City’s LRT Overrun Now 16% And Rising

02/29/2024

Note that the $145-million-plus overrun represents a budget overrun of just less than 7 per cent. However, since the city’s initial share of the $2.1 billion project was $900 million, that $145 million represents a more than 16 per cent budget overrun at the city level … and counting.

The “and counting” is important. It is my understanding, as related to me by a former city elected official, that the city has already settled with its insurance provider, for less than 10 per cent of the costs at issue in a lawsuit with the consortium that built Stage 1, Rideau Transit Group.

This is on a project former mayor Jim Watson boasted was fixed-cost, iron-clad and thus risk-free. Might be a follow question for the Citizen on its two-page advertorial in the entertainment section from a couple of weeks ago.

Ron Benn

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