Ontario failed to properly oversee railroad safety in 2019 when pregnant mom, 6-year-old hit by train: TSB
CBC
A Transportation Safety Board of Canada investigation into an incident involving a GO Transit train that struck and seriously injured a pregnant woman and a six-year-old child in 2019 in Kitchener has found Ontario's Ministry of Transportation doesn't provide effective safety oversight of provincially regulated railways.
In its report released Thursday, the TSB said the ministry has no overall provincial regulatory framework in place, and relies on inspection agreements with Transport Canada (TC) and Metrolinx to aid in complying with federal safety standards. The MTO also doesn't have employees with technical railway knowledge, experience and expertise, the report found.
The findings come over three years after the GO Transit train hit the woman and child at a Kitchener crossing, leaving them critically injured. They were airlifted to a local hospital. The woman was released from hospital in December 2019. The status of the child isn't immediately known.
Metrolinx commuter trains, Via passenger trains and CN freight trains all operate at the crossing, according to the TSB.
The woman and child were struck on tracks owned by Metrolinx, an agency of the Ontario government.
TSB chair Kathy Fox told CBC News on Thursday that the Ministry of Transportation hadn't been receiving inspection reports from Transport Canada because the ministry doesn't have employees with the background to properly evaluate those reports.
"The [MTO] has the authority to direct Metrolinx through its board of directors to take certain mitigating actions," Fox said.
"But the issue is that if MTO is ... not receiving inspection reports from Transport Canada and don't have the expertise or the people to verify or validate what they're hearing from TC and making sure Metrolinx is taking the appropriate action, then there's a gap in the oversight.
"Therefore, [MTO] cannot provide effective oversight of provincially regulated railways in Ontario," Fox added.
Approximately 337 kilometres of railroad tracks are owned by Metrolinx, which operates GO Transit commuter trains and buses. GO Transit is the regional public transit service for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas. Approximately one million passengers ride GO trains every week, according to GO Transit's website.
Fox said while the MTO has the right to outsource inspections to Transport Canada inspectors the ministry can't outsource the responsibility for the safety oversight of its railways.
She said even though Transport Canada inspectors can point out areas of non-compliance or standards, they can't compel Metrolinx to take action because the track is regulated by the MTO.
"Whoever does the inspections, even if it was a third party, MTO is still responsible for effective oversight and to do that, they need a proper regulatory framework with regulations covering safety-related provisions and the ability to take enforcement action if those provisions aren't respected," Fox said.
Since the 2019 incident, the TSB's report says, the MTO has "identified a need to update the oversight framework for urban and regional rail transit that would better support the province's growing rail network and the diversity of operators."
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