Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by j.graham

Right after I move away

Me too I'm going to have to live vicariously through all you until my first visit..

[j.graham]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

Me too I'm going to have to live vicariously through all you until my first visit..

"Transit staff have long said the public will ride the train some four weeks after that handover, but Watson hopes the launch date will be before the Labour Day long weekend."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/watson-rtg-alstom-meeting-trains-1.5180276?cmp=rss

There may be some hope, at least for me. Not sure when you're leaving. Fingers crossed!

[rocketphish]

LRT builders commit to finish trains by July 7, handing over working rail system in August

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: June 18, 2019

Alstom says it can finish fixing the 34 trains in early July, leading to the Rideau Transit Group’s handing over a finished LRT system around mid-August and the city launching the $2.1-billion rail line sometime in September.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Jim Watson met in his office boardroom with Alstom chief executive Henri Poupart-Lafarge, RTG CEO Peter Lauch and executives from the companies behind RTG to stress his disappointment that the businessmen haven’t been able to deliver Ottawa’s LRT system, even a year after the first missed deadline.

The year has been punctuated by missed deadlines by the LRT builders, so taxpayers might be forgiven for rolling their eyes at a new completion date.

Watson acknowledged that RTG has made similar handover commitments in the past, so he’s asked city manager Steve Kanellakos and transportation general manager John Manconi to make sure the project is actually on track for those dates.

Watson asked the Alstom and RTG executives to come to Ottawa City Hall for a meeting after the city learned that RTG wouldn’t deliver a working LRT system by the end of June, even though the builder previously indicated it could finish the 12.5-kilometre rail project by the end of the second quarter of 2019.

“We don’t want to disappoint again. We want to be precise,” Lauch said after the roughly one-hour meeting Tuesday.

RTG missed handovers on May 24, 2018, Nov. 2, 2018 and March 31, 2019. The city penalized RTG $1 million for each of the missed November and March deadlines.

The main barrier to opening the LRT system is the condition of the Alstom Citadis Spirit electric trains, specifically, the brakes and doors.

Earlier this month, city rail managers said brake valves need to be tested and potentially replaced. When it comes to the doors, there have been glitches with the sensors that dictate what happens when there’s an obstruction.

The city has also reported deficiencies with the on-board communications system and the operator monitoring system. There was another problem with the equipment that connects the train to the overhead wires.

Poupart-Lafarge said it’s not unusual to discover deficiencies during test runs of trains.

On Tuesday, Alstom committed to finishing the trains on July 7. Watson said RTG has indicated it can deliver the LRT system between the second and third week of August, with an exact date to be identified in the coming weeks.

If RTG meets the August handover, the LRT system could open sometime in September.

It’s not the best time to launch a city-transforming transit system, with students going back to school and workers returning to regular schedules after summer vacations. The city, however, has been planning to run a parallel bus system for the first three weeks of LRT operations to gradually get people used to the rail line.

Watson’s intervention contacting Alstom’s CEO was a bit out of the ordinary, since Alstom is a subcontractor for RTG.

But municipal, provincial and federal taxpayers have billions of dollars on the line.

Alstom is providing 38 more of the same kind of vehicle for the Stage 2 O-Train expansion project. Those Stage 2 vehicles are scheduled to be fully assembled by the third quarter of 2021.

Lauch said the mayor’s influence has helped RTG pick up speed on fixing the train problems.

“I think it has raised the awareness of the project,” Lauch said. “We’ve seen a marked improvement in Alstom’s performance in the last few weeks. They brought in global experts from other cities.”

Watson said he told the Alstom and RTG executives, “I expected better.”

“We’re a big customer for Alstom and some of the other partners and obviously I said at this point I cannot give any kind of a glowing reference to any other city who’s looking at dealing with (a similar project) until we have the keys handed over to us in the month of August and the system is flawless when it’s handed over to us,” Watson said.

