Thursday, January 22, 2009

Strike delays downtown tunnel

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the current OC Transpo strike isn't just negatively affecting our public transit infrastructure in the short-term: We also may experience delays to the downtown tunnel component of the city's transit master plan. One of the first steps towards having the tunnel construction begun are a series of public consultations, and the first has been cancelled due to inaccesibility, as announced by City Manager Nancy Schepers:
In a memo to city council members, Mr. Schepers said the event is being cancelled because the city recognizes “the importance of ensuring that the public has access to all open houses regarding City projects.”

Ms. Schepers said “at this time” the cancellation is not expected to interfere with the tunnel study’s 20-month time frame, and that she will advise if this changes. She said other consultations and group meetings dealing with the tunnel project are continuing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not the timelines that transit advocates and transit fans have to worry about. It's the almost total evaporation of public political support for transit, period.

Good going, guys.

Anonymous said...

I'm fairly sure the downtown tunnel would have been delayed with or without the strike. The City is incompetent and that's not likely to change.
It would be interesting if they took an innovative approach to this and used technology as a means of reaching people on this issue. I'm thinking of the ScribbleLive feature you guys used to live-blog the City Hall debates...

Phil said...

Before we drop 1 more penny into this, Ottawa citizens should get a guarantee that this won't happen again.

Whether it's via an essential service designation, or the Quebec method where rush hour service has to be provided, we would be completely insane to increase our dependence on public transit while it can get interrupted by the whim of 2,300 individuals who only have their own interests at heart.

If we can't get such an assurance, the hell with it.