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

I think there in planing mode still. But far as i know there still on track for 2015

When do they plan to start digging? Is it this year at all, or has it been postponed to next year?
 
The relevant inflation is not since the 1950s, it's since the 1990s. Why has the cost of subway construction tripled since Sheppard was built? That's way, way above CPI inflation.
 
When do they plan to start digging? Is it this year at all, or has it been postponed to next year?
It was never scheduled for this year; they are in the design phase, on schedule. I went by a couple of weeks ago on the York Rocket, and there was a crew out doing boreholes to get geotechnical data ... recognised the logo on the truck as one of the companies that won a contract.
 
The relevant inflation is not since the 1950s, it's since the 1990s. Why has the cost of subway construction tripled since Sheppard was built? That's way, way above CPI inflation.
It is way above CPI inflation. The last time I found the numbers, I think the Non-residential Building Construction Price Index for Toronto has averaged about 6% per year for the last decade. This has been well documented and discussed here previously. And it hasn't tripled. Sheppard was about $1-billion for 6 km (including some tail track). About $165-million per kilometre, from about 1995 to 2002. Spadina is $2.6-billion for 8.6 km ... giving the $300-million number that has been widely reported ... from about 2008 to 2015. So 13 years of inflation. A little math gives you an inflation rate of 4.7% over those 13 years.

I'm trying to pull the Non-residential Building Construction Price Index for Toronto from Stats Can for last 13-years, but it's asking me for $12 for the data, though nationally it is up 145.2% in 7 years. That's 5.4%. Perhaps someone can find better Toronto-specific data ... I've seen it before, and I think it's actually a bit higher.

If anything Spadina extension with an inflation rate of only 4.7% over Sheppard seems low, not high.
 
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It was never scheduled for this year; they are in the design phase, on schedule. I went by a couple of weeks ago on the York Rocket, and there was a crew out doing boreholes to get geotechnical data ... recognised the logo on the truck as one of the companies that won a contract.

I'm almost sure that I read somewhere that it is scheduled for this year. Can someone tell me when tunneling is scheduled to begin?

This concerns me - am I crazy, are we crazy, or is someone messing on wikipedia?
quote==tunnel boring of the line has started late 2008. The first station, Sheppard West, is expected to have its main structure finished by August 2009==quote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonge-University-Spadina_(TTC)#Spadina_extension
 
Yeah, but there are a couple problems with that. A lot of the non-residential construction in Toronto is government projects, so that figure isn't really a fair baseline. Giambrone has talked about the Yonge line going way above $3 billion for about 6km. Sheppard was also much more complex, because of the interchange, than either the Yonge or Spadina extensions.
 
I'm almost sure that I read somewhere that it is scheduled for this year. Can someone tell me when tunneling is scheduled to begin?

This concerns me - am I crazy, are we crazy, or is someone messing on wikipedia?
tunnel boring of the line has started late 2008. The first station, Sheppard West, is expected to have its main structure finished by August 2009
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonge-University-Spadina_(TTC)#Spadina_extension

Don't trust everything you read on Wikipedia...
 
Giambrone has talked about the Yonge line going way above $3 billion for about 6km.
Not the construction of the extension though. But for other items that are necessary so that the extension doesn't overload the current system.

In the December 2008 report on the TTC's webpage for the Yonge Extension the TTC reported that the cost of the extension itself was $2.05 billion for 6.8 km; a cost of $301 million per kilometre - about the same as the Spadina extension.

They also estimated another $240 million for additional subway cars and $110 million for storage facilities.
 
Not the construction of the extension though. But for other items that are necessary so that the extension doesn't overload the current system.

In the December 2008 report on the TTC's webpage for the Yonge Extension the TTC reported that the cost of the extension itself was $2.05 billion for 6.8 km; a cost of $301 million per kilometre - about the same as the Spadina extension.

They also estimated another $240 million for additional subway cars and $110 million for storage facilities.

Spadina's figure already includes vehicles and storage, as well as an additional 26% contingency buffer...there's no way to get around the fact that lots of money is being thrown down the drain with the Yonge extension.
 
Spadina's figure already includes vehicles and storage
Does it ... I'll have to look closely at the numbers. That's not a fair comparison to Sheppard then, as it didn't include either.

as well as an additional 26% contingency buffer
That's not unusual in the early stage of any project ... they haven't even finished the design yet,

...there's no way to get around the fact that lots of money is being thrown down the drain with the Yonge extension.
Yet at the same time, the estimated passenger volumes are higher than any of the Transit City lines, or the (new) Spadina and Sheppard lines. If you don't build this as subway, you never build another subway in the GTA again.
 

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