Election post mortem: Four more years of disappointing railway policy

I wasn’t at all surprised with the results of the Ottawa municipal election. In the absence of any real challenger, our mayor was re-elected for a third term. In the aftermath of the election, there were a few comments that I found quite interesting, especially when it comes to the issue of commuter rail in Eastern Ontario.

For now, the Beachburg Sub will remain largely lifeless. Although some think a regional commuter system along the lines of GO Transit is inevitable on this line. 

1. Although Clive Doucet lost the mayoral race handily, he is earning some plaudits for raising the possibility of regional rail for Eastern Ontario. Although I often did not find myself agreeing with Doucet when he was a city councillor, I agree with his regional rail idea. After the election, he said he was confident that Ottawa will see regional rail, along the lines of the GO Train in the Toronto area. His point was simple. Given that the Ottawa-Gatineau area now boasts more than 1.3 million people, the area is now probably big enough to sustain some form of commuter rail operation. I’m not sure if Doucet made those comments based on something he knows, but I like that he said it. I am less optimistic. I don’t see any regional rail champion in Ottawa. Everyone is aboard the LRT bandwagon, as flawed as it is.

2. For months, I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about the city’s LRT plan that bothers me. Doucet, to his credit, made this simple observation during the campaign that sums up what I feel. Phase I is too short. I have often remarked on this blog that emptying out Ottawa’s eastern suburban commuters at Blair Station and its western suburbs at Tunney’s Pasture really doesn’t benefit anyone in the short term. It only adds another step, and likely time, to my morning commute. It does nothing to take buses off the roads in the suburbs. So who does Phase I benefit? The downtown and the communities in and around the core like Westboro, Hintonburg, Wellington West, Vanier and Sandy Hill. The LRT will take the express commuter buses off the roads in those neighbourhoods, but it does nothing for massive communities like Kanata, Orleans and Barrhaven in the short term. Considering how many delays there have been with the first phase of the Confederation Line, it seems to me that it might have been a better idea to take several more years and combine Phase I and II together. At least then, the new LRT line would connect Orleans in the east and Moodie Drive in the west.

I'm not sure if it will take $25 million to reconnect the Trillium Line with the Prince of Wales Bridge, but it seems like a little foresight could have prevented the future costs.

3. It emerged during the mayoral race that it will likely require $40 million to rehabilitate the Prince of Wales Bridge to make it fit for trains again. Doucet’s campaign also estimated that reconnecting the trackage over the Ottawa River to the existing O-Train Trillium Line would cost $25 million. I’m not sure where they came up with that figure, but it seems high to me. However, I think the larger point here is that the city will have to pay dearly for its lack of foresight on this strategic rail asset that it has owned and neglected for years.

4. Surprisingly, amid the debate over commuter rail during the election campaign, there was very little said about the Moose Consortium, which has been fighting with the city over its neglect of the bridge and the connection of the bridge’s rails to the Trillium Line. You will recall that Moose won an important victory over the city not too long ago, which had forced the city to scramble.

5. One point that Doucet made during the campaign that really struck me as brilliant was his point about the viability of a regional rail system. While Watson’s camp dismissed Doucet’s plan constantly, Doucet raised the point that thousands of commuters from outlying communities like Limoges, Smiths Falls, Chelsea, Wakefield, Kemptville and Arnprior all make their way into Ottawa each day and chew up our roads, without having to pay for their maintenance. While it’s true that a regional rail system would require a substantial subsidy from all the municipalities involved, is it not better to get these cars off the roads and get these commuters paying some sort of fare to ride a train to work? At least under this system, we would be getting some sort of compensation from those who make their way into Ottawa whereas now, we get nothing.

6. Parts of Doucet’s plans called for commuter rail to parts of Kanata North, which would have been a good idea several years ago when the city had the chance to buy a small portion of the old CN Beachburg Subdivision. Sadly, nothing happened and those rails are gone. I feel bad for residents of Kanata. All this spending on light rail and they will see no benefits whatsoever for many years still. Their only hope might be some sort of connection via the old Renfrew Sub near March Road.

