Save Our Greenspace

OTrain Ridership increases

2006-10-23T23:49:00.000-04:00

O-Train ridership is increasing. Like, alot. 12,000 per day is not unusual these days. If ridership continues to expand, we'd exceed the estimated ridership of the Chiarelli Deluxe Streetcar by the time that would roll into service.

Think about it - spend nothing or spend one billion dollars and you amount to the same increase in ridership. "We're planning for the future - the O-Train doesn't cut it" some people (Diane Deans?) have said. Planning for the future doesn't mean gutting a system with 20 years+ useful life left. Nor does it mean replacing it with the most expsensive far-flug plan possible.

Planning for the future started in October of 2000 when Mayor Chiarelli stated that the O-Train would be expanded upon (not replaced) for 1-2 million$ per km.

Watch for yourself in the video "The Light Rail Dream":
http://www.dunrobincastle.com/TellMeWhy/TellMeWhy.htm

What happened Bob? Fortunately, Alex Munter is heading in the right direction on this issue.

Candidates' vision for LRT in Ottawa

2006-10-11T22:27:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that I think Mr. Baird has been in his right to
ask to see the contract. It would have been smarter, having seen
the business case for the city's proposed Billion-Dollar Streetcar
system, he'd said "no thanks, show me something that has value for money."

Let's not forget that the federal liberals (of which Mr. Chiarelli is a
supporter) got kicked out of office for a "mere" $130Million lost in the
AdScam that Justice Gomery investigated. Mr. Harper's conversatives
came in on a platform of accountability, and I can not call spending
$200million of my tax money on a streetcar system that will move fewer
people than our current system, move them slower, and cause significant disruption to our existing bus system to be good "accountability".

Mr. Baird, bowing to political pressure seems to have found a
politically acceptable out in delaying things. This seems acceptable
to me, and is really only what numerous people asked for in July.

It is now time to hear from all candidates what they would do. Calling
for an "audit" is not clear enough to me.

There are three choices: a) approve the project as it is. b) cancel the
project completely. c) design and build incrementally on what we have.

Option (c) is what I thought I voted for in 2000 and 2003 when I voted
for Mr. Chiarelli. He has not delivered on it, and he's on record on
this.

I am calling upon all candidates to state clearly what they would do,
and if the option is (c), then tell us what your vision is, or endorse a
specific vision.

From Mr. M. Richardson, (whom I agree with).

Ottawa voters will decide on LRT

2006-10-10T22:32:00.000-04:00

Federal Government Approves O-Train Funding
But Baird says Newly Elected Council Will Have Final Say
Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Ottawa's newly elected City Council will have a chance to give the "green light" to the north-south Light Rail Transit Project.

Treasury Board President John Baird has announced the City of Ottawa will receive 200 million dollars in federal funding for the proposed O-Train.

But Baird says the funding will be subject to the final approval of the new city council that will be elected on November 13th.

Treasury Board Staff spent the Thanksgiving Weekend reviewing the 600 page contract between the City of Ottawa and Siemens-PCL Dufferin.

Baird tells CFRA News "I was initially told the drop dead date was late September, then I was told October 4th, October 5th and then October 15th. But when I read the contract in its entirety, in fact there is no penalties until December 15th."

Federal Officials say the City of Ottawa has until December 15 to sign a contribution agreement with the Federal Government without causing any increase in the cost of the project.

Baird adds that is why the newly elected city council and Ottawa taxpayers should have a voice in the decision on the O-Train.

Mayor Bob Chiarelli and City Staff had suggested the contract had to be approved by October 15th.

Baird does tell CFRA News he has some concerns and questions about the O-Train, but the final decision rests with Ottawa taxpayers and elected officials.

Open House: Innes-Walkley-Hunt Club Connection

2006-10-10T00:12:00.000-04:00

The attached scan (pdf) is an ad which appeared in the South Ottawa EMC local newspaper. It's an invitation to a Public Open House re: a new road to connect Innes, Walkley and Hunt Club, with a new interchange on the 417.

A portion of the project will be in the Greenbelt.

The project proponents are Ottawa and the Ministry of Transport, who have begun an environmental assessment. "Through this assessment we have confirmed the need (for the project) and are now determining the form and function of these facilities to serve the transportation demands of the city."

Purpose of the Open House is to hear comments on 1) Assessment of Alternatives, 2) Present the technically preferred alternative and refinements, and to present next steps in the study.

City staff, Ministry of Transport staff, NCC staff and National Capital Engineering consultants will be available to answer questions (like, what determined the need for this project?).

WHEN: Wed. Oct 18, 2006 - 5 to 8:00 pm
WHERE: Jim Durrell Arena, 1265 Walkley Road

Ineffective LRT Plan should be improved.

2006-10-05T22:38:00.000-04:00

The project should be stopped and rethought using a value-for-money comparison against other alternatives. The use of $800 million to $1 billion dollars for only 29 km of light rail is not a good investment. Net new ridership is pegged at 1090 people according to the city's own ridership study. The extremely successful current O-Train should be retained and expanded upon, not replaced.

Other economically sustainable alternatives developed in a phased approach would cost less and bring more value to the city in terms of ridership, downtown congestion relief and pollution reduction. Residents, taxpayers and transportation experts agree that the city is going down a very expensive and inflexible path. Please direct the city to change course and consider better options such as:

Retain the current diesel O-Train (currently up for sale) and expand the service into Gatineau and the airport.
Remove buses from downtown and provide an electric rail service from Bayview to Hurdman, using the buses to provide a better local service.
Extend the diesel OTrain to a park and ride in Leitrim.
Use the VIA corridor (an available, shorter route) to connect Barrhaven to downtown.
Align the track along the Airport Parkway, not through forested greenspace.
Put the maintenance yard at the existing brownfield Walkley site, not in a federally-protected wetland.

Any of these options, if worked into the current project properly, would see a greater impact on Ottawa's modal split goal.

If any part of the $200 million in federal money is to be used on this project, then the city must adhere to the terms of the MOU by providing a business case justifying that the project is superior to other alternatives. I for one, don't think it will be possible unless the project plan is altered.

Sincerely,

Ron Rancourt

O-Train should stay in Ottawa!

2006-10-05T21:31:00.000-04:00

Brian writes...

I keep hearing the city stating that the proposed LRT is the only option for fast effiecient transit in the city to solve the traffic woes but that is completely not true. Part of the agreement with the city and siemens states that once construction begins on the electric LRT, The talents are going to be put for sale. I was wondering should the propose LRT not go ahead, will the current DMU O-Train continue to run? Are there any options looking forward to expand the O-Train perhaps as south as Letrim? and possibly the airport?

Hello Brian,

Thank you for taking the time to write us. You may not be surprised to hear that we share the same concerns you do. The on July 12th City Council instructed staff to sell the Talents as soon as their proposed project gets funding approval, for delivery shortly after April 1st 2007. This is no April Fools joke. We have been told from OC Transpo executives that there is considerable buyer interest, so they expect a sale to be quick and final.

Now is the time to call and write politicians and make sure they know your views.

Here is how you can contact the incumbent Councillors:
http://ottawa.ca/city_hall/mayor_council/councillors/index_en.html

Here is how you can contact the incumbent area MPs:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/SenatorsMembers.asp?Language=E

Your voice can make a difference!

Baird knows we need value-for-money audit

2006-10-04T22:00:00.000-04:00

Feds may brake trains
Funding audit could kill light rail project
By DEREK PUDDICOMBE, CITY HALL BUREAU

Federal funding for Ottawa's billion-dollar light rail project may be losing steam.

A City Hall source told the Sun yesterday that Treasury Board president John Baird will announce this week that he is so concerned about the viability of the city's north-south light rail transit project that his department may call for an audit on the "value for money" taxpayers would be receiving.

"They will make an announcement this week," the Sun was told.

When contacted, Baird's office said the city will get the $200 million the feds have committed for infrastructure -- but a decision to look at whether that money should be allocated to light rail will be announced soon.

"That decision will be made shortly," said Patrick Robert, Baird's press secretary. "The decision on light rail has not been made yet."

"NOT A SLAM DUNK"

The light rail project is funded by all three levels of government with $200 million coming from the province and the feds. The province has told the city its funding is secure.

Mayoral candidate Larry O'Brien said starting a review and putting a microscope to the cost of the project versus the number of new riders anticipated to be generated is exactly what the government should be doing.

"This is a very interesting situation," said O'Brien. "It's not a slam dunk that they will release the funding."

He added it would be unprecedented if the government went ahead and cut the city a cheque without some sort of review. In a Sept. 21 letter to Baird, O'Brien suggested the "system needs a formal audit and due diligence to ensure that the City of Ottawa is not left with a very expensive and ineffective transit system."

Gloucester-Southgate Coun. Diane Deans, who voted for the north-south LRT project, said an audit is a concern and could kill the project.

SERIOUS JEOPARDY

"Council made the decision to go ahead based on the contributions," said Deans.

"This could seriously jeopardize the project if we lost the federal funding."

Baird has also received pressure from Knoxdale-Merivale Coun. Gord Hunter, who voted against LRT. He wrote to the minister and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty in July asking them to take a closer look at the business case for LRT.

Hunter says the city's ridership study that LRT will attract 5,000 new riders doesn't support the expenditure.

"We should not be spending $1 billion for the benefit of a very few," said Hunter. "This is very good news."

Who's driving this train? - R. Denley, Ottawa Citizen

2006-09-24T00:22:00.000-04:00

Clearly, it's up to us to get a downtown route
Randall Denley, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, September 23, 2006

Comments and emphasis in Bold, added by Ron Rancourt.

Building east-west light-rail is the key promise in Mayor Bob Chiarelli's re-election campaign, but the majority of his own councillors say the way the mayor and city staff are going about it is wrong. They want the city to at least consider a fast downtown train route that would use the Queensway, Highway 174 or the transitway.

The mayor says he's offering leadership on the light-rail issue, but he can't even get his own colleagues on the same page. The Chiarelli caboose seems to have become detached from the train.

At a conceptual level, east-west light-rail sounds good. People in Orleans and Kanata want improved transit and they like the idea of rail. The problem is in the options city staff are putting forward. The three routes the city is studying won't really address the desire of people in the suburbs to get downtown quickly.

The city is considering what amounts to streetcar lines along Carling Avenue and Montreal Road, as well as a somewhat faster train that would loop south [hence why Diane Deans loves this plan], connecting Orleans to Kanata. The city plan calls for people making the main east-west commute to rely on buses or cars indefinitely.

The mayor backs this plan, saying these three options will give us the information we need, and if councillors want other routes considered, they can amend the existing studies.

I polled all 21 councillors to find out if they think those three routes offer the appropriate east-west solution, or if the city should be looking at alternatives. Of the 15 councillors who responded, 11 think the staff plan should be changed. Only four support the existing plan. Six did not
respond.

Councillors are backing away from the plan the city approved in 2003 because transit riders are telling them they want quick and direct transit access to downtown. That won't happen unless the people we elect take action.

If the do-nothing course is followed, there will be no quick route to downtown to consider. Just as in the north-south line, councillors have effectively predetermined where rail will go by identifying the corridors for study. The environmental assessment then looks at the best route within the corridor. Staff aren't going to consider things councillors didn't ask them to look at. Some councillors still think staff are studying all the east-west alternatives, not understanding that the alternatives are only minor route variations within the corridors councillors have already approved.

History predicts the next step. When the results of all these environmental assessments come back in 2009, councillors will be dismayed because none of the routes are really what they want. They will complain, then shrug and say starting over to study a new route would take too long, and it's urgent to get east-west built. Plus, they will already have spent about $9 million studying the stuff in hand. Then they'll choose a poor route, [the root developers urged city staff to take] arguing there's nothing better in front of them.

It doesn't have to be that way, but it will be, unless councillors show some leadership. It's clear someone has to act, and several councillors say they will, after the election. It isn't complicated. They need to add a study corridor that would include the Queensway, the transitway and Highway 174. There seems to be considerable support on council for this kind of route.

The fact is, councillors didn't get this right back in 2003, when they approved the three east-west corridors. Councillor Clive Doucet describes the situation well. The issue is really whether we want a rapid transit system to the downtown to serve commuters only, or if we want a slower transit system that provides both local and commuter service. The city plans provide only for the latter, but Doucet wants a debate to settle the point.

The councillors who want new alternatives include Alex Cullen, Michel Bellemare, Peggy Feltmate, Gord Hunter, Jacques Legendre, Rainer Bloess, Bob Monette, Peter Hume, Rob Jellett, Maria McRae and Doucet.

Councillor Diane Deans supports the staff plan because most of the future growth will be in the south, she says, so rail lines that serve the south are appropriate. Councillor Jan Harder thinks it's the public's job to shoot down the routes staff are studying and propose better ones. Must be what they're paying us the big bucks for. [In reality, the public isn't heard on this issue. Take the Public Working Group for the placement of the LRT Maintenance Yard for example.] Councillor Rick Chiarelli wants to leave it to the city's "highly-paid professional staff," believing that they will show councillors how to choose the best route. [Only dead fish go with the flow, Rick.]

The question for the election is not simply is transit good, or even is east-west transit good. Candidates for mayor and council should be able to tell us what approach they think is best. For the ones who haven't yet got the message that true rapid transit to downtown is what's required, now's the time to tell them.

Contact Randall Denley at 596-3756 or at rdenley@thecitizen.canwest.com

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006

Ottawa Gatineau Rail link is much needed - video

2006-09-14T23:55:00.000-04:00

How long will the Prince Of Wales railway bridge go unused?

Honestly, I can't believe this situation. We have thousands of people crossing the river each day, with STO buses crowding downtown streets (and travelling empty 50% of the time), bridges in disrepair, pollution and time wasted sitting in traffic.

This is the National Captial Region. We need a train link to connect Ottawa and Gatineau!

See the video at the above link (opens in new window). Also see the diesel vs electric argument. These videos come curtesy of the people behind Tell Me Why.

We have a proven O-Train pilot project that is in jeapardy. If city staff get their way the three trains will be sold off for $7M. It's a waste of our investment and lost revenue for both cities, not to mention the number of cars and buses that could be taken off the road if we had an Inter-City Rail link.

The O-Train should be extended into Gatineau. It's economical and it makes sense. WHAT IS HOLDING THIS BACK? WHY HASN'T THIS BEEN DONE?

Ron

Thinking forward to Biodiesel, Not for Ottawa LRT

2006-09-13T22:31:00.000-04:00

I guess people mainly think of fossil diesel first and biodiesel second when diesel is mentioned. I like to think of diesel as something we are going to be able to make from biomass, wastes, algae, etc., at some point in the future. The city's perennial problem is that it plans from the perspective of what was, and not what could well be. Who would have thought that the Swedes could have made gas from slaughter house waste?

