City won’t say whether LRT handover on-track

Residents are still in the dark about whether the first phase of Ottawa's Confederation Line will be handed over to the city on schedule this Friday, as the city won't say whether the required testing is going ahead without incident.

The consortium building the LRT line, Rideau Transit Group, must complete 12 consecutive days of testing. Last month, at a meeting of the city's Finance and Economic Development Committee, RTG promised the system would be handed over to the city's possession on August 16.

So far, the city has refused to reveal anything about how the testing is going, nor whether RTG is on-track to meet the August 16 handover date.

“The Independent Certifier will confirm whether the requirements of Trial Running have been achieved as part of finalizing the requirements for Revenue Service Availability (RSA),” Livia Belcea, the mayor's press secretary, wrote in an e-mail to 1310 NEWS. “Once RTG has achieved all Trial Running requirements, Mr. Manconi will inform Council, Members of the Transit Commission, the public and media outlets.”

It's not clear whether an RTG failure to meet the August 16 handover date would affect the city's hopes of opening the line to riders some time in September.