The vote was unanimous, and people seemed to like the conceptual drawings. Last week’s council meeting on the $2.1-billion LeBreton-Blair light rail line was a mostly mild, uncontroversial affair.

Apart from interventions by former regional chair Andy Haydon, who thinks we should stick with buses, and another guy who thought a solar-powered monorail would be neat instead, there were few discouraging words about LRT and few unaffiliated members of the public to make them.

Representatives of city advisory committees, the University of Ottawa, the Rideau Centre, the National Arts Centre and others generally voiced support. Leftover seating from which to hear this support was readily available.

The relative quiet from the general public could just be reluctance to spend a perfect summer day in the chilly gloom of the council chamber, or it might indicate that we’re generally happy with the plan as it stands. (Mayor Jim Watson put a similar silence-equals-approval spin on light turnout for his pre-budget town halls earlier this year).

Maybe, though, with the first actual train trip not scheduled until 2018, the whole procurement and construction rigamarole still ahead of us, and the derailment of the last LRT project still fresh in our memory, we’ve learned not to thrill excessively to such preliminaries.

There was more excitement earlier in the week as councillors squabbled over whose wards would be hooked up first in subsequent phases of the LRT plan, years further up the track.

Our new and improved $2.1-billion transit mega-project seemed to generate less buzz than the $1.3-million segregated bike lane on Laurier, now a week old and experiencing some growing pains.

Not only has the lane’s opening pitted cyclists against some businesses, street residents and Para Transpo users adjusting to the new setup, but cyclists against cyclists.

Avery Burdett of the Coalition for Responsible Cycling opposed the installation of the lane in the first place – he’d like to see better-trained cyclists over this “engineering solution” – and hasn’t seen much to change his mind. He worries especially about vehicles turning right across the lane at intersections: “That’s where someone’s going to pay the price.”

About 11,000 cyclists, though, tried it out last week, and the barriers and reduced lanes of motor traffic also seem to have made Laurier more inviting to pedestrians. Hiccups aside, until that LRT tunnel’s dug, it’s probably the one of the more hassle-free ways available across the downtown core.