[jje1000]

Also x 2, you call it commuter rail, but the standard size of a train on Melbourne's network covering the entire metropolitan area is similar to the TTC subway trains - and the next generation is bigger: train length, passenger-carrying capacity and the services will be getting a lot more frequent than what many people would deem to be 'commuter rail'.

Another reason why GO RER is potentially understated in its transformative impact.

It might not have the frequencies now, but if the infrastructural foundations are properly done, service patterns and fare policies can be incrementally improved down the road- bringing the system (or at least parts of it) closer to Rapid Transit standards.

 

[tayser]

Rather than pollute this thread, I've done a post in another explaining the plans for service increases, and yes, I agree - the Go RER project will have a bigger impact than most think - there's nothing wrong with giving the 'burbs rail services (all 5 big AU cities are testament to that!).

 

[NoahB]

What would be the point? Far cheaper to prioritise non-private transport on streets - positioning stops after traffic lights and giving priority for trams as the approach street crossings.

Or in the case of new build projects, just don't put anything on street.

It is far cheaper. But capacity reaches a certain point where traffic lights get closed for long enough periods of time to cause major traffic issues. You can say 'F cars who cares?', but that won't fix the problem where it could cause a literal gridlock that will affect the route itself and the busses that connect to it among other issues. Not to mention that the traffic lights also stop pedestrian traffic.

Also x 2, you call it commuter rail, but the standard size of a train on Melbourne's network covering the entire metropolitan area is similar to the TTC subway trains - and the next generation is bigger: train length, passenger-carrying capacity and the services will be getting a lot more frequent than what many people would deem to be 'commuter rail'.

I called it commuter rail because that is what it is categorized as such on Wikipedia. If you don't agree with it, you can edit the page. Just don't get upset at me for using it...

 

[Tuscani01]

Also x 2, you call it commuter rail, but the standard size of a train on Melbourne's network covering the entire metropolitan area is similar to the TTC subway trains - and the next generation is bigger: train length, passenger-carrying capacity and the services will be getting a lot more frequent than what many people would deem to be 'commuter rail'.

That's great about the train sizes and frequency, but its still commuter rail. Trains run on timetables, and are about 15 minutes apart. They have also been known to skip stations when running behind and heading into the city as express without warning. Most of the stations are also suburban, and its a useless system for getting around within the city centre. It's more like GO than anything, and nearly identical to what Metrolinx is turning GO into. Also reminds me of the RER in Paris, which functions like the Metro within the core being underground, but is still mostly just complementary to the actual Metro as it mostly funnels people into central Paris.

Melbourne trains fail world 'metro' test

Melbourne and Sydney are among a handful of the industrialised world's big cities not to have a high-frequency "metro" system, an analysis shows.

www.smh.com.au

Regardless, Eglinton will not function like any of these services.

 

[Midtown Urbanist]

I know it is a stretch but it makes me wonder why things like this were not replaced and if the station is in bad shape why did they not close it and rebuild Eglinton

Rebuilding Eglinton sounds like something that could quickly turn into a $100 Million+ job.

Also hindsight is 20/20. Maybe the engineers just weren’t aware of how poor shape it was in

We were constructing Toronto's newest subway interchange station, I am not sure why we went cheap on it, especially given the >$1B dollar predicament we have at Bloor-Yonge.

From day 1, I was concerned about station platform capacity, given that they would be the same narrow shared central platforms as today (and 1954), which are already often over-capacity at rush-hour and a complete mess whenever an actual system delay occurs. Adding all the future walk-in traffic from Yonge+Eglinton development, increased congestion from the Yonge Line, and the new passengers transferring from the Eglinton Crosstown seems like a recipe for disaster.

I am not at all surprised to learn there are other engineering complications.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Let the Eglinton Crosstown LRT be a lesson: beware public-private partnerships

 

[TransitBart]

Let the Eglinton Crosstown LRT be a lesson: beware public-private partnerships

I was going to post this. But I am not a Royson James fan so I had to work hard to read the entire article. - which I did after @TheTigerMaster posted it. The TYSSE otherwise known as the Line 1 extension was a 100% public project that also had delay and cost overruns.

