John Baird, Light Rail Killer
Did Tories' new enviro minister undercut a big light rail project to settle a political score? A Tyee special report.
Baird: Outcome will up emissions
Last week, John Baird, the Conservatives' new Environment Minister, hopped a ride on a low-emissions hybrid bus to a press conference in Western Ottawa. Once there, the Ottawa based Minister, described by many as the rising star of his party, announced $230 million in funding for the development of green technologies, part of a downpour of environmental initiatives rained down by the government last week.
Ironically, though, thanks in part to Baird, that low-emissions bus is the most eco-friendly vehicle the nation's capital will see for a long time. Only two months before his fabled climate change wake-up call, Baird not once, but twice, took decisive actions that helped kill a massive electric light rail project for his hometown. The project's failure will not only cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars and potentially open the federal government up to a major law suit, it will also mean an extra 131,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year poured into Ottawa's atmosphere.
Ottawa's long track to light rail
The history of light rail in Ottawa is convoluted, with a long list of unnecessary complications. The city encompasses two university campuses and is home to the majority of the federal civil service. As a result, it has more public transit users per capita than any other city in North America. But those users access a system that is almost entirely dependent on busses. In fact, prior to 2001, the entire greater Ottawa region had not one stop of fixed link public transit.
Bob Chiarelli wanted to change that. Chiarelli was a former provincial Liberal MLA who turned to municipal politics in 1997. Between 1997 and 2001, Chiarelli, first as the Regional Chair for Ottawa-Carleton and then as mayor of an amalgamated Ottawa, pushed the city to adopt some form of municipal rail system.
In 2001, a pilot project was built on a single existing track. The O-Train is an eight-km five-stop route that runs from a field several km west of downtown and Parliament Hill, through Carleton University's campus, and ends at a big-block shopping centre north of the airport. The joke in Ottawa is that it runs from nowhere to nowhere -- not what Chiarelli had envisioned. Nonetheless, the O-Train was deemed a success and Chiarelli became hell-bent on extending it. Chiarelli envisioned a new line would run north through downtown and south past the airport to the southern bedroom communities.
In May 2004, Chiarelli secured $200 million each from the federal and provincial governments towards the project. If completed it would have become single largest infrastructure venture in Ottawa's history. Less than a year later, the three orders of government signed a memorandum of understanding to fund a 27-km, double track electrified LRT system. And a year after that, in July 2006, the Ottawa council voted 14-7 to accept a $725-million bid by Siemens/PCL/Dufferin to undertake the project. Everything was in place. Ottawa was finally going to get a state of the art rail line after almost a decade of trying.
Or, as it would turn out, not.
Chiarelli gambles on LRT
Chiarelli's zeal for the light-rail project wasn't born simply from a love of environment or commuter travel. The two-time mayor's popularity had tanked over tax hikes and a perceived complacency in City Hall. So his rush to get funding for the O-Train secured and the contract signed was also based on a looming municipal election. The vote, scheduled for November, pitted Chiarelli against two tough opponents: Alex Munter, a popular former councillor and Larry O'Brien, a self-made high-tech millionaire. Both men were positioned against the light-rail deal city council had signed in September.
Chiarelli's light rail plan was never perfect, nor was it universally supported, which made it easy to campaign against. David Jeanes, the president of Transport 2000, a non-profit group that promotes eco-friendly transit and one of light rail's original champions, was actually against the extended plan, in part because it would have shut down the existing O-Train for three years. The contract with Siemens was also controversial. To this day it has never been released. Councilors who want to see the document have to sign a gag order, even now, promising never to talk publicly.
In October, Larry O'Brien asked the Treasury Board, the department that oversees federal spending, to conduct a value-for-dollar audit of the light-rail contract. Mike Patton, a spokesman for O'Brien said the then candidate "just wanted to make sure the federal government had done due diligence." And as it turns out, the president of the Treasury Board agreed it needed a second look.
Enter John Baird.
John Baird and Bob Chiarelli have a fabled relationship in Ottawa. The two were opposing MLAs in nearby Ottawa ridings during Ontario's Mike Harris years and they have clashed for years on local and provincial politics. Neither man would comment for this story. A spokesman for Chiarelli said he was not speaking to the media for 90 days after the municipal election. Baird's office did not return calls.
