An activist group advocating for free public transit in Ottawa launched its official campaign Jan. 22 at the Avant-Garde Bar.
The venue–packed wall-to-wall with Ottawa residents of all ages—hosted Free Transit Ottawa’s campaign launch, featuring poetry, music, and speeches from various speakers in support of the organization’s main initiatives: free off-peak and inclusive transit.
“We kind of find our footing in that realm of environmental justice and social justice,” said Kayla Charette, co-lead of the Free Transit Ottawa campaign.
“If transit is free or more affordable, more people are going to take the bus or LRT, which improves our greenhouse gas emissions, or makes public transit more accessible for people who can’t afford other forms of transportation.”
Though Free Transit Ottawa has held a variety of panel sessions and community engagement campaigns in the past three years—including the Transit Week Challenge in 2019, aimed at getting city officials to give up their cars and use only public transportation for one week—Wednesday’s event largely focused on the topic of “democratized transit.”
“We want to diversify the representation of council members on the transit commission to give citizens more of a voice,” said Charette. “We want [citizen transit commissioners] to be directly elected, as well as representatives from the transit workers’ union.”
Free Transit Ottawa’s campaign launch featured several city representatives, including Capital ward Coun. Shawn Menard, who said these issues align with what he has been campaigning on since the beginning of his political career.
“100 municipalities across the world have free transit right now,” he said. “We even have free transit in Canada—in Calgary, Victoria—it’s possible in different capacities.”
“We all benefit collectively from free transit, and it’s a service that should be funded for people the same way our roads, our bridges, and our light poles are,” he added.
According to Free Transit Ottawa’s website, it would cost approximately $95-million per year to make Ottawa a fare-free city, amounting to an average property-tax increase of $200 per household.
“It really comes down to the city deciding that transit is important,” said Charette. “If they disincentivized forms of unsustainable transportation—like driving—by raising parking costs downtown, that money could also go towards paying for a fare-free system.”
OC Transpo support?
Though Free Transit Ottawa has had limited interactions with OC Transpo and transit commission officials, citizen transit commissioner on the City of Ottawa’s transit commision, Sarah Wright-Gilbert, voiced her support for reduced fairs in a talk-back with Carleton students in early January.
“When Line 1 launched, it came out that in January the fares were being hiked, and people—including me—lost their ever-loving minds,” said Wright-Gilbert.
“People were being told that if you want better service, you’re going to need to pay higher fares—again, that is running it like a business and not a service.”
Though the city announced soon after its initial statement that it would not increase fares until transit service had improved, Wright-Gilbert said the benchmarks regarding what the Rideau Transit Group considers improvements are still unclear.
“I think that was left ambiguous for a reason,” she said. “We’re continuing to see issues crop up—like power failures—and I think that the city is going to have a hard time making the case that fares should go up in April.”
As a result, Charette said Free Transit Ottawa does not see an end to its activism any time soon.
“We’re a fairly informal group, as of right now,” she said. “But looking at where we’re at, we’re always looking for people to get involved so we can keep petitioning, canvassing, and just connecting with the community.”
Featured image by Pascale Malenfant.
