Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

EnviroTO said:
I'm going to have to disagree on this sentiment. First of all with a single contractor if there are cost overruns the government has greater obligation to pay more because the cost of getting another company up to speed is too great. Secondly there are many good constructors that constantly under bid the big players on smaller value contracts that simply can't afford to bid on a $2B contract. Thirdly, why is an Engineer that works for the TTC a bureaucrat, but an Engineer that works for Aecon something "better"?
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Last point first: because you don't have to keep the engineer as a city employee once the project is done if they are hired by someone else.

As for cost certainty, many small risks is not less risky than one large equally risky risk. They are equal. The cost problem I talked about was not the OMG we hit an underground river, costs go up! type of risk which is pretty hard to avoid even with iron clad contracts, it is that when your contracts are staggered over years, later contracts seem to become inherrently more expensive due to construction inflation and the like. With 1 big contract you can get rid of that risk - a company like SNC Lavalin or Bilfinger Berger or Ferrovial isn't going to throw its arms up in the air and declare it will break a contract in the middle of a project.

Last point is, if these secondary companies are so good, and cost competitive they will bid on sub contracts or join a consortium. Construction isn't a welfare program - it is a business.

I am not argueing for single projects for small, uncomplicated, or short term projects - but the TTC has shown they didn't do well on St Clair, and one of their funding agencies Metrolinx is taking future projects out of their hands to prevent errors from happening again. It does not inspire confidence that they can execute this project well.
 
Darwinkgo said:
... the TTC has shown they didn't do well on St Clair, and one of their funding agencies Metrolinx is taking future projects out of their hands to prevent errors from happening again.
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I've never seen any suggestion that Metrolinx is directly tendering parts of Transit City because TTC made errors. There's nothing out there to substantiate this.

Darwinkgo said:
It does not inspire confidence that they can execute this project well.
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TTC brought the Sheppard line in under budget. Same project manager for TTC isn't it?

If you read the report on why St. Clair had problems, it had little to do with TTC, but more to the systemic problems with how the whole thing happened. TTC routinely rebuilds streetcar lines - on schedule and on budget. Did you hear huge complaints about the complete rebuild of the streetcar tracks on Dundas a couple of years ago? Or on Gerrard/College a few years before that?
 
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nfitz said:
TTC routinely rebuilds streetcar lines - on schedue and on budget. Did you hear huge complaints about the complete rebuild of the streetcar tracks on Dundas a couple of years ago? Or on Gerrard/College a few years before that?
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Good point
 
Darwinkgo said:
Last point first: because you don't have to keep the engineer as a city employee once the project is done if they are hired by someone else.
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The TTC always needs a based amount of staff to identify the price estimates for construction so the TTC doesn't get ripped off, to ensure the safety of the system, small projects and maintenance, track replacement, etc. Without TTC engineers providing cost estimates the external vendors could get away with much higher quotes. When the TTC requires greater staffing they do an RFP for additional engineering resources from specialized firms. To have all the work outsourced to mega-corporation would not save money.

Darwinkgo said:
Last point is, if these secondary companies are so good, and cost competitive they will bid on sub contracts or join a consortium. Construction isn't a welfare program - it is a business.
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Welfare is government subsidy. Making large projects a sum of many smaller projects is not welfare. If it is welfare then Aecon and the likes are welfare states because they sub-contract pieces out. The difference is that rather than the taxpayer receiving the benefit of the deals sub-contracting provides it all becomes profit for Aecon on the taxpayers backs.

Darwinkgo said:
I am not argueing for single projects for small, uncomplicated, or short term projects - but the TTC has shown they didn't do well on St Clair, and one of their funding agencies Metrolinx is taking future projects out of their hands to prevent errors from happening again. It does not inspire confidence that they can execute this project well.
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Much of what happened on St.Clair had little to do with the TTC. The legal issues had nothing to do with the TTC. The hydro delays had nothing to do with the TTC. The compromises weren't pushed by the TTC. How much really had to do anything with the TTC? You can say the city screwed up on St.Clair but I don't think the TTC had a lot to do with the delays.

Metrolinx didn't take future projects out of TTC hands because TTC mis-managed something. They are taking it out of TTC hands because they are funding it, the TTC is a city agency, and the province is interested in a different delivery model.
 
That you would believe competition wouldn't motivate the lowest cost on a big contract but do believe competition would motivate the lowest price on many parts of a small contract is a big disconnect for logic on your part. You are still missing my fundamental point: by issuing one big contract you lock in the price and the private contractor has to deliver.

