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But something has changed in the last 10 to 15 years – and it’s not for the better.

You can track a bus by GPS now and yet, somehow, buses often don’t show up. You can wait at a bus stop for 30, 60, 90 minutes and see no bus. You pay $3.50 to crowd on to a 40-ft. bus on a busy route and stand uncomfortably shoulder-to-shoulder the entire way to work or school. Some folks can now only get a bus if they walk 20 to 60 minutes a day to and from bus stops because the routes have changed. People with mobility issues are often left behind at bus stops with their wheelchair or walker when the bus is too full for them. Have a young child? Good luck fitting your stroller on a packed bus.

You can track a bus by GPS now and yet, somehow, buses often don’t show up. You can wait at a bus stop for 30, 60, 90 minutes and see no bus.

Talk to people at stops or on the buses; everyone knows Ottawa’s bus service is in decline.

And the more unreliable the service gets, the more people abandon transit and start to drive their cars, which makes the congestion on the roads worse. The crowded roads choke the bus routes and make buses even later, so then more people give up and get into their cars.

This can’t keep happening; more cars on the road is bad for the city’s productivity, our collective health, and the environment. Ottawa needs a functional transit system again.

So Ottawa bus riders are banding together to advocate for better transit service across the city. Anyone can ignore one voice. It’s much harder to ignore MANY voices. Ottawa’s brand new transit advocacy group, the Ottawa Transit Riders, is holding its Founding Meeting and celebration Saturday, April 27, at 2:30pm, at Jean Pigott Place in City Hall. For more information and to RSVP, please visit the Ottawa Transit Riders’ website.

I want to take transit for the rest of my life; I believe in it and I want Ottawa to believe in it again, too.

Sam Boswell is a bus-riding and transit-loving writer/editor who lives in Ottawa with her husband and rescue dog.

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