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Allandale25 said:
I don't think it's a slippery slope because it's not as simple as any kind of company just walking in and claiming they can run passenger or freight service. It's more complex than that. There are strict regulations and conditions to operating a railway. They need to have a Certificate of Fitness.

I got back to the article noted above that said Watson "doesn't believe there were viable rail operators that could use the railway."
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The City is on record as stating to the CTA:
The City
[17] The City submits that at the time of the purchase it had no immediate plan or legal authority to operate trains across the Ottawa River. The City states that it has never obtained nor sought to obtain a certificate of fitness to authorize it to operate a railway line across the Bridge. The City also points out that the Certificate of Fitness issued, and later varied, by the Agency does not provide the City with the authority to operate a railway line across the Ottawa River, by way of the Bridge or any other means.
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https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/210-r-2012
 
steveintoronto said:
Exactly, which the City of Ottawa (via "Capital Railways") has failed to maintain to, or comply with prior orders and/or follow the findings of this ruling.
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/210-r-2012
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Wasn't the ruling that they just failed to comply with the portion north of Bayview including the bridge? I haven't read anything to suggest the City has had challenges adhering to the rules for the 0-Train portion of the line.

steveintoronto said:
The City is on record as stating to the CTA:

https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/210-r-2012
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My comment was on the other user's comment about this becoming a slippery slope. Not what the City told the CTA. As a reminder, below is what I was actually responding to.

micheal_can said:
If the minister decides to exempt Ottawa this could be a slippery slope. Just imagine a city being able to buy a rail line and then just leave it. A company wants to run revenue service on it, and now the municipalities can thwart them. Things like what Ottawa are doing are exactly what the regulations are there to prevent.
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micheal_can said:
If the minister decides to exempt Ottawa this could be a slippery slope. Just imagine a city being able to buy a rail line and then just leave it. A company wants to run revenue service on it, and now the municipalities can thwart them. Things like what Ottawa are doing are exactly what the regulations are there to prevent.
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Ministerial discretion is exactly that: discretion. The Minister is not setting a precedent that can be referred to for future disputes. And a future appellant or applicant can't cite a Ministerial waiver as some sort of precedent. It's effectively an exemption given to a ruling for a specific time, place and situation.

People are taking this way too seriously. Ministerial waivers happen all across government, all the time. Those (effectively reserve) powers exist for a reason. And essentially what they translate to are an acknowledgement of a ruling that is far too burdensome for the given situation. In granting them, ministers essentially acknowledge they are accepting the risk of deviation from the given ruling. This is why the slippery slope argument just does not apply. If it did, that would essentially mean Ministers have the power to make precedent law through decree and that every waiver is a legal precedent. We know that is not the case. What they can do is provide relief from a given ruling by accepting the risk for a given amount of deviation.

The essential risk of a Ministerial waiver is political. If the waiver is granted and somebody gets killed as a result of it, the public will blame the minister and government. This is why Ministers are generally loathe to grant a waiver. In this case though? It's hard to argue against one. The ruling is far too burdensome and harms the municipal, provincial and federal government's interests itself. Public interests aren't going to be harmed by a waiver. Nor is public safety threatened by one.

If MOOSE wants, they can take the case to the public and argue that a waiver is not in the public interest. See how far that goes.
 
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Allandale25 said:
Wasn't the ruling that they just failed to comply with the portion north of Bayview including the bridge? I haven't read anything to suggest the City has had challenges adhering to the rules for the 0-Train portion of the line.
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The original complaint by MOOSE mentioned the switch just south of Bayview station. (The city had removed part of the switch, and eventually the entire switch itself).
That counts as part of the O-Train part of the line.

Edit: There have also been various signal violations, but those probably aren't relevant here.
 