No matter who is managing it, in a project this complex, running over 10 years and 19 km of various soil and geologic conditions, there will be surprises. That surprises cause delay and cost overruns is news only to the young, the naïve and perfectionists. There is no perfect solution to managing a large project.

At this juncture in Ontario, I’d go with the partnership model for no other reason than to get the project completed according to the same plan that was contracted. The provincial government - many guilty Parties (capital P) - has proven itself not capable of not meddling. That model at least means we will get to the end (of the project) that we anticipated and planned.

 

[Hopkins123]

I was going to post this. But I am not a Royson James fan so I had to work hard to read the entire article. - which I did after @TheTigerMaster posted it. The TYSSE otherwise known as the Line 1 extension was a 100% public project that also had delay and cost overruns.

No matter who is managing it, in a project this complex, running over 10 years and 19 km of various soil and geologic conditions, there will be surprises. That surprises cause delay and cost overruns is news only to the young, the naïve and perfectionists. There is no perfect solution to managing a large project.

At this juncture in Ontario, I’d go with the partnership model for no other reason than to get the project completed according to the same plan that was contracted. The provincial government - many guilty Parties (capital P) - has proven itself not capable of not meddling. That model at least means we will get to the end (of the project) that we anticipated and planned.

Yes, it is a bit rich to presume that the private sector is at fault solely for the delay when P3s elsewhere in the country have been so successful projects like Vancouver's Canada Line came in months ahead of schedule and under budget.

 

[TransitBart]

Yes, it is a bit rich to presume that the private sector is at fault solely for the delay when P3s elsewhere in the country have been so successful projects like Vancouver's Canada Line came in months ahead of schedule and under budget.

Can the sarcasm, man.

One meaningful difference is that the Canada Line is ABOVE GROUND. Once the foundations for the pylons are done, there are no geological surprises including groundwater. There were also no seventy year-old interchanges to build under and interface with. New build is always cheaper than renovation as anyone who has renovated a house knows.

There is a difference between digging for, and setting a fence post and digging a foundation. In this case, an underground structure that runs for 10km at great depths.

 

[crs1026]

At this juncture in Ontario, I’d go with the partnership model for no other reason than to get the project completed according to the same plan that was contracted. The provincial government - many guilty Parties (capital P) - has proven itself not capable of not meddling. That model at least means we will get to the end (of the project) that we anticipated and planned.

Agree, but I think James’ article was constructive because the crowd who see the private sector as infallible is pretty large. Refuting the “give it to the private sector because they always get results” mantra is important, especially to get the right behaviours at the political level.

The issue with P3 is that the vendor will charge richly to assume risk, but may not actually accept that risk in the end. The concern is value for money as opposed to meeting schedule and initial cost projection. The P3 model becomes a way of firewalling pols and agencies like ML who ought to be making, and being accountable for, the big decisions.

We may have to stick with P3 not because it’s perfect, but because no public agency still has the project management staff and infrastructure to do the work in house. I worry that if we actually get all these projects going, some work may go to the B grade contractors because all the good ones are all booked up.

- Paul

- Paul

 

[robmausser]

I was going to post this. But I am not a Royson James fan so I had to work hard to read the entire article. - which I did after @TheTigerMaster posted it. The TYSSE otherwise known as the Line 1 extension was a 100% public project that also had delay and cost overruns.

No matter who is managing it, in a project this complex, running over 10 years and 19 km of various soil and geologic conditions, there will be surprises. That surprises cause delay and cost overruns is news only to the young, the naïve and perfectionists. There is no perfect solution to managing a large project.

At this juncture in Ontario, I’d go with the partnership model for no other reason than to get the project completed according to the same plan that was contracted. The provincial government - many guilty Parties (capital P) - has proven itself not capable of not meddling. That model at least means we will get to the end (of the project) that we anticipated and planned.

Not only that but its a 9 year, nearly $13 billion dollar project and its 7 months and $330 million over budget? Thats like less than 5% for both metrics.

Thats a win man. Thats expected creep. Thats easily within tolerances.

 

[Steve X]

Not only that but its a 9 year, nearly $13 billion dollar project and its 7 months and $330 million over budget? Thats like less than 5% for both metrics.

