Denley Rewrites Rail History Wrong
“It’s fair to say that the city’s first train decision wasn’t the best.”
Randall Denley, Ottawa Citizen
It’s fair to say that the first train decision was the best and Denley can’t even get the first decision right which precedes the proposed and never-finished north-southeast line that the Citizen columnist thinks was first.
Denley feels the first LRT move was a line from downtown to Barrhaven. Well no, because a decision was made earlier by Mayor Bob Chiarelli to run a commuter train from Bayview Transitway station to Greenboro for $33 million. Got that? Yes, $33 million. The current total cost of light rail in Ottawa is likely to be around $6.76 billion.
The $33 million was enabled by using infrastructure already in place. It really was on-time and on-budget. Yes, $33 million is chump-change compared to this wreck of a system we have now built on grandiose dreams, budgetary stupidity and planning incompetence. Then, to add to the stupidity, the city government decided to redo the line that Chiarelli created which was working perfectly.
The Citizen Expects You To Jump
The north-south line was done quickly and efficiently using diesel rolling stock on tracks meant for diesel rolling stock. Diesel trains have a long history of running easily through Ottawa’s winters unlike the monstrosity of electric we have now.
And the stations were simple small and adequate. The new line which kind of works if you discount that 750 axles have had to have been replaced on the trains, has monumental unheated stations meant to win municipal folk awards rather than being a functional system. The only award to my knowledge for the project was from a tunnelling-industry group that gave first place to Ottawa’s tunnel which collapsed twice and flooded at least once during construction.
Wonder which project finished second and how many cave-ins did it have?
Denley’s rewriting of history makes Chiarelli look bad but then such a fairy tale is to be expected from Denley the PC candidate who lost twice to Chiarelli in Ottawa-West Nepean provincially. Guess by running a second time, Denley was telling the voters they were wrong.
People like that when they are approached for their vote.
Bit of a conflict there, Randy.
We will recount Denley’s part in the current debacle on another day.
To read Denley’s column, click here.
Ken Gray
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I remember Marianne Wilkinson telling me that all of the stations along the transit way for buses was actually pre-built for trains too. The intention at the time was if they moved to trains, then all they would have to do basically would be to put rails down and wires etc. The stations didn’t have to be rebuilt. Yes they definitely could have been refreshed, but they would have saved hundreds of millions by reusing the existing stations with their wonderful heat
I think you might want to recheck this line: “The current total cost of light rail in Ottawa is likely to be around $6.76 million.”
Building a rail line across the country proved less troublesome than creating a dependable commuter line in the nation’s capital and likely less costly when comparing dollars-then to dollars-now. And I believe Merrill’s correct with regards to $M vs $B.
thx merrill — i have a brain wonk on that — even did a fair whack of research to get that figure — many sorries k
So you’re not perfect. Join the club.