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

[BurlOak]

It's worrisome, definitely. But perhaps we need to re-evaluate our budgets and schedules. Perhaps the schedule is flawed? Many construction timelines set for the tender are overly optimistic and unreachable. Just because something was set as the schedule, doesn't make it realistic or even achievable.

It looks like one Contractor should have been responsible for the entire project so they could balance the workforce to make sure that one segment is not delayed - delaying the entire project.

Also, the Contractor could be given some design responsibilities so that they can find savings (cost and time) by designing to the strengths of their organization (as well as to the terrain).

 

[ksun]

But if ksun can use the line a year or two earlier, isn't that what really matters?

Except one worker died during construction of Spadina extension yet no one died from building the Bangkok blue line. So your assumption we are slow because we pay more attention to safety doesn't stand.
We are slow because of low productivity, and has little to do with quality or safety (although it is more comforting to believe so).

Plus, I have never used that line beyond Yorkdale, and probably will never use the new section either once it is completed. There is really nothing there for me to go to. If not for the Yorkdale mall I occasionally visit, I probably will never go beyond St Clair West station.

 

[TOareaFan]

Except one worker died during construction of Spadina extension yet no one died from building the Bangkok blue line. So your assumption we are slow because we pay more attention to safety doesn't stand.
We are slow because of low productivity, and has little to do with quality or safety (although it is more comforting to believe so).

Plus, I have never used that line beyond Yorkdale, and probably will never use the new section either once it is completed. There is really nothing there for me to go to. If not for the Yorkdale mall I occasionally visit, I probably will never go beyond St Clair West station.

You should have spoken up years ago....if we knew that you would never use it we would never have built it

 

[wopchop]

Except one worker died during construction of Spadina extension yet no one died from building the Bangkok blue line. So your assumption we are slow because we pay more attention to safety doesn't stand.
We are slow because of low productivity, and has little to do with quality or safety (although it is more comforting to believe so).

Plus, I have never used that line beyond Yorkdale, and probably will never use the new section either once it is completed. There is really nothing there for me to go to. If not for the Yorkdale mall I occasionally visit, I probably will never go beyond St Clair West station.

I can tell you for a fact that work is slower in many cases because of safety procedures. Not always, but very often. This would be evident to you if you had ever worked on a construction site in Canada. All one has to do is work on a residential site, a typical institutional / commercial site (office building, hospital, school, etc), and then a industrial site (any power plant would be a good example), and you will quickly see the difference that safety procedures make with regards to labour hours.

To do things unsafely is generally faster. We can certainly argue about the effectiveness of certain safety procedures, and whether they are warranted or not (ie. doing a cost-benefit analysis of them), but implementing them will always take time and cost productivity.

 

[wopchop]

And besides that, you can't compare the budgets of construction projects in Asia to construction projects in North America. It's ridiculous. I've worked on some towers in Hong Kong, and we could afford crews that were 2 to 3 times the size of a North American construction crew, because of the vast difference in wages. Of course they can build that much more subway then we can for the same price. I would be worried if they could not.

 

[nfitz]

Except the budget is so padded with contingencies that so called on budget is really not that great a performance. (It's like someone padding the schedule so much that no project would be delayed.) Oldest trick in the book - highball costs/time and coming under to look good.

There's nothing particularly padded about the Spadina subway's budget. Yes, there's contingency in there - as there is for any major engineering project. But as far as I know, it's a pretty typical allowance. There's always unexpected shucks going to happen - be it contractor's bailing, or mortal injuries. If you want to look at what happens, when you let the bureaucrats get their hand's on the budget, eliminate all contingency, and fix the cost estimates to what they think it should cost, look at the 3-station Orange-line extension in Montreal. If you want a realistic estimate of what things are going to cost, so you can budget properly, and get various governments to fund appropriately, you include contingency.

by the way, isn't the extension supposed to serve the Pam Am games? Guess it won't open for that after all.

Where did you get that? Look at the Pan-Am Games bid book. Not only was there no mention of the Spadina subway line being completed (they did however mention James Street North GO Station in Hamiltion and the UPX), there were no events actually planned at York University.

The games were awarded in November 2009, at that point TTC was targeting Q3 2015 for the subway opening. By the time major construction started in 2010, they were targeting late 2015. This is before there was talk of moving Pan Am events to York University.

