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GO Transit: Construction Projects (Metrolinx, various)

While riding the GO today, I noticed that there was a construction crew working on the UP platform at Mount Dennis. You’d have thought that with all the delays to Crosstown, it would be finished by now ! While some of the construction fencing is down, there were still plenty of toolboxes and piles of materials on hand.
It will be pretty, well, something if Crosstown finally opens but the GO/UP station isn’t ready.

- Paul

PS - there is certainly work of some sort going on between Parkdale and Strachan, but the new entry at Randall was worker free. Lots of earthmoving at Resources Road and again at the Woodbine site.
 
I know many here, particularly @crs1026 like to keep an eye on Mx procurement. I greatly appreciate the insights garnered and will therefore happily link the September 2025 update for the Mx Commercial Pipeline.


I will also bring it forward:

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Not construction, exactly, but from the same page, definitely with items of interest:

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Northern Light said:
I know many here, particularly @crs1026 like to keep an eye on Mx procurement. I greatly appreciate the insights garnered and will therefore happily link the September 2025 update for the Mx Commercial Pipeline.
Click to expand...

It says something that certain of us pore over these - and save the old ones so that when ML rewrites them, we can determine what has changed. With ML, history - like rust - never sleeps.

In this case - there is a certain amount of work completed since the January outlook report
  • Heritage Road Layover - contract awarded
  • West Harbour renos - contract awarded
  • Davenport Public Realm - contract awarded
  • Mimico GO station reno (the once planned TOD appears to be DOA) - contract awarded
  • Yonge North Subway - Advance tunnels - contract awarded
  • Line 5 West - civil and stations - contract awarded
  • Hamilton LRT - Package 1 RFP issued
However, the number of packages where the tcd for RFP Issue has slipped is long - these are now that much further from shovels in the ground
  • Mount Joy improvements, turnback signal, and passing track
  • Kitchener Line - various, virtually all previously announced work - Mt Pleasant, Georgetown, Guelph, Kitchener
  • Barrie Line stations
  • Stoufffville Station
  • Lakeshore East stations
  • Lakeshore West stations
  • Niagara Falls layover
As noted, there won't be much said here about progress on projects that already have been procured, (some such as Woodbine GO seem to have missed the list altogether) but it's apparent that timelines are stretching out given that the above work hasn't been awarded yet.

- Paul

PS - And the status of critical projects with CN and CPKC (Bowmanville, Niagara, Halton) are not "procurement opportunities" so have absolutely no transparency whatsoever

PPS - With the dates for actually doing these yet-to-be-RFD projects slipping, one wonders what the Province is doing with funding.... does the cash sit in the bank, or is it removed from each year's books and spent on something else in the meanwhile? Or was it ever approved and released at all?
 
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crs1026 said:
PPS - With the dates for actually doing these yet-to-be-RFD projects slipping, one wonders what the Province is doing with funding.... does the cash sit in the bank, or is it removed from each year's books and spent on something else in the meanwhile? Or was it ever approved and released at all?
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Unless money has been actually transferred to a Crown Corp or other entity, they are simply 'allocations' or 'commitments' on the books. Money not spend within a fiscal year ceases to exist. There might be a commitment to spend money in a future year, but there is no corresponding bag-o-money languishing in a drawer with a note on it. Government accounting is weird.

If money has actually been transferred to a Crown agency, I'm not sure. It is probably in the Ontario Financial Administration Act but I don't dislike myself enough to bother looking. If it has been transferred to an entity outside of the government, like a company, then normal business financial practices apply.
 
lenaitch said:
Unless money has been actually transferred to a Crown Corp or other entity, they are simply 'allocations' or 'commitments' on the books. Money not spend within a fiscal year ceases to exist. There might be a commitment to spend money in a future year, but there is no corresponding bag-o-money languishing in a drawer with a note on it. Government accounting is weird.

If money has actually been transferred to a Crown agency, I'm not sure. It is probably in the Ontario Financial Administration Act but I don't dislike myself enough to bother looking. If it has been transferred to an entity outside of the government, like a company, then normal business financial practices apply.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Clearly, I'm not a government accountant. But as a layperson I have a sneaking suspicion that when politicians announce transit projects, they have not set aside any money in a bag for this promise.

So, when ML is ready to do a piece of work, it has to make a trip back to the Province to ask for the funding, and if the Province doesn't want to spend the money right now.... the contract gets deferred.

And that means that the cash flows, rather than the procurement and work management and engineering design people, are what decides what gets done when.

I wonder how much of the above project slippage is because Queens Park isn't ready to ;hand over the bag of cash. And I wonder what QP's actual plans for cash flow to transit might be.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
Thanks. Clearly, I'm not a government accountant. But as a layperson I have a sneaking suspicion that when politicians announce transit projects, they have not set aside any money in a bag for this promise.

So, when ML is ready to do a piece of work, it has to make a trip back to the Province to ask for the funding, and if the Province doesn't want to spend the money right now.... the contract gets deferred.

