This semester will go down in my history as the one I didn’t take the bus to university. Was it because I was out of the city? Bought a car? Quit university? Actually none of those comes close to the truth: a transit strike. For those who didn’t have the misfortune of living in Ottawa recently, here is the story of the 51-day strike-turned-game.
OC Transpo is the public transit provider for the City of Ottawa and surrounding areas. Way back on December 10, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 279, representing drivers, mechanics, and dispatchers of OC Transpo began a strike, citing concerns including scheduling and wages.
Personally, I wasn’t too concerned about a strike since aside from two final exams, I had no fixed schedule for December. Talks with the City of Ottawa continued throughout the month, but no settlement was reached. Radio stations and newspapers published citizens’ comments and stories. The overwhelming majority spoke in favour of the City holding firm, and that’s what the City did. The Mayor actually asked the federal Labour Minister to order a member vote on the City’s last offer. It was soundly rejected, though.
As the strike dragged into January and the new year, all the post-secondary institutions quickly threw together shuttle bus routes to help students. My sister’s schedule and mine were similar, so I used the family car to drive her through rush hour traffic to one university, then back to the other one for my classes. Getting us home seemed to be even worse.
That lasted for two weeks, until I found a Carleton University employee who lives five minutes away from me. My sister started taking the shuttle buses Ottawa University offered, and I have been carpooling ever since. (Thanks, Jackie!) Pick-up at Starbucks, drop-off at Esso…that’s the way to weather a strike :)
The strike became the new weather…everyone chatted and opined about it endlessly. Facebook groups were created. A radio DJ referred to a strike at a university in Toronto as the “transit strike”, probably from being so used to saying and hearing those words. A comedian penned lyrics to go to the tune of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison, and called it simply The Bus Strike Song. Have a listen.
Towards the end of January the House of Commons prepared to debate whether to order the union back to work, and the union became desperate. On January 30, the City and the union agreed to send all outstanding issues to binding arbitration, ending the longest transit strike in Ottawa’s history. The light-rail track was back in service on Tuesday, and major bus routes will resume service this weekend.
The 1,004 buses are in need of maintenance and inspections, so they will be phased into service over the next two months. As luck would have it, the express route I take will be among the last to resume - on April 6! The semester is over by then.
I said above that I wouldn’t take buses all semester…well I guess non-express bus service is better than none at all. I will have to see about continuing to carpool, though. It’s about as fast or faster, and it doesn’t cost $270 a semester either!