New LRT represents a return to Ottawa's historic roots of transportation
Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: September 14, 2019
A historic photo shows streetcars traveling on a busy Sparks Street in 1903.
People attending the official opening of the LRT Saturday morning at Tunney’s Pasture were greeted with images of streetcars rolling through the city’s streets more than half a century ago, a reminder that this was not Ottawa’s first ride on the rails.
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Trams, first pulled by horses and later electric streetcars — as well as trains — moved people around the streets of Ottawa and beyond for decades until the popularity of automobiles bumped Ottawa’s streetcars into the history books in the late 1950s. The first streetcars began in Ottawa in 1870.
The trams that took Ottawa residents to places of work and leisure, including Britannia Beach for swimming and picnics, were made in Ottawa and sold across the country. The fleet was eventually decommissioned in 1959.
In 2017, as a Canada 150 project, a group of local enthusiasts restored a rusted, century old streetcar.
Restored by volunteers, Car 696 ran on the Britannia line until 1957.
Many Ottawa residents still remember life with streetcars, but it would be years of debate and discussion before a working plan to build a new rail-based transit system was in place.
Buses have been king on the city’s streets since streetcars disappeared.
OC Transpo’s Transitway, a rapid transit network that separated some buses from regular traffic, began in 1983. But, as the city grew, the crowding of buses downtown during rush hour, especially, became increasingly unworkable.
Ottawa’s new 12.5-kilometre LRT includes a 2.5-kilometre tunnel under downtown Ottawa, the most difficult and costly section of the light rail system.
That tunnel has opened after more than a century of proposals to move traffic in a subway under the city, beginning in 1915 with a report to Parliament from the Holt Commission that recommended streetcars be placed in a subway between Bronson and Rideau streets. The report, which was never implemented, noted the severe congestion of Sparks Street and arteries leading up to it, including Bank and Elgin streets.
The idea of a subway under downtown did not come up again for decades.
When serious planning began about an east-west LRT line in 2008, a 3.2-kilometre tunnel with four underground LRT stations was initially proposed. Plans were eventually agreed on for a 2.5-kilometre tunnel from just before Bronson Avenue to the University of Ottawa.
Of the total $2.1 billion, the cost of the tunnel is about $500 million.
The LRT is more than a tunnel, however. Its construction, marked by a sinkhole on Rideau Street and 16 months of delay, represents one of the biggest city-building project in the capital’s history and marks a return to the city’s roots at a time when Ottawa’s population has surpassed one million people.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...ottawas-historic-roots-of-transportation
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