Alstom designed the Citadis Spirit model for North America, with Ottawa being the first city coming on-board. Metrolinx, the provincial Crown corporation, has purchased Citadis Spirit vehicles for LRT lines in the Toronto and Hamilton areas.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...nding-over-working-rail-system-in-august

[Badyouken]

If the trains were the bottleneck and are scheduled to be done by July 7, then we can expect them to submit substantial completion paperwork around the 2nd week of July, followed by the 12-day testing - right?

[rocketphish]

City still opposes offering free rides after LRT opens

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: June 19, 2019

The city is still reluctant to provide any free rides on the LRT system when it opens as a chance to promote the $2.1-billion rail line.

During a transit commission meeting Wednesday, Coun. Riley Brockington suggested to Transpo management that the transit agency should consider providing free rides one day a week, like Sunday, for the first month of operations “as a thank you for the discomfort we have all gone through over the years.”

“I totally understand that request,” transportation general manager John Manconi replied. “It’s done frequently, but we would strongly urge you not to go down that path, even on a Sunday.”

Waterloo Region launches its LRT system on Friday and is providing free service on the transit system through to July 1.

The City of Ottawa is concerned about overloading the Confederation Line after the launch, especially if there are still kinks to be worked out. It could result in a failed marketing exercise.

The Rideau Transit Group estimates it can deliver the Confederation Line in the second or third week of August. That means the city could launch LRT in September, a busy month for Transpo operations.

Transpo provided an update on its LRT preparedness. It could be the last commission meeting before the LRT handover.

When the city has possession of the LRT system, it will go through about four weeks of tests before opening to the public. Transpo will be asking city staff and their families to help with the testing before the public launch.

Coun. Tim Tierney asked if the cell service in the tunnel will be ready on Day 1 of LRT, but staff couldn’t give a definite answer.

The city said in 2017 that it signed an agreement with Telus to provide the cell connectivity in the 2.5-kilometre tunnel and Telus has interoperability agreements with Rogers and Bell.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/city-still-opposes-offering-free-rides-after-lrt-opens

[waterloowarrior]

created a new thread for the Rideau St Renewal project
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=239513

[Gat-Train]

Frankly, I think that RTG should be forced to pay up all the extra costs that OC Transpo incurred running the bus detours throughout the delay. Then we can use that to make transit free for however many days that money will afford us

[OCCheetos]

Originally Posted by Gat-Train

Frankly, I think that RTG should be forced to pay up all the extra costs that OC Transpo incurred running the bus detours throughout the delay. Then we can use that to make transit free for however many days that money will afford us

Zero days because it's to cover the cost of all the extra service they've already had to provide.

[OCCheetos]

The city has decided to charge RTG the $1 million penalty for the original RSA deadline (May 24, 2018)

https://twitter.com/JonathanWilling/status/1141826256482250755

So that makes it $3 million in penalties + $34.4 million in operating expenses means the city will deduct $37.4 million from the final amount they owe RTG (assuming it's handed over in August).

[rocketphish]

Running 13-month LRT delay racks up more than $30M in cost overruns

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: June 20, 2019

The city says the running cost of the LRT delay will be $34.4 million by the end of this month.

Deputy city treasurer Isabelle Jasmin sent the long-awaited financial update to council on Thursday, identifying a total of $111.4 million in combined extra spending and reduced revenue tied to the 13-month delay.

The cost is knocked down when the city factors in the avoided LRT maintenance payments and other anticipated rail-related expenses.

The city wants the Rideau Transit Group to pay $35 million to cover costs related to extended lane closures required while the LRT system is constructed, which would leave the city $600,000 in the black from the delay.

However, RTG has disputed having to pay some of the expenses claimed by the city. The fight will likely end up in court.

After missing a series of handover deadlines, RTG previously said it could deliver the LRT system by the end of June. That won’t happen.

RTG now says it can deliver the LRT system by the second or third week in August.

