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Toronto Eglinton Line 5 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

crs1026 said:
A great idea for tunneling. You only cut half way down, deep enough to take the overhead off the TBM, so nothing collapses. Then you let the TBM run along, waist deep, boring out the bottom half. That way, your temporary retaining walls are only half as deep as traditional cut and cover. Probably, with the top of the TBM exposed, the tailings could be fed directly out the top instead of back down the tunnel. You run a conveyor back to where you need to cover, and dump the tailings there. It covers itself as it moves. You build out of prefab shell, just like a true TBM does.....no forms needed.

Of course, with the stations being voids, you still have to do them the same way, but the impact along the route is much less, and doesnt last long. You can do the tunnels. much closer to the surface, making stations cheaper.

- Paul
Click to expand...

One note on why this is difficult - the TBM pushes on the existing tunnel segments to move forward. I had trouble finding a good image, but if you look in the one below of the Eglinton TBMs below, if you look at the inside of the machine, you can see the 'thrust pads' as they're called. They are what push against the tunnel segments to advance the machine. Having done the layout myself on these machines, you can see we made those pads as large a contact area as could fit, because you need to distribute the thrust with as little contact pressure as possible. Too high a contact pressure, and you risk cracking the segments, or you have to greatly increase the compressive strength of the concrete used in the segments. The thrust of the machine has to be enough to both push the machine through what its mining, and overcome the friction of dragging the trailing gantries full of equipment.

Now if you expose half the TBM, you might lessen the force needed to mine forward, but not the force required to drag the machine. Loosing half the tunnel to push off means you're doubling the contact pressure on the concrete segments. Its probably not insurmountable, but would need special tunnel segments and concrete for the station areas.
3-Crosstown-Caterpillar-TBM1.jpg


The real reason they split the tunneling contracts off for Eglinton from stations was that they wanted to advance the TBM procurement as quickly as possible...if they'd left the tunnels to the consortiums building the stations in the DBFM contract, the consortium would've had to the wait the 18 months to construct the TBMs they individually ordered (after they won), which would've pushed back the whole timeline.

My current place of work helped do the assessment that showed advancing TBM procurement (on a sewer project probably 10 years ago, which was then copied for TYSSE and Crosstown) would speed up the project timelines. That led to my old place of work building a lot of TBMs in parallel to the construction procurement processes, so when construction procurement was done, they had the machines ready to go.

Whether or not they follow the same model on SSE, DRL or YSE, I have no idea.
 
jcam said:
The real reason they split the tunneling contracts off for Eglinton from stations was that they wanted to advance the TBM procurement as quickly as possible...if they'd left the tunnels to the consortiums building the stations in the DBFM contract, the consortium would've had to the wait the 18 months to construct the TBMs they individually ordered (after they won), which would've pushed back the whole timeline.

My current place of work helped do the assessment that showed advancing TBM procurement (on a sewer project probably 10 years ago, which was then copied for TYSSE and Crosstown) would speed up the project timelines. That led to my old place of work building a lot of TBMs in parallel to the construction procurement processes, so when construction procurement was done, they had the machines ready to go.

Whether or not they follow the same model on SSE, DRL or YSE, I have no idea.
Click to expand...

This is key to getting the subway projects completed in a reasonable amount of time...all three subways that are being proposed should focus on getting the TBM's ordered - it's even more important than the funding of the entire project.

Toronto (and Tory specifically) should be focusing on ordering the TBM's using our own funding and plan to do most of the tunnelling ourselves and leave the stations and infrastructure to the province and feds.

Unfortunately we only have funding in place for Scarborough - and it's for the entire thing - so we are probably going to design all of it before ordering the TBM's for Scarborough...

That said council should focus on getting the TBM's for DRL purchased before the end of this term of council - for delivery mid-term of next and beginning of tunnelling by the end of next term. If they wait until there is a full contract in place we will not order them before 2022 or so...
 
georgevicbell said:
This is key to getting the subway projects completed in a reasonable amount of time...all three subways that are being proposed should focus on getting the TBM's ordered - it's even more important than the funding of the entire project.

Toronto (and Tory specifically) should be focusing on ordering the TBM's using our own funding and plan to do most of the tunnelling ourselves and leave the stations and infrastructure to the province and feds.

