[AlvinofDiaspar]

Maybe expectations could be better managed if instead of announcing a specific completion date, such as 2031, they would give a window instead, such as 2031-2033 or something like that.

That's still kind of loose - and not at all confidence inspiring. No one else gets a 2 year contingency padding. It's a funded subway line that has already been tendered - not one that is still in the drawing board.

The public is paying $11B+ for this project - there should be a reasonable date communicated to the public, not a "it will happen when it happen" response. The lack of a firm date also short-circuit the ability of the public to hold a party accountable - it becomes a carte blanche for anything from legitimate, unavoidable challenges to poor performance.

And of course, the latter is exactly the point. Avoidance of accountability.

AoD

 

[innsertnamehere]

Maybe expectations could be better managed if instead of announcing a specific completion date, such as 2031, they would give a window instead, such as 2031-2033 or something like that.

I agree that this is the simple solution.

The problem is that it not only burns metrolinx, but the politicians too. So the political directive is to avoid it.

It's the same reason everything moved to PPPs - not because it's actually cheaper, but because it shifts blame for cost overruns from politicians to the contractors. Instead of paying for cost overruns up front, they simply pay an inflated price on every contract so that the contractor can afford to cover any overrun. Easy, problem solved!

It's all a story of broken and inefficient project management due to political pressures coming from high pressure journalistic analysis and criticism of highly complex construction programs by journalists who really aren't qualified to create fair, informed reports on the issues.

 

[innsertnamehere]

That's still kind of loose - and not at all confidence inspiring. No one else gets a 2 year contingency padding. It's a funded subway line that has already been tendered - not one that is still in the drawing board.

The public is paying $11B+ for this project - there should be a reasonable date communicated to the public, not a "it will happen when it happen" response. The lack of a firm date also short-circuit the ability of the public to hold a party accountable - it becomes a carte blanche for anything from legitimate, unavoidable challenges to poor performance.

And of course, the latter is exactly the point. Avoidance of accountability.

AoD

The problem is that setting a date (say, 2032) instantly leads to media hysteria the second it's inevitably missed and politicians take a fall for something that is really nobody's fault.

There is a need to set some level of expectation for the public - but also an understanding that projects this scale can not and should not be held to a hard completion date which "fail" if they don't hit it. There are a million legitimate reasons why a target date may need to be adjusted.

If the media was capable of portraying a target date as that, a target, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that Global News is more than happy to throw up an article saying "COLOSSAL FAILURE - ONTARIO LINE MISSING CRITICAL DEADLINE BY 3 MONTHS" as if heads should roll for a moving target being shifted for reasonable reasons.

 

[nfitz]

The problem is that setting a date (say, 2032) instantly leads to media hysteria the second it's inevitably missed and politicians take a fall for something that is really nobody's fault.

They have set a date. And it's public.

Whether Metrolinx "commits" to the date or not has no meaning. Nothing changes if they say yes or no.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

The problem is that setting a date (say, 2032) instantly leads to media hysteria the second it's inevitably missed and politicians take a fall for something that is really nobody's fault.

There is a need to set some level of expectation for the public - but also an understanding that projects this scale can not and should not be held to a hard completion date which "fail" if they don't hit it. There are a million legitimate reasons why a target date may need to be adjusted.

If the media was capable of portraying a target date as that, a target, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that Global News is more than happy to throw up an article saying "COLOSSAL FAILURE - ONTARIO LINE MISSING CRITICAL DEADLINE BY 3 MONTHS" as if heads should roll for a moving target being shifted for reasonable reasons.

Media/issue management is one issue, but it is also a convenient label to excuse outright failures as hysteria - e.g. Eglinton LRT. Without a firm, reasonable date - you can't tell failure from successes, and I think the public - in a democracy - has every single right to a reasonable date for project completion.

AoD

 

[wopchop]

If there is a contract in place for the work, there is 100% a contractual date of substantial completion and occupancy. Not announcing that date is 100% a political move.

 

[fanoftoronto]

The problem is that setting a date (say, 2032) instantly leads to media hysteria the second it's inevitably missed and politicians take a fall for something that is really nobody's fault.

There is a need to set some level of expectation for the public - but also an understanding that projects this scale can not and should not be held to a hard completion date which "fail" if they don't hit it. There are a million legitimate reasons why a target date may need to be adjusted.

