Confederation Line (Stage 1) | In Service 1.0

[Charles5]

On another note:

Another week of smooth sailing on the LRT for me (one more commute this evening). In the two months of operation so far, I've only been delayed once and that lasted all of 3 minutes. I don't think I've ever had that good service when all I had to take was an Express bus.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't problems, but folks need to be realistic in their expectations as well. Today for example has been a trouble free day to the best of my knowledge, with lower than normal traffic (a Friday, and a PA day), and yet Twitter is alight with folks complaining about how arduous their journey has been today.

Lets work to solve the big problems, and accept the realities that are simply features of a Light Rail line, such as a requirement to transfer, or the fact that there might be hundreds of people on the platform along with yourself.

[Charles5]

And finally; fun fact of the day:

By my count, there are 103 vertical posts in each LRT vehicle (counting the ones by the doors that split into three as 'three'). With a rating of 180 standing passengers, and considering that in many cases more than one person can hold onto a vertical post, you could probably reach your 180 standees without anyone having to hold onto an overhead bar.

[Uhuniau]

I am a good-luck charm as well, so far. Only disruptions have been one that was resolved before we knew anything was amiss other than a brief double-load waiting at the station (Campus), and the brief "crawl" Wednesday night due to the weld issue east of Hurdman.

The timing of most of the problems - the (c)rush hours - is highly suspect to me, and highly probative of the cause. Who knows, maybe we'll need a second line in the urban core sooner than later.

[HighwayStar]

I’m currently in Paris and here was my experience riding a couple of trains from my hotel to CDG during Friday afternoon rush hour:
- RER B (normally every 4 minutes) had a gap of 20+ minutes while I was waiting.. no announcement other than “delayed” on the screens.
- on a packed train, at one stop the doors opened and tried to close maybe 10+ times... announcement every time (French and English) “please clear the doors”
- for whatever reason, train couldn’t make it to the final station. There was a barely audible announcement in French only that the this was the last stop and train would be returning to Paris. Took a couple minutes for everyone to get the message... everyone eventually got off and figured things out on their own.

No griping.. everyone just took things in stride.

Ottawa’s problems are nothing special.

[TheMatth69]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

I’m currently in Paris and here was my experience riding a couple of trains from my hotel to CDG during Friday afternoon rush hour:
- RER B (normally every 4 minutes) had a gap of 20+ minutes while I was waiting.. no announcement other than “delayed” on the screens.
- on a packed train, at one stop the doors opened and tried to close maybe 10+ times... announcement every time (French and English) “please clear the doors”
- for whatever reason, train couldn’t make it to the final station. There was a barely audible announcement in French only that the this was the last stop and train would be returning to Paris. Took a couple minutes for everyone to get the message... everyone eventually got off and figured things out on their own.

No griping.. everyone just took things in stride.

Ottawa’s problems are nothing special.

Except that your talking about a much older network. All the RER lines combine we're talking about 500km of rail. Line B has 5 brenchs if I'm not wrong, so any delay impacts the whole synchronization of the line. Also Line B has two operators, SNCF and RATP, both operators use different signaling systems and there's a driver swtich at 'Gare Du Nord' because the RATP drivers can't continue driving on the SNCF part of the Line and vice versa. If there's a delay on a RATP brench the train has to stay on the RATP brench wich is why your train was short ended (Between Paris and CDG Airport SNCF operates the line). The system works on a tight synchronization between RATP and SNCF wich in case of delays becomes very tricky.
Finally MI79 trains are almost 40 years old (yes 79 stands for the year the trains were put in service).

So no comparisons to be made here, we only have one line, furthermore brand new one, with brand new trains, with only 12 stations, no brenchs and one operator.

[Kitchissippi]

Might be cold weather related but I think the smell at Parliament station has gotten worse lately. Last night I was walking along Queen street and the distinct smell now wafts up through the sidewalk grates. I was under the impression that they had identified the cause a couple of weeks ago and a solution was in the works.

[MalcolmTucker]

Gas seep maybe?

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by TheMatth69

So no comparisons to be made here, we only have one line, furthermore brand new one, with brand new trains, with only 12 stations, no brenchs and one operator.

I do appreciate the detailed technical explanation... but my point was more about the user experience and rider expectations.

As I read about all the griping in Ottawa, I was simply trying to point out that trains are delayed.. doors don't close properly... and even stations are missed... all over the world.

I wasn’t in a hurry, and I couldn’t help but smile as I realized I just experienced all of Ottawa’s frustrations on a single ride in Paris... and people just took it all in stride. And this was rush hour.

