The right track? Explaining Ottawa's western LRT debate — what you should know
Matthew Pearson and Joanne Chianello, Ottawa Citizen
Published on: November 28, 2014, Last Updated: November 28, 2014 7:41 PM EST
It’s been a week since the National Capital Commission held a dramatic news conference that some feared might spell the end of the city’s plan for light rail in the west end.
That’s not the case, and this week, both Mayor Jim Watson and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird — the senior Ottawa MP who oversees the NCC — vowed to dial back the rhetoric, committing to “taking the next 100 days to continue to work constructively.”
But while there’s more calm on the political front, questions remain over exactly what the city is proposing and what the NCC is demanding.
Some of the confusion can be laid at the feet of the NCC — the board’s request that the city consider a different route was based on a secret analysis prepared by its own staff. The NCC has said it used the city’s data, but refused to give the Citizen of copy of that report.
And during its media presentation last week, the NCC included images in its slide-show presentation that were misleading. The picture of the tunnel supplied by the NCC clearly is unfinished and bears no resemblance to the finished product the city is proposing. Another image of a train running through a field was taken from an older city proposal that is no longer being considered.
Still, it’s hard to keep up with the twists and turns in the western LRT saga. Here’s the latest information on the city’s plans, what the NCC is worried about and where we go from here.
What is this western LRT dispute between the NCC and the city about?
The dispute centres on where tracks will be laid between Dominion Station and the new Cleary Station. The city’s preferred route is to run trains along 1.2 kilometres of NCC land on the south side of the four-lane Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway (and hundreds of metres from the shore of the Ottawa River). The NCC is not pleased with this idea because it fears for the loss of mature trees, impeded access to the river and restricted views from the shoreline.
That said, the commission is generally supportive of light rail for Ottawa, but it’s this 1.2-kilometre stretch that remains the sticking point.
How is the city addressing these concerns?
The city’s original draft for western LRT plans released in April 2013 showed the train running along the surface of that greenspace, right in front of a number of homes. That just wasn’t OK with the public, who came out in droves to a meeting at City Hall (and stayed until midnight). By June, the city had redesigned the controversial 1.2-kilometre segment so that the 700 metres of the track that was near homes would be built in a shallow, buried trench. The city is proposing to plant new greenery right over top of the shallow train tunnel so pedestrians would be able to walk across that segment of the greenspace as easily as they can today, according to deputy city manager Nancy Schepers.
However, there’s still an issue with the 500 metres where the train would run generally at grade along the northern edge of Rochester Field. Schepers confirmed there have been discussions between the city and the NCC about extending the shallow tunnel across the entire 1.2 kilometres in question, but there are some challenges with that.
“There’s already physical infrastructure that has to be protected,” said Schepers. “So, within that, we’re trying to find the best grade to go through there.”
What does the NCC want changed?
Given its desire to protect the existing greenspace along the parkway, the NCC last week asked the city to include the Rochester Field-Richmond Road alignment in its ongoing environmental assessment for the construction of the western light rail corridor or else consider a “completely buried” tunnel under the parkway in order to “protect this important national asset.”
In other words, the NCC did not completely slam the door on the city’s preferred route along the Ottawa River — but the commission is clearly not convinced of the city’s plan.
Why does the NCC say Rochester Field is a better option?
Using Rochester Field would retain the parkway landscape character as is, reduce the amount of NCC-owned land affected by light rail and expansion and bring trains closer to the communities it’s designed to serve, according to NCC officials said.
“It would offer potential for more effective transit service coverage, support city building, can contribute to increased ridership, and has greater potential for transit-oriented development,” said Arto Keklikian, the NCC’s chief transportation planner, at last week’s news conference.
But this is a red herring. Because there are no stations between Dominion and Cleary — the proposed stations on either side of the Richmond Underground — the route in between matters little in terms of the public’s access to the train. In which case, the city says, running trains south of the parkway makes more sense than through a built-up part of the city.
Where does the NCC say the train should go after leaving Rochester Field?
The board appears to be agnostic on this question. “The NCC is not taking a position on what happens after it gets off the Parkway corridor,” according to Steve Willis, the executive director of the NCC’s capital planning branch.
“That’s a technical issue the city should study and the board has not taken a position on whether it stays at surface, goes down, where it goes down. We’re asking the city to go back and study this feasibility,” he said last week.
The NCC says the Rochester Field option would be comparable to the city’s pricetag of $980 million for western LRT, but that’s only if the train is run at surface through Westboro, which the city has rejected because it’s unpalatable to the community.
Who sits on the NCC’s board of directors?
The board is supposed to have 15 members, including the chairman and CEO. Thirteen members are to come from across Canada, including five from the National Capital Region. There is currently one vacancy on the board, while another member, François Paulhus, temporarily stepped down more than a year ago after a witness testifying before the Charbonneau Commission investigating corruption in Quebec’s construction industry named him as part of a price-fixing scheme in Gatineau (Paulhus has not been charged with anything). Of those remaining, six are from Ottawa — Jacquelin Holzman, Michael Poliwoda, Kay Stanley and Bob Plamondon, as well as chairman Russ Mills and CEO Mark Kristmanson. A seventh is from the Outaouais. The remaining five come from Cornwall, Toronto, Fredericton, Quebec City, Edmonton and Vancouver.
The city was sent a copy of the NCC report. What did officials think of it?
“It’s premature and, certainly in my mind, there wasn’t anything there that I would have comfort going back to council and saying, ‘We need to re-open this.’ I think they prematurely came to a conclusion without the benefit of all of the work that we are doing and plan to continue to do with them,” Schepers said.
Baird and Watson agreed to work co-operatively toward a solution over the next 100 days. What does that mean?
High-ranking officials from both the city and the NCC will meet next week to develop a plan for moving forward. From the city’s perspective, the goal is to alleviate some of the NCC board’s concerns about the Richmond Underground.
“The fact that they have a report suggests that they are not yet satisfied and we need to do some more work, and that’s fair,” Schepers said.
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