As I see it, OC Transpo staff are the exception to the city's way of not thinking very well. EAC had a presentation from OC some months back where they outlined their plans for the future as their equipment was powered by one fuel and then another over the next 10 to 15 years as new, less heavy buses were purchased (of course, City Council blew their plans apart when it decided not to go ahead with the hybrid buses). Anyway, I was impressed with their answer to my question about their plans for after the next 15 years. They simply said they were keeping a close eye on new energy developments because they knew that new technologies would be coming along. In other words, they were not carving out a long term plan in stone, but building flexibility into their future plans.

On the contrary, LRT staff seem to be building inflexibility into the project whereas they should be building in flexibility and adaptability so that closures and retrofitting do not cost the earth. In my experience with them, senior city staff (and a good percentage of the councillors) do not believe in climate change or peak oil - the two greatest threats to the survival of the status quo. Due diligence? The Common Good? Common Sense? Fiscal Responsibility? Everything takes a back seat to the city's main job of working for the developers.

Ann Coffey

Developers Own Ottawa

2006-08-15T15:33:00.000-04:00

It has been brought to my attention that top city managers smugly admit that we (taxpayers of all levels) are paying $15M/mile for a meandering Streetcar route through empty fields to benefit developers.

The city is spending $250,000 promoting the overpriced boondoggle project.

Most sane people consider a gradual expansion (from Ottawa LRT)to the existing O-Train the right way to go for the city.

Gord Hunter: Hold off funding the LRT

2006-08-03T11:40:00.000-04:00

Reported in the Sun, and CFRA...

An Ottawa City Councillor wants the Federal and Ontario Governments to hit the brakes on funding for the O-Train until it reviews the plans.

The Ottawa Sun reports Gord Hunter wrote to Treasury Board President John Baird and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, asking them to look at Ottawa's business case for the 780-million dollar Light Rail Transit System.

Hunter is concerned taxpayers will be spending all this money on a line that will only bring in five million dollars in revenue a year. He notes the O-Train will only add five thousand riders to the transit system. [we know that the number of net new riders is actually 1090, based on an IBI ridership report.]

The two levels of government have pledged 400 million dollars towards the project. [only on approval of a business case for the LRT N-S line, which is not yet completed.]

Hunter was one of seven councillors who voted against the line from the University of Ottawa to Barrhaven.

Ottawa is Officially Screwed

2006-07-25T23:22:00.000-04:00

More criticism of Ottawa LRT from Officially Screwed. From the article:
it will, in effect, be a streetcar style which will:

A) put enormous stress on the already burdened power grid,
B) open up the possibility to a power failure stranding thousands of people, including the possibility of being stuck under Dow’s Lake.
C) take more power which comes from coal fired and nuclear produced electricity costing $20M per km of track when the diesel electric option would have cost $4M per km. - Read More

Ottawa LRT Leader rebuffed

2006-07-25T22:43:00.000-04:00

Over at Ottawa LRT there's a document posted that totally pulls apart a memo by Réjean Chartrand, telling councillors that disaster will strike the city if it doesn't approve the LRT Project.

Also take a look at the Ridership Analysis, which shows a mere 1090 net new (peak-hour) riders will bestow the new LRT system. This is HARDLY A DENT in the the 67000 new riders needed to achieve the city's 30% modal split goal. I'd expect more BANG for my tax dollar, for a $1Billion system.

Chartrand has bent the truth and outright lied to council (methinks intentionally) regarding the content of this study in order to get the project approved for the Mayor.

LRT gets the green light by a vote of 14-8

2006-07-12T22:02:00.000-04:00

Terry Kilrea noted of the proceedings today:
"They were like students cramming for an exam with their line of last minute questioning. Now they're all hoping they did the right thing and that they graduate in November."

Here's how they voted on the $1Billion project :

Bob Monette — Yes
Jan Harder — Yes
Eli El-Chantiry — Yes
Janet Stavinga — Yes
Diane Deans — Yes
Georges Bedard — Yes
Diane Homles — Yes
Shawn Little — Yes
Maria McRae — Yes
Clive Doucet — Yes
Peter Hume — Yes
Rob Jellett — Yes
Doug Thompson — Yes
Bob Chiarelli — Yes

Ranier Bloess — No
Jacques Legendre — No
Peggy Feltmate — No
Alex Cullen — No
Rick Chiarelli — No
Michel Belmare — No
Glenn Brooks — No
Gord Hunter — No

The amendments which passed:
- exclude Lester Station
- include South Keys station
- bring station designs back to Transportation Committee and Council for approval.
- preclude eastward extensions into Sandy Hill, beyond Cumberland
- refer the question of extension to Hurdman back to Transportation Committee
- build the west Transitway Pinecrest to Bayshore.
- negotiate parking lot sharing at Barrhaven Town Centre
- the contract will be placed on the public record
- the contract will be open to revision by mutual agreement
- community working groups to be set up in affected wards (Somerset, Hintonburg, etc.)

Up for public process:
- the addendum EA for the U of O
- the heritage district consultations for the U of O
- the Hurdman question at Transportation Committee
- Public consultation on the O-Train replacement transit service
- review of the issues of the maintenance yard selection with community and interest groups
- the Interprovincial Transit Study
- The East West LRT EA report
- public review of the other two bidders' designs
- station designs at Transportation Committee
- Quarterly project report (in October)

Open Letter: North-South LRT: the 1.6% Solution

2006-07-10T23:48:00.000-04:00

Little-Known City Ridership Study Shows the Proposed $800+ Million Project Will, at Best, Only Get 900 Cars Off The Road.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce evidence and analysis that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the proposed North-South LRT project contains fundamental planning flaws, important data omissions and significant misrepresentations. A reasonable person would further conclude that the current plan is neither an efficient nor effective means of contributing to Council’s goal of achieving 30% of all vehicle commuters traveling by public transit. All evidence used to support these conclusions will come entirely from the City’s official planning documents.

View the PDF here: Open Letter - NS LRT Proposal July 10 2006.pdf

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

2006-06-28T20:29:00.000-04:00

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.

Bob Chiarelli: Diesel is better (Oct 2000)

2006-06-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to let you know about the video of Bob Chiarelli (Oct./2000) which I've loaded on the Ecoview website www.ecoview.com (2nd item top left). See and hear him state the following;

We can quickly expand from the Ottawa Airport to the Gatineau Airport and to downtown Ottawa and Hull
From Cumberland to Kanata within 5 to ten years (2005 to 2010)
That we can build it for about $1 million/km on existing track (the proposed Electric LRT will cost $30 million/km)
Diesel is better environmentally

Direct link to the video: here (requires IE)

It isn't too late to ask Councillors to change their position from supporting the Electric LRT to supporting the simple expansion of our award-winning existing Diesel LRT. A diesel system would still follow most of the routes. This system is proven 99.4% reliable and has performed flawlessly for 5 winters. Only DLRT can reach out to the many communities that could be linked by existing rails or former corridors. These communities include Manotick Station, Osgoode, Kemptville, to the south. Stittsville, Richmond, Ashton and Smiths Falls to the southwest. Carp, Arnprior, to the west. Navan Blackburn Hamlet to the east. Casselman, Vars to the south east. Gatineau, Chelsea, etc.to the north. Calculate the reduction of traffic on our roads should this occur and it's easy to see how quickly and cost effectively we can improve the Ottawa region and dramatically reduce smog at the same.

I also received the following info on Transitway Cost Over Runs from Tim Lane (T2000 and member of the Rail yard selection Public Working Group).

In the early '80ties, when the dream of the Transitway was a gleam in the eye of various concrete & rebar suppliers, the initial estimate for its cost was $97 million.

Construction on the first sections of Transitway began in 1983.

By the time the "Grand" period of Transitway construction was finished, in 1996, (some limited expansions have occurred since then), the tab had mounted to $440 million.

The only previous "boondoggle" that I know of in this City to have exceeded it's cost estimates by such a huge factor was the Rideau Canal construction.

Of course, Col. By was working in an uncharted wilderness, and built a canal far larger and more substantial than had originally been contemplated.

Oh, by the way, yearly ridership on OC Transpo DECLINED by 10 million people, during that 13 year "Grand" period of Transitway construction.

One last thought - This NS LRT "expansion" will see cost overruns that will probably make the Transitway look like a bargain.

After all, they already have the cost of the LRT at over $30 million per Km., which is double the average cost of the Transitway.

Defer irrevocable contracts until post-election

2006-06-26T00:19:00.000-04:00

The DCA is on record as asking Council to defer making any irrevocable decisions on the project until after the municipal elections. We have specific concerns about the project, namely: the North-South LRT will not address current congestion issues caused by east-west and Ottawa-Gatineau commuter traffic; the project is likely to increase traffic congestion in the downtown core by adding additional transit infrastructure and trolleys; we are concerned about the project's financial viability and the consequent impact on both expansion of the LRT and other transit improvements; and there has been insufficient meaningful public debate on this close to $800 million investment of public funds.

The LRT project staff have sponsored several open houses on aspects of the overall project and have made details available on the City's web site. Although valid first steps in public awareness, these initiatives cannot be considered as full public consultation. Including the LRT as part of the municipal election process will ensure a full airing of questions and concerns we all might have about the project and, frankly, will introduce much-needed political accountability for any decisions made.

The DCA is a strong supporter of public transportation, and we look forward to the implementation of an LRT system that makes environmental and economic sense for Ottawa. Given the significance of the project, we believe a short delay is warranted in order to "Get It Right." Time is of the essence since Councillors will vote to accept or reject the Siemens bid on July 14, 2006.

Please make the position of your community association a part of their deliberation process.

Best wishes,

Martha Musgrove, President
Dalhousie Community Association

Diesel versus Electric light rail

2006-06-24T18:24:00.000-04:00

Tim Lane writes:

We (Transport 2000 and some other individuals)
have repeatedly asked City Staff, as part of the EA,
to evaluate the following:

For any given amount of money you have to spend, you
could build a larger diesel light rail system than an electric one,
due to the lower cost per km. of not having to put up the poles,
wires, and build substations & emergency generators.

A larger system will reach more neighbourhoods, employment,
educational, shopping, & recreational areas.

Therefore, it should be more effective, for a given expenditure,
at getting more people OUT of their cars, and onto transit.

Net effect - even though your transit vehicles are diesel,
rather than electric, the reduction in car traffic results in less fuel
being burned, and less pollution being created, in your city,
than with an electric system.

Note that this argument has nothing to do with how polluting
the generation of the electricity may be.

It doesn't matter if you use Hydro, natural gas, nucular (Dubya's
pronunciation!), coal, wind, diesel generators, oil fired boilers,
or squirrel cages to generate your power.

For any given expenditure, a diesel LRT system would reduce
City-wide fuel consumption & pollution MORE than an electric
LRT system.

It would get MORE people onto transit.

City council mandated that Staff evaluate this as part of the EA.

Staff ignored this directive.

Light-rail costs mounting

2006-06-14T19:58:00.000-04:00

Light-rail costs mounting
Jake Rupert, Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Without putting a shovel in the ground, Ottawa's
proposed north-south light-rail line is well over
budget. Just how much, however, depends on who is
doing the math.

City staff leading the project say, if approved, the
Rideau Centre to Barrhaven line, which calls for the
use of electric rail cars, will cost $745 million, or
about $20 million more than the $725 million initially
forecast.

But once several related projects that need to be done
for the line to work are included, the total price tag
is in the $1 billion range.

The revelation prompted anger from several city
councillors. The anger stemmed from a staff
presentation given by project leader Rejean Chartrand,
who repeatedly hailed the virtues of the project.

But during his presentation, it became clear several
items that some councillors felt should have been
included in the contract price had been lopped off to
keep the cost near the original estimate.

These include construction the line's maintenance
yard, the lease cost for the yard, extension of the
line to the centre of Barrhaven, operating costs of
the line, maintenance of the line for 15 years, money
to manage the project and more.

© Ottawa Citizen 2006

Open House - Preliminary Design Plans

2006-06-13T23:30:00.000-04:00

North-South O-Train Project
Preliminary design plans
The City of Ottawa invites you to attend one or more of the Open Houses listed below to review information and comment on the proposal submission for the North-South Light Rail Transit (LRT) Project as received from The Siemens-PCL/Dufferin Team, the recommended preferred Proponent for the project.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006
12:30 to 8 p.m.
Ottawa City Hall
Jean Pigott Hall
110 Laurier Avenue West

(more locations and dates)

Coalition calls for light rail rethink

2006-06-13T23:23:00.000-04:00

Copyright, Ottawa Sun, (published Tues, Jun13, 2006)

Ottawa business, environmental and community groups want city council to get it right before it spends hundreds of millions of dollars on light rail transit.

They also want councillors and the mayor to hold off on making any decision on LRT until after November's election.

Yesterday, they launched the "Get It Right" group consisting of 12 Ottawa organizations that are banding together to urge council to delay the north-south LRT line.

The groups say they aren't against an expanded O-Train line but want to make sure Ottawa taxpayers aren't railroaded into paying for something they don't really need or want.

TIME CRUNCH

Hume Rogers, one of the founders of the Albert Slater Coalition and general manager of the Capital Hill Hotel and Suites, says with the city ready to unveil the final design and all costs related to the project tomorrow, the public won't have enough time to comment on the project.

"Two weeks is not a reasonable amount of time to debate the biggest project in the city's history," said Rogers.

Council is scheduled to make its final decision July 14.

The group is also concerned the construction on the project might be interrupted because the city hasn't received all the regulatory approvals it needs.

The group will begin an aggressive, two-week advertising campaign asking for the project to be delayed and for residents to lobby their councillors to make it an election issue.

Gerry Lepage, president of the Bank St. BIA, says the LRT plan needs more thought.

Lepage also says the timing for public debate is all wrong.

"We are looking at a time when we are thinking about barbecuing, going to the cottage and vacations. We're not thinking about an O-Train," he said.

Group wants brakes on light-rail project

2006-06-12T23:13:00.000-04:00

Group wants brakes on light-rail project
CBC News

A coalition of business groups and transit experts wants Ottawa city council to put the brakes on the $725-million construction of the north-south light-rail line until after this fall's municipal election.

The call to halt the project came at a news conference on Monday morning, two days before the public release of details of the winning bid for the project, and just two weeks before Ottawa city council is to vote on the plan.

The group includes Ottawa's Chamber of Commerce, several neighbourhood organizations representing hundreds of local businesses and public transit advocates who have, until now, been closely allied with city officials on the plan.

FROM JUNE 1, 2006: Light rail costs veering off track

Construction on Ottawa's biggest — and most expensive — infrastructure project to date is supposed to begin this fall.

