[Admiral Beez]

Of course you outsource the construction itself, and specific pre-construction work like surveying and soil sampling. But turning everything over to various one-off consortiums is a terrible way to go.

IDK, if you keep a constant build the construction workers (or at least a core group) themselves can become ML employees. We can thus eliminate the construction firm margins, and a lot of that shady dealing in the background.

 

[T3G]

The thing with China is first off they are incredibly disciplined people and second they’ve done it so many times now (replicated their public transport systems in various cities) that’s it’s become muscle memory for them.

Over time I would expect Metrolinx to start functioning like a well oiled machine. But it seems like they keep tripping over one coffee table after another.

Not having to worry about silly little trifles like human rights or safety standards certainly hasn't hurt them, either.

 

[crs1026]

Not having to worry about silly little trifles like human rights or safety standards certainly hasn't hurt them, either.

You know, much as there may be some truth in your remarks, in some small way, this is not a statement that should be thrown out as a shot without some reference to actual data.

When I went googling for information on "chinese workers killed in high speed rail construction", the headlines mostly are about Chinese workers killed while working on projects elsewhere in Asia. It's pretty obvious that China has a huge workforce of people with skills and experience in building high speed rail, which they deploy not only to their own needs but to make money building other countries' lines also.

China is pretty capable of building railways, it's us who aren't - and differences in safety standards or working conditions for workers is likely a much smaller factor in their success than your statement would imply.

And if you google "high speed rail accidents", you get incidents in Germany, Spain, etc.... which begs some curiosity for data on number of fatalities per million passenger miles. I bet that statistically, China may not run much less safe than any other country.

I would bet the number of Chinese workers killed during construction of their high speed lines, while perhaps not zero, is far less than the number of Chinese workers killed during construction of the CPR.

So, if they have found ways of reducing red tape, perhaps we should imitate. I'm not defending China's system of government, nor advocating for lower safety standards - but let's keep balance and be guided by data.

Can you cite data ?

- Paul

 

[JoeParez]

December 31, 2025?

At 11:59:59 pm.

 

[stevedean]

You know, much as there may be some truth in your remarks, in some small way, this is not a statement that should be thrown out as a shot without some reference to actual data.

When I went googling for information on "chinese workers killed in high speed rail construction", the headlines mostly are about Chinese workers killed while working on projects elsewhere in Asia. It's pretty obvious that China has a huge workforce of people with skills and experience in building high speed rail, which they deploy not only to their own needs but to make money building other countries' lines also.

China is pretty capable of building railways, it's us who aren't - and differences in safety standards or working conditions for workers is likely a much smaller factor in their success than your statement would imply.

And if you google "high speed rail accidents", you get incidents in Germany, Spain, etc.... which begs some curiosity for data on number of fatalities per million passenger miles. I bet that statistically, China may not run much less safe than any other country.

I would bet the number of Chinese workers killed during construction of their high speed lines, while perhaps not zero, is far less than the number of Chinese workers killed during construction of the CPR.

So, if they have found ways of reducing red tape, perhaps we should imitate. I'm not defending China's system of government, nor advocating for lower safety standards - but let's keep balance and be guided by data.

Can you cite data ?

- Paul

You do realize that the CCP controls EVERYTHING including what information is released to the public and what the rest of the world hears...

There is a reason why you haven't found any examples of Chinese workers being killed within China.

 

[Mihairokov]

It's off-topic but if there are swaths of Chinese workers being killed constructing infrastructure we would hear about it, just as we hear about their plane crashes and mines collapsing.

China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

List of coal mining accidents in China - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It takes a severe level of cope to say that China is only able to build the most extensive HSR network in the world because they abuse their workers and turn the other way if some die. That sort of activity is certainly prevalent in the Middle East but it's more likely than not that China simply got good at building infrastructure and we refuse to do the same here.

Edit - I say "got good" as if it wasn't Chinese workers doing some of the most strenuous work building our own national railway system, but that's definitely an aside.

