$2.1B Ottawa LRT project approved by city council

Ottawa City Council has voted to move ahead with its revised $2.1-billion Light Rail Transit Project, the city announced Thursday.

"The vote signals this councils strong support for our improved plan to build an efficient, functional and affordable light rail system for our riders," Mayor Jim Watson said in a statement.

"The LRT will ease congestion on our downtown streets, reinvigorate our city core, create opportunities for smart development and lay the foundation for future expansion of our transit network."

Councillors are expected to seek construction and implementation proposals from dozens of Canadian and international companies before the end of the year.

Under the newer plan, parts of the downtown rail tunnel will bebuilt at a shallower depth than originally proposed, making the projectmore cost-effective and practical, as itwould do away with the need for more sophisticated building technology.

'Defining abetter light rail system'

As part of the modifications to the proposal to keep the project under budget, the plans for the tunnel were changed to have it run under Queen Street rather than Albert Street.

The change allows the tunnel to be constructed at a depth of 15 to 16 metres instead of 39 to 40 metres.The revisionsmean it should take LRT passengers roughly one minuteto descend to the stations instead of two minutes.

The 12.5-kilometre, 13-stationrail line is still slated to run from Tunney's Pasture, just west of downtown, to Blair station in the east, and includes a 3.2-kilometre transit tunnel under downtown Ottawa. It is expected to ease gridlock in the downtown core.

Ottawa's City Manager, Kent Kirkpatrick, praised the revised LRT plan in a statement Thursday.

"The engineering and project teams have worked very hard rethinking assumptions and defining a better light rail system that can be built within the approved budget," he said.

The city is expected to putout arequest for proposals on construction workbyDecember, with the aim ofawarding a contract in December 2012. The project is slated to be completed at the end of 2017.