NYC/London aside (not comparable at all), did it cost those other cities 6 years to build 6 suburban stops?

Not sure why London and New York aren't comparable ... other than not supporting your case.

The Blue Line in Bangkok took less than 8 years to construct (1996-2004), including delays due to the massive 1997 Southeast Asia financial crisis. And it has 18 stops, not 6 stops.

The length isn't much of an issue, given that each station is a different contractor. And the tunelling involved 2 pairs of TBMs with 2 different contractors. If you triple the length, you'd use 6 pairs of TBMS and 6 contractors. Spadina major construction started in 2010. Not seeing the issue here. And actually I was thinking of the more suburban City Line (blue) service of the Bangkok Rail Link, which was supposed to be complete by 2006, and finally started operating in 2010, even though some stations still were not complete, and very over budget.

And of what of Montreal? The Laval metro extension was so much over budget, it lead to a provincial inquiry, with the original budget of $179 million ballooning to closer to $800 million. (much of which just how poor the initial cost estimates were).

 

[TOareaFan]

Where did you get that? Look at the Pan-Am Games bid book. Not only was there no mention of the Spadina subway line being completed (they did however mention James Street North GO Station in Hamiltion and the UPX), there were no events actually planned at York University.

Its a long time since I looked at the bid book but if there were no events planned for York that is more the Pan Am folks' problem than the TTCs......as it turns out there are pretty significant events (Track and Field and Tennis) taking place at York......the Track and Field you could explain away with the knowledge that, originally, this was supposed to take place in Hamilton at their new stadium and those plans changed ....but if their bid was suggesting that the games were gonna be in the Toronto area and that the tennis was going to be somewhere other than the Tennis Centre at York....they really goofed there!

 

[gweed123]

I think one of the issues with this line is that different aspects of the project are being tendered to different contractors. The model that Ottawa is using for the Confederation Line makes much more sense IMO. The City asked consortiums to submit bids for the ENTIRE project. The end result is that the entire project is being managed from one office, by the same consortium. They haven't made a big deal out of it (probably in case the schedule does slip later on), but they're at least 3 months ahead of schedule with this project, and it's only just over a year into construction. The tunnel is over 2/3rds complete right now, and some construction elements are starting now that, based on the original schedule, weren't to begin until a couple months into 2015.

Yes, you may end up with one massive contract instead of a bunch of smaller ones, but dealing with 1 consortium I think would be a lot easier from a Project Management perspective, as well as an accountability perspective.

 

[nfitz]

What troubles me is that if we can't build a relatively simple suburban subway extension without having it fall years behind schedule and over budget, then what's gonna happen with a far more complex project like the DRL?

I'm sure it will be behind schedule. I'm not sure what subway extension is over budget ... there's been no indications that Spadina is significantly over budget, and there have been no requests to increase funding, which has been locked in since, ... what, about 2008? The Sheppard subway was delivered on budget, as well as the previous Spadina extension to Downsview.

Trash the TTC for good reason - but estimating capital costs of mega projects, is one thing they seem to have gotten a handle on.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

I think a lot of people saw the original completion date of "sometime in 2015" and matched it with the Pan Am games in 2015 and assumed that was the goal.

I was probably such a person. Even though it wasn't part of the Pan Am bid, it WAS scheduled for around then and, you know, kinda seemed to make sense that the TTC would have that and Presto rolled out in time. But that sort of co-ordinated thinking seems a bit beyond them.

Personally, what I take away from this, in combination with St. Clair (which I know was not entirely their fault any more than the York U accident was) is that the TTC's procurement and construction program is.........not good.

We'll see what happens with Crosstown but UP Express is on time and I suspect Metrolinx will school them too. Maybe that will be sufficient to show them that on Scarborough and all future projects they should go PPP and let the big boys handle it.

And in answer to the question about progress at VMC, not much is going to happen before the subway gets there, for rather understandable reasons. KPMG will be the big commercial anchor and Expo is the first big condo. Looks like the first tower there is very close to done and the second is starting to go up. There are also sales signs now for the condo that will go on Jane, just north of 7. (AH - found it. This one.Not much to see yet.) The prime land is really where all the construction is now and the delays ain't exactly helping speed things along.

 

[innsertnamehere]

"big boys"? The TTC is a far larger association than Metrolinx.

