

The rapid bus projects will be injected with $2.3 billion from the city, city staff said, and the rest will be funded by other levels of government.

The O-Train Line 1 extension from Algonquin Station to Barrhaven Town Centre and the Line 3 extension from Moodie Station to Hazeldean Station are also included among the highest of the priorities, accounting for an additional $8.3 billion in investment.

The report notes that the implementation of these extensions “remains fully reliant on funding from other levels of government.”

“However, even with 100 per cent capital funding, the operating costs of these projects are very significant,” the report continues, “and are not expected to be substantially offset by increased fare revenue from these extensions.

These projects are all part of the “Priority Transit Network” and are meant to be implemented in the next 20 years.

City administration recommended the entire network be submitted for funding from the Canada Public Transit Fund.

The plan also includes committed road projects, like the Bank Street widening project and Robert Grant Avenue extension.

Notably, the TMP refers to the Official Plan’s target of having the majority of trips in Ottawa made by walking, cycling transit or carpooling. The latest data from the a 2022 city survey said sustainable moves currently account for 43.4 per cent of trips.

Once implemented, the TMP will add approximately 43 kilometres of O-Train tracks, 111 kilometres of Transitway and continuous bus lanes, 68 kilometres of road widenings and new roads, 48 kilometres of sidewalks, 18 kilometres of pathways and 151 kilometres of cycling facilities.

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This latest step marks the completion of the phased opening plan, which began with weekday service on Jan. 6, increasing to include service on Saturdays on Jan. 25. The opening plan was developed based on public inquiry report recommendations, lessons learned, and third-party recommendations.

“Throughout this process, OC Transpo has been closely monitoring the performance of all system elements,” said Renée Amilcar, general manager of Transit Services in a memo.

With this latest step, the O-Train will run from 6 a.m. to midnight Monday to Friday, 6:30 a.m. to midnight on Saturdays, and 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Sundays.

OC Transpo will continue to monitor the system and phase out parallel bus service as train ridership increases.

At a recent check-in, Katrina Camposarcone-Stubbs, public information officer at the City of Ottawa Transit Services Department, told Ottawa Compass the phased opening approach allowed staff to “work out the bugs” in the system before opening for full service.

Since service expanded to six-day service, OC Transpo and TransitNext has evolved operations to address concerns, including by increasing staffing levels, growing familiarity for operators with severe winter conditions, quick response to disruptions from maintenance teams, full fleet availability and efficient maintenance, upgrades to switch infrastructure, which helps with winter operations, and improving customer information systems.

At the four-week mark, more than 300,000 trips had been taken on the O-Train, OC Transpo told the newly renamed Transit Committee this month. 

OC Transpo also reported a 69 per cent increase in usage of local Park and Rides and decreased use of parallel bus services as customers become more familiar and confident with the O-Train system.

On the campaign trail, Premier Doug Ford vowed to upload Ottawa’s LRT system to the province. It’s unclear if this would include the O-Train Lines 2 and 4, which are diesel-operated, rather than high-frequency like the Line 1 LRT. 

Ford was re-elected for another term on Feb. 26, and as the province awaits news of his cabinet appointments for this mandate, the City of Ottawa has maintained that Ford’s announcement was “part of the provincial election campaign”.

“The City of Ottawa has not entered into any formal negotiations with the Province,” said city manager Wendy Stephanson in a memo. “It would be premature to speculate on details at this time.”

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The train first launched for weekday service, then extended to offer six-day services on Jan. 25. At the four-week mark, more than 300,000 trips had been taken on the O-Train, OC Transpo told the newly renamed Transit Committee this month. 

OC Transpo also reported a 69 per cent increase in usage of local Park and Rides and decreased use of parallel bus services as customers become more familiar and confident with the O-Train system.

Looking back at the last few months, Katrina Camposarcone-Stubbs, public information officer at the City of Ottawa Transit Services Department, told Ottawa Compass that the train has seen a “promising turnout” but hasn’t been without “learning opportunities.”

“On January 6, we saw some really great turnout of riders on those first few days of service, and we continue to see an increase in ridership all along the first several weeks,” she said. “We’ve continued to see great results in terms of folks getting on the system and using it.”

The O-Train is using a phased opening approach and is waiting to launch seven-day service until the system “works out the bugs” that have come up. For example, there have been technical errors in the digital displays and signage at stations and on trains that the O-Train team has been working on.

“We’re going to find little bugs along the way, right? It’s really different from having a system where our team is training and operating and using every single day for months and months as when customers are on it,” she explained. “People are going on and off the train all day, the doors are opening, they’re closing, the information systems or the updates are catching these little bugs while people are using it and seeing how the system is operating

“It’s also not ideal to open a system in the winter, but it’s also a really good learning opportunity to say, ‘Okay, let’s see how it’s going to work in the worst weather possible. Instead of opening in the summer and then seeing how it works in the worst weather possible six months later,” she continued. 

With the phased approach, the teams have been able to spend Sundays, when the train isn’t operating, working to improve and update software to address the errors. 

The snowstorms last week also presented some challenges, Camposarcone-Stubbs said, but the team was prepared.

