Stage 2 of Ottawa LRT faces further delay

The long-awaited southern extension to Ottawa's light rail network is facing a further delay, a city committee heard Wednesday.

The long-awaited southern extension to Ottawa's light rail network is facing a further delay, a city committee heard Wednesday.

The Trillium Line, which had been scheduled to open by this September, now won't open for the start of the school year.

City staff told the light rail subcommittee on Tuesday that they are hoping that contractor SNC-Lavalin will hand over the project to the city in October.

"Previously we described the August-September timeframe as a stretch target, and the push to late September early October is really a function of making sure we blocked out as much time as possible for training," said director of rail operations Michael Morgan.

"The last schedule there were some stretch targets in terms of completing some specific activities, but we hadn’t finalized the agreement of the training requirements and how much time we wanted on track to finish the training before we started the trial running period. Now we are in a much better place, we have agreed to that, but that has put pressure on the schedule. That is why you are seeing a shift, and we are seeing September-October instead of August-September."

The delay means that for the second straight school year, students at Carleton University will not be able to take the train to and from campus.

Staff did not provide an exact timeline for when passengers will be able to use the Trillium Line, saying it depends on how the system performs in city-run testing.