Messaging the Confederation Line work-arounds

Yesterday the OTrain's boss appeared on CBC Ottawa news to ostensibly explain what's going on to restore normalcy to the Confederation Line's commuter service. Any questions delving into how we got into this mess, or wanting to know root-cause of current problems, were pooh-poohed in a rather condescending and dismissive manner. His tv appearance seemed one of message control, with that message being: we're putting bus work-arounds in place, and let's not discuss how we got into this mess.

What work-arounds have been put in place to fix on-time service performance? Basically, since startup of the Confederation Line 40 old buses have been returned to service, and, beginning in December, 20 new ones will be kept on permanent standby to be called into emergency service whenever LRT problems occur. You can read all the details here.

My contention is that although I agree that getting work-arounds in place to patch-up on-time service performance is top priority, knowing the root-causes of all the problems, as well as what's being done to fix them, and when, is crucial to understanding how long these work-arounds will be needed, whether more work-arounds will be needed, how much the work-arounds will ultimately cost, and whether the maintenance contractor is fulfilling its responsibilities. As well, knowing how these problems arose in the system is not an exercise in blame seeking, but crucial to understanding what and what not to do in the next phases of construction, and in targeting maintenance and proactive problem-seeking in the current system. It appears from the interview that these questions have been deemed out-of-bounds to citizens.