Committee approves $3B Barrhaven LRT wish
Phase 3 LRT includes plan to separate transit from VIA Rail crossing, which could be done ahead of project
The plan to extend the Confederation Line to Barrhaven includes an option to separate the transit line from the VIA Rail tracks that could be completed in advance of the entire $3-billion transit project, councillors heard Monday.
It also displaces more than 300 low-income renters from their homes.
The transportation committee Monday approved the preliminary plan for the 10-kilometre LRT extension from Baseline station at Algonquin College to the site of a possible future Barrhaven downtown. The city is looking to the federal and provincial governments to pay for the LRT extension, but so far no money has been committed to the project that is significantly more expensive than the original 12.5-kilometre Confederation Line.
The plan calls for three new bridges over the Via Rail line at a cost of $400 million, finally eliminating the level crossings at Woodroffe Avenue, Fallowfield Road, and at the Southwest Transitway, the site of a tragic collision between a double-decker OC Transpo bus and Via train that killed six people in 2013.
On Monday, councillors heard they could go ahead with the grade-separation part of the project before building the light-rail component.
"What's good about this plan is it gives council some options," the city's general manager of transportation, John Manconi, told reporters after the meeting. "So if council wants to truncate it and do that portion, that's open. That's why the momentum on this file is important, we want to move forward not just for mobility, but for the grade separation."
The fact that the Barrhaven LRT extension includes the grade separation could give it an edge over the more affordable — but still unfunded — $1.85-billion plan western expansion to Kanata and Stittsville.
Residents would lose low-rent homes
Another key issue of this project is that the preferred route will mean expropriating 120 relatively low-cost rental homes in the Manor Village and Cheryl Garden communities, town-home complexes owned by two private companies.
Councillors heard Monday from a number of residents who say they will never find family-sized homes with the same access to backyards at similar rents of about $1,200 a month.
"I am a single mother on ODSP [Ontario Disability Support Program]," resident Alison Trowbridge told the committee. She'd lived in the community for seven years and her neighbours are a support system for her and her seven-year-old son, who has mental health issues.
"I'm already maxed out financially each month with the way things are forcing me out of my home leaves me no other option. My son and I will end up on the street, living out of our car."
The tenants said they are the exact sort of people who need to use transit to get around. Instead, they are losing their homes because of the project.
"Public transit is supposed to provide for low-income communities," said Peggy Rafter, "not go right through them."
Councillors discussed two motions designed to try to help the residents. One was moved by Coun. Shawn Menard, who proposed holding off on approving the alignment of the LRT through these communities so the city could further consider their options and "address the moral hazard of uprooting a community of low-income tenants."
He asked his fellow committee members to consider how they would feel if this was happening to their homes, if they "had to live with this level of uncertainty. You don't know if you're going to be compensated, you don't know if there's going to be another place for you that's going to be the same rent, that you're going to be next to these families that you've grown up with."
Menard's motion failed 7-to-3, but the committee unanimously endorsed a motion proposed by Coun. Keith Egli, to create a working group to help affected residents find new homes.
The plan for the Barrhaven LRT, which also calls for a maintenance and storage garage to be built on city lands set aside for affordable housing, needs to be approved by full council, which will discuss the matter at its Nov. 25 meeting.