But a growing chorus is saying not so fast.

"I think there's a general feeling that the whole decision-making process has been rushed through without enough public consultation, without enough public knowledge, and that there's some very serious concerns about the plans as we know them," said Hume Rogers, a downtown hotel manager who heads a group of concerned business owners on Albert and Slater streets.

Joining the business-related groups in the coalition are Transport 2000, Heritage Ottawa, even Friends of the O-Train — organizations that are in favour of light-rail transit, but say they need to know more about this particular plan.

Though not affiliated with the coalition, mayoral candidate Terry Kilrea has also been calling for a freeze on the project. He's even launched a website to gather support and plans to present councillors with a petition this week.

He says they and Mayor Bob Chiarelli had better listen.

"This is becoming such a major issue that this is going to cost some councillors re-election if they continue on with this train that nobody knows what the cost is going to be," said Kilrea.

Get It Right: Community & business groups send message to City Council on LRT

2006-06-12T20:18:00.000-04:00

Good Morning, my name is Peter Hillier and I represent a group of concerned Ottawa South residents who formed Save our Greenspace as a result of learning that the City had included a valuable Greenspace between our community and the Airport Parkway as a potential site for the North-South LRT Maintenance Yard.

As a result we participated in a much broader Public Working Group of concerned residents and other stakeholders, including the Airport Authority, Ottawa Chamber of Commerce, etc to decide among 3 locations, all well noted in the press. After 8 weeks of deliberations (extended by 3 weeks at the demand of participants), education as to the environmental impacts and other social impacts, etc, the Public Working Group recommended by a very high margin that the Walkley Yard be reused as the site for expanded LRT operations for a variety of reasons, including adhering to the Provincial and Federal commitments to reuse of Brownfields, protection of the environment, protection of the Scenic Route that is the parkway, and valuable and declining urban greenspaces.

At days end, City Staff commissioned the consultants, hired to educate the PWG to come to a rational recommendation, to submit their own recommendation. They chose a site only introduced during the PWG process and it has since been ratified as the acceptable location by City Council.

This only goes to demonstrate the lack of voice residents of this city have during processes like this one. This project has some very severe financial risks associated with it. It has climbed significantly from a 400 million to 900 million dollar project and with normal scope creep associated with very large infrastructure projects of any kind we can anticipate a minimum of 30% beyond that. From 400m to 1.2 Billion is a very large hike and the Provincial and Federal Governments are only funding 400 million. There hasn’t been much publicity from the Mayors office as to where the rest of the money is coming from, but as a resident of this city I’m very concerned about the tax hikes that will be associated with this and the East-West project as they unfold.

It is high time that the leadership of this City become accountable to the rate payers. The back room politicking has to stop. Councilors have to stand up and commit to doing exactly what it is they are being paid to do and that is to do what is right for the City; not just their own backyard.

Residents of this city have to educate themselves about how this project will affect them. Write your councilor and demand that the project be deferred until after the election. If the Mayor and Council are not accountable now, I’m sure they will find themselves accountable in November.

Thank you,

Peter J. Hillier

Save our Greenspace

Op Ed piece on LRT expansion - Tim Lane

2006-06-12T20:00:00.000-04:00

Op Ed piece on LRT expansion for the Ottawa Citizen

June 12, 2006

By Tim Lane

There seems to be a concerted effort to forget, or dismiss, what the existing diesel light rail O-Train has accomplished.

A fifteen minute service on an existing heavy rail line, that carries upwards of ten thousand passengers per day, on a single track.

A system that integrates O-Train & bus to give people a faster, more comfortable trip than by bus alone, to many destinations.

A system that is the ideal way to get to events at Dow's Lake (Tulip Festival, Winterlude, etc.).

A system that has won awards, although on at least one occasion, management didn't tell the train drivers about it. (Ask me about that one!)

A system that has had beneficial effects on the bus system, freeing up buses to be used elsewhere.

A system that has tremendous fuel savings, on a per- passenger basis, compared to buses.

A system that reduces air pollution, compared to buses.

A system that provides ENORMOUS savings on snow clearing, compared to roads.

The O-Train kept running flawlessly, during last December's snowstorm that immobilized hundreds of buses.

The David Gladstone Memorial Pathway, between Bayview Station & the Ottawa River Parkway recreational path system, would have allowed people out for a stroll or bike ride, to see how close the O-Train comes to the Prince of Wales bridge. Of course, some people in the City don't want the public to know that a simple, low cost solution to cross river traffic congestion is immediately available.

The reason I call it the "David Gladstone Memorial Pathway", is that he will probably die of old age before it ever gets built. (pace, David!) Capital Railway (the O-Train) now has the federally mandated authority to run a rail passenger service into Quebec, which would obviously involve using the Prince of Wales bridge.

Doing this would be the simplest, most cost effective solution to downtown traffic problems.

It would allow many Gatineau residents, who, for example, work at Confederation Heights to ditch their car, and take a much faster transit service to work.

It would allow many OC Transpo and STO buses to stay on their respective sides of the river.

This would reduce bus congestion in the downtowns of both Hull and Ottawa.

It would allow many of these buses to be redeployed in various Gatineau and Ottawa neighbourhoods, thus improving bus frequency, without having to buy any new buses.

Now the Mayor seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting what the diesel O-Train has accomplished, and is convinced that any future LRT has to be the expensive kind.

He has forgotten that the #1 reason you bring in light rail, is TO REDUCE THE COST OF OPERATING YOUR TRANSIT SYSTEM!

The #2 reason, is to give your riders a FASTER, MORE RELIABLE TRIP, if terms of travel time, and schedule adherence.

The new North South LRT extension, looping through Riverside South before entering Barrhaven from the south east, will, at enormous cost, provide passengers with a slower trip from Barrhaven to downtown, than the express buses on Woodroffe Avenue.

The plans for the East West light rail lines, with proposals to run it down busy city streets, rather than the existing, mostly grade separated rail corridors, show that the purpose of LRT, now, is to enhance the value of developers properties.

The two real reasons for LRT, above, have been thrown out the window. There is no way that the proposed Light Rail system will provide a fast, reliable trip. Nor will it reduce the cost to the taxpayer of providing transit, if the vehicles, subsidized by the hour, are taking forever to get people where they're going.

I believe that it is time to put a halt to these LRT expansion plans, until after the election next fall. That would give the public and the planners time to get some sanity back into our transit system.

Tim Lane

Federal EA

2006-06-03T08:56:00.000-04:00

Download it here.

It's 124Megs, 400+ pages of light reading..

Contamination Questioned

2006-05-29T09:15:00.000-04:00

Is the site contaminated or not? And to what degree?
The city claims a huge cleanup is required at Walkley, but CP claims the contamination is no worse than any other railyard across Canada, noting that two old trainyards in Montreal are being transformed to make room for new hospital and a university expansion.

Metro news has more, click the image.

Citizen 3-part LRT series

2006-05-28T21:52:00.000-04:00

Looking at Ottawa's LRT Replacement (not expansion) Project, the Citizen has a 3 part series looking at the $725M project.

In an era of tight budgets, Mr. [Tim] Lane, a self-confessed "skinflint," believes light rail to be the cheaper public transit option. He says the city doesn't have to spend so much.

"For $325 million, the city's share of the north-south project, we could have 80 kilometres of diesel light rail on existing rail corridors in the city. It irks me that we are not using them," he said.

"We had rail before and we let it go. We should be using what we have."

Instead, the city is opting for a more expensive system that runs on urban roads and other corridors that require large investments in bridges and tracks.

Mr. Lane said he fears that the city's approach will make light rail so expensive that it would be difficult to win public support for the east-west line.

"If the idea is to get more people out of cars and into transit, you can do it cheaper and faster than the city is doing," he said.

Read the series here, under Editor's Picks.

5 voted to save greenspace

2006-05-24T22:15:00.000-04:00

City council voted today to use a greenspace field instead of re-developing a Brownfield - Walkley yard location.

The votes were 16 - 5 for Bowesville.

Councillors who voted to re-use Walkley yard were:
1) Councillor Legendre
2) Councillor Cullen
3) Councillor Bellemare
4) Councillor Thompson
5) Councillor Hunter

Congratulations and thank you for promoting sustainable development.

Council sent a clear message to the citizens of Ottawa today.

Mr. Rejean Chartrand, claimed staff knew about the contamination since March 2005, but chose not to share this knowledge with council, until today. Unexplicably that was acceptable to all but five councillors.

The MOU which was signed in April 2005, secured $400 M in Provincial and
Federal funding. The MOU outlined in the Project Definition where the Maintenance and Storage Facility will be placed, (at Walkley yard).

The Public Working Group used over 70 hours of their own personal time to contribute to this process outlined by the MOE. 100% of all participants clearly identified the site to use as Walkley yard.

The people from the Greenboro, Fairlea, and Heatherington communities supported this decision. Louise B. from Heatherington came out on May 16th, to speak for 5 minutes to the committees. Louise tried to convince council to help her, clean up the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, only a few councillors heard her speak.

Those wonderful insightful "Walkley yard" individuals showed us they cared more for the environment than council did today.

Cheryl

Council votes 16-5 in favour of Bowesville

2006-05-24T19:54:00.000-04:00

Rejean Chartrand was at his best today, saying all the right things to lead councillors and the public down to Bowesville.

Now I'm convinced: The PWG process was a complete sham. From the beginning there were members who thought the site was pre-determined before the PWG even got started. Ann Coffey even quit for this reason.

We see the MOU project description stating Walkley as the site for the maintenance yard. The city introduces two other sites for the EA and indicates a preference to the Airport Parkway site. Through the PWG proces yet another additional site, Bowseville 4C was identified for which no EA was done. Then the Mayor strikes a sweet deal with the Airport Authority for the Bowesville lands. The PWG is still meeting at this point, yet no decision or recommendation has been made.

I believe that the information on which today’s vote was determined was already known when the Public Working Group met but was deliberately witheld. It was a complete waste of my time and taxpayer money.

I sincerely hope the Ontario Minister of the Environment steps forward and puts this city in line for breaking the rules that govern the Environmental Assessment process. $200 million in provincial taxpayer money is on the line, and I expect an answer.

Ron Rancourt

May 24 - vote day

2006-05-23T23:19:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, May 24, Council is to vote on the Transportation and Economic Development committee's recommendation to use the Bowesvile Site for the maintenance yard. It looks like they're about to choose to pave over greenspace land despite lots of criticism, including:

David Jeanes, Transport 2000

Ann Coffey, City of Ottawa Environmental Advisory Committee

Nicole Parent, OFGAC

Ron Rancourt, Windsor Park Village/PWG member

Stephen Fanjoy, E-W PWG Member

On Brownfield Redevelopment, the city says:
"While costs to develop brownfields are greater than greenfields, positive experience and results in Canada and the U.S. have shown that the challenges to brownfield development can be overcome to produce a profit for the developer and significant economic, environmental and social benefits for the community." (link)

Letter to council

2006-05-18T10:21:00.000-04:00

Dear Mr. Mayor and Councillors,

As you deliberate on the site recommendation for the LRT maintenance
yard, please ask the following questions...

Safety:

Choosing to put the maintenance facility at the end of a runway is
asking for trouble. Electrified overhead lines increase the chance of
fires and loss of life to passengers and LRT maintenance staff should
a plane make impact. The entire LRT line would be put out of
commission.

Remember the over-run at the Toronto Airport? It happens. Does the
city want to take on that risk? Can the facility even be insured?

Ridership:

Why wasn't there consideration given to the E-W line, since the
facility would have to service trains on that line as well? Why
wasn't the incremental deadhead cost for the E-W line included in
staff's analysis?

Why is a 3-5 minute service interval being used to calculate
operational cost and determine where to locate the facility, when a
10-15 minute interval would be more appropriate? How was the 3-5
minute interval arrived at? Calgary gets along fine with a 15 minute
interval for their LRT. Want to reduce cost? Reduce the service
interval.

Contamination of Walkley: It's minor, according to the current owners,
CPRail. Cleanup would be minimal.

Contamination at Bowesville: Requires special water mains to shield
from a toxic plume flowing in a West-East direction just north of the
site. This 4C site was not part of the EA and would need to have that
done before building could start.

Answers to these questions will further point to Walkley as being the
true winner of the site selection process.

Sincerely,

Ron Rancourt
N-S PWG member for Windsor Park Village

819-934-1905 (days)
613-521-1272 (home)

Ottawa Loves Its Buses

2006-05-03T14:23:00.000-04:00

The Ottawa Citizen

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Re: Nothing rapid about train plan, April 29.

Columnist Randall Denley is right on track pointing out the folly of the City of Ottawa's approach to light rail, using trains where buses would work best while maintaining a bus transitway for the heavy commuter traffic that is best suited to trains.

The only thing missing from his analysis was the root cause for this impending white elephant -- namely the continuing infatuation that OC Transpo planners have with the existing Transitway and the notion of buses as rapid-transit vehicles.

For genuine rapid transit you need trains, not buses. The city made a penny-wise, pound-foolish mistake when it decided to use buses for the Transitway instead of going straight to light rail for rapid transit. Despite all the hype about the Transitway, buses will never be as efficient or effective as trains for moving large numbers of commuters quickly and in comfort. The best transit systems in the world rely on trains and buses working together in a hub and spoke system, with buses connecting to the rapid transit rail system, providing local service and serving the relatively low ridership routes between suburbs.

Ottawa has a chance to finally get transit right by introducing light rail to eventually substitute for the present bus Transitway as the heart of Ottawa's rapid transit system. Yet our transit planners are designing routes for the new trains that would relegate them to being little more than streetcars doing suburban milk-run service.

This makes no sense whatsoever, except as a strategy to ensure that light rail will never seriously threaten Ottawa's dependency on buses. By refusing to see beyond their beloved Transitway in its present form, the planners are ensuring that Ottawa's experiment with light rail will be a failure and that Ottawa commuters will be stuck with buses as their only viable alternative to automobiles for decades into the future.

What a waste of taxpayers' dollars, and what a shame to miss such a golden opportunity to finally get transit right in Ottawa.

Phil Brown,
Ottawa

Bring signs to City Hall

2006-04-26T11:04:00.000-04:00

CJOH live at 12:30. Bring signs! *
by Larry Pegg on April 26, 2006 - 9:54am
I will be attending and doing a live interview w/CJOH at 12:30 Bring signs. Suggested
slogans....

Take ultimate to the Promised land. The OSP (per May 2001 letter of invitation from
Airport Authority)

OSP will reduce smog, asthma, Type 2 Diabetes, obesity!

Ottawa Airport be fair!

We want a Study!

No more dead park and rides. Make them live.

