GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[Bojaxs]

I'm finding it all very confusing. So has Metrolinx basically taken themselves completely out of the picture regarding GO transit? It sounds like Onxpress will be doing everything that Metrolinx was originally doing. What role does Metrolinx now serve within GO transit? To simply hand over money to Onxpress with the provincial governments blessings?
What I find even more perplexing is why did Metrolinx hire a consortium of 4 different companies to come in and bring about these changes? Why didn't Metrolinx simply hire some top guys from these European Companies to help bring about the changes within Metrolinx?

 

[Allandale25]

I'm finding it all very confusing. So has Metrolinx basically taken themselves completely out of the picture regarding GO transit? It sounds like Onxpress will be doing everything that Metrolinx was originally doing. What role does Metrolinx now serve within GO transit? To simply hand over money to Onxpress with the provincial governments blessings?
What I find even more perplexing is why did Metrolinx hire a consortium of 4 different companies to come in and bring about these changes? Why didn't Metrolinx simply hire some top guys from these European Companies to help bring about the changes within Metrolinx?

It's the Province via Metrolinx setting the overall framework through the various business cases, cabinet sign offs, money. So from what I can. See they still have the overall planning function.

 

[crs1026]

It's the Province via Metrolinx setting the overall framework through the various business cases, cabinet sign offs, money. So from what I can. See they still have the overall planning function.

I'm not a fan of P3, but it is very popular these days.

In theory, as an entity that only does planning and "smart buying", ML should become a much smaller organization. In practice, they have to maintain a lot of the same overhead and corporate functions - and the concept of "smart buyers" always seems to require twice as many people as originally believed.

The biggest problem is how it firewalls information and accountability such that government doesn't need to disclose anything, can hide behind confidentiality clauses, and blame for problems can be passed away from both politicians and ML itself. In that respect, it's actually a brilliant way to cover everyone's behind. And adds a layer of complexity to communication and information flow.

The benefit in this case is that the consortium may actually be capable of building and maintaining an organization comprised of people who actually know how to "do" and not just "plan". It may be an improvement on some of the monolithic aspects of ML, and it will bring in people from elsewhere in the industry who may constructively challenge many sacred beliefs within ML and drive change instead of complacency.

On the other hand, the risk is that four partners who have not necessarily played together before now need to converge to a single way of doing things and an integrated operating model. That will take time and there will be a learning curve. And anything that ML did not get right will now require a change order, and that comes at a negotiated price.

- Paul

 

[lenaitch]

Why didn't Metrolinx simply hire some top guys from these European Companies to help bring about the changes within Metrolinx?

The cost to entice them might have proven to be prohibitive. Once you hire somebody, you inherit responsibility for salary, benefits, pension, severance (if/when it comes to that) etc. as well as the whole HR process to hire them in the first place. It's sometimes cleaner to simply makes rules and write cheques.

It seems that, in this case, the government wants to take on the role of director and funder rather than do-er; although as mentioned, the bus side seems unaddressed as does UPX. Metrolinx also has responsibility for Presto, and it is not clear if 'operations' includes security/fare enforcement. The latter might require a legislative change.

 

[Bojaxs]

I believe the most important project GO transit should be working on (more so than electrification) is separating freight from passenger rail. The hypothetical freight bypasses. Does this consortium give GO transit more leverage when confronting CN and CP? Do these European train companies have any experience dealing/ negotiating with North American, Class 1, freight companies? Freight rail in Europe is not the same as freight rail in North America.

 

[TossYourJacket]

I believe the most important project GO transit should be working on (more so than electrification) is separating freight from passenger rail. The hypothetical freight bypasses. Does this consortium give GO transit more leverage when confronting CN and CP? Do these European train companies have any experience dealing/ negotiating with North American, Class 1, freight companies? Freight rail in Europe is not the same as freight rail in North America.

Depends on the scope of the contract, but I'd guess it's highly unlikely MX is going to have contractors negotiating with CN or CP. That would remain a government/Metrolinx problem. Freight bypasses for example would almost certainly not be part of any current contract (no one is going to make a contract that is so open ended in terms of potential costs) and would require a change order later once the negotiations around any bypasses are complete.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

So... does that mean any possible service increases for 2024 are off the table now?

Absolutely not. Metrolinx and ONxpress both know what service is planned for the near future. The 2024 increases will support future increases.

 

[afransen]

I, for one, am here for a right wing government that prioritizes transit investment. It is definitely not the darkest timeline for us to have a conservative government spending tens of billions on transit and accelerating plans our previous centrist government dithered on.

 

[allengeorge]

At one point I remember reading that around $30 billion was earmarked for GO Expansion. Was that only for electrification, or does that include the $11 billion already spent for existing enabling works?

(The 11 billion figure comes from the press release linked earlier.)

 

[Allandale25]

At one point I remember reading that around $30 billion was earmarked for GO Expansion. Was that only for electrification, or does that include the $11 billion already spent for existing enabling works?

(The 11 billion figure comes from the press release linked earlier.)

I wonder if the upcoming Provincial budget will provide any indication. From what I recall from past budget PDFs (and their tables), they don't really provide a detailed breakdown.

 

[chrisw]

@allengeorge @Allandale25

Details are in the Metrolinx Yearly Business Plan. It wasn't included in the 23-24 Business Plan but in the 22-23 plan it estimated the capital costs at $26.8B for GO Expansion.

Tracking Metrolinx Project Costs

The Province of Ontario is not exactly transparent when it comes to reconciliation of announced project costs and actual spending, let along the changes that might occur along the way. A project, o…

stevemunro.ca

Steve has been tracking historical costs. And the data he uses is quarterly from Metrolinx.

The GO OnCorr project was awarded in April 2022, but there was no change to the baseline until September 2022 when it went down from from $15.705 to $11.306 billion. The report indicates that negotiations on this contract continue and the final value has not yet been included.

 

[Allandale25]

^ thanks. That's too bad it wasn't included in the 23-24 plan. Steve's article is helpful but it's from November 2022 so it will be of interest when he's able to do an update.

 

[chrisw]

^ thanks. That's too bad it wasn't included in the 23-24 plan. Steve's article is helpful but it's from November 2022 so it will be of interest when he's able to do an update.

From some of the latest quarterly capital reports the estimate is $12.052 B for OnCorr. But there's a huge asterisk. Costs associated with the "implementation phase" are omitted.

 

[Jonny5]

Chaos at Union this afternoon.

Yesterday, we had to carry out some unplanned track repairs just west of Danforth GO. Today we discovered that additional repairs are needed to ensure the continued safety of our service. A crew is onsite carrying out the repairs at this time. As a result, we are only able to run eastbound and westbound service through the area on one track only. So to keep service running as close to on time as possible, we have cancelled four Lakeshore East trains today. Customers are advised that additional cancellations and delays up to 15 minutes are possible through the afternoon rush hour. We will keep you updated going forward. We're sorry for the inconvenience this will cause you and thank you for your patience.

Cancelled trips from Union to Oshawa:
4:05 p.m.
4:35 p.m.
5:05 p.m.
5:35 p.m.

 

[Jonny5]

Chaos at Union this afternoon.



Cancelled trips from Union to Oshawa:
4:05 p.m.
4:35 p.m.
5:05 p.m.
5:35 p.m.

Whatever happened they are still working on it.