P.S. the massive, cavernous underground stations, and double decker Go-Train like rolling stock probably didn’t hurt either 😉

[passwordisnt123]

The smell in Parliament Station is indicative of the problems we've been seeing elsewhere on the Confederation Line.

For example, on September 18, the official response was:

There were also complaints of a smell in the Confederation Line's underground platforms. Manconi said that was due to moisture seeping into the stations. City crews have been working to pump that water out.

Then on October 3 they were still sticking to the moisture story but with a variation:

Since the Confederation Line of the LRT opened in mid-September, commuters have been complaining about a rancid smell in the downtown tunnel. The City now believes it has identified the source of that smell.

In an email to Newstalk 580 CFRA, Troy Charter, Director of Transit Operations, says that a sump pump wasn't working in an escalator pit, causing a buildup of moisture.

Then on November 6 it came out that the actual cause of the sewer smell was because the LRT builder punctured a sewer main:

The smell was caused by a punctured sewage pipe that should be repaired this week, while the stairs will be covered with a grittier surface and the costs billed to RTG.

Manconi or Hubley's first instinct is to either deflect or minimize or deny there's a problem without even bothering to see if the complaints have any validity. Then they delay and obfuscate and the solutions end up taking longer than the needed to. We saw the same pattern of behaviour with the 13 trains versus 15 trains and the whole justification around why that wasn't a big deal. We saw the same pattern of behaviour around the 12 days of continuous testing. We saw the same pattern of behaviour around the scoring vis-a-vis SNC Lavelin not passing the technical score but still being awarded the contract for Stage 2 south.

When somebody misleads you once, you shouldn't ever let them be in a position to do it again. Both these assholes need to be fired.

[OCCheetos]

I'm not an expert on this, but aren't gas leaks kind of hard to track down especially if they aren't from a known source? It sounds more like they had been trying to find the source, thought they found it (because what they found was also an issue) but then the smell persisted so they have to keep looking.

[Uhuniau]

The original, "opening week" aroma at Parliament had three elements (and I have a terrible sense of smell, so it must have been strong for normals):

- the "musty" notes, now gone, probably the pit/seepage issue

- the "lime" (as in mineral, not fruit) notes of still-curing concrete or grout or something, which is mostly, but not entirely, gone

- the "death" notes which are very sanitary-sewer-y and are still coming and going. The esca-stairs shaft on the north side, leading to the Winners entrance, seems to get the worst of it.

I was smelling "lime" and "death" from the vent shafts on Queen for a good while before the opening.

[kmcamp]

In other oddities, why did they install grip tape at Parliament, then remove it a week later. It would have really helped last week of they had left it on, even if they were going to eventually change it with something more permanent.

[Andrew_G]

Originally Posted by kmcamp

In other oddities, why did they install grip tape at Parliament, then remove it a week later. It would have really helped last week of they had left it on, even if they were going to eventually change it with something more permanent.

I heard people were complaining that it was causing issues with depth perception so they were removed.

[Brannwagon]

Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I'm still confused about platform protocol at Tunney's. Assuming both platforms are open, why are trains not always alternating which platform they depart from? For example, today my westbound train slowed down and stopped before the switch as it approached Tunney's. We waited for the eastbound train to depart platform 2, before we crossed over and got off the train at platform 2. I checked platform 1, at the next train was scheduled to depart in 8 minutes. Why did my train not simply end its run at platform 1, instead of waiting for the other train to clear platform 2 and going there? This is not the first time I've experienced this.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I can't for the life of me figure out why this contract wasn't better structured with vastly better performance provisions built in. Even if staff didn't know what they were doing, why couldn't they have done a find/replace on a contract from another jurisdiction?

Political expediency.

If there was more outside involvement, I suspect we'd have 1-2 fewer stations and more focus on functionality and reliability early on. More competent management would mean bureaucrats who ask hard questions and refuse to implement your poor decisions. Who needs that when you have John Manconi?

Heck, political machinations pushed the launch up. The mayor and council made a calculated decision that they could pull off what amounted to a hard launch within a month despite a lack of capacity and a lack of operational experience. They can blame RTG all they want. That's not RTG or the contract. That's the politicians.

I do wish that the province would step in and force Infrastructure Ontario to take the lead on Stage 2 and mandate some Stage 2 funding to go towards reliability and capacity enhancements.

