Lines 2/4 to open 6th January 2025, weekdays only at launch

At a live technical briefing this morning, OC Transpo announced that Lines 2/4 will open on Monday, 6th January, 2025. I will provide details from the briefing as well as timestamps to the linked video. 

Lines 2/4 opening

The Stage 2 South extension will open on Monday, 6th January, 2025. (timestamp 47:20) 

For at least two weeks, the line will run on weekdays only; it will, however, run the full 6:00-0:00 service at 12 minute headways along the entire length of the line during this time. It will then expand to six days a week, with no service on Sundays. After another two weeks, it will run seven days a week. 

During this time, parallel bus service will continue to operate: the R2 turned B2, 97, and 99 will run the same way they do today. 

Routes 74, 198, 278, and 406 will extend to Limebank Station with the winter service changes on Sunday 22nd December, 2024. Once seven-day operation begins on the line, route 99 will detour, seemingly on Limebank, to reach Limebank Station. Other bus changes will be pushed off until New Ways to Bus launches in April 2025. 

Throughout the briefing, officials repeatedly stressed that they were managing the launch for reliability, including the phased opening. 

Questions and the Transparency Issue

The end of the briefing contained a media question session (timestamp 1:36:05). The first half was occupied with questions and answers, the second half contained questions and odd tangents about rationality and "facts, not opinions" with no clear relation to reality or to the opening plan for Lines 2/4. First, some relevant answers. 

The bare minimum number of operators needed for the line is 41, assuming that nobody is sick, takes a vacation, or leaves for a different department (or OC Transpo in general). Renée Amilcar said that they plan to have around 65 operators by the time the line launches. This should solve some issues that appeared during trial running, when a lack of operators caused train "cancellations." 

When asked if a shortage of operators was causing the phased approach, Amilcar said "no." Later, it was said that the phased approach would increase maintenance hours available to TransitNEXT's maintenance crews as the service first launched, which would help preventative and reactive maintenance when the teams were familiarizing themselves with the service. 

OC Transpo plans to send media reports during the first week of opening, and to provide memos to council on service reliability before moving to the subsequent phase of opening. The target would be 98.5% of service kilometres run, which is different from the trial running's target of 98.5% on-time performance. 

This is where the transparency ends. 

When asked why they chose this phased approach, Amilcar said that "it's one thing to run trains for years, it's another thing to run trains with a timetable, with nine trains daily [the line requires nine trains in service at all times, including Line 4], and with all of the systems." 

Excuse me, isn't that what trial running is for? The OC Transpo slidedeck cited three examples of phased openings across the world, which Amilcar said was decided upon after talking to worldwide industry professionals: the Riyadh Metro, the RER E extension in Paris, and the REM in Montréal. 

Of these, the only project I am aware that actually uses a partial service launch is the RER in Paris. The REM and the Riyadh Metro are both examples of launching different line segments of an expansion at different times, more akin to opening Stage 2 South before Stage 2 East, rather than a weekend approach. 

Additionally, the purpose of a phased approach should be to ramp up pressure on the line rather than loading it at once. The choice of January 6th as a service introduction is odd, as it is the first day of class at Carleton University, and the train will presumably be filled with students, rather than an empty weekend day when the ridership is lighter. 

This is an example of how OC Transpo does not present full information to the public; it's fine to phase an opening to help with backroom maintenance schedules, but selling lies of deception to the public does not help OC Transpo's image. It gets worse. 

One journalist asked how OC Transpo intends to communicate the different phases of trial running, presumably so that people do not show up on Saturday 11th January, expecting a Saturday train, or Sunday 26th January, after seeing Saturday trains run, only to learn that it's not in use. 

The response was nothing short of baffling, as Amilcar said that "we make decisions based on facts, not opinion" (which doesn't seem true to me, but I digress). Glen Gower joined her in repeating this useless mantra, which not only contradicts the reality that most transit lines open full service, or weekend service to ease pressure, or midday-only service to ease pressure, but also does not answer the question. 

Contradicting their own message, Amilcar said that she was "very confident" in the trains' (which, for the record, are different than the ones on Line 1) ability to run in winter, which was followed by Gower telling the media that "we expect problems." Additionally, winter training was cited as a reason in the perplexing decision to move opening to after Christmas Break. 

It's clear that OC Transpo are loathe to part with their information, or worse, they don't have the  information at all (a response to one question about R2 ridership was "we don't have that information.") OC Transpo needs to start taking responsibility, the City of Ottawa needs to stop hiring the lowest cost bidder, and we need: 

• Regular (ie. monthly or bi-weekly) updates on work to be done
  
• Current expected opening dates
• Detailed explanations for delayed opening dates
• A rationale for the unorthodox opening plan
• A coordinated marketing plan to communicate opening dates, bus changes, and other information to the public. 

Delays are fine. Delays are normal. Delays with no explanation are keeping the public, and seemingly, other levels of governments in the dark about critical projects being completed with taxpayer dollars, encouraging project mismanagement and unaccountability. 

Not only has this project been delayed since trial running (when they said that the line could be open in three weeks after the completion of; it's been five weeks, and it will be another four weeks until a partial opening), but we have consistently had no explanation for delays and troubleshooting, and the messaging that does get delivered to the public is garbled and incoherent. 

When project management goes wrong, we all lose. Even the contractors. There is a clear incentive for the city to improve its transparency and management, and someone, at OC Transpo or at the City of Ottawa, needs to make this a priority. 

Testing, testing, testing

During the briefing, officials were eager to reassure the media that the line was being tested properly. 

Encouragingly, the presentation noted changes and outstanding work that needed to be completed on the line before opening. Slides below. 

OC Transpo also noted that they received most of the regulatory certificates needed to operate the line, as Lines 2/4 are technically mainline rail, and therefore need Transport Canada approval for operations. 

But still though ... 

With that out of the way, this is still good news, and as Amilcar said, is the first opening of the Stage 2 megaproject. The opening, even with the strange operating schedule, will benefit many travelers in the south end, cutting travel times and improving reliability. Let's celebrate this achievement, two-and-a-half years late as it may be, and work for better communications for Stage 2 East, which will, fingers crossed, also open next year. 

Here's to a timely opening and reliable service delivery.