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

TheTigerMaster said:
I don’t even know if flood protecting the RH Line is worth it. The ridership on GO RH is totally pathetic. Just 10,000 people per day in 2016. That’s less ridership than the TTC has on minor bus routes like Midland, Birdhmount and Royal York. I can’t justify spending an much money to help so few people.
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While I do agree that replacing DRL long with RER on the Richmond Hill line is an illogical pipe dream I must say:
Calling 10K people per day on a line with only 5 roundtrip services "pathetic" is extremely inaccurate. 1000 people use each directional train. That's quite a bit of people per train. It also gets about the same ridership as the Kitchener, Barrie, and Stouffville lines in terms of ridership/length (it is the shortest line in the system), and gets significantly more than the Lakeshore west/east, Kitchener, Barrie, and Stouffville lines in terms of ridership per train (average), the only one surpassing it being the Milton Line.

Compare this ridership to almost every other commuter rail service in North America. It does better than most lines in Montreal, and the West Coast Express in Vancouver.
 
Leo_Chan said:
Official time lapse of the new Kennedy Station pedestrian tunnel GOing in. I can't quite make out if it's wide enough for 3 tracks though. And this type of continuous construction should be the norm for all projects, but unfortunately it's not.
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No I don't think it is wide enough for three tracks. Imagine the overtime payment made so this kind of construction.
 
Leo_Chan said:
You don't have to pay for overtime if it's part of the normal pay. :rolleyes:
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You will pay some premium on wages for night and weekend work. But that’s not the biggest reason why this is only done in extreme circumstances.

You don’t want to mobilise that many trades and that much equipment at once for a “normal” project, because all it takes is one unforeseen or glitch to leave you with everyone standing around doing nothing (and getting paid) while it is solved. Just-in-time delivery is wonderful for manufacturing but deadly in construction. Float has its purpose.

Not saying ML projects are executed efficiently, but you won’t see such all-out efforts unless there is a true need for short execution windows.

- Paul
 
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crs1026 said:
You will pay some premium on wages for night and weekend work. But that’s not the biggest reason why this is only done in extreme circumstances.

You don’t want to mobilise that many trades and that much equipment at once for a “normal” project, because all it takes is one unforeseen or glitch to leave you with everyone standing around doing nothing (and getting paid) while it is solved. Just-in-time delivery is wonderful for manufacturing but deadly in construction. Float has its purpose.

Not saying ML projects are executed efficiently, but you won’t see such all-out efforts unless there is a true need for short execution windows.

- Paul
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What are the alternatives. For this, a very low complexity precast culvert, its either
  1. tunneling under the active tracks, and ensuring that the under-construction tunnel is stable to support full train traffic while its being done, or
  2. build a temporary retaining wall parallel to the tracks, built half the tunnel, build new temporary tracks above half tunnel, then build the remaining portion of the tunnel, then put the tracks back to their original location.
Both of these require significantly more work to be done, so it is quite likely that the one-night or one-weekend work is actually cheaper. For number 2, the temporary track work could be permanent track work if tracks are being added to the corridor anyway - but they need to be smart enough an add in those extra tracks while this work is being done.
 
Leo_Chan said:
I can't quite make out if it's wide enough for 3 tracks though.
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It's only wide enough for 2 tracks. That's because the Uxbridge corridor is much narrower than all of the others, and there is really only space for 2 mainline tracks down its length.

BurlOak said:
What are the alternatives. For this, a very low complexity precast culvert, its either
  1. tunneling under the active tracks, and ensuring that the under-construction tunnel is stable to support full train traffic while its being done, or
  2. build a temporary retaining wall parallel to the tracks, built half the tunnel, build new temporary tracks above half tunnel, then build the remaining portion of the tunnel, then put the tracks back to their original location.
Both of these require significantly more work to be done, so it is quite likely that the one-night or one-weekend work is actually cheaper. For number 2, the temporary track work could be permanent track work if tracks are being added to the corridor anyway - but they need to be smart enough an add in those extra tracks while this work is being done.
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There is also a space concern to consider.

