City Reviewing Two Options for Orléans Train

At Councillor Stephen Blais’ behest, City Staff will commence the processes of fully assessing the feasibility of bringing LRT to Orléans.

“Orléans’ residents commute to Downtown by bus more than any other suburban residents in North America,” says Blais. “Given this unprecedented commitment to public transit demonstrated by Orléans and Cumberland taxpayers, bringing LRT to our community is tax dollars well spent.”

According to the most up-to-date and comprehensive travel data for the City of Ottawa, the Public Transit Modal Split from Orléans to Downtown Ottawa is 64%. This represents the highest modal split to downtown of any community in Ottawa.

Given that Ottawa has the highest transit modal split in North America for a medium size city of approximately 1 million people, it is likely that the 64% transit mode split from Orléans to Downtown Ottawa is the highest suburban to downtown transit modal split in North America for a city of comparable size.

“Unlike Ottawa’s west end where there is considerable concern regarding all three proposed LRT corridors, there are two very viable and welcoming corridors in the east end,” adds Blais. “Residents want us to move forward with LRT to reduce commute times and this work will advance LRT to Orléans years ahead of schedule.”

In the City of Ottawa’s Transportation Master Plan (TMP), the ultimate solution for transit includes two rapid light rail lines (one adjacent to the 174 corridor along the East Transitway corridor and the other through the Orléans community to the south along the Cumberland Transit Corridor). Both corridors connect to the current easterly end point of the upcoming LRT line at Blair Station and both are currently planned to be converted from Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) to Light Rail (LRT) sometime in the future.

By moving forward, the City can build LRT on the transit lines from day one, avoiding the expensive and time consuming process of converting from BRT to LRT.

“For too long, the east end has been ignored concerning infrastructure investments by all levels of government”, concluded Councillor Blais. “After neglect for so many years, bringing LRT to Trim Road will demonstrate respect for the hard earned money Orléans and Cumberland residents send to City Hall, the provincial and federal governments.”

Once the preferred LRT corridor is selected for Orléans, the information will serve as input to the TMP including the priority investment setting exercise of the TMP review.

To read the memo click here.

Facts:

• Orléans is the largest of Ottawa’s suburban communities.
• 40% of urban expansion is happening in Cumberland Ward.
• With 35% of trips using public transit Orléans has by far the highest ridership of any of the suburban communities and outpaces the City average of 20%.
• Orléans has the lowest projected employment growth and household to job ratio of any of the suburban communities.
• The 2008 City of Ottawa Transportation Master Plan does not envision LRT to Orléans until sometime after 2031.