Confederation Line

Rank 2024

NR

Image Credit: By *Youngjin - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82200571

Industry Sector: Transit

Project Type: LRT

Project Value: $2.13 billion

Funding Source: P3

Federal Funding: $761.5 million (Building Canada Fund: $600 million; Gas Tax Fund: $161.5 million)

Provincial Funding: $887 million (Government of Ontario: $600 million; Provincial Gas Tax: $287 million)

Municipal Funding: $481.5 million (development charge revenues and transit reserves)

Province: Ontario

City / Region: Ottawa

Estimated End Date of Substantial Completion: 2018

This project is set to meet the City of Ottawa’s infrastructure challenge by way of a state-of-the-art LRT system with an initial capacity of 24,000 riders per hour in each direction, including a congestion-solving 2.5-kilometre tunnel that will rapidly move riders across downtown. It will be a fully accessible and convenient system for all users, including cyclists. The 12.5-kilometre rail line will consist of thirteen stations between Tunney’s Pasture in the west and Blair Station in the east, with three stations residing in the 2.5-kilometre tunnel downtown. This will make transportation
to-and-from the downtown core easier.

This work also includes the widening of Highway 417, as well as the building of a maintenance and storage facility on Belfast Road; selected vehicle assembly, and all cleaning, inspection, heavy maintenance, washing, and storage, will take place at this facility. Construction will continue into 2018, with the project to be handed over to the City of Ottawa on May 24, 2018.

Project Owner: City of Ottawa

Engineer: Capital Transit Partners—Morrison Hershfield, McMillen Jacobs Associates, STV Canada Consulting, AECOM (owner’s engineer); Parsons (functional design); Halcrow Group (tunnel design for EA report); Golder Associates (owner’s geotechnical, hydrogeological, archeological, and environmental consultant); Hatch (design of tunnel lining, portals, and approach cuts; design of underground station structures and entrances; design of tunnel mechanical and electrical systems; analysis of underground ventilation system); WSP

Project/Construction Manager: DBFM Team: Rideau Transit Group— ACS Infrastructure Canada, SNC-Lavalin Capital, EllisDon (developer, design-builder, equity provider); OLRT Constructors, a JV of Dragados Canada, SNC-Lavalin Constructors, and EllisDon (design and construction); Rideau Transit Maintenance General Partnership, composed of subsidiaries of ACS Infrastructure Canada, SNC-Lavalin O&M, and EllisDon (maintenance); WSP; IBI Group; Alstom (vehicles and maintenance services); Thales

Other Key Players: Aon (risk/insurance advisor to authority); Parsons (technical advisor); Entro (wayfinding and signage); Hanscomb (owners’ engineer’s cost consultant); Infrastructure Ontario (procurement advisor); INTECH (insurance advisor); Novus (preliminary studies); EXP (geotechnical & material testing)

Financiers and Banks: National Bank Financial and Sun Life Assurance (co-lead underwriters and agent); BMO Capital Markets (advisor to IO and City of Ottawa)

Architect Names: Adamson Associates Architects, BBB Architects, and IBI Group (design); Perkins+Will (preliminary designs)

Supplier Other: Siemens; DECAST Ltd. (precast girders and structures)

Legal: DLA Piper (counsel to Rideau Transit Group Partnership); Borden Ladner Gervais (counsel to City of Ottawa); Torys (counsel to lenders); Stikeman Elliott (Alstom); Norton Rose Fulbright (advisor for subcontractor)

2018 Rank: 22

2017 Rank: 21

2016 Rank: 20

2015 Rank: 20

2014 Rank: 18