Meeting with OC Transpo to discuss regulatory safety

Newsletter: May 17, 2024

This week I had a very worthwhile meeting with OC Transpo lead engineers and our city legal team on the topic of rail safety regulatory reform.  I am not a train engineer, however, I am certainly learning very quickly about the need to ensure that the right tough questions are being directed to both the Rideau Transit Group consortium, and to OC Transpo in order to ensure that we are minimizing risks and enhancing the safety and reliability of our rail system.  I will continue to lead the charge to ensure that we are entrenching the appropriate safety regulation as the system evolves from what was originally envisioned back in 2011 when the initial delegation was created through to the operationalization of line 2 to Limebank station and beyond.

Newsletter: May 31, 2024

This week I have done significant preparation for our joint transit meeting, happening today.  This will see an update on the LRT root cause analysis and the planned bus route changes and scheduling.  These are hefty agenda items.  I will be speaking to our safety regulatory framework, the public dispute between RTG and Alstom regarding the proposed solutions to the wheel assembly hubs and the track-wheel interface. You can expect that in my next newsletter I will be updating the proposed schedule for the coming on-line of new LRT line from Limebank station and the amended bus routes and scheduling.

Newsletter: September 13, 2024

Transit commission was held this week, and I spoke on a number of topics.  I want to see a more cohesive and simplified safety regulatory framework for our LRT system.  If we (the city) have any hope of winning back the trust and support of our transit riders, they need to have the utmost confidence that the train system is safe. After a disastrous procurement process and two derailments, we cannot be anything but exceptional in this regard, and at present – I am not satisfied with our framework.  It is over-complicated, is not ‘arms-length’ enough, and simply put, it allows for the city to be the judge, jury and executioner of its train processes, which historically has never worked out well. Independent and external imposition of safety standards is what forces organizations to comply.  The ability to internally adjust standards and policies (like whether to inspect the St Laurent tunnel ceiling, or to adhere to a speed profile in the Hurdman corners based on radius and cant angle) is what creates risk.

Newsletter: February 14, 2025

I also spoke this week to my concerns regarding our rail safety regulatory framework at audit committee.  I have concerns in the level of complexity and the independence of the regulation framework for our LRT system.  I spoke to this at last year's annual rail safety update as well.  This is a focus that I will continue to advocate as we look at the option of uploading the LRT system to the province.  I am very supportive of this evolution as the province has the resources and the arms-length technical authority to provide a better oversight function.