O-Train Line 2/4 [Stage 2 | Greenboro to Limebank/Airport] | In Service

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Phase 2 provincial funding probably now hinges on how strongly Lisa McLeod lobbies for it.
Interesting how Phase 2 stops just short of reaching her district in 3 places: Riverside South, Baseline and Moodie.
Wonder how it would affect it.

It was tweeted that there would be an announcement in the coming days on the provincial funding (being committed)

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

So. Just to confirm, Trillium South is not $2.6B as was asserted before.

No.

Here's the slide (page 92) on the Trillium Line costs.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Her area is next in line as part of Stage 3, so she should be lobbying hard. If the province backs out, I sure as hell hope all local Conservatives are banished from Ottawa ridings the next couple election cycles.

They won’t back out. They may phase the funding. I could also see them dropping the East extension.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

So. Just to confirm, Trillium South is not $2.6B as was asserted before.

Correct. I just went through the technical briefing and other report again. (This is mostly from Table 11 of the contract award report)

It's a bit confusing but I believe total capital costs for each line is... $2,571 M for east_west construction + $492M for RTG to expand the MSF and provide vehicles + 70M for a Thales contract extension = $3,133 M
For Trillium its $663 M for construction / MSF / vehicles + $136 M for some sort of additional financing that I don't really understand = $799 M

Remaining is $ 650M in city internal costs to add up to the approximately 4.7 Billion

Each bid also includes maintenance costs not included in these capital numbers. East-west is part of RTGs contract $2,721 - 492M already included in capital = $2229 M. For trillium the maintenance costs are approximately $950M (TNext bid - capital construction costs).... actually maybe maintenance costs for trillium are $810M if we can also subtract that $136M in City financing included in the capital costs, but I'm not sure about that.

Hope that all makes sense. Overall Trillium line is still much cheaper!!!

[J.OT13]

Thanks for the clarification Multi-modal.

Here's the construction schedule. Trillium will close for Q2 2020 (after school's out I assume) and re-open end of 2022-ish.


https://twitter.com/RailsOfOttawa/status/1099124221773471746

[rocketphish]

No shadow on city's choice of SNC-Lavalin, says anti-corruption expert

Joanne Laucius, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: February 22, 2019

SNC-Lavalin may be taking a beating in the headlines, but a University of Ottawa business professor who is an expert in transparency and integrity says he’s confident about the city’s decision to hire the embattled engineering giant.

What really matters is the city has performed its internal procedures, said Marc Tasse, a forensic accountant who teaches at the Telfer School of Management and an expert in fraud prevention and detection, money laundering prevention and anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliance.

Tasse, who is a member of Transparency International’s Anti-Corruption Expert Network, said that, from his perspective, there’s no shadow on the city’s decision to name SNC-Lavalin as one of its recommended proponents to build Stage 2 of the city’s light-rail transit system.

“It doesn’t matter which company it is. The monitoring is what matters,” he said. “When you are in procurement, you shouldn’t feel any pressure from the public. The only thing that matters is that they are monitoring all the steps of the process.”

SNC-Lavalin has also created a robust integrity program, he said.

In 2012 and 2013, it launched a number of initiatives to reassure stakeholders of its commitment to ethics and compliance. The measures included compliance training for all employees and an amnesty program that gave employees an opportunity to come forward with ethical violations issues. A total of 32 employees made amnesty requests.

Among the questions that employees should ask themselves about any work-related actions or decisions is, “How would it look if it were reported on the news or in another public forum?” according to the company’s 2019 edition of the Code of Conduct.

“There was a change of culture. They had allocated the money to do this, they have added integrity officers. They have people who are really good at what they do,” said Tasse.

“We shouldn’t rely on the name of the company, but if they have a compliance program. Right now, I would say that they have one of the leading integrity programs in the field.”

Meanwhile, Tasse also has confidence in the city’s processes.

“Procurement agents are pretty sharp,” he said. “And the City of Ottawa has an auditor general who will watch it very carefully.”

The city’s auditor general is Ken Hughes, who works independently of city administration and reports to city council. Hughes has worked in areas including fraud investigation and internal control review.

