Ottawa Rapid Transit Network developments

[lrt's friend]

I'm switching to a car if there's no hope for rail

The Ottawa Citizen


Tuesday, November 11, 2008


Re: City staff finally going the right way with east-west rail plan, Nov. 7.

As a resident of Riverside South, I am officially finished with OC Transpo. Count me as one resident who is switching from taking the bus to driving his car into work.

Since moving to the suburbs, I have regularly driven to a park-and-ride lot and taken the bus downtown. What was once a borderline-tolerable commute has become progressively worse over the past few months as transit ridership has increased -- seemingly without any increase in system capacity. Perversely, city council is actually planning to cut service levels to balance the city budget.

The light at the end of the tunnel for myself and countless other south Ottawa residents was a modern, comfortable rail system that would enable us to leave our cars at home. This was promised once by city council, cancelled, and then promised again.

If columnist Randall Denley is correct, we won't be seeing this system for more than 20 years, supposedly because not enough people currently use transit to justify a north-south rail route. It's not hard to see why service to the south is brutal.

To add insult to injury, the proposed plan appears to merely replace the existing bus-based transitway with rail. In other words, it won't expand service beyond areas that are already well-served. If that's the plan, why even bother?

The bottom line is that without a better system to look forward to, I am no longer willing to invest years of my life taking chronically late, overcrowded and unpleasant buses to justify to city transit planners that significant appetite exists for better transit in the south.

If you build it, I will come. But in the meantime, I'm taking my car.

Al Rosher,

Ottawa

I don't think the residents of Ottawa understand what lousy transit service is now being provided to the southern growth areas. The chances of attracting new ridership are minimal because what little transit is offered operates extremely slowly. The pittance being now offered is a slap in the face and what little money that will be spent is totally dependent on getting separate funding for the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge. Even then, the service to be offered will be an indirect route to downtown via the west end of the city.

More transit, fewer roads in city's new master plan

Road projects worth hundreds of millions could be shelved, cancelled to help pay for light rail, buses

By Jake Rupert
Ottawa Citizen


Tuesday, November 11, 2008


OTTAWA - Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of Ottawa road projects will be postponed until at least the middle of the next decade or even cancelled to pay for the city's new mass-transit plan, if city council follows its own staff's advice.

On the block are proposals to widen the Airport Parkway, Highway 174, Campeau Drive, Prince of Wales Drive and Eagleson Road - these alone represent a saving of $84 million. The suggestions were included in the city's new master transportation plan, which was presented Monday.

If council passes and follows the plan, it will bring the city into the 21st century with a focus on mass public transit over roads, city planners say.

Staff are still proposing to build $666 million worth of roads over the next seven years, but these are almost all in growing suburbs and would largely be paid for out of fees collected from developers for that purpose.

Typically, the city spends about $150 million a year on roads; the plan calls for that to be chopped to $95 million with the savings spent on transit.

Together with a new official land-use plan to be released later this month, the transportation plan will help shape what the city will look like and how people will get around.

The goal is a "compact, transit city," planners say.
The deputy city manager for planning and transit, Nancy Schepers, said both plans are focused on bringing real "smart growth" to the city. The goal is to limit sprawl and the costly new roads, sewers and other services that go with it, emphasizing development along transit lines.

The plan also includes recommendations for the order in which the city's new light-rail plan should be built, and better cycling and pedestrian routes.

Schepers said she believes if the city follows the recommendations presented by planning staff, it "will benefit all citizens for the next 100 years."

Under the plan, the spine of the light-rail system, including a downtown tunnel, will be built over the next 20 years, in three phases as the money becomes available.

The first phase, costing $1.7 billion would see a downtown tunnel built and a light-rail line running through it and along the current bus Transitway from Blair Road to Tunney's Pasture. This phase would also see the completion and expansion of the dedicated busway.

The second phase, costing $900 million, would see light rail running south to the South Keys plaza and completion of the west light-rail line from Tunney's Pasture to Baseline Road.

The third phase, costing $400 million, would see light rail extended further south and more extensions of the bus Transitway to serve the suburbs.

The plan doesn't foresee light rail extending into the east and west suburbs before 2031, but this could be accelerated if the money becomes available and the suburbs reach urban-like density targets to be unveiled in the new official land-use plan.

Several things could torpedo the plan, and the big risk is money. All cost estimates are rough and based on 2007 dollars. City finance officials say the municipality can afford one-third of the plan, and they need the provincial and federal governments to kick in a third each.

The new phasing plan postpones a north-south light-rail line for several years. That could put at risk support from several councillors representing southern wards.

The plan will be debated by city council's transportation and transit committees next week and at city council later this month.

Mayor Larry O'Brien said he supports the recommendations. He said he expects the support of about 17 councillors out of 23 when the matter comes to a vote, and that public consultation shows citizens like the approach.

He said he understands funding will be an issue, and that he's willing to look at "alternatives" to straight governmental funding. He suggested the city might consider a form of a public-private partnership, or "P3" to get the project moving. He said a private firm might be interested in investing in the project in return for part of the revenues the system generates.

"There are all kinds of variations on P3s. Perhaps it's time to get out of the box on funding."
Rideau-Vanier Councillor Georges Bédard, who wants a mass-transit system in place quickly, said he doesn't think what staff recommend is affordable. He said he doubts the plan will get off the ground any time soon.

He said the $1.7-billion price tag for the first phase, in 2007 dollars, shows the folly of cancelling the city's old light-rail plan, which would have started with a rail line that ran west across downtown at street level before turning south and extending to Riverside South for about $1 billion.

"Poor decision-making has left us in one hell of a mess. I don't think we will get that kind of money, and future councils will be stuck with trying to fund this unaffordable project. We are in a quagmire, and I think we will be in it for quite some time."

He said he didn't think the mayor's P3 suggestion was very helpful. He said if the city comes up short on funding, it would be better off taking a loan to cover the capital costs.

I find this so contradictory. This is designed to make for a more compact city, yet where growth is taking place, we are continuing to just build more and more roads. This is all talk and little action.

What was being mentioned on the radio this morning is that there is no more talk of 'ridership uplift'. This leaves us with a project that only reduces downtown congestion and even then, the majority of buses will continue to operate on Albert and Slater for well beyond the next 10 years. It is quite disturbing that it appears that Phase 1 is being extended to the full 20+ year planning time frame as reported above.

In other words, we have made so many compromises in order to get widespread support, we are not really doing anything well. Furthermore, we are now so far behind in improving transit, that we are not likely to even make improvements before a congestion crises arises downtown predicted for 2017.

We had an affordable opportunity to improve transit in 2006 and we failed to take advantage of it. The federal and provincial money from the last project is still on the table but you have to think that in the long run Ottawa will get less than if we spent that money right away.