[samsonyuen]

From: www.ottawabusinessjournal...836467.php
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LRT debate drags on, final decision far from imminent
By Ottawa Business Journal Staff
Wed, Jul 12, 2006 8:00 AM EST


Artist's conception of proposed light rail passing through downtown. (Photo courtesy City of Ottawa)
Ottawa City Council is embroiled in a heated – and sometimes confusing – debate over the future of the city's largest construction project.

Council members seem far from a final decision, as they get sidetracked with procedural measures and wrangle over proposed amendments to the plan for the north-south LRT line that would link the University of Ottawa with Barrhaven.

Mayor Bob Chiarelli and councilor Alex Cullen tangled in a particularly fractious exchange. Coun. Cullen opposes the LRT plan as it stands, and lost a vote Tuesday to defer a final decision until after this fall's municipal election.

By a vote of 14-7, council rejected Mr. Cullen's motion to put off a decision until the new council takes office.

Mr. Cullen had argued that delaying a final decision would be in the best interests of democracy, but other councilors disagreed and said it's time to either approve the project or reject it.

"To delay this is just a copout," Innes councilor Rainer Bloess told council.

Many of the council members who voted against the Cullen motion are expected to support the LRT plan when it comes to a final vote, either later today or Thursday.

 

[MrOttawa]

It's a Done Deal!!

All Aboard the O-Train
Josh Pringle
Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The O-Train has received a final Green Light.

City Council has approved the 780-million dollar line from the University of Ottawa to Barrhaven.

After two days of debate, Councillors approved the project by a vote of 17 to 5.

Construction on the north-south Light Rail Transit Line will begin this fall, with the system scheduled to be in full operation by the spring of 2010.

Ottawa has awarded the contract for the design, construction and 15-year maintenance of the line to Siemens-PCL/Dufferin.

Mayor Chiarelli said "this is the next step in building a light rail network that will benefit the entire city. The N-S light rail system will take vehicles off the road, reduce pollution and improve the quality of life of residents over the next fifty years."

Chiarelli adds Ottawa "can now move forward in designing and planning the East-West light rail systems."

It will cost 15.9 million dollars a year to operate the 29 km line. The route includes 22 electrified vehicles and 23 stations.

400 million dollars of the funding for the project will come from the federal and provincial governments.

 

[MrOttawa]

Light rail plan gets green light, but debate far from over
By Ottawa Business Journal Staff
Wed, Jul 12, 2006 4:00 PM EST


LRT planning chief Rejean Chartrand fields councillors' questions ahead of Wednesday's fateful vote on light rail. (Darren Brown, OBJ)
In the end, it wasn't even close. For all the sound and fury that accompanied the debate over Ottawa's LRT system, the final vote was almost an anti-climax.

Councillors voted 14-7 in favour of the project. Mayor Bob Chiarelli, who has cast the project as his legacy, also supported awarding the contract to a consortium led by Siemens. City staff will now work out the final details of the contract, which should be signed by mid-September.

Construction is set to begin this fall, and the first trains should be rolling along the tracks by 2010.

Despite the vote, the project is certain to become a pivotal issue in this fall's municipal election.

Mayoralty candidate Alex Munter says he would conduct an audit of the project and would cancel the part of the LRT through downtown, spending the money instead on other transit improvements.

Terry Kilrea said he was disappointed.

"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," he said in a statement. "While I was impressed that a number of good questions came up, I'm not all that confident that every answer was acceptable and there are still more issues to address.

It's clear to me that this was no time to make such an important decision."

The proposed route is 29.4 kilometres long and supported by 22 electrified LRT vehicles, along with 23 stations and three new park-and-ride facilities. The city says it expects 3,100 direct construction-related new jobs from the project, and another 5,500 jobs indirectly throughout the 40-month construction process that will see the existing O-Train shut down and dismantled.

The cost of the project, right now, stands at around $778 million. But critics say that could balloon to more than $1 billion as construction gets underway, as city totals don't include additional costs like the $24-million Barrhaven extension, or over $220 million in maintenance costs to be paid to the winning consortium, the Siemens-PCL/Dufferin Team.

