The $2.2-billion LRT built so far is, in fact, just Phase 1. The trigovernment project is set to stretch into the suburbs, with Ontario and the federal government each pledging more than a $1 billion toward the next phase, on top of $600 million each for the first. But with critics pointing to the problems experienced, from quick timelines, to maintenance issues, to a lack of local experts on staff, the system that had once promised to transform commuting in the nation’s capital has become, in the view of those critics, a cautionary tale, and a legacy project for the city’s mayor has turned into a bumpier ride than anyone expected.

The past week began with a derailment and an emergency meeting of the transit commission, where a downtown city councillor, Catherine McKenney, called for a public inquiry into the LRT’s full history.

The train last Sunday derailed as it approached Tremblay station, near the city’s VIA Rail station, but its sensors didn’t notice. The train departed the station with 12 passengers and traveled a few hundred metres “in a derailed condition,” according to investigators. It crossed a bridge over a six-lane street before banging into a pole and stopping, with one car jackknifed. Track and controls were damaged all the way along, and the entire LRT has been shut down for an estimated three weeks.

The derailment on a bridge “could have been catastrophic,” tweeted Shawn Menard, another Councillor, who is backing the call for an inquiry.

Zwei replies: Actually no, as rail ridge are so designed to prevent this sort of accident with guard rails, articulated vehicles tend to to go straight.

Ridership has been about a quarter of the norm during the pandemic and its work-from-home conditions, but a return to old-style commuting with full trains may raise pressure on the system.

This light rail system has been Mayor Jim Watson’s baby, with the mayor personally rallying support for years as the project took shape.

Zwei has always maintained that the Ottawa LRT is in fact a light-metro as it operates on a totally segregated R-o-W and the trains run automatically from a central computer.

The train that derailed last Sunday was the very same train that hosted Watson and the city’s media for an opening ride in 2019. On that occasion, photographers were everywhere. But when it derailed, a transit official threatened to call police to keep photographers from shooting the scene.

Watson maintains the rail system’s challenges can be dealt with. He has also acknowledged the problems, and proposed giving residents a free transit pass for one month for the inconvenience they’ve experienced.

And he told council this week: “I don’t support never-ending meetings, which quite frankly may be good political theatre. … Our staff need to spend their scarce time resources on fixing the problem.”

Key to the rolling story of Ottawa’s LRT is that it never seems to be the same problem for long.

It’s been a laundry list of glitches, big and smell. Er, small.

Zwei replies: The big problem was that there was no commissioning time for the new light-metro, no proper run-in of equipment.

Early on it was “door faults.” If a passenger held a door open, it would refuse to close again, and the train would remain stopped until somebody overrode the sensor. This kept stalling service until passengers learned and OC Transpo adjusted the sensors to be less skittish.

Zwei replies: This has been an early and ongoing complaint of Vancouver’s SkyTrain light-metro and there is always door problems in freezing weather or snow.

Sometimes an onboard computer won’t talk to the systemwide computer, and the train stops.

Zwei replies: This is extremely common with Vancouver’s SkyTrain light-metro.

Switches that direct trains to the right track were designed with heaters for Ottawa winters, but the heaters weren’t powerful enough, so the switches froze. This happened during winter testing before LRT opened for service, but it kept happening a year later, with passengers on board. Workers with blowtorches had to melt the ice. (There are stronger heaters now.)

Zwei replies: This is an engineering fault and not a LRT fault.

Wheels developed flat spots — something that’s normal over many years but not typically in the first year of service.

Zwei replies: Wheels and track have always been a problem on Vancouver’s SkyTrain, the corrugations on the railhead need constant grinding.

Last December came more bad news: cracked wheel hubs. Alstom SA, the train’s French manufacturer, has been supplying new wheels to all the cars.

And then there’s that smell.

A strong sewage odour in the underground Parliament and Rideau stations downtown, of unknown source. Passengers with more sensitive palates say the stations smell slightly different, but both are foul.

Zwei replies: This is again, an engineering/contractor problem and not a light rail problem.

Finally came derailments in August and September, with no injuries.

In the first, technicians found that an assembly connecting an axle to a wheel wasn’t tight, and the resulting movement caused wear and eventually failure. Checks revealed nine train cars — about a quarter of the fleet — had similar problems and needed repairs.

The cause of the latest derailment is still unknown.

Zwei replies: One should wait for the official investigation to be complete before condemning the the system or vehicle.

Transportation Safety Board investigators are now looking into the wheel cracks and two derailments.

The early days when the city got on well with the private construction consortium Rideau Transit Group appear to be over.

The city has periodically withheld its monthly maintenance fee of more than $4 million. The Rideau Transit Maintenance consortium has a 30-year contract to keep the system running.

