Expect blame, new details as light rail public hearings begin

The long-awaitedpublic hearings into Ottawa's light rail transit (LRT) system begin Monday morning, and documents filed by the key playersreveal new details about the atypical design of thecity's trains and strained behind-the-scenes relationships.

The decade since city council decided to take bids for a new east-west line and tunnel hasnot turned out asexpected.

A sinkhole opened during tunnelling, the train opened more than15 months lateand myriad technical issues stranded passengers beforetwo trains derailedlast summer.

Now, lawyers for the main parties including the City of Ottawa, Rideau Transit Group, and train maker Alstom have laid out their versions of who and what is to blame in opening statements forfour weeks of hearings.

Mayor Jim Watson might watch some of the proceedingsand has been called to testifyJune 30, but said last week the public inquiry was a decision made by the province that the city hasto "live with" and he hoped it wouldn't take away from the Confederation Line's recent reliability.

• Head of public inquiry into Ottawa's LRT promises answers
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On the other hand, the system's builder and maintainer Rideau Transit Group a consortium made up of ACS Infrastructure, SNC-Lavalin and Ellis Don sees the light rail commission's work as its chance forfrustrated riders to get the "full picture" because under its contract"the city controls what information can be made public."

Here's what the opening statements have to say on some key issues.

The train design

The city and Rideau Transit Group (RTG) both point the finger at Alstom. The city sees it as a subcontractor RTGhasn't been managing properly to domaintenanceon the trains it supplied.

RTGsaidit didn't want Alstom trains, but went with them because the city "left no doubt that it wanted the Alstom vehicle" during the bid process for the $2.1 billion contract.

The fact an Alstom train part caused a derailment last August should lead the commissioner to look at why Alstom trains were chosen a decade ago, RTG's lawyers say.

CBC News hadreported in 2019 that Ottawa was not getting Alstom'sproven Citadis train as expected, but a brand-new model called the Citadis Spirit.

Alstom now explainsthatno train maker in the world had an existing "off the shelf" train to provide Ottawa. It joined RTG's bid team late, back in 2012, and tried to meet the city's price and technical demands under tight timelines.

• Ottawa buys light rail trains with no proven track record

The City of Ottawa wanted a train to fit unusually long 120-metre platforms, with capacity for24,000 passengers each hour. That was more than double the 10,000 passengers a light rail vehicle usually carriesand akin to a subway car, Alstom explains.

"To this day, the Citadis vehicles operating on the Ottawa Confederation line are the longest [light rail vehicles]operating in North America."

Why the LRT launched late

Residents watched as Rideau Transit Group failed to meet the original May 2018 handover date for the new Confederation Line, and then missedseveral others before finally opening to passengers in September 2019.

The City of Ottawa's external lawyers pin the delay on RTG not co-ordinating the schedules of itssubcontractors, especially train maker Alstom and Thales, which built the computer control system butnot the 2016 sinkhole that engulfed part of Rideau Street.

The citywas supposed to have a "limited role" as the owner in a public-private partnership and only realized the handover date was no longer "realistic" in 2017, they say.

For Rideau Transit Group, however, the sinkhole had "a significant cascading impact" that set work behind by at leastnine months. Plus, it alleges "faulty municipalwatermaininfrastructure in the soil may have caused the sinkhole."

Alstom, however, saidthe delay began long before the sinkhole, when the city was "more than a year late finalizing its design choices" for the train cars, putting its development of a prototype back by a year.

• City knew of reliability issues before accepting LRT system

Alstom's lawyers go on to say Ottawa's LRTwas deemed fit for servicetoo soon.

"All the parties were aware that the system was not ready for revenue service but the city and RTG pressed ahead anyway," theyargue.

"Rather than further delay the start of revenue service, the city preferred to start the system by Sept.14, 2019, no matter what."

"The result was predictable," addAlstom's lawyers, who argueit made financial sense for RTG to get its final construction paymentand to enter the maintenance period when it could pass along costs to Alstom.

Miss the day's proceedings? Watch them here:

The fraught relationship

It's no secret that the City of Ottawa and Rideau Transit Group have been fighting for months they have multimillion-dollarlawsuits before the courts.

In the inquiry documents the city blames the consortium, which has a $1billion30-year maintenance contract, for responding to the LRT's many operational issues in a "short-sighted and ad hoc" way.

"Essentially, RTG expects to receive the full monthly service payment while providing skeletal maintenance services," write the city's lawyers. "When RTG exerts itself, performance improves."

Rideau Transit Group, however, casts the City of Ottawa as an "adversarial" and "inflexible"micromanager. The consortium alleges the city sought a $500,000 maintenance deduction over a broken washroom mirror.

When the LRT developed problems in the fall of 2019 that stranded riders something RTG saidcould have spared residentsif it had had a "soft launch" RTG lawyers suggest "the city bowed to political pressures to act 'tough.'"

"The success of a [public-private partnership] project depends on the parties being true partners," RTG writes. "At present, the RTG parties' relationship with the City is in a challenging state, and it needs to be reset for the residents of Ottawa."

The commission begins hearings on Monday andthe public can attend and watch onlineat 9 a.m. They continue to July 8, and will hear fromdozens of witnesses, including high-profile city and corporate officials.

The City of Ottawa is being represented bySingleton Urquhart Reynolds Vogel LLP. Rideau Transit Group's lawyers are fromPaliare Roland Rosenberg Rothstein LLP, and Alstom's are withGlaholt Bowles LLP. All are Toronto-based firms.

It all will beoverseenby commissioner William Hourigan, an Ontario appeal court justice.