After a $60.3-million expansion to the north-south O-Train service in Ottawa, some may not be able to depend on the new O-Train Trillium Line to get them to their destination.
The new O-Train Trillium Line is supposed to run four new Alstom Coradia Lint trains once every 10-12 minutes, but commuters experienced delays of up to an hour on the service’s grand opening the morning of March 2 due to signal switchboard malfunctions.
As city councillors gathered at Carleton shortly after 9:30 a.m. to celebrate the ceremony of new O-Train service expansion, the celebration was delayed as Transit Commission chairman Stephen Blais and OC Transpo general manager John Manconi were stuck waiting at the Greenboro station of the O-Train on their way to the opening.
Upon their arrival, both apologized for the inconvenience of the riders earlier that morning.
“I apologize to people on the train as they were getting off, and people on the train who moved from the trains to the buses. I apologize to everyone who experienced delays this morning,” Blais said. “Just like when you buy a brand new house, you move in and expect everything to be perfect, but once in awhile there are a couple of things that aren’t exactly the way they’re supposed to be.”
Carleton students depending on the O-Train were not impressed, as the travel time between Greenboro or Bayview station to Carleton was supposed to be no longer than eight minutes with the new upgrades, according to OC Transpo.
“I arrived at the Bayview O-Train station just before 9 a.m., and the train was waiting so I got on. It was packed. Others were saying that the train had been waiting there since 8:30 a.m. and hadn’t moved,” said Julia Holuj, a second-year neuroscience student. “About 15 minutes later someone came on and said that they were experiencing issues and that we had to take the 107 bus to Carleton.”
“There were probably 200 people waiting for the 107. People were angry because we were going to be late for class,” she added.
Despite issues the O-Train experienced earlier that morning, Manconi said he was still optimistic about the future of the new service.
“This morning I was on the train and heard nothing but positive [comments],” Manconi said. “Remember we did 20 trips out this morning, saw young kids outside reading the schedule, talking about how the midnight service is good for them, how the frequency is there, four new trains, comfortable and so forth, and then we had an incident with the switching.”
“Up until then service was very good,” he added. “Can we do better? Absolutely. We will do better. Like anything else, as the chair said, something new, you’ve got to get some of the glitches out. And we will.”
The O-Train was out of service on March 3 and 4 as OC Transpo continued to look into signal switchboard malfunctions.
Commuters could use the 107 bus, however service has since resumed.