If the media was capable of portraying a target date as that, a target, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that Global News is more than happy to throw up an article saying "COLOSSAL FAILURE - ONTARIO LINE MISSING CRITICAL DEADLINE BY 3 MONTHS" as if heads should roll for a moving target being shifted for reasonable reasons.

Yes, if the reasons are justified and reasonable.

I don't think the Crosstown delays are either justified or reasonable. Metrolinx and all associated stakeholders have dropped the ball hard on the Crosstown and deserve all the scrutiny and ridicule for such a blatant mis-management.

Verster's response regarding the Ontario Line should be that the current schedule is still for a 2031 opening date. Or that there are reasonable/justifiable delays that are affecting the 2031 date and the completion should be expected to miss 2031 by "x" months.

Say the next project that's announced and funded is the Sheppard subway extension to McCowan and Verster's response is "we do not want to commit to a completion date, it'll get built when it gets built".

 

[Tuscani01]

The problem is that setting a date (say, 2032) instantly leads to media hysteria the second it's inevitably missed and politicians take a fall for something that is really nobody's fault.

There is a need to set some level of expectation for the public - but also an understanding that projects this scale can not and should not be held to a hard completion date which "fail" if they don't hit it. There are a million legitimate reasons why a target date may need to be adjusted.

If the media was capable of portraying a target date as that, a target, it wouldn't be a problem. The problem is that Global News is more than happy to throw up an article saying "COLOSSAL FAILURE - ONTARIO LINE MISSING CRITICAL DEADLINE BY 3 MONTHS" as if heads should roll for a moving target being shifted for reasonable reasons.

Media hysteria? If anything, I’m glad the media is there to try and demand accountability since no one else seems to be doing it.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Crosstown's problems primarily lie in Eglinton Station, which from my understanding had significantly more challenging soil conditions and underpinning challenges which set the station back by years on what was really the critical path portion of the entire project.

The rest of the line has been sitting basically done for a long time now. It's Eglinton which is causing the problems.

How much of that is mismanagement and how much of it is simply not being able to know what is under there until you dig down? Who knows.

I'm not claiming there was not mismanagement in the Crosstown, to be clear, but that it is normal for there to be delays in projects. The Gordie Howe bridge got delayed by a year because of various factors (COVID, etc.) and nobody freaked out about it as a year delay is very normal. It's basically rarer for a project to finish on the original schedule.

The Crosstown is more extreme as it is 3-4 years late. That is a nearly 50% schedule slippage and is indeed significant and not "normal". The Spadina Extension was IIRC about 1.5-2 years late for example - and that was not particularly notable for a project of that scale. The media still played it up.

It's not "accountability" if basically every construction project runs into delays. It's like doing a home renovation and calling the homeowners "incompetent" and "needing to be held accountable" when a surprise batch of mold or structural repair is found when the drywall is removed. No matter how much you plan, you just don't know what's going to happen sometimes until you get underway.

The problem is that the media does not know how to distinguish between the two - often because they cannot get the right information to determine it, and the political incentive is to avoid it entirely.

The political pressure to avoid scandal is the primary driver of government inefficiency. Governments go to great expense to avoid looking bad which creates massive amounts of inefficiencies. A big part of why private companies can operate more "efficiently" is simply because they can handle taking on more risk and adjusting as they go.

Given the immense political heat the province has taken with the Crosstown, I understand they are hesitant to put themselves back in that place again. Especially since Verster is not a politician and is likely receiving heavy handed briefs from up high about what to say about opening dates and is just playing it safe.

 

[T3G]

Given the immense political heat the province has taken with the Crosstown, I understand they are hesitant to put themselves back in that place again.

How haven't they done this? The 2031 was previously known (it was also known by anyone who paid attention to ML projects, even badly, that this was a fiction and was never, ever going to happen). By not committing to that hitherto known date, they have already put themselves back in that place.

 

[generalcanada]

Crosstown's problems primarily lie in Eglinton Station, which from my understanding had significantly more challenging soil conditions and underpinning challenges which set the station back by years on what was really the critical path portion of the entire project.

The rest of the line has been sitting basically done for a long time now. It's Eglinton which is causing the problems.

How much of that is mismanagement and how much of it is simply not being able to know what is under there until you dig down? Who knows.

I'm not claiming there was not mismanagement in the Crosstown, to be clear, but that it is normal for there to be delays in projects. The Gordie Howe bridge got delayed by a year because of various factors (COVID, etc.) and nobody freaked out about it as a year delay is very normal. It's basically rarer for a project to finish on the original schedule.

