LRT: City, Gower Don’t Have A Clue: WHOPPER WATCH

Published 05/27/2024 · Updated 06/10/2024

whopper.watch .12.26

The city “cannot accept that it doesn’t need a redesign.”
Transportation commissioner Glen Gower on Alstom stopping research into a new wheel hub assembly that the city maintains caused Confederation Line derailments

Train-builder Alstom and Rideau Transit Group can’t agree on the cause of derailments on the Confederations Line.

The problem baffled the Transportation Safety Board, a world leader in accident investigations, which could only find possible causes or contributing factors to the crashes.

Now Alstom has stopped research into a new wheel hub assembly for the train, no doubt because it doesn’t believe the assembly was the cause of the rail mishaps … or at least it isn’t sure, like the TSB.

So here is one thing on which The Bulldog is absolutely certain. The city, no expert in train building, doesn’t have the faintest idea.

And one more certainty. Gower doesn’t have a clue.

The Alstom assembly fix was touted to be the solution to the ridiculous Ottawa LRT woes. Now we discover that Alstom doesn’t agree and that it has stopped researching and building that “solution” after years of work.

Gower bought into that as a solution. That solution doesn’t work whether by Alstom’s decision or the fact that the assemblies aren’t the problem.

This is what happens when you put people in standing committee top jobs based on their political malleability rather than ability.

Gower ran a tiny news operation in Stittsville, then ran for Ottawa City Council and won.

Operating a pint-sized community news shop then being promoted to run a $6.4-billion transportation disaster is way, way, way above the chairman’s pay grade.

Need proof? Two years into finding a solution to this problem leaves us no closer to an answer than two years ago.

Gower can’t run the transit commission. That’s excruciatingly transparent.

He should resign but the bigger problem is who on this challenged city council could successfully navigate through one of the biggest government disasters in Canadian history.

Sadly, there isn’t anyone.

Ken Gray

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