A downtown tunnel would be key to implementing the new light rail transit option, city councillors heard at a special committee meeting Monday morning.
The joint transit and transportation committee was held to table a development plan of the new transit system.
In September 2007, four possible light rail and transit system options were presented to council, which eventually chose the fourth option. The selected plan would connect Blair on the east end and Baseline on the west end with a downtown tunnel, and see an extension of the current O-train to the airport.
Now up for debate is which part of the construction will take place first. Four possible scenarios were looked at. At the meeting, city staff justified why building an east-to-west route, including construction of the tunnel, was the ideal first step. Each of the four implementation options would see the tunnel built first.
The first phase of the east-to-west construction would see the tunnel built, at a cost of $600 million and the O-train extended to Blair and Tunney’s Pasture.
According the Kent Kirkpatrick, the city manager, the earliest riders can expect to use the new downtown tunnel is 2017, but he said that’s an extremely optimistic timeline.
www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/trc/2008/11-10/ACS2008-ICS-PLA-0227