Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[OTownandDown]

Originally Posted by Corvulpes

Sigh....

Just, no. Don't make grand declarations about things you know nothing about.

The last two comments by these people is exactly the type of hyperbole that Joanne has been drumming up for 2 years now. Trumpism at it's finest.

The sky is falling, everyone is an idiot, people are bribed all the time, and what's being built is inferior and unsafe. All untrue bullsh*t, but exactly what crazy Uncle Tom will be spewing at the dinner table.

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

The last two comments by these people is exactly the type of hyperbole that Joanne has been drumming up for 2 years now. Trumpism at it's finest.

The sky is falling, everyone is an idiot, people are bribed all the time, and what's being built is inferior and unsafe. All untrue bullsh*t, but exactly what crazy Uncle Tom will be spewing at the dinner table.

Oh I soooo agree with you. This is the problem with presenting one sided, tinted in jade, stories. They are interpreted by many as the full story, and the full truth, when they are far from it.

I wish CBC would see this, and re-assign her and put Kate Porter (who has been fair in her reporting of LRT - both positive and negative) or someone else who clearly only has an agenda to report the news and not lace it with corruption inferences.

It is a weird day when I also would give credit to the Citizen for having more measured and fair reporting than her!

[Badyouken]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

They'd be fools to push the launch. A botched launch with system failures, lots of delays, trains going out of service, etc. would look way worse than even another 6 months of delays.

Watson needs to take this one on the chin and delay for as long as necessary. 1 month. 6 months. Doesn't matter.

And they need to stop setting deadlines. Just announced that "we're working on making this work and we'll tell you when we're ready to launch".

Agreed. Take the time needed, and be a bit more shy about giving dates unless you're really sure of it.

That said, the memo does seem positive. Hard to reconcile with what we hear from others about the 12-day trial, but we'll just have to wait and see.

[OCCheetos]

An article from Jon Willing about deficiency reports that were filed between November and March.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...eficiencies-in-lead-up-to-march-deadline

It notes that deficiencies were reported on the performance of switch heaters in winer, installation problems with the OCS, installation problems with security cameras (swaying), and pipe installations undergound.

He tries to make a point of noting that deficiency reports are normal in construction projects, but unfortunately I don't think it'll make a difference in the public perception of the story. It's obviously bad that city inspectors are actually doing their jobs to make sure the system performs like we expect it to because it sounds bad.

Originally Posted by pattherat

It is a weird day when I also would give credit to the Citizen for having more measured and fair reporting than her!

Jon Willing has done a really good job in his reporting on the matter, in my opinion.

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos;

Jon Willing has done a really good job in his reporting on the matter, in my opinion.

100% agree. He has probably been the most objective in reporting reality while tempering it with truth and background facts.

(I just meant that I normally don’t promote the Citizen personally, and Jon has, through professional reporting, made JC look like a hack with an agenda IMO)

[lrt's friend]

I was involved with non-conformance reporting for a website. I can see the parallels and it seems that with anything that is technically complex that this will occur and be necessary. The customer (the city) needs to double check to make sure that functionality and safety meet the design objectives. What is more important is how these problems are resolved. In our case, the contractor stopped rectifying non-conformance issues, which has left us with an imperfect design. With a light rail system, this would clearly be unacceptable.

We need to be patient. There will be imperfections no matter what but that needs to be limited to minor issues. It is critical that the Confederation Line not open until after all critical flaws are eliminated.

[J.OT13]

I agree Jon Willing is good and he does a better job at balancing public perception and the City's version of events. Joanne Chianello however, is able to dig deeper (or might have more/better sources) and find information that we otherwise might not get. SNC Lavalin not meeting the technical score is one of those stories. Had she not published that story, Council would have been completely oblivious and the City would never have released the scores months later.

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I agree Jon Willing is good and he does a better job at balancing public perception and the City's version of events. Joanne Chianello however, is able to dig deeper (or might have more/better sources) and find information that we otherwise might not get. SNC Lavalin not meeting the technical score is one of those stories. Had she not published that story, Council would have been completely oblivious and the City would never have released the scores months later.

‘Dig deeper’. You and I fundamentally disagree on that point.

Additionally, claiming her story was the sole manner council would have been made aware of scoring is a massive assumption stated as fact. Similarly, I disagree with you there.

I actually believe she does more harm than good appealing to the low info/low research reader and creates a narrative in the public realm that is not the full reality.

