Why doesn't the City run LRT along surface streets downtown?
The primary challenge that Ottawa’s transit network is currently facing is the bottleneck of transit service in the downtown core. Ottawa has the highest ridership per capita of any city its size in North America and it has been estimated that ridership will grow by 76% over the next twenty years. Unfortunately, inclement weather, street traffic, and fourteen sets of traffic lights for north-south crossing streets all conspire to snarl the transit network as it moves east-west along Albert and Slater. Simply put, there is just no more room on downtown streets to accommodate transit capacity as our ridership increases.
An at-grade, surface rail solution will not meet the ridership demands of Ottawa’s transit network through the core; only a grade separated transit corridor can do that. Council has voted to move ahead with the tunnel aspect of the OLRT project a number of times and the City is now focused on executing that direction and delivering a project that maximizes the transit benefits to Ottawa at the best possible price.
