The third Transit Challenge in Ottawa took place September 11th to 17th during the municipal election campaign.
How did it go?
First, it was very popular - a majority of candidates participated in the challenge. People in rural areas talked about lack of options; people in suburban areas talked about poor reliability, poor connections, and uncomfortable bus shelters.
At least two candidates organized races: Erin Coffin who is running in Kanata South (ward 23) versus Transit Chair Allan Hubley posted this video to YouTube showing her and her son taking the bus from Kanata Superstore to Tanger Outlets. They raced a friend who ran the same distance. Do you want to guess which method was faster?
Kevin Hua, running in Stittsville (ward 6) posted this video: Ottawa Transit Race where he rode the bus and a friend ran from Stittsville to Bells Corner.
Here is the 2022 Transit Challenge report with more details.
We had so many great examples of people taking the challenge seriously that it was very hard to narrow down - our report could have been 20 pages long. We hope no-one takes offense that their favourite post did not make the cut!
Here some examples of Twitter posts.
It was disappointing that some decision-makers - Allan Hubley (Chair of the Transit Commission) and senior officials at OC Transpo (for example the new General Manager Renée Amilcar) did not respond or participate.
Their refusal to ride transit is very telling.
The Ottawa Transit Riders hopes that voters will consider candidates’ views on transit when they make their decision on October 24th. Transit is an essential service in Ottawa and good, reliable service benefits us all - even people who don’t use it.
How the Ottawa Transit Challenge continues to fall short of addressing PWD’s concerns
CBC: Transit challenge returns right in the middle of an election
Ottawa transit challenge returns, ahead of municipal election | Ottawa Morning with Robyn Bresnahan
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