Quote:
Originally Posted by S-Man
Phase 1 of that plan DOES look good, and would have been better than the transitway, though Phase 2 takes an odd course. Would have been better routed straight down Bank.
That said, Ottawa had fallen on hard times in the late 70s, with the population of inner-greenbelt areas actually dropping for the first time. That, plus (no doubt) wrangling between Ottawa city council, the NCC, and fed/prov governments.
This was the also the same era that Alberta's 2 biggest cities decided to go the LRT route, so maybe Trudeau didn't want to be like those short-sighted, backwards-thinking western bastards. (note: being mostly sarcastic here)
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This plan I think would have the changed the course of planning of the city and would have created the urban rail network that so many here wanted. It was extendable in every direction to reflect the growth of the city and would have allowed Montreal Road, Merivale Road and Carling Avenue (through a branch at the Carling interchange) to be redeveloped. It also would have facilitated extension of LRT on rail corridors in Gatineau and offered a balanced rail network with a north-south route also crossing through downtown as it should. A Bank Street subway would be a nice add on but would not fit into this plan and would have to be separate.
What Edmonton and Calgary were able to do was a reflection of the 1970s oil embargo. There was a tremendous windfall of money that went to Alberta as a result that allowed these relatively small cities to experiment by bringing the first LRT systems to North America. They were the leaders that many other cities have since followed but they could only do this because of the cash windfall. Ottawa was significantly bigger than either of them but we simply did not have access to the same cash windfall to allow us to do the same.
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Don't even get me started on that obtuse bunch!
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