Five years ago, Ottawa City Council approved a $60-million expansion to the O-Train Trillium line, with the expectation that trip frequency would be reduced to eight minutes.
When the upgraded O-Train service launched in March 2015, trains ran every 12 minutes, according to an Ottawa Citizen article.
Since then, the service has only been able to increase the frequency to 11 minutes. This is well short of the target city council had for them when they first approved the project.
Even OC Transpo has said the service will never have O-trains running every eight minutes.
“If anyone is waiting for eight minutes, you aren’t going to get eight minutes,” OC Transpo general manager John Manconi said at a transit commission meeting earlier this year in May.
While the expansion did increase the number of trains running at one time, as well as allowing for upgrades to station platforms, OC Transpo should have been more realistic when it came to trip frequency.
Aside from not meeting trip frequency expectations, the O-Train is constantly down for maintenance, often without forewarning. This heavily inconveniences students who rely on the O-Train as their main method of transportation.
Acknowledging that the service will not be reaching the eight-minute target anytime soon, while disappointing news, was a step in the right direction for OC Transpo, but more should be done to improve the services the O-Train provides.
OC Transpo needs to focus on ensuring that the O-Train is able to run consistently, without unnecessary interruptions or inconvenient wait times. These problems should especially be trouble-shot before the unveiling of the new Light Rail Transit line in 2018.
