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Lost in all the controversy surrounding the award of the Trillium Line contract to SNC-Lavalin is the flawed design of the airport link, and the real possibility it could become a white elephant.

It must be clear to everybody that the way this link is planned right now, with its multiple transfers, the airport train will become a slow coach to nowhere. Few, if any, arriving passengers would use a service that requires three trains to get downtown. Same with travellers downtown trying to catch a flight at Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. We might build airport LRT so we can say to the world that we also have one, but it would be something of an expensive decoration. If we are going to spend $155 million to build an airport link, and another $4 million annually to run it, we should build one that works – or not at all.

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It must be clear to everybody that the way this link is planned right now, with its multiple transfers, the airport train will become a slow coach to nowhere.

Obviously, the SNC-Lavalin contract controversy sucked all the oxygen in the LRT debate. But now that the controversy is behind us, the city must seriously reconsider the design.