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Damage from the July 1 floods will likely further delay the opening of the city’s western light rail extension, according to the chair of Ottawa’s transit committee.
Ottawa was hit by severe thunderstorms on Canada Day that dropped nearly 167 millimetres of rain over about five hours on areas west of downtown.
The construction project to extend the O-Train to Moodie Drive and Algonquin College is among the damaged infrastructure, with its tracks running through some of the hardest-hit areas.
Tracks and cabling have been damaged, transit committee chair and Stittsville Coun. Glen Gower said Friday, adding that how long that might delay the west extension’s opening won’t be known for months.
“We were looking at a late 2027 launch,” he told CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning. “I think it’s fairly certain we’re going to see that delayed by a few more months but we don’t know exactly what the damage was yet.”
‘Significant impact’
Ottawa’s Transit Services general manager Rick Leary on Wednesday said contractors are still investigating the storm damage to the extension and what it will take to repair it.
“This is going to take some time to complete, as all affected aspects of the west extension construction project must be carefully inspected,” he said.
Five stations along the future Line 3 to Moodie station are impacted, he said: Sherbourne, New Orchard, Queensview, Pinecrest and Moodie itself, plus the the Kichi Zībī Mīkan tunnel near Westboro Beach.
Preliminary information from the Moodie station area is that floodwaters had a significant impact, Leary said.
Video shared with CBC News from the afternoon of July 1 shows several centimetres of water flowing over train tracks in the Moodie station area.
The city presentation also showed an unspecified section of track under several centimetres of standing water.
A slide from Ottawa’s city council meeting on July 15, 2026, shows flooded light rail tracks from the July 1 storm. (City of Ottawa)LISTEN | Gower’s interview on Friday:
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The 11-station west extension is part of Ottawa’s broader Stage 2 light rail extension project, which brought Line 2 and 4 trains south to the airport and Limebank stations early last year.
The five-station eastern extension to Trim Road is awaiting its formal three-week test run, which has been complicated by this year’s problems with train wheels.