Transpo Looks Like South End Of North-Bound Donkey

This is an excerpt from the newsletter of Barrhaven West Councillor David Hill:

Transit Riders

1. The city has commissioned a report from Mott MacDonald that will consolidate the technical analyses of Alstom and RTG on the 2021 derailment root cause. This is an important issue as this will translate to the OC Transpo long-term rail fixes for Confederation line. What this means to you is that we will be able to transition from an interim model of extreme mitigations to actual hardware and procedural fixes to make your Line 1 trips safer and more effective.

Above is a portion of a video provided by Hill with good solid incisive questions that should be asked of our transit officials.

They are rather basic questions and it is very surprising that OC Transpo officials either don’t know the answer to them or aren’t interested in answering them. Open, caring and inclusive should be the watchwords of city officials. They should be but they are not.

It also rather looks like Beacon Hill-Cyrville Councillor Tim Tierney is not interested in the questions by Hill. Hill deserves credit for asking these questions and councillors should politely listen to them. Tierney looks more interested in the video of his pudding cup.

Below you see a way that U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson found during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis to attempt to get an answer from the reluctant Soviet representative. Polite and firm:

On city council during the Watson epoch and continuing into the Sutcliffe years, such questioning from Stevenson would not be perceived as being “collegial”. Hill’s questions are quite tame.

Tierney should be following up on Hill’s questions to get a straight answer from such a basic issue. He is showing more interest in his pudding cup than a critical issue with light rail.

Hill’s questions were much tamer than those of Stevenson above and that line of questioning should be encouraged.

And it is unconscionable that OC Transpo officials are not prepared to answer Hill’s questions.

Hill could remind the OC Transpo officials that they work for residents of this city and should be expected to answer good honest questions from a representative of those residents.

Power at city hall emanates from the people, not from officials nor councillors who are uncomfortable with those questions being asked.

Hill should be waiting until hell freezes over to get an answer to those important and very basic questions.

Are OC Transpo official telling Hill and taxpayers that they don’t know why they reduced speeds on a part of the line below the already reduced limit? And they did it because Alstom recommended it? Did no one ask why? And what was the reason the trains were slowed beyond the already-reduced speed? Your agent does not believe that OC Transpo didn’t know why the extra reduction was necessary? You don’t reduce speeds to a crawl on the train without asking why. That’s human nature. And if Transpo officials did not ask why, maybe they shouldn’t be Transpo officials.

Transpo honcho Renee Amilcar says it was due to an “abundance of caution”. Is that a technical term? Is that a term that is used by a transit operation that doesn’t use an “abundance of caution”? Witness the recent auditor general’s report on Transpo safety inspections or the provincial LRT inquiry. Abundance of caution? Transpo knows the words but doesn’t practise them. Again, look at the inquiry and AG report for confirmation.

Not answering a question when knowing the answer to a representative of the public is completely unacceptable. It disrespects council and the people council represents. And those people, to use an abundance of caution in explaining this carefully, are the people of Ottawa who city hall do not respect.

It will be interesting to read the final report of the coroner into the Westboro bus crash.

To add to this circus, Transpo confirmed that they commissioned a report on two reports looking into the root cause of an LRT derailment. A report on two reports concerning the root cause of LRT difficulties. Will they be issuing a report on the report on one report and then another report?

Transpo officials also said they would be releasing the report on the report and another report in the “next quarter”. Given Transpo’s difficulty answering straight-forward questions and their propensity for using the especially slow municipal standard time, can we be sure we will get the report in the next quarter? Is Transpo using the Gregorian calendar (today’s calendar) or the OC Transpo calendar which reports a date target and then misses it by two years?

In not answering Hill’s question on the rail-speed reduction, Transpo looks like the south end of a north-bound donkey. It is at that point that Hill should have waited for an answer, as Stevenson would say, until hell freezes over.

Hill is turning into one of the more able councillors on this marginal council. He needs to be tougher on his follow-up questions.

Ken Gray

This newsletter excerpt is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours.

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