Bowesville site not part of the EA

2006-04-26T07:44:00.000-04:00

I went back to read the EA that the city prepared and submitted to the Ministry of the Environment last fall.

It outlined three alternative sites:

1) Walkley
2) Lester (aqua Airport parkway)
3) Leitrim and Albion (on the Provincially Significant Wetlands)

NOT Bowesville

Bowesville is approximately 3 - 4 km down the road, and the EA has a mention of a park and ride on Bowesville road (but not a maintenance and storage facility for 105 train cars).

Rejean Chartrand put up these flip charts with Bowesville outlined as a possibility for a maintenance yard (I suspect sometime after Larry asked for use of the land) and months after the EA was approved by council. The first time I saw Bowesville was at a city presentation on Dec. 8th. They changed all the flip charts and web-sites pictures - but not the EA.

So we all kept talking about Bowesville. But you know what, now Mr. C. may want to put it at Bowesville, but he can't. There was never an EA done for a maintenance yard at that location. The city would be delayed at least three more months before the EA would have that addendum. Regardless the Minister would never allow for an addendum on maintenance yards, now that she knows about the MOU - stating the use of a Brownfield, and the fact that the PWG unanimously decided on a Brownfield.

Rally of support tomorrow

2006-04-25T10:50:00.000-04:00

Support is mounting for tomorrow's rally at City Hall (Lisgar side). This is to show support for the motion facing city council to direct the city to develop a multi-use year-round sports facility near the airport.

I encourage you to email your councillors and come out for some fun tomorrow! (Noon to 1:00pm) There will be ultimate frisbee players, soccer players, musicians and enthusiastic people having fun.

More info at www.ecoview.com
Ottawa Carleton Ultimate Frisbee Association, www.ocua.ca, stands to benefit along with the city, as it would become host to national and international soccer and ultimate championships.

Additionally,

A sports facility like the one proposed would bring enormous social and economic benefits to the city

The park would integrate well with the natural environment, and provide an excellent place for youth to go and be active.

Located on the N-S LRT line, it would add ridership and allow local soccer-moms and dads to leave their minivans at home.

Passengers on incoming flights will notice as they fly over the facility, that Ottawa is a vibrant, fun city to live in.

SAVE OUR GREENSPACE Event List

2006-04-24T14:44:00.000-04:00

SAVE OUR GREENSPACE Event List:

---When: Wed. April 26 - noon
Where: City Hall - Lisgar Street side
What: This is a display of support for the motion submitted by Councillor Doug Thompson, that supports the concept of the OSP located near the Ottawa Airport (more: www.ecoview.com) There will be soccer and frisbee players, musicians and good people. Let's send the message. Vote in favour of Councils motion.

---When: Wed. May 3rd - 5:30 pm
Where: (A) - Meet at Tache and St Joseph at about 5:00pm.
(B) Christ Church Cathedral (420 Sparks Street)
What: Meeting between Interest Groups and the NCC's Board of Directors

First 3 agenda items:
6:30 pm Word of Welcome
I Transportation
6:45 pm 1. Transport 2000
Interprovincial transportation and update on anniversary of Ottawa Station
6:55 pm 2. City Centre Coalition
Interprovincial transit

Details from David Gladstone:
Folks, ... the following was agreed for our May 3rd event: we'll meet at Tache and St Joseph in Hull at 5:00 (or a bit later) and walk along the railway corridor to the north end of the Prince of Wales railway bridge where we'll firmly restate our long-standing insistence on the need for O-Train service into Gatineau across the bridge.
...
Then we'll walk along the pathway to the Chaudiere Bridge, cross it, and walk by the War Museum to get another view of our favourite railway bridge, and on to Christ Church Cathedral , where all are invited to show their support for my comments to the NCC.

David G.

---When: May 16 - Time 1:30pm,
Where: City Hall Champlain Room
What: A joint committee meeting (Corporate Services and Economic Development) will hear comments from the public on the maintenance yard site selection, and will make a recommendation to council, based on the site selection report from the PWG and
consultant team.

---When May 24 - Time:
Where: City Hall - Andrew S. Haydon Hall
What: City Council meeting - will vote on where to put the maintenance yard.

MAYOR SPEECH AT ECO-FAIR

2006-04-24T10:35:00.002-04:00

I attended the Eco Fair on Saturday, and was pleased to hear the mayor's pledge to the environment.

"The environment is a priority for the city of Ottawa ... probably the highest priority at the city of Ottawa." [applause] " Certainly speaking for me personally, it is."

The mayor mentions how the LRT project is the largest constuction project in the histroy of Ottawa ($725M) and the largest environmental project in the history of the city of Ottawa.

Mayor Chiarelli also spoke about the Trail Road Landfill methane gas conversion project which will produce enough electricity to serve 5000 homes. He also mentioned a pilot project at Trail Road for plasma technology - A technology that uses very high levels of heat to convert garbage into gas, then to electricity.

New inititive that involves leadership:

"In order to continue to advance the city's environmental agenda, I have appointed our city manager, Kent Kirkpatrick, as the Environmental Commissioner for the City of Ottawa. The highest management level at the city, is going to also share the responsability of being the environmental commissioner."

The day before in Kanata, the mayor announced a "New Green Partnership Program" - $1 million in new funding in the 2006 budget:

"We are inviting community groups, community associations, service clubs, environmental groups, schools, to apply for a project that will give them up to $20,000 for their own neighbourhood. These are envionrmental projects, beautication projects, projects that will respect the pride that our citizens have in keeping this a beautiful and green community."

More info at ottawa.ca

The Mayor concluded by recognizing the environmental work of Ann Coffey, of the Environment Advisory Committee.

"I want to say how proud we are at the city, how proud I am as mayor, to have people like Ann Coffey sitting there working in the trenches, committed, and making a difference for the environment. So I want to say thank you very much."

His full speech can be heard here: MP3 (8 Meg download)

Opponents ride Chiarelli on light-rail

2006-04-21T15:11:00.000-04:00

Opponents ride Chiarelli on light-rail Citizen story, Apr. 20, 2006

First exchange for mayoral hopefuls

Mayoral candidates, Terry Kilrea, Bob Chiarelli and Alex Munter, outlined their themes for this year's campaign during a public forum at the Rideau Carleton Raceway. Mr. Kilrea and Mr. Munter said suspicions are growing that the light-rail project isn't good value.

Patrick Dare, The Ottawa Citizen [comments by yours truly, in italics]

Published: Thursday, April 20, 2006

Ottawa's three main candidates for mayor got out of the election gates yesterday with a first public exchange at the Rideau Carleton Raceway that asked whether the biggest capital project in the city's history, the north-south commuter rail line, is a boondoggle.

Mayor Bob Chiarelli replied with an emphatic no, saying the new 28-kilometre rail line will serve Riverside South, a community of up to 55,000, and South Nepean, with up to 150,000. His two main challengers, Alex Munter and Terry Kilrea, said there's a growing suspicion among taxpayers that the project isn't good value for the $725 million being spent.[First of all, these communities don't yet exist. Links to the airport, Barrhaven, Hull would boost ridership but have been cut or postponed. An important station at South Keys is not in the plans. Ridership forecasts are doubtful at best.]

Mr. Kilrea argued the commuter rail line is going the wrong way and should be running east-west, where much of the city's heavy commuter traffic and congestion occurs.

Mr. Chiarelli said east-west rail will come in time, but that the city went with a pitch to the federal and provincial governments for the north-south line because it had a lower, more palatable price tag. He said the federal and provincial governments, which are contributing $200 million each for the north-south line, would never have gone for a $2-billion project, which is about what an east-west service would have cost.[Let's not make up their mind for them, Mr. Mayor. But if this is true, what makes you think they'll be willing to pay for the E-W line later?]

Mr. Munter called for an independent financial look at the costs and benefits of the project and urged that city council not rush into contracts for the rail project before the Nov. 13 election. Mr. Munter reminded Mr. Chiarelli that he considered the bus-only transitway system too costly, at $5 million a kilometre, when he first ran for the regional chair's job in the 1990s, defeating Peter Clark. The north-south rail project has a capital cost of about $25 million a kilometre.

Answering questions later, Mr. Chiarelli said the north-south commuter line will be the first piece of transportation in the city that will serve neighbourhoods as they are growing, rather than after the fact.

Mr. Chiarelli said the city's east-west corridor has already seen a major investment of public money in the bus transitway.

During the moderated discussion, the candidates set themes for the seven-month campaign. Mr. Kilrea said the city's biggest problem is spending on unaffordable projects and programs and wants to see council stick to the basic services -- "police, fire, paramedics. Pick up my garbage, clean my roads."

He said business people and rural residents are upset with an administration that costs too much and demands uniformity on everything from chip stand fees to bylaw enforcement. Mr. Kilrea said the city shows businesses little respect, noting that it suddenly cancelled garbage collection for small businesses without informing them.

Mr. Munter said the election is about whether it's time for a change after a decade of Mr. Chiarelli as the top municipal politician. Mr. Munter said the city has to focus on things like ensuring a supply of affordable housing so it doesn't end up with Toronto's social and economic problems. He said the public's confidence in city hall's financial management is being eroded and he wants to ensure taxpayers get value for their money.

Mr. Munter said he was shocked by yesterday's news about a $1-million property tax increase imposed on the Ottawa Senators, without the team being notified. "The city is not prepared to listen. The city is not open." [The SUN (Tax Hit Way out of Place, Apr21)has more on this screw up, and now city staff admits they didn't give proper consideration (or even read the current agreement with the Senators).]

Mr. Chiarelli said he is proud to run on a record that includes tax freezes in many years and a city economy that is booming. He said the city government is in solid financial shape, with a triple-A credit rating.

The City of Ottawa has a debt of about $454 million and total investments and reserves of about $860 million.

Mr. Chiarelli acknowledged that the property tax system is unfair to some business owners, but said the city is doing all it can to get the provincial government to change it.[It's not our fault your taxes are high, honest! Geesh.]

And he noted that the city is finally getting some financial help from senior levels of government, including $80 million a year in GST and gas tax money.

He also noted that he created several business advisory groups, including a task force on cutting red tape.[How to reduce red tape: create more red tape.]

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006

Dates of note

2006-04-17T15:02:00.000-04:00

The report for the selection of the site for the location of the storage and maintenance facility for the North-South Light Rail Transit project, is now scheduled to be on the agenda of a joint meeting of Corporate Services and Economic Development Committee and Transportation Committee on 16 May 2006, subsequently scheduled to go to Council on 24 May 2006.

Our next PWG meeting is scheduled for:

Date: Wednesday April 19
Location: EMBASSY HOTEL AND SUITES (25 Cartier Street - at Cooper Street)
Time: 6:30 - 9:30

Councillor Doug Thompson's motion to go forward with OSP

2006-04-13T15:26:00.000-04:00

This motion supports the Ottawa Sports Park (OSP) concept for the location near Ottawa Airport, just another of many such sports facilities located near airports across Canada and around the world. Essentially we can have a LRT rail yard or a sports park. The sports park will preserve valuable greenspace the rail yard will not. The current rail yard at Walkley Yard is already a brownfield site and makes the most sense.

The vote to go forward (or not) will be April 26th when Council will vote on this Motion . This means each and every Councilor needs to be on board, aiming for a unanimous decsion to support it. With a project as positive as the OSP there is no reason why this shouldn't be acheived.

More Info: Larry Pegg, www.ecoview.com
613-821-1980

-

April 12th, 2006 City of Ottawa Council Meeting

Moved by Councillor D. Thompson
Seconded by Councillor R. Bloess

WHEREAS the City of Ottawa has negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding for the use of the Bowesville site from the Ottawa Airport Authority;

AND WHEREAS the City has a sports field deficit of 200 fields;

AND WHEREAS the City is reviewing multiple sites for its rail maintenance yard;

AND WHEREAS the City has completed a study identifying potential sportsfield sites (June, 2005) identifying the Bowesville lands as entirely suitable for sportsfields;

AND WHEREAS the City received informally, conflicting data on lands at or near the Ottawa Airport in the context of aviation safety, bird hazards and crash zones;

AND WHEREAS the City has seen no study or report prepared by any authoritative bird hazard specialist in the context of (a) aviation safety, (b) bird hazards, (c) crash zones, (d) use of the Bowesville lands for a 30 soccer field facility or any other purposes, and (e) the Ottawa Airport;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the City undertake negotiations with the Ottawa Airport Authority for the potential use of the Bowesville site for use as multipurpose sports and recreation facilities, run by either the City or a Public-Private Partnership or other entity;

AND FURTHER that the City conduct a economic assessment of the financial impact of usage of the site for a 30 field soccer park, said assessment to include at the minimum the Canadian Sports Tourism Alliance economic assessment model known as STEAM (Sports Tourism Economic Assessment Model) to calculate the benefits to Ottawa, there being no apparent need to calculate the obviously immense social and health benefits to the City;

AND FURTHER that the City conduct a review of other municipalities that have similar large scale sports facilities to become acquainted with any topics that could prove important to the City should it choose to operate or procure the creation of a sports facility on the Bowesville lands, with particular attention paid to the sports parks in Winnipeg and Calgary that operate sports fields as in close proximity to airport operations;

AND FURTHER that the City in conjunction with Transport Canada and other experts in the field, undertake a review of hazards and risks associated with the proximity of the Bowesville lands to the Ottawa Airport.

PWG backs Mayor Chiarelli's Vision

2006-04-12T07:50:00.000-04:00

After weeks of meetings and countless hours of community effort, the Public Working Group overwhelming recommended to re-use an urban Brownfield location near Walkley Road for a maintenance and storage facility for 105 train cars (2021 forecast). The selected and highly recommended site is a decaying and underutilized rail yard, and was chosen from among four potential sites – the selected Brownfield location, and three greenspaces located in the Greenbelt.

Amongst the people representing the residents around Walkley yard, no one objected to the decision, in fact the president of the Heatherington residents association spoke out in favour of the benefits this will have for the community. As stated by Louise,

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the community. Plans can now be made to revitalize the yard and surrounding environment for community use and employment opportunities.”

Credit needs to be extended as well to Mayor Chiarelli. In negotiating the Memorandum of Understanding that secured federal and provincial funding for this project, he identified the re-use of the Walkley rail yard as one of the key deliverables of the LRT project. Not resting on this commitment, he arranged to have his goal and vision of reusing the derelict rail yard reviewed by the citizens and businesses of Ottawa through the Public Working Group. As demonstrated by the overwhelming response, the PWG has backed his vision of redeveloping Brownfields and saving valuable greenspaces for current and future generations of Ottawa residents.

The Memorandum of Understanding highlighting Mayor Chiarelli’s commitment can be found here (PDF). The Project Definition, which includes the Walkley site and other deliverables committed to by the City, Province of Ontario and Government of Canada, is found starting on
Page 7.

