A nearly two-decade veteran of Montreal’s transit agency will soon step in to take the reins of Ottawa’s troubled light-rail and bus system, the city manager announced Monday.
Steve Kanellakos said in a memo to council that he has chosen Renée Amilcar as the new general manager of transit services in Ottawa.
Amilcar is an industrial engineer with a degree from École Polytechnique de Montréal and an MBA from Université de Sherbrooke.
Her work experience includes stints at Pratt & Whitney Canada and Nortel Networks, but gained her transit expertise working for the Société de Transports Montréal.
Amilcar began with the STM in 2002 and soon became the organization’s first female director of bus maintenance.
In 2014 she became executive director of bus services, overseeing more than 5,300 employees and a fleet of 1,800 buses.
“I look forward to seeing what innovations Renée will bring from her experience at the STM — the most heavily used urban mass transit system in Canada and one of the most heavily used rapid transit systems in North America,” Kanellakos wrote in his memo.
Amilcar’s transition has already begun and she’ll start the job on Oct. 18, more than two weeks after current transit boss John Manconi ends his tenure. Current director of rail construction Michael Morgan will helm Ottawa’s transit services in the interim.
Among Morgan’s responsibilities will be overseeing the return to service of Ottawa’s Confederation Line LRT, which has been out of service for more than a week since the most recent derailment near Tremblay Station.
On Friday, the city announced it had hired consultancy STV to provide an independent assessment of Rideau Transit Group’s plan to safely resume operations.