The Untold Giant Mistakes On Light Rail

Ottawans all the see the tunnel problems, the rolling-stock failures and the power-feeding woes on the light-rail plan.

But there are other problems that rarely, if ever, get discussed. Some are hideously expensive and go back as far as the early planning of the system.

This is the kind of thinking and performance that got former mayor Jim Watson a prestigious spot on the board of the Ottawa Community Housing Foundation. Too bad one can’t get into the lying and withholding of information on that project in this post.

Here are a few of these horrendously large mistakes:

Light Rail: This sounds odd but true. Why did Ottawa go with light rail on a dedicated line? Light rail is meant to travel in and around auto traffic. The vehicles have highly effective brake sets. They stop on a dime. Just one problem. You don’t use light rail on a dedicated line. Why must light-rail vehicles stop on a dime Ottawa’s project? They don’t. The line has no cross-roads and even if it did, wig-wag signals are common on level crossings and many light-rail systems, stop traffic and do the trick.

Watson On Housing Foundation Board? No: BENN

Wrong Vehicles: Using light rail on a dedicated line is woefully inefficient, as mentioned before. If trains are not mingling with traffic, high-capacity vehicles are the correct choice. You’ve seen them. They’re the ones travelling on the TTC subway in Toronto. They carry many more people than light rail so the line is much more efficient than Ottawa’s current system. They can’t make abrupt stops and with dedicated line, they don’t have to.

The Arena: Because of the limited capacity of light rail, getting to and returning from a downtown arena will be painfully slow. Nothing like waiting in an unheated station in January with your family and $500 in tickets in your pocket while train after train passes completely full. And what if the train breaks down. What do you do with 20,000 people in line expecting to home by rail. The Bulldog’s Ron Benn studied the capacity question after events and found Ottawa’s light rail wanting.

What’s ‘Value Added’ About Watson? BENN

The Line: The Transitway was built to accommodate light rail when capacity warranted. What was wrong with the old light-rail stations? Nothing. They still had much life in them. Ottawa went with poured concrete and glass, over-built new stations because the people behind the system wanted to win awards for themselves … not you. Oh yes, the old stations had heating areas.

The Tunnel: Unnecessary and it cost a whopping $700 million. If lights were co-ordinated on one of Slater or Albert, light rail would have worked. Might it have delayed drivers? Probably. Maybe they could have taken the $6.4 billion train they’re paying for. And more on the tunnel. It is high-maintenance infrastructure. It has already leaked considerably and collapsed twice during construction. Wonder what will happen in the areas where it is located on unstable ground? We wait and see.

Rolling Stock: How much do you think it will cost to buy all new rolling stock. Nobody is talking about this while city hall lives the dream it will be cheaper to repair the current vehicles, which are unsafe, rather than buy new rolling stock. Why did the city tinker with the basic design when it didn’t have to? What does the city know about light-rail vehicles? Not enough apparently. Better to have spent that time and money on the electrical infrastructure that is now damaged by little ice storms let alone big ones.

Carling Avenue: By far the best location for the east-west line. It goes past people through an old area that could use a fair bit of sprucing up. It goes past hospitals. The current line was built where it is so that developers can construct high-rises in high-rent rendezvous’ such as near the Ottawa River and Westboro at huge heights. Any location near a light-rail line, even without access, can get a huge high-rise tower … with lots of parking. That’s how Ottawa makes its LRT so useful.

What you have here is just unsound planning coming from the city. When former mayor Jim Watson took full responsibility for the light-rail fiasco, he then blamed SNC Lavalin for the difficulties. Look the city bought the line, should have policed the construction and not tinkered with the train chassis.

This line had huge problems long before the first shovel was put into the ground. With good budgeting and rational planning, Light rail could have gotten to Barrhaven and Kanata in good time.

Now it’s unlikely we’ll see LRT in those two areas in 30 or 40 years.

What the city should be considering is taking advantage of current old rail lines and making them work with heavy-rail commuter trains where feasible.

Carol Anne Meehan Calls Watson ‘A Bully’

The original O-Train built during the mayor Bob Chiarelli years cost about $21 million using a rail line already in place. That’s a far cry from the billions thrown away on a light-rail line that doesn’t work.

That $21 million sure looks good today.

Ken Gray

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