Transit advocate slams new Ottawa plan

A new transit plan put forward by a committee of Ottawa councillors earlier this week would make downtown congestion worse and is unlikely to get federal and provincial funding, says local transit advocate David Jeanes.

"They're going for a major expansion of bus transitways, even though nothing has been done to solve the capacity and congestion issues that buses are causing downtown," he told CBC in an interview aired Friday on Ottawa Morning.

"The federal and provincial governments understand that and they're very unlikely to agree either to their existing money being spent on this way or any future money to be spent on a bus tunnel a completely unproven concept deep under downtown Ottawa."

The new plan passed by the joint transportation and transit committee Wednesday includes:

• A north-south light rail line heading toward the city's southeast.
• A rapid transit line along the Cumberland transitway.
• A downtown transit tunnel.
• Completion of the city's rapid bus transitway, according to its transportation master plan.

Jeanes, head of the transportationadvocacy group Transport 2000,said light rail is unlikely to be built in the near future because money previously earmarked for light rail is now to be spent on completing busways to Kanata, Barrhaven and likely Cumberland.

That leaves Riverside South and other southeast neighbourhoods without any short- or medium-term transit solutions, Jeanes said.

The plan does not specify what type of rapid transit would run along the Cumberland transitway from Trim Road to Blackburn Hamlet, but Jeanes said it will likely be buses, as the connection of the proposed route to the rest of the transit system has not yet been determined.

The new transitways will cause greater congestion downtown, whichcannot support more buses, he said.

"There isn't any way for the downtown to work with this expansion."

He also criticized the committee for approving the scope of an environmental assessment study for a downtown tunnel that considers using such a tunnel for both light rail and buses.

"This is just pipe-dreaming. There's no city in the world that has done that We couldn't possibly afford to do it."

Jeanes questioned why the plan is "totally at variance" with the recommendation of the mayor's transportation task force to build a region-wide light rail network.

The report was to be used as input to the city's transportation master plan review.

The new transit plan is to go before city council on Nov. 28.