Westboro crash inquest hears of previous collisions and roads not taken
Engineer questioned at inquest about not recommending canopy removal
The coroner's inquest into the 2019 OC Transpo bus crash that claimed the lives of three people is all about sparing others the same fate, and as the public deep dive enters its second week, its focus is turning to what changes were made, or not, in the years between that tragedy and today.
On Jan. 11, 2019, a packed OC Transpo double-decker slammed into a Transitway bus shelter at the west Ottawa station. Three people — Judy Booth, Bruce Thomlinson and Anja Van Beek — died in the crash. Many others were injured, triggering a flurry of lawsuits.
While the city accepted civil responsibility for the crash, the bus driver was charged with 38 counts of dangerous driving causing death or bodily harm. She was acquitted of all of them in a judge-only trial in 2021.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, inquest witnesses outlined what issues were found at Westboro station by one safety auditor and then how the city and OC Transpo responded before the station was ultimately taken down in 2022 because of its conversion into an LRT stop.
2 engineers, 2 different opinions
After the crash, OC Transpo hired the engineering firm Parsons to do a safety audit and recommend potential changes. Parsons retained another contractor, John Morrall, to do that.
When Morrall finished his audit, OC Transpo hired another engineer, Gerry Forbes, to assess Morrall's recommendations from several angles. Those included not just safety but also cost, environmental protection and public input, Forbes said in his own testimony.
The most significant issue "by far" at Westboro station was the canopy the bus crashed into, Morall told the inquest.
The canopy dated back to a time when OC Transpo was only using single-decker buses and was in the Westboro Transitway's "clear zone," Morrall testified, describing the clear zone as the distance between the travelway and a roadside hazard.
Morrall recommended either removing the canopy or reducing the speed limit for buses approaching the station.
Forbes instead recommended a third option: putting yellow and black striping on the canopy. He wrote in his report that removing the canopy was "not a cost-efficient use of OC Transpo resources" and that another crash with the canopy was not "expected" for another 250 years.
Forbes also told the inquest the canopy provides protection for people waiting at the station.
OC Transpo ultimately put striping on the canopy, only for the entire structure to be taken down in 2022 because of construction work to convert Westboro into a future Line 2 LRT stop.
Morrall had suggested lowering the speed limit approaching the station from 50 km/hr — which Morrall told the inquest is not a reasonable speed — to 20 km/hr.
Under questioning from Peter Napier, one of the lawyers leading the inquest, Morrall agreed that both striping and reducing the speed limit would only be effective options in scenarios where the bus driver has control of the vehicle, which was not the case in the Westboro crash.
Earlier in the inquest, John McLuckie, the lawyer for the union representing OC Transpo employees, suggested it's possible bus operators are "pressured into keeping their schedules and that that might result in speeding."
Transport Canada found the bus that crashed at Westboro was travelling between 36 km/hr and 40 km/hr when it struck the canopy.
Reducing the approaching speed to 30 km/hr or 40 km/hr would be reasonable, Forbes said.
Risk of another comparable crash 'low'
At one point on Wednesday, Napier asked Forbes if the severity of the Westboro crash, which also left many people seriously injured, was factored into his report.
It wasn't in the section addressing the canopy, Forbes replied, adding that one crash every 250 years is considered low-risk "no matter what the severity of the crash is."
"So, in 250 years, we're gonna have another crash like this with another level of severity like this and is that something that is considered acceptable from a risk analysis perspective?" Napier then asked.
"It would be considered a low risk," Forbes said.
"And you weigh that against the cost of cutting a canopy off a Transitway station?" Napier asked.
"Yes," Forbes replied.
Morrall also recommended placing a barrier to protect people at the Westboro shelter from buses. Napier asked Forbes about that too.
Forbes said he was not convinced a barrier was necessary just based on the Westboro crash alone.
"Crashes do have a degree of randomness to them," he said.
Eleven other crashes happened at Westboro station in the five years before Forbes' study, though he was not given any specifics about those collisions, he said.
WATCH | Looking back on the crash and its lingering impacts:
13 similar canopies
The inquest has heard that 13 other canopies similar to the one at Westboro are still in operation at other Ottawa stations.
But at the inquest Wednesday, city transit planner Matthew Wolstenholme said the clear zone clearances for those canopies are in line with what Morrall recommended.
While striping might be added at those locations, double-deckers can operate safely at the stations, he said.
It's hard to make one-to-one comparisons between stations, he added.
"Some are very different in characteristic and operating speeds and operating nature. They're not all the same as what Westboro station was," he said.
In 2007, when Ottawa started looking at the feasibility of introducing double-deckers to OC Transpo's fleet, structures like the Westboro canopy were not looked at during a study of vertical clearances along the Transitway.
Had they been, the height of the canopy would have been flagged as not providing adequate vertical clearance for double-deckers, Wolstenholme agreed under questioning by inquest lawyer Alessandra Hollands.
Wolstenholme was not involved in that feasibility study.
The inquest continues on Thursday.
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With files from Matthew Kupfer