It was an interesting mayoral race, which had me agreeing with politicians I have never agreed with in the past. I would really like to believe Mr. Doucet that regional rail is an idea whose time has come, but I think we are now stuck with four more years of leadership that truly has no understanding of railway policy.

Ottawa's O-Train: The good, the bad and the ugly

I was pretty excited to see Ottawa's new O-Train service in action this week on the recently dubbed Trillium Line. It didn't take long for my excitement to turn to disappointment.

This Monday, after months of testing, the city retired its fleet of Bombardier Talent light rail trains, replacing them with more efficient Alstom Coaradia LINT trains. There is much to like about the newly expanded O-Train service. There are more trainsets working on the old CP Ellwood/Prescott Subdivision. There are several passing sidings and new traffic signalling equipment, which have increased the frequency of trains to five minutes. The new trains are better for the environment.

The $60-million expansion of the service wasn't even launched this past Monday before a faulty insulated joint and controller error (OC Transpo's words) halted the new service in its tracks. This held up the official launch, much to the chagrin of numerous city officials and OC Transpo executives, who had staged several photo opportunities at O-Train stations for the morning rush. After some delay, the trains began to run, although commuters were none too pleased with the morning rush hour snafu.

New Alstom Coradia LINT train C7 heads south near Somerset Street on March 4, 2015

By the end of the first day, it was evident that the new service was not operating properly, so transit officials suspended service, telling riders to take the bus until further notice. On Tuesday, commuters were told the Trillium Line would be up and running by Thursday. Meanwhile, at the northern end of the line at Bayview Station, I noticed a brand new trainset sitting idle, being guarded by OC Transpo constables, since it was not able to return to Walkley Yard.

By any estimate, it was a terrible week for the city's light rail service, although service seemed to be returning to normal Wednesday afternoon. I ventured out on my lunch break to see what was going on and was surprised to see the service operating at five-minute intervals. This shot below is what the city wants you to see. Two O-Trains pass each other near Somerset Street, making use of the new passing sidings that were installed last summer and fall. It was fun to see this for the first time.

Here's another shot of the meet:

Of course, this latest snafu could have happened to any train service in any city. The fact that it happened in Ottawa might just be a coincidence. I tried to restrain myself earlier this week, given my vocal criticism of the city's railway policies. But, since this is a blog, I am going to let the city have it one more time. The following is my personal list of the top ten railway blunders here in the City of Ottawa in recent years. I will keep this list mainly focused on recent commuter rail decisions.

1. Allowing CP to tear up the Prescott Subdivision within city limits. This has to be the top blunder of all. This is the mistake that the city is now paying for dearly. The O-Train launched in 2001, just a few years after CP was allowed to rip up its Prescott Subdivision in 1999. Had the former Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton (now the City of Ottawa) had any vision in 1999, it would have retained the rails and right-of-way for future commuter use. It's obvious today that the biggest demand for light rail is coming from the southern suburbs Barrhaven and Riverside South. This mistake leads to blunder number two.

2. Not expanding the Trillium Line on existing trackage. The one saving grace of the local government's inaction in 1999 was that it retained trackage to the southern limits of airport land, near Leitrim Road. This will allow the city to expand the Trillium Line to the airport, if it ever gets around to committing to this long overdue expansion. Council still has not moved much on a city staff proposal to expand this line, which I find baffling. The expansion is currently undergoing an environmental assessment, but recent comments from the mayor suggest support for this expansion is no sure thing. How the city waited 14 years to seriously consider the merits of this expansion is beyond me. Anyone who wants to take public transit to Ottawa's airport knows why a rail link is desperately needed. Bus service on the two-lane Airport Parkway is simply not enough. And, if this expansion does eventually happen, the city will now have to create new rail beds and lay new tracks to Riverside South.

