Transit users in Ottawa will be able to ride the full length of the city's LRT network Monday morning after nearly a month of full or partial shutdowns, OC Transpo says.
Testing over the weekend was a success and confirmed the entire Confederation Line was once again ready to admit passengers, transit services general manager Renée Amilcar said in a memo late Sunday afternoon.
That means that single-car trains will be in service from Tunney's Pasture to Blair stations as of 5 a.m.
Nine shorter single-car trains will arrive every six minutes at off-peak periods, the memo said, while 11 single-car trains will run every five minutes during morning rush hour and 13 will run every four minutes during afternoon rush hour.
OC Transpo will continue to operate R1, R1 express and Para R1 replacement buses alongside the trains Monday, Amilcar said.
The transit agency has previously indicated those bus routes would be pulled from service Tuesday, but Amilcar said in her memo that OC Transpo would share "additional information about R1 service going forward" on Monday.
Keep the R1, says advocacy group
The system was shut down July 17 after a routine inspection uncovered an issue with a bearing on one of the trains. OC Transpo has said the problem was "similar" to what caused a derailment in August 2021 and a wheel hub failure in July 2022.
Over the past few weeks, crews have replacing wheel hub assemblies on the entire fleet of trains and readjusting restraining rails — which are intended to prevent derailments — located along the tracks to eliminate contact with the wheels.
Partial LRT service resumed on Aug. 8, with shorter single-car trains operating between Tunney's Pasture and uOttawa stations while the line's east end remained closed.
Amilcar said in her memo that OC Transpo and consultant Transportation Resource Associates had completed their final review of the documents provided by Rideau Transit Group, the consortium that built the $2.1-billion line, which recommended Monday's restart.
Interim city manager Wendy Stephanson was "satisfied that the regulatory regime is in compliance" and agreed service should resume Monday morning, Amilcar said.
Even so, the possibility that replacement and express buses could be pulled from service Tuesday remains a point of concern for advocacy group Ottawa Transit Riders.
"My preference would be to hold on to the R1 buses until mid-September," board member Kari Glynes Elliott told CBC before Sunday afternoon's memo came out.
"Even if it works fairly well for a little while in August, once September hits ... students are back to school, there are new people in the city, there are people coming back from holidays. That's when the real challenge is going to be."
Elliott also worried about what will happen to the rest of the transit if LRT doesn't end up returning to full service or breaks down again.
"What they do is they cannibalize the rest of the system — they pull drivers and buses from suburbs and from other systems in order to serve the R1," she said.
Elliott said her group has also held forums in Kanata and Orléans and heard from frustrated transit riders.
"People are saying, you know, buses that came every 10 minutes are now scheduled for every 20 minutes — but they get cancelled so often that it's quite often every 40 minutes. That's a huge gap, and it's really, really frustrating."
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiXmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNiYy5jYS9uZXdzL2NhbmFkYS9vdHRhd2Evb3R0YXdhLWxydC1yZW9wZW5pbmctY29uZmlybWVkLW1lbW8tb2MtdHJhbnNwby0xLjY5MzUzNjDSASBodHRwczovL3d3dy5jYmMuY2EvYW1wLzEuNjkzNTM2MA?oc=5
2023-08-13 22:28:37Z
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