Ottawa LRT Public Inquiry

[rocketphish]

LRT inquiry: Mayor Watson defends receiving more info than council colleagues

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Jun 30, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 4 minute read

Mayor Jim Watson says he believes in “over communicating,” but on Thursday he had to explain why he didn’t let colleagues know that the bar for measuring LRT performance was lowered in the middle of trial running in August 2019.

Watson testified on Day 14 of the LRT inquiry that he was following a commitment made by city staff that council wouldn’t hear about the trial running until it was successfully complete.

However, he had an inside track on the status of trial running since his office staff were on an instant message chat group with transportation general manager John Manconi and city manager Steve Kanellakos.

Coun. Allan Hubley, the chair of the transit commission, was also on the WhatsApp chat group, where Manconi provided regular updates.

No other council member was privy to the information shared in the chat group.

Commission co-lead counsel John Adair pressed Watson on why the existence of the chat group didn’t come up during the mayor’s formal interview with the commission in April. The lawyer alleged Watson and other members of the chat group worked together to keep the existence of the chat secret, a claim that the mayor denied.

“I had no discussion about WhatsApp with them,” Watson said.

It was by happenstance that the commission, during the evidence-gathering process, learned that the city was using WhatsApp to share messages on LRT matters.

A city consultant firm, STV, was asked to produce LRT records for the commission and WhatsApp messages popped up, prompting the commission to ask the city to produce messages from the instant message service.

Watson defended receiving information, over and above what was available to the rest of council, during trial running because he was both mayor and chair of the finance and economic development committee, which had oversight of LRT construction.

“There’s nothing wrong with me getting more information because I have a citywide mandate from across the city as opposed to a ward councillor,” Watson said.

On top of that, committee chairs receive more information to properly run meetings, the mayor said.

But there was no finance and economic development committee between the substantial completion date and the handover of the LRT system, Adair said.

Adair produced an LRT-related memo to council on Aug. 16, 2019, from Manconi that didn’t communicate a staff decision to change the trial running criteria that same day.

Watson knew the criteria changed.

Asked who suggested lowering the trial running criteria from a performance rate of 98 per cent to 96 per cent, Watson said it was Thomas Prendergast, one of Manconi’s key LRT advisors at the firm STV.

That would be a third version of the story heard by the inquiry commissioner, Justice William Hourigan.

In his testimony, Manconi said the Rideau Transit Group suggested changing the trial running criteria.

And Lauch in his own testimony said the city brought it up.

RTG ended up achieving a trial run performance rate of 97 per cent.

The WhatsApp message threads have revealed Manconi’s frustration when problems started happening on the LRT system in fall 2019.

Adair brought up a WhatsApp chat in October 2019 where Manconi was complaining about citizen transit commissioner Sarah Wright-Gilbert allegedly “destroying us with misinformation” in a radio interview.

In the message thread, Watson suggested Wright-Gilbert be told in a meeting with Hubley and the city clerk that if she “attacks” staff, she’ll be removed from the transit commission.

That meeting didn’t end up happening.

Watson testified Thursday that if Wright-Gilbert was approached about her comments, “she would end up becoming a martyr, and woe is she.”

(Wright-Gilbert was watching Watson’s testimony and tweeted, “He is attempting to ruin my good name. I will fight back”).

At the end of answering Adair’s questions, Watson was invited to make other observations about the Stage 1 project governance.

Watson said the provincially mandated Canadian content rules for the trains “hobbled us from the beginning,” since there weren’t skilled workers in Ottawa to service the vehicles.

The mayor, who isn’t seeking re-election in the October municipal vote, also said future projects should include a committee of council members and paid independent experts to provide a “challenge function.”

In the morning, the commissioner heard evidence from two consultants who worked on Stage 1.

Mario Mammolti of TUV Rheinland was an independent safety auditor hired by the city who concluded the LRT system was safe for passenger service.

Derek Wynne of SEMP was contracted by RTG’s construction arm to provide a system engineering “health check.”

Wynne’s track safety justification report in August 2019 suggested that the type of rail is too hard for the train wheels, potentially forcing vibrations back into the train. In his testimony, he described it as a “mismatch” that doesn’t need to stop operations and one that can be mitigated through increased vehicle and track maintenance.

Wynne’s observations could be viewed as prophetic through the frame of the August 2021 derailment near Tunney’s Pasture Station.

Alstom’s root-cause analysis alleged RTG’s track design didn’t meet its expected specifications for the Citadis Spirit trains. RTG has disputed Alstom’s claim, saying the tracks were built to the specifications of the project agreement.

The public can watch LRT inquiry hearings on video screens set up at Fauteux Hall at the University of Ottawa, online at www.ottawalrtpublicinquiry.ca or on Rogers TV (channels 470 in English and 471 in French).

The final week of the hearing begins Monday with scheduled witnesses Steve Kanellakos, the city manager, and Monica Sechiari, who was the independent certifier for the Stage 1 project.


jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...cil-colleagues

[ponyboycurtis]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Yes, a piece of construction equipment ‘fell’ into the wash-out. I believe it was a Genie-lift. It was fished out, as far as I remember, but the van was not.

As for the roadheader, it was the machine that was down in the tunnel. Remember, the till which filled that valley was saturated with water. The roadheader, digging eastward, broke out of the bedrock, reaching the saturated till. Water began to seep into the tunnel, signaling that there was little time to evacuate. There was no finger to plug this ‘dyke’ and the hydraulic pressure within the till rapidly enlarged the hole into the tunnel. This was like pulling the plug of a full bathtub. The water and rubble quickly flowed into the tunnel, flooding it to about 300 metres back from the cutting face. They were lucky that the tunnel was running on a downward grade from the Parliament/Parlement Station, since the water could only rise so far. The cavity formed by the wash-out left nothing to support the roadway above it, which collapsed, taking the van and Genie-lift with it.

So, Yes, RTG lost a roadheader in the wash-out. It was destroyed by being submerged for weeks as the sludge was pumped out of the tunnel. But, No, it did not ‘fall into’ the crater created by the wash-out.

Mayor Watson pretending not to know what a roadheader was in this context/line of questioning was ridiculous. What an obtuse buffoon. He was insanely evasive on so many answers.. but for anyone who watched into the evening, his memory sure improved when he was getting questioned by his own people. I apologize for not recalling who it was by name and what exact group they were aligned with. I don't doubt that he wanted what was best for the city as a whole and so on, but he has been pathetically evasive about this entire process.

Shit happens... budget overruns and delays are normal. Most normal people get that. I think there was enough blame to go around on both sides that you didn't need to figure skate around the matter.

Part of the blame lies around silly goals such as having the system ready for Canadas 175th bday. Which caters to the exact point of the RTG lawyer insinuating that this project was partially a political vehicle.

I'm going to make another post after this one that warrants a separate matter but is equally related.

[J.OT13]

Theories of August 2021 train derailment emerge at LRT inquiry

Joanne Chianello · CBC News · Posted: Jul 04, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

City rail manager had warned of derailment a year earlier, with concerns that mirror Alstom's

The testimony of a number of high-profile players at the ongoing LRT inquiry has made for some dramatic moments, from the revelation it was the city's former transportation manager who asked for the trial testing to be made easier to the fact Mayor Jim Watson forgot to tell inquiry lawyers he was getting daily updates on the project — which other council members didn't get.

