[cplchanb]

With something like 150 excavators and crew. What would be the cost of that?

Tearing down the old terminal is not so pressing as to require throwing away gobs of money to expedite it. They have a schedule, and they are meeting it.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

The problem is not that theyre not meeting the sched. The problem is the schedule itself is too lax. We are wasting money as well in years of delays and lost productivity because the sites work only from 8-3 for the most part yet get paid more than engineers who work much longer and harder to produce the drawings.

 

[Wrench]

The airport generators have gobs of excess capacity. Just extend Eglinton to the airport then plug into theirs; done.

There's only one major problem with that ,each of the Catipilar generators @ the Airport & are going to give you different outputs of Voltage for Various back up panels.
None of which will supply 750vdc.
All of which will be AC Volts 120,208,347,600 voltage levels.
No 750 VDC
Even though these are quite large , and capable of supplying enormous amount of power for the whole Airport I doubt they ( GTAA) would want to share there generated power with Metrolinx!

 

[W. K. Lis]

The problem is not that theyre not meeting the sched. The problem is the schedule itself is too lax. We are wasting money as well in years of delays and lost productivity because the sites work only from 8-3 for the most part yet get paid more than engineers who work much longer and harder to produce the drawings.

In China, you do not dare complain. They can work 24-hours a day, seven days a week. No overtime. Injured on the job or killed, push them aside and continue working. Neighbours complain? There's these men in uniforms who want to speak to you about a change of location for those neighbours.

 

[rbt]

There's only one major problem with that ,each of the Catipilar generators @ the Airport & are going to give you different outputs of Voltage for Various back up panels.
None of which will supply 750vdc.

I was actually thinking of their 120MW natural gas plant. Conveniently the LRT will already have transformers necessary to use that energy via the normal grid.

Seriously, there's no point in making Eglinton LRT run longer than Yonge subway; which makes it a solved problem as we can do exactly what TTC already does.

 

[smallspy]

The problem is not that theyre not meeting the sched. The problem is the schedule itself is too lax. We are wasting money as well in years of delays and lost productivity because the sites work only from 8-3 for the most part yet get paid more than engineers who work much longer and harder to produce the drawings.

So which is it - are they not meeting the schedule, or is the schedule too lax? On what are you basing that on, your own experience? What delays have occurred thus far, and what are the costs incurred?

Again, this is not a project that needs to be open before some sort of external deadline. Let them do their work. These things don't happen overnight.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

eriously, there's no point in making Eglinton LRT run longer than Yonge subway; which makes it a solved problem as we can do exactly what TTC already does

What does the TTC do?

 

[crs1026]

What does the TTC do?

My recollection from the 2003 blackout is, they had enough backup power to evacuate the tunnels, but that's all. The bus fleet operated (sort of, considering there were no traffic signals working) but the subway and streetcars were closed down.

I can't imagine a scenario where the Crosstown would keep humming along while the rest of the city went dark. That's what the gas plant proposal amounts to. It's huge overkill. All that is required is sufficient redundancy in feed points and tie lines within the line's power distribution system that a blackout in one part of the city (the most likely event) doesn't shut the line down. City wide blackouts just don't happen that often. We can use the money better on other things.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

The problem is not that theyre not meeting the sched. The problem is the schedule itself is too lax. We are wasting money as well in years of delays and lost productivity because the sites work only from 8-3 for the most part yet get paid more than engineers who work much longer and harder to produce the drawings.

I chuckle at how people demand that work be contracted out "because the private sector is more results focussed" and then are appalled when they see the result of actually doing that. The contractor, being profit motivated, makes sure that the schedule has generous float so their risk is mitigated. Take a tougher line in negotiations and they will agree to tighter timelines, sure..... but the price goes up. The more risk we ask them to take, the more their reward has to be.

Your engineer-versus-trades shot sounds like sour grapes to me, too. With construction going full tilt in Toronto, you won't see labour rates falling. Whereas there are thousands of engineering professionals out of work in Alberta, many of them mobile. Tightening the schedule doesn't assure that labour is more productive - one glitch and you have even more people sitting around waiting for production to get going again.

Personally, I can live with the schedule, provided it is adhered to.

- Paul

 

[cplchanb]

So which is it - are they not meeting the schedule, or is the schedule too lax? On what are you basing that on, your own experience? What delays have occurred thus far, and what are the costs incurred?

Again, this is not a project that needs to be open before some sort of external deadline. Let them do their work. These things don't happen overnight.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Of course things don't happen overnight.... But to demo only 1 shed in 2 months....? Comon...the lack of urgency for a project that's been late by 20 years is just another example of the systemic lax attitude of the average north American government funded construction project...heck it took only a few more years to dig through a Swiss mountain 3x as long and to dig under the English channel....
It took China 5 years to open a high speed rail link 1200km long and we're still arguing whether via or the government's rail plan is better... Seriously...

