Ottawa’s mayor warns of service cuts, fare hikes without new funding for OC Transpo [Video]

Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is calling on the federal government to provide new funding to support transit in the City of Ottawa, warning the city won’t be able to afford to open and operate phase two of the Light Rail Transit system.

“We’re in transit crisis,” Sutcliffe said Thursday at Ottawa City Hall. “We don’t even have the money to operate our available transit service.”

The mayor said without financial help from the other levels of government to cover a $140 million a year gap in transit funding each year over the next three years, “It’s going to be very painful.”

“We’ll have to raise taxes and transit fares enormously, or we’ll have to cut service, drastically – either transit or other services, so we can pay for transit,” Sutcliffe said.

Compared to 2019, the public service ridership was down 38 per cent this year, which is resulting in a $36 …