[OTownandDown]

Your attitude is also the problem. You assume that YOU deserve an immediate, correct answer, rather than allowing people to do their jobs. You assume these people are some sort of magical fairies who can immediately identify the source of a smell coming from a random, unidentifiable source, a hundred feet below ground, in a system with several overlapping services. You also assume that because the smell isn't fixed within a weekend, that someone is ignoring your problem, and they're also an asshole and deserve to be fired.

And then the media and twitter insist on immediate correct answers, over and over and over and over and over and over and over, to the point where it's not physically possible to answer everyone's questions without a large team of additional staff, which isn't possible because the City has no money to hire anyone else. And if the answer to your personal query isn't immediate, then everyone is an asshole idiot who should be fired.

Yes, there's a sewer pipe leaking somewhere, somewhere in the ground, somewhere between the surface and the station, or the tunnels, in the area around the station. A pipe somewhere. Now, there's different types of investigative solutions to try to find a random leak in a random pipe somewhere within what like 500 square metres of surface area and 50 metres of depth, so somewhere within 25,000 cubic metres of volume. So then lets say you inspected all the lines from all the buildings and all the mains between the buildings up and down all the streets surrounding the station, and somehow you found that pipe that leaks (what, by maybe a video of the offending pipe that you happened to catch a visible break? Lets hope it's not a valve or link or something exterior that would not be visible to a video of the lines, so lets say you found it after you videoed a couple kilometers of line, best case scenario. So then you can either excavate the street (again) or re-line the pipe somehow. And given that it's a guarantee that all sewer pipes leak into the ground everywhere, do you have to replace them all?

So then you've got like 4 consultants, RTG, City Hall, Streets, OC Transpo, and someone from wastewater working to get this pipe fixed (assuming you've found it). You might not be able to get a contractor on standing offer, you might need a consultant to design the solution so it can be tendered (because cost controls). So that takes time also, probably about three months to tendering, assuming you found the leak and can design the solution. All that having been said, one day, in the future, they'll get it. Not tomorrow, and probably not for several months.

Just feel lucky you don't live in NYC, or better yet Delhi, because I guarantee you, there's a lot more interesting smells.

Originally Posted by passwordisnt123

The smell in Parliament Station is indicative of the problems we've been seeing elsewhere on the Confederation Line.

For example, on September 18, the official response was:



Then on October 3 they were still sticking to the moisture story but with a variation:



Then on November 6 it came out that the actual cause of the sewer smell was because the LRT builder punctured a sewer main:



Manconi or Hubley's first instinct is to either deflect or minimize or deny there's a problem without even bothering to see if the complaints have any validity. Then they delay and obfuscate and the solutions end up taking longer than the needed to. We saw the same pattern of behaviour with the 13 trains versus 15 trains and the whole justification around why that wasn't a big deal. We saw the same pattern of behaviour around the 12 days of continuous testing. We saw the same pattern of behaviour around the scoring vis-a-vis SNC Lavelin not passing the technical score but still being awarded the contract for Stage 2 south.

When somebody misleads you once, you shouldn't ever let them be in a position to do it again. Both these assholes need to be fired.

[daud]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

Just feel lucky you don't live in NYC, or better yet Delhi, because I guarantee you, there's a lot more interesting smells.

Haven't been to Delhi but have been to Mumbai. Stayed in the northern suburbs too which is no treat.

Shops are forced to blast perfumed air outside their doors. Rivers are covered in garbage to the point you don't see the river. Construction workers sleep on the sidewalk every night then take their bucket down to said river each morning.

When we talk about the catastrophic impact of humanity on this planet, you can't really grasp that as much here in Canada. Spend a week in Mumbai and you'll fully get the severity of the problem.

I haven't gotten off at parliament yet but I have smelt it waft into the train when passing through. Its not a nice smell at all and I hope they fix it.

[PHrenetic]

Good Day.

To re-open an old line of discussion, in light of some of the crowding experienced on the C-Line.....down escalators.

It would seem that someone in the RTG designs team had some forethought of people flow, given their constraints, or else it was an unanticipated benefit of the cost-cutting,
but it seems to have been a good thing that they did not install DOWN escalators in the down-oriented stations.....
esp. Blair, Tunney's, and St.Laurent (and incl. Pimisi, Lees, Tremblay, Cyrville).
I have no personal knowledge of Lyon, Parl, Rideau from the concourse down to the platform; others can chime in.
It certainly seems to have had the "happy" result of not killing people in the outage/delay crushes.
What of Bayview and Hurdman ?

Just an observation, FWIW.