The vote broke down as follows:

Councillors in favour of light rail:

Georges Bédard, Eli El-Chantiry, Diane Deans, Clive Doucet, Jan Harder, Diane Holmes, Peter Hume, Rob Jellet, Shawn Little, Maria McRea, Bob Monette, Janet Stavinga, Doug Thompson, Mayor Bob Chiarelli.

Councillors who voted against the project:

Michel Bellemare, Rainer Bloess, Glenn Brooks, Rick Chiarelli, Alex Cullen, Peggy Feltmate, Jacques Legendre. Gord Hunter was out of the chamber when the vote was taken, but says he would have voted no.


Mayor Chiarelli has often said that the LRT plan has been subject to unfair scrutiny not applied to other city projects.

"When we cost the building of a road, we don't include the cost of snowplows, snow removal, and the cost of regular maintenance for the next 20 years," he said at the plan's unveiling last month. "That's what people are trying to do here, and that's just plain unfair, unreasonable, and politicizing the issue."

The group of companies headed by Siemens will provide 22 trains and all required rail technology for the project.

Mr. Chiarelli said building the north-south route first, instead of a Kanata-to-Orleans route, is practical and makes sense.

"We already have a billion dollars invested in east-west transit," he said. "North-south has not had much transit. So, for many reasons, it was right to start and not the least of which is that we have a proven pilot project in the north-south at the present time."

 

[unimaginative2]

Great news! My father used to have an apartment at Bay and Albert, so I remember well the endless strings of buses along the Transitway. This should be a great improvement. Why is Alex Munter so opposed to this transit project? Is he trying to court the right-wing vote? Stopping at Bronson is as ridiculous as stopping at Lebreton. You may as well not build the thing. It would be like building the Yonge line down from Finch and stopping at Bloor.

 

[MrOttawa]

^ you are so right. Alex is trying to distinguish himself from Mayor Chiarelli, that’s all. He was a good councilor but so far his campaign is doing very poorly. Alex is not doing well courting the left or centre votes either. Being gay does not help his stand with the immigrant vote.

Too bad. He was a very good, common sense councilor for Kanata.

 

[samsonyuen]

I met him a few times in person. He's not very charismatic. But I don't like Chiarelli either...

 

[samsonyuen]

From: ottsun.canoe.ca/News/Otta...8-sun.html
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Thu, July 13, 2006
Councillors toe LRT line
Plan to build $1B transit system goes ahead by 14-7 vote

By DEREK PUDDICOMBE

After two days of debate, north-south commuters can count on riding the rails.

Council yesterday voted 14-7 in favour of a light rail network to be built in the nation's capital.

"This is a champagne moment for our city. This is a new start for our city," said Capital Coun. Clive Doucet, who has always been a supporter for the 29.7-km route.

Cumberland Coun. Rob Jellett said the decision has been the most difficult in his short political career, but despite being heavily lobbied -- and receiving threats -- to vote against it, he voted in favour.

"In the end, this may cost my job, but I will be leaving knowing I made a decision with the best information I had available," said Jellett.


2% PROPERTY TAX HIKE

Diane Deans was confident that taxpayers would be willing to accept a 2% property tax increase in 2010, when light rail will be up and running, to help fund the system if savings can't be found elsewhere.

"To get this type of system, taxpayers would be willing to accept it," she said.

The vote was broken into two parts: The contract for the design, construction and 15-year maintenance of the north-south line; and the extension to bring the rail line into Barrhaven, which passed in a 17-5 vote. Most councillors said the Barrhaven extension would be necessary to make the project work.

Mayor Bob Chiarelli said the light rail system -- thought to be his pet project -- will improve the quality of life for residents and make Ottawa a world class city. He said it won't take long before the public will buy into it.

"They will learn to love the system," said Chiarelli. "It will be the start of making this a great world capital."

He said the line will also make an impact on the city's economy.

"It will mean a significant boon to the downtown and people will end up having more fun downtown."

