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.