The consortium rarely makes public statements, but did issue a news release following the recent derailment.

“We understand how much the people of Ottawa rely on the Confederation Line and we recognize and regret the inconvenience caused by this week’s closure,” it read. “Our team worked tirelessly this week to restore service this morning. Our first commitment is to the safety of our riders, staff and community.”

Frustrations from riders and advocates, however, remain.

“I’m just all sorts of angry,” said Sarah Wright-Gilbert, a transit commissioner who has emerged as the most public critic of LRT operations. (She’s not a city Councillor, but rather one of four ordinary citizens chosen by the city from among applicants for a four-year term.)

Zwei replies: This is unheard of in Metro Vancouver a common citizen chosen for being a transit commissioner.

She says that in her opinion Ottawa bought unproven trains.

“People are like: Aren’t these trains running in Russia and Paris?” she said.

Not quite. Alstom has had success with its Citadis light train in Europe and Asia. But Ottawa is the first buyer of a new model, the Citadis Spirit, redesigned for cold weather.

“It’s apples and oranges. You cannot compare them,” Wright-Gilbert said.

The Citadis Spirit has been chosen for the Greater Toronto Area’s new Finch West and Hurontario LRT lines.

“When the train is not working properly and there are so many delays … it’s not even reliable,” she said.

But there can be trouble even when the trains run on time. To make way for trains, Ottawa carved away many bus routes. People who used to take one long bus ride from the suburbs to downtown now take a bus, then a train, and sometimes a bus again to continue west of downtown.

Zwei replies: This is also true in Vancouver where major bus routes feed into the SkyTrain light metro system, with over 80% of SkyTrain’s ridership first taking the bus.

Commuter Glynes Elliott, who had great hopes on Day 1, has one son at college and one in high school. The college student has one class online followed by one in person, and sometimes the bus can get him to class on time, but not always, “which is absurd because it’s not a great distance. This is a small city. We could be able to get around with the snap of a finger,” she said.

Her younger son has a three-part commute. A bus, then two stops by train, and another bus. (He prefers to cycle instead.)

Zwei replies: This is the same complaint in metro Vancouver, where transit customers are tired of transferring and either return to the car or find other means to travel.

“This is the design of the Ottawa system now. Even for very short distances you often, if you are anywhere near the train, are sort of forced onto the train,” she said.

This week, when Coun. McKenney, at the emergency transit meeting, called for a public inquiry into the LRT troubles, the call was met with support from colleagues.

“We’re bleeding riders,” said another Councillor, Diane Deans. “People are just deciding that the transit system in Ottawa is not cutting it and they need to make alternative arrangements. It’s going to be a long time getting faith back in that system.”

“I think we bought a lemon.”

Zwei replies: I hardly say a lemon with over 600 light rail/tram operations around the world. If the Citadis Spirit trams are found to be problematic, there are many companies who can supply replacements. With SkyTrain, there is only one supplier, Alstom.

Anything can be fixed, Deans says, but OC Transpo needs to develop a strong base of rail experts rather than flying in experts from other places at crisis times.

“No one goes out and intentionally buys a lemon of anything,” a visibly frustrated Watson told reporters this week after Deans tweeted out a picture of a lemon.

He said the trains had run reliably for the past year and a half, until the derailments.

“The fact is, the system, fundamentally, is a very good system and Phase 2 will make it an even better system,” he said.

But he said Transpo must return to being reliable.

“We can’t sort of go for a few months and then have another problem and then go for a few months. That will erode the public’s confidence deeply in the system. And we have to regain their confidence because by and large we’ve lost it” through mechanical breakdowns.

He called this summer’s incidents “totally unacceptable.”

“I still have confidence that it was the right decision (to build this LRT). As you know, it was voted on unanimously. It’s always easy to second-guess, but I think it’s the right system, the right route,” he said.

Critics of the LRT say it’s hard to get information about it. Ken Rubin, a private researcher and access-to-information expert, has launched many requests about construction and operation only to see most of them stall. The problem: the private companies, RTG and Alstom, often object that the information is their confidential property. It’s “very difficult” to get information, he said. “Sometimes it takes years and sometimes it takes court decisions.”

Zwei replies: This is true of TransLink, where F.O.I’s about SkyTrain are returned heavily redacted due to it being proprietary or confidential information.

At an emergency transit commission meeting Monday, Transpo’s general manager John Manconi, who retires at the end of this month, said Alstom needs to “send an army of people in. Enough is enough. Fix the vehicle and get it consistently reliable.”

Wright-Gilbert says the view of most city Councillors “is that nothing is unfixable.”

“My response,” she counters “is public confidence is unfixable if you get to a certain point.”

Zwei replies: The public soon forget.