Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

[AlvinofDiaspar]

One less flyunder and flyover, plus consolidated bridge structure would definitely equal savings. That might be it. Still though this is a pretty sizable change. Effectively the GO corridor and its plans for trackage will have to be modified, so it amplifies into that and RER or whatever it's called. Then the station designs. And this is added time to something that was promised as a complete plan. Mo' money. With the PCs Metrolinx said they'd operate like a business. This doesn't sound like a reliable business.

Nothing has been built, so these are just paper changes mostly - we have seen multitudes of it over the course of the two years (alignment shifts, elimination of cross-platform stations at Ex, etc). Maybe the projected cost is already over the original funding envelope.

AoD

 

[officedweller]

Side note: What stage are they at in the bidding process for this section?
Maybe it was feedback from the proponents (bidders) that is leading to the rethink?

I know that for Canada Line, the corridor did not specify where (under Cambie St.) the line would go and different proponents chose different allignments for cost savings measures (Successful InTransitBC chose under the northbound lanes, unsuccessful RAVExpress (Bombardier) chose under the planted median).

 

[generalcanada]

rfqs go out in spring 2022 and rfp's go out later that year

contract awarded in 2024

maybe its just because of this Go alignment that the northern portion can be built faster but that seems quite late for it to be complete in 2033 even

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Can't say I disagree. For all the credit some give this government for moving forward with transit, canceling the relatively-far-along DRL instead of fast tracking and extending it is starting to look like a massive blunder. It was a good plan built in cooperation with local stakeholders and had almost universal support.

While there are some potential benefits to the OL changes, there's one major drawback:

"The claimed benefit of across-the-platform transfer between GO and OL services at East Harbour is now reduced. All transfers will have to go down to a concourse level to switch between trains."

The ease of transfer has been cited by many supporters on this forum as a major advantage - that's now gone.

We're spending billions upon billions to eliminate a transfer in Scarborough, and now we're adding a transfer (a multi-level transfer, that is) here. Between that and the capacity reductions, it's hard to believe there aren't more 'efficiencies' coming.

The sad part is that this could've been such an easy win for Ford. One of the family mantras for nearly a decade now has been "SUBWAYS SUBWAYS SUBWAYS". All this government had to do was throw their full support behind the existing plan/DRL North and that probably would've earned them quite a bit of support within the city.

The supposed benefits of moving to the OL plan was, (1) to allow for faster construction times, (2) to lower development costs and (3) the cross-platform transfer benefits.

On point one, there isn't an engineer with their head screwed on properly that would ever suggest that cancelling a highly developed plan, years into development, to chase a brand new plan at 0% development would yield faster project completion. That whole justification from the government was complete and utter BS, and we don't need technical documentation to be certain of that. By reverting to a less developed plan, they introduced significantly more risk to the project (in terms of cost and timeliness) vs continuing on with the existing plan.

On point two, the government has yet to provide an apples-to-apples cost comparison of the Relief Line vs the Ontario Line. All they've said is that the Relief Line South had a higher per-mile cost that the OL, which is a completely meaningless piece of information. Shorter transit projects will always cost more on a per-mile basis than similar projects of greater length, because the longer projects can spread out the one-time startup costs across the greater length of the project. Furthermore, the less developed OL faces significantly greater risk of cost overruns imposed by project delays - we all know how costly delays in transit construction are in Toronto.

And on point three, well we know what has happened with that today. MX is using NIMBYs as justification for no longer utilizing cross-platform transfers, however since Day 1 it's been clear that the idea was very expensive, and likely not physically feasible. I sense the NIMBYs are being scapegoated here.

As you said, if the government was serious about getting this project built, they would've just extended the RLS west and north. It certainly would've been the safer option on a technical basis. Their failure to do so still has me doubting the government's motivations behind the OL.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Nothing has been built, so these are just paper changes mostly - we have seen multitudes of it over the course of the two years (alignment shifts, elimination of cross-platform stations at Ex, etc). Maybe the projected cost is already over the original funding envelope.

AoD

I expect the OL to be cut back at the earliest convenience for the government (most likely after the 2022 election). The $11 Billion cost never passed the sniff test for me. Not when YNSE, Crosstown West and SSE are as expensive as they are. And especially not after the recent delays in the project timeline.

 

[toronto647]

I expect the OL to be cut back at the earliest convenience for the government (most likely after the 2022 election). The $11 Billion cost never passed the sniff test for me. Not when YNSE, Crosstown West and SSE are as expensive as they are. And especially not after the recent delays in the project timeline.