Soon after O'Brien sent the contract to the board, Baird publicly announced he was withholding the federal government's signature from the contract until after the municipal election. He would sign if and when the new council voted in favour. That announcement changed the entire campaign. In the days afterwards O'Brien said he would delay and review the light rail contract if elected. The mayoral candidates' opposing stances on light rail were no longer rhetoric: A vote for Chiarelli was a vote to keep the LRT. A vote for O'Brien was to axe it.
Announcement changed the campaign
What Baird did also muddied Chiarelli's public persona. Chris Waddell, an expert on Ottawa municipal politics at Carleton University said that might have had more of an impact on the election than the LRT issue. Chiarelli had said that the contract had to be signed by all funding partners by mid-October to guarantee the price, but Baird said publicly the deadline was really Dec. 14. Waddell pointed out that what Baird did then, in effect, was make Chiarelli out to be a liar. "When Mr. Baird came in and did what he did, then that became a catalyst for people," said Waddell.
The political divisiveness of the issue grew exponentially as a result of Baird's move. The issue became so contentious that 60 per cent of Ottawa residents said light rail would influence their vote in a poll done after Baird's announcement. In the 10 days before the election, Chiarelli started to tank in the polls. "A week to two weeks before election day… they started calling the people who had voted last time," said Waddell "When they did that, it was clear that Mr. Chiarelli didn't have a chance."
On Nov. 13, O'Brien won, Chiarelli finished a distant third. His loss can not be chalked up entirely to light rail -- he had a poorly-run campaign and a sketchy reputation with Ottawa voters, and O'Brien's position as a City Hall outsider played well with people who saw City Hall as an old boys club, said Waddell.
Regardless of the reasons why, Baird's old political foe had been felled. And the future of Ottawa's LRT was bleak.
Baird again withholds funding approval
After O'Brien was sworn-in as mayor, the bureaucratic furor around the light-rail project took a turn for the worse. The campaign had a drastically negative effect on councillors' opinions of the project. Many of them also felt they had been misled by Chiarelli over the contract, which most of them had never seen. They were also unsure of the certainty of the federal and provincial funds.
The new council, sworn in on Dec. 1, was subject to a flurry of briefings on the subject. The final decision was to vote on an amended light-rail line that would drop the downtown portion of the plan and simply extend the track south. Council voted 12-11 on Dec. 6 to pass this plan. That vote only passed, however, because Rainer Bloess, an anti-LRT councillor, was on a cruise instead of at City Hall to cast his 'nay' vote.
It seemed as though Ottawa's light rail had limped back to life. There was only one problem: The federal government wanted three months to review the new plan. The contractors' deadline was Dec. 14.
"That two or three months that they would need to re-examine really put us beyond the final date where our contract price was fixed with contractor," said Rejean Chartrand, the city manager in charge of the light rail project. "We did receive it from the province, but not from the federal government."
Baird had promised, after the municipal election, that the $200 million would be there for any light rail project the new council approved. But on the morning of the contract deadline, council had a letter in hand from the province, and none from the federal government. Council voted 13-11 to kill the project.
Other cities got hundreds of millions
Clive Doucet[http://www.clivedoucet.com/], an Ottawa councilor and long time supporter of the light rail plan is convinced Baird's actions killed the project. (Baird's office did not return calls for this article.) "Light rail in Ottawa failed absolutely, 100 per cent because of political interference, because of the man who is now Minister of Environment," he told the Tyee.
"It was all about partisan politics, not issues. An important person in the Tory machine got mad at someone who's an important person in the Liberal machine. There was nothing at all about creating a better city for Ottawa or a better country."
Doucet is not the only one who blames Baird. David McGuinty is the Liberal MP for Ottawa South, and the newly-minted environment critic in Stephane Dion's shadow cabinet. The day after his appointment, he talked to the Tyee about Baird's actions during the municipal election, which he called the lynch pin in the LRT's demise.
"I've spoken to two former Treasury Board Presidents and they say they can't ever recall an incident where the president of the Treasury Board has interfered in the affairs of another order of government," McGuinty said.
McGuinty is convinced that Baird's actions were entirely political, for several reasons. First, the Ottawa Citizen received an internal briefing memo for Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty -- David's brother -- that lamented Baird's actions as irresponsible and personal.
Furthermore, said McGuinty, in the time between Baird's announcement and the election, Treasury Board approved $908 million in spending for similar projects in Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto. "He never asked a single question about any of those cheques that were going out the door. He certainly didn't go to Toronto, which had a municipal election the same day as Ottawa, and tell them their new council had to approve that contract."
