By Brian Jackson, City Hall Bureau
O-train riders will be walking or busing for up to a year while the new light rail system is constructed, say city officials.
The city says it will be impossible to maintain O-train service throughout the entire three-year construction period that begins next summer as workers will start laying down 28 kilometres of track running through the downtown core.
Critics charge city staff aren’t experienced enough to make that decision, and never made an attempt to keep the service on track. Meanwhile, OC Transpo is making backup plans.
“The winter of 2007, you will have service,” says Réjean Chartrand, director of economic development and strategic projects for the city. “Beyond that, I wouldn’t guarantee it.”
Chartrand says he is certain the O-train won’t be running for the six-month testing period of the new light rail vehicles. Some construction on the new track will prolong the closure.
“We already know we won’t be able to keep the full service during the construction period,” says Chartrand. “Once you stop operations, chances are you won’t operate again.”
The construction involves changing the single rail to a double track powered by electricity. The tunneled-out rock corridor between Carling and Bayview stations will be widened, with about a meter of rock shaved off either side. The O-train can’t run while construction is done on platforms to suit the new lower-floor trains.
Critics charge that more should have been done to keep the line open.
The city lacks the skilled staff to make the decision to stop service of the O-train and should have made continued service a requirement in the private-sector bids for the expansion, says David Jeanes, president of Transport 2000, a public transportation advocacy group.
“They are really speculating when they say what is and isn’t possible from a railway construction point of view,” says Jeanes. Disrupting the service “is going to be a catastrophe for the city.”
Three corporate-partnership teams, each consisting of a vehicle provider and construction company, are currently preparing bids to submit to the city. The city will choose which team will be responsible for construction, providing the trains, and maintenance in April 2006.
The three groups competing are Kiewit-EllisDon with Kinkisharyo International, Siemens Canada Ltd. with PCL Constructors Inc., and Dufferin Construction Co. with SNC-Lavalin and Bombardier Inc.
None of the teams will submit a plan which will keep the O-train running, says Jeanes, because the city has not asked them to do so. Such a plan would raise the cost of their bid.
While the O-train is out of service, thousands who rely on it every day will have to find a different way to get around the city. Carleton University student Brian Evernden uses the train twice a day to get to and from class. Without the train running, he would have to take two bus trips instead of walking to the O-train.
“It would be far much more of a pain in the ass,” says Evernden. “It’s about half an hour to 45 minutes compared to about 10 minutes.”
OC Transpo will try to replace the O-train service using buses. They plan to distribute a survey on the O-train to try and figure out what key links need to be replaced in Ottawa’s transit service while the train is down, says Helen Gault, an official with OC Transpo.
“We will look at what people are doing on the O-train and provide the best possible service to respond to their needs,” says Gault. “It won’t be as good, of course, as the O-train, which is brilliant.”
That service just won’t cut it, says Jeanes, who imagines buses sitting in gridlock on already clogged streets.
“The only road that follows that route is Bronson Avenue and it is already at the failing point,” he says.