Not only that, what is to happen to Steeles intersection and 400' north of the intersection where the station has to be relocated to regrading relocating utilities since this part of the extension.
Since there is no contract in place, as well not knowing if the will be a subway with grade surface or fully grade, IO will have to make a call soon to amend Mobilinx contract to cover the cost to move the station from the south to the north as well any relocation of utilities for that short area.
The last 2 years saw something been done for the southbound lane north of Steeles for trenchwork by X and no idea what or who for. No recalled any thing being done for the northbound lane since I not up there that often in the first place.
We have no idea if IO will go out for the extension as a P3 or general tender with a maintenance contract to match the remaining years Mobilinx contract so it the whole line is under one party control when it comes time to renew the 30 year contract. The only different with the extension contract, Mobilinx will be reasonable for the operation of the whole line with X looking after the maintenance of the extension.
Even if all the utilities and the guideway was done in Brampton this year, the 407 overpass is the bottleneck as the guideway is only been built while the northbound lanes are rebuilt and widening of the overpass starting in July for about the next 10-12 months and the work that has to take place as noted above after the overpass is fully built. You are still looking at 2026 for service to Brampton.
The 400 feet north of Steeles/Main from my understanding has always been a part of the initial project. They wouldn't be doing any extensive work north of Steeles if they weren't sure they were going to put a guideway there. At one point, they even had the temporary stops on the southbound section of the Gateway Terminal so they could relocate additional utilities for the guideway work that was yet to happen. They also ended up congesting a significant portion of Main Street by shifting northbound traffic into the southbound traffic lanes due to utility relocation from the middle of the road to the curb. This work was from Bartley Bull Parkway/Main Street to Steeles / Main Street, and onward to Hurontario/407. My e-mail correspondence with someone from Metrolinx highlights this as well.
The contract in place that you're referring to will be from Bartley Bull Parkway and Main street, into downtown Brampton. We still have no clue what this contract is going to be, but it's obviously going to be an additional cost. Brown has pushed hard for the tunnel option which includes a tunnel portal south of Elgin Drive to Nanwood. Nanwood they want to do open cut construction partially within the exsting street right-of-way. The remainder of the corridor north of Nanwood/Main that terminates at Church/Main, they're looking to do sequential excavation method of digging it out. They may also do a second mining operation at the Brampton GO station which could help fast track the method too. You can find more infomation about this whole process
here if you don't already have this document saved somewhere.
Yeah, most of the work here in Brampton has just been utilities, because when work gets done here for utilities, the last thing they want to do is tear up the streets and roads unless they really need to. A lot of the work was easily done in Mississauga with road closures and whatnot, and it seems like as you said, the biggest bottleneck right now is the 407/Hurontario, otherwise they'd probably be in Brampton right now doing most of the work.
In my experience, if the extension into downtown Brampton hasn't been tendered for construction the same way this first phase is, the warranties are going to differ in regards to the number of years, as well as differ to the construction of the tunnels and so on.
We both agree that the 407 is going to take a long time. It makes me wish that we had the same type of manpower they did for the QEW underpass. 55 hours non-stop to get that work done. If they did this with the highways, I feel we'd be significantly further along.
