There are mountains of blame to go around, across 3 levels of government, and across most political lines. Oh, and don't forget about the voters share of the blame there as well. While there are some terrible developments going on right now, and any number of our leaders are being loose with the truth, but at long last some pretty good developments are starting to come to fruition.
York Subway extension
- Thread starter Insidious Von
- Start date
It would be interesting to have an independent auditors take a closer look at the timing and cost overruns. I've been involved in numerous capital projects on the GTAs infrastructure as subcontractor and we've always held the line and usually we manage to come in under it. To come in so late and so over budget is, frankly, unthinkable. This is the first thing that needs to be solved, but unfortunately, that's a political decision. BTW, I saw a contractor, on an unrelated project, really fuck up- way late and way over budget. What did city do? They canned his ass, paid the bill and invited him to bid on next projects (after a cooling off period).
I would think a place that has a subway station, a GO Train station, an airport (though not a commuter one), and a huge park nearby would be a good location for some kind of venue hoping to regularly attract large crowds. There's already been outdoor summer concerts and festivals there, so maybe a permanent indoor year-round entertainment venue would be a good idea? Could something be worked out with Bombardier to use the airfield and immediately surrounding area for the IndyCar race (like Edmonton did when they had a race) one weekend each summer, instead of fowling up Exhibition Place and Lake Shore Blvd every year with all those big concrete blocks and fences?
That's usually what happens when more than one municipality is involved. With two depots, Vaughan had to up it's game...which reflected on my property taxes. The big snare up was the Pioneer Village Station where Toronto and Vaughan split the financing. That's probably what caused the biggest delay, the station is a nerve center, the track couldn't be completed unless it was resolved. And it's still not resolved, no one knows when the Richmond Hill's portion of the LRT will be completed. The VMS to Pine Valley section will be completed by Canada Day. I haven't seen anything on the Dufferin to Yonge section.
the Pioneer Village Station is located on the north side of Steeles across from the north entrance to York U. The university has two large parking lots there and another went in on the north side which was mostly empty land.
Thought the part on the North side was just an entrance, car park and ride drop off while the real deal that looks like a futuristic alien cruiser, on the south side, much like Downsview(sheppard West) is where all the buses will be going in etc.
i'm surprised nobody else noticed.....
Downsview Park Station >>>> Platinum Spa
Finch West >>>>>>>>>>>> Muse Massage + others
York University >>>>>>>>>>Seduction Spa + others
Pioneer Village >>>>>>>>>> n/a
Highway 407>>>>>>>>>>>>n/a
Vanghan Metro Centre>>>>>>Club Pro
Downsview Park Station >>>> Platinum Spa
Finch West >>>>>>>>>>>> Muse Massage + others
York University >>>>>>>>>>Seduction Spa + others
Pioneer Village >>>>>>>>>> n/a
Highway 407>>>>>>>>>>>>n/a
Vanghan Metro Centre>>>>>>Club Pro
Hey, I spotted Club Pro!
https://terb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?621830-New-Subway-Stop-is-800m-from-Club-Pro
Though It seems to be a golden age for the rub and tug types.
The geometry of the tunnels was designed for conversion to subways. There was a discussion about this and last I was aware, the decision was to build the tunnels for future conversion to subways.
Converting the track gauge is not a big deal.
The platforms are indeed too short, and too everything not in keeping with conversion to subways. But that will be a problem for another generation to cope with won't it. Happens all the time - short term thinking.
The Auditor General does in fact review the cost of infrastructure projects in the province. It's a large capital outlay (nothing compared to their operating budget though).
For example, the Auditor General issued a report recently that focused on Metrolinx (the famous pedestrian bridge out in Pickering that was supposedly installed upside down, only to find out later that the Auditor General was wrong and the bridge was not installed upside down.)
If you want a large civil Engineering project to come in on budget, you need an airtight design and spec. And an airtight design and spec is not humanly possible, but there are some that are better than others. Of that I have no doubt. That comes down to the Engineering consultant. If you hire a shit consultant, well, what do you expect. Everything is based on the lowest price, so the consultants can't hire the best people (if they can even find them), and even then, once that project ends, they move on to the next and it could be an entirely different team working on the design and all that experience is lost. And the funny thing is that if you compare the price of the consulting assignment to the cost of construction, it's peanuts. But the government will insist everything be tendered and awarded to the lowest bidder every time.
