STATUS OF EAST-WEST LIGHT RAIL TRANSIT ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS AND BUS RAPID TRANSIT PRIORITY PROJECTS

ÉTAT D’AVANCEMENT DES ÉVALUATIONS ENVIRONNEMENTALES CONCERNANT LE TRAIN LÉGER SUR RAIL EST-OUEST ET LES PROJETS PRIORITAIRES CONCERNANT LES SERVICES D’AUTOBUS DIRECTS

ACS2007-PTE-POL-0005

Given that there was no staff presentation on this item, the Committee heard from the following delegations:

Ron Jack of Delcan Corporation began his presentation by commenting on an upcoming motion to cancel the East-West LRT EA Study as opposed to its current status of being delayed. He noted his presence at the last January 17^th meeting, and has not yet heard it clearly stated what the implications are of passing this motion. He believes that there are significant effects on the City’s ability to implement necessary short-term rapid transit system improvements. He then distributed a one-page summary outlining the implications to the City of cancelling the East-West LRT EA and the types of things Council might want to do but would be unable to accomplish unless this EA was approved. A copy of his submission is held on file with the City Clerk. He concluded by suggesting that the Committee ask staff to comment on their accuracy so that it is clear as to what the Committee would be making its decision on.

Councillor Doucet indicated to the delegation that the purpose of the anticipated motion is to delay Transit EAs. Councillor Bédard called a point of order to ask if there was indeed a motion on the table. Chair Cullen then clarified that, while there was no motion on the table, Mr Jack had referred to an upcoming motion, and ruled that Councillor Doucet’s question was in order.

In response to Councillor Doucet’s question on putting not only public transit EAs on hold, but also all City road EAs, Mr. Jack stated that Council is aware of certain transit and road projects that should be done, and others that may be unsure of. He suggested that, in light of the various task forces and reports coming forward, it may be prudent for Council to put the ones they are unsure of on hold. However, he questioned why there would be a need to wait on the ones that are definitely needed. Councillor Doucet maintained that all the EAs should be done or else none of them should be done. Mr. Jack was unable to comment unless he had specific details.

Asked by Councillor Legendre if he would prefer a motion that continued the deferral of the East-West LRT EA over one that terminated it, Mr. Jack said he preferred deferral. Mr. Jack also confirmed that a delay of a few months was not crucial.

In response to further questions from Councillor Legendre, Mr. Jack agreed that the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA has the potential to influence and assist in the planning of the CFB Rockcliffe development. He confirmed that the planning exercise was scheduled to finish at the end of the year, but suggested that this was optimistic. Mr. Jack agreed with Councillor Legendre that it would be beneficial to the Rockcliffe planning process if more information on the Rideau-Montreal Corridor was known sooner rather than later.

Councillor Bédard suggested that the item at hand be treated in the same manner as the previous item, which was tabled pending as staff review of the Rapid Transit Expansion Study (RTES) and the Ottawa Rapid Transit expansion Plan (ORTEP).

Councillor Bédard then put forward the following motion:

That the staff recommendation be amended as follows:

Suspend the East-West (Orleans-Walkley-Kanata) LRT Environmental Assessment, and defer the initiation of the Carling LRT Environmental Assessment Study, Rideau-Montreal LRT Environmental Assessment Study, and the Interprovincial Transit Environmental Assessment Study pending the review of RTES and ORTEP.

Councillor Bédard suggested that Committee might regret it down the road if they cancelled any of the EAs. He also suggested that the staff recommendation of suspending the EAs pending the recommendations of the Mayor’s task Force is inappropriate, as Committee and Council have no control over that task force. He maintained that it was important to follow the process that had been established with the previous item and wait for the review from staff.

Councillor Bloess wished to clarify some issues with staff regarding the East-West LRT EA. In response to Councillor Bloess’ questions, Dennis Jacobs, Director, Planning, Environment and Infrastructure Policy, explained that $1.8 million had been spent on the EA already, and that if the EA was terminated, that money would essentially be gone but the material would still be there, and there would be no process to proceed with. Mr. Jacob also confirmed that various elements, such as the extension of the rapid transit corridor to Blair Station; extension of the Cumberland Rapid Transit Corridor east to service Millennium Park; Queensway at Eagleson; north to Kanata Research Park; Kanata Town Centre to Scotiabank Place, etc. would be lost if the Committee decided to terminate the EA and do nothing else.

