Idea to park LRT during bad weather divides councillors, mayor

Some city councillors are floating the idea of halting the light rail transit system during inclement weather.

After Line 1 was knocked out of commission during the ice storm last week, some on council are suggesting OC Transpo should just run R1 replacement buses when freezing rain is forecast.

College ward councillor Laine Johnson told Wake Up with Rob Snow it’s time to explore this option as a possible solution to an ongoing problem.

“We do obviously have an extreme weather situation now.” Johnson said. “I’m going to go to the next transit commission meeting to ask the question — ‘do we not run the trains during extreme weather?’ If we cannot deliver safe service in weather, then we cannot transfer the risk onto our passengers.”

Stittsville ward councillor Glen Gower tells CityNews Ottawa it’s something the transit commission does need to explore, but adds, it’s not that simple.

“One of the challenges with that, is to run R1 replacement buses, we pull buses from other routes so there’s a major impact to transit service all across the city,” Gower said. “We’ll have to look at what the implications are; what the trade-offs are. That could be one way to mitigate some of the issues next winter if we get freezing rain.”

However, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe isn’t ready to go this route just yet, saying an investigation into the latest shutdown needs to be completed first.

“I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Sutcliffe adds he wants to see faster fixes to service disruptions.

“We need to lean on the group that does the maintenance for us to get faster results, so that the service is only down for a few hours instead of being down for a day and a half.”

The city’s transit commission meets on Thursday, April 13.