The next step in the process of confirming the Walkley yard is a Public Open House being April 11, 2006. Ottawa residents are encouraged to come out and support the Mayor in realizing his vision of reusing the Walkley rail yard for the LRT.

This is an excellent opportunity for the city to take ownership of the yard. By turning over this new leaf, Ottawa will show the rest of the world how progressive it is by reusing a Brownfield rail yard for the new and exciting LRT project.

Please pass this note on to others so the people of Ottawa know of this true success story.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Doran
www.saveourgreenspace.ca

Open House April 11 - come and see site chosen by the PWG: Walkley Yard

2006-04-07T10:22:00.000-04:00

Open House
Proposed maintenance and storage yard facility

You are invited to attend a Public Open House to review information and comment on the recommended location for a new Light Rail Transit maintenance and storage yard facility on:
Date Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Time 4:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Location: Jim Durrell Complex, Elwood Hall, 1265 Walkley Road

What is being proposed:

On July 15, 2005, City Council approved the Environmental Assessment recommended plan for the North-South Corridor Light Rail Transit Project. The approved plan identified three potential locations for the construction of a Light Rail Transit maintenance and storage yard facility.

On September 9, 2005 the City submitted the Environmental Assessment Report to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment for approval. Following this submission the City formed a public working group to obtain direct input from residents and communities who have indicated an interest in, and may be affected by, the selection of the location for the storage and maintenance facility. The public working group has considered all aspects associated with each site, has undertaken a comprehensive evaluation of the three sites and has identified its preferred location for this facility.

Why should you attend:

The three sites identified in the Environmental Assessment Report as possible locations for the maintenance and storage yard facility are;

* Walkley (chosen by the PWG as the preferred site - a brownfield site) (south of Walkley Road between Albion and Conroy Roads)
* Lester (east of the Airport Parkway between Lester and Hunt Club Roads)
* Bowesville (north of Earl Armstrong Road between Bowesville and Albion Roads)

This Open House will provide you an opportunity to learn about the sites, the selection criteria used for choosing the preferred site, and which location has been selected as the preferred site. City staff and its consultants will be available to listen to comments from the public and respond to questions. Input received at this Open House will be used to identify public concerns/issues associated with each site and help in refining mitigation measures to address those concerns. Your feedback is an important part of this process.

For additional information about this project, please contact:

Paul S. Clarke, P. Eng.
Program Manager, Light Rail Implementation Division
City of Ottawa
180 Elgin Street, 6th Floor
Ottawa, ON K2P 2K3

Tel: 613-580-2424, ext. 21344
Fax: 613-580-9688

E-mail: Paul.Clarke@ottawa.ca

Final PWG meeting

2006-04-03T10:09:00.000-04:00

Final PWG meeting is Wed. April 5th. We are to weight the various selection criteria and come to a recommendation for the Transportation and Economic (joint) committee, and city council.

PUBLIC MEETING/ANNOUNCEMENT on site selection (come out and provide your input) - Tuesday April 11, from 4:30 - 8:30 at Jim Durrell Complex, Elwood Hall, 1265 Walkley Road.

Bowesville site - Railyard, or sports park?

2006-03-29T13:30:00.000-05:00

Larry Pegg of Ecoview has provided this excellent view of the site, click the pic to enlarge. Note that Ecoview's design for the OSP takes into consideration and preserves the natural features of this land. Please see Ecoview.com for details on the ultimate soccer facility.

Also worth noting - Ottawa paid "extra" ($160,000 per acre) to a developer in Stittsville to keep a greenspace green. ($1.2 M buys Stittsville wetland) By the same token, they should be willing to spend up to $6.4 MILLION to preserve either the Bowesville site or Airport Parkway site.

Letter to Mr Harrison, Mr O'Mara

2006-03-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

Mr. Harrison, Mr. O'Mara,

For your information, this message was sent to Minister Broten last night.
If you haven't already seen page 8, re: maintenance yard location.

Please see stream of emails below.

It appears that the only reason the city of Ottawa agreed to putting the re-use of a Brownfield maintenance yard location as part of the MOU [available at bottom of this page], was to secure Government funding for the project ($400 M).

Let's think about this for a moment, you know that the Provincial and Federal Governments would have never agreed to levelling a greenspace field (site 2 or site 3) when an ideal Brownfield location was available.

The city has used the EA study and process, to change what they see as a constraint on the MOU. Unbelievable!!

Cheryl

Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2006
From:
Subject: MOU - Ottawa North-South LRT project
To: "Chartrand, Rejean"

Mr. Chartrand,

Thank you for your note of March 23, 2006.

I agree, in part, with you that the the purpose of the MOU was executed to reconfirm the funding commitments. A very essential and fundamental component of this project.

However, I would like to draw your attention back to Section 1 of the MOU (the section from which you were quoting) wherein it states: "The purpose of this MOU is to build upon the announcement by: adjusting the proposed scope of the project ..., such adjusted scope is defined in Section 8 and Schedule A of this MOU, and reaffirming the financial commitment of the parties ..."

It is clear that the authors and signatories of this agreement placed, arguably, more weight on clarifying the deliverables by placing it first in the MOU than on reaffirming the financial commitment. This is the basis of any purchasing, borrowing, or lending situation, contractual or otherwise. When I buy a car I first specify the details of the car and then negotiate the price. If I am starting a business the bank wants to review a complete business plan before loaning the money. This situation is no different; before reaffirming the money the plan needs to be agreed to by the signatories.

Even if we accept that both clauses have equal weight, Section 1 of the MOU clearly and unequivocally establishes that Schedule A is the agreed to project. There is no mention in either Section 1 or Schedule A that either of the clauses, project definition or funding commitments, could be altered by an Environmental Assessment. Further, I do note that Section 9 states: "The parties may amend the Project definition by mutual agreement prior to the execution of the formal agreement". It is very clear and unequivocal that Schedule A is the Project Definition and no amendment has been provided, thus it can only be concluded that changes to the project definition have been made without the proper mutual agreement as required by the MOU.

In your note you mention that: "Section 4(a)i of the MOU explicitly requires the City to complete the necessary EA's for this project and the funding is conditional upon that requirement being met successfully. I agree, (though I understand that there are many issues regarding the completeness of the EA). However I have to disagree with you subsequent statement, which reads: "This of course includes the selection of the location of the maintenance facility ...". A reasonable person would not be led to such an interpretation. Rather a reasonable person would presume that the Section 4(a)i was to apply to the project as provided for in Schedule A - the project definition, and not as a mechanism to arbitrarily alter the project definition.

It is a travesty of due process, a circumvention of our parliamentary process, and an affront to the public good that an environmental assessment, as good or bad as it may be and clearly intended for another purpose, is being used as the vehicle from which to amend this project; a project to which the signatories have agreed to stated definition - Schedule A, and have agreed to a stated amending mechanism Section 9.

This travesty has wasted valuable resources, both public and those of individual community members who have committed to various working groups, in the pursuit of an objective not agreed to by the signatories. It is time for Council to take action and end this travesty, for anything else would be viewed as continuing the alleged veil of secrecy surrounding this project.

By cc of this note, I'm asking councillors to take action and direct city staff accordingly.

"Chartrand, Rejean" wrote:
Mr. Hillier,

Thank you for your e-mail of 23 March 2006 to Council members concerning the Memorandum of Understanding between Canada, Ontario, and the City on the LRT project.

The MOU was executed to reconfirm the funding commitments from the senior levels of government towards the City's LRT project and to clarify the procurement process that would be used for the delivery of the project. The project definition included in the MOU was based on the information available at the time. You will appreciate that the EA process was not completed at that time, and that the issue of the maintenance facility was addressed in the EA with the identification of three potential sites, with a selection process for the final site subsequently put in place by the Ministry of the Environment.

Section 4(a)i of the MOU explicitely requires the City to complete the necessary EA's for this project and the funding is conditional upon that requirement being met successfully. This of course includes the selection of the location of the maintenance facility by Council, as per the process established by the Ministry. As communicated previously, we expect that a report will be available for Council's consideration on this issue in May 2006.

The MOU needs to get formalized through a Contribution Agreement between Canada, Ontario, and the City. This will be the formal legal agreement between the parties committing the funds for this project. The development of this agreement is well underway and will be executed following contract award by City Council for the construction of the LRT project, as per Treasury Board's requirements. We anticipate this agreement to be in place by end of summer with a construction start following shortly thereafter.

Should you have any additional questions on this, please contact me directly.

Réjean Chartrand

From: Peter Hillier [mailto:pjhillier@rogers.com]
Sent: March 23,2006 9:52 AM
As requested by a neighbour, please see the attached MOU, specifically page 8 which details the layout of specific parts of the LRT project. Our questions to council are:

a. Is this MOU considered a mandate by the signatories?
b. If so, why wasn't the Walkley Yard the only option considered given the only options for other parts of the project have been lauded as a mandate in the MOU (i.e. dual vs single track and electric vs. deisel trains)?
c. Does an intergovernmental MOU of this nature necessarily have to be formalized by an agreement or contract in order to see the funding come through?

Given, I have been spending a considerable amount of my personal time "assisting" the City in the Public Working Group and now find that my time is being wasted on a selection process that should have never been facilitated, I demand to understand why the city has gone through this expensive process. At what point between this MOU and the initiation of the EA did it become necessary to position 3 alternative site if the Government of Canada and the Province had already agreed to fund on the use of one? I'm concerned that the optics of this suggest that the Walkely Yard was only positioned in the process as it was a brownfield and to front it vice any other location would bear more weght with the other partners in funding.

Peter J. Hillier

Some pictures of Walkley

2006-03-22T15:33:00.000-05:00

From Cheryl's presentation, here are full colour aerial views of the Walkley site.

The first picture shows the Western tip of the Walkley site (1.) where it meets Bank street, and the Airport Parkway site (2.) just South of Hunt Club.

These shots show the Walkley site - looking East. And a closer shot of the grounds where the buildings are to house the O-Trains.
These two pics are ground level shots of the existing storage and maintenance facility at Walkley, used for the O-train.

Réjean's latest dealings

2006-03-22T09:09:00.000-05:00

Today's Citizen has this story - another example of progress being made with disrespect to the PWG process now underway.

LEED Green Building Rating System...

2006-03-20T13:14:00.001-05:00

From: citycouncil

The station architecture, streetscaping, landscaping, and overall urban design consideration will be particularly important in designing a system that will be both highly functional and aesthetically pleasing. Given the nature of the LEED Green Building Rating System, it is not expected that platforms, stations, and maintenance facility will be designed to that standard, however, the RFP will encourage designs that have a high regard for energy efficiency and environmental considerations.

The designs, yes, what about maintenance yard placement? That's up to the city to decide, whether to pave greenspace or reuse existing brownfield. With the latest Citizen article it looks like the city is continuing to regard our PWG process as a formality.

Site Comparison Document online

2006-03-20T11:22:00.000-05:00

An online (HTML) version of the Save Our Greenspace document listing the natural features of the three sites has now been posted online.

Ottawans not happy with council: Poll

2006-03-16T15:17:00.000-05:00

A Poll done by Decima Research for the Ottawa Citizen indicates that we're not happy with our municipal leaders, those that get a large chunk of our tax dollars:

Indeed, taxes emerged as the most important issue for residents in the survey, with 18 per cent saying it will determine how they vote. Eleven per cent named city budget management as the second most important issue. Traffic and transportation came in third at nine per cent. Protecting social programs garnered four-per-cent support.

Among those who named taxes as the most important issue, 59 per cent said the city was on the wrong track. And of those concerned with transportation problems, 54 per cent said the city was going in the wrong direction. link to article

Note that Traffic and Transportation came in at 9% in importance - above protecting social programs at just 4%. Is that surprising? We care more about traffic and transportation than we do about protect social programs. That's pretty surprising (and revealing) in my opinion.

Why do you think a majority of the 400 residents surveyed think that the city is going in the wrong direction when it comes to public transportation?

While the LRT project is supposed to be the crowning jewel to mayor Bob's list of accomplishments, it's being rushed in order to do so. This has raised criticism from residents, experts, politicians and those involved in the project. That's why public opinion is so low on the transportation issue.

PWG schedule to come

2006-03-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

If Tim's request to extend the PWG process in order to include a Spring walkthrough of the three sites is turned down, the following will be when the next meetings will be held:

Meeting 4, Mar 22: Begin selection of evaluation criteria and relative weightings. (Richmond room)

Meeting 5, Mar 27: Continue selection of evaluation criteria and relative weightings. Discuss project interactions and impacts. (Richmond room)

Meeting 6, Sat. Apr 1st: Carry out evaluation of the three sites and develop mitigation measures. (Richmond room)

Meeting 7 Wed Apr 5th, Colonel By Room (9:30am – 4:00pm): Continue evaluations, make a recommendation.

Week of April 11 - PUBLIC OPEN HOUSE - at City hall, 4:30-8:30 - come provide your feedback!)

Meeting 3 completed

2006-03-13T14:14:00.000-05:00

Moving right along... Public Working Group meeting 3 spoke of site characteristics. We heard from MMM's Bill Draper on 13 natural characteristics he chose to focus on. I presented a diagram illustrating the vast area available at Walkley, enough to fit a couple of the Lester-size facilities.

The natural study done by MMM and in the EA, uses arbitrary footprints for the space required to build a maintenance/storage facility. True, an environmental study must take into consideration the surrounding lands but this was done in such a way to bring the Walkley site 'up' in natural characteristics. At the same time the Medeola woods East of the tracks at the Lester site were excluded from the natural study. All of this makes comparing the three sites difficult.

Meeting three capped off with Cheryl presenting natural info on 2 of the 3 sites before she ran out of time. Her sources were botanist/wetland expert Albert Dugal, Mick Panashar (Breeders Bird Atlas), Christine Hanrahan, and others.

Minutes have not yet been distributed.

Walkey site characteristics

2006-03-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

Residents near the Walkley site have voiced their concern for the natural characteristics of the Walkley site. These concerns will be heard at the PWG meeting tonight.

It's my belief that these concerns can be easily mitigated by designing the facility to best use the area available at the Walkley site. We've already seen that the space available is ample enough to put two maintenance facilities. The pic in the previous post shows that the buildings could be placed at the East end of the site. We also know that the NCC is selling 7 hectares of land West of Albion which could also be used for this project. (pic)

Let's look at Calgary's Haysboro storage area, pic at right. This description comes from Tim L.:

It's a photo of the Haysboro LRV Storage Facilities
on Calgary's LRT line. The site is north of the
Anderson main storage & maintenance facility.