The allegations that have swirled around SNC-Lavalin will likely even be helpful to the managers who are monitoring the project.

“Once there are allegations, you know exactly what to watch for,” said Tasse. “There’s a high risk in what you don’t know.”

Christie Stephenson, the executive director of the Peter P. Dhillon Centre for Business Ethics at theUniversity of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, said she can’t comment on SNC-Lavalin. But, more and more, reputation is a business risk, she said.

Timing is an important factor in that risk, and stakeholders’ expectations that companies will reflect ethical standards is on the rise, she said. It takes a long time to build a reputation, but it can crumble quickly.

“At the end of the day, all of the programs and policies don’t matter unless there’s a culture and a leadership,” she said.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...-snc-lavalin-says-anti-corruption-expert

[rocketphish]

Why the city stayed with SNC-Lavalin in LRT extension

James Bagnall, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: February 22, 2019

When City of Ottawa procurement staff three years ago began evaluating builders for the second stage of the transformative light rail project, they had no idea the time frame would coincide with a political earthquake.

SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal construction and engineering giant that’s been pushing relentlessly for a negotiated settlement to charges it bribed Libyan officials, was all along a strong contender. Not only does SNC-Lavalin hold a 40 per cent interest in Rideau Transit Group, the entity that is finishing up Phase 1, it has deep experience with these types of engineering projects.

The recent revelation that top Liberal and bureaucratic officials had allegedly tried to pressure former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to permit a negotiated settlement with SNC-Lavalin was certainly noted by city staff, but it wasn’t enough to prompt a change of course. On Friday, they revealed SNC-Lavalin would be the key player to extend the Trillium Line to the airport, while Kiewit and Vinci were picked as the preferred bidders to build out the Confederation Line to points east and west. Total cost: $4.7 billion.

“SNC-Lavalin fully complied with the disclosure requirements of the request for quotations and request for proposals,” Chris Swail, director of the O-Train plan, told this newspaper. The company “disclosed both the investigations and charges facing the company and the remediation measures they had undertaken”.

At an earlier technical briefing Friday, Ward 10 Coun. Diane Deans disparaged this line of thinking, asking Swail if SNC-Lavalin’s legal position “could create a jeopardy for us and delay the project if they get into more trouble?”

Swail’s response was pointed: “Running a procurement process … is not about rewarding anyone,” he said. “It’s about running a process; whoever has the strongest bid within that process evaluation is the winner. That’s what we did, and there was no reason to prohibit anyone coming into this procurement process early on.”

Well, what about now? Is there a risk that a potential guilty verdict for SNC-Lavalin would prompt the federal government down the road to strip away its portion of the $2.4 billion in federal-provincial funding that is underpinning LRT Phase 2?

Let’s put it this way: The risk of this happening is reduced on two fronts. First, city staff have insisted on performance bonds and other types of guarantees that the work will be completed. While Swail wasn’t specific, he alluded to certain rights the city had retained to be able to step in and complete the project in the event of any builder’s insolvency.

And, while insolvency can’t be dismissed out of hand, SNC-Lavalin is a $10 billion-a-year company, which on Friday reported a 43 per cent jump in its revenue backlog to $14.9 billion. About one-quarter of the firm’s revenues are generated in Canada. Yes, the firm also revealed a big loss for the year, but most of this involved projects in Saudi Arabia, sideswiped by deteriorating relations with Canada. The write-down did not involve cash.

The second ameliorated risk has to do with the presumption of innocence. SNC-Lavalin said it intends to put up a strong defence against the fraud and corruption charges against it — and it is just possible the 2022 scheduled completion date for Ottawa’s Trillium Line extension will be in sight before there’s a final legal resolution.

SNC-Lavalin was charged four long years ago under the then-new Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act. This after a three-year investigation by the RCMP into whether certain SNC-Lavalin officials had bribed Libyan officials between 2001 and 2011 to obtain engineering and construction contracts.

