The Sparks Street BIA has agreed to spend $10,000 to hire expert assistance to study the feasibility of a streetcar line.
The line was first proposed some years ago, but Holly Layte, chairperson of the Sparks Street heritage committee, says plans for streetcar are right on track.
The heritage committee hopes to hire a specialist in transportation and heritage issues at Queen’s University in Kingston, as well as re-involve Carleton University.
Carleton University engineering students conducted a feasibility study in 2008, but Layte says the committee wants to update the information gathered during that time.
The first phase of the streetcar proposal is expected to cost about $9 million, says Layte.
The proposed first phase consists of one track with two cars running from the Ottawa Convention Centre, which is now under construction, along Sparks Street to the O-Train in LeBreton Flats.
Phase two of the proposed streetcar line would be a loop into Gatineau and back over the Interprovincial Bridge.
Once a lively commercial district, Sparks Street has gradually become an area dependent solely on business during weekday lunch hours and summer tourism.
For seven to eight months of the year, the street suffers a serious lack of shoppers, some merchants say.
“In the wintertime, Sparks Street is a disaster, an absolute disaster. It has been since they tore out the tracks and took out the streetcars,” says Layte.
Layte is the chair of the streetcar project and owner of The Marvellous Mustard Shoppe at 109 Sparks St.
A streetcar line ran down Sparks Street until 1959, when it was removed and turned into a pedestrian only mall.
Layte says she recalls riding on the streetcar. “This street was humming. There was a vitality that hasn’t existed on Sparks street for many many years.”
But some do not agree that a streetcar line would be the best initiative to regenerate the area.
Carly Bob, shopkeeper at Quichua International, says she thinks $10,000 is a lot to spend on a study and that the BIA should consider using the funds to revitalize the street in other ways.
Mareta Rasmussen of Bijoux, a jewellery boutique at the corner of Sparks and Bank streets, also says that $10,000 is a bit costly. But she adds that the proposed streetcar is a good idea. “It would be a great attraction. A streetcar would definitely improve Sparks Street,” says Rasmussen.
Layte says “$10,000 is a drop in the bucket,” compared with what the amount the Sparks Street mall has available for revitalization purposes.
The heritage committee is hoping to get other government agencies to match the $10,000 funding it has already received from the Sparks Street BIA.
Still, not all concerns about the project have been worked out. The heritage committee says it wants to make sure that businesses are not disrupted for very long, that the rail line does not interfere with patios and that the streetcar is environmentally sound.
“Sparks Street is under construction a lot of the time and this really impacts small businesses,” says Layte.
“We want to ensure that whatever we do, there’s not major disruption.”