City Hall hosted an open house Monday night to show the public its most recent plans for light rail transit between Tunney’s Pasture and Blair Road.
On display were the final route, location and design for all 13 stations, including what the underground stops downtown would look like.
In total it showed 12.5 km of new light rail lines, including the 3.2-km tunnel stopping at four downtown stations (Downtown East, West, Rideau and the University of Ottawa).
Dennis Gratton, senior project manager, says this is a concept plan that still needs approval from the transportation committee in December, and then from city council.
The stations at Bayview, Lebreton, Hurdman and Blair would get some of the most remodelling, with platforms widened and new shelters built.
The underground stations would have two access points with escalators, elevators and stairs leading travellers 30 to 35 metres below street level. These stations are supposed to greatly reduce bus volume downtown, and the plan says the exclusive bus lanes along Rideau Street might even get converted for normal traffic.
Yet David Gladstone, a Centretown resident and founder of Friends of the O-Train, is not impressed with what he saw.
“It takes badness to new, new depths,” he says. “There’s absolutely no indications of value for money, there’s no estimates of ridership, there’s no description of what the problem was that this massive investment is actually going to solve.”
He also says the plan should have built on existing infrastructure, such as the railway lines that are already in place and the bridge over the Ottawa River.
Last week, city staff gave a new estimate of $2.1 billion for the transit plan, $400 million more than their previous estimate in December, 2008.
Gratton says the costs were raised because of factors that only became apparent in the new concept plan. These include the number of escalators and elevators needed, knowing what property to have to buy, and an art budget of around $10 million. The tunnel will also be 700 metres longer than first expected.