The financial update also reveals that the city is charging a $1-million penalty to RTG for the missed deadline in May 2018, even though councillors had been told the project agreement doesn’t allow for the penalty to be applied to the first scuttled handover. Until now, the city was only applying the $1-million penalty to each of the Nov. 2, 2018 and March 31, 2019 missed handovers. According to Jasmin, “this is new information based on our most recent legal advice.”

Here’s how the city arrives at a $34.4-million cost overrun for the period between May 24, 2018 and June 30, 2019.

The total overspending for operations is $73.7 million, with most of the money tied to extending the bus operations. From that total, the city deducts maintenance payments, debt payments and other rail-related savings, putting the operational cost overrun at $1.5 million.

On the capital side, the city has racked up $37.7 million in cost overruns, largely tied to maintaining detours and keeping the Stage 1 O-Train construction office going. The city deducts $4.8 million in interest from withholding construction payments to RTG, putting the capital cost overrun at $32.9 million.

The city is making about $400,000 in interest for each month of the delay. RTG is contracted to receive $59.4 million when the LRT system is deemed substantially complete and $202.3 million when it has achieved revenue service availability, which is the handover to the city.

The financial update on the LRT delay is the first one made public since December 2018, when the city thought it would receive the LRT system by the end of March 2019.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...-racks-up-more-than-30m-in-cost-overruns

[Richard Eade]

Something that struck me when the last financial update came out, in December, 2018, has been reinforced by this update.

The City has been continually telling us that running the bus system through the LRT construction is a higher cost that if there were no construction. The buses get caught up is snarled traffic, especially the ones that used to run on their own exclusive roadways. So, regardless of the extra delays in opening the LRT, the City has been paying more to provide bus service since almost day one of construction.

So, if pre-construction costs to provide public transit was ‘Y’ million dollars per month, then that is our base-line and during construction it costs ‘Y+X’ million dollars per month.

If we assume that the City is planning on going back to its base-line spending, of $’Y’million per month, i.e., there are no savings because of LRT, then the unexpected operating cost (the City’s ‘overspending’) is $’X’million times the number of months late the service starts. And, based on this quote from the article, that amount is almost $74million.

“The total overspending for operations is $73.7 million, with most of the money tied to extending the bus operations. From that total, the city deducts maintenance payments, debt payments and other rail-related savings, putting the operational cost overrun at $1.5 million.”

So now the interesting point, again, from the same quote; that the operating savings, due to not having to pay maintenance and debt charges total almost the extra cost of continuing the bus service. This cost of maintenance and dept servicing will begin once the LRT is running. This will add the cost $’X’million per month. This means that the City would have to drop its transit spending to ‘Y-X’ million dollars per month just to get back to the same level of spending it had before the move to LRT began.

At 12/13 times $74M, that represents a removal of $63M per year from what was being spent on bus service before the LRT construction. Just to add some perspective, the amount cut from the transit budget during the Route Optimization of September, 2011 was $20M per year.

Granted, some of that new cost will be offset by savings provided by the more efficient transportation of passengers by rail. And some will come from the reduction in the number of buses and their operators. But still; I am curious as to what the City’s transit system will look like, and what it will actually cost, after things settle down, once the LRT is running.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

So now the interesting point, again, from the same quote; that the operating savings, due to not having to pay maintenance and debt charges total almost the extra cost of continuing the bus service. This cost of maintenance and dept servicing will begin once the LRT is running. This will add the cost $’X’million per month. This means that the City would have to drop its transit spending to ‘Y-X’ million dollars per month just to get back to the same level of spending it had before the move to LRT began.

At 12/13 times $74M, that represents a removal of $63M per year from what was being spent on bus service before the LRT construction. Just to add some perspective, the amount cut from the transit budget during the Route Optimization of September, 2011 was $20M per year.

Granted, some of that new cost will be offset by savings provided by the more efficient transportation of passengers by rail. And some will come from the reduction in the number of buses and their operators. But still; I am curious as to what the City’s transit system will look like, and what it will actually cost, after things settle down, once the LRT is running.

