City councillor Tim Tierney says Ottawa is staring down the barrel of a potential transit nightmare as it’s unclear if a planned expansion of light-rail service will come online before public servants return to the office four-days-a-week in July.
He accused OC Transpo of keeping council and residents in the dark on plans to start testing vehicles on a new extension of the city’s main light-rail line to the east end.
The extension project received a certificate of substantial completion earlier this month, but there hasn’t been any information provided since on when testing will start. There’s also no date for a promised technical briefing.
Revenue service can only start after vehicles run on the line without error for 21 days straight and tests are conducted to ensure systems are ready.
Making matters worse is that OC Transpo only has 20 train cars available now and would need 45 for the tests, according to Tierney.
With mechanical issues continuing to plague the existing line, Tierney said he doesn’t understand how OC Transpo will meet its target of getting the extension up and running by the end of the second quarter of 2026.
“They still think that the math supports waiting until they can complete this and have operating paid service by the end of the second quarter,” he told iPolitics in an interview on Thursday.
“I just don’t see the math, and we still don’t have that date for a technical briefing.”
The city’s light-rail project has been mired in controversy since the first segment of the Confederation Line came online in 2019.
READ MORE: It’s been four years since Ottawa’s LRT public inquiry. Where does the train stand now?
Mechanical issues and derailments plagued the start of revenue service, and the province ordered a public inquiry to investigate the project in 2022.
The inquiry’s final report found that the system’s failures were caused not by a single technical issue, but by a combination of unproven technology, complex contracts and governance failures.
It also concluded that senior city officials withheld key information from councillors about the system’s final testing phase, limiting council’s oversight of the project.
The report came as the city was already in the process of extending the line to the east, west and south.
The southern extension expanded the oldest section of the O-Train — dubbed the Trillium Line — and connected Bayview in Little Italy to Riverside South. It also included a spur to bring train service to the Ottawa airport.
It started service in early 2025, years later than originally planned.
The 12.5- kilometre eastern extension will add five new stations and bring rail service from Blair all the way to Trim station in Orleans.
It has also faced delays, but transit officials expressed confidence it would start revenue service in the first half of 2026.
Tierney, who represents the Beacon Hill-Cyrville ward in the city’s east, warned of a nightmare scenario for Ottawa commuters if OC Transpo doesn’t hit that target.
That’s because public servants will return to the office four-days-a-week starting in July, adding tens of thousands of commuters to the city’s roads and transit lines. Students will then return to classes in September, putting further strain on the transportation network.
The existing O-Train line is also struggling with mechanical issues, forcing OC Transpo to run single-vehicle cars.
If new rail service doesn’t come online soon, Tierney said it’s unclear how the transit provider will deal with increased demand from public servants and students, with the city boasting fewer than 500 buses. (The city has reduced the size of its bus fleet as it has replaced its rapid-bus network with light-rail service.)
“The whole point of seeing the line go online for the east end was to actually add more busses back to our complement. If that doesn’t happen, then we have this new challenge of buses that aren’t coming in quick enough,” he said, calling it a “perfect storm” of challenges.
That’s why Tierney said he needs to hear answers from OC Transpo on how it will handle the increased traffic.
“I want to know what that plan is if the line goes down. Are there going to be extra busses to be able to subsidize those stations for the missing train? There are a lot of very important questions, and we need that technical briefing,” he said.
“I’m going to continue to press the mayor’s office to make sure that OC Transpo actually comes out and sets the date for the meeting.”
Richard Holder, the city’s director of the rail construction program, told the transit committee last week that trial running would only commence once OC Transpo has the appropriate trains to complete the tests.
“We’re very eager to inform councillors when that technical briefing will take place. But what we need to have in place [is] an understanding of when the vehicles will be available to perform the trial, running. So, that really is the next step.”
When pressed by Tierney about the testing process, Holder said more answers would be provided at the yet-to-be scheduled technical briefing.
Troy Charter, the city’s interim general manager of Transit Services, blamed mechanical issues that have taken offline train cars with axels that have more than 100,000 kilometres of mileage for preventing staff from nailing down the date of briefings on the east extension and return to full service on the existing line.
“We really need to focus on finalizing the containment plan, which would allow for the return of the fleet [and] the lifting of the 100,000 kilometre restriction. And then once that’s done, then we can solidify those two dates,” he said at the committee meeting.
“We’re making good progress, and I think we are close to being able to schedule that date. I know that’s frustrating because this has been lasting for a long time, but we are getting very, very close to being able to schedule those two technical briefings.”
Another logistic challenge facing the transit provider is dealing with passengers during the testing phase. Tierney said the line needs to run from Tunney’s Pasture to Trim, but passengers can’t be on board pass the current terminus of Blair station.
“What happens to people at Blair when they say, ‘I’m staying on this train’ and they decide not to get off? You have to stop the train because you can’t have passenger service until it’s certified for 21 days of running. Does that affect that 21-day performance? Do you start the clock again? Obviously, you would,” he explained.
“These are very important questions, and we really need to know the answers, and we’re not getting them.”
Holder said that trains running between Blair and Trim stations wouldn’t carry passengers but service would continue on the rest of the line.
When asked by Tierney at committee, Holder said OC Transpo would direct customers off the trains at Blair.
Tierney vowed to continue to raise his concerns over the east extension with local media and at council and transit committee, calling it the “biggest challenge” he’s seen facing OC Transpo in his 16 years in office.
“I’ve been pretty [much] like a dog with a bone on this one for the last while,” he said.
“[The next] transit committee meeting takes place in three weeks. I’ll be there raising the same questions. I’m hoping before we get to that meeting, they’re going to announce when this briefing is going to take place, because the public’s fed up. They need to know”
A western extension of the O-Train that will run from Tunney’s Pasture to Moodie near Bell’s Corner and include a spur to Algonquin College’s main campus is expected to enter service in 2027.
