The temperature in Ottawa has plunged over the past couple of days. It’s still not crazy, and was around -14c for much of the day today, but I still chose to skip the headwind and let our municipal transit company, OC Transpo, move me around. A slightly younger me would have ridden the bike just on principle, but every year I feel the cold a little more.

It’s largely a function of where I live, but Natalie and I are very well served by transit. The City has partnered with Transit as its official app and I find for the most part that it works very well. Today I tracked the buses closely to spend as little time outside as possible. It was a quick ride in on the 14 to the office and the bus was nicely on time. I hadn’t realized that the 5 goes directly from my office downtown to my favourite zero-waste store. I watched it make its way to my stop after work from the comfort of my office and nicely timed catching it without spending too much time in the cold. From NU there were a number of buses to choose from to get me to the LRT station. I had about a nine-minute wait watching the app as the bus got closer and it was a very quick trip to the station. The train is on a five-minute headway at this time of day, so I don’t think twice about catching it quickly.

The only frustration I had today was the 14 that ghosted me at Tunney’s for the final leg. I’m within relatively easy walking distance of the station, but I’m forever hopeful that I’ll catch a bus immediately to travel even just the four stops home. When the 14 that I thought I was going to catch after a six-minute wait didn’t show the 53 was still a couple of minutes away. It crawled up our local arterial and by the time I got home it took significantly longer than it would have had I just hoofed it. I really should just always start walking once I get off the train, cognizant that I’m fortunate to have that choice.