You've got it exactly- there will be significantly less money spent on the bus network after LRT launches; the savings from LRT will only pay for the financing and maintenance costs of LRT and not be used for any service improvements.

But like you I'd like to see the exact numbers; e.g. how much was spent on the bus network (in 2019 $) before construction started; and how much will be spent on the bus network post-LRT.

[DarthVader_1961]

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when they do a project post-mortem so we can see what lessons have been learned

[PHrenetic]

Originally Posted by DarthVader_1961

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall when they do a project post-mortem so we can see what lessons have been learned

Good Day.

If......-if-...... they ever really do a proper one, it will almost certainly be internal and marked Top Secret.

No One will Ever Know !

They actually did do a semi lessons learned document, in the Stage 2 website 08 March 2017 set of documents :
https://www.stage2lrt.ca/stage-2-light-rail-transit-implementation-report/
PDF document 1 "Lessons Learned" 20 pages Deloitte & The Boxfish Group :
https://www.stage2lrt.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Supporting-docs-Appendix-1.pdf

It actually does contain some observations and recommendations admittedly lightweight and obvious,
but even these seem to have been mostly ignored, given the current state of information of Stage 2 plans, procurement, and contracting.

As City lawyers told our Councilors : " You don't need to know . " !!!!

Talk about a Black Hole !!!

[gunnar777]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

LRT builders commit to finish trains by July 7, handing over working rail system in August

Jon Willing, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: June 18, 2019

Alstom says it can finish fixing the 34 trains in early July, leading to the Rideau Transit Group’s handing over a finished LRT system around mid-August and the city launching the $2.1-billion rail line sometime in September.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Jim Watson met in his office boardroom with Alstom chief executive Henri Poupart-Lafarge, RTG CEO Peter Lauch and executives from the companies behind RTG to stress his disappointment that the businessmen haven’t been able to deliver Ottawa’s LRT system, even a year after the first missed deadline.

The year has been punctuated by missed deadlines by the LRT builders, so taxpayers might be forgiven for rolling their eyes at a new completion date.

Watson acknowledged that RTG has made similar handover commitments in the past, so he’s asked city manager Steve Kanellakos and transportation general manager John Manconi to make sure the project is actually on track for those dates.

Watson asked the Alstom and RTG executives to come to Ottawa City Hall for a meeting after the city learned that RTG wouldn’t deliver a working LRT system by the end of June, even though the builder previously indicated it could finish the 12.5-kilometre rail project by the end of the second quarter of 2019.

“We don’t want to disappoint again. We want to be precise,” Lauch said after the roughly one-hour meeting Tuesday.

RTG missed handovers on May 24, 2018, Nov. 2, 2018 and March 31, 2019. The city penalized RTG $1 million for each of the missed November and March deadlines.

The main barrier to opening the LRT system is the condition of the Alstom Citadis Spirit electric trains, specifically, the brakes and doors.

Earlier this month, city rail managers said brake valves need to be tested and potentially replaced. When it comes to the doors, there have been glitches with the sensors that dictate what happens when there’s an obstruction.

The city has also reported deficiencies with the on-board communications system and the operator monitoring system. There was another problem with the equipment that connects the train to the overhead wires.

Poupart-Lafarge said it’s not unusual to discover deficiencies during test runs of trains.

On Tuesday, Alstom committed to finishing the trains on July 7. Watson said RTG has indicated it can deliver the LRT system between the second and third week of August, with an exact date to be identified in the coming weeks.

If RTG meets the August handover, the LRT system could open sometime in September.

It’s not the best time to launch a city-transforming transit system, with students going back to school and workers returning to regular schedules after summer vacations. The city, however, has been planning to run a parallel bus system for the first three weeks of LRT operations to gradually get people used to the rail line.

Watson’s intervention contacting Alstom’s CEO was a bit out of the ordinary, since Alstom is a subcontractor for RTG.

But municipal, provincial and federal taxpayers have billions of dollars on the line.