McGuinty also said he personally believes that all of this could lead to Baird being sued on behalf of the federal government. It is almost inevitable that the development consortium Siemens/PCL/Dufferin will sue the City of Ottawa under the contract signed in September for anywhere between $180 million and $300 million. McGuinty said he thinks that all Canadian taxpayers might end up shouldering some of that lawsuit.
"I believe as a lawyer that what Mr. Baird has also done is expose the people of Canada for liability of his actions," McGuinty said.
Baird was given the contract for the express purpose of giving it to Treasury Board staff for an audit. Instead, McGuinty said, he immediately ran to news outlets to divulge details, an act that was forbidden by the contract and led to the project's demise. "If I was working for the City of Ottawa right now, and I was on the hook for between $180 million and $300 million, I'd say, if we're going to be sued for this, should we turn around and sue the federal government?"
Lost opportunity
If Bob Chiarelli was the father of Ottawa's light rail plan, Clive Doucet was its uncle. He was also first elected on a light-rail platform in 1997, and had championed the idea as an environmental ideal from the very beginning. He voted in favour of the project on every one of the 55 votes council had on the project from 1997 through 2006. All but one of those votes has been passed in favour of light rail.
"The city has lost this wonderful opportunity to step back and build a greener city and a more community-focused city."
Doucet points out that due to the loss of light rail, 400 buses that would have been off the downtown streets will still be on, resulting in 131,000 tonnes of emissions a year that would have been eliminated by electric light rail.
And that isn't the only loss. Besides the $64 million already spent on the project, and the potential lawsuit, Ottawa has also lost out in economic forecasting. The LRT project would have pumped roughly $1.2 billion into the regional economy. The Conference Board of Canada released a report this month which said Ottawa's economy would grow half a per cent slower because of the loss of the LRT.
"We will get sued. A billion dollars in construction was going to go forward. It's going to cost us, minimum direct cost, half a billion," Doucet said, adding that in the end, he thinks the city will spend more for nothing than it would have to build the original project.
"The stupidity of this is impossible to describe in anything else than an encyclopedia."
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Cycling Commuter
5 years ago
Peak road pricing more rational than transit subsidies.
The entire system for financing public transit is irrational. Instead of taxpayers being forced to provide massive subsidies to drive transit fares down far enough to entice drivers out of their cars, it would be more logical, efficient and fair to take the approach of London, UK and Stockholm, Sweden by introducing peak traffic pricing for cars. This will encourage single occupancy drivers to either carpool or pay the full real cost of public transit. Same goes with the light rail vs bus decision. Add the full health/environmental cost of diesel bus exhaust to each bus fare, and bus riders will very quickly start voting for politicians who want to provide an electric light rail option.
Under our current system of public transit subsidies, a low wage worker who lives a couple of blocks away from their job and walks to work is forced to pay extra income taxes, property taxes and sales taxes to subsidize transit to the tune of $100 per day for a $250,000 per year stockbroker who takes public transit from his sumptuous 4,500 square foot home in the suburbs to his downtown office.
Moosebeer
5 years ago
Changing their tune again
This government is a joke. They will do what ever it takes to gain a majority so that they can implement their "secret agenda".
During their campaign the environment was not even on the Conservative radar screen. The only thing they said about the environment was that they would withdraw Canada from the Kyoto Protocol. Stephen Harper even doubted the science behind Global Warming. Now John Baird takes over the position as Environment Minister. The guy isn't even an Environmentalist...he's just another right-wing Conservative.
The Conservative government makes Jean Chretien and the Liberals look like angels. At least you knew where the Liberals stood on the issues.
Grumpy
5 years ago
LRT and Canadian Politics
Sad fact is, Canadian politicians, except in Alberta, reject modern LRT, the worlds safest rail transit mode.
Ottawa went BRT in the 80's instead of modern LRT, only to find BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) cost more to build in the end and ridership tanked. The Bright chaps in Ottawa, like our very own bright chaps here, forget that for many, buses are loser cruisers; buses just do not attract ridership.
The LRT in Ottawa is a good example, where careful planning and cost efficiencies were thrown into the wind by the conservatives (ecco-friendly not) to settle political scores.
Well I understand that Siemens, who won the contract in open bidding (unlike RAV) is going to sue for $200 or $300 million.
