Valley Line LRT/ Valley Line West | ?m | ?s | City of Edmonton

Were they promises or just some vague target they hoped to hit?
Say, I'm thinking of holding a Christmas party, so I tell everyone. However, it turns out the date gets pushed back, again and again and it turns into a Canada Day Party in 2024.

The targets may not have been a narrowed down to a specific date, but have been specific enough to inconvenience and disrupt things for people.

I agree there should be an investigation or inquiry into this. What is even vaguer than the deadline is why all these problems happened and I think citizens, transit riders and voters are owed more of an explanation.
 

That public inquiry into Otrawa's LRT problems have found some pretty disturbing events:

Inquiry leaders found the project was rushed into service (despite the delay) due to financial and political pressure, that companies building the project were deliberately misleading about construction timelines, and that city leaders kept key information from council as to how standards had been lowered for the final LRT testing criteria.
 
I think the sad thing about the Valley Line SE is that Edmonton had to fight for every last bit of funding from other levels of government. The remarks about the LRT being a streetcar, and the past delays with NAIT LRT didn’t help.
 
I agree there should be an investigation or inquiry into this. What is even vaguer than the deadline is why all these problems happened and I think citizens, transit riders and voters are owed more of an explanation.
Unfortunately, I think the issue boils down to two things:

1. P3 contracts being structured so the client (City of Edmonton) has minimal project oversight while the contractor (TransEd) is inherently incentivized to build out the project in the absolutely cheapest manner they can get away with given the fixed cost and aforementioned lack of client oversight.

2. Substantial incompetence on an extremely complex project--see Glenco's quoted Wiki article below...


Neither of which are really satisfactory explanations IMO for the public to accept beyond steering away from the P3 model going forward.
 
I've read the Ottawa fiasco, and unlike them, our problems seems to be more incompetence than political.

However, I can't seem to find how P3 forced the selection of the contractors, "somebody" suggested them (why would be an interesting discussion), and "somebody else" did the selection, again, WHY?

I agree in calling it a streetcar, very much like Toronto's Red Rockets, even very similar cars by the same manufacturer

The NAIT line signalling issues are a side issue, but the city most certainly had blood on their hands with shifting requirements.

There were existing slow orders in the LRV operations around Davis station as far back as April, yet the end of July report was A-OK, followed about 2 weeks later with wrapped pylons and "we found things in July"

Transed says 75%, can't see a single reason to believe a word they say, did you notice all the re-work being carried out around Bonnie Doon, is that part of the 75%? I suspect the city will be picking up the costs once certain papers are filed/declared

Overall, rather they fix it properly, make sure its safe and get it running derailment free...
 
However, I can't seem to find how P3 forced the selection of the contractors, "somebody" suggested them (why would be an interesting discussion), and "somebody else" did the selection, again, WHY?
Can you explain more about this?
 
I suppose in comparison to the Ottawa fiasco, what has happened here does not look as bad. However, that is like comparing bad and terrible.

Someone selected these bozo's and failed to monitor their work adequately. If no one in our civic government will be transparent about their role in all of this, then an investigation is called for.

Sadly, this is not the city's first brush with incompetence. We have had so many major projects here bungled in recent years, including the NAIT LRT line and it needs to stop.
 
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