2018 Provincial Election Transit Promises

[raptor]

How the heck does Metrolinx blame the election on the delay? After the failure of creating proper accountability in the BBD streetcar contract they did it again in their new contract with the builder of the LRT line. A proper contract would have had penalties if they did not deliver on a specific date.

This isn't a Brittney Spears song. This is creating huge disruptions in the life of people who live along the route.

On a secondary note any person who works for the Province including the MTO (Celso Pereira) should not be commenting on an upcoming election. There needs to be a separation between the bureaucrats and the politicians. If he is being paid for by Ontario work for Ontario, not the Liberal party. (regardless of your political affiliation this separation is paramount in any democracy...other than Russia)

If you read the article, Metrolinx is not blaming the elections for the delay, but rather the winning consortium. Officially, the elections have nothing to do with the delay.
However, my question is why isn't a firm delivery date of 2022 not part of the RFP? why is Metrolinx negotiating a schedule AFTER awarding the RFP?

 

[nfitz]

Pretty big recession at the beginning of the NDP term didn't help. Interesting that its not noted here.

I'd assume everyone is aware of it - it's the reason they got elected after all. Not sure how it's relevant. It was long over before spending peaked 10 years later. And generally not as serious as the recent one which caused a hiccup in the finances.

How the heck does Metrolinx blame the election on the delay?

How do you interpret that as Metrolinx blaming the election?

The article says the delay is based on discussions with the winning contractor. It's just a statement noting that the election is coming.

 

[ssiguy2]

How the hell does it take 5 years to build a non-grade separated 11 km LRT line when all the initial bureaucratic and engineering work is already done? Also, Ford is right about one thing.........$200 million spent for a little LRT line with no shovels in the ground is obscene. Toronto seems to build transit the same way Montreal builds it`s roads..........make work projects with a healthy dose of political delays and corruption.

 

[BurlOak]

How do you interpret that as Metrolinx blaming the election?

Agree.
It was bias on the part of the Star - not Metrolinx.

It looks like this is a Commentary piece disguised as a news story.

 

[narduch]

How the hell does it take 5 years to build a non-grade separated 11 km LRT line when all the initial bureaucratic and engineering work is already done? Also, Ford is right about one thing.........$200 million spent for a little LRT line with no shovels in the ground is obscene. Toronto seems to build transit the same way Montreal builds it`s roads..........make work projects with a healthy dose of political delays and corruption.

My conspiracy theory is that the Liberals don't actually want to spend on transit. They just want to appear to be pro transit because a certain portion of the electorate falls for this shit.

Seems like all the projects that are promised have long study and design times and long construction times. They are trying to spread the money out as far as possible. Its frustrating

 

[Edward Skira]

Come on! Many of you forget how little was done on transit in the decades before the Liberals came into power. Just the Crosstown and Spadina extension being built at the same were more development than any time in history. Let alone everything else.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Or just recall how poor GO service in the early 2000s and the amount of ridership growth since then.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

However, my question is why isn't a firm delivery date of 2022 not part of the RFP? why is Metrolinx negotiating a schedule AFTER awarding the RFP?

This is an entirely reasonable question. A delivery date should be a part of the RFP and should not be negotiated afterwards.

I also hasten to add that the timeline is excessive, period. There is no reason that any detailed design and preliminary works not already completely can't be done before next year; and no reason construction should take any longer than 2 years. The project is primarily a normal TTC streetcar ROW which, except w/curbs. The only 'extras' here are installation of overhead, and some streetscape works.

 

[Northern Light]

Come on! Many of you forget how little was done on transit in the decades before the Liberals came into power. Just the Crosstown and Spadina extension being built at the same were more development than any time in history. Let alone everything else.

While this is an entirely legitimate point; it is equally fair to point out that pre-Liberal transit projects were not subjected to a BCA (the results of which are predetermined) nor were design processes as lengthy, and construction itself is being strung out longer than it needs to be. That decision is both of function of trying to start multiple projects at once, while keeping cash flows down, as well as a failure to specify crew sizes and timing in contracts. Some time has also been lost to the extended P3 processes vs traditional procurement or early P3s that often didn't involve an RFQ stage.

