It’s hard to believe that less than a month after Justice William Hourigan released his scathing report on Ottawa’s LRT system, the very same system was forced to shut down for nearly a week when freezing rain damaged the overhead power system leaving two trains stranded in the middle of the Confederation Line.

Hourigan’s 664-page report detailed the multiple mechanical, maintenance and testing issues that plagued both the rail line and the trains themselves during their development, construction and initial rollout.

With this latest shutdown, it seems that the City has learned nothing from Hourigan’s report and the errors/shutdowns of the past.

In short, the LRT system has become an unmitigated embarrassment and a running joke – no pun intended.

This month’s shutdown is just another in a long list of disruptions to light rail transit in Ottawa. A quick search on Google turns up no fewer than nine shutdowns in the last year alone.

The LRT was shut down for three days last January when a prolonged cold snap affected the overhead power lines. It was shut down again a week later due to ice forming on the tracks. A broken wire on an LRT car shut down the O-Train for several hours last February. Five days later, the service was shut down for three days during the forced removal of the Freedom Convoy from downtown.

On May 21, a severe windstorm caused power outages that resulted in the service being suspended for the better part of 12 hours.

In July, the service was disrupted during the Bluesfest due a power failure. Two weeks later, the LRT was shut down for several days when lightning struck the overheard lines damaging the power system. And an IT system issue temporarily shut down the system in August.

Five of the nine shutdowns were a result of issues with the overhead wires and power system. Four occurred during the winter.

One of the issues that Hourigan raised in his report is the fact the LRT utilizes technology that hitherto had been unproven in a northern climate. That despite the fact that cities like Calgary, Edmonton and Denver have been using light rail transit with proven technology for years and decades even. Edmonton’s LRT has been in operation since 1978. Calgary’s C-Train was first launched in 1981 and Denver’s light rail system began operating in 1994.

So why did Ottawa feel like it had to reinvent the wheel? Was it ego, or ignorance, or a combination of both? Or was it financial? Did the powers that be cut corners to deliver an LRT system that would be on time and on budget at the expense of reliability? Whatever the reason, the current council has a responsibility to get Ottawa’s LRT back on the rails and put an end to the running joke it has become..