But those star witnesses sometimes overshadow other testimony, especially that of a more technical nature. After all, one of the key aims of the inquiry is to shed light on what caused the two derailments of Alstom Citadis Spirit trains in 2021.

We know now that the second one, in September of that year, was due to human error and — in the words of a Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) report — "incomplete maintenance."

Indeed, the way Rideau Transit Group's (RTG) maintenance arm and its subcontractor Alstom have performed is one of the key issues of this inquiry.

But what caused the August 2021 derailment? The wheel broke off the axle due to a bearing issue, but we still don't know what loosened the bolt inside the bearing in the first place.

Alstom has a theory.

The France-based company, along with axle manufacturer Texelis, produced a preliminary report in early May. Its central assertion is that the stress on the components came from excessive pressure from going around sharp curves on the Confederation Line.

And not only is there the stress of the train components, but there's also "corrugation" on the rail: tiny wave-like ridges that had to be removed by grinding. (How often, and how well, this grinding is done — or should be done — is a matter of some discussion at the inquiry.)

The report contends that the "actual as-built track is not in line with the design as stated" in the specifications Alstom agreed to with the LRT builders.

The rail was flatter than expected, according to the train maker.

The inquiry has heard from executives of both Alstom and OLRT Constructors — that's Rideau Transit Group's construction arm — that the gauge, or distance between the parallel rails, was too narrow. During the testing phase, OLRT Constructors widened the rails.

Lowell Goudge, Alstom's lead engineer and safety certifier for the Citadis Spirit trains, testified on June 21 that while the company was able to operate the vehicles safely, it still had "concerns."

The profile of the track is also not matched to the profile of the wheel, the report contends.

"It's a combination of the track, the wheel rail interface, the operating profile," he said. Goudge, who signed off on Alstom's preliminary investigation, conceded that the company cannot make definite cause-and-effect findings from all its observations.

"The only conclusion we could really draw absolutely was that we were taking excessive loads in the curves," he testified. And that unexpected pressure was causing components to wear out prematurely, which led to the August 2021 derailment.

Rideau Transit Group does not agree with Alstom's preliminary conclusions, however.

"RTG has commissioned an independent root cause analysis that will review the Alstom findings and evidence as well as information provided by all other relevant parties," according to a statement from Helen Bobat, the spokesperson for RTG and its parent companies, SNC-Lavalin, ACS Infrastructure, and Ellis Don.

City rail manager concerned about track, derailments

The track itself has been a subject of discussion in local rail circles for years.

A CBC access to information request for communications concerning the cracked wheel issue in the summer of 2020 revealed that one of the city's own rail managers had raised concerns about a possible derailment a full year before the two in 2021.

On July 13, 2020, Russ Hoas — a rail systems manager, particularly for the Trillium Line — wrote to rail operations director Duane Duquette about his concerns over the wheel cracks. Hoas was "strongly suggesting" that the fleet be pulled until the problem was addressed.

(The TSB said in December 2020 that a protruding jack screw may have caused the cracks, but the final report has yet to be released.)

"Bad track just adds a higher degree of possible derailment, while in revenue service," Hoas wrote.

He went on: "Poor design coupled with a lack of proper geometry testing in 2017 and 2019 (pre-service) as was pointed out then, would have provided evidence of track structure abnormalities. Not forgetting that the wheel/rail interface is a key component to cause of derailments. Trains screeching around curves on [the Confederation Line] is an indication of improper running surface on a lack of balance speed through curves."

Hoas was one of the five city-appointed evaluators, along with rail director Michael Morgan, who failed SNC-Lavalin in their technical submission for the Trillium Line expansion. SNC-Lavalin still won the $1.67-billion contract.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Hoas worked for Bombardier for 15 years before joining the city in 2015.

Troy Charter, the city's director of transit services and rail operations, wrote to Duquette that he wanted to meet with Hoas to tap into his knowledge but also to "make it clear that at no time was public safety jeopardized."

He also wrote that he was "disappointed" that Hoas believed the city "would ever consider running a service while putting customers at risk."

The city did not allow CBC to interview Hoas. As well, the first response sent after CBC's access to information request did not include the email from Hoas or the response from Charter.

Both only materialized after CBC requested a second search for records.

LRT constructors' own consultant had concerns

And Friday morning's testimony by consultant Derek Wynne — overshadowed by the mayor's virtual appearance at the inquiry that afternoon — conveyed even more concerns about the track.

Wynne is a senior vice-president at the U.K.-based SEMP, which was the systems engineering and assurance firm hired by OLRT Consultants from 2017 until just after the LRT launched in the fall of 2019.

He testified that even by 2018, it was clear that safety analysis was being thought of as something to check at the end, rather than something that should have been in place from the start.

The commission saw a few pages of a PowerPoint presentation called "OLRT-C Rail Wear Hazard" from January 2019 that Wynne said was never presented because the track assessment "caused a great deal of consternation."

The presentation concluded that based on the design of the wheel interface, there was "significant potential for rail defect hazards to develop" that could lead to "premature failure of the rail component."

Wynne said that at the request of OLRT Constructor executives, he came up with a "more softly worded report" that called for more restrictions and maintenance on the system, as opposed to "significant changes" to the track.

"Both options are valid — either fix it before revenue service or maintain it extensively during in-service life," he said, adding that the issues were "very known" prior to the LRT being in public service.

The U.K. consultant, who testified he had nothing to do with Alstom, appeared to agree with a number of the train company's assessments of what may have led to the bearing failure that caused the August 2019 derailment.

The safety certificate that he finally signed off on near the end of the project included caveats about how the track was to be maintained, but it was unclear to Wynne when he returned to Ottawa — two years after the LRT was open — if all the restrictions he had placed were being followed.

On Monday, city manager Steve Kanellakos is set to testify, followed by the independent certifier, Monica Sechiari of Altus Group.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...509337?cmp=rss

[rocketphish]

LRT inquiry: City manager defends decision to not let council know about early trial run failures
Kanellakos said he depended on expert advice regarding the testing criteria and felt that informing council only after the system had passed was in its best interest.

Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Jul 04, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 4 minute read

City manager Steve Kanellakos on Monday defended his decision to not inform city council of the early and frequent failures during the trial running of Phase 1 of the LRT in July and August of 2019, saying he thought it best to wait until testing was completed and the system had either passed or failed.

He also denied that the lowering of the required testing criteria was done to make it easier for Rideau Transit Group to pass the final hurdle in getting the Confederation Line into the city’s hands.

Kanellakos said he depended on expert advice regarding the testing criteria and felt that informing council only after the system had passed was in its best interest, instead of bogging it down with day-by-day results.

“I was relying on the independent certifier and the independent safety auditor to give me the certificates that basically said that that system was fit, ready to go and safe,” Kanellakos testified on Day 15 of the Ottawa LRT Commission’s inquiry. “That’s what I had to rely on. I couldn’t rely on what was happening in the making of the sausage.”

Kanellakos and the city had come under fire by councillors who felt out of the loop about the LRT during the testing phase, but he explained Monday that, as city manager, his authority extended to making decisions on the project, including negotiating, approving, executing, delivering, amending or extending the agreement. If council wasn’t satisfied with his performance, he noted, it could have amended or rescinded his authority.

Regarding updating the full council only once the testing phase was successfully completed, Kanellakos likened his decision to writing a university exam.

