The construction and maintenance of the Ottawa LRT project was plagued by persistent failures in leadership and saw egregious violations of the public trust, a scathing new report has found.
Hundreds of messages sent on WhatsApp in 2019 give an unprecedented glimpse into Mayor Jim Watson's desire for a "granular level of detail" about Ottawa's LRT.
The request to change the trial running criteria to make it easier to pass came from former OC Transpo boss John Manconi, according to the former CEO of Rideau Transit Group. When the start of the the trial running saw failure after failure in the summer of 2019, and after it became clear the Confederation Line wouldn’t be passing any time soon, the scorecard was changed to an earlier, easier version.
The first day of public hearings in the inquiry into Ottawa’s trouble-plagued LRT system heard testimony that there was pressure from the mayor and council to have the system launched as quickly as possible.