Key timeline missing from LRT repair plan, city says

The consortium that built Ottawa's faltering Confederation Line has responded to each of the individual complaints in the city's notice of default, but hasn't provided an overall timeline to fix the $2.1-billion LRT system, councillors heard Wednesday.

Rideau Transit Group (RTG) responded "to each of the individual items in our list that we provided them," Michael Morgan, the city's director of rail construction, said during a virtual council meeting.

However, RTG "didn't provide an overall date back to the city on when we can expect service to improve," Morgan said.

"They've given us action plans for each of the individual items … but they didn't give us [is] when are we going to see the service improvement when our customer is going to be able to see our reliable systems."

In early March, council voted unanimously to issue a notice of default — the first step in the complex process of potentially terminating the city's contract with RTG — giving the builders until March 31 to provide a "credible and realistic" time frame to fix the myriad issues plaguing the Confederation Line.

• City issues formal notice of default to RTG
• RTG 'misrepresented' its ability to build light rail, city says

According to the seven-page notice, the faults and glitches included:

• A shortage of trains for 25 consecutive rush hours, between Jan. 16 and Feb. 3.
• Delays on Feb. 14 caused when vehicle parts "came loose" and damaged transponders along the line.
• A Feb. 19 fire inside an LRT maintenance facility.
• The Feb. 26 collapse of a power line that required passengers on two trains to disembark and walk along the Confederation Line tracks.
• Difficulties providing adequate heat to the train operators' cars.

RTG did respond to the city by March 31, as required, and has set out some repair plans for specific issues, including:

• A train control software upgrade planned for May to deal with brake faults.
• A software upgrade planned for July to deal with train doors.
• A number of fixes to address the issue of light rail cars losing powers, planned from June to as late as February 2021.

Morgan said he wasn't pleased to see some of the improvements stretch into next year, such as the February 2021 replacement of faulty rooftop inductors, which were responsible for failing to transfer power from the overhead cable to the light rail cars. 

RTG also told the city it has long-term plans to address other issues including figuring out how to deal with "wire drop events" like the incident in January when an 80-metre length of electrical cable came down near St-Laurent station. The consortium is also looking at upgrading switch heaters and fixing HVAC issues aboard the light rail cars.

But Morgan told council he's not satisfied that RTG has a plan to improve the overall reliability of the LRT system, and is planning to meet with the consortium for a "detailed planning session" soon.

Morgan also warned that RTG's timelines for fixing the system could be further delayed because of the travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of RTG's consultants, and many of the parts it requires to make repairs, come from Europe.

Council will receive another update on RTG's plan for addressing the Confederation Line problems next month. In the meantime, the notice of default is still in effect.