Lack of strong commuter rail line will hurt future prosperity: MP
Mohammed Adam, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, January 30, 2008

While major Canadian cities are reshaping their futures with new light-rail projects, Ottawa has embraced a transit vision that will set the city back a decade and undermine its competitiveness and future prosperity, several experts say.

They point out that, in the past year, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have unveiled transformative commuter rail plans that will strengthen their ability to compete for global investments and economic opportunities.

PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen
DATE: 2007.02.12
SOURCE: David Gladstone, a Citizen Special

Difficult as it is to understand, the city of Ottawa's controversial north-south light-rail project wasn't (at it was often advertised) an expansion of the successful, award-winning, O-Train light-rail transit service, but its entire replacement.

The result would have been three years of no O-Train service between Greenboro and Bayview. Inexplicably, ending O-Train service was agreed by Ottawa council with no discussion of the impact on its up to 10,000 daily riders, Carleton University, a major institution on the line, and the rest of Ottawa's transportation system, or why it was in fact necessary.

The fact that the north-south light-rail project wasn't an expansion of the O-Train was core to its undoing, as it led to a proposal to spend up to $1 billion with little real benefit over the current O-Train service.

*Use existing rail lines to expand transit: Friends of the O-Train*
Patrick Dare
The Ottawa Citizen - original

Monday, January 29, 2007

Ottawa can ease car and bus congestion on the roads, get commuter rail service to Kanata, Barrhaven and across the Ottawa River to Gatineau by using existing rail lines, Friends of the O-Train said Monday.

The Friends, a group of public transit supporters that formed to promote commuter rail in Ottawa, says railroad tracks that are already built can be used to run both diesel commuter trains and electric commuter trains that are running through downtown.