Toronto Crosstown LRT | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx | Arcadis

[bleu]

when you say to bring over people from china, I expect that you want to pay them just as much as they were paid in china, or around 35 cents an hour. that is near slave labour..

and completely agreed AlbertC

Construction workers in China don't make 35 cents an hour. You just pull that number out of your feet because it is China it must be dirt cheap when you have absolutely no idea about that country. Construction workers for major projects in Shanghai for example make $1000-1200 a month, for your information. Group leaders may make $1500 a month.

It is clearly NOT "slave labour" as you arragantly suggested.

Honestly, do you really think Chinese cities are dirt cheap? Try to visit Shanghai and you will be surprised how expensive it is and how much money people actually make. China's wage increased by double digits every year for more than a decade, and much of your stereotype about it no longer holds a long time ago. For example, a cleaning lady makes $1 an hour in 2004. Now it is more like $2.5-3 an hour.

 

[nfitz]

Do we really expect people to wait for a streetcar or bus for 15 minutes in the winter?

But they do. You'd think on a very snow day, you'd have less users on transit - but I often find that it's busier, with people who seldom taking transit, not driving those days.

And on those cold snowy, minus -20 mornings - why spend 5 minutes clearing and scraping the car, rather than just walking to a stop.

And why WOULD most wait 15 minutes outside in the winter anymore? With Nextbus, etc., you know exactly when the bus will get to your stop, so you don't need to leave the house if it's not coming.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

How about this: instead of hiring the expensive union workers who work 4 hours a day with 5 coffee breaks, we hire cheaper labour from China and India, who actually work 8-10 hours a day to do the work. In this way the project can be done for 1/3 of the cost within half the time.

Given the history of Chinese railroad workers in Canada, I would advise you to be very careful with that suggestion. I know you weren't trying to suggest anything racist, but still.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I do agree that labor costs need to be reduced. Bringing in some American workers to compete with Canadian unions would be a good idea. Don't know how viable it would be politically though.

 

[junior43]

I do agree that labor costs need to be reduced. Bringing in some American workers to compete with Canadian unions would be a good idea. Don't know how viable it would be politically though.

Hmmm. Considering the blowback RBC just got on bringing in temporaray foreign workers, I think the optics of a government funded project being done by foreign workers would be a very tough sell.

Maybe a workfare type thing, where unemployed people are given priority on hiring would work, but I can't see any foreigners being brought in to do the work.

 

[nfitz]

third world countries have signal in subways since ten years ago...

Indeed. The subways of Haiti and Mali all have signals. So do the Dunkin Donuts.

What has the cell phone coverage of countries that can't afford subways got to do with the construction of the subway under Eglinton?

 

[Ansem]

But they do. You'd think on a very snow day, you'd have less users on transit - but I often find that it's busier, with people who seldom taking transit, not driving those days.

And on those cold snowy, minus -20 mornings - why spend 5 minutes clearing and scraping the car, rather than just walking to a stop.

And why WOULD most wait 15 minutes outside in the winter anymore? With Nextbus, etc., you know exactly when the bus will get to your stop, so you don't need to leave the house if it's not coming.

I think he meant something else...

Would there be less riders using the LRT? of course not.
Will it attract more new riders than bus service? Yes
Will it attract more new riders than a 100% grade separated line (underground or elevated station) No

 

[nfitz]

Will it attract more new riders than a 100% grade separated line (underground or elevated station) No

Ah. And on a line basis - like Sheppard, that might be true.

But remember also that TTC and Stintz produced a document back in early 2012 when they went back to the Transit City report, showing that if they spent the $8-billion on Sheppard LRT/Finch LRT/SRT Extension and Eglinton as surface LRT in Scarborough, rather than a single grade-separated line from Mount Dennis to Scarborough Centre, they would attack more new riders.

So sure, spend $5 billion on a 12-km subway, and you will attract more new rider then spending $1-billion on a 12-km LRT on the surface. But you will attract less new riders than spending $5 billion on 60-km of surface LRT.

 

[BurlOak]

I think he meant something else...

Would there be less riders using the LRT? of course not.
Will it attract more new riders than bus service? Yes
Will it attract more new riders than a 100% grade separated line (underground or elevated station) No

Ah. And on a line basis - like Sheppard, that might be true.

But remember also that TTC and Stintz produced a document back in early 2012 when they went back to the Transit City report, showing that if they spent the $8-billion on Sheppard LRT/Finch LRT/SRT Extension and Eglinton as surface LRT in Scarborough, rather than a single grade-separated line from Mount Dennis to Scarborough Centre, they would attack more new riders.

