Thumbs up to elevated LRT

Having listened to all the arguments about LRT on the western parkway and the alleged disadvantages of using Carling Avenue, the latter still seems to be a good alternative to get LRT to the west.

My wife and I spent some time in B.C. in June of this year riding the SkyTrain to and from the airport, and around Vancouver and the lower mainland. The Canada Line (2009) cost $2 billion to go 20 kilometres, including over the Fraser River on its own bridge, and underground for more stations than Ottawa’s LRT plans to do.

We will pay about the same amount to get 14.5 kilometres. So B.C. built one-third more LRT for the same amount of money. It cannot all be inflation. An elevated LRT along Carling Avenue would solve the objection that there are too many stoplights. It could connect to the O-Train right of way at Preston Street to get to the downtown. It could have a stop at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital, which would be a real boon to the citizens of Ottawa now paying to park to visit the hospital. It would go where people live, shop and drive.

We are now reading articles about converting shopping and strip malls to mixed commercial residential use. Instead of building a line where intensification will be fought tooth and nail, or is impossible (i.e. on NCC land), it would be built where intensification would likely be welcomed.

I must be missing something.

PATRICK GRIFFITH, Ottawa