Everyone else to blame for LRT failures, everyone involved tells inquiry

The written closing submissions in the province’s public inquiry into Stage 1 of Ottawa’s light rail transit project are a summary of the finger-pointing seen and heard during the live testimony in June and July.

The inquiry posted the final closing submissions from nine involved parties, including the city of Ottawa, the Rideau Transit Group—which built and now maintains the Confederation Line—train manufacturer Alstom, and others.

A common theme that emerged is that the interested parties were not at fault, but were instead the victims of the other parties involved.

For example, Alstom said in its closing submission that micromanagement from the city of Ottawa, which Alstom said was inexperienced in major infrastructure development, was to the detriment of the project.

“To make up for this inexperience, the City retained an army of expert consultants to guide them through every aspect of the Project, from design and construction to operations and maintenance. Yet, the City often failed to heed its experts’ advice,” the submission said. “Instead, under extreme public scrutiny in Ottawa, the City was pressured to make short sighted decisions, to ‘act tough’ with its contractor partner, and, ultimately, to put the System into service before it was ready.”

The city, meanwhile, blamed the consortium it contracted to build the LRT system.

Noting several issues that plagued the line since its launch, including door failures, wheel cracks and two significant derailments, the city said all of the blame lies at the feet of the builder.

“RTG’s failures to perform its design, construction and maintenance obligations cannot be blamed on the City. In particular, these failures do not arise from the City’s procurement approach, the structure and content of the Request for Proposals, the adequacy of the Project Agreement, the City’s oversight of the Project or any of the other criticisms of the City’s conduct raised by Commission counsel during this Inquiry,” the city’s closing submission said. “None of those matters caused or contributed to the issues that led to the breakdowns and derailments.”

But RTG said the problems that arose when the system launched were “reasonably common problems” for a complex infrastructure project and blamed the impact to transit riders on city officials.

“The problems with the project had an outsized impact on Ottawa’s residents because their municipal government set unrealistic expectations,” RTG said. “Elected officials promised the public a turnkey system and campaigned on delivering it with no delays. When their own advisors warned them that no complex transit system, newly-built and operated, would launch problem-free, the political die was already cast.”

Alstom said its staffing and planning levels were appropriate and it overcame the challenges of building a new supply chain, but also said it was “set up to fail” from the very beginning.

“Unfortunately, Alstom’s maintenance team was set up to fail by circumstances out of its control, including a lack of transparency and information sharing from Ottawa Light Rail Transit Constructors (OLRTC) leading up to and during Revenue Service Availability (RSA), and RTG’s decision to shift the burden of a highly degraded and immature system from OLRTC to RTM and Alstom,” the train builder said.

“The City and RTG’s decision to start Revenue Service before the System was 100% ready presented enormous challenges for RTM and Alstom, as anticipated by RTG.”

The city’s closing submission said it felt at times that the “public sector was on trial” but staff defended their actions during the procurement, launch, and running of the system.

“[T]he City believes that a fair-minded and impartial observer can only come to one conclusion – the City’s conduct, and the conduct of its representatives, is not responsible for the previous and continuing issues facing the LRT,” the city said.

RTG stressed that it was ready to launch, but had issues with its subcontractor, Alstom.

“The Commission heard evidence from many parties that the Confederation Line was safe and ready for service at RSA. RTM was ready to perform its maintenance obligations at RSA,” the consortium wrote.

“Despite RTM’s readiness, it needed to rely on its subcontractor, Alstom. Though the RTG Parties’ constantly pushed Alstom maintenance (and it represented that it was ready for RSA), the reality was that Alstom maintenance was not prepared for RSA.”

Through all of this, the union representing transit operators said the problems with the LRT affected the entire transit system, had a negative impact on customers and, ultimately, on OC Transpo rank and file.

“Residents of Ottawa were promised that the years of disruptions to their roadways and transit networks during the construction of Phase 1 would be worth it because the light rail system would deliver this “safe and reliable” transit service from its inception,” The Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279 wrote in its closing submission.

“Regrettably, what the evidence has shown over 18 days of testimony and countless exhibits is that not only has the Confederation Line fallen far short of being a reliable form of public transportation, but it has also shown that virtually everyone connected with the project knew this was going to be the reality before the system’s public launch in September of 2019.”

The ATU blamed the public-private partnership model (P3) as inherently flawed.

“The adoption of a public/private partnership (P3) model for the construction and operation of the Confederation Line rather than having OC Transpo operate the system directly (i) unduly fragmented the operations and maintenance of the transit system; (ii) prevented OC Transpo managers from responding to service challenges; and (iii) generally led to a lack of public accountability for the system’s failures.”

The inquiry was called following two derailments in six weeks last summer, the second of which kept the Confederation Line closed for 54 days.

The commissioner leading the public inquiry into Ottawa's light rail transit system has received a three-month extension to finish the final report, pushing the deadline beyond the Oct. 24 municipal election. Justice William Hourigan will have until Nov. 30, 2022 to submit his final report.

The inquiry originally had a deadline of Aug. 31, which would have enabled a final report to be tabled before the election, but it always included the possibility of an extension.

Mayor Jim Watson is not running for re-election in 2022 and neither are several city councillors.

Kate McGrann is a co-lead counsel for the light rail transit commission and will be assisting Justice Hourigan draft his final report. 

"The inquiry received quite a bit of evidence, well over a million documents. Before the hearing started, we interviewed over 30 witnesses," says McGrann. "The commission team is assisting the commissioner in reviewing the evidence received, as well as the closing arguments of the participants."

Transcripts for all evidence, including the public hearings are available on the commission’s website. 

"All of that work is being done to assist the commissioner in the drafting of his final report which will include both findings on the questions posed in the terms of reference and recommendations for projects like this going forward," McGrann said.

McGrann says the closing arguments will be an important piece of evidence and highlight where each of the parties stand after the public hearings. 

"I think that the closing statements provide a concise view of the positions of the participants all of which will be considered by the commissioner," McGrann said.

"By reading the closing statements, people who are interested in the work of the commission can gain an understanding of where the participants are coming from and where they would suggest the commission go with his findings and recommendations."

For transit riders in Ottawa looking for answers to the issues, McGrann says the report will take time.

"As a project that, as the people of Ottawa know, has been underway for about 10 years, (it is) quite a bit of information to process in order to truly understand what happened, and for the commissioner to formulate answers to the questions posed in the terms of reference so I think that the public can look forward to the commissioner’s findings as well as recommendations," McGrann said. 

McGrann says anyone can still communicate with the commission at any time; they can reach out through the website and contact information on the website. McGrann stressing that accountability and transparency is at the core of the commission’s task. 

"One of the benefits and one of the aspects that a commission delivers is that kind of transparency for the public into the matters that are put before the commission for its investigation," McGrann said. "It is our hope that through the interviews, through the disclosure of documents on the website, through the hearings, that people will feel that they gained the kind of transparency and insight into the matters that were put before the commissioner. I think we were able to disclose a lot of information to the public that wasn’t available before and that is one of the benefits that comes with an undertaking like this."

Eighteen days of public hearings were held at the University of Ottawa from June 13 to July 7, with 41 witnesses testifying. The commission also conducted formal interviews with dozens of witnesses, hosted an expert panel on public-private partnerships, and received more than 550,000 documents related to the LRT system.