Hundreds of public servants and downtown workers trudged shoulder to shoulder down the sidewalk on the outskirts of Ottawa’s core on a dreary October 2019 morning, making an unexpected march to work.
Laptop bags slung over their shoulders, the crowd followed the route of the newly opened Confederation LRT line where trains had come to a sudden standstill. The public later found a rider at University of Ottawa station had tried to hold the door open in a dash to make the train, which somehow caused a system-wide shutdown.
It wasn’t the first mishap to strike Ottawa’s $2-billion system, or even the most dramatic, but it was the first time the transit-going public felt the full force of just how troubled their commutes would be on the line….