The measure to try to speed up the completion of the Confederation Line by one year stemmed from political pressure and not from the advice of project experts, as public research on the Ottawa Light Rail line heard on Monday. .
The first day of public research on LRT issues raised many of the questions the public has been asking for years: was the budget too tight? Was the calendar too short? What happened to the 12-day consecutive test run? Was Alstom Citadis Spirit the right train?
These questions, and more, will be the focus of a detailed examination over the next 17 days of testimony and interrogation.
The Conservative Progressive Cabinet decided last fall to investigate the Confederate Line issue after Ottawa City Council voted against conducting a judicial inquiry.
He appointed Judge William Hourigan of the Ontario Court of Appeal as commissioner, who is mandated to study all commercial and technical issues that may have led to the two derailments which happened last summer.
The commission began Monday by looking back more than a decade, examining the circumstances and events of the months that led Rideau Transit Group (RTG) – a consortium of SNC-Lavalin, ACS Infrastructure and Ellis Don – to win the project contract. in December 2012.
Judge William Hourigan takes his seat before the start of the first day of proceedings in the investigation into the problem of the Ottawa LRT system on June 13, 2022. (Justin Tang / The Canadian Press)
Budget and time constraints?
The first witness under the spotlight was John Jensen, the city’s former director of rail implementation, to whom the commission’s co-director lawyer, John Adair, asked if the project’s budget and schedule were too much. limited.
The $ 2.1 billion price was set in dollars in 2009 and before more detailed design and preliminary engineering work was done.
“Setting your budget so early puts you at risk of sticking to a certain number at a time when you don’t necessarily have all the information you need,” Adair told Jensen.
John Adair is the commission’s chief executive officer conducting a public inquiry into the Ottawa light rail system. He asked former city rail director John Jensen about, among other things, political pressure to shorten the LRT project schedule. (Kate Porter / CBC)
Adair noted that Mayor Jim Watson ran for office in 2010, promising that the proposed LRT project would only go ahead if it could be kept within its $ 2.1 billion budget.
The commission’s lawyer asked Jensen if he remembered that staff are leading the board to move forward with preliminary engineering work on the basis that the project would be “designed according to budget.”
Jensen said he did not recall any specific council directives, only that city staff and their experts manage the budget to deliver “the best value at the lowest cost.” However, Adair produced two papers written by Jensen in March 2011 about designing the system specifically for the $ 2.1 billion budget.
The former railway director insisted that the $ 2.1 billion figure was a “goal” and “not a hard line”.
The mayor wanted the LRT to end faster
Adair also challenged Jensen in the short term of the project. The 12.5 km east-west LRT line was originally scheduled to be completed in 2019.
But in March 2011, the mayor-led finance and economic development committee pressured staff to finish the LRT sooner.
According to a May 2011 staff report, Watson also hired the railroad office directly “to ensure that all opportunities to move the project forward more quickly are fully explored.”
TARGET | The mayor “is not happy” with the performance of the LRT 6 weeks after the opening:
“We’re not happy about that”
Mayor Jim Watson has announced several immediate solutions to Ottawa’s traffic system, including $ 3.5 million to get 40 more buses on the road.
City Hall staff told City Hall that it could shorten the deadline by one year, cutting each contracting and construction schedule by six months, and that it was possible that part of the system could be completed in time for a ceremonial opening. or, alternatively, be part of Canada’s 150th. birthday celebrations in 2017.
Adair asked Jensen a few times if the motivation to finish the fastest LRT came from politicians, not experts.
Jensen did not respond directly and said part of the programming analysis was “to create an environment where the city center is not too disrupted.”
The commission’s lawyer has reiterated what he wanted to know: ‘mayor. and the council “.
“It didn’t come from the experts,” Jensen said.
Then Hourigan himself intervened and told Jensen to answer the question. So Adair once again asked me to confirm that the July 2017 goal to finish the works at the center came from the mayor and the town hall.
“That’s right,” Jensen said.
The Confederation Line was finally delivered to the city in late August 2019, more than 16 months after the contract deadline.
What ended up happening in 2017 as an LRT demonstration was a multimedia show at the future Lyon station. (Justin Tang / The Canadian Press)
An RTG witness says they were unable to operate 15 trains
Later, RTG’s former bidding director Riccardo Cosentino told the commission that the budget and timetable could have been met “if everything had materialized” as the estimators had predicted.
Cosentino, who has been an executive at SNC-Lavalin since 2010, continues on RTG’s board and has been receiving constant updates on LRT’s performance and problems with the city.
Commission lawyer Christine Mainville asked for details on RTG’s offer, including details on how the consortium originally wanted to use the trains of the Spanish company CAF, but the city considered them incompatible.
Christine Mainville, another of the three co-leaders of the commission, questioned SNC-Lavalin executive Riccardo Cosentino about choosing the Alstom Citadis as the train for the Confederation Line and about the trial before the LRT was handed over to the city. . (Frédéric Pepin / Radio-Canada)
Cosentino said representatives of RTG and the train company tried to convince the city that the CAF vehicles met the city’s specifications or were close enough. But the city refused.
This meant that RTG had to ask Alstom to be its train provider in the late summer of 2012.
Alstom has already said in its opening statement posted online that no train manufacturer in the world could have met the city’s requirements.
Cosentino also addressed the 12-day consecutive test that is supposed to result in the city having 15 two-vehicle trains available for service.
The SNC-Lavalin executive told the commission that it was difficult to operate 15 trains according to the parameters agreed with the city.
“So there were some difficulties in achieving the metrics that had been set a little earlier and therefore the metrics were modified?” Mainville asked.
“That was my understanding and I understand it today,” Cosentino said.
An Ottawa LRT train at Tunney’s Pasture station on September 6, 2019, just over a week before the line opens to the public. (Andrew Lee / CBC)
Alstom’s lawyer, who is one of the parties authorized to cross-examine the witnesses, said RTG and the city had reached a compromise to hand over the light rail system knowing that there would be additional problems to resolve once the line was in operation.
This is a problem for Alstom, argued its lawyer Michael Valo, because it is the train manufacturer the main subcontractor of Rideau Transit Maintenance.
“Is Alstom taking over for the extra work and the risk of deductions, do you agree?” Valo asked Cosentino, who agreed.
Rob Pattison of Infrastructure Ontario and City Treasurer Marian Simulik are scheduled to testify Tuesday.
Hurigan’s target for a post-consultation report is in late August, with a possible extension until November.