This shows how long, skinny buildings work
just fine as secondary storage facilities, and would
be easy to fit anywhere in Walkley Yard, without
having to wipe out any of the greenspace north
of the yard.

The larger building has five tracks in it for storing
LRV's. Note that the tracks only enter one end
of the building. At Walkley, we could easily have
a similar building with doors on both ends, for
greater operational flexibility.

The smaller building above it is for parts storage.
One can see a three car LRT train beside it.

Remember, we won't run anything more than a
two car train here in Ottawa, so that the productivity
of light rail will never appear to be too much better
than our buses. :)

Using long and narrow storage buildings is also a cost saving for the city - less switches required, less entrances required, easier to build.

It is clear that the design of the maintenance/storage facility is very important to minimizing the encroachment on greenspace. Mitigation should be built into the plans.

Meeting 2 issues raised

2006-03-02T15:56:00.000-05:00

David G's simplification of the Walkley site vs 2 'virgin' greenspace sites: He wanted to know what relevance there was to doing a natural study on the three sites when one is so different than the other two. One would assume a site already used as a rail yard would have very little mitigation necessary to the natural environment since the function of the site won't change.

Bill Draper (MMM's ecologist) responded to this by saying that the area for his natural study of Walkley was chosen arbitrarily and was larger than necessary, encompassing a portion of the woods that would remain untouched by a maintenance facility. (see photo of relative sizes of Lester and Walkley sites, which will be tabled at next meeting).

Ed (MMM): CP Rail's sale of Walkley site to the city does not include the tracks. Ed said that CP intended to 'salvage the rails'. Tim Lane asked if a price was worked out for the land with rails and Ed didn't know, seemed not to care or that it had no relevance.

Tim Chadder: Tim went over the zoning and land use of the 3 sites. Regarding the Lester site's city-owned section currently zoned as Institutional Government Zone (Ig): he said that a maintenance/storage facility would fall into Point 4 of section 7.7.1 'Permitted Main Uses'. Point 4 reads: "use that is owned and operated by the Federal, Provincial, Regional or Municipal Government or agency thereof, including the Airport Authority".

Peter countered that it could be easily challenged, noting the intention of this bylaw is to allow for similar uses in the spirit of Institutional Government. A train maintenance yard/storage facility is hardly similar to any of the other list items: agriculture, horticulture, passive recreational use, equestrian facilities, hog farm... Therefore the debate remains: can the city do what it wants with the land under this bylaw 'loophole'?

2 new designs were presented by MMM, one for the Bowesville site layout and one for a dramatic fly-over at the Walkley site to allow trains to go South when exiting the site.

Tim Lane began to comment on the new fly-over design for Walkley Yard before being interrupted. A separate meeting is planned between he and MMM on this issue. Tim's comments were regarding the site in relation to the stormwater project currently in construction. He contends that there simply is no room and therefore the plan is impossible to build, and not necessary anyways.

As an aside, the 2 members of the LRT Office who were present remained silent. I assume it's their job to make sure the LRT project doesn't interfere with other city projects.

I raised Aviation Safety concerns with regards to the Bowesville site being right under the airport's flightpath, close to the runway.

Tim Lane added that Larry Pegg's application to put a soccer park in that area was turned down by the Airport CEO, Paul Benoit due to the potential for planes crashing into soccer fields/ concerns for children. Yet this is a risk the city is willing to take with the maintenance facility? A crash would significantly impact the entire transit system and contingency plans would have to stay in place until the site is rebuilt. Not to mention the lives of 100 or so workers who would be killed.

There were no responses to this.

SUMMARY

We were bombarded with information, and didn't get through half of the agenda items. People were repeatedly cut off when they were voicing legitimate concerns surrounding the new data that was provided. No time has been allotted (yet) for members of the PWG to present information pertaining to site characteristics. It has been "all MMM".

Welcome PWG members

2006-03-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

At the meeting tonight I offered to use this site as a sounding board for discussion surrounding the public working group's site selection process. If you are a member of the PWG (I feel for you) - feel free to comment on this thread regarding tonight's meeting. If you want to post a new thread, email me using the 'Let Us Know' link at the right. I will post on your behalf.

I'll collect any pertinent comments or questions raised here and table them at the next meeting, with permission of the commentor.

Points Raised at PWG meeting 1

2006-03-01T13:52:00.000-05:00

The goal of the first PWG meeting was to intorduce ourselves and define our role and what we would attempt to achieve. We also talked about what the difference is between a rail yard vs a maintenange facility vs a storage facility. Finally we heard what features are expected in the maintenance /storage facility.

In brief, the facility will be made up of the following:

a light maintenance area
a heavy area
a washing facility much like a modern car wash
hydrolic cranes
storage area

Each site has a unique layout, but most have the heavey and light maintenance areas in one building, a separate building for storage and a separate area for washing. Standard contamination precaustions will be put in place, according to WHIMIS and other health and safety regulations.

After the meeting many comments were made regarding the short timeline in which we have to complete this site analysis, something that would take a contractor months. The group is comprised of community representatives, environment groups, related agencies, the consultants MMM (Marshall Macklin Monaghan) who are contracted by the city to provide program management and assist in the selection of a private company to do the work on the public-private venture.

Some of the comments that were raised following the meeting:

The MOE rep said, that the MOE won't decide which site is best - that's up to the city.
The proponents were asked to bid on the project, assuming that the Lester site would be where the yard goes.
The cost of building the yard on some other site than Lester, would have to be negotiated with the successful bidder.As Stan Rosenbaum of the Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club pointed out, that could leave the city open to ransom.
"They" said that the ELRT vehicles will not run in trains (thus negating most of the economies of scale that LRT is SUPPOSED to provide, compared to buses). At most, they expect no more than two car trains, and platforms no longer than that, for the far distant future.
It was admitted that trucks servicing the Lester site would have to access it from the Airport Parkway.Several members of the PAC advised them that trucks are not allowed on the Parkway. No response from the planners.
Some time was spent looking at the Anderson Storage & Maintenance facility for Calgary's LRT and we found many feature similarities to it and the Walkley site.
MMM cannot/will not provide costing figures. Since cost is such a high criteria, a proper comparison of the sites can't be done.

Public Working Group Meetings

2006-03-01T13:47:00.000-05:00

Today is the second of four meetings with the Public Working Group, which is tasked with evaluating the three proposed sites for the maintenance/storage facility. At the end of this process we will compile our analysis into a report, with a site recommendation to city council. Then it will be up to council to decide on the 'most-right' location. If they choose not to take the site recommended by the PWG (assuming the group comes to a consensus), then they will have to justify their decision.

As a member of the PWG it is my role to keep my fellow residents informed of progress made, and I intend to use this site to do so. If you have concerns or questions, please let me know using the email link on the right.

You can see the city's plans via this memo
Note the RFP process is moving forward 'concurrent' with the PWG process.

City Council Update

2006-02-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

Light Rail Transit Public Information

Council was informed of the launch of the City's new comprehensive Light Rail Transit Web site at ottawa.ca/lrt. This is the place to go for anyone looking for information on Ottawa's future public transportation system. It contains timelines for the construction project and links to other Light Rail Transit Web sites around the world. As the project moves forward, the site will grow to include project schedules, construction updates, information on Ottawa's future Light Rail Transit lines, and more.

Council was presented with an inventory of all the information, reports and documents on file with the City concerning the North-South Light Rail project. This includes background information on existing conditions, structures, features, utilities and properties as well as the design parameters as provided by the Environmental Assessment for the project. It also includes supplemental information; reports and related material developed to further assist the project proponents in their preparation of their submissions. The inventory included an indication from the project's Fairness Commissioner as to the appropriateness of public release of the information. The Fairness Commissioner elaborated on the rationale for the retention or release of information to the public. To speed up public viewing of the information, files of the material will be made available in a data Web site linked to the City's Light Rail Transit Web site. The data site should be operational by 1 March 2006.

This was posted originally on Ottawa.ca. Also mentioned is the City of Ottawa's share of the provincial gas tax revenue: $27,404,852. Expect this to be consumed by the ever-expanding LRT project budget.

Alex Munter's comments on LRT project

2006-02-26T19:17:00.000-05:00

As reported in "The News EMC", the Ottawa-South community paper, and on his own website, Alex Munter has announced his plans to run for Mayor in the upcoming election. He kicked off his campagin on Feb 13 and had this to say about the LRT project:

The costs are already excalating and even the most ardent supporters of light rail are worried about what's going on.

The people of Ottawa deserve to know that everything about this project will be decided in the sunlight of public scrutiny.

But, the secrecy continues, and questions regarding the city's favouritism towards the Lester site is evident. More on that to come...

Sports Park would integrate well - Ottawa Citizen article

2006-02-25T11:58:00.000-05:00

Article: TIME TO PIPE UP AND HELP SAVE BLUEBIRD TRAIL
Author: Elizabeth Le Geyt
Ottawa Citizen, Feb 25, 2006

Excerpt from the article:

"A proposal for an Ottawa sports park, now before the Airport Transit Authority, Transport Canada, and the City of Ottawa, intends to create a sustainable development that will integrate soccer facilities into the existing natural area and will include a nature preserve in the traingle of land between the north end of Bowesville Road, the eastern end of Armstrong Road and High Road. The northern end of the park will have trails for winter skiing and bird and nature walks in the summer.

The sports park proposal suggests locating the new O-Train corridor along the old rail line that has been in disuse since the rails were torn up in 1999.

Moving the O-Train line and associated park and ride lots further south along Armstrong Road would reduce the financial and environmental costs of the rail line. This simple alteration would save the woods and allow the bluebirds to continue nesting there.

Click the pic or here for the full article.

Ridership and Return on Investment Questions

2006-02-21T18:12:00.000-05:00

Stephen Fanjoy has something to say about this project. I hope with more people making such comments, that Mayor Bob wakes up and gets a clue. Someone has to grab the reigns here.
-Ron

From: STEPHEN FANJOY
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 10:16 AM
To: 'Rainer.Bloess@'; 'pmcneely.mpp.co@'; 'Royal Galipeau'
Subject: FW: Transit truth jumps the track

Hi Rainer, Phil & Royal,

I am forwarding the article below in case you did not get a chance to read it over the weekend. Denley does an efficient job of showing how the city's North-South business case does not exist (in much the same way the current East-West business case is also MIA).

There are many reasons why the current NS plan does not make sense (maintenance yard location, O-Train closure, etc...) but surely the most fundamental reason must include the fact that $725M+ buys the city virtually nothing towards increased transit ridership:

"The $725 million north-south train will only reach one area that is not already well-served by transit. Riverside South, assuming it increases in size tenfold, will generate 1,400 riders in the morning rush by 2021. That would be less than half of one per cent of all morning rush hour trips."

If you disagree with this analysis and conclusion, please help me understand why it may be wrong. If you agree, then you must be obligated to do whatever is necessary to set it right. You each have all the tools to do so at your disposal.

If you will excuse the graphic metaphor, in my opinion all three levels of govt will have political blood on their hands if cooler heads do not prevail. The city for shooting Ottawa taxpayers & commuters, and the provincial & federal governments for providing the $400M inducement & ammunition to do it. The North-South project must be stopped and thoroughly reviewed and recast until a sane and feasible plan for public transit is provided.

Respectfully,

Steve Fanjoy

P.S.: It is a stunning commentary on the failure of the city's planning and consultation process that such an irresponsible project could proceed so far. However this is another topic for another day.

Transit Truth Jumps Track - Ottawa Citizen, Sat. Feb 18

2006-02-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

Transit truth jumps the track

Randall Denley
The Ottawa Citizen

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Isn't it time for the truth about transit? City councillors missed another opportunity this week when they sent the provincial government a transit ridership growth plan that omits the two most relevant points. The city transit expansion plan isn't remotely affordable and it won't come anywhere near meeting the target of 30 per cent of commuter trips on transit.

The report to the province is the 49-page Reader's Digest version of stacks of documents that underlie the big transit plan. About the only one left out is the ridership study, which makes the unpleasant point about how little all this expansion will achieve.

Despite that omission, the latest report does contain some interesting facts.

Although the north-south light rail line is called the biggest construction project in Ottawa's history, it's just a relatively small part of the overall scheme. The transitway now has 30 kilometres of exclusive bus lanes. The expansion plan adds 42 kilometres more. The north-south rail line is but 28 kilometres of a planned 110-kilometre system. Fourteen new park and ride lots will also be required.
Total capital cost of the rail and transitway expansion and all the new buses and trains required comes to $4.4 billion by 2021. The light rail plan, set at $725 million is less than 20 per cent of the total scheme.

The north-south line is really just the beginning. It's supposed to open in 2009. Over the next eight years, the bus fleet will increase 40 per cent while the rail will go up 225 per cent to reflect extension of the north-south line and creation of an east-west system.

Despite more fares coming in, the operating bill for taxpayers is projected to increase by $2.1 billion over the same time period, an average of $121 million a year. Even with more provincial gas tax money in the future, the city report says it's "uncertain" if property taxes could pay for the rest. Actually, it's certain they couldn't. That kind of annual increase, if paid from property taxes, would amount to something like 15 per cent a year, just to pay for transit.

By 2021, Ottawa city staff say our whole transportation network will be four times as large as it is today.

Per capita transit ridership in Ottawa is the third highest in Canada, but it has only increased 4.4 per cent in a decade. The city's current plan calls for increases of six per cent a year. The city's latest report describes the 30 per cent target number as "a
real challenge" that would mean Ottawa had the highest percentage of transit use in North America. It also says the goal can be achieved.

No, it can't, according to the city's own ridership study. Even with the planned construction and spending, transit's share of the daily commute will only increase to 21 per cent by 2021. Without all the expenditure, it will decline below today's levels. The 30 per cent target is only achievable if the 2021 cost of operating a car increases by 50 per cent, after inflation. Sound likely?

The $725 million north-south train will only reach one area that is not already well-served by transit. Riverside South, assuming it increases in size tenfold, will generate 1,400 riders in the morning rush by 2021. That would be less than half of one per cent of all morning rush hour trips. This model community, which has train transit as its central reason for being, will have 21 per cent of its commuting trips provided by transit, well below the city's overall target figure.

If Riverside South doesn't develop as planned, the train will be even more useless because most of the rest of the people it will carry are already well-served by bus transit.

The ignored ridership study also reminds us that projecting big transit increases based on population and job growth is a bit simplistic. The increasing number of jobs in the suburbs won't be easy for transit to serve and the aging population calls into question Ottawa's ability to actually fill all those projected jobs.

A proper executive summary of this latest report would have told us Ottawa's grand transit expansion plan costs way, way more to build than we can afford, has insupportable operating costs and won't meet the commuting-share goals city staff keep citing.