The south side is York U property, the city of Toronto would have to buy the land from the university. That would have been expensive. The north side was kept empty, waiting for Toronto council to make up their minds and commit.
Google hasn't entirely updated the map.
https://www.google.ca/maps/search/Pioneer+Village+Station/@43.7794857,-79.5158898,16z
Any transit investment is good investment. Whenever I see short-sighted posters whining about the government spending "their money", that's what governments DO; ideally for the benefit of the collective WHOLE. You don't like it? Take the redneck American route and try to secede and form your own country / independent state and forego all the benefits that come with being a PART of society.
You think I want to pay property taxes that go towards schooling / youth-programs / tax-cuts for family-oriented Breeders and those that whelp out unfunded bastards in droves? No, but it's the cost of doing business. Health care for fatties/smokers/drug-abusers? No, but it's part of living in a society. Programs for the mentally unstable/disabled? No, but it's the human thing to do (or so I'm told).
We all pay for shit that we don't use and don't necessarily want, but collectively try to make available so most people don't suffer and the majority of us can get by somehow. Yet transit gets shit on so fiercely in the GTA despite the simple truth that every single SOLO driver taken off the road frees up about 10-15 linear feet of road surface. A bus is only 40 feet long, and as long as it's carrying at least 3-4 passengers it breaks even with the equivalent space taken up if they all drove, and a bus can comfortably hold approx. 55 people, easily saving drivers road space by keeping another 1-50 vehicles off the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_VII_(Toronto_Transit_Commission_bus) Same math works for streetcars, LRT, and yes, the more expensive subways but decades from now when presumably Toronto is even more populous (and land more expensive), people will be glad the groundwork has already been laid.
You think I want to pay property taxes that go towards schooling / youth-programs / tax-cuts for family-oriented Breeders and those that whelp out unfunded bastards in droves? No, but it's the cost of doing business. Health care for fatties/smokers/drug-abusers? No, but it's part of living in a society. Programs for the mentally unstable/disabled? No, but it's the human thing to do (or so I'm told).
We all pay for shit that we don't use and don't necessarily want, but collectively try to make available so most people don't suffer and the majority of us can get by somehow. Yet transit gets shit on so fiercely in the GTA despite the simple truth that every single SOLO driver taken off the road frees up about 10-15 linear feet of road surface. A bus is only 40 feet long, and as long as it's carrying at least 3-4 passengers it breaks even with the equivalent space taken up if they all drove, and a bus can comfortably hold approx. 55 people, easily saving drivers road space by keeping another 1-50 vehicles off the road. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_VII_(Toronto_Transit_Commission_bus) Same math works for streetcars, LRT, and yes, the more expensive subways but decades from now when presumably Toronto is even more populous (and land more expensive), people will be glad the groundwork has already been laid.
FYI, the lowest bid does not necessarily gets the job in Toronto on the infrastructure projects. Coming in on budget and under the deadline is not much of a feat. The problem is, our city is unable to enforce the contracts- for whatever reasons. The street car purchase is there for all to see. So are the boarding platforms that were poured to wrong specifications. Those are just fuck ups by the people we pay to know better. It's systemic, actually. It reminds me of my time in military when when they'd use a perfectly good piece of equipment to keep running two other pieces,be that an airplane or a vehicle with some electronic. Wasteful.
Not building Eglinton and building Assman's line was a big mistake. Same with UP, another useless project which I don't know why they don't add a stop at Kipling. If Eg had been built back then who knows extensions to the airport and further east could have already been completed or in the process.
In the public sector, 99.5% of the time, low price gets the job. Giving the job to the second bidder invites a lawsuit. The only way low price does not get the job is if the low bidder makes a mistake in his tender document paper work and his tender is declared informal. If a contractor submits a correct tender complete with bid bonds and performance bond, and he is low, he gets awarded the job. End of story, every time.
