The City of Ottawa is currently building an LRT line from Blair to Tunney's Pasture through a tunnel underneath downtown. This will significantly increase the quality and capacity of transit through downtown Ottawa.

However, the new line is quite short. Tunney's Pasture is only just west of downtown. The city is planning for a second phase that would extend the line west from Tunney's to Baseline to fix this problem and enhance the system's quality.

This second phase has faced lots of problems with a lot of disputes about the route from local residents, transportation planners, and the National Capital Commission (NCC). To balance these concerns, the city presented its 'Richmond Underground' route, a $900 million compromise. After local residents and the NCC expressed concern about the route's potential to block views of the Ottawa River, the city changed the plans to bury a large section of the route, increasing the cost from $900 million to $980 million. This new plan is a brilliant compromise that addresses all concerns adequately and keeps the price tag affordable.

But this isn't good enough for the NCC. They want the city to bury the whole thing, which bring the cost up to $1.3-$1.7 billion. Hundreds of millions of dollars more, just to "protect" a piece of parkland that won't even really be damaged.

The NCC SHOULD NOT be forcing taxpayers to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars more for this project just to save a small piece of land that really isn't being damaged that much. LRT isn't some ugly mess of metal that will be a giant eyesore. It can blend into the environment quite well. It will certainly be a major improvement over the hundreds of diesel-spewing buses that run down the same stretch of land every day, which the LRT extension will remove.

To add insult to injury, the NCC is made up of a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, while the City is democratically elected by its residents. The NCC is not only going to cost us a fortune, it's going against democracy.

The NCC's arrogance has been disgusting. NCC's board members have made comments such as "I am not willing to give up anything because of the city’s financial problems" and "This ain’t gonna fly at all ... just accept it." How dare they, unelected bureaucrats, boss around our democratically elected council!

Sign this petition to the National Capital Commission to get them to drop their infuriating stubbornness and accept the city's Western LRT plan and respect democracy.