Watson thinks LRT will be ready before Canada Day

Artist’s rendering of a finished St-Laurent Station. (via ligneconfederationline.ca)

Mayor Jim Watson thinks the Confederation Line will be ready before the end of Q2, he told CTV Ottawa on Tuesday.

Watson was being interviewed about the federal budget when Graham Richardson asked him about LRT.

“I believe it will be before Canada Day,” Watson said. “I don’t have any evidence to tell you that, it’s just discussions I’ve had with our staff that the testing’s gone very well, the occupancy permits are being issued quite frequently (at) our stations. The system is looking good.”

Watson said there would be a fuller update at the city’s next finance and economic development committee meeting on April 2.

The LRT system testing has continued since it was revealed that the builder would miss the March 31 deadline to have it ready. It will be the third time Rideau Transit Group has missed the handover deadline.

Testing of the Confederation Line has confounded the city, CBC Ottawa’s Joanne Chianello has reported. Anecdotal evidence indicates tests have been ramping up.

Lots of testing activity along the Confederation Line. Trains are running around every 5 minutes and looking mighty sleek, as seen at Tremblay Station. #ottlrt #ottawa #confederationline @JimWatsonOttawa pic.twitter.com/xlY8rBnlao

— Rail Fans Canada (@RailFansCanada) March 19, 2019

But there’s still open questions about the extent of the testing. It’s been two weeks since the last major update on the line — have they run any tests from end-to-end yet?

Manconi says that trains are not run from end-to-end because THEY MEANT TO DO THAT. But I hear that the comms system failed last night in the middle of the track.....#ottnews

— JOANNE CHIANELLO (@JCHIANELLO) March 5, 2019

Hopefully the next FEDCO meeting will hold some answers. (Right!?)

UPDATE: The Citizen has a story that says testing is going well and that there’s 20 trains on the track doing runs now. Read more…