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St-Laurent station reopens after latest ceiling problem

St-Laurent station is reopen nearly a week after "disrupted" ceiling tiles were spotted during a routine inspection.

OC Transpo giving update Wednesday afternoon

Gabrielle Huston · CBC News ·
A train station underground.
One of the first trains carrying paying passengers arrives at St-Laurent station on Sept. 14, 2019. (Andrew Lee/CBC)

St-Laurent station reopened Wednesday morning after a five-day closure. Light rail trains are running on schedule.

On May 17, inspectors there observed "a few of the suspended ceiling tiles above the platform were disrupted." The station was closed so engineers could perform a full inspection and repair.

A worker looks at the ceiling tiles at a train platform.
A worker at St-Laurent LRT station on May 17, 2024, looking into the ceiling tiles above the platform. (Philip Ling/CBC)

An update sent later by Renée Amilcar, the city's general manager of transit services, added that they found "evidence of corrosion of some ceiling panels and potential delamination of the concrete." 

Delamination was also the reason that chunks of concrete fell onto the tracks at St-Laurent in January, disrupting service. That inspection confirmed there was a separation of the paste layer at the surface, creating an unbonded layer with the main slab.

A freedom of information request obtained by CBC News earlier this year showed warning signs preceded that incident. Inspection of the full station had been skipped and repairs were not undertaken after "severe" problems were observed in 2020.

The same inspection reports note that the ceiling tiles at St-Laurent sustained water damage.

Image of ceiling tiles. One of them is visibly darker, and highlighted by a red box.
This image was included in the inspection report received through an freedom of information request earlier this year. it noted that the ceiling had sustained water damage above the south platform. (City of Ottawa freedom of information request)

OC Transpo is holding a news conference at 1 p.m.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gabrielle Huston

Gabrielle is an Ottawa-based journalist with eclectic interests. She's spoken to video game developers, city councillors, neuroscientists and small business owners alike. Reach out to her for any reason at gabrielle.huston@cbc.ca.

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