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Today at Transit Committee, Councillor Riley Brockington put forward a motion for OC Transpo to present a plan for how they will actually meet their on time performance targets for buses (85% by 2027). We spoke in favour of this motion as a basic accountability measure, but highlighted the need to stop obscuring what is meant by "reliability" and for City Council and the Transit Committee to urgently prioritize Bus Rapid Transit and bus lanes as a means of encouraging public transit uptake and growing ridership.
The motion passed unanimously. You can read our remarks below or watch the delegation here.
Our Climate Change Organizer, Nick Grover, delegating at Transit Committee.
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Thank you, Chair. I would like to “Yes, And” this motion. Reliability is critical, and transit is nothing without it. The City’s Strategic Plan notes that “continuing to improve bus service are keys to improving mobility [including] advancing overall transit service reliability.”
A reliable bus network is vital for meeting our climate and transportation goals. In our new Official Plan, we’ve committed to making over half of all trips by 2046 by sustainable modes. We’ve also committed to zero emissions by 2050, and currently about 42% of emissions come from transportation. The recent numbers in the TMP Phase 5 consultations show that we’re doing very poorly on these commitments.
This is bad, but also unsurprising: OC Transpo users know from experience that service isn’t reliable. How can we expect people to use OCT if they don’t know if they’ll get to work on time, or to daycare, or a medical appointment, or caregiving?
We welcome any measure to improve transparency and accountability. But if we want to explore transit reliability, if we want to be transparent, we need to be clear on our definition.
When OC Transpo or this Committee talks about “reliability” sometimes it means “on time performance,” like this motion does, but other times it means "service delivery" - whether the bus was sent at some point or if it was cancelled. This is confusing. These are very different things, yet sometimes they’re used interchangeably, even in the same report! The latter definition is not how any actual transit rider understands bus reliability. When they read a news article about OC Transpo being at 98% reliability they wonder what planet they’re living on. We need to adopt a single meaningful definition and use it consistently.
The motion calls for a plan to improve bus reliability and refers to several challenges facing OC Transpo. Such a plan must include measures relating to traffic congestion. GM Amilcar noted last year that “the traffic is killing us” with 40% of buses on popular routes over 5min late. It’s a recipe for a death spiral: the worse bus service is, the more people drive, the worse traffic gets, and the worse bus service gets…
Even if we eliminate cancellations entirely, it will not make them timely or reliable if they continue to get stuck in traffic.
A plan to improve reliability means this committee and Council urgently prioritizing BRT and bus lanes on streets like Bank, Carling, Baseline and more: shortening travel times and keeping routes on schedule encourages use of sustainable transport, traffic calming, and grows ridership - which is something we should all want.
