Ottawa. October 30, 2009.

It was 3 years ago today that Friends of the O-Train released it's practical LRT plan.
http://www.friendsoftheotrain.org/node/3

Some councillors called us the Fiends of the O-Train, and wished we would go away. We did not. We tried again to play nicely with city staff: some successes, many failures.

In 2007 we tried to help the Mayor's Task Force, and when the report came out, we said, "tunnel? well. maybe if we are rich. But the rest is great". In 2008, we tried to work with staff.
We tried to collaborate with some motivated councillors to get things right. In 2009, we did not know what to do, the growing sense of deja-vu was overwhelming; paralysing.

Over the past three years we have talked to as many as would listen, and more importantly, listened to as many as would talk. We modified our ideas based upon feedback, and listened to the compromises that were proposed. We asked many questions of staff and council, but like many, got few answers. There is a version 2 of our plan, and a version 3.

Have we been successful? Let's compare then and now.

In 2006 there was a plan. It received much criticism. Many questions went unanswered. It was approved by a narrow majority of council in July 2006. The true cost of the plan grew almost daily. The details of the contract are secret, even today.

Today, in 2009, there is a plan. This plan has received a lot of criticism. Many people have asked questions, and not received useful answers. The consultants for this plan are the same as for the previous plan. (Delcan and McCormick Rankin design and sell busways worldwide, using Ottawa as their reference city. Could they continue to do that if we had an affordable, efficient LRT system?). The cost for the tunnel version of this plan continues to grow, and the number of people served continues to shrink. There is a vote in November. Fortunately there is no contract yet.

Based upon the above, we have been unsuccessful. But, did we make any progress?

We observed that the real problem was congestion downtown, and the 2006-NSLRT plan did not solve it, it just was a 3-year cancellation, and then technology upgrade to the current O-train LRT system. Despite the "upgrade", the system did not have the capacity to serve the proposed "sustainable" Riverside South community, a fact that was well buried.

Our plan proposed to concentrate capital investment downtown, and our $399M surface LRT solution solved it. It also could have been built by Siemens with amendments to the "contract", and had that been done, it would have been operating today.

We proposed high capacity transfer stations at the ends of the downtown system: we placed them at Bayview and Hurdman, where is plenty of space and plenty of opportunity of good partnerships with private developers.
After telling us that people would never transfer, that the land could not be used, that such immense transfer stations could never be built.... the city's current proposal has bigger, more expensive, less efficient transfer stations at Blair and Tunney's Pasture... and real estate developers have been lukewarm about those locations, at best.

We proposed inexpensive upgrades to the current O-Train LRT system, extending it cheaply and quickly to Kanata, Barrhaven, Riverside South (Earl-Armstrong), and Cyrville Rd. We included new park'n'ride lots in strategic locations designed to divert motorists onto transit, avoiding the need for massive upgrades to the 417.
Our version 2 plan extended the downtown Siemens eLRT system to Millenium Place in Orleans, adding desperately needed capacity to the east; augmenting the current transitway rather than replace it.

We preferred a surface eLRT solution through the downtown core because it was affordable, could be done quickly, and did not require any additional studies. Our proposal removed the thousands of very dirty diesel buses from downtown, while the city's "LRT" proposal squanders billions to maintain the Luxury single-seat/no-transfer Express system.
The current staff plan predicts more and more split-shifts at OC-Transpo, guaranteeing further union/management strife.

The mayor has written recently that we have to be bold. He was bold once, he created his Mayor Task Force on Transportation. What happened to that guy? His task force had a number of recommendations starting with:
"Our primary recommendation is to use existing rail corridors and rights-of-way to build an integrated, region-wide, light rail system modelled on the O-Train. "

The tunnel was the only recommendation adopted by city staff.
Why? It's the most costly part, and it's not necessary yet. And, before you rip up downtown, it would be prudent to have a plan B to divert people into.

We call upon the mayor, and city council to do something bold again. Stop this process. Get rid of the biased consultants, put proper conflict of interest guidelines in for your staff, and create a process that involves the citizens of Ottawa in finding a real transit solution we can afford. It does not have to take a long time, the studies and the plans are already done.

Please do make us repeat this message next year, during the election.