Ottawa wants to hold contractor liable ‘for the historic ongoing failures’ involved with Confederation Line

Ottawa light rail.

City of Ottawa

Closing statements in the case involving the Ottawa Confederation Line is not the last you will hear about the issues involving the contractor and the city.

The historic fight will echo for quite some time.

Both sides summed up their case in front of the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Public Inquiry. Private contractor Rideau Transit Group believes a game of politics blurred the city’s vision and said officials should have listened to consultants more during the construction of the Confederation Line. The city, however, denied the claim.

“[The private contractor] let the city down and it is RTG that should be called to account in respect of the issues affecting reliability of the system so that transit riders in the city can rely on this new system that they bought and paid for,” the city’s legal counsel said in a document.

Construction of the Confederation Line has been littered with issues and problems, ranging from derailments to a sink hole. The city said the private contractor needs to be held responsible “for the historic ongoing failures in the design, construction, and maintenance of the LRT.”

RTG said the city bowed to political pressure and took “an inappropriately rigid and adversarial approach to the project” following the 2016 Rideau Street sinkhole. Tunneling work in soft ground likely led to the accident.

Inquiry Commissioner Justice William Hourigan has until the end of November to submit a final report.

Read more articles on track construction.