Councillor Bloess suggested that it made sense to suspend the EA until the Committee is ready to make a firm decision in the context of anything else coming forward, which is still unclear.

David Jeanes of Transport 2000 expressed his desire to speak to this issue as an interested party, a member of the technical advisory committee of the East-West EA, a member of the public advisory committee for the Rockcliffe Airbase redevelopment, and a resident of the Carling Avenue corridor.

He agreed with Mr. Jack that Committee could not afford to throw away the work that had already been done on the East-West EA, and suggested that the motion to suspend would not throw that work away. He agreed with the specific issues raised on Page 17 in the report, but suggested that those issues would not be resolved by cancelling the EA. He suggested that resolving these issues could be better done through an EA addendum later on in the process or by keeping the EA the way it is.

Mr. Jeanes agreed with the deferral of the Carling and Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EAs, and did not believe that those corridors could be dealt with until some of the other more critical issues are resolved.

However, he stated that the Interprovincial Crossing EA was a different matter. He noted that there are no answers on interprovincial transit to be found in RTES. He noted that the interprovincial portion of RTES was deferred with the intention that it be done by a separate interprovincial study to be commenced in late 2003. He clarified that direction to begin this work came from RTES, rather than the National Capital Triparteid Planning Committee, as indicated on Page 19 of the Staff report. He explained that RTES had identified some tentative interprovincial corridors. He also noted that the purpose of this study as outlined on Page 19 of the staff report -– to define a transit system that serves the downtown core of Ottawa and Gatineau – came out of an STO Study that was done in 2001, which was not accepted by last term’s Transportation Committee, and that had no public consultation on the Ottawa side of the River. He further noted that the requirements are the full interworking between the Ottawa and Gatineau transit systems.

Mr. Jeans suggested that the interprovincial study must proceed in order to have the information available for the Mayor’s Task Force. He maintained that it is a separate matter from the other EAs, which flow from RTES. He also noted that, in May 2005, the NCC announced at their Board meeting that there were $350,000 of Federal money allocated for that project, and he urged the Committee to spend it. He further noted that the City of Ottawa is supposed to be leading this study.

Mr. Jeanes suggested that the downtown and the Interprovincial issues must be looked at and public consultation must be done in that area, as RTES left the downtown to operational planning within OC Transpo and there has not really been a public process to address the needs of downtown.

Mr. Jeanes suggested that spending the available money on short-term bus rapid transit projects was unwise. He maintained his assertion at the January 17th meeting that the Federal and Provincial money were still on the table. However, he noted that it is only available under the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which implies certain conditions on ridership. He also noted that Hon. Pierre Poilievre, the Nepean-Carleton Member of Parliament confirmed recently on the radio that the $200 million from the Federal Government is still on the table. He further noted that he delivered to each member the letters from Hon. Lawrence Cannon, and the Provincial Member of Provincial Parliament, Hon. Jim Watson. He reminded Committee that whatever decision they make must not jeopardize the $400 million that is still on the table for matching expenditure projects under the terms of the MOU.

Having finished with the public delegations, Chair Cullen noted that it was now 3:00 p.m. and that Item 4 of the Agenda – the Community Pass –was a timed item set to begin at that time. He suggested that the Committee would move on to the Community Pass Item, and come back to the present when the Community Pass Item was dealt with. Councillor Bédard then suggested that it was the will of the Committee that the item at hand be dealt with immediately, and suggested it would take only 10 minutes.

Chair Cullen suggested that it would take longer than that, as there were other motions coming forward. He ruled that the Committee should adhere to its publicly published agenda, which advertised that the Community Pass Item would begin at 3:00 p.m. Councillor Bédard challenged the Chair. After some discussion, the Committee voted on whether the chair should be sustained.

LOST on a division of 3 YEAS to 6 NAYS as follows:

YEAS (3): Councillors C. Leadman, M. Wilkinson, A. Cullen

NAYS (6): Councillors R. Bloess, G. Bédard, J. Legendre, M. McRae, C Doucet, D. Thompson

The ruling of the Chair not sustained, the Committee then continued its discussions on the above item.

