OC Transpo changes downtown route for R1 buses Friday

In a move reminiscent of transit before the LRT opened, R1 buses will travel along Albert and Slater streets instead of Queen Street in downtown Ottawa starting Friday morning.

R1 buses will run along Albert and Slater streets, with stops at Bank and Kent streets for westbound riders and Kent and O'Connor streets for those headed east, saidRene Amilcar, the city's general manager of transit services, in a memo on Friday.

The entire track shut down Monday afternoon because of a bearing problem on a train. A similar problem nearly two years ago shut down theentire system for almost a week.

The move to R1 service is having ripple effects throughout the rest of the bus system, with hundreds of trips missed on other routes. According to the city, a total of 1,070 trips were not delivered over the three-day period from Tuesday to Thursday.

Not all of those missed trips were due to R1 service. The city explained that over that three-day period, 441 trips were reassignedto R1. The daily total has consistently increased from 116 on Tuesday to 171 on Thursday. Onany given day, about 7,725 trips are planned across the entire OC Transpo system.

The city saidOC Transpo's transit operations control centre works to ensure that those missed trips have the least impact possible, for example by pulling from high-frequency routes and avoiding disruptions to school routes or first and last trips.

Amilcarsaid there would be 36 R1 buses to ferry people at peak times throughout the morning and afternoon. A new change will see westbound R1 buses bypass Lees station.

On Friday afternoon, the city issued a new memo stating there is another shuttle running between Cyrville and St-Laurent stations.

The city said that change was made to mitigate problems caused by traffic near the station and meet the five-minute bus schedule.

Of the current replacement buses, some will run asa shuttle between Lees and Rideau stations, with stops at each station, according to the memo. That bus will also stop at uOttawa.

As R1 bus service continues,there's still no word on when the Confederation Line will be up and running again.