The Crosstown is more extreme as it is 3-4 years late. That is a nearly 50% schedule slippage and is indeed significant and not "normal". The Spadina Extension was IIRC about 1.5-2 years late for example - and that was not particularly notable for a project of that scale. The media still played it up.

It's not "accountability" if basically every construction project runs into delays. It's like doing a home renovation and calling the homeowners "incompetent" and "needing to be held accountable" when a surprise batch of mold or structural repair is found when the drywall is removed. No matter how much you plan, you just don't know what's going to happen sometimes until you get underway.

The problem is that the media does not know how to distinguish between the two - often because they cannot get the right information to determine it, and the political incentive is to avoid it entirely.

The political pressure to avoid scandal is the primary driver of government inefficiency. Governments go to great expense to avoid looking bad which creates massive amounts of inefficiencies. A big part of why private companies can operate more "efficiently" is simply because they can handle taking on more risk and adjusting as they go.

Given the immense political heat the province has taken with the Crosstown, I understand they are hesitant to put themselves back in that place again. Especially since Verster is not a politician and is likely receiving heavy handed briefs from up high about what to say about opening dates and is just playing it safe.

Why are we still repeating the 2020 date? It was only ever said for political reasons, same as the 2027 Ontario line date.

https://archive.today/20130119143535/http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/207847--eglinton-lrt-unlikely-to-meet-2020-completion-date-ttc-report

"The more realistic in-service date for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is 2022-2023, the report said."

add covid and add the underpinning issues which was discovered only once they started working on it

OH hey look its "7 months late".

Eglinton Crosstown LRT could be $330 million over budget and open seven months late, internal documents warn

Though the cost estimate was done by Metrolinx, the transit agency disputes the delay assessment, which was made by the private consortium building the LRT.

www.thestar.com

And people wonder why they dont give hard dates anymore.

I really dont think people would be that mad about this project if that 2020 date existed

if someone said "its going to be done between 2030-2032 would people be mad?

 

[fanoftoronto]

Crosstown's problems primarily lie in Eglinton Station, which from my understanding had significantly more challenging soil conditions and underpinning challenges which set the station back by years on what was really the critical path portion of the entire project.

The rest of the line has been sitting basically done for a long time now. It's Eglinton which is causing the problems.

How much of that is mismanagement and how much of it is simply not being able to know what is under there until you dig down? Who knows.

I'm not claiming there was not mismanagement in the Crosstown, to be clear, but that it is normal for there to be delays in projects. The Gordie Howe bridge got delayed by a year because of various factors (COVID, etc.) and nobody freaked out about it as a year delay is very normal. It's basically rarer for a project to finish on the original schedule.

The Crosstown is more extreme as it is 3-4 years late. That is a nearly 50% schedule slippage and is indeed significant and not "normal". The Spadina Extension was IIRC about 1.5-2 years late for example - and that was not particularly notable for a project of that scale. The media still played it up.

It's not "accountability" if basically every construction project runs into delays. It's like doing a home renovation and calling the homeowners "incompetent" and "needing to be held accountable" when a surprise batch of mold or structural repair is found when the drywall is removed. No matter how much you plan, you just don't know what's going to happen sometimes until you get underway.

The problem is that the media does not know how to distinguish between the two - often because they cannot get the right information to determine it, and the political incentive is to avoid it entirely.

The political pressure to avoid scandal is the primary driver of government inefficiency. Governments go to great expense to avoid looking bad which creates massive amounts of inefficiencies. A big part of why private companies can operate more "efficiently" is simply because they can handle taking on more risk and adjusting as they go.

Given the immense political heat the province has taken with the Crosstown, I understand they are hesitant to put themselves back in that place again. Especially since Verster is not a politician and is likely receiving heavy handed briefs from up high about what to say about opening dates and is just playing it safe.

Part of proper project management is identifying the risks and mitigating them as soon as possible. Metrolinx should have known that Eglinton station and Cedarvale station were going to be a big risk as they're underpinning an active subway line, something that hasn't been done in Toronto for a long time. That is the longest lead item by far in the entire project and should've been the first tender to be awarded.

But, what actually happened was that the digging commenced at Eglinton station in 2018. They installed the first girder to allow for the under-pinning in 2019.

