Ottawa station different from Ottawa Central Station
Criticism
It would be true to say the closer you get to Ottawa, the farther you are from people who live along the tracks. It is possible to live in the nation's capital and not know where the Ottawa train station is located. It used to be within sight of Parliament Hill, but the old station is now part of the government gas works, used for First Ministers meetings and other talkathons.
While the relocation of Ottawa station seemed to be a good idea in 1948, the move to the outskirts of Ottawa put rail travel at a comparative disadvantage to other forms of transportation in the city. Although passenger rail travel collapsed across North America following World War II, the downtown station may have maintained a higher market share over time and been useful for commuter rail due to its close proximity on foot to many destinations.Prior to the creation of Via Rail in 1977, closing downtown stations and rebuilding them in suburban areas was an ongoing trend in a number of other cities across Canada, including Quebec City, Saskatoon and Victoria. At the time, it seemed to many local governments that the benefits of removing tracks and railyards from downtown areas outweighed the benefits of providing rail access directly to downtown - as passenger rail appeared to be declining and increasingly irrelevant.These decisions helped accelerate the decline in passenger rail popularity further, as direct to downtown service was one of the few remaining advantages trains had over airplanes. This could be seen at Ottawa station. While Via Rail provided a shuttle bus to the city centre, the increased distance added up to 25 minutes in travel time to the fastest train to Montreal and reduced its competitiveness with other forms of travel.In 1985, Via Rail President Pierre Franche estimated that Via lost around 15 to 20 percent of their Ottawa business because of the closing of Union Station.
In addition to its more distant location, public transit service to Ottawa station was absent or minimal for its first 15 years of existence, discouraging access by non-car owning passengers. This was partly remedied in 1983, when OC Transpo constructed a Transitway bus rapid transit station (Train station) across from Ottawa station, which would be replaced by Tremblay O-Train station to the west of the Ottawa station building in 2019.Continued service reductions in the late 1980s and early 1990s further compounded the declining popularity of train travel in Ottawa. Services to Toronto and Montreal were reduced, and Ottawa lost transcontinental service to Vancouver on the Super Continental when the train was cancelled in 1990.