(I.e. She kicks up hyperbolic hornet’s nests because she can, and the less informed members of the public are misinformed or not fully informed as a result)

[OCCheetos]

Does anyone know how they're transitioning between the 3 and 4 minute operation periods? Are they pulling a train off the line during the middle period of the day, or do they just make the dwell times at either end longer?

[Kitchissippi]

“I feel very confident that we will have the key ceremony — it’s not really a key ceremony — but a ceremony to hand the system from RTG over to OC Transpo”

Oh, Jim, just like the “last spike”, you’ll find a way of turning it into a ceremony with a key

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by pattherat

‘Dig deeper’. You and I fundamentally disagree on that point.

Additionally, claiming her story was the sole manner council would have been made aware of scoring is a massive assumption stated as fact. Similarly, I disagree with you there.

I actually believe she does more harm than good appealing to the low info/low research reader and creates a narrative in the public realm that is not the full reality.

(I.e. She kicks up hyperbolic hornet’s nests because she can, and the less informed members of the public are misinformed or not fully informed as a result)

Council was not aware that they had left it to the discretion of City Staff to push through a bidder even if they did not score the minimum 70% requirement. Based on Chianello's story, Councillors asked Staff, back in March, point blank whether or not it was even possible for a bidder to go through without that 70%, a simple questions about the RFP process, nothing that would have jeopardized the competition. Staff refused to answer.

From my point of view, Staff deliberately and knowingly withheld information to protect their asses. Some politicians were probably aware (Watson, at the very least). We know that SNC did not meet the requirements for sure now that the scores are out, which would not have happened had that story not come out months earlier. I don't think it was a conspiracy hacked out between Staff and SNC. The bidding process was rigged, using legal avenues I'm sure, for the cheapest bidder, regardless of who that was. I don't think it warrants a legal fight, but maybe a few firings and black listing the Law Firm hired to advise Staff and Council on the procurement.

I agree, Chianello often blows things out of proportion. A good example is the winter issues and derailments, which are brought up in almost everyone of her articles, regardless of the fact that it often has not relevance. However, exposing the failed SNC score was good reporting. At the very, Council might learn some lessons about giving staff too much power.

I feel like I try to look at situations objectively and adopt a nuanced opinion. I don't buy every little thing the City says, but also don't fall into the rabbit hole of conspiracies and paranoia.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

Does anyone know how they're transitioning between the 3 and 4 minute operation periods? Are they pulling a train off the line during the middle period of the day, or do they just make the dwell times at either end longer?

I assume they remove (a) train(s) from the line. If they increased dwell times, then that would effect the end-to-end run time.

[J.OT13]

From Chris Rands. Looks pretty good.

"To the casual eye it looks like « Gradient Space « by Derek Root has been completed here at Tunney’s Pasture #ottlrt @jchianello"



https://twitter.com/chrisrands/status/1162345449522716674

[CityTech]

^ Nice! Livens up what looked like a depressing cave before.

[Bytown]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I agree Jon Willing is good and he does a better job at balancing public perception and the City's version of events. Joanne Chianello however, is able to dig deeper (or might have more/better sources) and find information that we otherwise might not get. SNC Lavalin not meeting the technical score is one of those stories. Had she not published that story, Council would have been completely oblivious and the City would never have released the scores months later.

I feel as though Joanne Chianello gets a truly bad rap here on SSP (and Reddit for that matter), far beyond the criticism she deserves.

If it's that posters see her as some sort of symbol of resistance to the churning Watson/Hubley PR machine... i'm sorry but that's literally her job. There's journalism and there's PR: pick one. If fervent critics like pattherat genuinely feel (from their palace of intellect and laser-guided obsession) that the rest of Ottawa will take her word as face value and not exemplify any sort of critical thinking one way or another, then I feel sorry for his misguided view of us poor plebeians.

However, the idea that any and all criticism of RTG and the 4x delayed Confederation Line stems from some "Trumplike" (that's verbatim) worship of JC is a little played out. That and transparently sexist comments (on an admittedly male-dominated forum) from others like "keep her panties in her drawer" from a few pages back makes one wonder why Jon Willing becomes such a pointedly more palatable choice. (I mean, obviously it *should* be because the Citizen allows for far longer word counts than CBC's website does, hence people calling her shorter reports "dogshit" and worse, but you have to wonder how token the mentions of Kate Porter become.)

We're all fans of the Confederation Line, we're all excited to see it happen. But there's some difference between fawning over unsourced leaks from subcontractors and memelording over her failed attempts to source information from unwilling and unco-operative city staff. You can be a fan and respect the role of a referee (or just basically live in a polite society).

