Transport 2000 Brief to Council on North-South LRT, David Jeanes, 28 June 2006

Transport 2000 Brief to Council on North-South LRT, David Jeanes, 28 June 2006

Transport 2000 has been one of the strongest supporters of light rail since the Region's 1996 Rapid Transit Study, and long before that. We have also participated in all studies related to the Transitway and the improvement of Ottawa's bus services. I would have been much happier to have been here defending the City's plans and helping to build public consensus, as we have done throughout the development of LRT plans since 1998. This is a crucial decision for the future of our city, for fixing urban quality of life, and for smart growth. Transport 2000 has strong confidence in the capabilities and functions of the chosen LRT vehicles. I have visited LRT systems and maintenance facilities in North America and overseas that use vehicles from all three bidders. I did this independently or as a guest of transit operators or vehicle suppliers. Transport 2000 members have contributed to LRT projects across Canada. We have had displays at over 50 local community events to promote and explain light rail.

At all stages of this LRT project we have recommended better public consultation and participation. The EA did not show the plans as they were communicated to the bidders in the excessively secret RFP. At the recent open houses, many of the drawings shown to the public were already out of date. Mr. Chartrand and his staff hardly ever appear at public meetings to answer questions in public. We have seen many Transport 2000 recommendations adopted, initially in the design of Bayview, Carling, and Greenboro stations and the passing track and signalling for the O-Train. On the current LRT project we recommended going downtown when the ORTEP study excluded it, we persuaded the City to shift the LRT line to the north side of Albert Street when the EA recommended the south side, we recommended single-track south of Leitrim to save money when the consultants opposed it, we recommended extension to Barrhaven town centre when the RFP and MOU excluded it, we identified the technology to allow continued auto use of the Mackenzie King Bridge, we have recommended since 1999 that the LRT go under rather than over the VIA Rail tracks, and we have urged that the station planned for South Keys since 1998 be retained.

But we have been ignored on important issues, including the airport link, which was a top priority for the public, RTES, council, the NCC, and the TMP, and was shown at all the EA public meetings. Transport 2000 proposals to reduce the costs of north-south light rail and to bring forward interprovincial and east-west light rail were rejected, though we met with City staff, OC Transpo and the consultants to examine our cost assumptions. We opposed the failure to follow brownfield re-use policies for the yards, a flawed analysis of extension to Hurdman, and the plan to give up our hard-won federal railway status.

You are making or have already made your decision in haste, rather than allowing an open public discussion during the election. But I must tell you that this council has often seemed fundamentally anti-transit and opposed to public consultation:

• You made $10 million in budget cuts to bus routes, without public consultations on the routes involved.
  
• You failed to require the transit-only alternative approved by Council for the Alta Vista hospitals
  
• You approved annual transit fare increases at double the inflation rate
  
• You have allowed new major urban faciliities not at rapid transit stations
• You cut the effectiveness of the Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Committee
  
• You failed to require O-Train pilot project reports after December 2002
  
• You rejected the unanimous recommendations of the EA public working group and the city's own advisory committees on the maintenance yard
  
• You have delayed the interprovincial rapid transit study planned since 2003
  

The new Transit network plan does not reflect the TMP. The airport link is gone. East-west LRT is downgraded from rapid transit, capable of grade separation, to a semi-reserved streetcar on a 46 km suburban route, too long compared to Toronto streetcar lines which radiate only 7-9 km from downtown. We negotiated that the final vote on the TMP remove the exclusion of diesel LRT as one of three options recommended by the Rapid Transit Expansion Study, but staff have ignored this. We now see no reuse of rail infrastructure, roadbed, track, most bridges, and the rail yards, which the O-Train project proved could give us rapid turn-up, low initial cost and effective rapid transit service. The O-train has had the fastest ridership growth at OC Transpo, the most reliable operation, including winter, greatest fuel savings, and highest customer satisfaction. The 1997 Transportation Master plan had called for incremental expansion starting in 2003 on the east-west line and the southward extension to Leitrim. We could have had them in service already!

The experts are misrepresenting our own Diesel Light Rail Pilot Project. The recommendation to sell the O-Trains for about 40% of their purchase price is based on analysis that we have repeatedly challenged. Four US cities are now following Ottawa's lead to introduce diesel light rail on existing tracks, combined with electric LRT, on-street running, and even limited freight track sharing. David Morgan, the expert brought by the City from New Jersey to assist the maintenance yard consultation actually described New Jersey's success with Diesel Light Rail as the fastest growing part of their system. Kanata does have urgent transitway issues, but in terms of north-south versus east-west rapid transit investment, the transitways 9 km south from Hurdman to Hunt Club and 10 km south of Lincoln Fields to Fallowfield are both north-south. The central section, Lincoln Fields to Hurdman, is common to north-south and east-west transit, (8 km transitway plus 7 km of parkway and downtown streets).

We oppose O-Train interruptions and support the get-it-right campaign. This project can't succeed without broad public and business consensus. Holding the downtown open house in the first 12 hours, today's meeting two weeks later, and locating all last weeks's meetings outside the greenbelt, is not good enough.