“It’s like sitting down and writing a three-hour exam in university. I don’t do well in the first three questions, but I ace the next 15 and I pass the exam. If I was to report out after Question 3 and I didn’t do well in the first three questions, what value of conversation are we going to have after because I haven’t finished the next 17 questions? I have to finish the entire exam.”

He also defended the decision to change the trial running’s aggregate vehicle kilometre ratio, or AVKR, testing threshold from 98 per cent in nine of 12 days to 96 per cent, noting that experts, including STV Inc.’s Thomas Prendergast, part of an independent assessment team on Phase 1, assured him that 98 per cent would be extremely difficult to attain, while the lower figure would not affect the system’s functional capability or safety.

Kanellakos’s testimony, which lasted more than four hours, also contradicted Mayor Jim Watson’s assertion last week that decisions regarding the city’s beleaguered light rail system were made by a group that included Watson, Watson’s chief of staff Serge Arpin, transit commission chair and councillor Allan Hubley, and former OC Transpo general manager John Manconi. Kanellakos said that the group had several discussions on the WhatsApp instant messaging and VOIP service, but that he was never pressured, by the mayor or anyone else, to open the Confederation Line before it was safe to do so or make any decisions he felt uncomfortable with.

“We were under pressure,” he admitted. “It was an embarrassment. But it’s not going to change and influence my judgment in terms of what we needed to do. I was clear on this throughout the entire time that if we didn’t get the sign-off by the independent certifier and the independent safety auditor, we’d be going back to council and tell them that we’re not launching.

“I had no problem with that,” he said. “We did that four other times before, and I did it when the trains derailed last year. I wouldn’t put the trains back and cut the service until they were signed off by the safety auditors and our safety consultants. So I have no issues going back to council. I was never pressured to change my decision making or my judgment.”

Kanellakos added that keeping the mayor and transit chair apprised of developments is the “norm” in municipal management.

Monica Sechiari, who led Altus Group’s team of independent certifiers, or ICs, also testified Monday, saying that it’s among the IC’s duties to complete monthly site inspections and reports, approve milestone payments, provide dispute resolution, and compile a list of deficiencies and deferrals that need to be addressed before Revenue Service Availability, or RSA, is approved.

Sechiari also confirmed Altus’s determination that the sinkhole that opened up in June 2016 was not a significant factor in delaying the project.

It was also the IC’s job to validate the trial running results, a major step to operating approval, although, under questioning from city counsel Monica Gleason-Mercier, Sechiari said that it wasn’t their job to question the criteria upon which the city and the RTG project group agreed.

One tense moment in Sechiari’s testimony came when Alstom counsel Jackie Van Leeuwen suggested that Altus’s IC Kyle Campbell, who approved the test running, of having a “patent lack of qualifications for this critical task,” an accusation that Sechiari refuted.

“I don’t agree with that statement,” she replied. “He was the person to do it. He was the most familiar with the job. He was on my IC team and I’ve worked with him for over two years leading up to this.”

She also testified that she was unaware of any pressure to get the Confederation Line opened before it was ready.

The public can watch the LRT inquiry hearings on video screens set up at Fauteux Hall at the University of Ottawa, online at www.ottawalrtpublicinquiry.ca or on Rogers TV (channels 470 in English and 471 in French).

On Tuesday, the inquiry commissioner is scheduled to hear testimony from STV Inc.’s Larry Gaul in the morning and Troy Charter, the city’s director of transit operations, in the afternoon.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...l-run-failures

[rocketphish]

LRT inquiry: Poor communications between Transpo and RTM, consultant testifies
It was one of several notes Larry Gaul wrote in the weeks and months leading up to and following the LRT’s testing phase in July and August 2019 and its eventual opening in September of that year.

Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Jul 05, 2022 • 11 hours ago • 4 minute read

Two months after the Confederation Line of Ottawa’s LRT system opened to the public, a senior adviser to OC Transpo suggested that communications between operator OC Transpo and Rideau Transit Maintenance, which provides maintenance on the line, were poor, noting in an email that “our recent vehicle problems on the mainline are killing us.”

Larry Gaul, who has about three decades’ experience in light rail in Washington, D.C., and Dallas, Texas, and who was retained by OC Transpo to offer operational support and assessment as the city readied its Stage 1 Confederation Line for operation, made the comment in a November 2019 email to RTM manager Tom Pate. It was one of several notes Gaul wrote in the weeks and months leading up to and following the LRT’s testing phase in July and August 2019 and its eventual opening, upon being approved for Revenue Service Availability, in September of that year.

On Tuesday, Gaul testified before the Ottawa LRT Commission’s public inquiry and at times appeared to walk back, or at least explain and ameliorate, some of his frustrations as the project neared completion.

Under questioning from John McLuckie, a lawyer for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279, Gaul said that, unlike his experience in D.C. and Dallas, where light rail systems were operated and maintained by the same entity, Ottawa’s system, with the city providing operation, but the Rideau Transit conglomerate, along with Alstom, doing maintenance, risked greater opportunities for breakdowns.

Gaul also stated he was aware of efforts by OC Transpo head John Manconi to pressure RTM and Alstom to provide more resources to address problems.

“There’s a phrase that Mr. Manconi used to use all the time,” Gaul said. “It was: This system will not open until it’s ready to be opened.”

The theme of communication difficulties between the city — LRT operators — and its providers and maintainers continued throughout Day 16 of the inquiry.

Tuesday’s other witness, OC Transpo’s Troy Charter, echoed the concern that RTM, the maintenance division of RTG, should have had more people in Ottawa addressing the system’s shortcomings — essentially “oversourcing” — especially as the Confederation Line opened to the public.

Charter defended OC Transpo’s decision to place people on the Confederation Line to hopefully discover faults before the public did and to issue work orders to RTM, which RTM CEO Mario Guerra, in earlier testimony, characterized as “an army” of people whose sole function was to find problems and report them.

Mannu Chowdhury, lawyer for the RTG conglomerate, said Tuesday that approximately 900 work orders were issued to RTM in September 2019, which cost RTG more than $15 million in penalties, while, by comparison, only about 100 were issued in each of the subsequent three months.

“I think that’s the expectation that the public has,” Charter said. “If the issues didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have anything to report on.”

Gaul noted, too, that, shortly before leaving the Ottawa project in December 2019, he proposed creating a troubleshooting task force with OC Transpo and RTM staff.

But Gaul, who, as the testing phase began in late July 2019 had voiced his doubts that the system would pass, added that things improved markedly after the first three of four days of failures forced a reset.

Both Gaul and Charter testified Tuesday about the alteration of testing criteria during that period, reducing the number of two-car trains needed from 15 to 13 and lowering the required scoring results from 98 per cent over 12 days to 96 per cent over just nine of 12 days, which had been the stated requirement in 2017. The scoring change, Gaul said, was initially proposed by former RTG CEO John Lauch and presented in a meeting called by Manconi, then head of OC Transpo. That testimony was at odds with what Lauch said last week, when he testified the idea was Manconi’s in an effort by the city to help RTG pass the testing.

Charter on Tuesday said it was his not entirely confident recollection that Lauch initiated the change. Regardless of who initiated it, though, both Charter and Gaul indicated the city supported it and did not feel it was done simply to make it easier for RTG to pass.

Gaul said the initial 98 per cent minimum score was likely unachievable all along and a 96 per cent pass rate would affect neither safety nor customer experience.

