As the first phase of the city's LRT transit plan chugs along to its fall 2006 construction start, I can't help but draw the comparison with a still popular computer game, Sid Meier's Civilization.

The premise of the game is simple but skilful execution is needed to succeed. Essentially the objective is to build a civilization one city at a time by making the most efficient use of available resources. Over centuries of game time, mud villages become metropolises with fusion-powered mass transit systems and the like.

One of many keys to mastering the game is understanding how much time and resources to dedicate to building up a city's infrastructure and when it is most advantageous to do so. It can be a critical error to build faster than a city's population growth or misjudge in which direction that growth is likely to occur.

Last week, I heard Rejean Chartrand, the City of Ottawa's director of economic development and strategic projects, speak on the LRT plan at BOMA Ottawa's November lunch.

He acknowledged that the city is moving ahead on the project at a relatively breakneck speed compared with how slow government bureaucracy is usually perceived to move. However, he emphasized this is in keeping with the way that the city's private partners (whichever of the three consortia wins the bid) would like to get things done. He also touted how the city is committing the winning consortium to a 15-year service and maintenance plan and hedging its bets on population growth projections. Future phases of LRT will only occur, he said, when the size of the city's population and workforce justifies it, not because the city's Official Plan arbitrarily established a construction timetable years before.

Not surprising, Mr. Chartrand fielded some tough questions and endured rather serrated comments from members of the BOMA crowd. Sitting in that room with about 170 other attendees, it was abundantly clear that there remains significant and entrenched opposition to the LRT plan in its current form in the general business community. The bones of contention raised during the BOMA luncheon should come as little surprise, including the downtown tunnel, building north-south before east-west and taking what Mr. Chartrand called a "turnkey" approach that focuses on developing "corridors" on the assumption of future population growth.

Here at the OBJ we have fielded our fair share of criticism that we are covering LRT with too negative of a tone and providing too much of a forum for the likes of Hume Rogers and Gerry Lepage. I submit that a negative tone becomes inevitable when the same concerns keep being addressed with circular answers that fail to give a satisfactory response.

Mr. Chartrand only added to this endless circle last week when his reply to some points raised by critics in his audience, including construction and engineering executive Patrick Gillin, was, "we'll just have to agree to disagree."

Sure, why not. It's only $700 million or so.

Now don't get me wrong. The city has given clear reasons why we need LRT and I agree with them. Ottawa needs some kind of mass transit system that will meet the needs of its future population and more buses are not the answer. A project of such massive scale will always have a peanut gallery of critics unswayed by any opposing argument.

With a project of such scope, however, the government of the day must go to extraordinary lengths to sell the idea. Some people say we must take a long-term view and focus on the benefits of a completed LRT system that connects the city from all points. Fair enough. But if the city's LRT plan has not endured sufficient scrutiny, who will be held accountable if it comes to light years from now that the city's strategy was flawed? The government of today will be long gone and it will be the taxpayers who are left to shoulder the burden.

Mr. Chartrand seems to expect a certain amount of faith from the residents of Ottawa, not only in the viability of the plan, but in his own sincerity that he wouldn't be adding to his grey hair if he didn't believe the project would succeed. Without knowing the man personally, I can only assume he is an intelligent and honest fellow who can be taken at face value.

He himself raised the point during the BOMA luncheon that educating the residents of Ottawa on the why and wherefore of the present plan is no small part of the equation. But that process begins by providing more sound answers than, "we'll just have to agree to disagree."

In Civilization, it can take only minutes to see if the wrong move has been made. In reality, we must wait and watch for a decade or more to see if our faith was warranted.

By Leo Valiquette

leo.valiquette@transcontinental.ca