By James Bagnall, Ottawa Citizen, January 24, 2020
Lost amid the outrage over how SNC-Lavalin managed to secure a piece of the $4.6-billion project to expand Ottawa’s light rail transit system despite low technical marks is something more reassuring for taxpayers.
The lion’s share of LRT Stage 2 — some $2.6 billion worth of work — is being handled by a consortium led by Kiewit Construction of Omaha, Neb., and Vinci Construction of Paris.
While the Kiewit group also failed to secure top grades in a technical evaluation, it cleared the minimum 70 per cent threshold by a considerable margin. This, combined with a competitive financial package, gave Kiewit and its partners the right to build the east-west component of Stage 2, the project known as the Confederation Line extension.
Kiewit’s team will add 27 kilometres of track and 16 new stations. SNC Lavalin is responsible for extending the north-south Trillium line under a $663 million fixed-price contract. It will build eight new stations. Add in nearly $1 billion for a long-term maintenance and services contract and you’ve got $1.6 billion in total.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/bagnall-lrt-2-evaluations-the-other-part-of-the-story