But OK lets let them keep to their schedule....they're doing well in their own timeline...unfortunately the rest of the world is only working and growing at 2x the speed

 

[cplchanb]

I chuckle at how people demand that work be contracted out "because the private sector is more results focussed" and then are appalled when they see the result of actually doing that. The contractor, being profit motivated, makes sure that the schedule has generous float so their risk is mitigated. Take a tougher line in negotiations and they will agree to tighter timelines, sure..... but the price goes up. The more risk we ask them to take, the more their reward has to be.

Your engineer-versus-trades shot sounds like sour grapes to me, too. With construction going full tilt in Toronto, you won't see labour rates falling. Whereas there are thousands of engineering professionals out of work in Alberta, many of them mobile. Tightening the schedule doesn't assure that labour is more productive - one glitch and you have even more people sitting around waiting for production to get going again.

Personally, I can live with the schedule, provided it is adhered to.

- Paul

Why shouldn't it be results based? We just sit around happy with the status quo assuming that we are perfectly fine...

Call it sour grapes but you know it's true... The avg blue collar contractor works less for more and it's costing us as well. But sure you can be satisfied with the schedule. I'm happy too that theyre adhering to the schedule too...unfortunately our expectations are akin to those of a rookie team who just got promoted to the premier league....low low expectations

 

[downtownordinary]

The problem is not that theyre not meeting the sched. The problem is the schedule itself is too lax. We are wasting money as well in years of delays and lost productivity because the sites work only from 8-3 for the most part yet get paid more than engineers who work much longer and harder to produce the drawings.

The schedule is set (somewhat) by the private sector company. This project is being delivered as an AFP (Alternative Finance Procurement) which means that the private company is financing all of the construction and won't be paid the majority (there may be smaller interim payments) of $5 Billion until the project is completed. Since the private company is financing all of this it is in their best interest to get the project completed as soon as possible. Quicker its finished, quicker they get paid and can pay back their lenders, thus saving on interest.
More info:
http://www.thecrosstown.ca/the-project/fact-sheets/afp

They have every incentive to get this done as soon as possible, it's a massive project and it'll take time.

 

[rbt]

Quicker its finished, quicker they get paid and can pay back their lenders, thus saving on interest.
...
They have every incentive to get this done as soon as possible, it's a massive project and it'll take time.

It's also in their interest to delay any piece not in the critical path as long as possible to minimize the financing period (time between the cost and obtaining revenue). Yonge station is the critical path. All other work will be based on progress of Yonge station.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Microscopic look into how infrastructure works in the city:

Me private citizen: Transportation services when you repair the curb can you alter the curb cut to what it should be

Transportation Service guy: After several hours of investigation I agree that that change is required

Private contract: Arrives on day of construction starts pouring concrete

Me: Guys do you know they made changes to the curb configuration

Private contractor: We are putting in what was there before

Me: City site inspector are you aware of the curb changes

City site inspector: Let me call Transporation services

Me to private contractor worker: I think you might want to hold off on the finishing they might be doing changes

Private contractor worker while finishing work: Yah I heard it, I hear everything, these guys (referring to the city) are yo-yo's

City Site Inspector to private contractor: We need to re-do all this concrete work

Private contractor: You heard the man. (private contractor workers proceed to re-do the sidewalk)

2 hours later- Transportation services guy shows up to tell private contractor to make curb changes that have already been built

Scale that up and ponder costing and private versus public execution

 

[crs1026]

Scale that up and ponder costing and private versus public execution

The two little words that doom a large project : "Change Order".

Somebody always wants to install a newer and better component that just became available, or issues new standards for some aspect of the design, or some decisionmaker hears from some constituent and tries to inject a new idea into the plan. Especially troublesome if execution is being rushed before the engineering design is fleshed out to full detail and then locked down.

There are lots of studies out there that say private versus public really isn't what determines the effectiveness of big projects. It's the quality of project management, the quality of accountability and data flow between levels and organizations, and how well the risks are understood and dealt with. A private contractor with a dysfunctional group of sub's, and a dysfunctional relationship with the customer, can screw this up just as well as government can.

- Paul

 

[rbt]

Scale that up and ponder costing and private versus public execution

That's not really private versus public. It's big organization versus small organization. You can find the same inter-departmental communication flaws at nearly any large corp too.

It's not an easy problem to solve either. You either communicate everything and everybody spends 90% of their time reading memos via email; or you communicate selectively and someone who needs to know gets missed; or you come up with a convoluted system like Project Management which becomes responsible for finding relevant people and forcing them to communicate but this is often top-heavy (strictly viewed as overhead) and when department budgets get cut is an easy target.