Listen, we all get that you're a member of the REM and CPPQI fan club, and I am not.
We can have different takes, to a point.
But you come very close to being outright misleading with yours.
Lets start with timeline. The base project, with CPPQ involvement was announced in January....2015. By the time it wraps...........it will have been at least 11.5 years.
If you measure from the initially announced construction date, it began December 2017, so 8.5 years.
if you measure from the actual start of construction, that was April 2018, which would see it about 8 years, if there are no further delays.
Finally, the initial opening date was July 31st, 2023.
Measured from the actual ground breaking date, construction was supposed to have lasted 5 years, 3 months.
If the line completes in April '26 it will be 2 years and 9 months late; which is an increase of 2 years 9 months which is a 49% overrun/delay.
****
On budget. The final version of the project, from 2017 was publicly announced at 5.9B in cost.
By groundbreaking in April '18, 10 months later, pre-pandemic, the cost had risen to 6.5B
The current estimated budget is 9.4B an increase from the Jun 2017 date of 3.5B an increase of 59%!
REM re-used existing rail corridor for the most part, including an existing tunnel, only a small amount of net new ROW was required. But you must consider the impact to existing or then existing commuter rail service to be removed.
The net gain is not as large as you would make it out to be, in any event a comparison to a line
I'm more than happy to rip the province and Metrolinx over Eglinton Crosstown. But just to point this out.
Assuming (big if) it opens by year end, the project will completed ~ 5 years late; on a construction schedule of ~ 9 years (broke ground October '2011) or 55% overrun.
On budget, the Crosstown construction tender was 9.1B the current estimated budget which I will be the first to put a big asterisk beside) is 12.8B that's an overage of 238B that's an overage of 40.6%
Overall comparison as follows:
Project Name: Percent delayed Percent over budget
REM 49% 59%
Crosstown 55% 40.6%
Not a legitimate comparison in either case
Crosstown was an entirely new corridor, there was no existing commuter line to reuse it has 10km of brand new tunnel. Building the line elevated was never an option through the tunneled stretch.
The Ontario Line had no existing tunnel to re-use either, its 9km of new tunnel, there is only about 3km shared with the existing GO Lines with an elevated guideway and 3 bridges, 2 significant making up the balance
