Orleans Weekly Journal
Published: Friday, September 12, 2008

Local counicllors on the right track 

This week Ottawa’s four east-end city councillors (Michel Bellemare, Rainer Bloess, Rob Jellett and Bob Monette) gathered at the Blair Transitway station during the morning rush hour to hold a brief media conference making the case for stage one of the city’s $4-billion, 25-year transit plan to include light rail (LRT) to Blair Station.

A cynic might say, so what, they are simply advocating for their own backyard interests. But it’s much broader than this parochial view. The east end should receive a priority weighting for LRT because, well, by our actions as commuters we’ve earned it, and the numbers in this regard are irrefutable.

The latest transit figures from the city show that east-end transit ridership – 20 and 30 series express buses, the 94 on Innes, 95, etc. – is tops. Present transit ridership out of our community is at 35 per cent and is slated to jump by about another 10 per cent by 2031.

Meanwhile, ridership from other parts of the city is as follows: Kanata is at 24 per cent now with a projection of 34 per cent in 2031, Barrhaven is slated to jump from 17 per cent to 29 per cent, and city planners peg the embryonic – but growing fast – community of Riverside South to jump from 5 per cent to 25 per cent ridership over the next quarter century.

In fairness, each community has a case to make for getting its piece of the LRT pie first. However, what makes the east-end case more compelling is that our ridership is the predominant factor leading to congestion through the core.

And our high ridership stats are all the more remarkable when you consider that we have multiple options to get into the centre of the city. Not only do we have the 174 to 417, we can take the eastern Parkway, zoom across Innes or use the back roads behind Chapel Hill and over to the Walkley/417/Smyth area.

Yet, in spite of multiple arteries and escape valves to get into the core, many of us have bought into mass transit for a variety of reasons including cost, convenience and conscience (the environment, etc.)

While our councillors’ push for an east LRT to coincide with the downtown tunnel (which must be built first for the system to hang together) is iron-clad, they will be up against other regional interests.

Councillors from the west end will credibly argue about longer commutes. In addition, their colleagues in the south end of the city will speak of growing community needs and the fact that environmental assessments have already been completed in their areas. And the situation comes to a head this November when council votes and decides on the priority staging of the various transit options.

The failure of the old north-south LRT line is that it didn’t solve immediate and pressing needs. The transit needs of the east end are like no other part of the city. Our case is solid. Our councillors are on the right, pardon the pun, track.