ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[ijmorlan]

I'm curious, how do you propose that they could have delivered completed trains to the region any earlier when Metrolinx refused to sign off on a spec once the Transit City projects for which the original order was placed were all cancelled or delayed?

Even after they had a spec they could build and deliver to in mid-2016, the Communications Based Train Control signalling system remained unspecified, hence the hole in the dashboard we all witnessed at the open houses.  I can only assume that that gap has been closed now, but it would only have happened very recently.

Unfortunately Bombardier can't blame Metrolinx as they are still a major customer of theirs, and the region can't blame Metrolinx as they still want Phase 2 funding, so the only party that gets publicly named and shamed is Bombardier.  Are they blameless?  I'm sure not, but I do feel sorry for them for getting 100% of the blame in the public press / mindset while only being partially responsible for the overall delays.

This should be a pinned post - thank you for explaining this so well Kevin!

Thanks both of you for this. Assuming this is correct, I think I understand better what is really happening, and maybe why the judge wasn’t so keen on Metrolinx’ position in the Bombardier lawsuit: yes, Bombardier flubbed the manufacturing in Thunder Bay, but if they hadn’t we would just have had vehicles in 2016 with no CBTC components. In other words, it was very lucky for somebody at Metrolinx that Bombardier messed up initially, because otherwise it would have been obvious that Metrolinx had dropped the ball.

It would be interesting to know what would have happened if Sheppard East hadn’t been cancelled/postponed/sent to the phantom zone (I mean seriously, it’s been each of those at various times; “cancelled” by Rob Ford, postponed by City Council and the Province, and now it’s in the phantom zone where theoretically it’s happening as soon as Finch is built but most people, including me, believe it will not be built in the foreseeable future). It was supposed to begin construction in 2011 I believe and open in something like 2013 or 2014. Would it have opened late? Would Metrolinx have figured out their CBTC system? Would Bombardier have figured out how to manufacture the vehicles promptly?

Really more of this should be public. Instead of just “The LRT system is late” it should be “it’s done, but we’re waiting for the CBTC systems” or whatever.