Can you explain what you mean by "cut back at the earliest convenience"? Are you saying that perhaps the line will not go all the way to Ontario Place to the west and Eglinton LRT to the East? (I would say it's safe to say the line would go till Eglinton LRT but perhaps end on University Line?)

Also what delays are you referring to? The IO P3 Report for Spring 2021 was supposed to come out March 21 but has failed to do so as of yet :/

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Can you explain what you mean by "cut back at the earliest convenience"? Are you saying that perhaps the line will not go all the way to Ontario Place to the west and Eglinton LRT to the East? (I would say it's safe to say the line would go till Eglinton LRT but perhaps end on University Line?)

If the line is truncated, the western portion would certainly be the part that falls off the map, yes.

Other cost optimizations could be perused before truncating the line though. They might try to drop or consolidate certain stations. Perhaps Queen and Osgoode could be consolidated into a single station, as we saw in early Relief Line South plans. Or Corktown Station could be scrapped entirely (just throwing options out there; these aren't necessarily my preferred options).

Also what delays are you referring to? The IO P3 Report for Spring 2021 was supposed to come out March 21 but has failed to do so as of yet :/

The delay in the IO report is still insignificant, so I wouldn't worry to much about that for the time being.

The delays I was referencing were the previous delays in the procurement process. The government had initially hoped to achieve financial close in the first half of 2022. Financial close for the south tunnels and rolling stock has now been delayed to fall 2022, and the north tunnels have been delayed til fall 2023. These delays are significant in that it pushes financial close to beyond the next Provincial election. If there is bad news with regards to cost overruns (including a reduction in project scope), I'd expect the government to push financial close even further, otherwise they'd have to make those announcements in the lead up to the election.

The OL is not immune to the cost pressures we've seen on YNSE, SSE and other recent project. Franky I'd be stunned if the project is able to remain within the $11 Billion budget. I suspect today's announcement is a reaction to increasing cost pressures.

 

[toronto647]

If the line is truncated, the western portion would certainly be the part that falls off the map, yes.

Other cost optimizations could be perused before truncating the line though. They might try to drop or consolidate certain stations. Perhaps Queen and Osgoode could be consolidated into a single station, as we saw in early Relief Line South plans. Or Corktown Station could be scrapped entirely (just throwing options out there; these aren't necessarily my preferred options).



The delay in the IO report is still insignificant, so I wouldn't worry to much about that for the time being.

The delays I was referencing were the previous delays in the procurement process. The government had initially hoped to achieve financial close in the first half of 2022. Financial close for the south tunnels and rolling stock has now been delayed to fall 2022, and the north tunnels have been delayed til fall 2023. These delays are significant in that it pushes financial close to beyond the next Provincial election. If there is bad news with regards to cost overruns (including a reduction in project scope), I'd expect the government to push financial close even further, otherwise they'd have to make those announcements in the lead up to the election.

The OL is not immune to the cost pressures we've seen on YNSE, SSE and other recent project. Franky I'd be stunned if the project is able to remain within the $11 Billion budget. I suspect today's announcement is a reaction to increasing cost pressures.

If stations do get cut I think Queen and Osgoode would both be needed or else the east side of line 1 will be more congested than the west side.

Cork Town and Moss Town are the easy stations on the chopping block and as well as the west portion of the line Queen/Spadina, King/Bathurst and Ontario Place.

 

[Tuck]

Honestly, I wouldn't hate the line being truncated in the west if we would get a more sensible alignment at a later date.

Merging Osgoode and queen stations would be a damn shame.

 

[Kitsune]

... with smaller trains the OL would not have to have deep underground Gerrard station. As the trains are smaller they can fit on the ROW south of the tracks, which the rockets could not. RL was deep because they had to get under the carlaw sanitary line - that issue does not exist on Pape. You could then likely figure out someway to get it elevated with a portal on Eastern.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

If the line is truncated, the western portion would certainly be the part that falls off the map, yes.

Other cost optimizations could be perused before truncating the line though. They might try to drop or consolidate certain stations. Perhaps Queen and Osgoode could be consolidated into a single station, as we saw in early Relief Line South plans. Or Corktown Station could be scrapped entirely (just throwing options out there; these aren't necessarily my preferred options).



The delay in the IO report is still insignificant, so I wouldn't worry to much about that for the time being.