“I had a lot of doubt that 98 per cent was even realistic,” Gaul said. “You’d have one day of 94 per cent or something, then you need a series of days of 100 per cent reliability, and this is a brand new system. You’re not going to get 100 per cent reliability. There are going to be problems, so I’m not sure you could have ever made up the difference if you had a day or two of 94 or 95 per cent.

“From a customer perspective, they would never notice the difference between 96 and 98 per cent.”

Gaul added it was Pat Scrimgeour, OC Transpo​​​​​​’s director of transit customer systems and planning, who explained to him that the reduction in trains from 15 to 13 reflected a lowered expectation of ridership.

The day’s most pointed questioning came late in the afternoon, when Alstom lawyer Michael Valo took Charter to task on several issues, including suggesting Charter gave the system a passing grade on Aug. 16 during testing after being pressured to do so by Manconi — which Charters denied — and questioning how the operator of the train that derailed in September 2021 could possibly fail to notice what was happening at the time. Valo suggested that the operator, who was talking to the control centre about something that smelled like feces, was distracted. Charter countered that the driver was not distracted.

Valo also questioned a number of points in the Mott MacDonald Report, an independent April 2022 review of Stage 1 Confederation Line commissioned by the city.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...tant-testifies

[rocketphish]

'The mayor is loosing his mind' — Trove of WhatsApp messages reveal city's LRT angst
"Our reputation is in tatters…. I’m not concerned about costs at this point"

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Jul 05, 2022 • 10 hours ago • 4 minute read

A furious mayor who was “loosing (sic) his mind” over LRT problems, flattened train wheels, frozen track switches, meddlesome councillors, an axe-wielding vandal and a spilled box of blueberries: These are just some of the headaches that bedevilled the first year of service for Ottawa’s troubled Confederation Line.

The behind the scene warts of LRT operations were revealed Tuesday in a trove of WhatsApp messages entered as evidence by the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Commission.

Thousands of messages on more than 600 pages of documents included conversations between key players like Mayor Jim Watson, city manager Steve Kanellakos, former transit general manager John Manconi, transit directors Pat Scrimgeour and Troy Charter, transit committee chair Allan Hubley and others. They covered the period from testing and launch in the summer of 2019 to winter operations in December 2020.

In one exchange on Nov. 1, 2019, not yet two months into full operation, a frustrated Watson demanded the parallel bus service resume to take strain off the struggling LRT.

“We need parallel service brought back,” Watson messaged. “On Monday. How do we make this happen? Our reputation is in tatters. Please tell me how we bring it back. I’m not concerned about costs at this point. I need reasons how we bring it back as opposed to why we can’t.”

In addition to detailed questions about service times and train availability, Watson also messaged about his own experiences on the train.

“Train 1110 has wrong message. We are heading west and it says destination Blair,” the mayor messaged on Nov. 4.

At one point, Manconi pleaded for some relief:

“Mr. Mayor, I beg you, please, I am getting so many messages from you on multiple channels and your staff,” Manconi messaged on Oct. 28. “I will answer everyone of them. The service is running well … All being actioned. We are drowning in message overload.”

In February, when trains were sidelined by flattened wheels, Manconi messaged Scrimgeour to say the mayor was “loosing his mind.”

“Pat help me out. Mayor is upset. Put out the following tweet immediately. Full service has been running all day. One stoppage of one train as a customer pulled the emergency alarm. Service kept running. No delays.”

Later that day Manconi messaged Charter: “… Mayor is loosing his mind. Troy, what’s going on?”

“Mayor quote ‘I don’t want us to eat it.’ Pat, put out a message,” Manconi wrote.

On Jan. 19, 2020, a furious Manconi complained about frozen track switches that delayed trains during a winter storm and urged staff to hold “Peter” to account, presumably Rideau Transit Group CEO Peter Lauch.

“I am hammering Peter right now,” Manconi messaged Charter.

“Troy, don’t let him win the ‘I am sorry’ BS game. They should have listened to us — flood the line with staff. They didn’t and now we are being destroyed in the media and social media. Don’t cut him any breaks. He’s telling me he’s keeping you informed. I told him I don’t care — they need to execute,” Manconi messaged.

“I can tell you from personal experience I would much rather talk to ‘after-the-fact’ auditors and bean counters about overtime expenditures than to elected officials and the media about failure to deliver reliable service during storms. If Peter had any pride or sense of professional responsibility, he would resign now.”

In one text, Manconi described how a vandal with an axe broke into Tunney’s Pasture Station, smashing a fare kiosk and doing other damage. The man was arrested by Ottawa police. In a lesser problem, Hubley noted someone spilled blueberries on the long escalator at Rideau Station. “Going to be messy!” he messaged.

Citizen Transit Commissioner Sarah Wright-Gilbert also drew the ire of senior managers and Watson when she appeared on a CFRA call-in show.

“Why isn’t someone pulling that public commissioner off the air,” Manconi messaged the group on Oct. 26, 2019. “She is live on CFRA. A call-in asking people to complain about OC Transpo? She is destroying us with misinformation. Destroying the brand and accusing of us of distorting facts. Also talking about congestion. How is this appropriate or fair?”

“Are he and you and Allan and clerk should meet with her when Allan is back and say if attacks don’t stop she will be removed,” Watson replied.

“I too am furious with her. Best advice. Turn off the radio and shut out her nonsense.”

In one exchange on New Year’s Eve 2019, Tom Prendergast, a consultant with STV, laid into train maker Alstom.

“I have NEVER seen a vehicle series experience so many different failure modes of different systems, assemblies and components going through new fleet launch as these Alstom vehicles are. Unfriggin believable to say the least and something that is giving Alstom a ‘black eye’ on. Although going back in memory we have had power problems come and go with no clear understanding of cause so it has been a ‘cat and mouse’ game…”

Periodically during the pages and pages of messages released, Manconi sought to deliver encouragement to his team.

“Folks — transformative change is hard,” he messaged on New Year’s Day 2020. “What we are doing in Ottawa has never been done before and we loose (sic) track of that. Be proud and strong and keep pushing we will get through this. None of this is easy and nobody other than us will know how great we did on so many many fronts. Be proud! Hold your head up high and thank you for all everyone of you have done.”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...itys-lrt-angst

[rocketphish]

How the bar for LRT trial running was lowered — then lowered some more
Inquiry has heard trial run team used 'discretion' to give line a pass

Joanne Chianello · CBC News
Posted: Jul 06, 2022 7:04 AM ET | Last Updated: 12 minutes ago

Among the overwhelming swells of information pouring out of the Ottawa light rail public inquiry each day, there are always a few moments that rise above procurement financial details, engineers' technical talk, and political rhetoric.

On Tuesday, there was the revelation that former city transportation general manager John Manconi now works as a consultant at STV Inc., the firm that advised the city throughout the Confederation Line project and which the city tried to characterize as an independent third party to oversee the LRT's post-derailment return to service.

Later in the day, we heard the LRT operator of the train that derailed leaving Tremblay station last September was communicating with the control room about the smell of human feces on the train.

That led Michel Valo, the lawyer for train-maker Alstom, to suggest the operator was distracted and didn't notice clouds of dust and ballast flying onto the platform or the train scraping on the platform edge.

And then just when you think there's nothing more you can — or want to — learn about the 12-day trial run period, you find out you're wrong.

