Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion

[Fritter]

also shows how greenfield highway construction is a lot cheaper than rebuilding existing highway

Could one of the main reasons for this be the costs of maintaining operations on an existing highway (building detoured right of way and re-establishing original, temporary structures etc.) and staging around that, as opposed to building what is needed, no limits, on greenfield?

 

[lenaitch]

Could one of the main reasons for this be the costs of maintaining operations on an existing highway (building detoured right of way and re-establishing original, temporary structures etc.) and staging around that, as opposed to building what is needed, no limits, on greenfield?

That could be part of it, but the costs to work around existing infrastructure, chip away what you want to replace, have what's left evaluated, engineered and remediated, brought up to current standards, then build new around it, is much more expensive that greenfield. Heck, the first time I re-built a deck I learned that lesson. Rip it out - put in new.

 

[darth_freeman]

Traffic control and temporary barriers make a large cost for working on existing freeways. The standards are constantly evolving to improve worker safety and the costs seemingly increase every year. A lot of the work is done at night also which carries a premium. Production rates are lower, etc.