 

[nfitz]

Its a long time since I looked at the bid book but if there were no events planned for York that is more the Pan Am folks' problem than the TTCs......as it turns out there are pretty significant events (Track and Field and Tennis) taking place at York......the Track and Field you could explain away with the knowledge that, originally, this was supposed to take place in Hamilton at their new stadium and those plans changed ....but if their bid was suggesting that the games were gonna be in the Toronto area and that the tennis was going to be somewhere other than the Tennis Centre at York....they really goofed there!

Ah, that's a very good point.

You inspired me to go actually read the (2009) bid book for the first time in a while - images.toronto2015.org/system/asset_pdfs/906/original/bid-book.pdf

It does indeed have Tennis at the Rexall Centre. What lead me astray is the (very poor) venue map on Page 219 (of the PDF), where it shows the tennis being SOUTH of the 401, somewhere near Bayview and Lawrence! But the text description does say Rexall Centre. Presumably they weren't too worried about transportation, given the Rexall Centre already handles similar size events. They certainly avoided mentioning the subway extension in the bid book in relation to the Rexall Centre!

There didn't seem to be any other events planned south of 407, west of the DVP, or east of 427, other than those downtown.

You'll notice however, that the discussion on page 82 (of the PDF) commits the airport to downtown fixed rail link to be operation for the games. On the next page, it notes that Union Station expansion in planned in advance of 2015 (good job they didn't say completion!). There is mention of new subway and 7 new LRT lines being planned (but no commitment on timeframe).

In terms of actual commitments the only other one that jumps out at me is the page 84 commitment to "extensions to the existing rail system that will put new stations in close proximity to sport venues for Athletics, Volleyball, Cycling (Track), Water Polo, Rowing and Canoe/Kayak (Sprint)." Jumping back to the (poor) venue map, the Athletics, Volleyball, and Cycling (was to be at Copps) were to be in Hamilton, hence the James North GO Station (now being used for soccer). Rowing and Canoe/Kayak is down in Welland, so presumably the intention is (was?) to run some Niagara Falls GO service on those days. Water Polo is odd ... it was (and is) to be Unionville GO station - but that station already existed, and no mention of the badminton/ping pong, that's also to be there; presumably GO will be running some special Stouffville service during the games.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

"big boys"? The TTC is a far larger association than Metrolinx.

BIG

1. large, as in size, height, width, or amount: a big house; a big quantity.
2. of major concern, importance, gravity, or the like: a big problem.
3. outstanding for a specified quality: a big liar; a big success.
4. important, as in influence, standing, or wealth: a big man in his field.
5. grown-up; mature: big enough to know better.
6. elder: my big sister.
7. doing business or conducted on a large scale; major in size or importance: big government.

 

[ksun]

I can tell you for a fact that work is slower in many cases because of safety procedures. Not always, but very often. This would be evident to you if you had ever worked on a construction site in Canada. All one has to do is work on a residential site, a typical institutional / commercial site (office building, hospital, school, etc), and then a industrial site (any power plant would be a good example), and you will quickly see the difference that safety procedures make with regards to labour hours.

To do things unsafely is generally faster. We can certainly argue about the effectiveness of certain safety procedures, and whether they are warranted or not (ie. doing a cost-benefit analysis of them), but implementing them will always take time and cost productivity.

There doesn't seem to be any sign that construction is safer in Canada. There are more "safety procedures", but did it actually led to higher safety?
Those falling glass from Shangrila or Trump indicate quality isn't superior either.

 

[ksun]

And besides that, you can't compare the budgets of construction projects in Asia to construction projects in North America. It's ridiculous. I've worked on some towers in Hong Kong, and we could afford crews that were 2 to 3 times the size of a North American construction crew, because of the vast difference in wages. Of course they can build that much more subway then we can for the same price. I would be worried if they could not.

right. And HK isn't exactly a cheap place (it is as rich as Canada). How did they get things done cheaply?
We both know why, and in my opinion, Product = f(Labour, Material), and L and M are inputs for production and have absolutely no difference in the sense that we should procure whatever is the cheapest available, and that represents responsibility to taxpayers.
Then politics come into play and everything gets dirty, and we end up paying 3X, 4X the price, each citizen, and everything is behind schedule.

This is off topic. The real issue is, 6 years to build 6 subway stations in the suburb, that kind of productivity is appalling anywhere, and everyone here seems to be looking for excuses to justify that.