The timing of the charges was no coincidence. The act had been introduced by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to clean up foreign contracting and it contained a number of new penalties, such as the loss of the right to do business with the federal government for 10 years. Last September, the Liberals revised the act to allow for the possibility of a negotiated settlement, allowing companies to avoid prosecution provided they cleaned up their act and paid some fines. This was done in part to avoid penalizing an entire company for the actions of a few individual employees.

When federal prosecutors declined to invite SNC-Lavalin to negotiate, the Montreal firm launched a two-front assault. It hired lobbyists to try to convince the justice minister that the negotiated route was best, and — lost amid the politics — SNC-Lavalin prepared for a lengthy legal battle. In October, it challenged federal prosecutors’ decision not to negotiate a settlement. This, in turn, prompted the director of public prosecutions to file a motion aimed at striking down the challenge.

Final arguments for this motion are due on April 1. SNC-Lavalin warned in its quarterly financial statement, filed Friday, that depending on the outcome it “may seek further review”.

Then there’s the legal fight over the actual charges relating to Libyan contracts. It seems likely the trial won’t get underway until 2020, though late 2019 is still a possibility.

Even if there is a guilty verdict, thus triggering the penalties contemplated in the act, judicial appeals could stretch beyond 2021.

If all goes well on the LRT project, SNC-Lavalin should by then be just one year away from finishing up the Trillium Line contract — assuming it’s learned from the experience of the much delayed first phase of LRT.

That would make city staff very happy.

— With file from Taylor Blewett

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...stayed-with-snc-lavalin-in-lrt-extension

[OCCheetos]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/fr...wa-lrt-delays-longer-shut-down-1.5031347

Students, understandably upset that the Trillium Line will be shut down for 22 months (I mean, I am too a little) but apparently while being interviewed none of them were informed by the reporter about the replacement bus service and additional traffic measures that will be implemented to make up for it? The article makes no mention of it at all either. 10/10.

[Richard Eade]

I found it a bit strange that only females were interviewed. Or maybe the males who were interviewed were not outraged enough to get printed.

But, yes, there are things being done to help the buses; including pushing a new (bus-only, I think) link from Raven Road to Bronson Ave.

[OCCheetos]

The CBC also seems to be continuing to report that it will be a 28-month closure despite the apparent clarification that it would be 22 months. Not sure what's up with that.

[Truenorth00]

The entire eastern half of the city has dealt with half a decade or Transitway closure. And they are complaining about less than 2 years, at a place they’ll be working at for 4-5 years.

They can suck it up.

It’s more important to get this done somewhat well than speed through it and get a line that’s unreliable after it enters service.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

The CBC also seems to be continuing to report that it will be a 28-month closure despite the apparent clarification that it would be 22 months. Not sure what's up with that.

I’m thinking it’s 28 months and will coincide with the start of the school year.

[rakerman]

There's a picture of a Stadler FLIRT (without Ottawa livery) on page 55 of the Contract Award of Ottawa’s Stage 2 Light Rail Transit Projects and Related Matters (PDF) which also has the detailed pricing for all parts of Stage 2.

Figure 7 Stadler FLIRT and Airport Link Vehicles by Richard Akerman, on Flickr

I didn't realise the Alstom Coradia LINT trains would be kept for the Airport Link line.

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by rakerman

There's a picture of a Stadler FLIRT (without Ottawa livery) on page 55 of the Contract Award of Ottawa’s Stage 2 Light Rail Transit Projects and Related Matters (PDF) which also has the detailed pricing for all parts of Stage 2.

Figure 7 Stadler FLIRT and Airport Link Vehicles by Richard Akerman, on Flickr

I didn't realise the Alstom Coradia LINT trains would be kept for the Airport Link line.

That's not exactly the right model. The ones we'll be getting will have two doors per car (8 per side, 16 total).

The LINTs will also be used on the main line in coupled pairs.

[OCCheetos]

Another thing I noticed looking more at some of the pictures,
while it seems like Uplands, the Airport, Leitrim, and Bowesville will all be above-grade stations none of them will have elevators. Instead, they'll have long ramps (other than the airport which will just use the airport's elevators).

That probably saves a lot of money (both in construction and maintenance).