The truth probably does not constitute a compelling sales pitch to the provincial government, which will be asked to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the transit dream. But what about the taxpayers? Don't we deserve the truth?

There's a fine line between a sell job and a con job, and the city has crossed it.

Public Working Group takes shape

2006-02-15T21:22:00.000-05:00

Consultant firm Marshall Macklin Monaghan (MMM) has begun assembling 30-35 people to make up the public working group that will assess all 3 sites under consideration for the maintenance yard. The working group will be comprised of residents and business owners in the community, and relevant agencies.

The first of 4 meetings will be held on February 22, and the final meeting will be on March 22, when a preferred site will be chosen and recommended to city council. I'm happy to be a part of this process, representing residents of Windsor Park.

New Ottawa Sustainability Fund

2006-02-14T21:35:00.000-05:00

Planning and Environment Committee approved on its consent agenda today the creation of an Ottawa Sustainability Fund. This was a proposal from the Environmental Advisory Committee.

The Fund would be an "Advised Fund" within the Community Foundation of Ottawa. The City would transfer $10,000 from its Community Environmental Project Grants program to get the Fund started. The idea is to attract Outside donations, with a long term goal to have a $5-10 million capital base.

The purpose would be to "provide financial support to initiatives and organizations that enhance the sustainability of the City of Ottawa from a source other than the municipal tax base. Initiatives that enhance sustainability, for the purpose of the Fund, are defined as any initiatives that improve environmental integrity, economic stability or growth, and social well-being in the City." Its focus would be on:

"- Reducing Ottawa's impact on climate change,
- Improving Ottawa's air quality,
- Addressing water issues, both urban and rural,
- Promoting sustainable land use in the City of Ottawa,
- Promoting waste reduction and sustainable waste management in the City of Ottawa,
- Other projects or initiatives that enhance the sustainability of the City of Ottawa."

The staff report notes that "The financial resources needed to fulfill the goals put forth in [the Ottawa 20/20 plan and its Air Quality and Climate Change Management Plan] exceed the City's ability to fund initiatives to meet these goals."

Only registered charities (or corporations such as municipalities) can be the beneficiaries of disbursements from this Fund.

An Advisory Team will be assembled to develop a fund raising strategy and to allocate grants.

For more information, contact Mary Hegan, the new EAC Chair (and Greenspace Alliance member), at mhegan[at]ripnet.com.

Track Sharing with the O-Train

2006-02-09T17:58:00.000-05:00

One issue that has driven up the costs of the LRT Project is the city's insistence that the entire North-South line must be double-tracked, and even triple tracked, where freights would share the corridor. Many people knowledgeable on the subject think this is not necessary, and that some areas can be single tracked with switches and signalling in place to control the flow of trains. In those sections where freight trains would share the corridor, double track would suffice, but only one of the two tracks would need special treatment to allow freights to pass, as described below.

Timothy Lane explains:

First one, is a photo I took of an O-Train about to depart from Greenboro, on Oct 31, 2002.
A freight locomotive in the distance is waiting for the O-Train to leave, and the Rail Term worker beside the platform, to flip up the platform extenders.

The locomotive is returning to Walkley Yard, with a car that has undergone testing, from the NRC's Centre for Surface Transportation Technology, near Lester Rd.

Coincidentally, it's the same car that the CSTT has on their website, as an example of the work they do: Link

This one shows the Ottawa Central locomotive passing the Greenboro platform on its way back to Walkley Yard, with a car that has been tested at the NRC's Centre for Surface Transportation Technology, near Lester Rd.

Notice that the platform extenders have been folded back, to give more clearance for the freight train, which is wider than the O-Train.

Notice how the lady in the picture is scrunched up against the bench, to get as far away from that monster as she can!

This one shows a freight car, towed by an Ottawa Central locomotive, passing the Greenboro platform on its way back to Walkley Yard. The car had been tested at the NRC's Centre for Surface Transportation Technology, near Lester Rd.

The Rail Term worker is putting the platform extenders back down again, to be ready for the next O-Train to arrive.

Total elapsed time from when the O-Train left, extenders up, freight train passes, extenders back down to receive next O-Train: Four (4!) minutes!

Now, to be fair, when the O-Train is extended farther south, this wouldn't work anymore. The freight train would occupy the O-Train track for too great a distance, and too long a time, on its way from Walkley Yard/Greenboro to Lester road.

The freight car moves would probably have to be done at night, when the O-Train isn't running. However, that's quite an improvement over what "They" (City planners) were telling the NRC, "Oh, by the way, freight train access to your Centre for Surface Transportation Technology is to be abandoned."

The Future: Track Sharing with the O-Train

Here is a less labour intensive way to do track sharing between passenger trains & freight trains. The photo (by Normand Levert) is taken at an AMTRAK high level platform at the New Carrolton Station outside of Washington, DC.

The station is also used by commuter trains.

A gantlet track is installed in front of the platform, to give freight trains the needed extra clearance with the platform edge.

Longer ties are put down, say ten footers instead of the standard eight foot ties.

A second set of rails is placed on these ties, two feet away from the rails the passenger trains use.

A set of switch points at each end of the gantlet sends the freight trains onto the outside set of rails, keeping the wider freights away from the platform.

The switch points are controlled by a remote control electric switch motor, thus eliminating the need to have a worker there to throw the points.

This arrangement is now standard on CSX railroad, one of the biggest eastern US railroads, wherever their freights have to pass a passenger platform.

It is used, or will soon be used, at many other locations around the U.S.

This method would work equally well on our new, improved, LRT system, both south from Walkley Yard to the NRC, and north to the Prince of Wales bridge to Gatineau.

Of course, the overhead wire will have to be 23 feet above the track, to clear the latest, largest freight cars.

Not the 20 feet that "They" are specifying. "Their" design will prevent the new LRT system from not only sharing track with freight trains, but the LRT won't ever be able to cross another rail line at grade.

Grade separations would be required EVERYWHERE, which will make any further LRT expansion east, west, or anywhere, much more difficult & expensive.

Only one of the two LRT tracks would need gantlet track, since there should never be a need for TWO freight trains to be on the line simultaneously.

Unless, of course, the coming Hubbert Peak in world oil production REALLY forces a lot more freight back on the rails!

Regards,
Tim

About Ottawa's Greenbelt

2006-02-09T11:35:00.000-05:00

The Greenbelt features a mix of farms, wetlands and forests that offers a range of outdoor recreation, learning opportunities and provides a unique rural setting for the Capital. In addition, federal and major research institutions that need open spaces to operate have been located in the Greenbelt.
Read More

Lack of clarity on LRT process divides council - OBJ

2006-02-08T01:35:00.000-05:00

The Ottawa Business Journal reports on Monday, Feb 6:

The foggy secrecy surrounding city hall's light rapid transit project has exposed a fractured and divided city council, with some councillors defending the process and others openly condemning it.

The $725-million project, weeks away from a contract application deadline for bidding consortia, has been under fire recently by residents unhappy with what they say has been a lack of public consultation by the city. And now, some councillors have joined the rising chorus of concerned voices demanding more openness from city officials.
Read the complete article

Disconnect between city planners plagues LRT in Ottawa

2006-02-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

From Tim Lane:

I have the following concerns with this Environmental Assessment Revue:

Section 2.3 Page 8
The list of Federal Agencies (Responsible Authorities, or RAs) does NOT include Industry Canada, which is the Federal Dept responsible for the National Research Council.

The National Research Council operates a laboratory on MacDonald Cartier Airport property south of Lester Road, west of the Canadian Pacific Railway Prescott Subdivision, which is the line to be used to extend LRT south from Greenboro LRT station to Riverside South.

This laboratory, the Centre for Surface Transportation Technology, (CSTT) is a world class facility for the study of railroad wheel-rail interaction. Their expertise was used to solve wheel damage problems on the existing Ottawa O-Train vehicles.

This facility, as part of their rail car testing work, receives deliveries, by rail, of various types of rail vehicles, both the latest new designs, and also existing designs requiring further testing. These deliveries occur approximately once per month, throughout the year.

The current O-Train system allows for the passage of freight trains on this line, from the Ottawa Central Railway's Walkley Yard, sharing the LRT track past the Greenboro O-Train station platform, and south to the Lester Road laboratory.

It was made very clear, by former Director of O-Train operations for Capital Railway (OC Transpo's rail division), Mr. Mario Peloquin, to his superiors at OC Transpo and the City of Ottawa, that under no circumstances would any new design for an expanded O-Train system interfere with the continued ability of the NRC's Centre for Surface Transportation Technology, to receive deliveries, by rail, of rail equipment.

Now we learn that City of Ottawa staff have informed the CSTT that the freight line to their laboratory is to be abandoned, thus severing their connection to the North American rail network.

The proponent's original design for maintaining access, was to build a new connecting track, southwest of Walkley Diamond, to connect to a new third track, for freight trains only that would be built west of and parallel to the two LRT tracks, from Greenboro station south to Lester Rd.

It now turns out that the City of Ottawa is building a storm water retention pond, west of the Greenboro O-Train station, that will occupy the land that would have been needed for this connecting track, and the third right of way for freight.

This is what probably precipitated the announcement that the CSTT would have to lose its rail connection.

This fiasco shows, at best, an appalling lack of co-ordination amongst various City of Ottawa engineering departments.

The basic problem, however, arises from the Proponent's insistence that the sharing of track between light rail (the O-Train) and heavy rail (freight service to the CSTT), something which the O-Train currently features, is to be abandoned.

The claim is that it is "Too onerous" to be under the regulation of the Federal Transport Canada rail safety regulators.

This, of course, is nonsense, since it was the Federal regulators' permission to have LRT share the general rail network, which made the O-Train one of the most successful, safest, and lowest cost light rail systems to be built anywhere in the world.

The above arguments I make, also apply to:

Table 2. Public Comment Summary Table. page 15

There must be an evaluation for continued use of rail freight in corridor to maintain Ontario-Quebec connection.

The proponent's response is that "freight operations have ceased in this corridor".

As I pointed out above, that is definitely not the case at the southern end of this corridor.

The proponent goes on to say,

"The city ... has purchased the rail corridor for its current O-Train operation and future development of LRT."

To which I reiterate, the current O-Train line is built to allow the passage of freight trains.

The proponent then says,

"In accordance with Transport Canada regulations, the city has posted a 2005-2008 operating plan that states its intention to close the corridor to future freight operation. To date there have been no expressions of interest for freight operations in this corridor communicated to the City."

So, the City is apparently not aware that freight operations are ongoing to the CSTT in the south.

The city is apparently not aware that the final version of the NCC's Greber Plan for the National Capital required that this link between the freight rail systems in Quebec and Ontario be maintained.

Has the City solicited any rail freight operations from other operators in this corridor?

Has the city taken into account, that when King Edward Ave. is being torn up for rebuilding in the near future, and bridges such as the Alexandra and MacDonald-Cartier are being rebuilt soon, that it may be essential to have and alternative method of getting freight between the two cities?

The City hosted a Peak Oil conference on January 28, 2006.

Is the City not aware, that with diminishing petroleum supplies, it will be absolutely essential that a method of moving freight that uses one third the fuel that trucks use, i.e., rail, will become of ever increasing importance? Or is this yet another example of various City departments not communicating with each other?

There are other problems with this EA, such as the insistence that double tracking is required everywhere, even where a service frequency of only ten minutes is planned. For ten minute service, with closely spaced stations, single track with passing sidings is sufficient.

Twinning of the tunnel at Dow's Lake is not necessary, unless a service frequency of three minutes in both directions is needed. The current plan is for five minute headway.

The choice of greenspace land near Blossom Park for the service & maintenance facility is wrong, when the existing Walkley Yard is already used to house the O-Train. It has sufficient tracks to hold over two hundred LRT vehicles. It is already a brownfield site, which would not need much rehabilitation, if it continues in use as a rail yard.

A few weeks ago, the City was patting itself on the back for having bought some land from a developer near Stittsville, so it could remain as green space.

For the LRT project, the city wants to wipe out a greenspace, rather than buy an existing rail yard, to use as a rail yard.

Is there a disconnect here? I could go on, and on, but I believe this project needs to be put on hold and a major rethink is required.

Other submitters, I am sure, will detail other shortcomings of this project.

Thank You,
Tim Lane

Comments on the LRT project

2006-02-07T12:27:00.000-05:00

To: James O'Mara, Director
Environmental Assessment & Approvals Branch
Ministry of the Environment
Province of Ontario

By Fax: (416) 314-8452

Dear Mr. O'Mara:

Re: North-South Corridor LRT Project - Ministry Review, December 2005

I wish to comment on two aspects of the Ministry's Review.

1. This document should have been made more readily available. It should have been published on a web site. I spoke with Mr. Michael Harrison on January 24 and was promised two copies in the mail. I have yet to receive them. Also, the Ministry should, in this and any other request for comments from the public, provide an e-mail address to submit comments.

2. The Review sets out a process for selection of the location of a Maintenance Yard and would require only an after-the-fact report on the outcome. This is less than an Addendum process proposed in the Environmental Assessment report. The Ministry should exercise more oversight in this matter, in conformity with section 6.2 (3) of the Environmental Assessment Act. Moreover, while the process set out in the Review allows for public involvement, this is being subverted by City staff. The Ward Councillor informs us that Step 1, the formation of a Public Working Group, will not take place until the end of February, while the contract for the project is expected to be awarded in April. Clearly, staff wants to do its work without the nuisance of public involvement and then just go through the motions of conforming with the Review.

This is particularly unsatisfactory because the preliminary evaluation of
the three alternatives set out in the EA is incomplete in significant
respects. Nor is it a secret that staff wants to proceed with the Lester
Road site.

Gaps in the comparison of sites found in the EA include:

- insufficient documentation of the amount and variety of wildlife that is
found on the Lester site;

- failure to recognize the significance of the milkweed field, feeding ground for Monarch butterflies;

- insufficient appreciation of the recreational use made of the open space east and west of the rail line next to the Airport Parkway;

- failure to recognize that there will be much activity in the Yard during the night, making it impossible to respect the City's noise by-law;

- insufficient appreciation of the ecological significance of the Medeola Woods east of the rail line at the Lester site;

- lack of detailed assessment of the wetlands on and around the Lester Road site and absence of recognition of the federal policy on wetland conservation;

- incomplete appreciation of the assets available at the Walkley site, including storage capacity for at least 200 light rail cars, a facility to turn trains and a location suitable for serving both the north-south and future east-west LRT.

I urge the Ministry to exercise closer oversight over the selection of a Maintenance Yard for this project.

Sincerely,

Erwin Dreessen, Ph.D.

Sign the Petition

2006-02-07T09:51:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone who has signed so far - I like reading your comments as well. For those who haven't yet signed it, have a read and sign!

