robmausser
Senior Member
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.
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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
Coolstar
Senior Member
Any idea which station this is? Or is it confidential information?
reaperexpress
Senior Member
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.
Krypto98
Active Member
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
Northern Light
Superstar
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
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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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smallspy
Senior Member
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
crs1026
Superstar
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
Allandale25
Senior Member
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:
And actively being discussed on social media:
reaperexpress
Senior Member
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...
Nomad_87
Active Member
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
crs1026
Superstar
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
nfitz
Superstar
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.
yrt+viva=1system
Senior Member
If this was CN/CP they would not give two cents to residence around them.
I’m even more willing to bet that CN/CP will try to clear cut all their ROW if they had the extra cash on hand.
I’m even more willing to bet that CN/CP will try to clear cut all their ROW if they had the extra cash on hand.
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ARG1
Senior Member
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.
Northern Light
Superstar
Yes.
No. Metrolinx is exempt from City approvals and exempt from TRCA approval as well.
So neither had a material say in anything.
The TRCA was invited in to give a non-binding opinion and to carry out some restoration works; that's the extent of their involvement.
I'll happily bury the City and the TRCA for any number of things; but we can't really lay this one on them.
The only thing I will say negatively in the City's direction is that it hasn't really raised the issue of restoring the ravine connection prior to this work (even though some of us raised the issue many years ago, before any corridor expansion project
was even contemplated).
Had there been an idea of doing something here, and it been examined in the EA, and costed, there might be a more reasonable chance of pursuing it, if the City coughed up some of the cost; but alas, tis not so.
But that's not to let Mx off the hook who could certainly have rolled something more substantial for nature/ the community into this project.