Mark Sutcliffe is promising to freeze transit fares at current levels for at least the first year of his mandate if elected mayor, extending the reach of a previous pledge in his transportation platform to maintain the current cost of the seniors’ transit pass, the EquiPass for low-income residents and youth transit rates.
This freeze would extend to all OC and Para Transpo passes and fares, his campaign confirmed Tuesday, from the price tag on adult monthly passes to the cost of a Para Transpo ride from rural Ottawa to the core.
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In a press release Tuesday, Sutcliffe said that Ottawans have lost confidence in the local public transit system.
“Until we rebuild the system and deliver better service, we can’t expect users to pay higher fares. That’s especially true with affordability being such an important issue for so many families,” said Sutcliffe.
It currently costs $3.70 a ride or $125.50 for a monthly pass for adults (paying a fare with cash is a five cents more than card payment), $2.80 or $47.75 for seniors, $1.75 or $58.25 for low-income EquiPass users, and $1.85 for children aged eight to 12, with kids seven and under riding for free. Those on ODSP pay $43.25 for a monthly pass, while rural-to-urban Para Transpo rides cost $10 one way.
The fare-freeze pledge comes after Sutcliffe’s release of full transportation plan last month, which included commitments to “modernize and optimize OC Transpo bus service” to reflect post-COVID realities and support travel within suburban communities and “fix Para Transpo by consulting with those who depend on it to get around our city,” as well as a promise that the cost of the EquiPass and seniors’ pass as well as transit pricing for youth would stay the same.
With his new campaign promise Tuesday, Sutcliffe is now the second big-name mayoral candidate to pledge a fare freeze across the board. Catherine McKenney has said they would do so for all four years of their mandate as well as expand free transit to youth 17 and under and decrease the cost of the EquiPass. Both McKenney and Sutcliffe are slated to release financial plans for their respective platforms this week.
Fellow candidate Bob Chiarelli has criticized the idea of freezing transit fares, warning of the potential hit to the already challenged OC Transpo budget.
Sutcliffe also pledged Monday to offer more transparency to the public on OC Transpo performance. While the transit agency publishes monthly performance data on its website, such as excess wait times for customers travelling by bus and light rail, average time to answer inquiries, and elevator availability, these haven’t been updated since 2021.
Sutcliffe is promising to create “benchmark performance service standards” and to make data public on a monthly basis showing how OC Transpo is measuring up.
“I believe that riders and all residents deserve more real-time information on the performance of our transit system, in order to restore confidence in the system and, ultimately, demonstrate better value for users,” he said.
Sutcliffe has also said that under his leadership in the mayor’s office, OC Transpo would increase the numbers of times it presents before the city’s transit commission — where councillors and members outside city hall can put questions to the agency publicly — to at least four times per year.
The price of taking a bus or train ride rose by an average of 2.5 per cent in May. Council had decided to delay the annual fare increase until Confederation Line contractor Rideau Transit Maintenance could deliver 15 trains for LRT service, following a derailment that left the line shut down for nearly two months.
Transit commission was told at the time that delaying the fare increase would cost about $426,700 in lost revenue each month.