More Money For Ottawa Transit? No. No Again

“The premier has told me privately, and he said publicly, that until we get our LRT house in order we can’t expect any more money from Queen’s Park for operating funds for transit,”

Ottawa Centre MPP Joel Harden on Doug Ford

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s position on Ottawa’s abysmal light-rail fiasco sounds like practicality (something Ottawa City Hall is woefully short on), common sense, utilitarianism, fiscal prudence and myriad other things foreign to the somewhat tall foreheads on Laurier Avenue.

Why pour good money after bad like our bankrupt (in so many ways) municipal government? There’s only one taxpayer (heard this before?) and it sounds like you. Throwing money at transit in Ottawa is like shoveling it into a cottage campfire on a cool late-summer evening.

On top of all the hideous things that have occurred with light rail and transit in this city, the auditor general discovered this week that OC Transpo is not taking bus-safety seriously, Not seriously at all. That’s wrong. Then, with the transit system working ‘perfectly’, OC Transpo subjected Bulldog commentator Mike Patton’s wife to a one-way, one-hour, forty-five-minute commute and scenic bus tour to her job. Put together the total commute time daily and you get the better part in time of a car trip to Toronto (not that you would want to go there).

Then of course there have been repeated derailments on the light-rail line. And no successful attempt to even start a repair on the faulty axle and hub assemblies that are piling up like cord-wood at rail repair yards. And of course, everything is late from buses to completion of the various stages of LRT.

So sure. If you’re Doug Ford, the first thing you want to do is invest in Ottawa transit. Actually, that’s wrong. A higher priority would be investing in Nortel stock … if you can get it. You’d have to be a crazy man to invest in Ottawa transit.

So get it together Watson-lite Mayor Mark Sutcliffe. You inherited this mess from your mentor and are showing the same aplomb with the file as your ham-handed predecessor and mentor. Ford says you’ll get money when the LRT works. The LRT might work sometime when the sun rises in the west, but, nevertheless, the promise is there.

Whining won’t get you LRT money but running a good service might. There’s something to shoot for. Actually doing something rather than talking about it or bitching about it.

What Sutcliffe is trying to say is: “IT’S NOT MY FAULT.” One problem … it is your fault. You’ve had two years … no progress whatsoever on fixing the LRT.

“It’s not shocking that they’re going to get more money,” said Orléans MPP Stephen Blais, a former Watson Clubber councillor about Toronto. “But when you calculate it on a per-resident basis and it’s five or six times greater, I think that’s obviously unfair. It’s irresponsible.”

No Stephen Blais. What’s irresponsible (and it’s unlikely you will get an argument on this from Ottawans) is the dumpster fire that you and your council colleagues lit with light rail. LRT puts new meaning into utter, complete, unadulterated stupidity on every front possible.

You want money from Doug Ford to flush down this tube?

Ain’t gonna happen. And if Ford gave you money, he’s as incompetent as the last 14 years of city council.

Blais, the time for politics on LRT was long ago, if at all. Fix the damn light rail and when that’s done, talk more money.

Do some hard work on this. Not heavy lifting, god forbid (you could hurt your back). Just get it right.

Ken Gray

For You:

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Push The Contractors On Light Rail: BENN

Here Is Shocking Audit Of Transpo Bus Maintenance

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