Metrolinx should've awarded the contract for the Eglinton under-pinning in 2011 for commencement of construction in 2014 at the latest. We would've cleared all issues and had a fully functional Line 5 at least 2 years ago if that had happened. We lost at least 4 years due to bad project management!

Bad project management isn't a reason to not commit to completion dates.

Why are we still repeating the 2020 date? It was only ever said for political reasons, same as the 2027 Ontario line date.
https://archive.today/20130119143535/http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/207847--eglinton-lrt-unlikely-to-meet-2020-completion-date-ttc-report
"The more realistic in-service date for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is 2022-2023, the report said."

add covid and add the underpinning issues which was discovered only once they started working on it

OH hey look its "7 months late".

Eglinton Crosstown LRT could be $330 million over budget and open seven months late, internal documents warn

Though the cost estimate was done by Metrolinx, the transit agency disputes the delay assessment, which was made by the private consortium building the LRT.

www.thestar.com

And people wonder why they dont give hard dates anymore.

I really dont think people would be that mad about this project if that 2020 date existed

if someone said "its going to be done between 2030-2032 would people be mad?

The 2020 date was being brought up multiple times over the course of the last decade. Even if it was supposed to be 2022-2023 then it still doesn't remove the blame of initiating construction at Eglinton station only in 2018. Do up a Gantt chart and start working on reducing the time taken on the critical path first!

 

[generalcanada]

The 2020 date was being brought up multiple times over the course of the last decade. Even if it was supposed to be 2022-2023 then it still doesn't remove the blame of initiating construction at Eglinton station only in 2018. Do up a Gantt chart and start working on reducing the time taken on the critical path first!

I dont think the schedule was the problem, If everything went smoothly there wouldnt be issues. Youre looking in hindsight saying "they should have expected issues"
But why? what makes that area bad? why wouldnt kennedy station have issues?
Also remember this was 10 years ago they signed the contracts and the construction schedule. They know better now. hence the ontario line being much better managed

 

[Northern Light]

The Spadina Extension was IIRC about 1.5-2 years late for example - and that was not particularly notable for a project of that scale. The media still played it up.

It's not "accountability" if basically every construction project runs into delays. It's like doing a home renovation and calling the homeowners "incompetent" and "needing to be held accountable" when a surprise batch of mold or structural repair is found when the drywall is removed. No matter how much you plan, you just don't know what's going to happen sometimes until you get underway.

Just to clarify on this point, Two TTC staff lost their jobs, fired by Andy Byford over the way this project (TYSSE) was being managed.

So there was a measure of accountability and someone generally well thought of in the transit industry insisted on as much.

*****

More broadly, project schedules are supposed to include both financial and temporal contingency. A project of scale, for argument's sake a 4-year expected build, will clearly have weather impediments from time to time, which may well exceed a typical 'average' year. The odd trade strike needs to be accounted for too.

But that's supposed to be baked into the schedule, that 4-year project, run optimally, is actually a 3 year - 6 month project with 6 months of contingency baked in.

So when we're talking about slippage here, we're talking about slippage beyond a generous contingency.

As someone with a bit of insight into some of the disputes here (much is public in the past litigation), yes there were arguably unforeseeable circumstances, and Covid beyond that.........but there were plenty of mistakes, and things done out of order that created significant problems.

I would add, Finch while better run has had more than its share of problems as well. Many of these stem from very poor planning, and suspect project management.

 

[fanoftoronto]

I dont think the schedule was the problem, If everything went smoothly there wouldnt be issues. Youre looking in hindsight saying "they should have expected issues"
But why? what makes that area bad? why wouldnt kennedy station have issues?
Also remember this was 10 years ago they signed the contracts and the construction schedule. They know better now. hence the ontario line being much better managed

If everything went smoothly is a very naive way of project management.

Metrolinx started TBM tunnelling in 2011. TBM tunnelling is historically the most straightforward part of the build process. Why was that prioritized over commencement of construction of more critical and risky portions of the line such as the underpinning of the 2 interchange stations with Line 1. You're right, Kennedy should've started at the same time to limit the impact of any unforseen issues.

As @Northern Light mentioned, delays need to be accounted for and baked into the schedule.

When you spend literal tens of billions of dollars, completion dates or milestone dates are critically required.

To be fair, Ontario Line is prioritizing better. Having started station construction already and working on critical infrastructure. They've also negated having any issues on underpinning by not performing underpinning at all in the Downton interchange stations! Lol