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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

Excellent report @reaperexpress

Thorough, well documented and insightful.

Good to see that future proofing built in; I don't mind the extra $ in the least, as it should save a bundle down the road. Would like to see more foresight in our public sector projects, just like this.
Metrolinx is very serious about future-proofing for level boarding and electrification. Most (or all?) of the recent station reconstructions were originally designed with level boarding platforms but had to be updated with low platforms when it became clear that GO was not going to retrofit its coaches with adjustable height steps in time for opening.

I've also seen one draft contract for a station reconstruction which included not just future-proofing for electrification, but actually asked for overhead wires to be strung along the platforms.
 
I've also seen one draft contract for a station reconstruction which included not just future-proofing for electrification, but actually asked for overhead wires to be strung along the platforms.
Any idea which station this is? Or is it confidential information?
 
Any idea which station this is? Or is it confidential information?
It was confidential, and also just a draft from three years ago. No idea if they actually ended up asking for that in the actual contract. Probably not given the delays to the electrification program.
 
Love them or hate them Metrolinx is simply a much more professional organization all around compared to the TTC. They are much more diligent with this kind of stuff.
Ahhh yet Steve Munro hates them with a passion. I mean some things he says is somewhat true but he puts all the blame on them for certain things
 
Ahhh yet Steve Munro hates them with a passion. I mean some things he says is somewhat true but he puts all the blame on them for certain things

Steve has been less than kind to the TTC as well; and with good reason.

Both agencies are less than fully transparent; and both engage in bad faith public consultation, and both have weak oversight by politicians or others largely unfamiliar with or disinterested in
the details of operations and capital spending, and typically with little transit experience even as a customer.

Both agencies have executed good projects; and both agencies actually run fairly good service by North American standards (take that back-handed compliment for what it is).

But I don't see why one would expect an advocate to spend all their time heaping praise on organizations capable of far better.

Granted Steve can seem the curmudgeon, and I'm all for the notion of getting more with honey than vinegar; but Steve can be the vinegar and others can be the honey, LOL

****

Lets also note, after heaping praise for recent future proofing efforts that it was Mx that did not future proof all the Union Station renos for what was to come (the now USEP).

Worth saying, Steve Munro wrote about the shortcomings and lack of future proofing several years back when the Union project was just beginning....

So perhaps Mx has learned, and if so, that's excellent and praise-worthy.

But not before making some very expensive mistakes!

All the while there is much discussion here about how well the Ontario Line is (or is not) future proofed in respect of demand in the decades to come and/or future extensions.
 
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Love them or hate them Metrolinx is simply a much more professional organization all around compared to the TTC. They are much more diligent with this kind of stuff.
I don't think that the vast majority of the people who've had to deal with them directly - either as employees, contractors, or even just the public looking for an answer to a project going on near them - would agree with your assessment.

Dan
 
I don't think that the vast majority of the people who've had to deal with them directly - either as employees, contractors, or even just the public looking for an answer to a project going on near them - would agree with your assessment.

There are many situations where TTC staff know the "right" way to do things but are constrained by budgets and political overrides. One has to recognize the environment they are working in.

- Paul
 
Small's Creek in the news: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toro...reek-ravine-trees-construction-work-1.6343164

And actively being discussed on social media:

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Funny how these people are protesting the environmental impact of removing a few trees for a railway expansion, meanwhile the Province continues to plan a highway through undeveloped areas which will enable vast areas of natural and farmland to be flattened by residential and industrial sprawl...
 
If this was something new I could understand the concerns. But this corridor has been around for longer than anyone currently alive today. You don't get to move next to an active rail corridor and act shocked when trains are using it, or that we may *gasp* need more capacity to meet the demands of our growing population
 
If this was something new I could understand the concerns. But this corridor has been around for longer than anyone currently alive today. You don't get to move next to an active rail corridor and act shocked when trains are using it, or that we may *gasp* need more capacity to meet the demands of our growing population

Yes and no. I agree that residents have to accept that a busy line (which was there first) will likely get busier and the added traffic will mean added noise etc which has to be accepted.

