'The west is finally in': $3.6B rail package includes LRT to Moodie Drive
Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: February 17, 2017 | Last Updated: February 17, 2017 6:44 PM EST
The city’s refreshed Stage 2 transit plan calls for a rail extension to Moodie Drive, punching another suburb’s ticket to Ottawa’s LRT club.
“The west is finally in,” Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley said Friday after Mayor Jim Watson unveiled the new rail blueprint. “It’s great to feel we’re part of the LRT party.”
The city was going to make Bayshore Shopping Centre and Algonquin College the western end points for the LRT system in 2023. Staff crunched the numbers in the $3-billion Stage 2 rail estimate and realized they could keep on building tracks to Moodie Drive while maintaining the budget.
College Coun. Rick Chiarelli said LRT access at Moodie Drive and Highway 417 is a huge development for one of his communities.
“It’s tremendous news for Bells Corners because it is better commuting for residents and it’s something that will facilitate at lot of customers to the Bells Corners strip,” Chiarelli said.
Chiarelli praised the city for moving an LRT maintenance and storage facility away from a controversial location off Woodroffe Avenue in his ward. The facility will be built off Moodie Drive instead.
The city also likes the idea of stretching the tracks to Moodie Drive to help serve the new Department of National Defence headquarters at the old Nortel campus.
Adding the Moodie Drive LRT extension is worth about $70 million. Adjustments to the track alignment in other parts of the plan have reduced the overall Stage 2 costs, such as aligning more of the eastern stretch into the median of Highway 174, saving $12 million.
Chris Swail, the director of O-Train planning, said the city took a close look at the budget to further compress the costs so the Moodie Drive portion could be added to the blueprint. The city hopes to see even more savings when it starts the procurement program for the construction work.
“That extension benefits us from a customer service perspective, it benefits us from an operations perspective in terms of providing us good additional maintenance and storage and because we had a little bit of slack in our estimates, we’re going to push ahead and see if we can squeeze it into the overall scope with the $3 billion,” Swail said.
John Manconi, general manager of transportation services, said bringing rail service closer to Kanata will mean more reliable transit service for people travelling by bus in mixed traffic downtown.
“I think Kanata people are going to be very pleased with that because they live that commute every single day,” Manconi said.
Chris Swail, the director of O-Train planning, said the city took a close look at the budget to further compress the costs so the Moodie Drive portion could be added to the blueprint. The city hopes to see even more savings when it starts the procurement program for the construction work.
“That extension benefits us from a customer service perspective, it benefits us from an operations perspective in terms of providing us good additional maintenance and storage and because we had a little bit of slack in our estimates, we’re going to push ahead and see if we can squeeze it into the overall scope with the $3 billion,” Swail said.
John Manconi, general manager of transportation services, said bringing rail service closer to Kanata will mean more reliable transit service for people travelling by bus in mixed traffic downtown.
“I think Kanata people are going to be very pleased with that because they live that commute every single day,” Manconi said.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/3-6b-rail-package-includes-lrt-to-moodie-drive
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