LETTER

 

----   Tramway talk is a distraction

 

I have found the on-going exchange about a tramway from Aylmer into downtown Ottawa most interesting.  Everyone discusses its pros and cons, the effect on climate and on ever-more traffic congestion -- but no one has mentioned the obvious: there will be no tramway in the near future, so why is it been discussed?

There will be no tramway because of its cost -- the cost not only of building the rails and trains but of expropriating all the properties needed, and the cost of laying a rail bed and, finally laying tracks and building stations and stops along the way.  Looking at Ottawa's huge costs, we can count on over a billion dollars here -- and we don't have the population, the buying power, nor the electoral clout to justify such a project.  So why keep discussing it?

We keep talking about tramways while our bus services remains insufficient and inadequate.  If we don't have the population to justify a good bus system, where will the population come from to justify a billion-dollar tramway, not to mention ten years of upheaval and traffic constriction as the work proceeds?  It seems to me this whole subject is a diversion so that we don't stretch further our already stretched bus service.  Over to you, city councillors!

Jason Storemont

Aylmer