Partial shutdown of LRT system for two weeks in June, OC Transpo boss says

OC Transpo General Manager Renée Amilcar says transit riders will face two weeks of partial shutdowns of the Confederation Line next month, to allow OC Transpo and Rideau Transit Maintenance to do maintenance work on the light-rail transit line.

"It will be two weeks, from June 5 to June 19," Amilcar said Thursday. "Sometimes we will have partial service from 8 a.m. to end of service, sometimes it will be the full day. We will never (shutdown) the entire line in the day; however, sometimes we will need to close partial line of the train.”

Amilcar told reporters on Thursday that more details about the maintenance work will be provided to councillors and the public in the coming days. 

"We will take the opportunity of those two weeks to do grinding of the rail, this is normal maintenance for rail," she says. 

Amilcar says she hopes this will lead to concrete answers to avoid further issues.

"I would prefer them to take their time once, instead of trying to rush everything and then come back again. So for now, let’s see what will happen during the shutdown in June," Amilcar said.

In addition to that maintenance work, Amilcar says RTM will continue to investigate more leaks in the LRT tunnel east of Rideau Station. She suggested there could be line closures, as well as single-track reductions in service.

During the planned partial shutdown of the LRT line at the end of April and the first weekend of May, crews poured roughly 750 litres of grout on a 15-metre stretch of the tunnel just east of Rideau Station to fix leaks. 

City of Ottawa engineer Richard Holder says they are looking for more leaks and will use the two-week shutdown to try and fix part of the problem. 

"As a result of the investigative work that RTG did within the tunnel on the first weekend, they were able to establish that there were some voids in between the concrete liner that people see as they pass by on the train in the tunnel and the waterproof liner which is hidden from view," Holder said.

Holder says crews focused on a section of the tunnel just east of Rideau Station, where the leaks have been most severe.

"The approximate amount of grout that was used in the second weekend, which was part of the remedial work, was about 710 litres of grout that was pumped in under pressure," Holder said.

"There is the expectation that we have now sealed that particular section of tunnel which is about 15 metres long and we will now monitor it to see how effective that has been to eliminate the water leaks coming into the tunnel.” 

But Holder says there are still leaks that need to be fixed.

"They have a number of areas that they are interested in but we are not expecting to continually find voids as we continue with this investigation."

"What they will now do in June is investigate some other areas further to the east heading to the portal," Holder said. "The expectation is that the leaks can be sealed through work on the construction joints so they will use a slightly different process for dealing with those leaks."

The water leaking into the tunnel is ground water, according to Holder. This is not the cause of the strong odour that many riders have reported at Rideau Station. 

Amilcar is not ruling out more shutdowns to fix more problems.

"We are addressing the problem and that is the most important thing for our customers."