If they were to tunnel under the tracks, they may require more space around the tunnel site that simply may not be available with the community centre being located there.

For the two-stage construction, there would be a need to shift the tracks as the second half of the tunnel was built, and the curves to allow this would require several hundred metres. That kind of space may not be available considering the location of the platform. They are certainly not in a position to build the full length of the second platform yet, not until the ramp for the SRT gets demolished.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.
 
Leo_Chan said:
Official time lapse of the new Kennedy Station pedestrian tunnel GOing in. I can't quite make out if it's wide enough for 3 tracks though. And this type of continuous construction should be the norm for all projects, but unfortunately it's not.
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Without commenting on the particular details of this instance, it looks like Crosstown has learned a lot from UK builders, especially those with Network Rail (and Thameslink and Crossrail) contracts, both in the planning, staging and execution of the contract, and in the film production of documenting it for the public. I'm far more impressed with this concise story/doc than I am with all the promo that preceded it.

See this vid for an example of a private contractor's vid of a bridge replacement for Network Rail:

Very interesting, and very encouraging. I wonder how much of that is due to the P3 structure of Crosstown in terms of management prowess? Both mechanically and in PR.

Addendum: Trying to track down who produced the "75 hour" vid. It's very different from the previous vids for Crosstown, and as mentioned above, remarkably similar to ones coming out of the UK.

See previous vids here:
http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2015/11/new-videos-offer-close-look-crosstown-lrt-line-stations

More info on this particular installation here:
http://thecrosstown.ca/news-media/w...or-go-transit-improvements-at-kennedy-station
 
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steveintoronto said:
Without commenting on the particular details of this instance, it looks like Crosstown has learned a lot from UK builders, especially those with Network Rail (and Thameslink and Crossrail) contracts, both in the planning, staging and execution of the contract, and in the film production of documenting it for the public. I'm far more impressed with the concise story that told than I am with all the promo that preceded it.

Very interesting, and very encouraging. I wonder how much of that is due to the P3 structure of Crosstown in terms of management prowess? Both mechanically and in PR.
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No different than what GO did with an underpass in Aldershot, or at the West Toronto tunnel. This is not their first smaller tunnel installation, either. Lots of GO stations have 'em, and they were installed with similar compressed windows.

I would say GO got theirs done first, and the UK came along and copied ;-)

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
No different than what GO did with an underpass in Aldershot, or at the West Toronto tunnel. This is not their first smaller tunnel installation, either. Lots of GO stations have 'em, and they were installed with similar compressed windows.

I would say GO got theirs done first, and the UK came along and copied ;-)

- Paul
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The US has been producing vids like this for years...this is the first one I've seen done in Ontario, at least, that absolutely mimics the UK productions. I'm talking the PR package, not the project.

There's literally close to a hundred or more of weekend projects captured high-speed time-lapse on YouTube, a good number of them having the same production signature of this vid. A signature that I can't find with any of ML, let alone Crosstown's vids prior. I'm a rail geek, and find most ML vids boring, on a good day. And that's those I can bear to watch all the way through.

This is one is thrilling! Yes! Note the comments at the YouTube link!

Here's a Tasmanian one, similar vid production technique, but done by the private contractor, like many of the UK ones are.

If there are time-lapse weekend construction vids of the ML projects you mention, please link, and prove me wrong.
 
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^And here. Note that the author is GOGTSProject - ie ML was posting these as they happened. If you search Youtube for this channel, there are several of interest.

- Paul
 
crs1026 said:
Here you go.

Edit: And here.

- Paul
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Perhaps I should have made it more clear as to it being a *production*, not just footage. Compare that to the Crosstown vid.

And again, not just time lapse, but over a weekend or holiday, not a month. The quips of "overtime" in others' posts prior address that.
 
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