But - some of this location’s issues are about how the natural environment will be harmed - by the widening of the row, and by the construction roads etc that will have to be driven into natural areas. It’s fair for the residents to look for assurances that the site will be left at least as nice and natural as it is today. Metrolinx has proven elsewhere that it can’t be trusted on this point.

Further, residents have provided input about how the site could actually be improved such that after GO expansion it has even better use as a natural area. These improvements have a cost that is real but isn’t unaffordable. I do think that ML should be looking for opportunities to mitigate the impacts of more intensive GO expansion projects. If that means making something nicer for a neighbourhood in recognition of those unavoidable impacts, that’s a fair trade.

It’s unfortunate that resident-based concerns get aired as they do… the advocacy often starts out positional and oppositional - and the government levels squabble over who pays for what when in the end it’s all taxpayer money….. so there is time wasted arguing instead of finding solutions. As a taxpayer, however, I’m not sorry to see ML moving towards an outcome where the community derives some win-win. It’s good to see ML digging deeper (so to speak) on this one.

- Paul
 
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Yes and no. I agree that residents have to accept that a busy line (which was there first) will likely get busier and the added traffic will mean added noise etc which has to be accepted.

But - some of this location’s issues are about how the natural environment will be harmed - by the widening of the row, and by the construction roads etc that will have to be driven into natural areas. It’s fair for the residents to look for assurances that the site will be left at least as nice and natural as it is today. Metrolinx has proven elsewhere that it can’t be trusted on this point.
Bingo - there used to be a truss there a century ago. About the same time they build the embankment from Pape to Union, they also filled the truss in to create the embankment right through the ravine.

Widening the embankment is the current plan, and the cause of much upset with it taking up more forest. They could have put the bridge back, and restored the continual nature of the ravine.

They completely failed to consult the community about this, and never examined options. This probably wasn't an issue until they decided - long after the EA was completed, to replace the "damaged" culvert, with a much bigger one. At which point, other alternatives should have been studied - and the EA should have been amended.

Of course the culvert isn't really damaged. The downstream end has silted up, and apparently there's a bit of a collapse right at the end (and this isn't even the bit where they are widening the embankment). Easily fixed with a small backhoe and some concrete, without the large number of tree removals they are planning on that side (where there's no widened embankment).

The main point is, that the work was poorly planned, rubber stamped by the city and conservation authority, and done without community consultation.
 
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Yes and no. I agree that residents have to accept that a busy line (which was there first) will likely get busier and the added traffic will mean added noise etc which has to be accepted.

But - some of this location’s issues are about how the natural environment will be harmed - by the widening of the row, and by the construction roads etc that will have to be driven into natural areas. It’s fair for the residents to look for assurances that the site will be left at least as nice and natural as it is today. Metrolinx has proven elsewhere that it can’t be trusted on this point.

Further, residents have provided input about how the site could actually be improved such that after GO expansion it has even better use as a natural area. These improvements have a cost that is real but isn’t unaffordable. I do think that ML should be looking for opportunities to mitigate the impacts of more intensive GO expansion projects. If that means making something nicer for a neighbourhood in recognition of those unavoidable impacts, that’s a fair trade.

It’s unfortunate that resident-based concerns get aired as they do… the advocacy often starts out positional and oppositional - and the government levels squabble over who pays for what when in the end it’s all taxpayer money….. so there is time wasted arguing instead of finding solutions. As a taxpayer, however, I’m not sorry to see ML moving towards an outcome where the community derives some win-win. It’s good to see ML digging deeper (so to speak) on this one.

- Paul
The problem is how many people advocating this are doing so in good faith? How many people are actually concerned about the natural area, rather than just using this issue as a launchpad for what is actually just NIMBYism. This is in a similar vein to Save Jimmie Simpson where the locals are using a local park as a focus to dump them not wanting to have more training running behind their houses.
 

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