Unfortunately we only have funding in place for Scarborough - and it's for the entire thing - so we are probably going to design all of it before ordering the TBM's for Scarborough...

That said council should focus on getting the TBM's for DRL purchased before the end of this term of council - for delivery mid-term of next and beginning of tunnelling by the end of next term. If they wait until there is a full contract in place we will not order them before 2022 or so...
Click to expand...
I thought Vancouver, for both Canada Line and Evergreen Line, had the consortium do the TBM tunneling.
 
City of Toronto Eglinton East LRT Communications and Consultation Strategy 9120-17-7194

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to select a qualified communications, and public and stakeholder consultation consultant to work collaboratively with the City on public and stakeholder communications and consultation for the ongoing work related to the Eglinton East LRT Work Program.

The intent of this work is to provide strategic advice and support for all public and stakeholder consultation, facilitation, communications, and engagement for current and emerging projects associated with the Eglinton East LRT, and if required, prepare documentation that would inform a TPAP Amendment or other future work. The Program of LRT related projects that to be supported by this Project is expected to begin in Q3 2017 be completed by mid-2018.

The scope of this Strategy includes, but is not limited to:

- Communications strategy and project branding;
- Community consultation and implementation plan;
- Public and community consultations and stakeholder meetings (e.g. business community, community associations, university / college student population etc.);
- Workshops and/or charrettes;
- Communications materials and content preparation; and
- Social media and website presence.

A total fee (excluding HST) in the range of $300,000 - $350,000 has been estimated for this work. Please note that this amount is only an approximation and does not reflect the total amount that will be paid to any selected consultant. This amount is for information only and should not form the basis of any submission.
 

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EastYorkTTCFan said:
Interesting it seems a bit early for it I would have thought at last 2020 fro them to begin unless they want to speed things up because they realise it's taking way too long.
Click to expand...
No, it was always planned for prep work. Utilities relocation will begin sometime soon (if it hasn't happened yet). That would take them up to a year. They'll widen the roadway in 3 phases, medium, north and south side (don't remember which is first). That's 2-3 months per phase.

If they started prep work in 2020, it won't finish within a year. The actually track and overhead work won't happen till closer to 2020. Even the VIVA rapidways took much longer than a year.
 
I'm not sure that I've seen or understand how traffic signal priority is going to work on the above ground section. Without full grade separation, isn't there a big risk that the above ground section could bottleneck the whole line?
 
Rapparee said:
I'm not sure that I've seen or understand how traffic signal priority is going to work on the above ground section. Without full grade separation, isn't there a big risk that the above ground section could bottleneck the whole line?
Click to expand...

The suburban politicians will do their best to get the worst possible transit priority, and keep the single-occupant motor vehicle as "king or queen" of the road.
 
W. K. Lis said:
The suburban politicians will do their best to get the worst possible transit priority, and keep the single-occupant motor vehicle as "king or queen" of the road.
Click to expand...

A bit tin foil hat dont you think?? I doubt any of them even know when signal priority means in real life.
 
Steve X said:
No, it was always planned for prep work. Utilities relocation will begin sometime soon (if it hasn't happened yet). That would take them up to a year. They'll widen the roadway in 3 phases, medium, north and south side (don't remember which is first). That's 2-3 months per phase.

If they started prep work in 2020, it won't finish within a year. The actually track and overhead work won't happen till closer to 2020. Even the VIVA rapidways took much longer than a year.
Click to expand...
As a point of comparison:
KW's LRT began the very first LRT related utility work in 2013, with the construction finishing in 2017. That's 4 years. (5 construction seasons) If the crosstown wants to open in 2021, then it needs to start utility work 4 years earlier, in 2017.

So yep. Construction should start this year.

Here's what to expect for the next five years:
2017: "oh there's a few random utility digs. Neat."
2018: Serious groundbreaking begins. "Traffic and construction can't get worse than this!"
2019: "oh my god it's worse"
2020: Roads begin to reopen, but you can't trust that they won't close again randomly.
2021: Roads finally start reopening for good, but some of them remain frustratingly closed for far longer than you could have possibly imagined.
 
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