Alstom is providing 38 more of the same kind of vehicle for the Stage 2 O-Train expansion project. Those Stage 2 vehicles are scheduled to be fully assembled by the third quarter of 2021.

Lauch said the mayor’s influence has helped RTG pick up speed on fixing the train problems.

“I think it has raised the awareness of the project,” Lauch said. “We’ve seen a marked improvement in Alstom’s performance in the last few weeks. They brought in global experts from other cities.”

Watson said he told the Alstom and RTG executives, “I expected better.”

“We’re a big customer for Alstom and some of the other partners and obviously I said at this point I cannot give any kind of a glowing reference to any other city who’s looking at dealing with (a similar project) until we have the keys handed over to us in the month of August and the system is flawless when it’s handed over to us,” Watson said.

Alstom designed the Citadis Spirit model for North America, with Ottawa being the first city coming on-board. Metrolinx, the provincial Crown corporation, has purchased Citadis Spirit vehicles for LRT lines in the Toronto and Hamilton areas.

[email protected]
twitter.com/JonathanWilling

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...nding-over-working-rail-system-in-august

It's interesting that Alstom has been the source of major train delays for a second time in recent Canadian history (the other major delay that Alstom caused was to Montreal's AZUR trains).

With Canadian cities experiencing issues with Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens vehicles, is there really any reliable brand?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

It's interesting that Alstom has been the source of major train delays for a second time in recent Canadian history (the other major delay that Alstom caused was to Montreal's AZUR trains).

With Canadian cities experiencing issues with Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens vehicles, is there really any reliable brand?

Issues with Siemens? Don't remember hearing anything of it.

As far as I know, Vancouver hasn't had any issues with its Hyundai Rotems on the Canada Line, or the Bombardier Innovia for that matter.

Most of the issues seem to be around newer models, though I feel Bombarier has no excuse for its well established Flexity line of vehicles.

Yes, the Alstom Citadis is an existing product line, but our model is new from the ground-up as they are the first running in an extreme climate like Ottawa's and the first to be used in a light-metro setting, unlike the Flexity streetcar.

[White Pine]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Issues with Siemens? Don't remember hearing anything of it.

As far as I know, Vancouver hasn't had any issues with its Hyundai Rotems on the Canada Line, or the Bombardier Innovia for that matter.

Most of the issues seem to be around newer models, though I feel Bombarier has no excuse for its well established Flexity line of vehicles.

Yes, the Alstom Citadis is an existing product line, but our model is new from the ground-up as they are the first running in an extreme climate like Ottawa's and the first to be used in a light-metro setting, unlike the Flexity streetcar.

Toronto's flexity is a custom design, not sure about kw's freedoms. Calgary had issues with the newest siemens cars, but there's not much info on that and I'm not sure if they're back to taking deliveries. Probably. Vancouvers hyundais seem to be fine.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by White Pine

Toronto's flexity is a custom design, not sure about kw's freedoms. Calgary had issues with the newest siemens cars, but there's not much info on that and I'm not sure if they're back to taking deliveries. Probably. Vancouvers hyundais seem to be fine.

According to the article posted below, Calgary is receiving one S200 car per week, replacing the original U2 stock.

Originally Posted by srperrycgy

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-transit-lrt-ctrain-scrap-1.5186121?cmp=rss

Kinda sad, but necessary.

[bikegypsy]

Originally Posted by gunnar777

It's interesting that Alstom has been the source of major train delays for a second time in recent Canadian history (the other major delay that Alstom caused was to Montreal's AZUR trains).

With Canadian cities experiencing issues with Alstom, Bombardier and Siemens vehicles, is there really any reliable brand?

Trains are getting more complexe and sophisticated as they increasingly depend on automation and software. It seems that everything is experiencing delays or recalls now... planes, tunnels, cars, computers. I think that delays are simply the new normal when it comes to technology.

[Gat-Train]

It's kinda ironic that we still receive weekly construction updates for S1, even though the construction is finished. Meanwhile, construction for S2 has started, but that isn't included in the weekly updates.