3. The tunnel. This blunder, in my opinion, is simply a matter of cost. I will admit that routing trains below Ottawa's core makes sense, given the old downtown would be hard pressed to accommodate trains without a good plan. However, given that Ottawa has several wide one-way streets with limited business frontage and wide berths for tracks, I have always maintained that trains on the surface can work. These one-way streets are used almost exclusively by city buses during rush hours as it is. Building a billion-dollar tunnel is simply not affordable. Many other cities operate commuter trains on roads. I have never understood why former Mayor Larry O'Brien insisted on a tunnel. Current Mayor Jim Watson vowed to look at the tunnel issue when he was elected, but he soon found himself an ardent tunnel supporter.

4. From nowhere to nowhere. The current O-Train Confederation Line plan began when former Mayor Larry O'Brien essentially scrapped his predecessor Bob Chiarelli's rail plan. Although Chiarelli's plan had major flaws, it looks downright sensible in retrospect. The biggest flaw with O'Brien's O-Train plan is that the first phase of the service begins and ends in areas of the city that are not terribly close to neighbourhoods. These areas, Tunney's Pasture and Blair, are well served by the city's Transitway rapid bus service. We all remember the bridge to nowhere in Alaska. I fear this will be train to nowhere. This will be rectified when the second phase of the Confederation Line is in place, but are commuters going to jump on board with Phase I? I wonder.

5. Dropping the ball on the Prince of Wales Bridge. Ottawa city buses go to Gatineau every day. Gatineau buses cross the river to Ottawa every day. Why has no one ever bothered to look into extending the O-Train over the Prince of Wales Bridge on existing trackage? The city owns the bridge and tracks and yet seems determined to convert the bridge into a recreational pathway.

6. Bob Chiarelli's proposed abandonment of the Trillium Line. At one point, the former mayor was proposing to tear up the current alignment of the Trillium Line and replace it with an all-new north-south alignment. Considering the land expropriations, environmental assessments and enormous costs involved, this thankfully never came to pass.

7. Building a new O-Train service facility in the middle of nowhere. This was another strange component of Bob Chiarelli's plans at one point. Instead of establishing a maintenance and commuter train yard in Ottawa's half empty Walkley Yard, there was a plan to build a completely new O-Train yard and servicing facility along Bowesville Road in the south end of the city near airport lands. Environmentalists were furious with this part of the plan, since the proposed new yard would be plopped down in the middle of a natural area. This idea, thankfully, has never attracted much support.

8. Deafening silence on Mike Maguire's common sense plan. Mayoral candidate Mike Maguire had a radical idea in the fall election. Why not establish commuter rail on existing trackage in the city? The most common objection to this plan was that the city had already gone too far with its own plans to press the reset button. I think the merits of Maguire's idea were lost amid the noise and fear-mongering during the election campaign. I still wonder why no one ever suggested that the two ideas could co-exist. After all, CN still has some vital - and sparsely used - trackage in the city that travels through densely populated areas.

9. Inaction on the Beachburg Subdivision. Any hopes for regional rail to Renfrew County, Pembroke and Petawawa went out the window when the city essentially washed its hands of this rail line. CN tore up much of the right-of-way this past fall. A small part of this subdivision is still in place to north Kanata, where it could be used as a commuter link. But that will not likely happen. The city simply does not see the value of commuter rail on this line. I understand why there would be no interest in retaining this line outside of Kanata, but using the rail to the north end of this suburb still makes sense.

10. Deafening silence on Carling Avenue plan. I was no fan of  former councillor Clive Doucet, but when he ran for mayor, he had an idea for light rail that had some merit. He suggested running trains down the middle of Carling Avenue, a divided six-lane thoroughfare through much of Ottawa's west end. His plan was short on details, but he correctly pointed out that the road passed through a number of densely populated areas, including numerous rental communities. Sadly, there was no consideration for this idea. And now, the city is haggling with the National Capital Commission over where to place part of the second phase of its western LRT line, since the NCC won't let tracks cross over its precious Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway lands.

This was an exhausting post to write. I can't believe how much fodder this city gives rail critics like me. This is the city that keeps on giving.

Oh, and Happy Trails to the Bombardier Talents! They served the city well from 2001 to 2015. Sharp looking trains. I will miss them on the current Trillium Line. I'm glad the city is keeping them and I hope to see them in use again.