And that means that the cash flows, rather than the procurement and work management and engineering design people, are what decides what gets done when.

I wonder how much of the above project slippage is because Queens Park isn't ready to ;hand over the bag of cash. And I wonder what QP's actual plans for cash flow to transit might be.

- Paul
Click to expand...

Agency Captial Plans are accounted for in the main or supplementary spending estimates each year.

So there is money set aside in that sense.

The exact manor in which funds are transferred to agencies to actually pay their bills varies.

But in general, funds not yet needed aren't sent over.

Government, like business, considers numbers on a quarterly basis, and matches revenues + borrowings to expenses.

So money appropriated in a budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1st, 2025 is not necessarily available on that date. Generally it becomes available throughout the year, as required, and funds permit.

Dollars shifted into a project specific account are rarely peeled back; but money not yet transferred may be.

The latter is the reason governments are notorious for last minute spending in Q4 if they are under budget; because if money in the budget isn't actually spent, not only may they need to return it, the budget could be held flat or even reduced in an upcoming year.

I can't speak to the details of how various specific Mx items are or have been handled in this regard.

I dislike posting 'gut' feelings and prefer hard info, but I will say here, that I feel like the propensity of Mx to go over budget is likely a contributor to schedule slippage on scheduled procurement.
 
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Northern Light said:
So money appropriated in a budget for the fiscal year beginning April 1st, 2025 is not necessarily available on that date. Generally it becomes available throughout the year, as required, and funds permit.

Dollars shifted into a project specific account are rarely peeled back; but money not yet transferred may be.

The latter is the reason governments are notorious for last minute spending in Q4 if they are under budget; because if money in the budget isn't actually spent, not only may they need to return in, the budget could be held flat or even reduced in an upcoming year.

I can't speak to the details of how various specific Mx items are or have been handled in this regard.

I dislike posting 'gut' feelings and prefer hard info, but I will say here, that I feel like the propensity of Mx to go over budget is likely a contributor to schedule slippage on scheduled procurement.
Click to expand...

Again, I'm quite uninformed.....but as a lay person I have to think that the release of the lion's share of funds is only when the contract is ready to be awarded.

ML will likely have already received funds to do the design (to the level needed to collect bids).... but that's a relatively small amount and does not commit anyone to execution. Lots of things get spec 'd out and then shelved. And there may be a line item in the estimates, but that is not spendable cash in hand, at least not yet.

One would think that when the contract is ready to be signed, ML goes hat in hand and discovers whether the government is actually committed to the project, and/or how soon money will be available.

I was just wondering if that part of the approval process runs smoothly, or have there been surprises or unforeseen problems at that point. My own career experience was that it was never too late in the game for Finance to raise objections and try to rethink the spend.

And then, if execution lagged, having unspent money laying around at year end was never a good thing. With ML having so many delays, that must be a major headache.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
Again, I'm quite uninformed.....but as a lay person I have to think that the release of the lion's share of funds is only when the contract is ready to be awarded.

ML will likely have already received funds to do the design (to the level needed to collect bids).... but that's a relatively small amount and does not commit anyone to execution. Lots of things get spec 'd out and then shelved. And there may be a line item in the estimates, but that is not spendable cash in hand, at least not yet.

One would think that when the contract is ready to be signed, ML goes hat in hand and discovers whether the government is actually committed to the project, and/or how soon money will be available.

I was just wondering if that part of the approval process runs smoothly, or have there been surprises or unforeseen problems at that point. My own career experience was that it was never too late in the game for Finance to raise objections and hold things up.

- Paul
Click to expand...

You're generally correct; but may have missed my suggestion..........

Which was that if Mx goes over budget on an existing item in-year, and needs Treasury Board to authorize those funds, it may choose to do so by ordering a subsequent RFP deferred using the fiscal dollars budgeted for that item to cover the immediate need.
 
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Northern Light said:
You're generally correct; but may have missed my suggestion..........

Which was that if Mx goes over budget on an existing item in-year, and needs Treasury Board to authorizes those funds, it may choose to do so by ordering a subsequent RFP deferred using the fiscal dollars budgeted for that item to cover the immediate need.
Click to expand...

(Penny drops)

Got it.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
While riding the GO today, I noticed that there was a construction crew working on the UP platform at Mount Dennis. You’d have thought that with all the delays to Crosstown, it would be finished by now ! While some of the construction fencing is down, there were still plenty of toolboxes and piles of materials on hand.
It will be pretty, well, something if Crosstown finally opens but the GO/UP station isn’t ready.
Click to expand...
The existing UP platforms have a 16 km/h speed limit for UP trains, presumably due to the low clearance between the permanently-affixed gap fillers and the platform. (There is no speed restriction for GO or Via rolling stock). It's possible they deliberately postponed installing the platform edges at Mount Dennis until the last possible moment, to avoid forcing UP trains to slow to 16 km/h at a station they don't stop at.
 
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