OTTAWA — The Ottawa airport authority is not happy to be bypassed by the O-Train in the city’s transit plans, saying in a position paper released Friday afternoon that the city’s transportation planners are lowballing the cost of a line that goes around the airport to get to Riverside South.



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And, the paper says, if the city wants to carry out its plans, it’s going to need to use the federally regulated airport’s land. It’s an unmistakable reminder of the problems the city’s had with the National Capital Commission in planning to run a light-rail line along the Ottawa River.

“We believe the City needs the Authority at the table if it wants to use parts of our land in its proposed plan — whatever form that may take,” the paper says.

“The fact that Airport Authority has a legislated duty to protect the airport’s ability to expand to meet the needs of air transportation in the future can’t be overlooked,” it says a little later, echoing the NCC’s insistence that as important as the city’s transit plans are, it has a duty to look out for federal land. “Needs will grow over time, and the Authority must be able to meet the demand through growing its infrastructure in an unimpeded manner on its property.”

In a long-term plan for transportation in the capital the city released last week, the current O-Train line would be extended south from Greenboro to a new Bowesville station in south Gloucester, mostly using an old freight line that runs along the eastern edge of the airport’s property. According to the city’s consultants, that would cost $99 million and get 5,200 new transit users riding trains and buses at peak times.

In contrast, an O-Train line that curved into the airport and stopped there would cost $70 million and serve 5,000 new commuters and 250 airport passengers at peak times — but building more dedicated busways to make up the difference, instead of using the old rail line, would cost $120 million more this way than the city’s choice.

The airport thinks the calculations by consultants IBI Group and Morrison Hershfield are wrong. “There are costs associated with grading that have not been included. There are costs associated with facilitating runway extension and/or construction on our property that aren’t included. There are other impacts to airport greenfield property that haven’t been accounted for, and so on,” the position paper says.

The consultants themselves acknowledge that the airport’s plans to extend its main east-west runway could get in the way and the extended O-Train would probably have to tunnel underneath it. The costs are put aside as someone else’s problem and the consultants don’t even guess what they might be, though constructing the tunnel at the same time as the new runway would make it cheaper.

They also agree with the airport that a line going into the airport property would serve the Ernst & Young Centre, the new trade-show building the city subsidized near the airport terminal that doesn’t have very good transit service now. “As the E&Y Centre continues to attract larger events, the potential to affect traffic flow to the airport grows,” the airport warns, and an O-Train station would help a lot.