Ottawa's LRT - What a Mess

So RTG has finally come through with handing over the new LRT to the City of Ottawa and announced the handover for August.  For those counting, the announcement came 391 days after the original deadline was passed.  The City is hoping to have the LRT fully tested and running by September.  Let's count the ways that the City is out of its damned mind on this.

1) Once the handover is done, the new LRT has to be tested at full load for twelve days.  RTG hasn't reached that at all, especially with the double trains that will be needed during rush hour.  If at any point during the testing something breaks, the clock resets to zero.  Something breaks on day 11?  Fix it and restart the clock from the beginning.  I don't see a September start.  But let's say everything is working for September.  Then what?

2) September is when route changes happen, when people return to school and to work after a vacation.  OC Transpo has had problems in the past few years with major changes, to the point where buses get backed up past Tunney's Pasture eastbound and the University of Ottawa westbound.  Almost every time, OC Transpo has face planted and there's no indication that this time will be any different.  But let's say OC Transpo has its act together.  Then what?

3) Thanks to the delays, there has been no full load testing in winter.  The City tends to forget the other season besides construction, but Ottawa gets winters.  We get the entire range of winter weather, from mild and no snow to -35 °C before windchill (-40 °C and lower with), blizzards, thundersnow, ice storms, you name it, we've had it.  When RTG did do light testing, several of the trains broke from the snow and ice.  The trains the City is getting have never been used for public transit before, let alone in a city with weather extremes. What's going to happen with the first snowfall?  Are the trains going to come to a crashing halt?  Will they be able to run at all?  The City will be laying off drivers and selling off buses once the LRT is going, so if the system breaks, what's going to make up the gap?

The big problem is that the City went cheap on the LRT.  We're going to be paying for that.  It's bad enough that bus service now is a shit show of near epic proportions, with bus cancellations and no shows part of the daily commute.  If the LRT fails to arrive, what are passengers supposed to do?  Buses are already sardine cans.  There won't be enough buses to replace the trains.  Ridership is down over the past decade, because the service just isn't there.  The handover is more politics than service right now.