So here are the so-called ecco friendly conservatives, killing off a sustainable transit mode (good god, even RAV types are flying to Ottawa on our dime, extolling the virtues of subway construction) instead of building a successful transit mode that has a proven record in attracting the motorist from the car. No wonder people overseas think we are nothing more than a third rate banana dictatorship.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Do we know for sure yet if
Do we know for sure yet if the Grits are going to run Chiarelli in Baird's riding for the next federal election?
Too bad about the Light Rail project. Ottawa could really use it, and it's so overdue. The article doesn't really answer the question "why" though. It seems a long way to take a vendetta...or am I just naive?
Too bad about the Portrait Gallery too. I'm sure Calgary deserves it, but now we've still got a derelict lot facing Parliament, which will probably remain derelict for as long as the old Daly Building site (beside the Chateau Laurier) gathered weeds and rainwater before the new luxury condo cube went up (in which Larry, the new mayor, now lives).
Actually, Ottawa generally is looking shockingly shabby these days. I'm used to seeing mobs of homeless people in Vancouver, but now Ottawa too? Just the number of homeless kids in the downtown core is just astonishing, let alone the adult men, the natives and the physically/mentally handicapped. You've gotta wait 'til summertime to really see the full extent of it.
Fiat lux
5 years ago
Regardless of the merits, or
Regardless of the merits, or demerits of the scheme, no level of government should sign secret contracts with private companies, where public monies and resources are involved. Period.
We have the same coverup here with the sale of BC Rail, Accenture etc. etc., where governments are selling off huge public properties, without telling the owners what they'll get in return. Any requests for the details of these sales are piles of empty pages, to "maintain confidentiality"
I call it fraud, when anybody sells the properties of others without their consent, or even information on the details.
Thousands of people have gone to jail for lesser crimes. Politicians shouldn't be exempt.
Based on this ground alone, I would have voted against the plan.
But now and here comes the Harpo govt. of Mr.Baird, in secret talks for the sale of Canada..............
Ed Deak.
Grumpy
5 years ago
LRT in Ottawa was more than transit
The real tragedy in all this, was that Ottawa was going to get affordable LRT, not multi billion dollar metro like RAV/Canada Line.
Certainly the bombardier crowd are happy and this maybe the real reason by the project was killed. Siemens won the contract fair and square and Bombardier went to court citing a secret deal (Bombardier and the provinve of Ontario) that only Bombardier would be allowed to build LRT in Ottawa. The courts threw that out!
Building affordable LRT in Ottawa for about $25 million a km. would embarrass the consulting and engineering community in Canada, who support grant mega project style metros like RAV/Canada Line, becuase of the huge amount of money spent on engineering design and construction. In short an awful lot of people get rich on the taxpayers dime with metro!
LRT in Ottawa would have set an new, more affordable standard for public transport in Canada -> and Harper and his gang of thugs killed it.
But there is the other lesson in Ottawa that Canadian Transit planners are ignoring and that is Diesel LRT or the O-Train.
Diesel LRT can use both existing rail tracks and light rail tracks, thus being able to service smaller communities very cheaply, yet provide a modern public transit service.
O-Train or DLRT would be a naturaul in the victoria - Naniamo corridor; Vancouver to Chilliwack, via the old interurban route; Vancouver to Whiterock; New West to Richmond; Vancouver to the North shore; Kelowna to Vernon (the rail tack is only metres away from a university and airport); etc.
Yet the silence here for DLRT is deafining, why spend $1 billion on all the above mentioned routes, when we can build Gateway for $4.5 billion! You see a lot of taxpayers money is diverted to friends of the governments businesses building Gateway thab DLRT!
And do not think for a moment that the IOC is not aware of all this BS, they are and there is still a 25% chance that the 2010 Olympics will not be held in Vancouver!
Grumpy
5 years ago
Typos typos typos
Damn, I wish Beer would get a speller on here!
vvt
5 years ago
IOC
For real?? How embarrassing would that be for Gordo and friends...not that you'd ever read about it in the Province.
settebello
5 years ago
Question
I know that this is slightly off topic, but why is there a 25 percent chance that the 2010 Olympics won't be held in Vancouver?
Coyote
5 years ago
Grumpy spelling...
Google "Spellchecker" and download it to the toolbar of your browser. It's free. Thereafter you can use it to automatically red underline your mispells, and to give you options to change it to when you right click on it.
Works great.
Coyote
5 years ago
Go here...
This is at least one of the free spell checkers out there.
http://www.iespell.com/download.php
Grumpy
5 years ago
Olympics
There is an increasing chance of no snow in Whistler for the event and the IOC do have the option to move the gig. This year, everyone is breathing a great sigh of relief, but with our wacky weather, snow could be a problem. Imagine downhill skiing in 10 C weather
Grumpy
5 years ago
Hey thanks Coyote
Done!
Grumpy
5 years ago
While the Ottawa LRT was not
While the Ottawa LRT was not perfect, no transit plan is, it was a step in the right direction. Unlike RAV, which is fraught with secret agreements, at least there was open competition between the major players. Bombardier left in a snit because of a secret deal with the Ontario government that only Bombardier would build rapid transit in Ontario!
There was such an agreement with BC Transit and SkyTrain and the UTDC (Which was then owned by SNC Lavalin, later sold in bankruptcy to Bombardier!), that only SkyTrain would be built in Vancouver! In fact BC Transit had, if I remember rightly, part of the action is SkyTrain was sold abroad!
Our metro lobby has kept the media ignorant about LRT and we are no better for it. As the world builds light rail to help solve congestion, pollution, etc. Vancouver, and now Ottawa are marching to the tune of a different drum.
The result is evident, that despite over $5 billion invested in SkyTrain/metro (over $8 billion when RAV is opened) the GVRD has not shown any modal shift to public transit as about the same percentage of population use public transport (about 11%) has done 10 or 15 years earlier! Ridership increases are due to population growth not modal change!
No wonder no one copies Vancouver's love affair with metro!
Stump
5 years ago
Quote:(Baird's office did
As far as I'm concerned that's the worse part of this debacle. Who is Mr. Baird to refuse to answer to his employers? (the media as an extension of the public)
It wasn't a personal question, or a trick query along the lines of: "Do you still beat your wife?" but a legitimate inquiry by a journalist. Since when do politicians get to pick and choose the issues they'll respond too?
Geez, it's just good manners to return phone calls for the rest of us, but politicians need to get off their high horses if they want to stay in the saddle IMO. Dock 'em a day's pay for every question they dodge. Further, three strikes and you're out. I wonder how long I'd last if I ignored my boss' questions regarding my job performance?
Right Honourable my butt! Self-serving sleazeball might be a better prefix for these arrogant scoundrels.
Democracy is becoming a joke and we the people are the butt of this very un-funny situation.
I hope there's a special circle in Hell for these clowns that promise accountability in a bait and switch ploy for our votes. They promise answers and honesty... we get lies and evasion.
Bastards the lot of 'em.
On preview: Apparently you're allowed to spell bastard w/out the filter asterisking the middle bits.
Booker
5 years ago
sloooow
It would be so slow, even I could race it.
maestro
5 years ago
Grumpy:
Grumpy;
Maybe you are onto something...
Perhaps our duty in BC as world citizens is to be the example of what NOT to do...ie someone elsewhere is shopping for a Public Transit system...come to Canada to go see (i) Alberta's LRT and (ii) BC SKYTRAIN / RAV / CANADA LINE ...now compare, and ask why are they building this vs that . Compare to the rest of the world.
Also, check on the current TYEE topic in the OIL/TarSands and Nuclear energy discussion . Another contributor discusses the CANDU program in depth, another version of Eastern Canada corporate welfare job-pogey fest..much like Bombardier is.
skeptikool
5 years ago
Way to go, IMO
Forget the hydrogen. Load the grid with clean electrical power for which the "neglected" technology exists. It's there for all to see in our tides, winds and solar.
Elevated light rail, that rides the above stop-and-go intersections is the way to go. It's faster and reduces vehicle accidents, with their sometimes-attendent death and injury - also reduce insurance claims- thus costs.
I'm a frequent user of the Lower Mainland's SkyTrain system and have been a long-time booster of it. Were it not so, in my opinion, overbuilt, it could have been serving a much larger area already and lured many more drivers from their cars.
We don't need more costly, stonewalling, studies. Let's get on with it.
Grumpy
5 years ago
Hey Maestro
Here's the score card. Since SkyTrain was first marketed in 1979, 5 name changes and 5 sales.
Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS)
- Detroit
- Toronto (soon to be dismantled Scarborough Line)
Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT)
- Vancouver
Advanced Light Rapid Transit (ALRT)
- 0
Advanced Light Metro (ALM)
- 0
Advanced (automated) Rapid Transit (ART)
- JFK airport
- Kuala Lumpor (known as PUTRA an not to be confused with the STAR elevated light rail line)
Light Rail Transit (Not light rapid transit)
Over 100 new system built (with over 100 new systems either under construction or in various stages of planning), including Calgary, Edmonton, Paris, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Lyon, Portland, Denver, Salt lake City, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, etc., etc.
