A scathing audit of OC Transpo's 'New Ways to Bus' has validated many of the concerns riders and councillors have expressed since the bus route overhaul was implemented last year, the audit committee heard Friday.
Audit Findings
The report was formally tabled at the June 19 committee as councillors called the auditor general's report 'significant validation' for riders who had long complained about the overhaul that made sweeping changes to more than 100 bus routes.
The bus route overhaul was implemented in April 2025 and was designed to improve connectivity to community hubs and to align bus service with O-Train Lines 2 and 4, which launched in January 2025. At the time, OC Transpo's then-general manager, Renée Amilcar, said the bus route redesign would give customers 'a more reliable and efficient system.'
Auditor General Nathalie Gougeon and her team performed an extensive audit of the route overhaul, however, and found it was 'mainly driven by budget considerations' as a cost-cutting exercise to reduce annual operating costs by $10 million — equivalent to a reduction of 70,000 bus service hours per year.
The audit also found that New Ways to Bus was based on outdated data collected in 2023 that had not accounted for Ottawa's evolving post-pandemic traffic patterns and increased road congestion by the time it rolled out on April 27, 2025.
Councilor Reactions
Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper said the audit was 'very welcome.'
'Riders feel seen,' Leiper told the committee. 'We undertook a cost-cutting exercise for what I think is a relatively small amount of money — $10 million in the context of the larger OC Transpo operational budget — and we cut 70,000 operation hours.'
'The frequency of routes suffered, the coverage of routes suffered, and we didn't get the reliability improvements that we were hoping to achieve from the exercise. Riders already knew that, but (this) audit is significant validation for them,' Leiper said.
'It's what people have been saying since New Ways to Bus first came to life, and it's nice to see it acknowledged that it was more of a cutting exercise than an improvement to the service provided,' said Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley, vice-chair of the audit committee. 'It affected people's daily commutes to work and to home right from the start, and it hasn't gotten better.'
OC Transpo Response
Rick Leary, who took over as OC Transpo general manager in March, said the audit also validated the 10-point action plan he had since implemented to improve reliability across the transit network.
'As the audit outlines, our schedules don't reflect current traffic conditions,' Leary acknowledged. 'Work to address these began early this year … We've already begun adding times to the schedules for seven routes and we've seen significant improvements to reliability.'
