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SFO-YYZ said:
I'm so confused, is Ottawa already planning for a Line 5 LRT/subway?
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In terms of actual LRT projects proposed in any of the city's transit plans, a "fifth" LRT line would be an at-grade line running down Carling between Lincoln Fields and Dow's Lake.
It's in the 2013 TMP but a formal study hasn't been started yet.

I think we're all waiting to see what, if anything, changes when the TMP review is published in 2022.
 
NoahB said:
Mind elaborating? don't know much about Ottawa's politics.
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Think of him as Ottawa's Rob Ford before Ford was mayor of Toronto (and minus the drug use). His claim to fame was being a "businessman" who would run the city like a business (and failed to run it effectively at all). He cancelled the LRT plan (at a cost of $100s of millions in contract damages and lost upper-government funding) that would have been in place nearly a decade before the one that was built and would have had a single ride from the north-south O-train through downtown in favour of the populist idea of building an east-west subway first (something that would have followed anyway). He was bumbling, focused on penny pinching, and embroiled in an electoral fraud & bribery lawsuit for much of his single term. He lost his re-election bid in a landslide.
 
Ottawan said:
Think of him as Ottawa's Rob Ford before Ford was mayor of Toronto (and minus the drug use). His claim to fame was being a "businessman" who would run the city like a business (and failed to run it effectively at all). He cancelled the LRT plan (at a cost of $100s of millions in contract damages and lost upper-government funding) that would have been in place nearly a decade before the one that was built and would have had a single ride from the north-south O-train through downtown in favour of the populist idea of building an east-west subway first (something that would have followed anyway). He was bumbling, focused on penny pinching, and embroiled in an electoral fraud & bribery lawsuit for much of his single term. He lost his re-election bid in a landslide.
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You seem to have forgotten the part about how the old LRT plan didn't serve the vast majority of transit users in Ottawa (who travel East-West), would require the continued operation of the existing BRT network in the downtown core after the LRT was built (with all the bus congestion that entailed), and had no tunnel leaving the system with both less capacity and vulnerable to disruption in the core. It was a flawed proposal meant to help developers sell far flung suburban real estate, more than helping actual transit users.

Of course, the small minority of residents in southern Ottawa who would have benefited have been whining about it since. And even they'll get 80% of the original proposal with Stage 2 of the Trillium Line.

All that said, O'Brien is wrong on the Bank St. subway. It's easy to advocate for ideas that you don't have to raise capital for though....
 
kEiThZ said:
You seem to have forgotten the part about how the old LRT plan didn't serve the vast majority of transit users in Ottawa (who travel East-West), would require the continued operation of the existing BRT network in the downtown core after the LRT was built (with all the bus congestion that entailed), and had no tunnel leaving the system with both less capacity and vulnerable to disruption in the core. It was a flawed proposal meant to help developers sell far flung suburban real estate, more than helping actual transit users.
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I haven't forgotten any of these populist, false arguments, and you clearly did not read the part of my post where I stated that the east-west tunnel was coming next.

We could, today, have two separate LRTs through downtown - the existing tunnel and an on-street line on Laurier from the prior plan. Instead we threw away millions to cancel a contract, and only have the one tunnel. This is a simple case of 1 + 1 > 1. It was only politics to suggest that the east-west route was never coming.

Of course, the small minority of residents in southern Ottawa who would have benefited have been whining about it since. And even they'll get 80% of the original proposal with Stage 2 of the Trillium Line.
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OK, if one third of the population is a small minority. And Stage 2 is not 80% of the original proposal. It is not fully double-tracked, it includes a transfer to downtown, and does not cross the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge connecting Riverside South to Barhaven
 
Ottawan said:
I haven't forgotten any of these populist, false arguments, and you clearly did not read the part of my post where I stated that the east-west tunnel was coming next.

We could, today, have two separate LRTs through downtown - the existing tunnel and an on-street line on Laurier from the prior plan. Instead we threw away millions to cancel a contract, and only have the one tunnel. This is a simple case of 1 + 1 > 1. It was only politics to suggest that the east-west route was never coming.



