Ditch long-term LRT plans in favour of commuter rail, Maguire says
David Reevely, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: September 29, 2014, Last Updated: September 29, 2014 6:18 PM EDT
Mayoral candidate Mike Maguire presented his transit plan Monday, the really big policy distinguishing him from incumbent Jim Watson. Here’s the rundown.
The premise
The city’s “Phase 2″ plan to extend light rail in all directions makes good transportation sense but at $3 billion, it’s much too expensive and relies on funding from the federal and provincial government we might not get, Maguire says. Add increasing electricity costs and following through on Phase 2 would mean “economic devastation,” in his view.
So Maguire has a rail alternative that’s much less ambitious and would serve a lot fewer people, but would also be a lot less expensive.
“Let’s utilize something we already have, because it’s an amazing asset,” Maguire says. If everything went smoothly (with no political problems or long studies), he says the first trains could be running in as little as a year.
What’s different about it
Rather than building new rail lines that take direct routes and include multiple stations, Maguire’s plan would rely heavily on existing tracks and each line would have just a couple of stops — if Phase 2 would be a replacement for Transitway bus services, Maguire’s vision is more like a rail version of express-bus service. His stated goal is to take cars off the Queensway and major arterial roads. “This is not a solution to all of our transit woes,” Maguire says. “This is a solution … to get bulk traffic out of Orléans and Kanata.”
Where it would go
Primarily through lightly populated industrial areas (that’s where existing train lines are) to the edges of suburban communities. The heart of the network would be the north-south O-Train line from Bayview station to a junction just north of the airport. From there, trains would head northwest to the Kanata North Research Park, southwest to a park-and-ride lot at Strandherd Drive in Barrhaven, south to a park-and-ride at Earl Armstrong Road in Riverside South (with a spur to the airport) and northeast along a meandering route to Orléans. Maguire’s map has words on it saying the line would go to Place d’Orléans but the map itself shows the line ending at Innes and Tenth Line, well to the south.
Maguire's rail plan:
Only the Orléans route would require laying new track, on an existing right-of-way the city owns. The other routes would require track upgrades and agreements with owners like Via Rail to let the city share their tracks.
Maguire would also fix up the Prince of Wales Bridge across the Ottawa River for a Gatineau connection, though how it would be used would depend on a deal with Gatineau.
Who it would be for
Commuters travelling between outside-the-Greenbelt suburbs and major inside-the-Greenbelt job centres on predictable schedules. The suburban ends would be anchored by park-and-ride lots. Maguire’s calculations assume his lines would each run four trips each morning and evening, not all day. Assuming each 200-passenger train were full, the service would carry 3,200 riders into and out of downtown, for a total of 6,400 rides a day.
What it would cost
Maguire says his plan would cost $205 million to build and equip; that’s a back-of-the-envelope estimate based on average costs of a kilometre of track and simple outdoor stations, not detailed engineering work. So he’s added $150 million in contingency funds to produce a price of $355 million. He’d ask the federal and provincial governments to pay for it all, seeking $180 million from each of them, much less than the city would seek for the Phase 2 LRT plan.
The tricky parts
With Bayview as the main hub where all the Maguire trains would end up, every trip to the downtown core would require a transfer to the light-rail system the city is building now.
Since it would be explicitly commuter-oriented, this system wouldn’t be of any use to people who want to live centrally and without cars. It’s more like Toronto’s far-flung GO Train system than its TTC subways.
Making it reality would require solving some problems the city has previously found insurmountable, like working out the logistics of an airport spur and getting national freight carriers’ agreement to let city passenger trains share their tracks (there’s not much in it for them except risk). The logistics of running trains in two directions on single lines are also daunting.
“Everything we do will require multiple levels of negotiation,” Maguire says. “You don’t say ‘I quit.’ “
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