(Originally published in my Substack newsletter.)
(Photo: With my council colleagues Marty Carr and Jeff Leiper, checking out the train schedule back in December 2024.)
City Council passed the 2026 City Budget late on Wednesday night. Some notes and numbers about the transit budget:
1. The OC Transpo budget for 2026 is $939-million. That’s 11% higher than 2025, and 22% higher than 2024.
2. Council approved a 2.5% fare increase, or about ten cents per trip on a regular adult fare. An adult single-ride fare will be $4.10, and an adult pass will be $138.50.
3. You can tap to pay your fare by Presto Card, credit card, debit card, or mobile wallet. Once you tap 34 times in a single month, the rest of your rides are free for the month. (In Toronto, you have to tap 47 times before your rides are free.)
4. The transit levy on the property tax bill will go up by 8%. For an average home assessed at $415,000, that’s an additional $74 per year or about $1,000 in total.
5. Equipass fares (for low-income riders) and Community Pass fares (for people receiving Ontario Disability Support Payment) remain frozen. That’s $1.75/ride or a 57% discount off the regular adult price.
6. In 2025, the average fare paid per ride in Ottawa is $2.42, which is at the lower end of Ontario cities.
7. Starting July 1, transit will be free for youth (ages 18 and under) on weekdays after 5:00 p.m., on Saturdays and Sundays, and throughout all of July and August.
8. For the first time, Para Transpo riders ages 65+ will have four free trips per month.
9. University students pay $60.17/month for a U-Pass, about a 56% discount off the regular price.
10. All Seniors get a 20% discount off regular fares and 57% off regular passes, plus free rides on Wednesdays and Sundays.
11. There were just over 878,000 riders on Para Transpo from November 2024 to October 2025, about 3.6% higher than the previous year.
12. Year-over-year ridership on OC Transpo was up 6% in September, and 17% in October.
13. There were 70.6-million trips made using OC Transpo from November 2024 to October 2025.
14. Yearly ridership over the past 12 months is at about 81% of pre-pandemic levels.
15. The 2026 budget is based on ridership at 82% of pre-pandemic levels.
16. OC Transpo is expecting to spend about $9-million less on diesel fuel next year, due to new zero-emission buses and a reduction in the carbon tax.
17. 56 new zero-emission buses are expected to be in service by the end of 2025.
18. Another 185 new zero-emission buses are expected to be delivered in 2026.
19. OC Transpo needs about 540 buses on the road each day to deliver service. This fall they’ve had about 520 buses available.
20. In 2025, about 69% of transit revenue came from property taxes and 31% from fares.
21. In 2026, about 67% of transit revenue will come from property taxes and 33% from fares. (Council’s target is 55% property tax, 45% fares.)
22. In 2026, OC Transpo will receive $56.7-million from the provincial government and $83.3-million from the federal government. That’s about 15% of the total operating budget. (Pre-2000, the Ontario government covered about 50% of municipal transit costs.)
23. LRT Line 1 trains run every 5 minutes or less during peak hours (6:00 a.m.-9:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.), and every 10 minutes at all other times. Starting in mid-April, they’ll run every 6 minutes from 9:00 a.m.-3:00 p.m., and every 7.5 minutes between 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
24. The 2026 budget includes 21 new special constables and 8 additional fare enforcement officers.
25. The City has about $11.2-million budgeted in 2026 for transit priority measures, including re-configuring roads/lanes and traffic signals to reduce delays for buses.
26. The transit part of the budget passed 19-5.
And my personal transit stats for 2025, according to the Transit app:
- I racked up 14,875 minutes riding
- I travelled 5,589 kilometres across 661 trips (including a few trips in Hamburg)
- My top OC Transpo routes: 67, 266, and 61