London approved rapid transit in 2017 and changed the project scope in 2019. Campaign research cites a roughly $174 million increase in the cost of the remaining corridors, with full corridor service scheduled later than the original project discussion. Meanwhile on-time performance remains the highest-priority conventional transit service characteristic, and 46% of 2025 respondents agreed the bus runs on time. Council advanced further changes to how London Transit is overseen on September 22, 2026, including a proposed four-Council-member, three-citizen commission and annual reporting to Council, so the public should be able to see who is responsible for what as that transition proceeds.
The Issues · Transit & Mobility
You were supposed to be there at 8. The bus was late. Now you are too.
That is what transit reliability means in real life. It is not a chart or an announcement. It is whether the bus shows up, whether you can get on, whether the stop is accessible, and whether you can trust the system to get you to work, school, an appointment or home. That is the standard I would use.
Start here
Make the trip work. Show the numbers.
Position
Where I stand
If you build your day around the bus, the bus has to be dependable. Transit should be judged by the trip, not the announcement. Riders should be able to get where they are going on time, and an accessible trip should stay accessible from the sidewalk to the destination.
Action
What I would push for
Publish clear standards for on-time service and for the times a bus arrives but is too full to let you on — what LTC calls a pass-up. Show Specialized Transit booking, pickup and missed-trip performance. Fix inaccessible stops and construction detours. And make the existing police/transit safety initiative visible and measurable on core routes and at repeat problem stops instead of leaving riders to wonder whether it is actually happening.
Authority
Who controls what
City Council controls municipal funding decisions and other City responsibilities around streets, construction and accessibility. London Transit’s board and management control day-to-day transit service. The London Police Service Board sets policing priorities and performance expectations; police leadership decides day-to-day deployment. A councillor can push the reporting, funding and governance questions, but cannot schedule a bus or order an officer onto a particular route.
Plan
What this looks like in real life
You leave early for work, the bus arrives full and passes you, and now you miss the connection that gets you across the city. Or a construction detour turns an accessible stop into a route a mobility-device user cannot actually use. Those are not abstract transit statistics — they are whether someone gets to work, school, an appointment or home on time.
Result
What riders should see
Riders should be able to see whether buses are on time, how often a bus arrives but people still cannot board, whether Specialized Transit trips were missed, how long booking takes and whether accessibility problems are being fixed. On safety, show whether the police/transit initiative is actually visible, which recurring problems are being addressed and whether riders and operators are seeing improvement.
First moves
What I would do first
30 days: put forward the reliability and reporting request. 100 days: seek a public improvement plan that puts the audit actions and capital-cost reporting in one place. 12 months: compare service and cost results with where they started.
Evidence & public record
Costs, reliability and who is responsible.
$174M
Rapid-transit cost increase cited in campaign research
After the project scope changed, the remaining corridors were later reported at roughly $281M to $454M. Source: CTV London, 2023.
46%
Riders satisfied the bus runs on time (2025)
On-time performance remained the highest-priority conventional transit service characteristic. Source: LTC 2025 Conventional Transit Service Performance.
$69.54M
City of London funding for transit operations (2026)
LTC’s recosted 2026 operating expenditure budget is $124.082M, including $69.541M in City of London funding. Source: LTC Staff Report #8, March 30, 2026.
2026
Council advanced another change to how London Transit is overseen
On Sept. 22, Council approved changes including a proposed commission of four Council members and three citizen members, a quorum of four, and an annual report to Council. Source: City of London Council Briefs, Sept. 22, 2026.
Supporting detail
The case behind the proposed standards.
I would put forward published reliability standards that answer the questions riders actually ask: was the bus on time, did it show up, were people left behind because it was full, and did the connection work? I would also require Specialized Transit reporting that riders can understand and a public improvement plan when the same targets keep being missed. I would also move to have accessible stops, sidewalks and temporary construction routes treated as service infrastructure, not an afterthought, and require clear cost-and-schedule reporting on rapid transit before further capital decisions.
The bus arrives when expected. A Specialized Transit trip can be booked and arrives within the service window. A wheelchair or mobility-device user is not sent into an unusable detour because construction blocked the accessible path. Stops, crossings and sidewalks connect properly. When service misses the standard, people should be able to see what went wrong and what is being done about it.
London Transit and London Police already announced periodic Foot Patrol presence on core-area buses. I would push LTC and the Police Service Board to report how that initiative is working, what can lawfully be said about its frequency and results, and whether repeat problem routes, stops and shelters are improving. That includes concerns about open drug use or smoking drugs in confined transit spaces. The point is not a photo-op patrol; it is a visible response and a result riders can measure.
Where to go next.
BISSON13 · Ward 13