LRT: ‘We’ve Got Trouble:’ WHOPPER WATCH

Published 04/20/2023 · Updated 04/20/2023

whopper.watch .12.26

“OC Transpo’s plan for tackling the recommendations put forth in a scathing report into Ottawa’s problem-plagued light rail network is “robust” and can be applied to Stage 2 LRT as well, according to an independent firm the city hired to assess its plan.”

Lede on CBC story concerning the response of the city to its LRT problems

That’s good enough for me.

Yes, “robust.” The only thing robust about the City of Ottawa recently has been the number of senior managers getting out of Dodge.

So the city will address all these challenges and everything will be fine. Good news.

Of course since the provincial inquiry into Ottawa’s disastrous light-rail fiasco, residents have seen the train go down in an almost non-ice storm, then a big ice storm and now it will take a couple of weekends to assess the amount of damage being done by incoming water into the $700-million tunnel. Not fix the damage, assess it. Everything will be fine.

LRT Response: Baking A Cake Out Of …: WHOPPER WATCH

Apparently, our light-rail scientists have been putting grout into cracks in the tunnel but then the water comes in someplace else. Rather like an industrial game of Whack-A-Mole. Isn’t grout what you put in when your bathroom tiles get covered in mold. I could be wrong.

You know for $2.2 billion Ottawans might not be getting much in the way of transportation but the entertainment value is twice that. A bargain. And writing material … a gold mine. On behalf of the management and staff of this publication stationed at Bulldog World Headquarters, we’d just like to say thank you.

In a sobering note, if you think a frozen catenary is trouble (and our grout technologists at world headquarters say it is), wait until you see the bill for fixing water coming into the tunnel. Taxes and surf will both be up.

Time To Return To BRT: MULVIHILL

I hate to tell you I told you so (actually I love to tell you I told you so) but one of the reasons your agent was against a tunnel was that on the surface, you run into air and most of the time engineers know how to deal with air (once again we defer to our Bulldog engineers). But once you tunnel underground there are always surprises like a sinkhole or two or leaks or a couple of floods or a white van careening in an abyss of mud and water. Air is just not like that … except when it rains.

So, “Who’s got trouble? We’ve got trouble.”

But independent consultants hired by the city say that this response to LRT woes is “robust.”

So that’s OK. We’re fine with it. We look forward to a perfectly running LRT.

Ken Gray

Knock On Wood - Dooley Wilson from the movie Casablanca 1942 in DES Stereo

Watch this video on YouTube

The theme song of Ottawa’s troubled light-rail project.

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Tags: LRT Ottawa trouble

Ron Benn says:
04/20/2023 at 3:06 PM
I was oft reminded by my late mother that I should look for the good in things in life, not just the bad. So, here goes. The tunnel, notwithstanding the water leaking/flowing into it on a steady basis, protects the overhead catenary system from freezing rain. On particularly cold days frost pose a risk, but not freezing rain.
Ken Gray says:
04/20/2023 at 3:22 PM
Ron:
Hard to be imagined as this is, I too look for the good in things initially.
And when I find the good, you’ll be the first to know.
cheers
kgray