OK, if one third of the population is a small minority. And Stage 2 is not 80% of the original proposal. It is not fully double-tracked, it includes a transfer to downtown, and does not cross the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge connecting Riverside South to Barhaven
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Would we though? Or would the city mayors get lazy and say "eh we already have one, no need for another one".
 
Ottawan said:
We could, today, have two separate LRTs through downtown
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If you believe that, I have a nice bridge to sell you...

Ottawan said:
OK, if one third of the population is a small minority.
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One third? There were more squirrels in Riverside South than people at the time. What's this definition of the South that ends up with a third of the population in the catchment of the old LRT plan?

Meanwhile the current LRT plan, under construction today, actually puts 77% of the city's current population within 5 km (15 min bus ride) of an LRT station. Heck, that's better than a lot of Toronto's access to the TTC subway network.

Ottawan said:
It is not fully double-tracked, it includes a transfer to downtown, and does not cross the Strandherd-Armstrong bridge connecting Riverside South to Barhaven
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Hence why I said 80% and not 100%. With the exception of Barrhaven, Stage 2 Trillium covers the entire rest of the corridor in the old LRT proposal. Sure, they don't get electrified twin track LRT. But there's enough sidings in Stage 2 to give them reasonable frequencies. As for the transfer? Having them transfer is better than two other suburbs ending up on the bus instead.
 
ARG1 said:
Would we though? Or would the city mayors get lazy and say "eh we already have one, no need for another one".
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Assuming that two LRTs would be built through the downtown core. LOL. That's, shall we say, optimistic.

We might have seen more extensions. But a tunnel under a surface running LRT? Not likely.

And where would the money come from, with no savings from reduced bus operations? Just imagine what the bus parade on Albert and Slater would look like today if the Confederation Line hadn't been built. And then imagine throwing a surface LRT into the mix too.
 
kEiThZ said:
Assuming that two LRTs would be built through the downtown core. LOL. That's, shall we say, optimistic.

We might have seen more extensions. But a tunnel under a surface running LRT? Not likely.

And where would the money come from, with no savings from reduced bus operations?
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Not to mention, after Stage 2 the city is apparently broke. Now imagine if on top of that we built this earlier LRT. We wouldn't even have the money for these Stage 2 enhancements. Ottawa's transit system would look so much worse if that initial LRT was built.
 
ARG1 said:
Not to mention, after Stage 2 the city is apparently broke. Now imagine if on top of that we built this earlier LRT. We wouldn't even have the money for these Stage 2 enhancements. Ottawa's transit system would look so much worse if that initial LRT was built.
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I'm guessing Ottawan lives in South Keys, Riverside South or Barrhaven. So he'd be perfectly okay with a plan that got him LRT and left everyone from Orleans, Kanata and Stittsville riding the bus.

O'Brien's decision was undoubtedly controversial. There was a populist element to it. But in the end we got a system that was larger, fully grade separated and serves a higher proportion of existing transit users. I'm not going to shed too many tears for developers and speculators who lost out on their bets in Barrhaven and Riverside South.

I see the old LRT proposal as something akin to building the Scarborough RT. A set up for multi-decade long chaos and political fight. $100M is a small price to pay for avoiding that. Even if it made some folks unhappy.
 
I strongly disagree. I am most frustrated by your refusal to understand that a third of Ottawa's population lives in the south end. Not Riverside south, but, south along the bank street corridor, Hunt Club, South Keys, Greenboro, Hunt Club Park, Blossom Park within the greenbelt, Riverside South, Finlay Creek, Barhaven outside of it all would have benefitted substantially. The south end more broadly includes much of Nepean as well.

In any event, we are staying far from the initial question which was about what made Larry O'Brien controversial. I remain steadfast in my own opinions on transit in Ottawa and am certain they are well supported by fact, but do not have the patience to debate it at length. This is why I usually stick to just posting pictures of buildings, and not straying into commenting in the more political threads. It is too exhausting.
 
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