FYI
@drum118 re: Steeles construction. They're doing utility relocation at the intersection on the sides the same way they did around the Ray Lawson area and such. They cannot extend the guideway past Ray Lawson until the remainder of utilities is relocated and the roads are resurfaced because they need to shift lanes. That's evidenced in the photos I took yesterday. Though I'm glad it's Amico doing it and not BOT.
Is it me, or is this project just moving exceptionally slowly? It seems we've been seeing photos of uncomplete and not yet started sections for years! It didn't feel that way for Finch.
You've got to remember that both Brampton/Mississauga city councils had different interpretations of how things should be done. Brampton council was being hounded by the old guard that didn't want the guideway above ground because it would affect their property value. They wanted to run it in alternate routes down McLaughlin/Kennedy Road that would avoid the downtown corridor and become a really weird way to connect to the LRT as opposed to running it to downtown Brampton to actually benefit riders. This stalled development on Brampton's end while Mississauga was full steam ahead.
Once Brampton came back to the table, it was years later, and Mississauga planned to do a loop around MCC (at least I believe it was MCC). Then ML came back and said no extension to downtown Brampton, no loop around MCC. A few years after that when construction was well under way, Doug Ford announced that Metrolinx was going to build the tunnelled portion of the LRT to downtown Brampton, and the loop around MCC as part of phase two.
Another issue, if you've followed this thread as long as the others have, you'd know that BOT construction that was selected by the Mobilinx consortium appeared to be woefully underskilled. They appeared to be underskilled so much so that some of their work with the line had to be completely ripped up and replaced because it was out of spec. This appeared to be both Metrolinx / BOT construction dropping the ball since Metrolinx should have been available when work was being done, not inspecting it once it was completed. and saying hey you screwed up.
Because of this, we had Amico picking up where BOT left off, and either Amico or Metrolinx was bringing in dedicated rail companies to essentially inspect the work, and/or guide construction staff on specifications handed down from the designers. That's essentially what happened around the Topflight intersection, and some other parts of the guideway. They had multiple dedicated rail companies come out to essentially measure everything, mount everything the way it should have been mounted in the intersection, and wash their hands of the project.
To your point though, it seems like the project is moving exceptionally slowly because the same things only *appear* to be posted multiple times, when it's moreso about the detail in the photos that are posted, especially when the discussions I've witnessed here are, "hey, did you notice so and so intersection had so and so going on?" That much, and it appears that
@drum118 is also getting the inside scoop while on the ground with the crews.
There's more to the story, but there's a lot of mismanagement and areas where the ball was dropped many times. I have to hope when phase two happens that we have an actual crew that has learned from the first phase and can actually do better moving forward.
