RTG not our BFF anymore — a problem for coming 30-year relationship
Kelly Egan, OTtawa Citizen
Updated: November 15, 2019
The city of Ottawa seems all too eager to throw Rideau Transit Group under the bus, as soon at it finds one running on schedule.
Snippy-swipes aside, here’s why the public slagging is worrisome. We are wedded to this consortium for the next 30 years. Barely back from the honeymoon, we’re now hearing cries of “just not that into you” time and again.
There was an alarming condemnation by city manager Steve Kanellakos last week, before all of council, the media, and thousands via television. Not only was RTG and its maintenance arm, RTM, failing the city with the LRT build, but he left the impression they don’t know what they’re doing.
“We have experienced issues with RTG and RTM that I can only categorize as inadequate management oversight, poor planning, under resourcing and failure to anticipate predictable issues,” he said, and rather gruffly.
Kanellakos — and bless his bluntness — said senior city staff met with “them” over the previous weekend and he came away surprised at how little they knew about dealing with a public-service emergency, the kind he’s often handled.
“We actually had to tell them what things we would do, and we’re not rail specialists, for them to be able to improve this service.”
Good God. The city is telling RTG how to run a railway? We may be way more screwed that we thought.
So, on the heels of this public dressing down of the alphabet train consortium, we have news on Monday that Rideau Transit Maintenance has a new chief executive officer. It is Peter Lauch, also the CEO of Rideau Transit Group.
You don’t know whether to cry or wind your watch, given RTG’s delivery of the $2.1-billion system more than a year late, with a “fragile, still requires assembly” warning label.
It all leads to the same question which, in our daily panic, we aren’t getting answered: Who is RTM? Who is Peter Lauch, for that matter? Are he/they equipped to fix this mess? And, if not, what do we do about it? You think a 30-minute wait is excessive? We have 30 years with these guys.
RTM — oh, and the shock of it all — has no website, no public phone number and no easily accessible business profile. It isn’t clear if they have an office or live in a van down by the river. It may have 50 or 500 employees and a yard full of wise guys or circus elephants. Honestly, who the hell knows what we’re getting for $5 million a month?
Lauch, meanwhile, is sometimes seen at city hall, though public engagement doesn’t seem to be his favourite hobby. Too bad he’s building the biggest infrastructure project in the city’s history.
He appeared before a committee of councillors in February — on command, really — when the handover of the system was almost a year late. The presentation was all very business-like, though he didn’t look entirely comfortable before the microphones.
“We don’t contemplate any other scenario than handover on the 31st of March,” he said.
No sooner were the words out of his mouth, than OC Transpo general manager John Manconi said, essentially, “we don’t believe you.” Talk about whacking the legs from under your most important contractor.
Both Manconi and Mayor Jim Watson moments later said they were quite sure RTG could not meet the April 1 deadline. They were right. The soft-launch of the train didn’t occur until Sept. 14, and we’ve been “contemplating scenarios” ever since, most involving bloody outcomes.
I spoke to someone who worked with Lauch for years. “Nice guy, well-liked, not really a techie” was the line, with a real strength in project management. A civil engineer, he worked for MDS Aero Support Corp. for more than 20 years, a firm that specializes in engine test facilities, like all that wind-tunnel stuff.
In other words, before joining RTG in June 2013 as technical director (according to LinkedIn), he was never a train guy. Maybe that means nothing. A man can learn a lot about rail in six years. Why then, as long as nine months ago, was the city publicly questioning his judgment?
The bottom line here is the same. The city hall people who work closely with the RTG group — Manconi, Kanellakos, presumably Watson — don’t express much faith in the company that is responsible for the trains, the track and wires, and pretty much every bolt that holds it all together, until 2050.
Forget about adding a bus or two or 10 or 200, is this not the real problem? We married them, now worry when they leave “for a pack of smokes.”
Talk about a rocky relationship heading off the rails.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email
[email protected]
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/column...ymore-a-wee-problem-on-30-year-road-trip
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