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Happy Light-Rail Day
{moderator: I want to clarify that the original article below is by Ken Gray. The reply is by an unknown David, who posted it on the citizen web site. FOTO did not write either one them}
Ottawans lined the streets of downtown today to watch the first light-rail
train travel through the city's core.
Onlookers gawked as the vehicle quickly travelled along its designated lane
behind stylish protective barriers to keep cars and trucks out of its
way. Lights changed automatically down the transit corridor to allow the
vehicle through. Gates blocked north-south car traffic as the train sped
through intersections in Ottawa's small, compact downtown.
At the south end of the line in Barrhaven, Mayor Larry O'Brien, bedecked in
engineer's hat and blowing a wooden train whistle, cut the ribbon that sent
the first train down the tracks on the $884-million north-south route. Beside
him were local MP Pierre Poilievre, Transport Minister John Baird and
Barrhaven Councillor Jan Harder.
"This is a great day for all residents of the national capital region,"
O'Brien said, lifting his hat to reveal "Happy Light-Rail Day" written on his
head. His press aide Jasmine MacDonnell blanched. The mayor had earlier in
the morning proclaimed Oct. 1, Light-Rail Day.
At the University of Ottawa on the other end of the line, former mayor Bob
Chiarelli cut a ribbon to send the new Siemens-built train speeding through
downtown. Surrounded by university president Allan Rock, Premier Dalton
McGuinty, Ontario Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Watson and the rest of a
proud city council, Chiarelli stepped to the mike and told his Viagra joke to
stony silence from the assembled citizens and dignitaries.
Only a few members of city staff were at both ends of the line because the
finishing touches were being completed on the environmental assessment for
the east-west line at Ottawa City Hall.
Chiarelli was ecstatic that his dream for the line had come to fruition:
"This is a great day for all residents of ....
----
Ooops. Sorry about that. I got carried away. You see, had the first
light-rail project not been cancelled by city council three years ago, the
new line would have been unveiled today. And plans for the east-west route
would be completed.
The first rail plan would have cost $884 million. Siemens would have had to
pay for any overruns, according to the contract it signed with city. The new
project's first phase costs about $2 billion and rising. And the city paid
about $100 million on pre-construction work, legal fees and damages to get
out of the Siemens deal.
Happy Light-Rail Day.
Comments
This is so fun! We can also imagine tomorrow's article!
Friday Oct 2, 2009 9:41 AM
Hours after its grand opening yesterday, Ottawa's new light rail system got
caught up in a downtown bus jam during the afternoon peak period, resulting
in delays along the entire length of the line to Barrhaven. OC Transpo says
it's a "teething problem" and they're working on a solution, but critics of
the project are not so sure any solution is available in the near term.
Long-time rail transit advocate David Jeanes of Transport 2000 noted that the
problem was related to the continued use of buses downtown for the great
majority of transit trips downtown, and that this had been causing delays to
transit service even before construction started. He pointed out that had the
line been extended as far east as Hurdman and the buses removed from
downtown, these delays could have been avoided but that when he and other
pro-rail and transit advocates had suggested such changes years ago they were
dismissed in part because they didn't conform to the Transportation Master
Plan. He suggested that we quickly draw up plans to extend light rail to
Hurdman and to figure out how to enlarge the small two-car platforms downtown
to handle three- and even four-car trains. If Council acts fast, it may be
able to get a functional system within 18 months, he said. Asked whether the
new east-west line of the recently completed EA would help, he pointed out
that it was going to go down Rideau Street rather than to Hurdman and
therefore was not going to help resolve the downtown bus congestion problem
on its own.
For his part, former regional chair Andrew Haydon, the 'father' of the
Transitway, said that this just demonstrated what a waste of money LRT was
and that the entire concept should be dropped in favour of proven BRT. He
said the problem was that buses were operating on the surface downtown and
that Ottawa should build the bus tunnels that were studied in the late 1980s
after an update to that study is carried out. "They were only going to cost
$500M back then, but now they'll be a lot more." He went on to urge that no
one convert 'his' Transitway to light rail and even suggested that the new
light rail line might best be torn up and replaced with a busway, noting that
it had been designed for such an eventuality. This would also free up lanes
on Albert and Slater, easing congestion, he said.
Not all transit users were not impressed, either. Fourth year Carleton
University student Russ Smith recalls using the O-Train in his first year of
university but that it was shut down the following April. "It was really
weird," he said, "they shut it down, then ripped up the tracks a few weeks
later and then did nothing at Carleton for over a year. I don't understand
why they did that. When I take the train back home to Toronto, I always see
new tracks being laid next to the existing ones. I guess Ottawa just does
things differently than everyone else. What really sucked though was the
replacement buses I've had to take -
they were always late. And now this new train runs late as well."