City councillor skeptical Ottawans will ride light rail before fall
Posted Jun 5, 2019 03:18:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A longtime Ottawa city councillor and former chair of the transit commission says the latest update from transit staff has left her skeptical that the O-Train's Confederation Line will open to the public before this fall.
On Tuesday, the city's Finance and Economic Development Committee received its monthly update on LRT progress from John Manconi, the city's head of transportation services.
“I felt like I heard some hints in Mr. Manconi's words yesterday, in front of FEDCO, that he really had some serious doubts that we would have it up and running before the fall,” said Gloucester-Southgate Councillor Diane Deans.
Many of the outstanding issues preventing the builder, Rideau Transit Group, from meeting its completion deadline have centred around the trains themselves. Deans says she's skeptical that all of the issues will be ironed out soon.
“They still have to do the 12 days' consectutive testing, free of any major problem,” Deans told 1310 NEWS. “That could take a while, because there seems to be an awful lot of glitches in the system right now.”
After the city takes possession of the line from Rideau Transit Group, it requires an additional four weeks to prepare for opening day.
RTG has already said it won't be able to meet its end-of-June deadline and has requested an additional two weeks, but a new handover date hasn't been specified.
