This Thursday the Light Rail Subcommittee met for the first time and confirmed its mandate to ensure that the 103 recommendations put forward by the province’s report on the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Inquiry were in place. Many questions were asked about next steps and I specifically asked that staff review how Stage 2 LRT will be affected by these recommendations.
As well the committee had a discussion on the release of the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada Letter released on Wednesday regarding ongoing failures of cartridge roller bearing assemblies on Ottawa Light Rail Transit vehicle. Extra time was allotted to allow Subcommittee members and other councillors an opportunity to discuss how the recommendations from the TSB will be implemented. The overall message is that the city bought an untried train system with further modifications that made for complications and performance failures. The issues such as the axels are being dealt with and the General Manager, Renee Amilcar has assured us of the safety of this system will be given much oversight. The question is why did the city pick this model of train that had no performance record and how do we fix it? I hope to hear of solutions as we work through the many recommendations from the inquiry.
