LRT: ‘This Time Is Different:’ SUTCLIFFE
Ottawans hope Mayor Mark Sutcliffe is correct on the current light-rail repairs. “This time is different,” he says.
Those are words that will taint him for years if he is not correct.
Below is a video from the mayor:
We are finally working on the root causes and not just the symptoms. Nous travaillons enfin sur les causes profondes et pas seulement sur les symptômes. Safety-Transparency-Effectiveness-Permanent Solutions #STEPS pic.twitter.com/ZZhpV2tduf
— Mark Sutcliffe (@_MarkSutcliffe) August 2, 2023
From the outside at least and with respect, Sutcliffe looks as though he is wrong.
The expert Transportation Safety Board says the axles and bearings meet industry standards. The problem is the basic design of the train and the new powerful engines.
So Alstom, the train’s builder, wants to redesign the hub assemblies. Well, that is the symptom, according to the TSB. And Sutcliffe’s polished words can’t change that. Facts are facts. The TSB is very good at what it does.
What OC Transpo is doing at present is replacing parts that have failed with new parts that are the same as the old. So they will fail, too. There’s no getting around that. There are hundreds of those failed parts piled up at the Belfast Yards.
So we could be optimistic and we hope the mayor is correct. And maybe Alstom can produce hub assemblies that can stand up to the unusual pressures of a faulty train design. It will be a surprise but a welcome one.
That said, given the recent performance of the LRT and the people designing the new parts who designed the old parts and this horrible system, the odds are poor that this will work. But miracles happen. For this to succeed, it will take a not a standard miracle but an enormous miracle.
We’re Not The Blithering Idiots In Rail Mess: WHOPPER WATCH
The city and Transpo are doing the same wrong thing over and over again. Yet they expect better results. Look at the form chart over four very long and unsafe years. This dog don’t hunt.
Now Sutcliffe expects it to hunt by doing the same thing over again and beginning a charm offensive. We’ve heard these same reassuring words from the mayor’s mentor Jim Watson.
Words won’t fix this train. Drastic action will. And how much are you willing to wager that after waiting 18 months for a new hub design, it doesn’t work, too? Four years of mistakes don’t change overnight with the same people in place who made those mistakes before.
In the end, sadly and expensively, the solution will likely be to buy new rolling stock with proven designs rather than this dog that failed due to city changes to its basic construction. The people who got us into this hideously expensive mess are unlikely to get us out of it.
We need the premier and the province to take over this project and do it right. Sorry Your Worship, four years of trying and failing have given the current train team ample opportunity to fix this train. They’ve failed and are likely to fail again.
Four years are enough. Let’s get an expert provincial administrator in place to take away this expensive project from a team that has proven repeatedly it can’t handle it.
Do we want four years to turn into five or six or seven years with no solution in the end?
No. Ottawa’s light rail needs new leadership with a plan to turn this lemon into lemonade.
Ken Gray
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Doug Ford will fix the problem? I’d put my money on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Yiggity Poppity Poof!!!
Sure, Mark. Of course it’s going to be different – just like all the times before when the absolute solution had been found. And the cheque is in the mail, I suppose?
I’m not totally certain what the rules are for games of chance in this province but I think you need a licence for them. OC Transpo shouldn’t be allowed to sell passes without one because it’s getting like a lottery when you wait on the side of the street or at a station for your bus or train to show up.
You have a budget deficit at the bus company, Mark. Maybe you could set up a pool for people to guess when the LRT will resume service. You could have a second level where people could guess how many days it will then be until the next service disruption. You might be able to make a dent in your deficit and people could at least get some entertainment value from your not-very-amusing transit fiasco.