Bay Coun. Alex Cullen said he jumped off the train last year when city staff refused to endorse a plan to look at building a tunnel under the downtown core.

Cullen said while there is room for a north-south project, the time just isn't right -- especially not at the almost $1-billion price tag.

"It's not worth it. There is a better plan we can put together to check our levels of ridership," he said.

Innes Coun. Rainer Bloess, who travelled to Houston, Tex., last week to get a feel for the LRT that Siemens built there -- a system that is similar to Ottawa's project -- said he took into consideration the future impact of LRT when he cast his vote against the plan.

"It's about what we want our city to become," said Bloess. "I want the train, but I want it in the right place. The numbers don't give me the confidence."

---

HOW THEY VOTED

TO APPROVE THE LRT CONTRACT:

Doug Thompson: yes

Janet Stavinga: yes

Peter Hume: yes

Eli El-Chantiry: yes

Clive Doucet: yes

Shawn Little: yes

Georges Bedard: yes

Diane Deans: yes

Bob Monette: yes

Jan Harder: yes

Rob Jellett: yes

Maria McRae: yes

Diane Holmes: yes

Bob Chiarelli: yes

Rick Chiarelli: no

Michel Bellemare: no

Jacques Legendre: no

Alex Cullen: no

Glenn Brooks: no

Peggy Feltmate: no

Rainer Bloess: no

TO EXTEND THE LINE INTO BARRHAVEN:

Doug Thompson: yes

Rick Chiarelli: yes

Janet Stavinga: yes

Peter Hume: yes

Eli El-Chantiry: yes

Clive Doucet: yes

Shawn Little: yes

Jacques Legendre: yes

Georges Bedard: yes

Diane Deans: yes

Bob Monette: yes

Peggy Feltmate: yes

Jan Harder: yes

Rob Jellett: yes

Maria McRae: yes

Diane Holmes: yes

Bob Chiarelli: yes

Michel Bellemare: no

Alex Cullen: no

Gord Hunter: no

Glenn Brooks: no

Rainer Bloess: no

TO EXTEND THE LINE TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA:

Doug Thompson: yes

Janet Stavinga: yes

Peter Hume: yes

Eli El-Chantiry: yes

Clive Doucet: yes

Georges Bedard: yes

Diane Deans: yes

Bob Monette: yes

Jan Harder: yes

Maria McRae: yes

Diane Holmes: yes

Mayor Bob Chiarelli: yes

Rick Chiarelli: no

Michel Bellemare: no

Shawn Little: no

Jacques Legendre: no

Alex Cullen: no

Gord Hunter: no

Glenn Brooks: no

Peggy Feltmate: no

Rob Jellett: no

Rainer Bloess: no

 

[samsonyuen]

From: www.canada.com:80/compone...e48d7a841f
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Council goes way off track

Randall Denley
The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, July 13, 2006

So much for the great debate on light-rail. The proponents of the city's north-south plan had no real interest in improving it and the opponents' alternative ideas were too little and too late.

After a day and a half of discussion, councillors approved pretty much what staff had placed in front of them.

A number of motions did try to get at the glaring problem of jamming downtown streets with buses and trains, but Mayor Bob Chiarelli managed to rule them out of order. Councillor Gord Hunter even presented a whole new approach to transit, calling for an extension of the transitway to serve Riverside South and trains on the east-west transitway.

Councillors were unpersuaded. This first step in a 15-year transit expansion plan sets the city off in entirely the wrong direction, but the prevailing council wisdom is that it's too late to stop now.

Councillors were to some extent victims of their own momentum. When they asked staff a year ago to get a contract to build the north-south line, there was really little chance of any outcome different from the one we saw yesterday. The $158-million price escalation might have given a reasonable person pause, but it didn't seem to matter a whit to most on council. The small number of additional transit riders the train is likely to attract wasn't much of a deal at the promised $725 million. It's really a joke at $883 million, plus.

