Raise the Hammer

I Would kill for a GO Eastern Ontario though! Area politicians are all for it actually except unfortunately, the ones you need the most, the city council of Ottawa. Mention the possibility for an area wide commuter rail and bus network for Ottawa/Eastern Ontario and they get a horrified look on their face and then ask you to leave the building, I am not kidding!

The look gets even worse when you ask about interprovincial rapid transit to Gatineau, which is also in desperate need for improvement. Every morning 90-100 STO buses per hour flood across the bridges onto Wellington and Rideau Streets and mix with the 30-40 OC Transpo buses per hour and then repeat this in the other direction in the afternoon peak period. By the way, this is not part of the 185-200 buses per hour per direction on Albert and Slater Streets, which are part of the Transitway System. Wellington Street, the street Parliament Hill is on, and Rideau street form a simple east-west arterial road route in the core of Ottawa's downtown. Rideau Street has 2 rush our only bus lanes, there are none on Wellington St. The intersection of Wellington/Rideau Street and Sussex Drive/Colonel By Drive is a mess during the peak periods.

One local female politician even told me that, they/we have too much activity going on with the phase 1 LRT system under construction and the planning for phase 2 to also force our planners (which I am, although not presently working for the city of Ottawa) to bother with this. She scolded me by saying, how much work that would be for our transit people and planners considering we are still trying to locally plan,build and pay for two Transitway BRT projects as well.

I told her that when GO Transit was being created in the mid to late 1960's, 1966-67 to be exact. The City of Toronto and the TTC had to aid the province and CN Rail in the planning for the original GO Train system, the Lakeshore East & West Lines. This was when the TTC had just opened the Bloor-Danforth Subway Line and had 2 extensions to that line already underway for completion in 1968. The Yonge Line had an extension under construction and the planning was starting for the Spadina Subway Line. "So what is your excuse", I asked? Following with, "their planners and managers had even more on their plate at that time and very little computing power to help!" She then looked at me with an incredulous look and walked away.