Actually, no. The Confederation Line was supposed to open for limited service by Canada day of 2017, but clearly that has not happened. Although I do understand that no penalties were given to the builders.
Can you cite a source on that? Every source I can find, doing Google searches even with a time limit on the date that results were posted, limiting things to 2010 at latest, searching for "confederation line opening 2017" and similar phrasing has yielded no results. I have found these results indicating that May 2018 has always been the plan:
- Oct 27 2011: http://www.ligneconfederationline.c...nstruction-detours-final-report-27oct2011.pdf page 5 of PDF/Page 1 in document, under 1.2 "Light Rail Construction Schedule", says: "Early construction will be focused in the central area section of the LRT in order to avoid construction disruption during 2017, Canada’s 150th anniversary. The line is due to open in 2018"
- Dec 5 2012: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-lrt-to-be-ready-by-2018-1.1144388 this is the closest thing I can find, it contains the statement "The construction schedule will see project construction mostly complete by the end of 2017, and in service by 2018. That means the project is not expected to be ready for Canada's 150th birthday celebrations in 2017." However, it does not state that it was ever expected to be in service 2017, simply stating that it won't be, and no source is given indicating it should have opened 2017. It may have been based off a misinterpretation of the previous source, thinking that having the downtown tunnel finished by July 2017 meant having service running
- Apr 21 2017: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...tart-may-7-2018-now-appears-delayed-1.4077136 date of May 7 2018 was found in documents, reportedly that exact date has always been the plan; now the May opening date is in question but they are sticking to 2018 firmly
So, as far back as October 2011 the plan was for 2018. I can't find anything farther back saying 2017. Ion however was always planned, from what I can tell, for late 2017, and was confirmed a while ago to be delayed to "Spring 2018" at the earliest, which covers March-June:
The first car, singular, arrived Feb 22 2017 when they were supposed to deliver cars plural in May 2017. Cars plural will not be a reality until "late August at earliest". This seriously throws into question having 100% of vehicles by the end of Dec 2017, as if BBD being the manufacturer didn't already make that an impossibility.
I'm maybe 50% confident on Confederation making May 2018 vs a delay of a month or two, but I'm 100% sure that Ion won't open May 2018. It's just not possible with these vehicle delays. Even the scheduled opening of Spring 2018 covers as late as ~June 20th, so the window is past Confederation's date
and month. Practically speaking they actually have ZERO vehicles, not one, as 501 [edited] is incapable of running under its own power, so I think there's honestly good grounds to question 2018 as a whole.
Slightly off topic, but for anyone who hasn't seen it, here's Ottawa's Confederation Line with an honest-to-god train running on honest-to-god future-revenue trackage:
