OC Transpo still won't say whether it's paying contractor for suboptimal LRT service
Councillor pushes for public answers on who's on the hook for Line 1 service disruption
Arthur White-Crummey · CBC News
Posted: May 14, 2026 2:03 PM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours ago
City staff are refusing to publicly answer a city councillor’s questions about whether OC Transpo is currently withholding payments to its contractor due to LRT service disruptions — and about who will pay for a long-term fix.
Line 1 of the LRT has been operating with single-car service since Jan. 21 owing to concerns over metal flaking off inside the cartridge bearing assemblies, which join the axles to the wheels. Partial double-car service was restored on Thursday, but OC Transpo said it will take until mid-June to get back to full service.
Private consortium Rideau Transit Group (RTG) built the system and has a contract to maintain it through its arm Rideau Transit Maintenance. In exchange, the city is paying the consortium about $4 million to $5 million each month.
At a transit committee meeting on Thursday, Capital ward Coun. Shawn Menard said that, as he understands it, those payments were withheld starting in January. He asked whether that’s still the case as the service disruption drags on.
City lawyer Taffy Nahas said those are ongoing “commercial issues” that should not be discussed at a public meeting, and city staff did not answer Menard’s question.
Troy Charter, associate general manager of OC Transpo, said the information was provided at an in-camera meeting, behind closed doors.
“I don’t think that should be in camera,” Menard said. “It’s public information … just a simple yes or no would be helpful.”
Charter would only say that OC Transpo is “having productive conversations with our partners” and is “leveraging the city’s rights under the project agreement.”
Menard called the lack of public information “disappointing.”
Grant Bailie, the CEO at Rideau Transit Group, also declined to comment on the payment issue, saying it would be “best addressed by the city.”
OC Transpo made the decision to take the majority of Line 1 train cars off the rails due to the flaking metal, known as spalling, and worries it could cause a catastrophic failure. As a result, it is not allowing any car with axles above 100,000 kilometres of mileage to run.
Charter has previously said that OC Transpo will hold RTG accountable under the contract, but Bailie wouldn’t say whether RTG accepts that it is in fact accountable for the disruptions.
“We are focused on the service recovery for next month and we’ll continue to support OC Transpo in terms of customer experience and service,” he said.
“The commercial discussions will follow later. We’re really focused on getting the service back right now.”
Bailie and Noah Heulitt, vice president of services North America at train-maker Alstom, came to transit committee to update councillors on work to restore double-car service.
The plan is to replace the problem parts from a stockpile that now stands above 300 cartridge bearing assemblies, according to Heulitt, and to install sensors that can detect problems in near real time. That’s supposed to allow OC Transpo to lift the 100,000 kilometre restriction.
Alstom is also working on a longer-term solution: redesigning the axle system itself.
Bailie said they now have a design and are working on a prototype of the new system, but he said it could take “a couple years” until it’s ready.
He said that redesign should allow OC Transpo to remove containment measures like speed restrictions around curves.
Menard also tried to get staff to explain who is paying for the axle redesign, calling it a “pertinent public question.”
But Nahas also called those “commercial issues” better discussed at an in-camera meeting, and staff did not answer.
The axle redesign was launched to respond to an earlier bearing issue connected to a 2021 derailment, so it’s unclear whether it will solve the more recent spalling issue detected much later.
That’s because Alstom and RTG still don’t know for sure what is causing the spalling, since a root cause analysis is still ongoing. Heulitt could not give a date for when it will be ready, saying they’re still collecting additional data.
Bailie said the intent, at least, is for the redesign to solve “any latent concerns.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/oc...tor-for-suboptimal-lrt-service-9.7199699
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