Heritage streetcar told to hit the road after city reclaims garage space

Heritage enthusiasts who've been working more than two decades to bring a relic of Ottawa's transportation past to life say the project is now in peril because OC Transpo wants to reclaim space at its garage.

Rheaume Laplante is the co-ordinator of the long-gestating Streetcar 696 Restoration Project, named after the last remaining 600-series streetcar that serviced Ottawa between 1915 and 1959.

Streetcar 696 wound up at a railway museum in Quebec, left to rot under a tarp, until it was brought back to Ottawa. In 2000, Laplante and others began building a replica, using mostly newly manufactured parts.

Their goal is to operate the 15-metre-long streetcar as a historic display in Lansdowne Park.

"It means a lot," said Laplante, a retired OC Transpo worker. "My dad used to go on the streetcars. He was talking about it all the time ... It brings back good memories."

Needs to go by end of June

But Laplante said the restoration group was told by OC Transpo in April the replica would need to be moved out of the agency's Merivale garage on Colonnade Road, at the group's expense, by June 30.

"This is an OC Transpo project. It's not my project," Laplante said. "It was my goodwill to work on this project."

The news they were getting the boot, he added, came only a year after the project was publicly lauded by former Mayor Jim Watson and the previous city council.

"I feel I've been betrayed and disposed of," Laplante said.

Larry McNally, the group's secretary-treasurer, agreed.

"We are months away from finishing the rebuild of the car body. Now the whole project is in the air," McNally said via email.

OC Transpo has supported the project for many years by agreeing to store the replica for free and allowing the group to use city tools and utilities, according to a statement from the city.

"Due to operational needs, however, including renovations as part of the ongoing transition to zero-emission buses, OC Transpo is no longer able to donate space to host this project," said Robert Lafontaine, the city's program manager of transit facilities maintenance, in the statement.

The city is consulting departments to see if a temporary location can be found until the group can find a new permanent home, Lafontaine added.

City has 'run out of options'

In an email Laplante received Saturday from Mayor Mark Sutcliffe's office, the mayor's director of issues and outreach, Scott Moffatt, said the need for space is "legitimate" after the city agreed to house their streetcar for nine years.

Alternative locations have been discussed, Moffatt said in the email, which Laplante shared with CBC News.

But none of the city-owned options would allow for the streetcar to be worked on.

"I do not believe it makes sense for the city to move the streetcar from one location to another unless the new location provides volunteers with the ability to continue restoring the streetcar," Moffatt added.

While offering to help with the move, the mayor's office strongly encouraged the group to investigate private storage options.

"I am sorry that I was not able to come to a more favourable resolution for you and your team of dedicated volunteers," Moffatt's email concluded.

"We certainly appreciate your commitment to this project, but the city has simply run out of options to be able to continue supporting the restoration."

David Jeanes, treasurer of the citizen transportation advocacy group Transport Action Canada, said he's hopeful "the real estate issue" can be resolved.

"The fact that OC Transpo wants to use [the garage] for a different purpose doesn't balance the important heritage value to the City of Ottawa and to OC Transpo," said Jeanes, whose group supports the restoration project and has provided it funding.

"People often forget that Ottawa used to be in an industrial city. It also represents our transportation history ... and the volunteers responded to a call from OC Transpo."

Tornado among prior setbacks

Laplante says he's not willing to move the streetcar, despite what the city says. Nor is working on the project outside an option, he added.

According to Laplante, the impending eviction is just the latest setback that's hampered progress on the restoration project in recent years.

First, the 2019 tornado damaged the streetcar, he said. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

The project's volunteers are mostly retired, Laplante added. Four of them have died since the project began.

"I'm lucky to keep the ones I already have," he said.