City of Ottawa Employment Demographics.
According the city of Ottawa publication titled
"Employment in Ottawa. Results of the 2006 Employment Survey. Date. November 2007. Publication # 10-12"
Employment in Ottawa is distributed as follows (Page 19) :
| Location | 1981 | 2006 |
| Inside Greenbelt | ||
Central Area Inner Area Remainder - Inside Greenbelt - East Remainder Inside Greenbelt - West |
23.5 17.0 26.6 26.0
|
18.7 10.8 27.1 25.5
|
| Sub-total Inside Greenbelt | 93.1% | 82.2% |
The following is the same statistics for 2006 displayed as a map.
This map shows the employment distribution of the year 2006.
This map is a very important planning tool since it shows the DEMOGRAPHIC distribution of employment in Ottawa. Note that there are MORE people employed OUTSDE of both the "Inner Area" and the "Central Areas" combined. Many people in Ottawa work in the business parks that are distributed just inside the Greenbelt, but which are OUTSIDE the "core" of the city.
Even the Federal Public Service no longer has the majority of its employment located in the Central area of Ottawa.
Employment Zones and Railway lines.
The above map shows the same employment zones in relation to existing Railway Lines and Railway corridors and Rights of Ways in Ottawa. what is clear is that Ottawa should be using these existing Railway corridors to move people to the MAJOR employment zones that are outside of the downtown core of Ottawa. This is where the majority of people work, yet these same zones are NOT being properly served by Public Transit.
These employment zones were located around existing railway corridors for the purposes of future Rail-Based commuting and freight movement.
Distribution of Federal Employment in Ottawa 2006
| Sub-Area | 2006 % Federal Employment |
Central Area Inside Inner Limits of Greenbelt On Greenbelt Land Outside of Greenbelt |
44.1 52.0 3.6 0.2 |
| Total | 100.0 % |
The above table shows the distribution of Federal Employment in Ottawa (page 10) :
What is even more important is that many of these business parks have relatively unused railway lines passing through them, but there is no use of these railway lines to provide cost effective transit services for these workers.
Therefore, Ottawa should be using these "unused railways" lines to serve the majority of workers who do NOT work in the Central or Inner areas of Ottawa.
Note: The Ottawa Rapid Transit Expansion Plan or ORTEP recommended using the railway corridors to serve the employment zones outside of the core.
Why don't we go back to this plan (ORTEP) instead of focusing all of the transit resources in the core where less than 20% of the workers are employed?