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The city started pursuing a backup plan after issuing the notice of default to Thales on May 1.

Council directed city staff to pursue an alternate signalling system and that project is underway, head of infrastructure Adam Laughlin said following the council vote.

“We’re doing everything we can to ensure that if Thales is not successful, we have a system in place not to disrupt service to Edmontonians that people see today,” he said.

At the same time, Thales is continuing to try to fix the downtown tunnel signal problems with a new schedule.

The city has accepted its new deadline with projected completion by the end of 2018.

“Essentially what they’ve committed to is contract completion by the end of the year, after which time the City of Edmonton will complete some testing to determine if we’re getting the system that we in the first place wanted to operate,” Laughlin said.

The testing on the LRT line will take a minimum of 12 weeks, he added.

With an initial estimated budget of about $900 million, the Metro Line project was far under budget at $655 million, said Iveson.

Council discussions on the troubled LRT line have been in private since December — when the signalling errors were first revealed — because of legal implications, Iveson said. That is why, he said, the city is not yet publicly disclosing the amount of additional funds approved by council.

The mayor added that the city is working to “defend Edmontonians” and ensure a proper signalling system is in place by 2019.

“Council’s working very very hard to hold the contractor accountable,” he said. “Our other objective is to make sure that whatever happens, we continue to have seamless and safe service for citizens with this vendor if they’re able to deliver and with an alternate in place if they’re not.”

duscook@postmedia.com

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