Budgets increase because of errors in the tender documents, unforeseen complications, scope creep, claims etc. Tender prices are ALWAYS enforced as are deadlines. Every time. However, the second there is a mistake in the design, there will be an extra cost associated with that extra and it costs more. Which is why I said, if you don't have an air tight design, you're in trouble.
The street cars are a bad example my friend. There are 2 sides to that story. The only side the public ever hears is the City's whining. Bbd wisely keeps its mouth SHUT. But the other side of the story is that the spec that the city wanted was almost impossible to achieve. Frist, the new street cars are 100 feet long and then some. The city's street car tracks date from the early 1900's when street cars were 25' long. The new cars had to be designed to turn on turning radii of 30'. So you tell me, how do you get a 100 foot long street car to turn on a radius of 30'? Secondly, the TTC switches have only one switch point instead of 2. So again, how do you get such a massive car to turn without blowing right out of the turn-out? Third, add in 0 height floors, all the other communication requirements of the TTC which were one of a kind. In a nutshell, no-one in the world had a street car that met the TTC's requirements. What you see rumbling down the streets are unique to the TTC and the first of their kind. Fourth, the delivery schedule was IMPOSSIBLE. It was dreaming in technicolour for Santa Claus to give you a zillion dollars. The TTC just said, "we want it our way, we want it on our deadline, and we don't care about whether it's possible or not, that's your problem". I can put out a contract that I want my new house built in 2 weeks, doesn't mean I can realistically get it. BBD signed because if they didn't sign, their competition would sign and you'd still have the same problem. This is how it works.
If you're talking about the street car platforms on St. Clair, they were designed and built to the old street car specification long before they even dreamed up the new ones BBD is making.
Can anyone tell me why this line even got built vs putting something thru to the end of Scarborough. After all isn`t it called the TTC? Why was a subway built to benefit Vaughn instead of Scarborough? My money is on corrupt politicians in the city and the province looking for votes in Woodbridge, because they could give a rats ass as to what happens in Malvern or Meadowvale in Scarberia. Wouldn't UofT's Scarborough campus benefit from a subway stop too?
Sooo... they agreed to the TTC's specifications even though they knew that they could not deliver because they didn't want the competition to get the contract? Ah, there was no competition for the TTC street car contract, if I remember correctly due to cancon rules and subway was sole sourced. As for platforms- that's a clean miss and there's no excuse for that.
Now, the bidding on capital projects. On the surface it looks like the lowest bid wins, but for large projects the builders go through the pre-qualification process which narrows the field to as few as 2-3 competitors.- not much competition and, combined with city rules like fair wage requirement (and others), there's not much difference. On paper, it looks like the lowest bid gets the job. In reality, well... it's not much of a deal. Especially since the labor and scheduling projections are pretty much identical.
The street cars were a negotiated contract. That does not mean that the TTC didn't have completely unrealistic expectations. The TTC had the money and like all things in life, he who has the money has the power. The TTC dictated terms and had BBD said no, the TTC simply would have gone elsewhere to find someone who said yes.
The platforms, as stated, designed and built before the new street cars were even dreamed up. As stated, they are the first of their kind. Hard to be mezmo 10 years before the fact.
All public infrastructure is tendered and awarded to the lowest bidder. Even prequalified bidders - still lowest price gets the job. And the Owners will always prequalify a minimum of 5 to 7 bidders, if not more. Prequalify does happen, but it's rare.
What we are seeing more and more is the government's latest and greatest attempt at playing the shell game with cost control = AFP (Alternative finance procurement.) Reminds me of tax reform. Everyone thinks they pay too much and the other guy pays too little. AFP actually costs more in the long run. A lot more. It's just kicking the can down the road, but since everything to do with infrastructure is short term economics generally, it makes total sense. Design / build with performance specs are just a recipe for a job made out of spit and kleenex.
You get what you pay for. If you as the Owner want to come in on budget, you need a damn good design no mater what or you're fucked.
But I completely agree with you that the City needs to scrap the Fair Wage Office which demands that all contractors be unionized. But you'd need to get a very left wing, almost communist city council on side with that. So good luck.
