reaperexpress said:
The doors in my YRDSB high school did this. It made fire drills and power failures that much more alarming with the doors suddenly closing.
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Most schools and many office buildings do this. The doors are held open by mag-locks that deactivate when the alarm is activated, allowing the doors to close.

(Edit: Didnt notice Muller beat me to it)
 
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AlvinofDiaspar said:
Update from the Gov Man Committee Meeting:

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2015/gm/bgrd/backgroundfile-81488.pdf

Phase 2/3 bids came in about 30M above estimate. Staff recommend the contract going to Bondfield at 180M. They have voted to defer NW PATH phase 2 (which makes the current extension more useless than not). Priorities, priorities.

AoD
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Metrolinx gives the City money to complete Union Station INCLUDING the NW path upgrade. The City agrees to the funding including the City taking responsibility for any costs overruns.

And now Toronto is cancelling the path upgrade (which is needed to handle the number of pedestrians leaving Union). Kills the utilization of the York concourse as well. If I was Metrolinx I would either force the city to complete the project as agreed to or ask for 100% of my money back (for both the PATH upgrade and the entire Union Station reno).

Toronto has a serious overspending issue and it doesn't appear as if the local politicians can control it. We need another level of government to start to force Toronto's hand.
 
Metrolinx should hardly be the ones talking about cost overruns and schedule slips - like the trainshed (how many years is it behind schedule now?). Besides, this is not an instance of trouble with overspending - it is one of decadal neglect and playing catchup. A project of the scale of Union Station revitalization can easily have gone 50+%.

AoD
 
A couple points, that helps give a clearer picture;

1) The original budget by the City was clearly not enough to do the job, so reporting these as "cost overruns" is a little misleading, as it implies that money is being wasted, instead of not enough money budgeted to begin with. The sheer number of unforeseen conditions on this type of project all but guaranteed that. Everyone knows that when you bid/budget a shop off nothing but vague architecturals, with no detailed design, the price needs to be much higher to account for the significant risk or those exact conditions. Clearly, this did not happen.
2) In the midst of construction, Vanbots, who had just been recently acquired by Carillion, went through a massive change in personnel during the period of 2010 - 2011. Lots of old Vanbots personnel left for other companies, and green staff thrown into the midst of Union Station. This had significant impact during that time period, and was completely outside of City control.
 
Funny how almost everything is overbudget. Instead of trying to get a bigger picture of the actual cost in the beginning, we are sold something which is cheaper in order for it to be more tenable. In the end they try to act surprised when they find all these "hidden" costs.
 
Adjei said:
Funny how almost everything is overbudget. Instead of trying to get a bigger picture of the actual cost in the beginning, we are sold something which is cheaper in order for it to be more tenable. In the end they try to act surprised when they find all these "hidden" costs.
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I assume you have never renovated an old house. Even with very careful planning one almost invariably finds 'surprises' and the Union Station project was (is) a huge one. I am not at all surprised they ran into additional costs but the result to date is really spectacular.
 
DSC said:
I assume you have never renovated an old house. Even with very careful planning one almost invariably finds 'surprises' and the Union Station project was (is) a huge one. I am not at all surprised they ran into additional costs but the result to date is really spectacular.
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On the results aspect - I finally had a chance to walk through the new York concourse and I was a little disappointed with the quality of the finishing - it wasn't nearly as impressive as it could have been, and it's clear value engineering has reared its' head.

AoD
 
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