So sure, spend $5 billion on a 12-km subway, and you will attract more new rider then spending $1-billion on a 12-km LRT on the surface. But you will attract less new riders than spending $5 billion on 60-km of surface LRT.

It seems that the debate goes like this.

1. We ask the public if they prerfr transit underground or elevated. Sometimes we do not ask, it is safe to make an assumption.
2. When the answer is subway, we state that the cost to build a subway, doing almost everything humanly possible to minimize disruption during construction, is too high.
3. We conclude that LRT in the median is the only cost effective solution.
4. If anyone asks about "elevated transit", the answer is that building underground subway is too expensive and in-median LRT is the best solution.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Probably pretty off topic, but I got a look at some 1868 surveying plans for the Mount Dennis area today, when Jane was nothing more than a road allowance and the distances were measured in chains. I thought it was interesting to see how Hollis, Locust, Oxford, and Denarda streets currently running off of Weston road run on the old borderlines for the original 3 acre plots placed out for farmers along the "Weston gravel path" The Jane allowance also ended at Eglinton. (coming from the south)

also of interest, all Concessions were originally 66 feet wide, or 1 "chain".

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

Probably pretty off topic, but I got a look at some 1868 surveying plans for the Mount Dennis area today, when Jane was nothing more than a road allowance and the distances were measured in chains. I thought it was interesting to see how Hollis, Locust, Oxford, and Denarda streets currently running off of Weston road run on the old borderlines for the original 3 acre plots placed out for farmers along the "Weston gravel path" The Jane allowance also ended at Eglinton. (coming from the south)

also of interest, all Concessions were originally 66 feet wide, or 1 "chain".

The Toronto historical atlas discusses this a bit. The original Toronto concessions were laid out relative to the lake, while other communities laid out theirs differently (and not always aligning with Toronto). Markham for example laid their concessions off of Yonge st (which up there had been tilted slighted to the North-West. Peel ran their concessions off the lake but the lakeshore is somewhat diagonal there so the streets wound up diagonal. I imagine Weston would have laid their concessions out based off of the Humber River (or perhaps the rail lines).

 

[Earlscourt_Lad]

Probably pretty off topic, but I got a look at some 1868 surveying plans for the Mount Dennis area today, when Jane was nothing more than a road allowance and the distances were measured in chains. I thought it was interesting to see how Hollis, Locust, Oxford, and Denarda streets currently running off of Weston road run on the old borderlines for the original 3 acre plots placed out for farmers along the "Weston gravel path" The Jane allowance also ended at Eglinton. (coming from the south)

also of interest, all Concessions were originally 66 feet wide, or 1 "chain".

Completely off topic, now, but my lot is 2 chains by 1 rod. Before I found out about traditional measurements, the lot size made no sense.

 

[ShonTron]

The Toronto historical atlas discusses this a bit. The original Toronto concessions were laid out relative to the lake, while other communities laid out theirs differently (and not always aligning with Toronto). Markham for example laid their concessions off of Yonge st (which up there had been tilted slighted to the North-West. Peel ran their concessions off the lake but the lakeshore is somewhat diagonal there so the streets wound up diagonal. I imagine Weston would have laid their concessions out based off of the Humber River (or perhaps the rail lines).

It really was township-by-township that the concession lines were surveyed (with a few exceptions). Weston was part of York Township, so their concessions are the same as most of Toronto between the Humber River and Victoria Park Avenue. Lots laid out along Weston Road would not have been based on the township concession system, but a practical deviation. Weston Road predates the Grand Trunk Railway, which was the first to lay track in that area in 1855-6.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Completely off topic, now, but my lot is 2 chains by 1 rod. Before I found out about traditional measurements, the lot size made no sense.

the concessions themselves are 1 chain wide, not the lots. The lots are quite different, and the vast majority of concessions today are wider than 1 chain in the city to allow for their 6 lanes.

 

[officedweller]

Canada Line foreign workers win wage settlement
Three dozen foreign workers from Latin America will get the wages they say they deserve

The Canadian Press
Posted: Apr 3, 2013 3:25 PM PT
Last Updated: Apr 3, 2013 7:07 PM PT

About 40 temporary foreign workers from Latin America have finally been paid the tens-of-thousands-of-dollars they were each owed for building the Canada Line rapid transit link between Vancouver and Richmond, B.C.

The payout brings to an end a five-year-long battle between SELI Canada, SNC Lavalin and the workers, whom the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2008 were discriminated against in wages, accommodation, meals and expenses when compared to their European colleagues.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/04/03/bc-canada-line-workers.html