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An electric bus pilot project won’t happen anytime soon at Ottawa’s public transit agency, even though Mayor Jim Watson called for a trial during his re-election campaign.

OC Transpo has its hands full with the LRT project, and while there are electric bus options in the market, the agency says there’s no point in spending money on a pilot project when other trials are happening in North America.

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The rationale supporting Transpo’s decision to recommend not running an electric-bus pilot project is included in written response to an inquiry filed last February by Coun. Catherine McKenney, who’s a transit commissioner.

“Conducting our own pilot project will simply replicate work and add costs with no added value,” Transpo writes in the response, citing projects underway in other regions.

Transpo says it’s also monitoring work by the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium on electric bus technology.