Commercial interests should remain 'at their table,' says Reneé Amilcar
Train-maker Alstom and the Rideau Transit Group trotted out a new list of possible solutions this week to issues haunting the light rail transit system — what should have been a beam of hope for transit riders frustrated with shortened cars and slower and less frequent service.
Bringing the LRT's contractors together was dubbed by OC Transpo chief Reneé Amilcar as "a giant leap for the City of Ottawa," and a chance to show how well they're co-operating to fix the problems.
Instead, it exposed just how far apart they remain.
"Certainly there are commercial interests at play between … RTG and Alstom. These interests are — and should remain — at their table. Not ours," Amilcar said in her introduction.
"I have advised them that the City of Ottawa is interested only in the permanent technical solution to this issue, and not commercial debates that may arise with them."
Dysfunction within the public-private partnership was a focal point of last year's public inquiry, which included much talk about the failures in communication and transparency.
That cast a pall over Thursday's meeting and overshadowed a declaration from Alstom that it's discovered the root cause of bearing issues.
It's a situation that has some councillors questioning how OC Transpo can hope to regain public confidence without first getting its contractors on the same page.
Alstom declares root cause, RTG not yet convinced
More than two years after a wheel fell off a light-rail car on its way back to the maintenance garage, bearing issues continue to plague the transit system.
But at least one of its builders says it now knows the incident's root cause.
"The train is feeling unexpected, high lateral load," Alstom's David Van der Wee told reporters.
He explained that the rail is exerting a greater force against the wheel than they were designed to handle.
The pronouncement sounds more like a physics lesson than a eureka moment — made even less impressive by the fact that RTG isn't ready to agree.
"We may get to an agreement with Alstom on their theory, but we're not quite ready to go there yet," explained the consortium's CEO Nicolas Truchon. "We still have evidence that we need to review."
It's a debate that is far from new.
The final report for last year's public inquiry that said Alstom's preliminary findings suggested some fault with the system's track infrastructure was rejected by its builder, RTG.
0 Comments