By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, April 16, 2018
The first LRT train travelled through the downtown tunnel on the weekend, right to the edge of Tunney’s Pasture.
One would have thought, $2 billion and five-plus years later, this would be cause for celebration. Where was the magnum of champagne being rapturously smashed on the bow (the bumper?) of the train — the ribbon-cutting by Watson-Naqvi-Chiarelli-McKenna Inc., the appearance of the town crier and Dave Smith?
Instead, we had a tweet from the mayor on a Saturday afternoon. Then — hang on — some retweets!
This was a lost opportunity, in other words. But this has been the story with the whole building of the LRT. There has, I think, been a failure to engage the public in pride-building in the biggest project the city has ever undertaken. Mass humility, dearest Ottawa, is overrated.
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/the-lrt-actually-works-but-did-2b-buy-a-nickel-of-excitement