It looks like transit planners came to Vancouver, saw Vancouver, and built with LRT instead!
Grumpy
5 years ago
Stop and go LRT - Not
I see Skepticool has fallen for that old BC Transit/TransLink myth that intersections delays on-street LRT, it is pure myth. With modern preemptive signaling, LRT poses no problems at intersections. Remember it only takes about 10 seconds for LRT to transit an intersection and regular intersections need 30 seconds or more for auto traffic.
What is true is that on-street LRT has more stations or stops than elevated transit systems (oh by the way elevated light rail is in fact a metro as light rail ceases to be light rail when it is elevated), more stations or stops means a somewhat slower commercial speed, but more stations and stops means more ridership.
Why do you think the Europeans are building their new transit systems at-grade or on-street? Simple, it has been proven to be the most effective in attracting new ridership.
Oh by the way Skeppy, SkyTrain's annual death rate is about double of that of Calgary's LRT. As, well, on-street/at-grade LRT costs about 1/4 to build than elevated metro so with LRT one gets about four times the rail transit for the same cost! more LRT = more ridership!
See the above posting, very few are building these hugely expensive metros, rather much cheaper light rail. It seems your argument is without merit.
Gerhardius
5 years ago
Definitions
Grumpy wrote:
Most of the definitions I have read do not make that distinction. The ability to operate at grade pops up in many definitions, while allowances are made for elevation in some cases.
Grumpy
5 years ago
Definitions
Here we go, the problem with LRT, is that some planners and politicians love to call there pet metro scheme light rail, to confuse the public.
Light Rail, comes from the English legal term 'Light Railway' or a railway light (cheap) in costs. In England there was and I believe still a light railways act. The Docklands automated light railway in London, built under the act is a light railway (it was cheap to build because it was built on former railway rights-of-was and viaducts!), but not LRT. Three additions to the line certainly point to the fact it is a light metro.
Because in todays world many cities operate the same vehicles in subways, on viaduct, or on-street; the problem is to find the right definition.
Welcome to the 21st century transit definitions.
Streetcar: LRT operating on-street, with only the basic of signaling.
Light Rail Transit: LRT operating on reserved rights-of-ways (R-O-W's can be as simple as a HOV lane with rails), with preemptive signaling at intersections and minimal segregation. The Arbutus Corridor is the perfect example of reserve red R-O-W's
Metro: When the majority of R-O-W's are segregated from traffic, either on viaduct or in a subway.
You see with modern definitions one can see the cost escalations with each mode, with streetcar being the cheapest and metro being the most expensive.
It will also be of note that modern LRT, operating on reserved R-O-W's can achieve commercial speeds as that of a metro. Because metro operates on segregated R-O-W's, it can operate longer trains than LRT, thus can achieve higher capacities. LRT can handle up wards of 20,000 persons per hour per direction, thus metro should be built where high ridership demands it.
As SkyTrain maxi mun capacity during peak hours is about 8,000, there is no real benefit for operating metro on its present route. As just the Expo line costs 60% more to operate than Calgary's LRT (which carries more passengers daily than SkyTrain), the taxpayer is paying a higher annual subsidy just to have an automated metro system.
Again look at the number of SkyTrain systems built, 5, since 1979 and compare with the over 100 new LRT systems built in the same period. These figures speak for themselves.
ARConn
5 years ago
A Question
Is the 131 000 tonnes of CO2 per year, stated in the article, Gross or Net? Sure, the LTR system itself wouldn't produce CO2 in the way that diesel busses do, but given the inerconnected nature of electical production in North America ie. "the grid," each kw/h of electricity has a CO2 emissions value proportionally equal to the average CO2 emission of all electical production.
I'm not saying that there wouldn't be CO2 savings, I'm just wondering if any of the 131 000 tonnes per year would be negated by the production of a portion of the LTR's electrical requirements being produced through the burning of fossil fuels.
BC Dude
5 years ago
I think gordo's job is make
I think gordo's job is make BC go bust so the big boys can come in and take over!
