WATCH ABOVE: A war of words between the mayor and the signalling company at the centre of the Metro LRT Line is heating up. Kendra Slugoski has the details.
EDMONTON — New shots were fired Wednesday in the war of words between the City of Edmonton and the signalling contractor for the Metro LRT Line.
Thales Canada issued a statement in response to Mayor Don Iveson’s remarks on Monday, when he was asked by Global News if he had ridden the new line yet, which began modified operations on Sunday.
“I’m frankly not that excited,” Iveson said. “Until the signalling contractor delivers a working product, allows us to run this thing at speed, and sort out all the bugs with the signal crossings at the intersection, I’m not celebrating. There’s nothing to celebrate.”
Thales communications manager Emmanuelle Bleytou released a statement:
“Thales congratulates the City of Edmonton for taking the decision to begin operation on the Metro Line. The Thales system is working perfectly as designed, and as delivered. It is enforcing the speed restriction imposed by the City, ensuring the Train operators do not exceed the authorized imposed speed. It will continue to do this correctly once the City decides to remove its imposed speed restriction. We look forward to the City taking that positive step in the near future.
However, we are very disappointed by the Mayor’s misinformed remarks – Thales has delivered a working product, neither Thales nor the system is preventing the operation from running at speed, and the Thales system has introduced no “bugs” or errors in the operation of the signal crossings at intersections. The signal intersections are working per the City’s engineering design, and we encourage the Mayor to discuss the improvements he seeks with his traffic department.”
The mayor responded later Wednesday, saying, “I’m fairly well informed about what’s happening with the Metro Line.
“The fact of the matter is there was a significant bug yesterday in the system that affected and disrupted the entire LRT system, not just the Metro Line. It was a software problem. So there are still issues with the software. I will concede that we are using some of their software in order to run the system in its reduced capacity. But the fact that we’re having to run it in its reduced capacity is because they have not yet delivered on the full suite of software or hardware upgrades to the LRVs that we were promised 18 months ago.”
The Metro Line officially opened Sunday morning after the project experienced delays that lasted 17 months.
While it was a long time coming, the line still isn’t running to its full capacity. Operators are not relying on the signalling system entirely, instead going by what they can see ahead, and their speeds are limited to no more than 25 km/h between the MacEwan and NAIT stations. Trains are running on a 15-minute frequency between Churchill Station and NAIT.
Last week, city council voiced its frustrations after a city report revealed there could be significant traffic delays on key routes during peak rush hours. Testing of the Metro Line found in the worst-case scenario, drivers could wait up to 16 minutes at two specific intersections in the Kingsway area.
The first true test came Tuesday morning, when back-to-school and post-long weekend traffic mixed with the Metro Line. Global News tracked traffic for several hours during the morning commute, finding in many cases it took two to three light cycles for traffic to clear the intersections at 106th Street and 111th Avenue, and 106th and Princess Elizabeth Avenue.
The City of Edmonton said it is trying to make the changes as painless as possible.
“If you notice, both trains trying to cross the 111th Avenue intersection at the same time,” said Dorian Wandzura, Transportation Services General Manager during a news conference on Tuesday morning. “We’re holding trains at the MacEwan station to make sure our trains are coordinated, minimize our wait times.”
WATCH: For the first time, the Metro LRT Line snaked its way through morning and afternoon rush hours. Vinesh Pratap went out with a stopwatch to measure the impact on traffic and transit.
The Metro Line was initially scheduled to open April 2014. A city audit released on August 20 showed several factors led to the project being delayed, including changes in key staff, communication breakdowns and project mismanagement.
READ MORE: Communication breakdown, project mismanagement cited in Metro LRT Line audit
In mid-August an independent safety consultant was brought in to verify the work of the Thales. The consultant was expected to have an initial assessment in place within six weeks. But it could take up to six months for the company to identify the problems and to mitigate them.
With files from Caley Ramsay, Slav Kornik and Vinesh Pratap, Global News.
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