I don't think a subway extension is comparable to track replacement along Dundas. That the TTC did not have things coordinated well on St Clair is exactly why they shouldn't be doing it for this project or future ones. If they are good at projects where they control everything (track replacement) and bad at ones that involve multiple actors (new lines or significant upgrades) I don't get the logic that ends at: they will be good at building a subway not only involving multiple actors, but even extending to another city.
 
Darwinkgo said:
That you would believe competition wouldn't motivate the lowest cost on a big contract but do believe competition would motivate the lowest price on many parts of a small contract is a big disconnect for logic on your part. You are still missing my fundamental point: by issuing one big contract you lock in the price and the private contractor has to deliver.

I don't think a subway extension is comparable to track replacement along Dundas. That the TTC did not have things coordinated well on St Clair is exactly why they shouldn't be doing it for this project or future ones. If they are good at projects where they control everything (track replacement) and bad at ones that involve multiple actors (new lines or significant upgrades) I don't get the logic that ends at: they will be good at building a subway not only involving multiple actors, but even extending to another city.
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If you read the history surround transit and Toronto, you will see TTC is only responsible for the area that its tracks occupy and 18 inches on the outside of the rail. In fact, that 18 inches was mandated by the Province in 1887 and is still on the books and apples to all Railways also.

Furthermore, the City lays out the street, calls the tenders for all the work on the street including TTC track removal, pouring the concrete for the tracks. TTC is responsible for installing the ties, rails, overhead, switches, various poles and that its. Anything beyond that is out of TTC control.

Having said that, TTC has not done a good job making sure things where in the correct place or on time when it came time to install the tracks and switches to the point they had to kink the rail or removed ties to get around various things by rolling over and play dead for the City.

The contractor who did 75% of the construction on St Clair, did Parliament Street this year, Church Street last year and various of streets and sections over the years. So why are they still working for the City if they screw up St Clair in the first Place?

The screw up with the platforms and intersection at Dufferin was caused by the Ward Councillor. Even the Vice Chair of TTC cause some issues where the ROW ran through his ward.

I can tell you from my personal back ground experience, having one contractor doing the whole thing has the same risk as breaking up into smaller contract to the point, the buyer is forced to payout the over cost and accept the delays with that one contractor. With smaller contracts, you have more leverage over them and a lot easier to replace the contractor or do what has to be done to get the work completed. Watching TTC these past 6 years, TTC lacks the balls to make changes during the construction stage compared to the Private sector. Wearing my hard hat, a number of people including TTC personal would be working elsewhere today based on what I saw take place on St Clair.
 
nfitz said:
If you read the report on why St. Clair had problems, it had little to do with TTC, but more to the systemic problems with how the whole thing happened. TTC routinely rebuilds streetcar lines - on schedule and on budget. Did you hear huge complaints about the complete rebuild of the streetcar tracks on Dundas a couple of years ago? Or on Gerrard/College a few years before that?
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Not that I enjoy defending the TTC, but St. Clair was not really their fault. No one can really budget for that level of community activism against a project. Ironically, the group that was trying to "save" St. Clair ended up making it worse by prolonging the construction for at least a couple of years.
 
Also, with a project as big and complex as the subway, there are parts of it that are completed and ready to go before others. Sometimes, circumstances cause some delays to one part of the project, but does that mean that the whole thing has to stop and wait because you want to do it in one big tender? As an example, the tunnel designs can proceed more quickly because they are not subject to site plan approval or public consultation in the same way that the stations are. Breaking up the project into smaller pieces allows construction to begin on the tunnels while the designs for the stations are being finalized. And yes, the same project manager who built the Sheppard Subway on time and under budget is in charge of the Spadina extension.
 
I know Canada Line, the current West LRT in Calgary, and the future Ottawa LRT are all at least design, build contracts. Both of those that have went forward seemed to have worked just fine for consultations, design and other such things. You can tender without final design - stations are stations - they aren't going to be a huge unforeseen cost. As long as scope is locked down it is fine.
 
saiho said:
You know as well as anyone else that you're not alone in that sentiment.
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I just find it a bit odd that the TTC claims that subways are so expensive, while at the same time they're building these cathedral-like stations, which balloon the cost of building the subway to the point where it's nearly unfeasible. I can't remember the number they came up with for the Sheppard West extension (I think it was somewhere near $2B), but it's wayyy above what it could be. Using $320 million/km (a fairly generous estimate, considering the Spadina extension is just over $300 million/km, and that's even with these types of stations), it should only be around $1.4 billion. Well yeah, if you're going to build a Cadillac line, you may not be able to afford it, maybe try building a Volvo line instead...
 
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