Thats a win man. Thats expected creep. Thats easily within tolerances.

Except it shouldn't have taken 9 years...but it started in fall 2011 so it's turning into 11 years. In other parts of the world, they would get this line built in 4-7 years. So not only it's more expensive, workers do less for more money. So the baseline is flawed already.

Plus that Crosslinx sued ML and was awarded more money to get it done on time. 5% is 5% too much. ML shouldn't approve a schedule that can be delayed by unexpected events and the contingency budget exist solely to cover for events like this and it can't.

If they have brains, they would know Eglinton is the oldest station and would be the most complicated station. Instead of having the TBMs finish and left untouched at Yonge/Eg for years, they should have dug under the intersection way back in 2011 as a shaft for the TBMs to terminate. ML would have found the issue back then and scheduled more time and factor the price into the Crosslinx bid. Instead they waited for 2019 for heavy excavation and was surprised!

It's very questionable why the are underpinning Eglinton West now when those TBM shafts were already dug out when Crosslinx got the project in 2014. Why they can't do it in 2016? For most parts, most people would agree they saw little excavation up until 2018. Sites were walled off but not much digging occurred besides the model station, Keelesdale.

If this project was 5 years and they delayed it to 6, it would be more acceptable. They are spending 100% more time and yet they need 5% more. Truth is ML is a terribly inexperience project oversighter and they are way too optimistic. The OL will see the same issues if they plan the way they are planning right now. If they dig all the stations downtown starting in 2024/25 and hope it'll open in 2027, they are dreaming.

 

[rbt]

If they have brains, they would know Eglinton is the oldest station and would be the most complicated station. Instead of having the TBMs finish and left untouched at Yonge/Eg for years, they should have dug under the intersection way back in 2011 as a shaft for the TBMs to terminate.

That was considered but traffic congestion at that intersection was considered too much for deliveries and dirt removal. They kept most of the logistics bits (tunnel liner deliveries, worker access, soil removal) as far away from Yonge by boring toward Yonge.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Can the sarcasm, man.

One meaningful difference is that the Canada Line is ABOVE GROUND. Once the foundations for the pylons are done, there are no geological surprises including groundwater. There were also no seventy year-old interchanges to build under and interface with. New build is always cheaper than renovation as anyone who has renovated a house knows.

There is a difference between digging for, and setting a fence post and digging a foundation. In this case, an underground structure that runs for 10km at great depths.

Even though it's called the Skytrain not all of it is elevated.

The Canada Line itself runs underground for about 10K from Waterfront station to Marine Drive mostly in a bored twin tunnel. It's very comparable, though it has incredibly short 40-50m platforms which is why the tunneled section is so cheap in comparison.If you ride it you will notice other obvious shortcuts to make it cheap: virtually identical designs, single entrances even at the busiest stations, and they avoided the whole interchange complication by not actually building any. At Waterfront you have to go up the the surface out of fare control to switch to the Expo line, and at Vancouver center the "interchange" is by walking through a shopping mall the happens to also connect to Granville, again outside of fare control.

The confed line is more likely to be an indicator of your future, but unless you have a sinkhole of comparable size, you probably won't be delayed as long, and the fact that Ion will have been running for years with the same trains means you shouldn't have the same launch kinks Ottawa had of a totally new vehicle.
I would say Toronto should have the experience of running this kind of line and avoid obvious problems Ottawa had on the operations side, but I'm not sure what kind of wrench might be thrown into the works by the whole designed by Metrollinx, built by a P3, operated by the TTC thing .

 

[W. K. Lis]

That was considered but traffic congestion at that intersection was considered too much for deliveries and dirt removal. They kept most of the logistics bits (tunnel liner deliveries, worker access, soil removal) as far away from Yonge by boring toward Yonge.

I shudder to think of the logistics for the Queen, Osgoode, and Pape Stations construction needed for the Ontario/Relief Line. Hopefully, the Science Centre Station logistics for the Ontario/Relief Line has already been done for the station box. We'll see a smaller problem with the Finch West Station for the Finch West LRT... hopefully.