Laura Drake
Ottawa Citizen

Monday, November 26, 2007

A light-rail advocacy group implored city councillors yesterday not to
pour millions in federal and provincial cash into Ottawa's "broken"
bus transit system that they say is already costing the city more than
it is worth.

"Don't act like a pre-teen with $10 in your pocket and spend it before
the day is out," said Friends of the O-Train spokesman Klaus Beltzner.

The group is concerned that council will pass a motion at its meeting
Wednesday to re-allocate $400 million in federal and provincial
funding originally intended for light rail toward finishing the
Transitway.

"It's a desperate grab on the part of staff to get the $400 million,"
Mr. Beltzner said. Mr. Beltzner added that those in charge of
designing Ottawa's transit system don't know enough about rail to
consider it properly.

"All they know is bus. If everything you know is a hammer, all you
ever use is a hammer, even if there are better tools around."

Mr. Beltzner said Monday that costs related to Ottawa's bus transit
system have been ballooning in the past several years with little to
show for it. According to city budget documents, he said, gross
transit expenditures have increased by 49 per cent between 2004 and
2008. This includes a 91-per-cent increase in compensation and benefit
costs and a 35-per-cent increase in fleet costs even though ridership
has increased only nine per cent over the same period of time.

"It's completely out of control," Mr. Beltzner said.

Last Thursday, a joint meeting of the city's transit and
transportation committees endorsed a comprehensive $2-billion transit
plan that included applying to use the federal and provincial cash for
projects the city is ready to start now.

According to transit committee chairman Alex Cullen, the motion in
front of council Wednesday will ask it to reallocate that cash to four
priority projects: completing the Transitway, construction of a
downtown transit tunnel, the Cumberland rapid transit line and rapid
transit for the southeast corner of the city.

However, since the federal money has a deadline of 2013, Mr. Cullen
said that, practically, the money will go toward completing the
Transitway, since the other transit priorities have many other hurdles
to clear.

Mr. Cullen said Monday that the group's concerns are misguided for
several reasons.

"What Friends of the O-Train is worried about is this is the only
money we'll ever get from the federal and provincial levels of
government and that's simply not true," he said.

He added that closing the existing gaps in the Transitway will simply
make transit more efficient in the city, and does not preclude the
possibility of integrating more light rail in the future.
(c) Ottawa Citizen 2007