To: Ottawa City Council

We, the undersigned residents of Ottawa, are deeply concerned about the City of Ottawa’s preferred site for the construction of a railway maintenance yard as part of the North-South corridor of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) project.

City staff has recommended that the maintenance yard be located on the Airport Parkway site. This site is a natural greenspace located alongside the scenic entranceway to the city. A more suitable option is the Walkley Yard, a brownfield site that currently operates as a railyard.

THEREFORE, we petition City Council to reject the city staff’s recommendation and instead to select the Walkley Yard as the location for the maintenance yard rather than destroy the urban greenspace located alongside the Airport Parkway.

Sign here

This letter says it all

2006-02-02T18:03:00.000-05:00

REVIEW OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT NORTH-SOUTH CORRIDOR LRT PROJECT
(thanks to David Gladstone for this.)

Dear Mr. O’ Meara,

Further to your letter of December 29, 2005, replying to my letter of October 26,2005, (attached), I am writing to describe substantial concerns that I and others in Ottawa continue to have with the subject proposed light rail transit project in general, with the City of Ottawa’s Environmental Assessment of it, and with the draft MOE review of the EA.

The bald reality is that key project decisions have been taken – such as planning to replace the diesel trains used by the current O-Train with electric trains, placing the proposed train maintenance facility in what is currently greenspace when a brownfield site is available, having trains use already congested downtown streets instead of having an underground railway line, and simply ignoring the need for rapid transit service between Ottawa and Gatineau – with no documented engineering rationale, and without effective community consultation.

I’m sure you will agree – in fact that is the reason EAs are required – that decisions on municipal infrastructure projects must be based on documented technical analyses. Conspicuously absent from the City of Ottawa’s EA report are names of authors and/or Professional Engineers prepared to take responsibility for the work, as well as references to the professional literature and web-sites. Instead many assertions are made anonymously without any traceable references. While this may be ‘legal’ under the Professional Engineers Act, the EA Act, and the Municipalities Act, surely citizen-taxpayers have a right to see the bases for major investments of public funds being based on sound analyses by qualified professionals. From this perspective, I cannot accept that the MOE staff, also anonymously, can simply accept anonymous assertions by City of Ottawa staff, whose sources aren’t traceable.

That my concerns with the current process are generally shared was confirmed this week in an informal poll conducted by Radio Station CFRA. As described in the attached report of the poll results over 90% of those who responded agree with the statement: “No, there is too much secrecy about cost, and the route is questionable.”

A core objective of the EA process is ensuring community involvement and support for infrastructure projects. This has simply not occurred to-date in the subject project: Carleton University staff and students, and other users, have not been consulted on the currently-planned over- one-year shutdown of the successful O-Train service, heritage advocates have not been consulted on the proposed demolition of heritage buildings to build a surface train station, downtown businesses continue to have major concerns, and just about every transit advocate that I know, who doesn’t have a contractual link with the City of Ottawa, has major concerns with what City staff are proposing..

With respect to closing down the O-Train service, it should be noted that City Council has specifically directed that such interruptions be kept to an absolute minimum, that such an interruption is not necessary if the project is planned and implemented as an expansion of the O-Train, and that replacing the current service involves placing buses on already congested roads. And, as noted in my letter of October 26, staff have not proposed to-date a strategy to City Council.

Also, I suggest that it is most important to note that City staff have not to-date demonstrated how interrupting the current East-West buses that transit downtown by an electric street-car line from the south – one that doesn't extend into Gatineau - will increase transit usage in Ottawa.

While perhaps outside the purview of an EA, it should be noted that there are increasing doubts in the community, the media, and City Council with the value-for-money and affordability of what is being developed by City staff. Also worth noting is that City staff haven’t made applications under the Planning Act for any of the structures they are proposing outside the current railway corridor, such the proposed train maintenance facility and the downtown stations.

I could go on, but I would like to end with what I see as a well-founded and reasonable request: please do not have the EA signed-off by your Minister until you see it demonstrated that the City of Ottawa – Council, staff, and residents – have reached a solid consensus on an affordable investment in light rail transit, one that will lead to a system that will be cost-effective, transparently-planned, minimally impact the human and natural environment, and truly does what everyone wants – substantially grow transit ridership in Ottawa.

Yours sincerely,
David Gladstone
Cc:
Mr. Michael Harrison, EA Approvals Branch
The Honorable John Gerretsen, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
The Honorable Harinder Takhar, Minister of Transportation
Kim Allen, CEO and Registrar, Professional Engineers Ontario
Bob Chiarelli, Mayor of Ottawa
Richard Patten, MPP Otttawa-Centre
Councillor Diane Holmes
Councillor Clve Doucer

The Airport Parkway Greenspace

2006-02-02T11:31:00.000-05:00

Fax James O'Mara with comments from Save Our Greenspace at the number 416-314-8452. Mr. O'Mara is the Director, Environmental Assessment and Approvals Branch of the Ministry of the Environment.

Letter to the Ministry of the Environment

2006-02-02T09:23:00.000-05:00

James O’Mara, Director
Environmental Assessment and Approvals Branch
Ministry of the Environment
2 St. Clair Avenue West, Floor 12A
Toronto, ON, M4V 1L5
Attn: Michael Harrison, Special Project Officer
Phone (416) 314-8221 or 1-800-461-6290
Fax: (416) 314-8452

Re: Review under EAA for Light Rail Transit North-South Corridor, Train Yard, Ottawa, ON

Jan 30, 2006

Dear Mr Harrison,

I am writing today to further consider the removal the “Lester” site as one of three acceptable sites for a Light Rail Maintenance yard to be erected to serve the North-South bound extension to Ottawa’s light rail system.

This valuable scenic route, which is also the Ceremonial Route taken by all manner of foreign dignitaries upon arrival in Ottawa, is currently zoned Institutional Government (IG). The provisions under IG zoning allow for passive use (ie. Agriculture, horticulture, silviculture, passive recreational use, etc). the City indicates that a zoning change would be necessary in the EA, what right do they have to destroy a significant greenspace for the purpose of constructing a new brownfield, given one of the alternate sites is a reusable brownfield. To do so, violates the City’s Official Plan which dictates this area as a “scenic entry route” and also a “major recreational pathway”. As such it is constantly used by local families, including children (winter and summer) for recreational activities. Furthermore, many local scouting groups leverage the easily accessible biodiversity of the area for their activities throughout the year.

In the City’s Official Plan, Section 2.3.1 Transportation, Policy 35 states (in part) “it is recognized that the parkway network in the city, primarily developed by the NCC, contributes greatly to the distinct open space character of Ottawa.” Policy 36 states “In recognition of the importance of preserving and enhancing the visual and aesthetic appeal of the main scenic and entry routes in Ottawa, the City will require additional development controls for lands along these routes, as identified in schedules I and J, and detailed in section 4.6.4.” According to the EA and City planners, this direction is to be discounted, why?

There are most certainly other stakeholders, beyond the National Capital Commission, that need to be consulted on this activity. It has become evident, for example, that the current planning for the project undermines the train testing facility owned by the National Research Council. The city plans to abandon the freight rail connection from Walkley yard to the NRC Institute for Surface Transportation at Uplands. This could cause shutdown or impose massive costs on a world-class research facility which is a recognized leader in analysis and testing of rail vehicles and interaction between rail vehicles and their tracks. While I am liaising with them to inform them of what is transpiring, all levels of government have a responsibility to ensure that this world class facility remains accessible.

The communities of Emerald Woods, Emerald Gate and others implore the Ministry of Environment remove the Lester site as an alternative for the Maintenance yard for the North-South Corridor Light Rail Transit Project.

Regards,
Peter J. Hillier, CD
2727 Wyldewood St.

A letter to Mayor Chiarelli

2006-02-01T08:44:00.000-05:00

Mayor Chiarelli,

Frankly, I am absolutely agast!

There is so much evidence that the City is reneging entirely on the commitments noted in the Offical Plan, the Greenspace Master Plan and it's 20/20 Environmental Plan that our communities should not be the ones spending countless hours of personal time asking why, the City should be telling us what right they have at all to even consider the use of the Lester Site in it's proposal for the North South LRT Project. You can find some of this evidence below.
First off, the City's commitment to protecting the environment through the Greenspace Master Plan which indicates:

"Developing Ottawa's Greenspace Network serves to: Recognize the National Capital Greenbelt as a distinguishing feature of Ottawa that separates the core urban area inside the Greenbelt from the urban communities beyond it; Create a physically connected system of greenspaces, from urban parks and woodlands inside the Greenbelt, through the Greenbelt and into the larger natural features outside the Greenbelt and beyond the City's boundaries; Sustain natural systems by maintaining natural features and natural functions; Provide linked migration routes for other species; Contribute to the protection of cultural heritage landscapes such as the Ottawa River and Rideau Waterway System and to the health and viability of the Greenbelt; Provide greater access to public greenspaces within the network and more options for outdoor leisure and recreational activities; Help structure and define communities. "

Additionally,

"Now the challenges are to: Ensure that future development preserves Ottawa's Greenspace Network and extends it by identifying new natural features and linkages and securing a variety of open space and leisure lands; "

And don't forget the policy direction to reinforce this commitment:

"Pending completion of the Greenspace Master Plan, the City will consider premature any application filed after adoption of this Plan to amend the zoning by-law for urban and Village properties zoned park or open space, leisure, waterway, conservation, natural environment, wetland or other zone used for conservation or recreation uses. Following approval of the Greenspace Master Plan, applications to amend the zoning by-law for these lands can be assessed in terms of their contribution to local greenspace and the Greenspace Network, and opportunities to secure public access or ownership. The lifting of a holding zone provision on an area where a public special study has been conducted will be done by City Council in a public process but will not be considered a zoning by-law amendment, for the purposes of this policy. "

Building Liveable Communities

"The basics of a liveable community are straight-forward. In the urban area, a liveable community has appropriate housing at a price people can afford. It is built around greenspaces and has places to shop, socialize and play nearby."

"This Plan (The Official Plan) proposes that Ottawa's communities be built on the basics: good housing, employment, ample greenspace, a sense of history and culture."

I guess the City dictate's which communities get to continue enjoying the privelege.

The more I read the rhetoric that appears to be the City's commitments to protecting the greenspaces, wetlands and urban forests that surround our community, the sicker my stomach gets. I am completely at a loss as to why our residents need be worried at all, in fact I wait for a reply as to how City staff saw fit to even consider the site. Can you explain it?

I would appreciate it if you in conjunction with the City Councilors sitting on both the environmental and transportation committee's had an opportunity to address this issue, as well as the project implementation teams responsible.

Peter J. Hillier, CD

Brownfield Land Redevelopment

2006-01-31T12:39:00.000-05:00

C'mon Ottawa, use the existing Walkley site! It just makes sense. For more on urban-brownfield redevelopment initiatives, see these interesting links:

NRTEE - National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy website
PDF - see p.44 of: Cleaning up the Past, Building the Future: A National Brownfield Redevelopment Strategy for Canada

Results of Jan 29 meeting

2006-01-30T18:23:00.000-05:00

Last night members of Save Our Greenspace met with David Jeanes (Transport 2000 Canada), Shikha McGowan (representing Counsellor Diane Deans), Peter Hillier and other members of the community. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss strategy and share new information.

The following arguments were brought up - consider adding them to your letters to the MOE and city council:

The city of Ottawa's Official Plan, as indicated in Schedule I, the airport parkway is considered a key scenic entry point into the Nations capital. The City of Ottawa staff would prefer to make the natural landscape a large maintenance yard for trains?
The airport parkway is the official ceremonial route for heads of state, ministers and dignitairies. Not the place for a maintenance and storage facility.
The Federal government's environmental policies encourage the redevelopement of urban-brownfield lands. The Federal government signed a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) May 2005, promising to invest $200 M dollars into this project. It's too bad they didn't put any conditions on the project - to ensure their own policies were enforced?
The EA is lacking in evaluating the effect of the yard on migratory patterns of deer, fox, ermine, and other animals. The city's response to these questions state these animals are young and non-significant.
The City of Ottawa is spending $13,000,000 for a Stormwater Management System just 500 metres up the parkway from where they would like to create a new brownfield, maintenance yard and storage facility? How does that make any sense of our tax dollars?
East of the tracks is an old growth woodlot, with trees that are over 300 years old. This is the largest old growth woods in the City and it is a very rare type, the dominant trees being Red Maple, Beech, and Hemlock. The field is full of milkweed plants, which is the plant needed for Monarch butterflies. The City of Ottawa says it's a noxious weed - but I guess they haven't looked too closely around the greenspace to notice there are no farms in the vicinity.
It's important to let the city know that our children use this recreational area and benefit greatly from it. Many youth groups such as cub scouts and girl guides use it as do elementary schools. Children are often left out of the discussion, but stand to lose the most.
In previous city-sponsored meetings, the public was mislead concerning the zoning of the Lester site.
Lacking in the EA is any mention of the testing of bells and whistles - typically tested in the early AM before the trains begin
service. Noise bylaws will be broken, however, that would not be a problem for the City of Ottawa, because in the same study, they said they would adjust the by-laws if necessary.
The marshalling act of unhitching the train cars (read: noise), is mentioned in the EA but states, it's not a problem because people live 300 m away.(!) The maintenance yard and storage facility noise will be worst in the night time - (12:00 am - 5:00 am), because that's when the trains stop running, the yard becomes the busiest.
If Toronto's Go transit system can be serviced by one maintenance yard (381+ trains), why does the City of Ottawa think they need 3 maintenance yards and storage facilities for a total of 105 train cars by 2021?
Transport 2000 Canada's estimate of Walkley yard capacity is that it would hold over 200 train cars, and have room for a test track.
The Walkley neighbouring communities do not object to the use of this land for a maintenance yard, according the their councillor D. Deans. They do however, have some problems with levelling a greenspace on a greenbelt.
The Walkley site was designed for heavy rail, and adding light rail duties to it would not add much stress. The infrastructure is there to build upon. It's double-ended, and has a wye to turn trains around.

First Post!!!

2006-01-29T21:45:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Save Our Greenspace blog! SaveOurGreenspace is a group of Ottawa residents and businesses who want to protect the greenspace along the Airport Parkway. We support public transit, OC Transpo and expanding LRT in Ottawa. However, the City of Ottawa plans to destroy greenspace to construct a train maintenance yard rather than use an existing rail yard that is currently being used for the O-train maintenance. We do not understand why the city will not re-cycle and re-use existing brownfield sites (Walkley Yard), instead of destroying increasingly rare urban forests, fields and wetlands.

Keep checking here for updates on our progress as the Ottawa LRT project evolves. Post your own comments and send us your feedback! Check the links on this site to learn more.