In the case of the Crosstown, the timing for the underground portion isn't all that unreasonable; but what is unreasonable is the choice not to even start the surface work on Eglinton East until this summer. That work could and should have proceeded in parallel to the underground work, and this would have shaved at least 18 months off the project's current timeline.

None of that is Liberal bashing. It is, however, holding the government accountable for their choices, just as one should with any party in power.

 

[rbt]

That work could and should have proceeded in parallel to the underground work, and this would have shaved at least 18 months off the project's current timeline.

How does that work?

How would having the surface portion ready earlier accelerate Yonge station construction? Yonge/Eglinton station is the critical path. Or do you believe crews will be taken off Yonge station in order to build the surface bits and building the surface bits earlier would have allowed multiple crews to be used?

Tunnelling out from Yonge would have shortened the timeline a bit but also would have added a ton of logistics challenges.

 

[muller877]

Agree.
It was bias on the part of the Star - not Metrolinx.

It looks like this is a Commentary piece disguised as a news story.

My apologies to Metrolinx on linking the byline to them (and everyone that read my comment). I should have blamed the Star (shoddy reporting commingling commentary and news).

Outside of Metrolinx how is a MTO employee involved in electioneering? Is that permitted?

 

[nfitz]

How the hell does it take 5 years to build a non-grade separated 11 km LRT line when all the initial bureaucratic and engineering work is already done?

It wouldn't. No has said it would take 5 years.

They haven't even signed the contract yet. And construction will end about a year before opening, for commissioning, etc.

Also, Ford is right about one thing.........$200 million spent for a little LRT line with no shovels in the ground is obscene.

Drug Fraud - as usual, has his head stuck up his imagination. The LRVs alone should have had that much spending already.

Heck, how much of the Metrolinx penalty to Bombardier to reduce the Flexity order is assignable to Finch West?

My conspiracy theory is that the Liberals don't actually want to spend on transit. They just want to appear to be pro transit because a certain portion of the electorate falls for this shit.

More like just general incompetence you see everywhere - public and private, delaying projects.

But also part of the reason, their forecast deficits always are much higher than actual - because stuff simply slips to later years.

Works great while you are ramping up spending I suppose ... kind of falls apart if you are trying to curtail it - LOL!

 

[Rainforest]

At this point, the greater risk is another delay in the construction start.

If the contract is awarded before the elections, then it might even survive a Ford's victory. It would be relatively easy for Ford to say something like, this project is not my choice but I can't kill it now because too much money have already been spent or committed.

The delay in the completion date, while annoying, isn't really critical.

However if the contract signing is delayed to until after the elections, then nothing is guaranteed. Metrolinx needs to act fast.

 

[nfitz]

You'd think that it would be safe - but then Metrolinx went ahead and paid a penalty of about $75 million to reduce the 182-car order to 76 cars. (not to mention that the 17 Alston cars for Finch West will cost about $148 million, compared to the $94 million that the 23 cars from Bombardier were to have costed. So that's $54 million in unnecessary additional costs as well - so they were willing to toss $125 million out the window for no reason at all.

It still makes no sense to me how Metrolinx can think that Bombardier can achieve 76 cars for Eglinton by 2021, and not build 23 more for 2022 (now 2023) for Finch West. The level of competence there must be very, very low.

 

[BurlOak]

You'd think that it would be safe - but then Metrolinx went ahead and paid a penalty of about $75 million to reduce the 182-car order to 76 cars. (not to mention that the 17 Alston cars for Finch West will cost about $148 million, compared to the $94 million that the 23 cars from Bombardier were to have costed. So that's $54 million in unnecessary additional costs as well - so they were willing to toss $125 million out the window for no reason at all.

It still makes no sense to me how Metrolinx can think that Bombardier can achieve 76 cars for Eglinton by 2021, and not build 23 more for 2022 (now 2023) for Finch West. The level of competence there must be very, very low.

It seems that Liberals are paying huge penalties to cancel their own plans. At least there is some logic if another party cancels the previous parties plans.

If we look federally, Chretien cancelled a helicopter deal that was at a similar state. As I recall, that was over $1B, which is maybe $3B now. And Chretien suffered very minimal political blame in the process. Scaling to Ontario, it appears that Ford could cancel and suffer about $1B worth of cancellation costs and he will not be blamed in the least.