Because on Tuesday we also discovered that on top of agreeing to (and possibly even suggesting) the idea of lowering the criteria for what was supposed to be 12 consecutive days of a near-perfect simulation of full service, the city also used its "discretion" to issue a pass on a day that should likely have been a fail.

The city lowered the bar for trial running, then lowered it again.

Since late August 2019, it's been difficult to get straight answers about how and when the trial running — that last, critical test phase of the LRT — was changed.

Until now.

From the intense, frequent questioning on the subject, it's clear the commission running the inquiry is every bit as interested in the details of the trial as we are, and possibly for reasons more than just the scoring.

Through testimony from a number of witnesses and information from hundreds of documents posted to the inquiry's website, we've learned the city changed its contract with consortium Rideau Transit Group (RTG) to accept 13 trains instead of 15, beginning on Aug. 16, 2019.

The next day, on Aug. 17, the city and RTG reverted to previously agreed upon criteria from 2017 that would lower the LRT's reliability threshold. Instead of covering 98 per cent of the regularly scheduled kilometres for 12 straight full-service days, Confederation Line trains would only have to hit 96 per cent for nine of them.

The inquiry has heard from several witnesses that 98-per-cent reliability was an unrealistic target for a new system and that 96 per cent would still provide a good customer experience.

It was certainly unrealistic for the Confederation Line, at least in the summer of 2019. Over the 24 days of the trial run period, from July 29 to Aug. 22, the LRT scored 98 per cent only five times. (Notably, the same witnesses who've referred to the 96 per cent target as more than adequate have never mentioned the part about how the system performed terribly for one-quarter of the testing period, but still passed.)

And there's one more detail about the 2017 criteria that matters: there could be no three consecutive days below 94 per cent.

That's because the scorecards show there were actually four straight days where the Confederation Line did not achieve 94 per cent reliability. They were:

Aug. 13, 2019: 91.7 per cent
Aug. 14, 2019: 93.9 per cent
Aug. 15, 2019: 92.3 per cent
Aug. 16, 2019: 92.3 per cent

We've heard from witnesses that reliability around 90 per cent provides, in former RTG CEO Peter Lauch's words, a "horrendous" customer experience. So these are not results to write home about.

The middle two days — the 14th and 15th — were deemed "repeat" days by the trial run evaluation team, and for some reason were not counted in the consecutive day tally.

And then we come to Aug. 16. After hearing how the day was doing on a WhatsApp group chat among city transit officials and their consultants, Manconi wrote at 5:13 p.m: "We can't loose [sic] the day."

Later in the evening, the group was told there was a train stopped due to an on-board computer problem, Manconi repeated his plea: "Launch a spare? Don't loose [sic] the day."

They didn't lose the day — which would have extended the trial running into September. Instead, they used their discretion to issue a pass.

Troy Charter, who was OC Transpo's representative on the trial running review team, testified Tuesday that the issue wasn't due to train issues but poor decisions by the maintenance team.

One worker decided to move a stopped train at Tunney's Pasture to the maintenance storage facility, Charter said. But it then proceeded to fail out on the main line, slowing down service in the late afternoon and evening hours.

The other issue, said Charter, was that Alstom wasn't acting as if there were customers on those trains and was spending too much time trying to solve issues while the trains were on the track, instead of getting them off the line.

The next morning, when discussing the scoring — a pass-or-fail decision was typically made by the review team the day after — Charter shared the Aug. 16 score with the chat group and told them what happened.

"So we pass the day?" asked Manconi.

Charter answered that he would note the maintenance mistakes on the scorecard and "recommend we use discretion and pass the day."

When the city's lawyer asked Charter to explain the process, he said it wasn't a decision he'd make "in isolation."

"The decision of the trial run review team needs to be part of [it]," Charter said. "And we had the independent certifier as part of it."

This might sound reasonable, except for a few issues.

First, Aug. 16 was the fourth consecutive day that the reliability of the Confederation Line scored below 94 per cent, which should have triggered a restart.

Second, the fact that the score review process was overseen by an independent certifier is virtually meaningless. The certifier, as CBC reported earlier this week, is there to check off the boxes of the contract requirements, not get into the weeds of the scoring.

In an earlier discussion on the use of the city's discretion, city rail director Michael Morgan told the WhatsApp chat group that "if we want to give them a pass, the [independent certifier] may give an opinion but is unlikely to intervene."

In fact, the independent certifier team leader, Monica Sechiari of Altus Group, wasn't even at the trial testing, leaving the oversight to a junior colleague who'd only been out of college for four years.

And finally, using discretion to wave away a maintenance mistake that would have caused an actual disruption seems to counter the very purpose of the trial running, which is to mimic full rail service with real people.

The trial run experience was about more than just percentage targets. It reflected so many of the issues being investigated as possible factors that led to early problems with the Confederation Line.

Did the use of milestone payments in the contract put financial pressure on the builders to finish faster than they should have? Was there undue political pressure to open the system? (Mayor Jim Watson had invited a slew of VIPs to a handover ceremony on Aug. 23, 2019, two days before the trial running was completed.)

Was the maintenance team ill-equipped? Did it shoulder an unfair burden, trying to stay on top of a system that was approved again and again, despite its documented defects? How were the corporate and public service leaders behaving in this complex and stressful partnership?

These questions are apparent in the trial running, which perhaps is why the commission has come back to those three-and-a-half weeks in the summer of 2019 again and again.

Alstom's Richard France and the city's former chief safety officer Brandon Richards are set to testify Wednesday, the penultimate day of the public hearings.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...tion-1.6510744

[stolenottawa]

Anyone read the whatsapp chat messages?

Makes me feel a bit bad for Manconi. Definitely not a fun time for him.

[rocketphish]

Maintenance woes dogged LRT from the beginning and led to September 2021 derailment, inquiry hears
"We resourced according to what we thought we were going to get, which was a better performing system, as it turned out.”

Matthew Lapierre, Ottawa Citizen
Jul 06, 2022 • 3 hours ago • 3 minute read

From the start, maintenance staff were playing catch-up to fix problems with Ottawa’s LRT and their work suffered as a result, leading to a downward spiral and, eventually, a derailment, a public inquiry heard Wednesday.

Richard France, an Alstom employee who manages the maintenance side of the LRT operation, testified at the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Public Inquiry that, when he joined the project in 2019, he began hiring more staff to prepare for eventual testing and operation of the Confederation line.

He had prior experience working on transit in Dublin, where a larger rail system was being maintained with only a few more staff than he had on hand in Ottawa.

But, upon his arrival in Ottawa, France found that Ottawa Light Rail Transit Constructors, the consortium that oversaw the construction of the Confederation Line, weren’t giving the maintenance teams access to the tracks and parts of the system.

“It’s a pity,” he said. “We would have liked to have started maintenance earlier, if not start maintenance, get access so we could really learn.

“It’s speculation,” he added, “but my feeling is probably on one hand maybe they didn’t want us out there because we would identify problems that they would then have to deal with, but that wouldn’t be good thinking on their part because, if anything, that would be an opportunity for them.”

There was also no facility where the staff could perform maintenance on the trains, some of which had already travelled many kilometres, leaving them with a massive backlog of maintenance to perform by the time the trial running of the line was scheduled to begin.

From there, the problems continued to add up, leaving maintenance workers scrambling to fix them.

“We weren’t envisaging that there would be so many deficiencies,” France said. “We resourced according to what we thought we were going to get, which was a better performing system, as it turned out.”

