Ottawa still waiting on its intercity bus terminal
Ottawa residents who've tried to catch a bus out of town lately know the drill: no proper terminal, scattered pickup points, and a general sense that intercity travel here is an afterthought. Three years ago, the city made building a new intercity bus terminal an official part of its Transportation Master Plan. So what's actually happened since?
According to a recent report from the Ottawa Citizen, the answer is: not much that riders can see. The old Catherine Street bus terminal closed years ago, and since then, intercity coach services — including Greyhound's successors and regional operators — have had to make do with makeshift stops, often outside the downtown train station or at other ad hoc locations around the city. For a capital city, it's a noticeably clunky setup compared to peer cities that treat bus and rail as part of one connected system.
Why this matters for Ottawa
This isn't just an inconvenience for the occasional traveler. Ottawa is a hub for people moving between the city and destinations across Eastern Ontario and western Quebec — students heading to and from university towns, workers commuting to Montreal or Toronto, and visitors arriving without a car. A proper, centrally located terminal with real amenities — indoor waiting areas, connections to OC Transpo and the O-Train, ticketing counters — would make a real difference to how easy it is to get in and out of the city without driving.
The Transportation Master Plan update in 2022 flagged this as a priority, recognizing that Ottawa's patchwork approach to intercity bus service was falling behind. But as with a lot of infrastructure promises, turning a plan into a functioning terminal takes funding, a site, and coordination between the city, private bus operators, and potentially the National Capital Commission given how much of the city's core land is federally controlled.
What's next
The Ottawa Citizen's report suggests the project remains largely stalled, with no clear timeline for when Ottawa residents might see shovels in the ground. For now, travellers heading out of the city by bus will likely continue relying on the current, less-than-ideal arrangement of scattered pickup spots.
It's a reminder that big-picture planning documents are only as good as the follow-through. Ottawa has no shortage of transportation ambitions on paper — LRT expansion, cycling infrastructure, and now this intercity terminal — but residents will be watching to see whether this one actually moves from the planning stage to reality anytime soon.
In the same roundup, the Citizen also reported that more than 10,000 federal public servants have applied for early retirement incentives, a figure with obvious relevance for a city where the federal government is the single largest employer.
Source: Ottawa Citizen
