OC Transpo plans to run parallel bus service along the O-Train route in Orléans once the East Extension opens to riders, but it will be at least next spring before major changes are made to bus routes in the area. The transit service plans to begin pre-trial running on the O-Train East Extension in early October, which will last at least a week before the 21-day trial running period begins. There is no date for the opening of the O-Train line between Blair Station and Trim Station. During last Thursday’s council meeting, Coun. Matt Luloff asked staff if planning is underway to adjust bus routes in the Orléans area once the O-Train East Extension opens to the public. Pat Scrimgeour, director of transit systems and planning, told councillors that OC Transpo will make “local changes that are required to actually go into the platforms and serve the stations” once the O-Train opens. “Right now, we can say that the small route changes will be made either just as the train opens or in the first couple of weeks afterwards, depending on whether they’re ones that lead or follow that change, and that the more substantial changes would come after the train is open,” Scrimgeour said. “So, we can say now that those bigger route changes will not come into effect any earlier than April 2027, but that could be pushed later if the train opening is pushed later.” Scrimgeour says OC Transpo is currently working on the winter bus schedule that will launch in December and cannot plan for any bus route changes until the O-Train officially opens. “We don’t know that the train is open before December, we don’t know it for an absolute fact. If there’s always a chance, then we could have been left with a situation where we had no transit service at all between Blair Station and Orléans, which is obviously not where we want to be,” Scrimgeour said. “So, we’re always making sure that we’ve got parallel service during the transition period, and no chance of a major failure with a gap in service.” OC Transpo launched the “New Ways to Bus” in April 2025, four months after O-Train Line 2 and 4 opened to the public. The plan included an overhaul of the bus system with changes to dozens of bus routes and new connections to the O-Train and in neighbourhoods. As part of the “New Ways to Bus” plan, dozens of bus routes were cancelled, including the 200 series ‘Connexion’ routes from the suburbs to downtown Ottawa. At the end of August, OC Transpo introduced seven new Express routes from the suburbs to downtown Ottawa as part of a plan to boost service as public servants returned to the office four days a week.
