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.