Councillors managed to debate light-rail for years without ever really focusing their attention on the consultants' report that told them the numbers of new riders would be small and that the 30-per-cent transit commuting share goal would almost certainly never be met. Other than the cost, it's the most relevant information. The new train is projected to attract 1,090 new transit riders in the morning commute by 2021.

Councillors who persist in using a figure 60 times as large should have another read.

The councillors who opposed the rail plan found themselves fighting not only the momentum of the project, but also a cunning little array of inducements that were intended to persuade uncommitted councillors. East-end councillors got a small Band-Aid solution to the Queensway split, west-end councillors got a long overdue improvement in a transitway bottleneck. Jan Harder won the grand prize, a $24-million extension of the rail line to Barrhaven. Rural councillors were rewarded with $3.5 million in rural road repairs.

On that last point, one really has to admire the chutzpah of Councillor Eli El-Chantiry. The West Carleton councillor found the original $2-million rural road inducement too low and asked for $1.5 million more.

This got Councillor Jacques Legendre's attention and he began to ask embarrassing questions about why rural road repairs would be attached to an urban transit project anyway.

While everyone else looked at their shoes, Legendre went on at length about how this made the debate a "mockery."

Poor Jacques. He's right, of course, but after all his years in politics, he is still doesn't understand how the city's reward system works.

Councillors applied their usual complexity but the underlying question in front of them was a simple one. With all information in hand, was the north-south plan a good idea, or not?

Instead of arguing the main point, councillors expended much of their time on procedure and trivia. That suited the light rail supporters rather well, because the plan really doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. The opponents made it easy for them by focusing on not-going-to-happen ideas like dropping the link to Barrhaven or reconsidering a tunnel downtown.

Earlier, councillors had rejected a plan to delay the decision so they could consult the public in this fall's election.

Councillor Maria McRae said there would be no point, because councillors would have no new information later.

That would be true, if delay was all councillors intended to do. It eluded McRae, but the purpose of the delay was to figure out a better, cheaper way to serve people in the south, freeing up money for east-west.

Once councillors turned their attention to the actual contract proposal, they found there is really no way to tell if it provides good value for the money.

Without any breakdown of the cost of component parts or any potential alternatives, it was difficult for councillors to do anything but give a simple yes or no.

In the end, most simply went along with what city staff and the mayor wanted, just like they have all along. Now it's all over but the paying.

 

[Antiloop33rpm]

Wow. That was one of the bitterest pieces of journalism I have read in quite some time.

The plan might not be perfect, and it might not please everybody, but nothing ever does. I'm glad to see this go ahead. This is a great project for the city and I'll be even happier when I hear that shovels are in the ground and work is underway.

 

[bizorky]

^Denley simply and purely hates the O-Train.

 

[Antiloop33rpm]

Yeah. He's a douchebag. There must be some really crazy reason for him to so strongly oppose it. Perhaps he was tormeneted as a child and hung by his underwear from the trolley wire poles back in the streetcar days of Ottawa.

 

[MrOttawa]

Denly actually has come up with legitimate criticisms of the O-Train. But I agree, he is a cranky old goat.

 

[spmarshall]

The O-Train North-South line is probably going to be over-built to meet today's needs. However, I think this is overall a good plan (if not perfect plan), and will better meet future demands better than a scaled-back version. This is the corridor with the most potential, being poorly served by the existing busways, and serving both universities. I would have liked to see the first stage go to Hurdman to reduce the number of buses along Albert and Slater, but at least they have it going to University of Ottawa, not stopping at Rideau Centre.

Those who have been saying "this plan is designed to fail" and have been in uncompromising opposition have had an effect, so I am glad that council did the right thing.

 

[samsonyuen]

Going to Hurdman would be a great idea for relieving downtown of buses, but what route would it best follow? Along the transitway?

 

[MrOttawa]

Ultimately the transitway will not stop at UoO. It will continue south along the transitway and then east along the transitway to Orleans.

It is my belief that the transitway will be the next rail project, not Carling, Baseline etc. To get more users they must improve the core services along the transitwayl. It was build for trains.