January 26, 2005

Marshall Macklin Monaghan on board for $650M LRT system to serve Ottawa

Marshall Macklin Monaghan (MMM) has been retained by the City of Ottawa to provide program management services and assist in the selection of a P3 partner to deliver a $650-million light rail transit (LRT) system to serve the city’s north-south corridor.

The project comprises the conversion of the city’s current “O-Train” corridor to twin-track electric LRT technology, with an easterly extension into the downtown and a southerly extension to serve the newly developing Riverside South community and cross the Rideau River to serve the Barrhaven community.

MMM’s role is to manage the proponent selection process and guide this first phase of the project to achieve a construction start in 2006.

The MMM-led team awarded the program management role includes KPMG, Earth Tech and Ottawa’s J.L. Richards & Associates. The team’s assignments include project management, analysis and recommendation of P3 delivery models, advice on procurement strategies and development of procurement tools, preparation of the request for qualifications and request for proposals documents and evaluation of submissions and drafting of reports and recommendations.

The MMM team will also assist the city in the development of contribution agreements with the federal and provincial governments who are co-funding the project, and with partnership agreements that the city will develop with the selected delivery proponent.

In addition, MMM and its partners will provide quality assurance, quality control and compliance monitoring throughout the project, assessing risks to the city of Ottawa and mitigating strategies.

The Ottawa LRT assignment is the third major transit project awarded to MMM in just over a year. The other two involve provision of program management services for the York Region rapid transit program and for the GO Transit rail infrastructure program.

The first project is MMM-led. On the second, MMM is a member of the AGM Program Managers consortium. The firm is headquartered in Thornhill, Ont.

—Patricia Williams

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