2010 W Oly @least 2+ billion over
Rav @least 1 billion
Just to many to mention here so:
http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/minister/minister_speeches.htm
http://cche.vcn.bc.ca/flipflop
http://cche.vcn.bc.ca/uploads/61/Highway_FAQs1.doc
http://www.ibew258.bc.ca/partnershipsbcmo.html
Grumpy
5 years ago
Wind power
Calgary's LRT is powered by electricity generated by wind turbines. I wonder if the bright boys in Ontario could introduce wind turbines?
jimmy_laroux
5 years ago
Grumpy: Quote:Certainly the
Grumpy:
Fascinating. Do you have any links? I'd like to read about this.
Also, do you have numbers for the current cost estimate of the RAV line?
Grumpy
5 years ago
Trying to answer your question
Second question first. According to the DoRAVRight crowd the current cost of RAV/Canada Line is about $2.3 billion + almost the same cost for the long term P-3 financing and doesn't include debt servicing. Along way away from the original Jane Bird/Ken Dobell cost of $1.2 billion!
http://www.doravright.ca/
The item about Bombardier's secret deal came from the pages of Tramway's and Urban Transit, World News section.
Light rail transit is dead in Ottawa, at least for the foreseeable future - see article below. It now appears that the city may pay nearly as much (C$300 million) in legal settlements as it would have paid for its share in the LRT project - in addition to the $65 mn
already invested. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/12/14/lrt-vote.html
CBC News
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Ottawa council kills light rail project
Backing out of $778-million contract may cost $250 to $300 million
Ottawa will not be getting a new north-south light rail line anytime soon,
city council has decided.
Council voted 13-11 Thursday afternoon in favour of scrapping both the
original $778-million light rail contract approved by the previous council in
July and the shortened, slightly cheaper light rail plan passed last week.
The decision — made less than two hours before a crucial 5 p.m. contract
deadline — means the city forgoes $400 million in federal and provincial
funding promised for the original plan.
City lawyers have estimated that the decision could also cost the city
between $250 million and $300 million in claims from Siemens-
PCL/Dufferin, the group of companies contracted to design, build and
maintain the rail line through an agreement worth $778.2-million. The city
has already spent $65 million on the project.
Council's decision was between three choices:
The original plan, which ran north from Barrhaven and east through
downtown to the University of Ottawa and was approved by the previous
council in July.
The shortened plan, which ran north from Barrhaven, but stopped at
LeBreton Flats, west of downtown, and was expected to cost about $70
million less.
Neither plan.
Earlier in the day, it was revealed that council had only until 5 p.m. ET
Thursday to make its crucial decision — not until the start of Dec. 15 as
previously thought.
A letter arrived Thursday confirming Ontario would hand over $200 million
for the City of Ottawa's light rail transit line
if council voted in favour of the
original plan.
And Siemens-PCL/Dufferin sent a letter late Wednesday threatening legal
action against the city if both plans fell through.
Neither letter swayed council into voting in favour of either existing light
rail plan.
Council concluded the vote more than an hour before the deadline.
A vote on the project was being held because the provincial and federal
governments said they could not review the revised light rail plan
approved by council last week — and confirm $400 million in funding —
before the project's contract deadline.
Senior governments wanted review
The two higher governments committed $200 million each to the original
proposal, but said the revised proposal was different enough to warrant
another complete review.
A day before the province sent the letter confirming its commitment to the
old plan, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty gave his view about changes
to the proposal.
"They're trying to change something on the fly which doesn't readily lend
itself to fast changes," he said, adding that the original proposal came out
of two years of discussions among three levels of government.
He added that he did not personally favour the revised plan.
"It seems … just to me as a lay person, that making sure our new light rail
system moves through the downtown would be important."
Grumpy
5 years ago
From June 27, 2005
From Tramways & Urban Transit, WorldWide Review section.
Ottawa:
On 19 April the city released two Requests for Qualification on the first phase of an electric light rail expansion program over an 30 km. North/South corridor incorporating the existing 8 km. )-Train (Diesel LRT) The first RFQ is seeking qualified firms for the management and construction of the civil and structure components 'with proven capability and resources to design, construct, manage and maintain the civil structure components of the project.'
The second RFQ is for the manufacture and supply of light rail transit vehicles 'that can meet the operational requirements of the project.' A short list of qualified companies will be developed for both contracts and these will be asked to respond to a Request for Proposals to form a consortia that will submit bids for the DBOM deal. The project, costing up to $700 million is expected to attract bids from a number of top international construction firms and suppliers and Bombardier and The Washington Group have already publicly stated they will be submitting offers.