In cross-examination by a lawyer for the City of Ottawa, France admitted the city knew about the maintenance woes and was pushing for improvements and more staff.

In September 2021, an LRT train derailed for a second time, and the Transportation Safety Board blamed inconsistent and incomplete maintenance that led to a quality control oversight: bolts not adequately torqued during maintenance.

It wasn’t the first time the same problem had occurred. Brandon Richards, OC Transpo’s chief safety officer at the time, also testified Wednesday that in September 2020, about a year before the second derailment, a bolt was found to be improperly torqued on one train.

It added to a growing concern Richards had about the quality control and assurance being performed by the maintenance teams.

“There was a lot of frustration at that time,” he said. “There were a lot of commitments and there were a lot of failed deadlines that didn’t happen. The expectation was dropping.”

The quality assurance issues continued, culminating in the derailment in September 2021, and, when the system was shut down and inspections were completed on all trains, other quality assurance problems were found.

“There was a clear human factor that ultimately resulted in the critical failure of the train derailing,” he said.

After that derailment, Richards said he made the call to pull some trains out of service so that upgrades could be made — but also to reduce the workload on maintenance staff, who were stretched thin and whose quality of work was beginning to suffer, he said.

Alstom had improved its quality assurance procedures dramatically since the derailment, Richards testified.

Thursday is expected to be the final day of hearings for the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Public Inquiry.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...-inquiry-hears

[rocketphish]

Feds held back LRT Stage 2 money for months because of concerns with system
The city is still waiting on $120M from upper levels of governments for Confederation Line Stage 1

Joanne Chianello · CBC News
Posted: Jul 14, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

The federal government was so worried about issues concerning the Confederation Line earlier this year that it temporarily held back funding payments to the city for LRT Stage 2.

Infrastructure Canada "has delayed reimbursing Stage 2 claims submitted since the derailments and launch of the public inquiry in order to assess payment implications, including potential public sensitivity," according to a ministerial briefing note completed on March 23.

The government ultimately decided to pay the city's quarterly claim for the massive LRT extension project, and the city has told CBC the federal government has transferred all $576 million due so far for Stage 2.

But the documents paint a picture of concern about the LRT among federal officials.

No wonder.

The 12.5-kilometre east-west light rail system derailed twice last year, shutting down the service for months. That prompted two Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigations and led the province to impose new conditions on the city last November before it released the final $60 million in funding for the massive project.

Ontario Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney followed that up by calling a public inquiry into the Confederation Line, which is ongoing.

The transportation ministry said it won't comment until the inquiry concludes.
Feds looked at 4 'risks'

Officials at the Infrastructure Department, who oversee the $1.1 billion the federal government pledged to LRT Stage 2, drafted a list last November of four potential "risks" to the extension project. They were:

• Alstom Citadis Spirit train: The light-rail vehicles operating on the existing Confederation Line have already been purchased for Stage 2. In 2017, the city agreed to buy an additional 38 vehicles for about $300 million, well in advance of the LRT trains being proven in service.
• Potential design and construction issues: Infrastructure Canada pointed out that the city itself suggested in its notice of default that there could be design or construction issues with the Confederation Line. The ongoing inquiry has revealed that train-maker Alstom believes the sharp curves on the track have contributed to the August 2019 derailment, although the theory is being disputed by Rideau Transit Group (RTG).
• Relationship woes between city and SNC-Lavalin: The Montreal-based engineering giant SNC-Lavalin is one of the key partners in RTG — along with ACS Infrastructure and Ellis Don — and is the sole contractor for the Trillium Line Stage 2 extension. In its document, Infrastructure Canada points out that the city and SNC-Lavlain were "having difficulty reaching consensus on who is to blame for current Stage 2 schedule delays," adding that "recent escalations between city and RTG will not help."
• Public sensitivity: The government was concerned about the public's "openly voiced frustration with the system," noting that the LRT had "garnered significant negative media attention."

By March 2022, officials appeared satisfied that "none of these linkages provide grounds for federal funds to be withheld for Stage 2 claims" but added that "future payments will be subject to ongoing monitoring." And they believed that the city had taken the appropriate measures, including by hiring external consultants TRA Associates, to get the system back on track.

Among the government's biggest concerns appeared to be the optics of the federal government continuing to pay the city for Stage 2, when there were so many big questions around Stage 1.

"There is potential for negative public reaction should it become publicized that Stage 2 payments are being made in the current context," the documents said.

The March briefing notes pointed out that the Stage 2 project is "notably delayed" and that even though the two stages of the LRT are distinct projects, that "is not so clear to the general public."

While LRT Stage 2 payments from the upper levels of government appear on track, the city is still waiting for the last $120 million for Stage 1.

The provincial and federal governments each pledged $600 million to the first stage. Because of the way the funding was devised, the federal contributions cannot exceed those of the province. That means if the province is holding back its last $60 million, then the federal government has to do the same.

However, according to the released documents, Infrastructure Canada supported the letter form the province, as it "ensures that neither the remaining federal nor provincial funds for Stage 1 will flow until outstanding issues are addressed."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...rned-1.6517952

[J.OT13]

Interesting how the Province threatened to hold funding, yet the Feds ended up doing it.

Kind of wondering about this:

"having difficulty reaching consensus on who is to blame for current Stage 2 schedule delays,"

So SNC blaming the City? I guess it is the City's fault for hiring them even though they failed the technical scoring.

Reminds of the Phoenix Pay System. IBM put in a bid, but warned the Feds that their system sucked, won anyway cause they were the cheapest.

[eltodesukane]

Letter to Ottawa LRT Commission
Posted on July 18, 2022
DRAFT FOR REVIEW
To the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Public Inquiry:
...
1-The City of Ottawa chose the wrong vehicle type for its high-volume, high-capacity core service.
...

https://manifestomultilinko2.wordpress.com/

[rocketphish]

LRT inquiry: Rail projects are a gamble with unfavourable odds for project owners, commissioner hears
According to one researcher, 80 years of data have indicated that two out of 1,000 rail projects deliver on budget, schedule and benefits, and there's a 70-per-cent risk that a rail project will exceed the budget

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Jul 28, 2022 • 12 hours ago • 3 minute read

Perhaps the City of Ottawa was doomed from the start of planning a new LRT system.

“If you decide to build rail projects, you have the odds against you,” Bent Flyvbjerg, an expert in mega-projects, told the LRT inquiry commissioner during a panel discussion on Thursday.

Justice William Hourigan heard presentations from three experts on the subject of contracting projects as he gathered more information about the circumstances that have led to breakdowns on the Confederation Line.

The panel was the last scheduled session for the inquiry before participants put forward their closing submissions to the commission and Hourigan writes his final report.

Flyvbjerg, a researcher and author, has been an adviser to government and businesses. He’s a professor at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and the IT University of Copenhagen.

According to Flyvbjerg, 80 years of data have indicated that two out of 1,000 rail projects deliver on budget, schedule and benefits. He said there’s a 70-per-cent risk that a rail project will exceed the budget.

Flyvbjerg said challenges exist for both government and private companies under traditional procurement models and public-private partnerships (P3).

The LRT inquiry commission has dug into the procurement rationale for Ottawa’s $2.2-billion Stage 1 LRT system, whose design, construction and maintenance program is based on a P3 model with the Rideau Transit Group (RTG).

RTG’s parent companies are ACS Infrastructure, SNC-Lavalin and EllisDon.