Allandale25 said:
Wasn't the ruling that they just failed to comply with the portion north of Bayview including the bridge? I haven't read anything to suggest the City has had challenges adhering to the rules for the 0-Train portion of the line.
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OCCheetos said:
The original complaint by MOOSE mentioned the switch just south of the Bayview station. (The city had removed part of the switch, and eventually the entire switch itself).
That counts as part of the O-Train part of the line.
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You beat me to it. It might help Allandale if he would actually read the rulings. I was meticulous in stating "Capital Railway" in that it is what the CTA is ruling on, and the applicability of that entity *in full* under the Canada Transport Act (and others). Since "Capital Railway" is wholly owned subsidiary of OC Transpo, the latter is named in Rulings by the CTA. *(see note at bottom)
The Order for OC Transpo (also named as the City of Ottawa in these actions ) such as an abandonment application (which remains contentious)(the CTA and/or GinC/Minister may in fact order that it be abandoned) applies to the entire line unless an application is made for a sub of it.

The City does themselves no favour legally in talking in circles. For instance:
[18] The City submits that there are currently no railway operations on the Bridge such that it is not part of any railway line. The City states that it cannot take steps to discontinue a railway line that it does not operate. The City therefore claims that it is under no statutory obligation to include the Bridge in its plan.

[19] The City denies that the lack of an annotated line on the Bridge on Schedule B of the City’s plan indicates its intention to discontinue use of the Bridge.

[20] The City submits that it has at all times complied with the provisions of Division V of the CTA with respect to its ownership of the Bridge. The City claims that there is no requirement or obligation under the CTA to maintain the Bridge in a state of ready use for passenger rail service.
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https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/210-r-2012

They really need some outside legal counsel to conduct their matters in this regard. No wonder they ended-up in the mess they're now in.

And finding after finding should have alerted the City to the responsibilities it undertook when this was rendered six years ago:
[23] Subsection 141(3) of the CTA states that a railway company may sell, lease or otherwise transfer its railway lines, or its operating interest in its lines, for continued operation. The City filed with the Agency the Agreement of Purchase and Sale of Railway for Continued Railway Operations between CP and the City, signed March 21, 2005. The Agreement includes the Ellwood and Prescott corridors, and the Bridge. The Agreement also includes the Vendor’s Conditions, which state: “Subject to the Purchaser executing an Acknowledgement and Undertaking, in a form satisfactory to the Vendor’s Solicitor, acting reasonably, acknowledging that the Lands, Fixtures and documents are being sold for continued railway operations.”
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https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/210-r-2012

And this city enacts bylaws?

*Note, example of official terms:
June 6, 2007

APPLICATION by the Corporation of the City of Ottawa carrying on business as Capital Railway, pursuant to subsection 93(1) of the Canada Transportation Act, S.C., 1996, for a variance of Certificate of fitness No. 00002-2 to reflect the change in circumstances pertaining to the termination of the proposed construction of a north-south light rail transit system from the University of Ottawa to the Barrhaven Town Centre.

File No. R 8005/C6

On February 20, 2007, the Corporation of the City of Ottawa carrying on business as Capital Railway (hereinafter the City of Ottawa) has applied to the Canadian Transportation Agency (hereinafter the Agency) for the variance set out in the title.

Further to the application, the Agency was advised that the name on the certificate of fitness should be amended to reflect the "City of Ottawa" in lieu of the "Corporation of the City of Ottawa". [...]
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https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/ruling/283-r-2007

There seems to be a few legal glitches in the above, albeit I'm digging to see if they were remediated later.
 
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steveintoronto said:
You beat me to it. It might help Allandale if he would actually read the rulings. I was meticulous in stating "Capital Railway" in that it is what the CTA is ruling on, and the applicability of that entity *in full* under the Canada Transport Act (and others). Since "Capital Railway" is wholly owned subsidiary of OC Transpo, the latter is named in Rulings by the CTA. *(see note at bottom)
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I don't see anything wrong with me asking questions here and I'll continue to do so. People ask questions in forums. Also, not all UT members are men.

If you don't want to answer or you find it annoying imI not asking you personally to answer. Other users here are courteous in their replies and don't add he sarcasm. You are most welcome to block me.

