O-Train Desperately Needs Metrolinx: WHOPPER WATCH
“You’re basically giving it away to private contractors that don’t have to answer to the people of Ottawa. They don’t answer to anybody.”
Toronto Councillor Mike Colle on making Metrolinx responsible for the O-Train
The good councillor can’t be getting to Ottawa very often.
The city here has made Ottawa light rail the punch line for a joke.
The train is unreliable, late, over-budget and kept with the city it might not ever have been completed. At least with Metrolinx, there’s an outside chance Barrhaven and Kanata could be joined to the service … some day.
And who does OC Transpo answer to? Not the public. We don’t know how much the mountains of lawsuits are against the city as a result of rail. We don’t know the root cause of a dangerous derailment. We don’t know why or when it will run better.
In planning, the city got the route wrong, the turns are too sharp, the wrong trains were selected, they built unnecessary tunnels, had dangerous sinkholes and derailments and left a giant hole in the city budget. We could go on.
If Metrolinx does a worse job than OC Transpo, they are one abysmal operation. It would be difficult to worse than what we’ve seen on the light-rail project.
Ken Gray
For You:
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Coming To A Neighourhood Near You … More Shelters
Where’s The Night Mayor? STUNTMAN STU
LRT Changes: Give Us Some Details: THE VOTER
Our Long Transit Nightmare Is Over: PATTON
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Was it OCTranspo that got the route wrong and the contractor wrong? Public Servants often have to take the blame for political interference.
Metrolinx is a Crown Agency and its board and its employees are public servants. I have been following Metrolinx with the Eglington Crosstown LRT problems. Metrolinx is a very tough customer and won’t take poor workmanship. Also they probably won’t accept shutting down the LRT during a summer period which suspiciously corresponds to Quebec Construction Week, when all Quebec construction (and other) workers take 2 weeks off simultaneously.
Metrolinx is 5 years late (so far) and billions over budget with Eglinton subway. They are not better than our current problematic contractors.
Ottawa (and every Ontario city except Toronto) needs stable, sustainable investment funding for public transit. The city of Ottawa needs a company with a track record of delivery excellence. It also needs civic leaders who realize the foolishness of short term cheapness when it comes to infrastructure investments.
Speaking of whoppers …
Ken, you should have provided the link to the article where Mike Colle, the speaker above, made that statement. Then people could have read the following statement which I would suggest is actually Whopper Watch worthy:
“Uploading the LRT to the province would allow “OC Transpo to focus on what it does best, which is running a public transit system,” Sutcliffe said.”
If running a public transit system is what OC Transpo does best, Heaven preserve us from whatever they do worst!!
The full CBC article is at: cbcDOTca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-could-lose-oversight-over-lrt-under-metrolinx-toronto-councillor-warns-1.4445924. People should have a look at it and, among other things, read the Colle statement in context.
According to a Toronto city councillor, Ottawa’s city council will lose oversight of the LRT if it is transferred to Metrolinx. Ottawa’s city council hasn’t practiced effective oversight of the LRT since before Day One. I am having problems conceptualizing what we will be actually losing.