The inquiry commissioner has heard the city’s original $2.1-billion budget for Stage 1 set in 2009 didn’t take into account inflation. The city changed the design, especially with the downtown tunnel, to protect the budget.

There has been $115 million in council-approved contingency spending on the project, increasing the cost to $2.245 billion for Stage 1. The railway was contracted to be done in May 2018, but it didn’t open until September 2019 after a significant construction delay. A sinkhole swallowed part of Rideau Street above the LRT tunnel in 2016.

Flyvbjerg said project planners in general often assume there will be no geological problems and they underestimate risks. Some assume theirs is a “unique” project that can’t be compared with any other, so nothing can be learned from other projects, he said.

Following a review of the sinkhole incident in 2017, the city’s then-rail construction director Steve Cripps said in an interview the soft ground conditions in that area were intimately known by tunnelling experts with RTG.

“There was a lot of geotechnical investigation in that area. Everyone knew this. RTG knew this. They took appropriate precautions. (RTG has) world-class tunnelling experts as part of that team. They took appropriate steps, but there are risks with tunnelling and these things happen,” Cripps said.

Flyvbjerg also criticized using “bespoke” elements that haven’t been used in other projects during the discussion Thursday.

The Alstom Citadis Spirit train was designed for Ottawa LRT.

There has been heavy scrutiny during the inquiry on the P3 approach to procuring the LRT project. The model required RTG to secure financing and meet milestones to unlock payments from the city. The contract continues during the maintenance period, with RTG’s maintenance affiliate receiving payments from the city based on LRT availability.

Matti Siemiatycki said P3s have been used in Canada for 30 years, noting they were created to address the problem of “misaligned interests” in procurement.

Siemiatycki, the University of Toronto director of the Infrastructure Institute at the School of Cities, said P3 models usually cost more money, yet governments like to use the P3s so risks of a project are transferred to the private-sector organization. Governments pay more upfront so the private sector can assume the risks.

“It’s rather like having an insurance policy against risks materializing,” Siemiatycki said.

The P3 risk transfer and the “fixed-price” contract were a big selling point for the LRT project in Ottawa.

Siemiatycki described the emerging “alliance” model for contracts where a joint organization is created between the public and private organizations and the team works together in the same office.

Anne Stafford, an accounting and finance professor at the Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester, said the public sector still bears significant costs in P3s, even if it thinks all the risks are transferred to the private-sector partner.

Stafford said accountability in a P3 is often muddied because a private organization is most accountable to its shareholders, not the public. The project finances are less transparent to the public, especially since the private partner requires commercial confidentiality, Stafford said.

“The project as a whole is straddling the boundary between the public and the private sectors and therefore we have a lack of clarity on public accountability,” Stafford said.

jwilling@postmedia.com
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...issioner-hears

[J.OT13]

Article on the LRT inquiry:

https://thenarwhal.ca/ottawa-lrt-public-inquiry/

What stands out to me... are the pictures. Looks like a subway system in some other city. A few have a cool "gritty" look to them.

[rocketphish]

LRT inquiry closing statements find a little common ground for city and RTG
Inquiry commissioner granted extension, final report to be done by end of November

Joanne Chianello · CBC News
Posted: Aug 16, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

After hundreds of hours of testimony, weeks of public hearings and a lot of finger pointing, the city and the consortium that built the Confederation Line finally agree on two things: higher levels of government need to more directly involved in pricing major infrastructure projects and city officials need to be more transparent about how those projects are going.

The provincially appointed commission conducting the Ottawa Light Rail Transit public inquiry posted the closing statements of nine parties involved in the process Monday.

Many of the statements included recommendations — Rideau Transit Group (RTG) and its various affiliated companies made five key suggestions, while the city submitted 23.

While RTG and the city are often at odds when it comes to the Confederation Line, they did agree that the provincial government needs to provide more guidance when setting the target price for mega projects.

For the Confederation Line, Mayor Jim Watson fixated on a price tag of $2.1 billion during the 2010 municipal election, even though that figure was an estimate. The commission heard that, among other things, the estimate didn't take into account so-called "optimism bias" — an established phenomenon where parties in a project base their assumptions on a best-case scenario.

Optimism bias was cited by former RTG CEO Riccardo Cosentino on the first day of the public hearings to explain, in part, why RTG submitted LRT completion dates that were missed.

And it's up to public sector to correct for optimism bias, not the private sector, says RTG.

"Optimism bias is something that applies to every player in complex projects; it is a structural problem inherent to the system itself and therefore requires a structural solution," according to RTG's closing statement.

The city seems to agree.

Although it doesn't specially reference optimism bias in its recommendations, it told the commission that the provincial agency Infrastructure Ontario should consider factors set out in the UK's Green Book during its risk analysis process.

The Green Book is the UK treasury department's massive guide to help officials develop proposals. Among other things, it specifically discusses adjusting for optimism bias "to provide a more realistic assessment of the initial estimates of costs, benefits and time taken to implement a project."

The city also recommended that contributions from other levels of government be finalized later in the procurement process.

For the Confederation Line, a price tag of $1.8 billion was set in 2009, but it didn't account for inflation or for the purchase of land. Each of the provincial and federal governments promised $600 million, which left the city having to shell out $900 million, for a total of $2.1 billion — a budget the commission heard was considered unrealistically low by many.

"The process for funding and cost sharing of mega projects should be reorganized to reflect the complexity of the project and to account for procurement and delivery risks," the city argues in its closing statement.

The city's closing statement also alluded to the fact that it did not expect the province and federal governments to withhold $120 million from the final payment, which "placed an unexpected burden on the city."

RTG argued both during the hearings, and again in its closing statement, that there was excessive political pressure to launch the LRT, pointing to how Watson announced in July 2019 that the rail line would open in September, even though the trial testing hadn't started yet.

The consortium calls for limiting "political interference" and improving transparency as a project unfolds.

"When it is known to a municipality or other public authority that a transit project may have challenges (as is commonly the case), such issues should be clearly and honestly stated to the public," RTG said in its statement.

"The public deserves to know. It is their transit system and issues on the system can cause significant disruptions to their lives."

In its recommendations on governance, the city makes a similar plea for more openness, but speaks to keeping council better informed — which, in most cases, would also keep the public better informed.

"Staff need to be aware of potential ambiguities and lack of clarity in reporting on highly technical issues and need to ensure that adequate opportunities are given for council to ask questions and receive fulsome answers."

The people of Ottawa will have to wait another three months for the official findings and recommendations from commissioner Justice William Hourigan.

Considering the commission has received more than a million documents, interviewed 90 witness for hundreds of hours, it's no surprise Hourigan asked Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney for an extension to deliver the report beyond the original deadline of Aug. 31.

The final LRT public inquiry report is now to be delivered by the end of November.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...ents-1.6551925

[rocketphish]

City argues contractors should shoulder blame for LRT issues in its public inquiry closing statement

Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
Aug 16, 2022 • 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

The City of Ottawa pushed back against claims that the conduct of its staff or Mayor Jim Watson played any role in problems with the LRT system in a lengthy closing statement delivered to the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Public Inquiry.

“(Rideau Transit Group) let the City down and it is RTG that should be called to account in respect of the issues affecting reliability of the system so that transit riders in the city can rely on this new system that they bought and paid for. Taxpayers should not bear the burden of private sector failures,” wrote the city’s legal counsel in the document.

