Denley: Ottawa’s flawed transit system is built on what people once wanted

Transit riders leave the buses at Tunney’s Pasture station. At one point, 25 years ago, buses clogged downtown streets at rush hours, particularly on Albert and Slater streets. Photo by Ashley Fraser /PostmediaArticle content

Frustration with Ottawa’s public transit system is understandable, but the root cause is not a large number of people who made remarkably stupid decisions over a long period of time, as it is now popular to conclude.

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In fact, it’s almost the opposite. The light-rail decisions that are mocked today were both popular and rational when they were made.

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Ottawans wanted the same kind of rail service that other cities had already had for years. To accomplish that, they kept electing and re-electing politicians who promised to make the dream a reality.

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People look back now and lament the loss of what they remember as a much better bus system, but there was a good reason why it had to change. It’s hard to imagine now, but 25 years ago, buses clogged downtown streets at rush hours, particularly on Albert and Slater streets.

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At the time, OC Transpo was moving about 10,000 people an hour in each direction downtown at rush hours. The streets were near capacity and transit ridership was growing rapidly. Light rail in a downtown tunnel was ultimately seen as the most viable solution to that problem. It would enable OC Transpo to move up to 24,000 passengers an hour each way.

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It’s fair to say that the city’s first train decision wasn’t the best. Then-mayor Bob Chiarelli wanted light rail that would run from downtown to Barrhaven, but with no tunnel. It was a short-term solution, and one that went north-south when Ottawa’s main commute was east and west to downtown. The federal government refused to support the plan.

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In 2006, Ottawa voters rejected Chiarelli’s plan and elected as mayor Larry O’Brien, who became a champion of a downtown tunnel and an east-west route. It was a plan that was more costly but also more rational. O’Brien argued that trains in a tunnel would be faster and more reliable. It seemed plausible.

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Rail was the ‘big city thing’ to do

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The decision to go with rail was widely regarded as the big-city thing to do. Skeptics, including me, questioned the high capital cost, but enthusiasm won the day. The first stage of the LRT was under way.

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In 2010, voters elected Jim Watson as mayor. He’d been critical of the train plan, but quickly changed his mind when he figured out that others liked it. In the end, Watson became an enthusiastic supporter of light rail.

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Voters gave successive mayors ample support to proceed, and so they did. Once the decision to go with rail was made, there were clear implications for the city’s bus system. Nothing that has happened since should be a surprise.