LRT ‘Remarkable’ Achievement: LEIPER

I’m told multiple trains were running end-to-end from Tunney’s to Trim today. It’s a remarkable achievement for the eastern extension. Hooking Orleans up to train service is going to improve the quality of life for tens of thousands of people. https://t.co/S2moOtrWi8

— Jeff Leiper (He/Him) ? ? ??? (@JLeiper) October 5, 2024

Oh come on.

Many jurisdictions just build light rail … and it works. That’s kind of what you expect.

It’s like buying a house. Oh sure, you’ll get a few things to fix off the top but generally the house works. It doesn’t fall off its foundation three or four times (or in light-rail parlance “derail”).

But in Ottawa, building the LRT extension to the east is a “remarkable” achievement, according to Kitchissippi Councillor Jeff Leiper on X. Many other remarkable achievements have occurred during Leiper’s reign of error over Westboro and environs:

• Part of an Ottawa City Council that practised noversight over an expensive lemon of LRT;
• Not realizing that light rail is primarily used for in-traffic travel and not for dedicated rights-of-way like the Ottawa example. On a dedicated road-bed, you put heavier trains with high capacity, probably diesel like the Trilium Line, that are much more reliable than light rail … meant for heavy loads, many passengers and bad weather. In other words, Leiper and company chose the wrong train on the wrong road-bed so the project was pooched before the first shovel was put in;
• Two years since the last election and OC Transpo is throwing hub assemblies and axles as often as Sandy Koufax threw fastballs;
• Building an eBus system using clean electricity rather than diesel except that the energy is not so clean. Generators powering the production of electricity use natural gas. And if the Norway, Edmonton and Minnesota examples play to form, eBuses are likely to be unreliable in cold weather;
• The O-Train has been at times dangerous, wonky or simply not working at all.

We could go on.

So the O-Train has been remarkable alright … in so many unusual ways.

Just finish the horribly late light rail and lose the self-congratulation. And while you’re at it, find creative ways to fix the hole in the budget caused by the massively expensive failure that is LRT.

Remarkable this O-Train … to people who have perhaps bumped their heads.

Ken Gray

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