Councillor Legendre then put forward the following motion:

That the motion by Councillor Bédard to suspend LRT EAs be amended by removing the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA from the suspended list, and that staff be directed to proceed with that EA as soon as possible.

Councillor Legendre suggested that the suspension of the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA had been subsumed with the suspension of the East-West LRT EA. He noted that he was amongst the Councillors, who had supported the suspension of the East-West EA. He wondered how this had resulted in the suspension of all the EAs. He noted that, despite the fact that a process was underway for the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA and a consultant had been found, staff decided to put it on hold.

He suggested that it was in the City’s interests to proceed with the EA as soon as possible in order to look at what is the best way to get mass transit connected with the proposed CFB Rockcliffe development. He noted, and Dennis Jacobs confirmed, that the budget for this EA was not tied in with the $400 million funding. He maintained that the continuation of the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA was not a ward issue, but an issue of citywide interest. He suggested that deferring it made no sense, would not save money, and would only result in lost time. He urged the Committee to vote in favour of his motion.

Chair Cullen asked staff to comment on Councillor Legendre’s motion and on staff’s initial recommendation to defer the study. Deputy City Manager Schepers noted that staff recommended the suspension of the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA. She suggested that this EA was one of the lower priorities to proceed. She agreed that useful information would come out of the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA, but suggested the same could be said of all the EAs. She maintained that it would still be very prudent for Committee to wait and suspend the Rideau-Montreal Road LRT EA along with the others.

The Committee then voted on Councillor Legendre’s aforementioned motion.

LOST on a division of 1YEA to 8 NAYS as follows:

YEAS (1): Councillor J. Legendre

NAYS (8): Councillors R. Bloess, G. Bédard, C. Leadman, M. McRae, C Doucet, D. Thompson, M. Wilkinson, A. Cullen

Chair Cullen then indicated that Councillor Doucet wished to bring forward the following Motion:

WHERAS ….

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT Transit Committee Report on the Status of East-West Environmental Assessments and Bus Rapid Transit Priority Projects be amended not to recommend the suspension of any EA studies.

Chair Cullen ruled that, as there had been amendments to the recommendation, Councillor Doucet’s motion by itself was out of order, and that the intention was better served by voting against the recommendation as amended. In response to a question from Councillor Doucet, Chair Cullen clarified that if the recommendation as amended were to be defeated, the status quo would continue.

Chair Cullen turned the chair to Vice-Chair Wilkinson in order to put forward the following motion:

1. A That the staff report be amended to terminate the East-West (Orleans-Walkley-Kanata) LRT Environmental Assessment.

And that staff report to Transit Committee on the status of Bus Rapid Transit corridors identified to date in this Environmental Assessment.

Councillor Cullen then explained his rationale for putting forward the above motion.

Mr. Jacobs agreed with Councillor Cullen that if Council wished to vary the Statement of work or Terms of Reference (TOR) of the East-West LRT EA, it would require approval of the Ministry of the Environment. Councillor Cullen drew attention to the fact that the Statement of Work speaks specifically of a rapid transit system that is to bypass the downtown, and amongst its features is to look at grade separation requirements. He suggested that this issue is the foundation of rapid transit.

Councillor Cullen noted that the current EA has tentatively identified a number of corridors that would have the transit vehicles operating at grade in mixed traffic. Mr. Jacobs suggested that, while at intersections it would be going in mixed traffic, for the most part it would operate in bus only lanes parallel to, or using the existing arterial road network.

Chair Cullen suggested that, while there are elements of the current East-West LRT EA that Committee might wish to salvage (such as those dealing with bus rapid transit corridors), the current EA is moving towards a system that is not rapid transit. He suggested that the public expects a system that is at least as efficient as the Transitway, and suggested that this would not be. He noted that the Committee may want to delay the termination of the EA pending the Mayor’s Task Force or the review of RTES and ORTEP, but suggested that there is no point in waiting and wasting more resources on an EA that is going down the wrong track.

Councillor Cullen maintained that the second part of his motion, that staff report to Transit Committee on the status of Bus Rapid Transit corridors identified to date in this Environmental Assessment, would ensure that all the good work done on BRT would be salvaged.

