Citizens of Ottawa should be rising up today against a snowjob by city council.

We had until December 15. Mayor O’Brien campaigned on a promise that we would take six months. It is a mystery as to why council was in such a rush to vote on December 6. Especially since the real debate was done in secret.

This is the largest capital project in the city’s history. As the people footing the bill, citizens of Ottawa deserved an open and public debate on the rail question. We deserved time to absorb it, make up our minds, and write our councillors. And there was time — another week. Yet the ink was barely dry on yesterday’s headlines when councillors voted their essentially-secret plan into place.

Councillors apparently did not debate the plan that generated significant interest from mayoral candidates, media and citizens during the election, namely the Friends of the O-Train plan. Let’s compare the plans:

The friends of the O-Train plan: take hundreds of buses off the downtown streets, maintain current popular O-Train service with the possibility of southward expansion. Cost: $400 million, benefit: clean up downtown.

Council’s plan: Ignore downtown. Replace the O-Train with a new technology on the same run, extend line to Barrhaven where everyone is a car lover anyway. Cost: $700 million, benefit: yawn.

Regarding the subway, this idea has been raised and killed more times than a zombie in a cheap slasher movie. It will never be built. Regarding the $70 million to start on the east-west line… that’s like a toddler saving his nickel allowance toward a shiny new car.

In their mad rush to settle this question, the councillors have done that most Canadian of things: they have compromised. We’re left with the poorest part of the old plan and we’ve lost all the benefit. Twenty points for teamwork, but minus 700 million for spending money wisely. Looks like we’re building ourselves an expensive white elephant instead of a reliable and efficient solution to a real transit problem.

Dear Councillor,

I am writing to urge you not to support a two-phase light rail plan calling for a downtown tunnel, and instead propose the Friends of the O-Train plan to council.

Although I support a rail technology to reduce congestion downtown, the subway is an ill-conceived and poorly thought out suggestion. There are three key reasons why I feel this is a bad idea:

1. Spending huge amounts of money to essentially replace the existing O-Train with a different technology on the same run makes no sense. The need for rail transit southward from downtown is already being serviced by the current technology, and it is not at capacity. Extension is possible.
2. The future subway project will likely never go forward. The massive expense of this solution will never fly in the current political environment against debt. It is unwise to pin the solution to our transit woes upon a “just so” story about how the project could be expanded later.
3. The right solution has already been proposed. The cheap, efficient, frequent and reliable plan put forward during the election by the Friends of the O-Train would cost much less than a tunnel. It would bring the same benefits in terms of reduction of buses downtown and improved transit.

The subway plan has not been considered by council or citizens and so it is improper to throw it out there and vote on it in a kneejerk manner.

It is not clear why the Friends of the O-Train plan is not being given serious consideration. It isn’t clear what’s wrong with this plan except that it did not originate within the transportation department.

I urge you to table the friends’ plan as an option. It is better thought out and more complete than the vague subway proposal, which can never work.

I’m an NDP member, and I see the need to distinguish our party from the libs and the cons. But come on, that email about Dion was just plain crass. That kind of negativity is going to turn off a lot of swing voters, and it’s plain uncalled for.

The “new face of liberal arrogance”… looked in the mirror lately?

Smarten up.