The City of Ottawa’s Public Transit Plan

I have always admired Councillor Clive Doucet’s consistent approach to transportation and public transit issues in the city of Ottawa. I was particularly impressed at his press conference yesterday when he criticized staff’s plans for the $4 billion plus public transit proposal that council approved a few weeks ago. Nothing in this plan has been carefully thought out. Some members of council and city staff believe that the plan is already locked in stone and unchangeable, even when intelligent well thought out alternatives are presented. Here is a further example of ad hoc decision making within the City of Ottawa.

The plans were presented for council decision far too early. In their present form they are, at best, a conceptual framework for ongoing consideration and development. Particularly controversial issues include use of the western leg of the Ottawa River Parkway without giving serious consideration to more effective viable alternatives (e.g. Carling Avenue). What is to be lost by pausing to give serious consideration to the pros and cons of such alternatives? Once this infrastructure is in place it will be with us for a long, long time, so let’s try and get it right. The previous north/south light rail plan was criticized for the same reason; what’s different this time?

Too often we hear members of council say, “...the decisions have already been made, get used to it, move on…” An example of this is the hospital link section of the Alta Vista Transportation Corridor (AVTC) that has been commented on previously in this blog. Councillor Peter Hume claims that the link is needed now because of the expected growth of the Ottawa Health sciences Centre at this site that is expected over the coming years. It remains unclear to me and many others in the community what the urgency is to complete the hospital link, given that no development of the adjacent hospital lands can take place for several years and that planned changes to bus transit in the area might well resolve existing problems.

Councillor Doucet raises concern about the time it will likely take before a light rail system is in service in Ottawa. To be honest, I am not sure what can be done to shorten the time if we are going to do it right. Unfortunately, if the existing council has its way, it will take an inordinate amount of time and still fail to meet public transit needs in Ottawa.