City won't reveal LRT completion date until next year, says mayor

Ottawa residents won't know the exact date that light rail service will launch until sometime next year, Mayor Jim Watson said Monday.

"Part of the exercise in 2018 will be to come with a more specific date when we're going to open," Watson told CBC News.

"We want to make sure that when we send out a date, that we don't have to come back to three or four times and change [it] because the date has changed or circumstances have changed."

The city initially expected to have the $2.1-billion LRT system completed by the spring of next year. But last week, city officials announced they would only say that light rail would begin operating sometime in 2018 — refusing to narrow the timeline in any way.

Watson said Monday his goal is "to see that it's up and running by the first half of 2018."

Contract calls for May 7, 2018 completion date

"Obviously these things take time, and it's not an exact science where we can give you a specific date," Watson said.

On one very important document, however, there already is a specific date: May 7, 2018.

That's when the LRT is supposed to be in revenue service, according to the city's contract with Rideau Transit Group, the consortium building the light rail system.

"The reality is that there are penalty clauses for the consortium if they don't meet the deadline," said the mayor.

"If they don't feel the project is ready be a specific date, then we're not going to go and push it simply to meet that artificial deadline."

Rideau and Queen to 'look a lot better'

The LRT contract also calls for the above-ground work in the downtown to be completed by June 1, 2017, in time for Canada's 150th anniversary celebrations.

But the construction on Rideau and Queen streets won't be completed by then, Watson said, due to delays caused by the Rideau sinkhole and the discovery of human remains under Queen.

But Watson said that he and other city officials would "do our best" to make the areas more attractive, including changing the hoarding.

"It's not going to look as clean as I would have liked it," said Watson. "But it's going to look a lot better."

The Kontinuum light show, however, is still on track to open in the Lyon LRT station at the end of June, Watson added.