Despite the hype and delays, Courtney Battistone says if the new O-Train offers a useful service
The O-Train. When will it start running? Perhaps more important: Who really cares?
Ottawa’s light-rail train system was supposed to be running by summer 2001, then September 2001. Now it’s “if all goes well, we expect to be able to announce that service will start within the next four to six weeks,” according to an OC Transpo press release dated Aug. 30.
As of mid-September, Ralph Richardson, director of external communications and video coordinator for OC Transpo says they still didn’t have a set date for the O-Train’s first day for passengers. He said a date couldn’t be set until all of their concerns are addressed about issues like driver training and safety.
However, the date that the O-Train starts is irrelevant to OC Transpo users – it will not significantly add to the transit system in Ottawa.
The eight-kilometre track, five-station addition to the bus system in Ottawa is a pilot project, designed to gauge demand for a light-rail system in Ottawa.
If public response to the light-rail system is good, OC Transpo will consider expanding light-rail.
OC Transpo spent $16 million to create the system, significantly less than it would have otherwise cost because the transit company is using a single rail line that already existed. The only new track laid was an interchange at the Carleton station to allow to trains to pass each other.
Marc Pyette, a fourth-year urban studies student at Carleton University, is writing his honours paper on the O-Train system. He agrees this was a fairly cost effective way to create the system.
However, Richardson said “one of the nice things about the train is that it allows us to service areas we couldn’t serve as well with buses.”
Though areas like Preston Street and the area around Bronson and Heron may technically receive better service, it depends on where these riders want to go and how quickly they want to get there.
The train runs north to south, from a new stop on the Transitway called Bayview, west of the Lebreton Flats station, down through Carleton University, ending at the Greenboro station on the Transitway.
“The train needs to go to areas with higher demand for travel,” Pyette said. “It’s the train from nowhere to nowhere, as it’s been called.” It will be difficult to gauge the public’s reaction to this pilot light-rail project with a rail line that does not reach areas with high demand for travel, like the downtown core.
Because the light-rail line doesn’t run into more heavily populated areas, this could mean commuters will have to take the bus or drive to a light-rail station. Richardson said he hoped that buses and trains will complement each other, instead of having people drive to a light-rail station.
However, Pyette said, “passengers just want to do what’s easier for them – if they have to go from bus to train to bus, it’s not going to fly.”
Driving to a light-rail station, or a bus station for that matter, is another potential problem. Currently, the only light-rail stop with a parking lot is Greenboro station.
Richardson says it is not really feasible to add parking lots to any of the light-rail stations, as it’s difficult to find enough space for parking lots.
And if people already catch a bus at Greenboro, they probably won’t hop on the train instead.
“If you live in the Greenboro area, you’re just going to hop on the bus to get downtown,” Pyette said, especially considering that the train doesn’t run to the downtown core.
“The O-Train appeals to a different kind of consumer than the bus,” Pyette said, suggesting that it makes more sense to go after transit users in communities like Kanata and Nepean.
“If they expand the system, it’ll be a lot more effective,” said Pyette.
Though an extension of the rail line is part of OC Transpo’s ‘master plan’, an expansion is not currently in the works.
An effective light-rail system in Ottawa may be a long time coming.