Seventeen city councillors participated in a challenge to use public transit for their commute to work for a week from Feb. 4-10—some even decided to try transit for a month.
Free Transit Ottawa, a group of environmental and social justice activists with students from Carleton, challenged councillors to take transit for a week to see what it’s like to take OC Transpo regularly.
According to members of the group, the purpose of the challenge was to get councillors to see the problems that Ottawa residents face every day on OC Transpo, as well as bringing awareness to other transit issues within the city.
“It started as kind of a funny idea,” said Kirstin Pulles, a Carleton student and one of the organizers of the event. “We know that councillors make decisions about transit, but we know that most of them don’t rely on transit. Mayor Watson, for example, has a private driver.”
At a press conference held Feb. 11, Free Transit Ottawa wrapped up the challenge with three proposed recommendations to OC Transpo: to freeze transit fares, create a free transit pilot project, and develop a ridership taskforce to analyze the transit system.
Shawn Menard, councillor for Capital Ward—where Carleton is located—shared his experiences with attendees about taking transit for the past week at the conference in City Hall on Monday morning.
“There was a time that I ran for the bus and I missed it, and I couldn’t get to my meeting,” Menard said. “So, I missed half of my report I was supposed to give, and the only excuse that I had was my schedule is not my own because I’m taking transit.”
Concerns were raised at the conference from the attendees who said the challenge to councillors was “not realistic” because it only required them to take transit to and from work for a week.
Ottawa resident Dawn Severenuk, who said she didn’t think the challenge was “good enough,” took to Twitter on Feb. 9 to share her trip to Costco using OC Transpo. Her tweets have since gone viral.
Severenuk told the Charlatan she tweeted that day to blow off steam after missing her bus.
“Door to door, it only took me about 40 minutes to get there,” she said. “And it’s not like I couldn’t have Ubered there and back if I had really needed to.”
“But the thing is, I shouldn’t have to,” Severenuk added.
Pulles said while other Canadian cities are piloting projects for a better transit system, she thinks Ottawa has so far failed to do so.
“Instead of leading the way, we are falling backward,” she said.
First-year neuroscience student Emma Innisburg said she uses transit for her weekly groceries or to study off-campus using her U-Pass.
“It’s just overwhelming when you’re trying to catch some air and to get off-campus, and you see massive crowds of students waiting for a bus that will never be on time,” she said.
“I definitely don’t think councillors taking a challenge for a week is enough, but at least they’ll know what the majority of students go through every day.”
Kathleen Eglin, a member of the Electric Vehicle Council of Ottawa (EVCO), which supported the week-long challenge, said she agreed, adding Ottawa is taking a step in the wrong direction.
“It’s shameful,” she said. “The C40 cities have all pledged to stop buying diesel buses by 2025. Ottawa has basically said ‘well, we might look at it in 2025.’”
Eglin said EVCO wants to combat climate change, implement better transit, and provide cheaper transit for residents of Ottawa.
Menard said he hopes to make some of these changes to the transit system after feedback from the challenge held this past week.
“The biggest thing that needs to happen, beyond the fares and everything else, is we have to listen to what people are saying,” he told the Charlatan.
Menard said he has put forward a motion to freeze fares for the rest of 2019 in city council. He said he is also speaking with OC Transpo about potential route changes and upgrades to better the transit system in Ottawa.
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