Ultimately, that's what separates the emotionally competent from pattherat's concern trolling as a superhero defending the "less informed members of the public" from a narrative only *he* can process (aided strongly by Watson and Hubley).

[Gat-Train]

Originally Posted by rondon

Watson is under investigation now as the whole LRT project by RCMP financial crimes unit.

Big if true.

[pattherat]

Originally Posted by Bytown

If fervent critics like pattherat genuinely feel (from their palace of intellect and laser-guided obsession) that the rest of Ottawa will take her word as face value and not exemplify any sort of critical thinking one way or another, then I feel sorry for his misguided view of us poor plebeians.

Ultimately, that's what separates the emotionally competent from pattherat's concern trolling as a superhero defending the "less informed members of the public" from a narrative only *he* can process (aided strongly by Watson and Hubley).

I’m the troll? I’ll let my posts speak for themselves. At no time have I used any of your mentioned misogynist type of language. I basically critize based on my view of things with relation to one reporter when compared to a couple of others and how they approach presenting information to the public. I feel she is less responsible with her language and the impact to the ‘story’ and truth when compared to her compatriots.

If you disagree, fine. But your declarative statements about how I feel superior or that I am a ‘troll’ are insulting and I will not let those lie without this response. I will value the thoughts about my posts from others that I consider more responsible in their disagreements with me.

EDIT: I re-read your quotes, and discerned a bit more of your context. If you believe I am referencing posters on this thread when I speak of low-effort, low-information public, I don’t know what to tell you. This forum is far more informed and methodical in their views and is not remotely representative of the reactionary responses seen on reddit, Twitter, CBC threads etc. My comments were directed on her reporting’s impact to the greater public, which based on the volume of reactionary posts to her stories compared to reasoned ones in those realms, is skewing many’s views of the real situations.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by OCCheetos

An article from Jon Willing about deficiency reports that were filed between November and March.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...eficiencies-in-lead-up-to-march-deadline

It notes that deficiencies were reported on the performance of switch heaters in winer, installation problems with the OCS, installation problems with security cameras (swaying), and pipe installations undergound.

He tries to make a point of noting that deficiency reports are normal in construction projects, but unfortunately I don't think it'll make a difference in the public perception of the story. It's obviously bad that city inspectors are actually doing their jobs to make sure the system performs like we expect it to because it sounds bad.



Jon Willing has done a really good job in his reporting on the matter, in my opinion.

A positive we can take out of these reports is that City of Ottawa inspectors seem to be doing a very good job at holding RTG's feet to the fire.

[Bytown]

Originally Posted by pattherat

I will value the thoughts about my posts from others that I consider more responsible in their disagreements with me.
.

Exquisite! Anywho...

From Jon Willing's Twitter: "This would mean the city is in position to penalize RTG another $1 million, like it did for the May 24, 2018 missed handover, the Nov. 2, 2018 missed handover and March 31, 2019 missed handover."

I'm not reading any indication from the Mayor that the penalty will actually occur, though. Similar to when they missed Q2 2019, was the August 16th deadline ever written into the contract? If RTG is merely a few days late on the handover, does the penalty lie at the City's discretion?

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Bytown

From Jon Willing's Twitter: "This would mean the city is in position to penalize RTG another $1 million, like it did for the May 24, 2018 missed handover, the Nov. 2, 2018 missed handover and March 31, 2019 missed handover."

I'm not reading any indication from the Mayor that the penalty will actually occur, though. Similar to when they missed Q2 2019, was the August 16th deadline ever written into the contract? If RTG is merely a few days late on the handover, does the penalty lie at the City's discretion?

That's my interpretation. If you remember, the May 24th penalty was not applied at the time, but the City decided to do so recently. If RTG hands over the line sometime this month, I'm sure the City will wave the August 16th penalty.

Then there's the question of the $50 million detour costs; the City claiming RTG is responsible and RTG refusing. Based on what I know about the contract (very little in the grand scheme of things), RTG is probably in the right. The only financial recourse the City has is probably those million dollar chump-change penalties. Also, any cost overruns related to the project itself (sink holes, non-conformance corrections, train issues... - all within the fixed price contract).

EDIT: On the CTV interview this morning, Watson said "if they don't make the 12 days, obviously they have to pay another million dollars". At the 35 second mark. So yes, I guess they will impose it.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1755580