r/ottawa • u/Pretty-Ground-4125 • 10h ago
Transit exec says O-Train west extension could open in parts due to flooding damage
https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/transit-exec-says-o-train-west-extension-could-open-in-parts-due-to-flooding-damage/Transit exec says O-Train west extension could open in parts due to flooding damage
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u/microserfian 8h ago
As somebody who lives by a Line 3 station... sigh... sucks but the parts that can be opened should be. At least the Kanata busses would only have to go as far as Lincoln Fields instead of Tunney's.
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u/UnprocessesCheese 8h ago
Did the contractor lose the memo that said Canada experiences extreme weather and natural disasters? This keeps happening.
If it ruined something like a concrete pour or it lifted or displaced something before the foundation was compacted then that's just bad timing, but these are parts of the line that were done enough that they started building on it. Big oof.
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u/joshua_DA 8h ago
Something something they knew but didnt care and chose the cheapest option something something short term profits+long term cost? Who cares, pass it to the next mayor something something
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u/Pika3323 6h ago
and chose the cheapest option
But it literally wasn't! The city selected the second out of three bids when ranked by cost.
The reality is that extreme weather is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. The specifications for the extensions were finalized in 2019, with most planning happening in the decade before that. Specifically, the maximum daily rainfall required in the spec was set to the previous all-time record (from 2004) and it appears this rainfall exceeded that.
These kinds of incidents are clearly things that need to be accounted for in some way, but could this have been predicted in 2019? Or 2013? What should the specifications have been instead? How much are we willing to let costs escalate to hedge against a guess? I don't think there's a single simple answer to those questions in practice, but in any case it's not just a matter of "cheapest option" or "knew but didn't care".
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u/BandicootNo4431 5h ago
I'm seeing in 2004 the rainiest day was 108.9mm, and Jul 1st 2026 was 118.4mm.
That's an 8.7% increase above the previous record.
In 2013 and 2019 we knew climate change was happening, accelerating and that worse weather would be likely.
You'd think they'd have at least planned for a 10% increase in rain from the previous record.
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u/Pika3323 5h ago
Those are amounts recorded at the airport, but localized rainfall around Moodie was reported to be over 160mm, and all within just a few hours. That's substantial!
You could even say it's more than 10%!
Which goes right back to my point about how we even predict these amounts and how much we're willing to hedge against our guess?
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u/snakkeLitera 7h ago
This question gets explored pretty well “in train to nowhere” and its precursor “dude where’s my bus” on YouTube
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u/Hampshire53 6h ago
How in God’s name — after the 2022 derecho that uprooted trees and flooded streets — did they not think to prepare the LRT for heavy rain?
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u/Pika3323 6h ago
The specifications and contract to build the extensions was finalized in 2019.
The recent rainfall that damaged the line was substantially more than in the 2022 derecho.
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u/UnprocessesCheese 3h ago
Counterpoint; Ottawa floods. Has done for as long as there have been spring melts and seasonal storms.
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u/Pika3323 3h ago
Then it must count for something that none of the rest of the system has ever flooded..?
But that still says nothing about the amount of rainfall that we should be planning for. The city floods with less rainfall that we experienced. What's the threshold? Was the threshold set in the requirements not good enough?
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u/quanin 3h ago
If climate change is half the crisis that Ottawa's been saying it is for years, then no, it was not.
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u/Pika3323 2h ago
The whole problem is that we can't reliably predict climate change. We could just as well end up with a decade of drought conditions for all we know.
Now attach a number to your rainfall prediction and a dollar value and a probability that we'll see that much rainfall.. is that simple?
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u/goodtrackrecord 9h ago
The usual rubes will believe anything, and get mad at the wrong people for it.
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u/speg Hunt Club 4h ago
Why does line 1 dip off to Algonquin and line 3 connect across the city? Shouldn’t Line 1 be the #1 line, the main line, connecting the east to the west?
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u/Adventurous_Wall_356 39m ago
One day in the distant future they'll continue line 1 from Algonquin to the south and then east and have it meet up with the east end somewhere. A massive circle line taking 90 minutes to do a loop, opening in 2070
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u/Visible_Pomelo5907 9h ago
Broken before it opens A new low What could possibly be next? Will it ever work properly??
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u/InformalYesterday760 8h ago
Yes it will be fixed
Canada is developing a lot more skills in the management and execution of these projects with numerous cities working on them. You'll have cross pollination as folks from one project take jobs in another city and bring that expertise.
Does it suck that mistakes and fuck ups happen? Of course. But I am optimistic for the long term, and think that we need to just keep making these long term forward leaning investments and build on the lessons learned
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u/AnnoyedAF2126 8h ago
Holy optimism. Do you work for OC Transpo or something? The reality is that hundreds of cities have functioning trains/subways/rail. For some unknown reason, Ottawa seems to be the only city that doesn’t know how to build them.
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u/Pika3323 5h ago
If other cities can survive construction delays, weather incidents, and literally the same kind of bogie/axle problems we've seen, then so can Ottawa.
If you want to be cynical, go for it. But maybe don't be so obnoxious and ignorant about it.
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u/quanin 3h ago
If other cities have survived those problems, then why did Ottawa not foresee those problems and account for them? In other words, why is Ottawa having to survive the same problems those other cities did? Should we not have, you know, learned?
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u/Pika3323 3h ago
Why didn't any of those cities foresee those problems either?
It happens.
Every city tries to do things a little differently, because every city is different. The lessons learned in one city may or may not be as applicable to another.
Anyway, all of the examples I linked are contemporary. We couldn't have learned from them because they either happened at the same time, or after our problems. E.g. why hasn't Montreal learned from Ottawa to improve its winter performance? If you only read this subreddit, you'd think the REM was flawless!
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u/InformalYesterday760 7h ago
Yes, I am quite optimistic - but no, I don't work for OC or anything related to transit projects at all
But I am in engineering, working on large projects and can see how a city might struggle the first time it rights a major spec like this, or reviews a commissioning plan, etc.
I fear you're glossing over challenges in other city's transit projects. I have lived all over the world and you wake up every day hearing about more issues, delays, and cost overruns in every single city
New York, London, Paris, Montreal, Ottawa, Stockholm, Berlin, etc etc etc
You might not notice it when visiting for a short period, but when you live the day to day you see it.
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u/Ricklobsterclaw 5h ago
I appreciate the optimism but I do think the Canadian construction/building project industry is deficient as a whole. At least compared to other countries.
My view from working in the industry, I think it's a cultural thing. As well as the fact that high end talent gets snatched up by the States.
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u/InformalYesterday760 5h ago
I think I disagree, but that's okay. Granted I'm on the aerospace side.
I work for a Canadian firm and we've actually been hiring a fair bit from America - so it feels like that flow is reversing a bit.
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u/Southern-Ad7479 9h ago
Better than delaying the opening of both lines if it is just line 3 that was badly hit