Maguire's transit 'plan' is simply off the rails
Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 29, 2014, Last Updated: September 29, 2014 8:57 PM EDT
Let’s start with what’s right about Mike Maguire’s plan to scrap the second phase of LRT and replace it with a commuter rail service. It won’t take long.
The mayoral candidate wants to extend O-Train service north across the Ottawa River to Gatineau, using the existing Prince of Wales Bridge, and south to Earl Armstrong Road. The Ottawa-Gatineau link is already on the long-term agendas of both cities’ mayors, but it’s still an idea worth looking into further.
But then we’re left to contemplate Maguire’s plan to use existing rails and rights-of-way to run a $355-million suburban commuter service, instead of extending the light-rail system for $3 billion, a concept so fraught with problems that the hurdles seem insurmountable.
Let’s start with the timing. Maguire says that at least parts of his plan can start to be addressed in 2015, with the entire system up and running in two or three years.
Optimistic? No, delusional. Just convincing council, which last year unanimously voted to expand light rail, would take at least a year, likely longer. Then there are the environmental assessments needed for the new routes. Maguire contends that EAs aren’t necessary for existing rail lines, so has built neither time nor money for the assessments into his plan.
But the city’s manager of transportation planning, Vivi Chi, says that “The fact that the rail corridor exists does not reduce the (need for) environmental investigation, including inventory of what’s in the corridor, and compliance with current environmental policies.”
Maguire also glossed over the big challenge of getting the green light from other levels of government and beyond. Both CN and Via Rail would have to give the city permission to run commuter-passenger trains on their tracks. Maguire’s plan is to run a train north from Strandherd Drive through the Via station in Barrhaven, eventually merging with the existing O-Train system at the Carleton University station.
CN is obliged to consider requests to share its tracks, but is notorious for being reluctant to do so. Indeed, a city-commissioned report from 2008 found that “There are substantial infrastructure and regulatory issues to be overcome” in sharing the tracks. That’s why the city didn’t do it. And even with the necessary agreements, what would sharing the track mean for commuters’ schedules? Maguire himself admits that CN and Via service would both take priority over his proposed city-rail service. What would a Via delay mean for Ottawa commuters trying to get to work on time? It doesn’t make sense.
As for his proposed routes, Maguire’s map for a commuter train from Place d’Orleans to Bayview Station is a mystery. He calls for using what is now a recreational path so close to homes that council banned snowmobiles on it, and his map doesn’t show the rail line actually reaching Place d’Orleans. It stops abruptly at something called Orleans Mall south of Innes Road, nowhere near Place d’Orleans.
The Orleans lines also go through the Via station at Tremblay Road. See above for issues with Via.
From the west, Maguire would bring Kanata commuters in on a line that veers south-east and across the Rideau River, before connecting with the existing O-Train line. However, this line would have to cross multiple major roads at grade — Greenbank, Woodroffe, Merivale, to name a few. How many exactly? Maguire couldn’t say. (There are another dozen or so crossings on the Orleans line, too.)
It would be folly to imagine that Ottawa, of all cities, isn’t acutely concerned about at-grade crossings. And if these crossings are to be separated, how much would that cost? (Hint: hundreds of millions of dollars.) On a final technical point, Maguire’s three new rail lines — from Orleans, Barrhaven and Kanata — would all be merging onto the north-south O-Train line, which would take some doing.
All these obstacles, and yet Maguire is proposing to run just four trains per line in each of the morning and evening rush hours. By his own estimate, this plan would serve a mere 3,200 people — or provide 6,400 rides — per day.
This is not a transit plan. Maguire’s three proposed routes would only have a stop or two at the end of each line and nothing until Carleton. The idea is to get those 3,200 commuters in Orleans, Kanata and Barrhaven out of their cars and onto a train that takes them to Bayview station. Does this improve transit for people living in the Greenbelt? No, it does not. Does it help people living in Orleans get to their jobs at defence HQ? No, it does not.
In fact, by orphaning the first phase of light rail to the 12.5 kilometres already being built in the middle of the city, Maguire wouldn’t just be wasting the $2.1 billion spent on that portion of the plan, he’d be worsening the commute for thousands of suburban residents who would have to take a bus to either Blair or Tunney’s Pasture station, and then transfer onto the light-rail system to get into the core.
In other words, the current light-rail plan only makes sense is if we keep expanding it once the first phase is completed in 2018.
Even Maguire admits that Phase 2 of LRT is “more efficient” than his plan. He just doesn’t believe we can afford its $3-billion price tag. But there is a sound plan to pay for Phase 2 — it involves gas tax money, using reserve funds and, yes, some new debt, assuming property taxes grow with inflation.
Maybe that’s too rich for some people’s blood. But for those who want to see the city grow, who want a rapid-transit system that connects us, it looks like an unavoidable price. In fact, by proposing such an unconvincing alternative, Maguire may unintentionally have made the most powerful case yet for the light rail plan he hopes to scrap.
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. Yep, grade separations, track, the inevitable double tracking of the O-Train corridor that would be required including a new Dows Lake Tunnel, building brand new track through swamp to Orleans. Oh, and getting Transport Canada to let talents run on active freight & intercity railway routes.
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