 

[asher__jo]

This whole China does it better is bordering on racism with ridiculous claims made. China is generally a non-capitalist country and can justify spending huge amounts of government money without fearing that the stock market will react negatively.
China also has no real rule of law, so any labour protections that do exist are likely not enforced. It’s very easy to build things when worker protections and fair pay don’t have to be acknowledged.
China also requires any foreign company to partner with a local firm and share intellectual property. It’s not even close to level playing field with the West.

 

[cplchanb]

back on topic, whats new on this line..... seems like theres no testing lately and theres no word on any progress....
at least back when verster was in charge at least he gave some periodic updates... crickets currently.

 

[Tunafish13]

I did see some trains out yesterday (if that counts as an update) and not sure if it was operator training or something else.

 

[smallspy]

China also has no real rule of law, so any labour protections that do exist are likely not enforced. It’s very easy to build things when worker protections and fair pay don’t have to be acknowledged.

As someone who deals with Chinese manufacturing on a daily basis, I can assure that that this is not the case.

Dan

 

[Aplus23]

I was travelling next to a training car from birchmount to don Mills, it was catching up to me while I was stuck at the lights waiting. Really the only complaint is that all the stops should be before the intersection and not after, the double stopping doesn't make any sense

 

[ownthesky]

I was travelling next to a training car from birchmount to don Mills, it was catching up to me while I was stuck at the lights waiting. Really the only complaint is that all the stops should be before the intersection and not after, the double stopping doesn't make any sense

How is a double stop different than a single extra long stop if the train gets a red during disembarking? At least after an intersection, the LRV’s could get signal priority one day and not get red lights, once Toronto stops subsiding single occupancy vehicles in all their traffic planning.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

How is a double stop different than a single extra long stop if the train gets a red during disembarking? At least after an intersection, the LRV’s could get signal priority one day and not get red lights, once Toronto stops subsiding single occupancy vehicles in all their traffic planning.

I'm pretty sure the reasoning is pretty similar as to why far side bus stops are considered better by transit designers. The parts about pedestrian safety and visibility to drivers would apply to trains as well

1. Far-side bus stops are the most common and are generally preferred by designers. They allow pedestrians to cross behind the bus, which is safer than crossing in front of the bus. On multilane roadways, they also increase the visibility of crossing pedestrians for drivers waiting at the signal.

https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/transit-streets/bus-stops/

 

[evandyk]

If they were to ever give the line traffic signal priority, far side stops are superior.

 

[Kyle Campbell]

Why do people always bring up China in these conversations? People act like the only alternative to our ponderous way of building infrastructure is China, and then it inevitably turns into a back and forth about human rights. But there are lots of rich democracies that that value human rights like we do and still build mass transit faster and cheaper than us. The whole debate about China is completely unnecessary.

Agreed. Rather then get lost in China discussions, we should compare builds like the crosstown to sunny Spain. Instead Toronto has always seemed to want to emulate NYC, the paragon of overpriced rail development. But even within North America, the Crosstown is leaps and bounds slower to build and more expensive than other metro-like LRTs using similar technology like the Confederation Line (175m/km) or Seattle's Link (333m/km for Line 1 so far). Seattle is especially apt, as it cost about 5.7 billion CAD (475m/km) to do both the University and NorthLink tunnel segments, which is about the same price per km for the Crosstown averaged across the tunnel and surface sections.

I feel like one of the big flaws in the crosstown is that the "stages" are enormous. You needed the entire 28km and a decade of construction before it could open in the best case scenario, whereas projects in other cities are often done in smaller chunks of 3-7 years, which would also allow kinks to get shaken out (in the case of Ottawa, more like gnarly knots) before the whole line was complete, and allow adjustments and learnings to be applied on later sections.

How Madrid built its metro cheaply

Madrid tripled the length of its metro system in just 12 years — faster and cheaper than almost any other city in the world. What can its expansion teach other cities?

worksinprogress.co