oc transpo enacts severe weather plan for thursday's snowstorm
with ottawa forecast to get as much as 40 cm of snow overnight wednesday, the city is cutting back service.
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an articulated oc transpo bus stuck on clare street near kirkwood avenue during a december 2022 snowstorm.
blair crawford
/
postmedia
most of the city’s slippy-slidey articulated buses will be kept in the garage and bus service will be reduced to a saturday-like schedule as oc transpo rolls out its severe storm plan for the first time thursday.
more than 40 centimetres of snow are expected to hit the capital beginning wednesday, triggering the storm plan that was adopted in 2023, but has never before been implemented. the plan reduces bus frequency and even cancels some routes, but is expected to make the transit system more reliable for those who use it.
transit general manager renée amilcar urged travellers to use oc transpo’s online route planner to plan their thursday commute or, echoing a plea from the city itself, to just stay home.
“i’m not here today to say that everything will be perfect tomorrow,” amilcar told reporters at a briefing on storm planning at city hall wednesday. “we know that we will have to deal with challenges. we are planning to do so and we’ll face those issues one at a time. but definitely tomorrow we will have issues — as via rail will have, as air canada will have, as everyone will have…”
“transit won’t be perfect, but we’ll adapt and we’ll make sure that we carry people safely.”
about 200 fewer buses will be on the road thursday, which will help to reduce road congestion, said troy charter, manager of bus and rail operations. as many as possible of the articulated buses, which are especially prone to getting stuck in snow, will be pulled off the road and replaced with double-decker or 40-foot buses.
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the 600 series school routes will be cancelled along with eight other routes: 114, 121, 154, 155, 161, 186, 190, 202.
paratranspo service will operate as normal as will lrt lines 1, 2 and 4.
maintenance crews will be out wednesday night clearing the tracks and checking on vital switch boxes and switch heaters on the confederation and trillium lines, with special attention paid to shovel and salt transit stations, charter said.
the storm schedule plan was adopted in december 2023 after a snowfall in the winter of 2022-23 led to hundreds of stuck buses that snarled traffic and frustrated transit users left waiting and waiting for buses that never arrived. it is put in place whenever the forecast calls for 31 centimetres (12 inches) of snow or more.
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