http://westsideaction.blogspot.com/2009/06/lrt-technical-session.html
writes about June 20's technical session. He comes across as very much in favour of long-haul "Metro" LRT along the Ottawa River Parkway.

http://www.transitottawa.ca/2009/06/western-light-rail-study-to-include....
writes about inclusion of the Carling Avenue Route.

June 20, 2007

Dear Members of the Transit and Transportation Committees,

Thank you for the opportunity to express to the committee my broad support for the recommendations included in the Mayor of Ottawa's Task Force on Transportation. There are many reasons for this including its consistency with the recommendations put forward by Friends of the O-Train. The central element of the Friends of the O-Train plan was its solution to the downtown problem, which:

* Doubles transit capacity downtown
* Delivers faster, more frequent, and much more reliable service from all feeder locations to and through the downtown
* Eliminates the noise and unsightly bus congestion downtown

Today I wish to add another reason, arguably more pressing and disturbing, to bring urgency to the issue of solving the transit problem downtown. This reason is the toxic levels of diesel particulate matter air contamination resulting from bus congestion.

From: Klaus Beltzner
To: Alex Cullen
Subject: Ottawa's Transportation Master Plan 2009 - 2031

Hi Alex,

It was good to see you, Marianne Wilkinson and David Jeanes on TalkOttawa last night. I was hoping to see you at the VIA Rail Canada press conference this afternoon on infrastructure investments in the greater Ottawa region, with the participation of Canada's Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, John Baird. VIA Rail's Chairman of the Board, Donald A. Wright, and President and CEO Paul Côté were hosting. With all the positive things Minister Baird had to say about the cooperation with the City of Ottawa, I really had expected someone representing the City to be there - like you!

Downtown Ottawa Transit Tunnel: The good and the Bad

Summary

1. It's not what mayor's task force recommended
2. It won't be here soon enough, and take too long to build
3. It will not replace BRT downtown
4. It will cost so much, no other LRT will get built. This tunnel may not even get built!
5. Downtown merchants were mislead into supporting this.

It was not what the mayor's task force recommended.

They recommended:
1. A fairly shallow pair of bored tubes;
2. Railway-size tunnels so as not to exclude full-sized rolling stock (such as commuter trains from outside the city)
3. Several stations (not just two in the office district);
4. Electrified with overhead contact wire;
5. Must compare tunnel to surface LRT, not to busway
6. Mayor's task force did not recommend we abandon idea of surface LRT, but that we study all possibilities.

It won't be here soon enough, and take too long to build

This is a letter from Michael Richardson to area MPs.

The transit strike is now approaching it's third month.

We are told that even if they settle tomorrow, that the lack of maintenance means that we will not have service resume for months.
This could only be the case if we were in fact heading for such a ridiculous situation again without the strike. This happened in 2008.

Ottawa's new TMP proposes 65km of new busways, yet does not solve the problem of downtown bus congestion for over a decade, and when it does, it does not even extend the LRT along sensible routes, or cross the greenbelt. And the buses continue to run next to the LRT.

There will be no reduction, even in 2031, in the operating costs of the system, which this strike is apparently about.

This transit strike is mostly about the difficulty of scheduling the huge number of transit operators needed to deal with the morning and afternoon peak: No solution involving one transit operator per 60

Re: Emergency strike fund already gone, Jan. 20.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board is to decide soon on whether Ottawa's public transit system is "essential" and thus worthy of special protections from work stoppages in labour disputes.

I suggest that the service is really two systems, one essential and the other not. The all-day routes are designed to serve the full-range of trips for what is mostly a car-free clientele. The transit industry, itself, calls these patrons "transit-captive."

The other system is the rush-hour-only express-bus routes designed primarily for those working downtown and living on "the fringe." These are people who mostly have access to cars and to ride-share opportunities through their workplaces. They rarely use transit for other kinds of trips. The transit industry called them "transit-choice."