OC TransSlo

OC Transpo Is Slow — and the City’s Answer Is Tone-Deaf

Mark Sutcliffe, the former broadcaster now serving as mayor, has faced insinuations that the city is encouraging employers to keep employees downtown after work hours. The goal, according to the accusation that still circulates, is to spread out the evening egress and ease the crippling effects of rush hour on Ottawa’s dismal infrastructure.

It is one of the most tone-deaf messages to come from the city — and that alone is remarkable.

A common misconception about in-office presence ignores a basic fact: many public servants were hired into roles that expected telework. When the Government of Canada began issuing laptops, the clear direction was greater mobility and flexibility. Hybrid and remote work were presented as viable, modern options. Entire teams functioned almost entirely remotely for years. Working from home proved effective, efficient, and desirable for a large number of people — often with only an occasional in-person meeting required.

That reality has been reversed. Micro-managing preferences in some offices are now treated as the new normal. Many employees return to workplaces with no assigned desks and smaller overall footprints. At the same time, the practical costs of coming downtown have climbed sharply. Parking that once cost $15 a day is now $26. Restaurant prices have roughly doubled. The reliable buses that used to move suburban employees into the core and back again are no longer reliable.

Public transportation in this city is no longer good, effective, efficient, or dependable. OC Transpo’s performance problems are not a secret. When the system that is supposed to move people cannot do so consistently, telling workers — directly or indirectly — that they should linger downtown to manage congestion is not a solution. It is an admission that the infrastructure cannot handle normal demand.

This mandate reversal is going to create real friction, and the consequences will land on Treasury Board and on the municipal government that has failed to maintain a functional transit network. Residents who rely on buses and the LRT already know the daily cost of that failure. Forcing more people into an unreliable system while costs rise and space shrinks only compounds the problem.

Ottawa’s infrastructure problems are structural. Congestion, slow and unreliable transit, and the gap between big announcements and daily reality are not fixed by asking people to stay downtown longer after work. They require honest acknowledgment and different priorities — the kind that put reliable movement of people ahead of managing the symptoms of long-term neglect.