The delays I was referencing were the previous delays in the procurement process. The government had initially hoped to achieve financial close in the first half of 2022. Financial close for the south tunnels and rolling stock has now been delayed to fall 2022, and the north tunnels have been delayed til fall 2023. These delays are significant in that it pushes financial close to beyond the next Provincial election. If there is bad news with regards to cost overruns (including a reduction in project scope), I'd expect the government to push financial close even further, otherwise they'd have to make those announcements in the lead up to the election.

The OL is not immune to the cost pressures we've seen on YNSE, SSE and other recent project. Franky I'd be stunned if the project is able to remain within the $11 Billion budget. I suspect today's announcement is a reaction to increasing cost pressures.

If stations do get cut I think Queen and Osgoode would both be needed or else the east side of line 1 will be more congested than the west side.

Just to clarify, I think you're under the impression that I suggested building an OL station at Yonge Street (the existing Queen Station) without a station at University (the existing Osgoode Station). What I actually meant was that Yonge and Osgoode could be consolidated into a single "City Hall Station", located in front of Toronto City Hall. Connections to Queen Station (Yonge Street) and Osgoode Station (University Avenue) would be achieved via extensions to the underground PATH network. Perhaps a movator would be utilized to speed up the transfer time.

By no means is this an ideal arrangement, but its possible if money is tight. Rather than building an expensive interchange station at Queen, and an expensive interchange station at Osgooode, we'd just have to build a "normal" station at City Hall with inexpensive PATH connections to the existing stations at Osgoode and Queen Station (Yonge Street). City Hall Station itself would be considerably cheaper than either proposed OL stations at Osgoode Station or Queen Station, because City Hall Station would not have to be built under an active transit line.

 

[syn]

If the line is truncated, the western portion would certainly be the part that falls off the map, yes.

Other cost optimizations could be perused before truncating the line though. They might try to drop or consolidate certain stations. Perhaps Queen and Osgoode could be consolidated into a single station, as we saw in early Relief Line South plans. Or Corktown Station could be scrapped entirely (just throwing options out there; these aren't necessarily my preferred options).



The delay in the IO report is still insignificant, so I wouldn't worry to much about that for the time being.

The delays I was referencing were the previous delays in the procurement process. The government had initially hoped to achieve financial close in the first half of 2022. Financial close for the south tunnels and rolling stock has now been delayed to fall 2022, and the north tunnels have been delayed til fall 2023. These delays are significant in that it pushes financial close to beyond the next Provincial election. If there is bad news with regards to cost overruns (including a reduction in project scope), I'd expect the government to push financial close even further, otherwise they'd have to make those announcements in the lead up to the election.

The OL is not immune to the cost pressures we've seen on YNSE, SSE and other recent project. Franky I'd be stunned if the project is able to remain within the $11 Billion budget. I suspect today's announcement is a reaction to increasing cost pressures.

But...I thought the provincial government taking over meant economies of scale, cheaper costs and faster construction?!

It seems as though the EWLRT and SSE are immune to 'efficiencies'.

 

[Tuck]

If stations do get cut I think Queen and Osgoode would both be needed or else the east side of line 1 will be more congested than the west side.

Cork Town and Moss Town are the easy stations on the chopping block and as well as the west portion of the line Queen/Spadina, King/Bathurst and Ontario Place.

If they moved to cut Bathurst or Spadina, they might as well drop the entire western portion of the line. Both stations intersect major streetcar routes (well, currently a bus route on Bathurst), and I'd rather not see them skip large swaths of downtown just to make it to exhibition of all places (espcially since exhibition already offers an express trip to union). Do it right or not at all.

 

[nfitz]

... with smaller trains the OL would not have to have deep underground Gerrard station. As the trains are smaller they can fit on the ROW south of the tracks, which the rockets could not.

I have a hard time believing the 14 cm difference between the width of the slightly narrower OL trains and the rockets would much different at all between using overground versus underground.

As for truncating the alignment - Metrolinx has been dreaming of this Exhibition to East Harbour link though Queen for years. If they were to truncate anything, it's east of East Harbour. Or north of Danforth.

With early works starting soon at Exhibition station (and isn't that the TBM launch location as well), and the planned yard in Thorncliffe, that precludes any shortenings unless there is a monumental shift.

The supposed benefits of moving to the OL plan was, (1) to allow for faster construction times, (2) to lower development costs and (3) the cross-platform transfer benefits.

You forgot about eliminating the 30-40 metre elevation difference between the underground Gerrard station and the elevated GO station.

 

[M II A II R II K]

It will still be a more convenient GO to TTC transfer than at Union.