Nevertheless thanks for clarifying with your perspective.
 
Allandale25 said:
Nevertheless thanks for clarifying with your perspective.
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You're welcome, but they aren't my "perspectives"...they are fully referenced quotes of actual findings and rulings. On the basis of what has been proffered to the CTA, I don't see much hope of a an appeal to Superior Court (edit: Federal Court of Appeal)(as opposed to the CTA's own appeal process) rendering a ruling in any other way. And the Minister is not going to interfere until an appeal has been tried, which will take a year or more. The hope that I've outlined a number of times is a change of ownership of the PoW to another government jurisdiction and adherence to Cdn Transport Act regs and Capital Railway still having full access to the bridge, certification pending. That action could be started within months.
OCCheetos said:
Edit: There have also been various signal violations, but those probably aren't relevant here.
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This is an interesting point in itself, since TC granted a waiver to City of Ottawa to use "drivers" rather than the commonly termed "engineers". OC-Transpo were sanctioned on some the mistakes that arose from this, but judged in perspective, the incidence was not unusual with any new operation.

From TC:
Operator training. Most railway systems operated in other North American jurisdictions employ locomotive engineers, who have already met all the necessary regulatory standards. The region, however, decided to use its existing staff pool to operate the O-Train. One hundred and twenty-five bus drivers applied for 28 positions, and those chosen successfully completed a six-week training course presented by CANAC, a consulting firm associated with CN Rail. The training was then followed by a mentoring period. When not operating the O-Train, these operators drive buses.
[...]
Using bus operators promoted better labour relations. The city trained its own bus drivers to operate the O-Train, maximizing the use of its human resources and providing a pool of back up operators. This promoted better labour relations, as union representatives were initially concerned that the project would threaten their members’ livelihoods.
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http://data.tc.gc.ca/archive/eng/programs/environment-utsp-otrainlightrailproject-973.htm

From the City:
The training of bus operators to drive the trains has been highly satisfactory. The 27 successful graduates who are still driving the train are enthusiastic and professional. Since the start of service there has never been a trip missed because of the lack of a driver. Although the training stretched over eight or ten weeks due to problems with the project schedule that prevented on-the-job training, it would be possible to train a new LRO in six weeks.


The potential for shared use of the line by freight trains has not caused any problems although, since very little freight is using the line, there has not been a good test of procedures for the platform extenders. It is possible that, in the future, an agreement could be reached with CPR to not use the line at all for freight, in which case the platforms could be adjusted on a permanent basis.
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http://www.ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/ttc/2002/12-04/ACS2002-TUP-TRN-0012.htm

That might be up for review at some point, an overview would be interesting as it could be applied elsewhere, but if the line is shared with other users, I could see that becoming problematic.
 
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While we wait for the Minister to respond to the City of Ottawa's request in its March 6, 2018 letter here and other developments, just wanted to note that in its infrastructure announcement today the government again noted their financial support for the "Ottawa Light Rail Transit Stage 2 project". Background document with reference here.
 
For those of you who might miss this on your first reading of the Backgrounder that Allendale25 refers to (I certainly did), the funding for Stage 2 LRT is found in two different lines in the table:

Public Transit: $872.2 Million approved for the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Stage 2 project

Green Infrastructure: $218.9 million for the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Stage 2 project

Add to that $66M in funding that had previously been given for early works (link – See Quick Facts towards the bottom)


Total funding is $872.2M + $218.9M + $66M = $1.15B
 
Today is the deadline for the City of Ottawa to respond to the CTA. Have they already responded? Apologies if I missed it.

https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/cta-order...les-bridge-train-ready-by-next-year-1.3807667

The City now has until April 30, 2018 to either explain how it will make the Ottawa River Line and the Prince of Wales Bridge train-ready in 12 months or begin and complete the process of discontinuing the line, which involves trying to sell it and then offering it to the government if no one buys it.
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