The rolling stock contract may turn out to be more complicated than city official anticipated. Bombardier is claiming that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) it signed with the minister of transportation in 1992 giving the company preference in the purchase of light rail vehicles is still valid. Specifically, the MOU states 'that the provincial government would 'use its best efforts' to make Bombardier 'the sole supplier of mass transit vehicles for mass transit authorities', in Ontario.
However, a different political party is now in power and the current government insists the deal has expired, city officials point out that the light rail programme is strictly a city project. But Bombardier disagrees and spokeswoman Helene V. Gagnon said her company's vehicles must be purchased if they qualify. The firm supplied three Talent diesel LRV's for the O-Train.
Grumpy
5 years ago
Why?
It is a sneaky little agreement Bombardier and the province signed, for why would Siemens bid on the contract, if they could not use their vehicles? Bombardier thought they had the Ontario market sown up, but Siemens are the better builders.
I wonder how much money Bombardier is dumping into the Torry slush funds as a payoff for Harper & Co. to cancel financing of Ottawa's LRT?
No mention of Bus Rapid Transit? I wonder why? Maybe a bus, is a bus, is a bus. The BRT scheme actually cost more than the original LRT scheme, yet ridership dropped dramatically after it opened.
So Canadian, so corrupt! I think the RAV's new Canada Line name sums it up, corrupt and next to useless!
skeptikool
5 years ago
On preferred systems:
Something not being built does not mean that it does not best meet the desired goal of the majority - least expensive, efficient, clean, affordable public transit. I return to that cynical observer who noted, "There's no planning, just deals."
We continue to be baffled by BS. Always a good rule: Follow the money.
Regurgitating over-100-year-old hydrogen technology has been a sinkhole of public funding that has returned little and has, in my opinion, been largely about stock promotion.
The auto industry has loved it, being able to garner Brownie points while, as the promise of the hydrogen-powered vehicle appears just over the horizon, the technology has been a diversion from other alternatives to the internal combustion engine,
While governments may give lip service to bettering air quality, they continue to enjoy the windfall of vehicle, fuel taxes. At the risk of being accused of being repetitive, govenrment seriuosly concerned about air quality would encourage and allow transferable vehicle insurance.
Stump
5 years ago
more on insurance
Not to mention distance-based insurance, surcharges or penalties for non-commercial/farm use of large displacement, low mileage gas guzzlers, and real incentives for self-propelled and public transit users... such as service that doesn't suck most of the time,
DenisB
5 years ago
to me this sounds like Baird
to me this sounds like Baird getting something past the Boss for his own revenge. With an election soon no gov't would jeopardize re-election with something like this. If Harper is smart he'll demote Baird quickly.
I agree that there should be no secret deals. Hoeer, who has the means to sue the government in order to get the contracts released? Even a change of Gov't is no guarentee
woody
5 years ago
Laura,Laura, Did you forget?
Laura,Laura, you forgot to mention that,Canadian Auto Workers union leader Buzz Hargrove wrote a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to halt the project
Here is another tid bit you over looked.
Carleton University students are the main group to have benefitted from the O-Train pilot project, and no longer have to ride buses through traffic to get to the University campus.
Did you mention Laura that these units are Diesel not Electric powered?
All this and much more at the following address.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Train
skeptikool
5 years ago
Electric preferred
Did the electric units refer to the larger, modified system?
The following excerpt from Wikepedia would suggest so, but even if diesel or hybrid-diesel units, with today's cleaner diesel fuel and the increased ridership that the extended routes would offer, air quality would have to be greatly improved:
Grumpy
5 years ago
Ottawa
Yes, the electric LRV's would have replaced the DLRT, but DLRT are designed to operate on on-street or tram trackage. Most light rail vehicles are now modular, with up to 10 different modules to fit, so one can almost custom design a LRV to meet any clients needs. One module is a diesel propulsion unit so the LRV can travel on non electrified tracks, thus enabling the LRV to use existing railway trackage to reach customers.
Many LRV's also gave a wee diesel motor and batteries to enable then to travel small distances on non electrified track, say up to 5 km.
Track sharing is the way to go to save costs and in Karlsruhe, Germany, they have been track sharing there trams on the main line railways for over 15 years with no problems!
Ottawa was replacing an occasional DLRT service with a regular electric service, a natural progression of public transport service. Than Baird and the Conservatives killed it only shows their base political instincts!