Ongoing issues — from delays to derailments to wheel cracking and other problems — have frustrated members of the public, as well as transit advocates and members of city council.

The city’s counsel for the inquiry argued private contractors involved in the project should be held responsible “for the historic and ongoing failures in the design, construction and maintenance of the LRT.”

In a press release on the 105-page closing statement Monday, the city said its “strong desire (is) to ensure RTG and its subcontractors are held accountable.”

“Ottawa residents are rightfully frustrated that the LRT has not always lived up to expectations,” the city’s statement said.

“Although the project was completed on budget, unlike the majority of similar projects, taxpayers have continued to bear the burden of private sector failures in the operations of the Confederation Line.”

The city and RTG have been battling each other on several fronts, including on a city notice of default related to the two train derailments in 2021 and the delay in opening the 12.5-kilometre LRT line.

Earlier this year, RTG claimed $189.7 million in damages allegedly caused by the City of Ottawa in a countersuit related to the Confederation Line’s construction delay.

The countersuit and statement of defence were filed in April as part of a case launched by the city over the delay in opening the LRT system, which welcomed customers on Sept. 14, 2019.

The city’s closing statement to the public inquiry rejects suggestions made during the inquiry that decisions by its staff, political pressure from Mayor Watson to make sure the project was on time and on budget, and limited communications with council about the system’s readiness to launch were among factors that played into issues with the LRT.

It repeats the city’s initial concerns that the inquiry had been called by the provincial government “as much for political reasons as to help the public understand the problems with the system.”

The city argues those concerns were accentuated by the approach taken by commission counsel in its investigation and cross-examination of city representatives and consultants during the public hearings, which ran between mid-June and early July, compared to other witnesses.

“It appeared at times that the public sector was on trial. The city was criticized both for being too hard on RTG and too soft,” the closing statement said.

“A significant amount of time was spent examining the City’s conduct with respect to trial running, while almost no time was devoted to examining the technical issues…”

Pre-launch trial running for Ottawa’s Stage 1 LRT was one area of discussion during the inquiry. The trial run criteria were lowered from a 98-per-cent performance requirement to 96 per cent. Multiple councillors complained to the commission that information about the trial runnings was withheld from most members of council, something the city’s closing statement defended as part of the routine delegation of authority to staff.

“More importantly, having councillors debate technical issues, when they lack the technical knowledge possessed by City staff and its advisors, not only would have been unproductive, it could have risked improper and misinformed decisions being made.”

The closing statement specifically argued that Watson behaved correctly, saying he did not interfere with staff decision-making or intentionally mislead council.

Among its more than 20 recommendations to the inquiry are that the city should “clearly communicate with council” on when it plans to report and about what information at the outset of a project.

It also recommended an independent review of performance, deductions and the administration of the payment mechanism could be conducted for the first year of service.

Inquiry commissioner Justice William Hourigan has until the end of November to submit a final report with conclusions and recommendations.

The entire closing statement from the city is available at https://www.ottawalrtpublicinquiry.c...-of-Ottawa.PDF


With files from Jon Willing, Postmedia staff

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...sing-statement

[SL123]

LRT inquiry report set to come out next week

CBC News · Posted: Nov 23, 2022 12:15 PM ET | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago



More than a year after the Ontario government announced it would launch a public inquiry into what went wrong with Ottawa's light rail network, the findings of the months-long investigation will soon be made public.

In a Wednesday morning statement, inquiry commissioner Justice William Hourigan said the report will come out Nov. 30 and will provide answers to such questions as what made the Confederation Line so unreliable and why it derailed twice last year.

"We made a commitment to the people of Ottawa," Hourigan said. "We said we would find out why problems occurred in the construction and maintenance of the LRT, and how to avoid these in the future. I believe we have done that."

The inquiry will release the report simultaneously on the inquiry's website, as well as at a news conference at Ottawa's Shaw Centre.

The commissioner is also expected to make an in-person statement.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...3mHlyxA5cqo32s

[rocketphish]

LRT inquiry to issue final report Nov. 30

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Nov 23, 2022 • 13 minutes ago • 1 minute read

Ottawans will learn the findings of the provincial inquiry into the city’s troubled LRT next week when the commission releases its final report on Nov. 30.

“We made a commitment to the people of Ottawa. We said we would find out why problems occurred in the construction and maintenance of the LRT, and how to avoid these in the future. I believe we have done that,” the inquiry’s commissioner, Justice William Hourigan, said in a media release Wednesday.

The report will be released on the Inquiry’s website, ottawalrtpublicinquiry.ca, at 11 a.m. A concurrent news conference will be livestreamed on the inquiry’s website.

In more than two months of hearings, the inquiry heard hundreds of hours of testimony, interviewed more than 90 witnesses and received more than one million pages of evidence as it examined what went wrong during the construction, operation and maintenance of the Confederation Line.

The acrimony between the city and the companies responsible for building and operating the $2.1-billion system played out publicly during the inquiry, with each side pointing the finger at the other for the delays and breakdowns that have bedevilled the train.

In its closing statement, the city said the private contractors hired for the project were responsible “for the historic and ongoing failures in the design, construction and maintenance of the LRT.”

The companies, in turn, complained that the city had set “unrealistic expectations” for the LRT, even though its own advisors had warned that such a complex system couldn’t be built and launched without glitches.

Hourigan’s report was originally due at the end of August, but the province granted it a three-month extension, pushing the delivery date past the October municipal election.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...-report-nov-30

[rocketphish]

LRT public inquiry has cost taxpayers $14.5M so far
Province has spent about $10M, while the city has shelled out $4.5M

Joanne Chianello · CBC News
Posted: Nov 25, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 hours ago

The results of the public inquiry into what caused the array of problems with the Confederation Line — including two derailments last year — won't be known until next week, but the price tag is already becoming clear.

So far, the inquiry, called by Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney a year ago, has cost roughly $14.5 million in public funds.

The commission heading it up has spent about $10 million, paid for by provincial taxpayers. And in a city report released to council's finance and economic development committee earlier this month, it was revealed that local taxpayers have shelled out $4.5 million.

Those figures don't include the millions undoubtedly incurred by the private entities that participated in the inquiry, including train-maker Alstom and Rideau Transit Group, which oversaw the design, building and long-term maintenance of the $2.1-billion line.

The costs are largely due to the army of lawyers involved in the inquiry, the massive number of documents it handled and the logistics of holding this summer's public hearings.

The commission interviewed more than 90 witnesses and examined more than 40 of them during four consecutive weeks of public hearings in June and July.

All of those interviews were transcribed word-for-word and posted on the inquiry's website, as were the livestreams of the public hearings.

More than one million documents were filed, which takes resources to organize. The city, for example, says it has shelled out about $890,000 for date and file transfer services.

The costs don't come as a surprise. When former mayor Jim Watson and some other councillors voted against calling a judicial inquiry — which is similar, but not exactly the same, as a public inquiry — one of their arguments was that the proceedings could cost up to $20 million.

For example, the judicial inquiry into Hamilton's Red Hill Valley Parkway, which that city's council agreed to in 2019, was estimated to cost $11 million originally.

Its price tag is now up to $26 million.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...lion-1.6663458

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

[B]LRT public inquiry has cost taxpayers $14.5M so far
Province has spent about $10M, while the city has shelled out $4.5M

So, how many km of tunneled LRT could that have been built?