The city's public transit is run by OC Transpo and includes the bus service as well as the O-Train light rail system. The network includes the Transitway, a bus rapid transit system running through and out of downtown, with frequent service (on the order of 1 to 2 minutes, depending on your stop and final destination, at rush hour).
The bus fare for regular routes is $3.25 or two tickets. Tickets cost $1.30 each and are available from local stores in sheets of six (but some stores will sell smaller numbers at a time). Children 6 to 11 years of age require only one ticket. Upon boarding, make sure that you are given a transfer, which allows you to ride any number of buses or trains until its expiry (in roughly 1.5 hours). A day pass can be purchased on any bus for $7.50 and is good for both buses and the train. On Sundays, families (up to two adults and four children, age 11 and under) can share a day pass.
The O-Train operates on a "Proof of Payment" (POP) system. Valid proof of payment is a bus transfer (see above), or an O-Train ticket purchased from the automated vending machines for $2.75. Note that the vending machine does not accept bus tickets, nor are bus tickets acceptable proof of payment. Children 11 and under can ride the O-Train for free. Articulated buses (the long ones) use this same POP system as well, where rear boarding is available to pass holders.
Although the downtown is very walkable, if you are within the downtown area (Lebreton station to Campus station), you can take any bus going east-west. If you are going to the ByWard Market from the Transitway (#95, #96, #97, #85, #86, #87), get off at Rideau Centre and walk through the mall to the other end. To go North-South, take the #4 (to Catherine Street, edge of Centretown), the #7 (edge of Old Ottawa South) or the #1 (all the way down Bank Street to Ottawa South).
The Ottawa Transitway (dedicated roads on which only buses are allowed) offers speedy travel to outlying areas, where you can then transfer over to local buses, if walking is not an option.
Although not designed as a tourist route, it so happens that the #3 route will take you to some special parts of Ottawa, such as the Experimental Farm, Dow's Lake, the War Museum and Lebreton flats, Wellington and Rideau streets, ByWard Market, and within a block of Rideau Hall.
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Ottawa
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Ottawa - updated May 2024
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Ottawa Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
