Don’t Expect LRT Extensions Soon: THE VOTER
Since I’m a devil for punishment and also because I genuinely wanted to know what it is they do, I watched the video of the LRT sub-committee meeting from Friday morning.
The meeting, since it’s LRT-related I suppose, started late and the show started with a viewing of Kanata North Councillor Cathy Curry eating an orange with her mouth open. She followed that by looking more bored than most councillors manage on camera for the whole meeting.
Trillium Line Late, But Not Rushed: WHOPPER WATCH
The first hour or so of the two-hour meeting was taken up with a slide show giving details of where each of the stations was in its development broken up by video from a drone that overflew the entire length of the east, west and south extensions of both the Trillium and Confederation Lines. It also showed the state of the original section of Trillium which has been double-tracked in some places.
Because of the extremely exhilarating content of that presentation, I had to step away from the video and will try to watch the rest of it later. What I came away with is a sense that we shouldn’t hold our breath if we plan on being on those extensions any time soon.
And that if you’re the general manager of transit services Renée Amilcar, your staff no longer follows previous standards of committee decorum but refers to you as “Renée” both during their presentation and while responding to questions.
I expect that whenever their next meeting rolls around, I will find myself with something very pressing to do.
The Voter is a respected community activist and long-time Bulldog commenter who prefers to keep her identity private.
The breath-taking LRT subcommittee meeting of Sept. 29.
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Voter, don’t bother to watch the remainder of the meeting – it didn’t get any better. Does this committee bring any value to the LRT agenda or are they there to nod and agree no matter how dismal the presentation. When is the city going to do away with ZOOM meetings for participants? Zoom is great for transparency and for letting the public see what is going on. But shouldn’t the participants all be in the same room , paying attention not eating and window gazing?
Thanks, Been There.
I was really hoping that the meeting would improve and something of substance would happen. From the commentary to the slide show, it appears that they go through the same thing every meeting with an excruciating blow by blow on each of the stations and the stretches of track in between.
If I were a member of the Transit Commission, I would be beyond thrilled that this piece had been hived off and given to the Subcommittee. There is no way people need to sit through an hour-long presentation to get an update on the progress of the construction. Numerous times he reminded people where the station in question had been the last time they’d had a briefing. It wasn’t quite this bad but along the lines of “Last time, you’ll recall two nails were driven in. As you can see, we now have four nails driven in and expect to have all eight driven in by the end of October.”
I asked myself what the City and/or OC Transpo were paying out in wages/salaries for the people sitting around that table when most of them could have been better occupied doing other things. Then add on the time of the people preparing the presentation and facilitating the meeting through technical supports. None of the discussion I heard was earth-shattering and the level of questioning was pretty tame.
Value-added for the Subcommittee? Other than to be able to say that a “close eye” is being kept on progress of the project, not sure there’s much. I’m not confident that this is the way to provide oversight and ensure the kind of fiascos of the past are avoided. If the current construction projects go off the rails, pre- or post-passenger service, will this Subcommittee’s work have done anything to stop it? Will they hold any responsibility?