[p_xavier]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

Well, the 7 to 11 year time frame shouldn't surprise any of us here but for the general public, this has likely not sunk in yet. No rail for at least 7 to 11 years and it isn't going to service the suburbs either for at least 25 years.

It will be two years this fall since the first project was cancelled. Time goes by fast. If construction starts in two years, time will go on by much faster, as people will have something to look forward to.

The special tax levy is new and this is surely to shock many who have been thinking of billions as if they were 5 dollar bills, and now the mayor is also dismissing light rail on Carling, eventhough it was recommended by the peer review panel. This all points to the liklihood that the city really can't afford even its primary transit network let alone a secondary network, even if we receive matching funds from the province and federal government.

The budget as been made for a 1.2G$ contribution from the city. The levy will kick out the same way it would have been for the previous plan, because more than 200M$ weren't include in the real price tag.

As for the peer review panel, it was a STREETCAR LINE, which I'm all for too. The ridership will bet too high to call for Calgary or Edmonton style LRT in Ottawa. It will need to be grade separated. Which something city staff got, but councillors really don't get yet.

I have said it here before many times, that the process appears to be predetermined and the studies and public involvement is all designed to support the original premise. For this, we are going to pay dearly through our property taxes (if it ever happens), with a second shock wave yet to hit, when the lawsuit is finally settled. I expect the full extent of all of this will finally become apparent after Larry O'Brien has left office in the next year or two.

And what happens when a plan is unaffordable? It never gets implemented.

What is more unaffordable, do nothing? There is a lack of solutions. We are starting to live in a 3rd world country with infrastructures crumbling down, lousy service, overflowing sewers but yet, people seem to be content with their lives.

The first plan was actually more expensive to run, and went basically nowhere. I'm still waiting for the magical cheap, high ridership plan that all these councillors seem to be happily taking about.

At a time when Ottawans are ready to flock to transit, the city has nothing to offer, besides a bus added here and there to just barely keep the existing transit network going. This is not the fault of OC Transpo, but of our politicians who have been stewarding our transit plans since the original Transitways were completed in the early 1990s.

If there's anything, I blame the one who designed the Transitway, and the old mayor who refused to allow tall buildings and cancell the original subway under Bank St.