Building it would cost at least $600 million
By DEREK PUDDICOMBE, City Hall Bureau
Wed, September 12, 2007

The city has taken a step closer to building a downtown light-rail transit
tunnel.

Council yesterday approved what could cost about $2 million for an
environmental assessment to determine if the city can proceed and how much
it would cost if construction went ahead.

Mayor Larry O’Brien is a tunnel advocate, arguing it could take hundreds
of cars out of the downtown core. If the city decides to build a tunnel
after an EA is completed, which could take about two years, he is not
concerned about the potential $600-million construction cost.

“If it’s the right thing to do, then what will it matter in a 100 years?”
he said. “Citizens will remember what it’s done for Ottawa, not how much
it cost.”

An environmental assessment is mandated by the Ontario government to
promote good planning by determining potential impacts that large-scale
projects could have on the environment.

If built, the tunnel would actually be two tunnels, with a station in the
middle, that would run under downtown streets for about three kilometres
from the University of Ottawa to about Lebreton Flats.

Capital Coun. Clive Doucet likes the idea but wants the tunnel to stretch
to the Hurdman transit station or as far as the train station. However,
he’s still frustrated after council cancelled the previous LRT plan last
year.

“We would be one-third finished but we’re still talking about what to do,”
he said.

When council explored the idea of building a tunnel late last year, an
engineer who aided in a study recommending a tunnel for the city in 1987
told the Sun it wouldn’t be difficult to build.

“The downtown core has geology which is amenable to tunnelling,” said
Gerry Webb, a senior civil engineer with Golder Associates.

But according to a research scientist at the Geological Survey of Canada,
Ottawa is an active earthquake zone and construction crews could encounter
problems crossing any fault lines, forcing project costs to balloon.

Council agreed that proceeding with the project would be too expensive for
city taxpayers to fund alone and provincial and federal money would be
required — over and above the $400 million they have already committed to
Ottawa.

Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans said the city might have to
approach the two levels of government to double their investment.

“We need a big bagful,” she said. “We are looking for the end of the
rainbow.”