Councillor Doucet said that Councillor Cullen wants to retain the part of the transit plan he likes, while discarding the rest. He pointed out that the Carling Avenue EA was intended to provide information on the viability of that corridor vs. the southern loop, and that this information was valuable. He suggested Councillor Cullen’s motion, like Councillor Legendre’s previous motion to protect the Rideau-Montreal EA, was about keeping their own “piece of the pie” while discarding the rest. He suggested that anyone who voted against Councillor Legendre’s motion had to vote against Councillor Cullen’s as well, as one “piece of pie” is no better than the other.

After some discussion as to which motion was on the table, acting Chair Wilkinson explained that the Cullen motion sought to amend the Bédard motion, which was to suspend the EA.

Councillor Bloess wished to clarify if the corridors will still be protected if the East-West LRT EA is terminated. Mr. Jacobs explained that they would not be protected. He explained that until they are taken out of RTES and TMP they would still appear as corridors that Council is interested in, however Council would have no legislative tool to acquire land or protect land in those corridors. Mr. Jacobs agreed with Councillor Bloess that development could happen in those corridors, potentially putting the City in the position of having to buy up developed land in the event that they decide to put transit through those corridors.

In response to questions from Councillor Bloess, Mr. Jacobs confirmed that, without the amendment with respect to Blair Station, it would take an additional $300,000 to complete the EA. He also confirmed that if the EA is completed, it is up to Council to decide which pieces to implement and in what order and that Council is in no way obligated to do the whole project.

Councillor Bloess suggested that it would be prudent to approve Councillor Bédard’s motion suspending the EAs. He maintained it makes more sense than to kill it, especially when it is uncertain what will come forward in the next few months. He suggested that suspension would not cost anything, as opposed to termination, which would throw out $1.9 million worth of work, and eliminate options that might turn out to be the right ones in the future. He stated that he would vote against the Cullen’s motion for termination.

Acting Chair Wilkinson stated that she agreed with Councillor Bloess.

Councillor Cullen refuted Councillor Doucet’s assertion that his motion was about pulling out a “favourite route.” While he supports Councillor Bédard’s motion to defer the EAs pending the review of RTES and ORTEP, he believes his motion is to address something that is quite clearly going down the wrong track. However, he recognized that there are things in the EA that Council might wish to salvage, these being the status of the BRT Corridors. He noted these corridors are in the Transportation Master Plan, which forms part of the City’s Official Plan. Therefore those land uses associated with those corridors are protected. He repeated his earlier assertion that this EA is NOT heading towards a rapid transit system. He suggested that through the Mayor’s Task Force and the staff review of RTES and ORTEP, the City would be looking at how to find a means of delivering a true RAPID transit system.

The Committee then voted on Councillor Cullen’s above-mentioned motion.

LOST on a division of 1YEA to 8 NAYS as follows:

YEAS (1): Councillor A. Cullen

NAYS (8): Councillors R. Bloess, G. Bédard, C. Leadman, J. Legendre, M. McRae, C. Doucet, D. Thompson, M. Wilkinson

Councillor Cullen then resumed the chair.

Councillor Doucet then outlined his reasons why it would be a mistake to suspend the EAs. He suggested that suspension of the EAs would be just another of the many delays in moving forward with public transit in Ottawa. He maintained that the information provided by the EAs is vital for Council to have before making any decisions. He noted that the Mayor’s Task Force is a very high-level investigation, while the EAs bring forward precise, interesting, and useful data.

He gave the Carling EA as an example of where more information was needed, as staff and Council do not have enough data to determine whether that corridor or the southern loop is the most viable. He suggested that this information would be transcribed through the EA.

Councillor Doucet maintained that he agreed with the intent of Councillor Legendre’s earlier motion to continue with the Rideau-Montreal Road Corridor, but voted against it because he thought all the EAs should go ahead, not just that one.

He suggested that it made no sense to not spend the $2 million on an EA that would provide necessary information for a transit plan that will ultimately cost $3 Billion.

After a brief discussion, the Committee then voted on the following motion:

Moved by Councillor G. Bédard:

That the staff recommendation be amended as follows:

CARRIED

Councillor C. Doucet dissented.

The Committee then voted on the staff recommendation, as amended.

CARRIED

Councillors C. Doucet and J. Legendre (on the Rideau-Montreal portion) dissented.