“It was really challenging for everyone in every mode of transportation around the city, whether you were taking the bus or the car. So we know it was hard for everyone, just with the extreme blowing winds and the snow that fell. So we did see some challenges on lines two and line four that involved blowing snow along the tracks that impacted the switches,” she explained. “Our teams were out there all evening and during the day clearing snow, but the winds were so strong that they would clear it, and it would just be packed with snow again. So that’s one of those things that we’re looking at. 

“It’s all about learning, ‘how can we optimize our operations to ensure this doesn’t happen?’,” she added.

The O-Train is also a more “robust” system than the LRT, she explained, because instead of being light-rail, the trains are heavier and diesel-operated and can navigate snow more easily.

“We were anticipating bad weather, and there could be unexpected aspects but our team does so many scenarios and emergency response preparations that for us, nothing is a surprise,” Camposarcone-Stubbs said. “We have a plan in place.”

At the committee meeting, Renée Amilcar, general manager of Transit Services, updated members about the O-Train project and phased opening.

“The road ahead for transit in Ottawa is exciting,” she said. “We have been very busy since 2022 and we have so much more in store for our transit system.”

Lines two and four will open for seven-day service once OC Transpo is confident that the technical issues have been addressed and the teams are well-equipped for the next phase.

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Starting Jan. 25, the O-Train south from Bayview station to Limebank and Airport stations will be open on Saturdays after nearly a month of weekday-only service.

Transition bus service will continue to run alongside lines 2 and 4, including for a period of time after seven-day service begins, to help passengers adjust to the new services.

This is the second phase of the O-Train opening to the public and will last a minimum of two weeks. In a memo, OC Transpo general manager Renee Amilcar said service has been operating “as planned” and has been “closely monitored.”

The memo also said any “minor delays” to the train have been responded to quickly by both OC Transpo and the TransitNext, which maintains the system. In particular, Amilcar said a train on line 4 encountered technical issues on Jan. 13, and the system was briefly paused. 

RELATED: Slowly but surely: OC Transpo says reliable, transparent O-Train operations key to rebuilding trust with the public

“OC Transpo and TransitNext responded efficiently and restored service on one track, until the impacted train was replaced and full service resumed,” she said. “All aspects are being reviewed to capture lessons learned and make adjustments where possible.”

During this phase, operator training to “improve the stability of customer information systems” will continue.

“While these remain early days, the operational performance and customer interest in trying the new lines 2 and 4 continue to be encouraging,” the memo added. 

The changes come as the cost of the seniors’ monthly OC Transpo pass is set to increase to $58.25 on Feb. 1.

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The O-Train welcomed passengers for the morning commute for the first time in about five years. 

The south extension, also known as the Trillium Line, has opened for public use as part of a phased opening approach and provided rail service from Bayview to Limebank stations, and South Keys to Airport Stations on Monday.

At a virtual media availability Tuesday, Amilcar said it is “too soon to tell” if the train is on track for the phased opening, but that “we’re very happy with what we see.”

“We know we will have some issues, so we will continue to monitor,” she said in response to a question from Ottawa Compass. “We will keep you posted.”

The O-Train is already being tested with winter weather conditions, launching with sub-zero temperatures this week. Ice and snow have been detrimental to operations of the Confederation Line LRT in the past, but Amilcar and Troy Charter, director of Transit Service Delivery and Rail Operations, said they’re implementing “lessons learned” for the Trillium Line.

“Winter does pose some additional challenges, whether for trains or buses… But we have robust plans in place,” said Charter. “A lot of efforts have been taken to improve resiliency on the Confederation Line… We’ve applied those lessons learned on lines 2 and 4.

Amilcar said OC Transpo will continue to share the O-Train’s progress with customers, and that open communication and “transparency” is the best hope to rebuilding trust with the public.

“I hope you have seen a lot of new ways to do things. We share a lot of information, we are an open book frankly, and we want to do that because we want customers to be engaged with us and to know what we’re doing,” said Amilcar. “We want to be very frank, and the reliability for sure will bring people back.

“But it was more than reliability… I’ve worked in Montreal, and this was the first time I’ve shared information like this, but I felt we must do it because of the past experiences,” she continued. “So far, hopefully, people are starting to see that we want to do things differently to make sure trust will come back, and I’m certain it’s only by delivering a good service that that will happen.

“We have set excellent targets… We could have set moderate targets, but we need the best, so we have a plan, and we will continue to share it.”

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Tuesday marked the first day of the trial running that tests for on-time performance over a 21-day period and determines whether the system is ready to open. Tuesday’s test  resulted in a 98.3 per cent performance, according to the city. To pass this trial run, the O-Train must maintain a minimum performance of 98.5 per cent over a 14-day rolling average. 

The Line 2 extended line runs from the LRT Bayview Station to Limebank Road while Line 4 will connect the Ottawa International Airport to the South Keys Station of Line 2. So far, the system has completed practice runs, finalized station construction and continued to train rail operation staff, Rene​​ée Amilcar, general manager of transit services at the City of Ottawa, said at a technical briefing on Oct. 3.

“We are using a clear and structured process to evaluate the results of our trial running, which is informed by lessons learned from Line 1 and recommendations from the public inquiry, ensuring that we approach this with the highest possible standards,” Amilcar said at a media advisory on Tuesday. 

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