Thousands of citizens enthusiastically support ambitious light rail investment, but offer almost no support for continuing to try to serve the city's transit needs with buses.
By Jake Rupert
(Published in the Ottawa Citizen on Friday, April 04, 2008.)
OTTAWA - Residents of the city support a mass light-rail transit system running east/west and north/south through a downtown tunnel, city transit staff say after public consultation on four options last month.
In a report, city transit planners say "thousands" of people provided their comments on the future of transit in Ottawa in meetings, online, in on street interviews and in other ways.
The results, they say, show "broad support for option four." That option includes a downtown tunnel and light-rail system running east and west to the edges of the Greenbelt and south past the airport. Under the option, which would cost about $4 billion and be built as funds become available, improved suburban bus transitways would feed into the rail lines.
The consultations also found the public would like city to think even bigger by running light-rail lines all the way out to the eastern and western suburbs even if it cost more, and that there was some support for extending the current diesel O-Train south to growth areas beyond the airport until a new electric line is built.
The consultations found almost no support for continuing to try to serve the city's transit needs with buses.
During 500 on-street interviews, 79 per cent of people felt the city needs a light-rail system to deal with the population size, and fully 71 per cent said they feel it would be better to spend more money up front to lower operating costs in the future, which is how a light-rail line would work out financially as opposed to buses.
"We listened to what people had to say, and this feedback will assist us in identifying the best possible transit solution to suit the needs of residents across the city," said Mayor Larry O'Brien.
The city's deputy city manager of transit, planning and the environment Nancy Schepers said the feedback will now be incorporated into a report on a recommended mass transit network that will be put before elected officials on the transit and transportation committee on April 16th. After this, another round of public consultation will be held to get people's thoughts on the recommended plan, and the matter will go to council at the end of May for final approval.
When this is done, it will have to be included in various city plans, including the official plan, and the task of deciding what to build first and how to pay for it, including asking provincial and federal governments for funds, will have to be sorted out.