[kmcamp]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Another thing I noticed looking more at some of the pictures,
while it seems like Uplands, the Airport, Leitrim, and Bowesville will all be above-grade stations none of them will have elevators. Instead, they'll have long ramps (other than the airport which will just use the airport's elevators).

That probably saves a lot of money (both in construction and maintenance).

I also noted while they all have an entrance building that apes the confed line style a bit, at the platform level it's just the plain old bus style shelters we know and love with the current stations

[OCCheetos]

Scrutinizing the pictures a little more...



This is Walkley station. Why are there two sets of tracks in the picture? Secondly, why is there a glass wall spanning the entire length of the platform edge?

These must have been some really cheap renders.

Also featured: Bus shelters (which you could argue is appropriate for Walkley).

[lrt's friend]

Once the Trillium Line reaches capacity, they will tack on another train yet again. Another 3 year shutdown for full double tracking will never be practical or acceptable to the public in the future. Detour replacement bus service will double travel times at that point.

[Ottawaresident]

Really Ottawa? Really!!!! So maybe my fears of corruption are right ...

[J.OT13]

Reading through the station descriptions, I wanted to critic the location and lay-out of each. I won't go into the design aesthetics; though I was initially disappointed that they value-engineered the design language of Stage 1, I understand that some sacrifices need to be made in order to expand the system. That might be how the winning consortium was able to get a price, not within budget, but within "affordability".

This is based off the document describing each station. In parentheses, I've indicated my preferred name for the station, should it be different from the presentation.

https://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/cach...9112752335.PDF

Bayview: Based on the renderings, I don't understand how people will access the east side platform. The description talks about a covered walkway at the Line 1 entrance that links the two Line 2 platforms, but I can't see that on the renderings.

Gladstone: Protecting for a second level to accommodate skywalks to adjacent developments (as proposed for Trinity's Gladstone Towers) is not necessary IMO. The station building is easily accessible from the sidewalk.

Carling: This line in the description provided a sense of relief "Design and construction of the station will not preclude a future double tracking, as well as a potential connection to the future hospital site, south of Carling Avenue." This is extremely important.

Carelton: Second underpass will be built, which should make circulation easier. I was surprised to read that a pedestrian tunnel will be added to eventually connect with the University's pedway system. I don't know how realistic it is with diesel rail, but I hope Carleton once again considers erecting a building on top of the station, as they had as part of 2006 plan.

Mooney's Bay (Heron Junction or Hog's Back or Brookfield): Not much to say on the station, but the area needs serious TOD.

Walkley: Functional for what it is. Hoping Marriott provides connectivity with the station and plaza.

Greenboro: Other than the platform extension, it will be unchanged from the current configuration.

South Key's: Not sure how the scheduling will work with the airport spur and main line sharing one of the tracks, but I'm hoping SNC can figure that out. In terms of the airport transfer, this is the best case scenario where passengers can just cross the platform to the next train. Happy to see they've provided the full length roof specifically for the airport link transfer.

Leitrim and Bowesville: Glad they went with just ramps instead of elevators and stairs. Maintenance will be much easier.

Limebank: As someone mentioned, the design precludes the line from extending further. Looking at the rendering, their seems to be stairs at the back of the station that goes from one platform to another. Not sure what that one is for.

Uplands (EY Centre): Wish it were on the south side of EY to serve the Marriott Hotel as well. Hoping the develop the north side in the coming years.

Airport: Nice to see how it connects to the airport. I'm not familiar enough to know what is on that level of the terminal. I do wish they would have kept the location in the parking garage (if it was or could be at the Skywalk level) in order to secure a path to extend further through the airport complex in the future.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Scrutinizing the pictures a little more...



This is Walkley station. Why are there two sets of tracks in the picture? Secondly, why is there a glass wall spanning the entire length of the platform edge?

These must have been some really cheap renders.

Also featured: Bus shelters (which you could argue is appropriate for Walkley).

One thing I noticed about Walkley is that the description only mentions 1 entrance at the north end of the platform near Walkley Rd.

However there are future plans for a pedestrian signal at Bank & Notting Hill, and a pathway to the station through the Swiss Chalet / future Starbucks site. A second entrance is needed at the south end of the platform to connect with this pathway.