Downtown tunnel option wins vote 9-1 in first step to 'getting transit right'.
By Jake Rupert
Published in the Ottawa Citizen on May 22, 2008.
The municipality's preferred $4-billion mass-transit system passed its first major hurdle last night when it was endorsed by the city's transportation committee on a vote of nine to one.
It will now go to a full city council vote next week, where it is expected to pass by a healthy margin. In the fall, council is scheduled to decide in what order to build the system, and final approval of the entire transit system and strategy is slated for next spring.
The transit network is being developed along with updated land-use rules. These are being designed to support each other and encourage residential and employment density along transit routes. This is the city's second stab at creating a rapid-transit system in the last few years after the first plan was nixed by council at the last minute.
"This is our chance to move forward with a plan that makes sense and is achievable," said Innes Councillor Rainer Bloess.
If approved and built, the new system would see light rail from Blair Road downtown on the current bus transitway, through a subway across downtown and west to Baseline Road on the western transitway. Another light-rail line would run from LeBreton Flats to Bowesville Road. Bus transitways would connect Orléans, Kanata and Barrhaven to the light-rail system.
Under the current approach, the system and some improved inner-city transit routes would be the main public transportation network until 2031, and the suburban busways would be converted to light-rail after that. However, the entire system could be converted to light rail sooner, depending on the demand and funding.
"Approving this sends a message to the community that we are moving forward -- slowly but surely moving towards a citywide system," said Bay Councillor Alex Cullen.
Mayor Larry O'Brien led the charge to kill the last plan and is pleased with the new direction.
"This is the first and an important step toward getting transit right for the City of Ottawa," he said. "It gives us the option for more transit sooner, and I think this is good news. I, for one, am very comfortable with what happened here today."
The lone dissenting vote came from Capital Councillor Clive Doucet. Mr. Doucet didn't have a problem with the overall transit vision for the future, but he feels the city should be looking at other, cheaper options in case it can't get the plan funded and built.
He said he's worried the provincial and federal governments, which will be relied upon to fund at least two-thirds of the plan, won't see enough new ridership in the proposed system and will withhold funding. He feels the city should not be pursuing the larger system without having a Plan B as a fallback.
The vote came after a day of presentations from municipal planning and transit staff, led by deputy city manager Nancy Schepers, a panel of international experts who support the city's direction, and members of the public.
Ms. Schepers urged elected leaders to support the plan because it will be cost-effective in the long-run, faster, will increase ridership, and can be expanded if demand outstrips expectations. She said the system is supported by 75 per cent of the roughly 825 people who made written submissions during a recent round of public consultations. However, she also said "many, many" people feel the city needs to extend the system further into the suburbs now.
The international experts are against this idea because they feel it would encourage more urban sprawl and there isn't enough demand yet. They say stopping the system inside the greenbelt, as currently planned, will help focus land-use decisions around the transit system with the goal of making a more compact, denser and more sustainable city, which Ottawa currently is not.
Most members of the public in attendance urged the city to get the plan started as soon as possible, but several questioned the underlying logic behind it.
David Jeanes, a transit advocate and president of Transport 2000, said he was dismayed with the city's direction, and that the municipality hasn't properly looked at all the options.
"It doesn't make use of existing rail corridors, and it focuses too much on converting the existing transitway," he said. "Many potential viable options have been screened out for flimsy reasons."