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denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
Member Bio
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2008
- Messages
- 7,410
- Reaction score
- 1,438
- Location
- Downtown Toronto, Ontario
Today was probably the end of this thing being done before mid 2023 at least
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Has infrastructure construction been deemed essential? If so, work might continue despite the quarantine.
Nevertheless, I think we all understand that nothing is going to be normal for a long time. Crosstown delays are the least of our worries at the moment. However, I do feel for the businesses along Eglinton having to deal with further Crosstown delays, in addition to the impacts of COVID-19
rbt
Senior Member
IIRC, we get an exact list tomorrow.
Most places have made residential contracting and emergency repair essential; and everything else non-essential. There's a chance they'll do some of the old Eglinton station concrete repairs but that would be it I expect.
Coolstar
Senior Member
So by the time this line is complete in 2024-2025 depending on how long the virus is, it would've taken 14-15 years to finish this line.
sixrings
Senior Member
Five years earlier than the optimistic make me laugh predictions of when the DRL OL will be complete.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
Rainforest
Senior Member
While the businesses are closed for COVID-19, they are not affected by any Crosstown construction.
But, reopening will be harder for them than for most of other businesses. Others can reopen and operate full scale once the infection is stopped, while Eglinton folks will still have to deal with construction hardship as the construction will resume ..
Steve X
Senior Member
COVID-19 will put almost if not all the shops there out of business. Most of them are hanging on the string and now something came and cut them all.
It might take years for the TTC to rebuild its ridership now as the economy has gone to hell. Is Steve Munro right that the government might take this opportunity to delay transit expansion?
I don't agree with stopping construction work. Many sub contractors are small or medium size businesses. If they go out of business there would be a gap in expertise leading to more delays down the road and poorer construction quality. I think one of the issues Ottawa had is the bunch of clueless idiots build that LRT. The design is flaw and the workers can't follow drawings. They never had any projects like that before.
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rbt
Senior Member
That was the primary argument for doing a P3; they didn't want to learn things the hard way.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
That's part of the reason why I believe it's critical that Metrolinx develop the ability to construct infrastructure, largely utilizing in-house expertise. Or they could delegate the responsibility to the TTC. Having million different subcontractors working on a project will always introduce organizational inefficiencies, if only because having so many oranizations working on a single project will inevitably lead to communication breakdowns, legal disagreements, etc.... It's much easier to change course and respond to inevitable challenges when most of your manpower are working within the same organization.
For whatever reason, Metrolinx seems absolutely allergic to doing any amount of work in-house. They're deadset on remaining an organization full of middle managers with zero experience building, maintaining or operating the infrastructure they own. That pretty much leaves them at the mercy of a handful of large construction companies whenever they're building infrastructure (Exhibit A: their struggles to find a private partner to electrify the GO network)
Regarding the Ottawa LRT specifically, they seem to have a lot of really small contractors working on critical components of the system. Is that a standard arrangement for mega projects this large? That just seems to be asking for trouble.
Coolstar
Senior Member
List of Essential Workplaces
For the purposes of this order, businesses include any-for-profit, non-profit or other entity providing the goods and services described herein. This does not pr...
s3.amazonaws.com
26. Construction projects and services associated with the healthcare sector, including new facilities, expansions, renovations and conversion of spaces that could be repurposed for health care space;
27. Construction projects and services required to ensure safe and reliable operations of critical provincial infrastructure, including transit, transportation, energy and justice sectors beyond the day-to-day maintenance;
28. Construction work and services, including demolition services, in the industrial, commercial, institutional and residential sectors;
29. Construction work and services that supports health and safety environmental rehabilitation projects
Looks like Crosstown work will continue though at a slower pace I assume.
crs1026
Senior Member
ML is handling this badly, but it’s a “state of the industry” phenomenon. Nobody has the deep pockets to keep a design and execution team on “hot standby” when transit projects are waylaid for years in political delay and dithering and reversal after every election. Both the transit properties, and the major contractors, shed staff as each project is completed and delay acquiring the expertise until “just in time”.
The elephant in the room is that the province can’t suddenly announce all these projects and assemble the necessary expertise at the drop of a hat to execute them all in parallel. The engineering and construction companies clamour for the business, but when they get it they compete for resources. There are the A list subcontractors who specialise in transit, but there are B list contractors who may know lots about building highways or whatever but are used in desperation when the A list are busy. Even the A list may farm work out to smaller shops. In theory we ought to be planning a sequence of projects and matching to a planned resource base.
What annoys me about ML is how they make the dearth of internal expertise sound like a sustainable business strategy. They are of course hiding their own weakness behind a wall of spin, as they always seem to. They don’t have a core capability to build from.
I’m a survivor from a past era when our Hydro system kept all the necessary expertise on hand to design and build generating stations, from nuts to bolts. It was a huge monolith.....although those plants are still working. I’m not sure we want to push the pendulum back that far, but we have pushed it way too far in the other direction. And we are now pretending it’s sustainable.
- Paul