[passwordisnt123]

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

Your attitude is also the problem. You assume that YOU deserve an immediate, correct answer, rather than allowing people to do their jobs. You assume these people are some sort of magical fairies who can immediately identify the source of a smell coming from a random, unidentifiable source, a hundred feet below ground, in a system with several overlapping services. You also assume that because the smell isn't fixed within a weekend, that someone is ignoring your problem, and they're also an asshole and deserve to be fired.

And then the media and twitter insist on immediate correct answers, over and over and over and over and over and over and over, to the point where it's not physically possible to answer everyone's questions without a large team of additional staff, which isn't possible because the City has no money to hire anyone else. And if the answer to your personal query isn't immediate, then everyone is an asshole idiot who should be fired.

Yes, there's a sewer pipe leaking somewhere, somewhere in the ground, somewhere between the surface and the station, or the tunnels, in the area around the station. A pipe somewhere. Now, there's different types of investigative solutions to try to find a random leak in a random pipe somewhere within what like 500 square metres of surface area and 50 metres of depth, so somewhere within 25,000 cubic metres of volume. So then lets say you inspected all the lines from all the buildings and all the mains between the buildings up and down all the streets surrounding the station, and somehow you found that pipe that leaks (what, by maybe a video of the offending pipe that you happened to catch a visible break? Lets hope it's not a valve or link or something exterior that would not be visible to a video of the lines, so lets say you found it after you videoed a couple kilometers of line, best case scenario. So then you can either excavate the street (again) or re-line the pipe somehow. And given that it's a guarantee that all sewer pipes leak into the ground everywhere, do you have to replace them all?

So then you've got like 4 consultants, RTG, City Hall, Streets, OC Transpo, and someone from wastewater working to get this pipe fixed (assuming you've found it). You might not be able to get a contractor on standing offer, you might need a consultant to design the solution so it can be tendered (because cost controls). So that takes time also, probably about three months to tendering, assuming you found the leak and can design the solution. All that having been said, one day, in the future, they'll get it. Not tomorrow, and probably not for several months.

Just feel lucky you don't live in NYC, or better yet Delhi, because I guarantee you, there's a lot more interesting smells.

Goodness. There seems to be some miscommunication or something going on here. You seem to be talking about something completely different from me. Nowhere in my comment did I say anything about the speed of repair. I wasn't even talking about that.

My comment was about the impulse among certain senior managers and elected officials to deflect at any cost, answering legitimate concerns without regard for the facts by giving a quick and easy and ultimately misleading answer each time this issue has come up in the last three months.

The correct answer that Manconi or Hubley should have been giving would be something along the lines of "we don't know and we're going to get to the bottom of this." One of the reasons I noted in my comment for why I think this is noteworthy is that this seems to not be a one-off. This seems to be their MO on a number of other issues (doors, smell, train issues, etc.).

[Catenary]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Political expediency.

If there was more outside involvement, I suspect we'd have 1-2 fewer stations and more focus on functionality and reliability early on. More competent management would mean bureaucrats who ask hard questions and refuse to implement your poor decisions. Who needs that when you have John Manconi?

Heck, political machinations pushed the launch up. The mayor and council made a calculated decision that they could pull off what amounted to a hard launch within a month despite a lack of capacity and a lack of operational experience. They can blame RTG all they want. That's not RTG or the contract. That's the politicians.

I do wish that the province would step in and force Infrastructure Ontario to take the lead on Stage 2 and mandate some Stage 2 funding to go towards reliability and capacity enhancements.

I think people are forgetting the situation we were in before the train opened. The bus system was past the breaking point. Vehicles had been stretched years past their retirement or overhaul dates because the opening of the train was always just another couple of months away. Maintenance could barely keep the required fleet on the road. Hundreds of trips were being cancelled daily because if there was a functional bus, there wasn't a driver. The drivers who were left were being paid 8+ hours of OT just to extend for another trip each day, trying to keep things together. Things were bad, and got worse with each delay. The train was to be the solution, and even if the capacity wasn't there with only 13 trains, in theory it was more reliable than a bus and at least if the train was full, there was another one 4 minutes away. If you relied on the bus every day, an under capacity train still looked good.

I wouldn't jump onto Infrastructure Ontario too quickly either. While they've been successful in building hospitals, courthouses and police stations, they do not yet have a successful public transit infrastructure track record. There have been some cracks showing already, including the sudden 2 year delay on the Hurontario project and the ridiculous situation Metrolinx was put in where they would have to pay the P3 if Bombarider didn't have cars ready in time, leading to the impromptu Alstom order.