Transport 2000 has supported the City’s Rapid Transit Expansion plan and the Importance of Light Rail to the city’s future from the start.

I have been promoting public transportation with Transport 2000 for 30 years, and working on Ottawa’s Light Rail pilot project and the subsequent and current environmental assessments for the last eight years. I tried to help city staff and consultants when the downtown plan was clearly unacceptable to business, and the changes to the Albert Street and Mackenzie King Bridge plans came from me.

However, I can only conclude now that the City’s light rail plan is designed to fail and that the rest of the Light Rail network will not be built. Mr. Lloyd Russell stated to the media two weeks ago that the money will not be there for East-West Light Rail.

I only have five minutes to prove this to you and I am not permitted to question what Mr. Chartrand, Mr. Lathrop. And Mr Kirkpatrick will say to you, though they will continue to disparage me. There is still no process for ongoing public consultation on this project.

I have had to listen to the fairness commissioner, who has never met with the public whose interest he is supposed to represent, speaking at length, without explaining why the city must keep secret its request for proposal and amendments given to all the bidders.

I have for three years been an appointee of the City of Toronto council to the public advisory committee for its biggest Public Private Partnership project, Toronto Union Station. The RFP for that project was not secret and the process was much more open.

The project office and your senior management are making many statements to you, the media, in letters to individuals, and on the new website that are incorrect and misleading. The reasons for rejecting Walkley yard for example, that it was not double-ended, that it had no way to turn trains, that is was not big enough, were all incorrect. The website says that the RTES report recommended the south leg to Limebank as the priority, when in fact this came from council. The report recommended Leitrim and the airport. Incorrect statements are being made about our present O-Train’s weight, emissions, passenger capacity per driver, floor height and winter performance, in comparison to lectric LRT.

I have met with almost every group that has concerns about the project, and each has very legitimate complaints. The downtown businesses, the students at Carleton, the Airport Authority, the University of Ottawa’s administration, Transport Canada, the Railway Companies, the National Research Council, the National Capital Commission, the community associations along the route, Heritage advocates, the media, and even your own consultants, are all still very concerned about negative aspects of the project and their frustrations in dealing with City Staff on these matters

The latest list of stations shows that there will be very few new riders for this service, beyond those who are already well-served by the O-Train. With the elimination of the Airport, Barrhaven Town Centre, and now even South Keys, there are no no new employment destinations along the south extension, and therefore this line will see almost no reverse-flow or off-peak traffic. Downtown, the reverse flow direction will see very few riders, because there are no good connection for feeding bus traffic from the east. South Keys is a very serious loss. Its Walmart and Multi Screen cinema are important destination for residents along the corridor from downtown to Carleton. As our model shows, it is one of the cheapest and easiest to build with very effective bus transfers

Most of the new stations are in remote Greenfield sites, with no population at present within the magic 400m walking distance, or even 600m. Yet the website makes it clear that ot is mainly the walk-on riders who will benefit from the new line. No other Light Rail system is planned in this way. In Calgary the rule is that 50% of ridres at suburban stations come from feeder buses, 20% from Park and Ride, and the remaining 30% split among kiss-and-ride, walk-on, and cycling.

The insistence from the start on double track everywhere, and 5-minute frequency, and precluding multi-car trains unlike most other LRT systems, mean that we face the highest infrastructure costs and the lowest driver productivity. The city has failed to protect important lands where the rail corridors cross or adjacent to the yards. An important piece of NCC land at Bayview was lost to the city, new stormwater ponds are encroaching on land needed for the nprth-south to east-west connectiuon at Walkley diamond, and the NCC is selling land next to Walkley Yard because the city has no interest in buying it.

Staff insists on the importance of minimizing transfers, yet are planning transfersb at the unsafe Lester Road location for airport users and employees that will merely replace the present 97 bus service to the airport. These are not new riders, and many will have more transfers than at present. But you are still are not being told what travel times will be.

The city has refused to accept any of Transport 2000’s proposals for the continued ability to handle freight traffic, including to the National Research Council and across the river to Quebec, which is increasingly important in a future of energy shortages, Design of grade separations, placement of electric supply poles, nonstandard height of the overhead wire, and refusal to use standard railway methods for freight train to pass the platforms.

You need better accountability to the public from your staff, you need to take back decision making on this project, and most of all you need assurances that this project is not being designed to fail so that the federal and provincial money can be used instead on the many road and bridge projects that are competing for the same riders, and for expansions of the bus transitway, which has really reached the limits of its productrivity and its ability to move a growing number of people into the congested downtown.

What has gone wrong?

David L. Jeanes, P.Eng.
President, Transport 2000 Canada
613 725 9484, david@jeanes.ca