Runaway Bus Takes an Unscheduled Stop at Farm Boy
Ottawa had a truly bizarre Tuesday afternoon when a double-decker OC Transpo bus came loose from a tow truck and rolled into the side of a Farm Boy grocery store near the transit agency's maintenance facility on Belfast Road.
According to CBC Ottawa, the incident happened in the early afternoon when the bus — which was being towed, presumably for maintenance or repair — somehow detached from the tow truck and rolled on its own into the exterior wall of the grocery store. Emergency crews responded to the scene, but in a stroke of luck, no injuries were reported.
What We Know So Far
The bus in question was a double-decker, the kind OC Transpo has been expanding across its fleet in recent years as part of efforts to boost capacity on high-ridership routes. These vehicles are significantly heavier and larger than a standard city bus, which makes the image of one rolling freely into a building all the more striking.
The maintenance facility on Belfast Road is a major hub for OC Transpo operations — it's where buses are serviced, repaired, and stored overnight. The nearby Farm Boy would have been going about its usual Tuesday business when the runaway bus made contact with the building.
Details on the extent of structural damage to the store, or how exactly the bus detached from the tow truck, had not been fully confirmed at the time of reporting.
No One Hurt — But a Close Call
The most important headline here is that nobody was injured. With a vehicle as large and heavy as a double-decker city bus rolling uncontrolled, the potential for serious harm was very real. Whether the store had customers inside at the time, or how much of the building's exterior was damaged, are questions OC Transpo and the city will likely be answering in the coming days.
OC Transpo has faced plenty of scrutiny in recent years — from LRT derailments and shutdowns to service cuts and budget pressures. A runaway bus is an entirely different kind of headline, but it adds to a stretch of operational challenges that Ottawa transit watchers have been closely following.
What Happens Next
Expect OC Transpo to launch an internal review into how the bus became detached during towing. Towing large transit vehicles is a routine but technically demanding operation, and any lapse in securing the vehicle would be a serious procedural concern.
Farm Boy, a popular Ottawa-based grocery chain with strong local roots, will also need to assess structural damage and determine when the affected location can fully return to normal operations.
This is a developing story — CBC Ottawa is continuing to report on the details as they emerge.
Source: CBC Ottawa. Original reporting by CBC News.
