Happy Birthday Eglinton LRT

[sburns]

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There is a lot of political pressure on this one in my understanding, and more importantly the vast majority of the drive is underground...meaning away from winter conditions.

As @GreyGhost correctly pointed out, it may also hide some of the issues under a blanket issue (weather) to hide any issues.

These are extremely complex systems that are being phased out, and unless everything is working together (or as close to it as possible) it becomes a horrifying exercise in trying to figure out what's to blame.

As there should be, this is an obscene amount of time sunk into this project, which could have been used to for other projects.

Not to diminish the amount of complexity, but it only took 5 years to build a railroad across Canada. Are we sure it's engineering complexity and not something else? Either way it's totally embarrassing.

 

[GreyGhost]

As there should be, this is an obscene amount of time sunk into this project, which could have been used to for other projects.

Not to diminish the amount of complexity, but it only took 5 years to build a railroad across Canada. Are we sure it's engineering complexity and not something else? Either way it's totally embarrassing.

Too many wants. Too much focus on nice to haves. Too many authorities wanting to be involved and sign off. That ends up with a project that spends 80% of the time and money on nice-to-haves like grass on the ROW and indigenous consultation and very little time on the core function (like switches that work in the snow).

All new lines should open as roughly bare concrete bunkers. If the city wants to spend billions in the future beautifying it with tiles and public art, that is on them to spend their tax dollars. Money from higher tier governments should be strictly limited to functional improvements.

The rail line across the country was built by private enterprise to make money. Public transit is built by wankers intent on virtue signalling and spending as much as possible. Not only are they not aiming for profitability, it's not even one of their criteria in reality. Renaming stations not even opened yet is a shining star of this philosophy. That triggers tile work, millions in station signage, millions in redoing every map, website and reference, etc. Absolutely zero benefit to anyone for all that money spent.

 

[mimico_polak]

As there should be, this is an obscene amount of time sunk into this project, which could have been used to for other projects.

Not to diminish the amount of complexity, but it only took 5 years to build a railroad across Canada. Are we sure it's engineering complexity and not something else? Either way it's totally embarrassing.

@GreyGhost basically summed it up almost perfectly.

Too many cooks in the kitchen, and too many people wanting their 'mark' on the project as part of their own internal little legacy.

I have personally spent hundreds of hours on nothing more than pacifying stakeholders which required handholding and explanation as to why what they want is ludicrous and is NOT going to work...but ever try talking to a brick wall?

'oh you want to move my infrastructure over there? No problem, that'll be hundreds of thousands of dollars to move this one simple thing, hundreds of thousands because now you must upgrade ALL of my infrastructure connecting to it, and just to make it more fun I won't tell you where the interface starts, ends, or what it entails. But I'll make sure to tell you what you're doing wrong with 5-10 cycles of comments where each time you close a comment, I'll add a few more just for fun.'

See how much fun that is?

So while yes, MX is the easy target on this...every single stakeholder involved is just as guilty for imposing ludicrous requirements and shutting down progress while they get their wish.

Oh and most importantly....remove the politicians from the decision making process and you'll save billions.

The SSE was fully funded, designed, and ready to go. Until the Fords got into power and said 'subways subways subways!'.

A fully funded, designed, and ready to construct project was scrapped because Ford wanted a subway.

A previously started line many years ago (Sheppard) broke ground, ordered materials, set up contracts, and got cancelled, backfilled, and scrapped because of a change in gov't.

There is no simple answer.

 

[410001661]

I see this mistake happening across Canada - Kitchener, Ottawa, and now Hamilton is signing up for some of this abuse.

70% of the cars in Ottawa are inoperative. Who are the clowns writing these performance contracts?

 

[sburns]

@GreyGhost basically summed it up almost perfectly.

There is no simple answer.

Get rid of politicians?
I'm ready for our Ai overlords, and just have frontline workers

Too many wants. Too much focus on nice to haves. Too many authorities wanting to be involved and sign off. That ends up with a project that spends 80% of the time and money on nice-to-haves like grass on the ROW and indigenous consultation and very little time on the core function (like switches that work in the snow).

All new lines should open as roughly bare concrete bunkers. If the city wants to spend billions in the future beautifying it with tiles and public art, that is on them to spend their tax dollars. Money from higher tier governments should be strictly limited to functional improvements.

The rail line across the country was built by private enterprise to make money. Public transit is built by wankers intent on virtue signalling and spending as much as possible. Not only are they not aiming for profitability, it's not even one of their criteria in reality. Renaming stations not even opened yet is a shining star of this philosophy. That triggers tile work, millions in station signage, millions in redoing every map, website and reference, etc. Absolutely zero benefit to anyone for all that money spent.

Yeah the grass between the rails, <facepalm> who the fuk, really, talk about a maintenance nightmare, and just plain dumb.

 

[mimico_polak]

I see this mistake happening across Canada - Kitchener, Ottawa, and now Hamilton is signing up for some of this abuse.

70% of the cars in Ottawa are inoperative. Who are the clowns writing these performance contracts?

The problem with the contracts is that they’re built for a P3 or DBF, or PDB and Infrastructure Ontario keeps coming up with new names for new types of contracts that no one is aware of in Canada.

The hammer was a DBB where all the risk was on the owner. Then it swung to a P3 which transitions risk to the contractor.

Once P3 came out very few people want to bid (or can bid) because of the billions required in bonding, lines of credit, etc etc etc

So they come up with these ludicrous contracts that strive for collaboration and kumbaya.

In theory they’re great. In practice….oh my.

 

[GreyGhost]

The problem with the contracts is that they’re built for a P3 or DBF, or PDB and Infrastructure Ontario keeps coming up with new names for new types of contracts that no one is aware of in Canada.

The hammer was a DBB where all the risk was on the owner. Then it swung to a P3 which transitions risk to the contractor.

Once P3 came out very few people want to bid (or can bid) because of the billions required in bonding, lines of credit, etc etc etc

So they come up with these ludicrous contracts that strive for collaboration and kumbaya.

In theory they’re great. In practice….oh my.

 

[POWERMAN]

I'm ready for our Ai overlords, and just have frontline workers

Careful what you wish for...

Now, if one doesn't have kids, I can see how they wouldn't be vested in the future..

 

[mimico_polak]

This sums it up pretty damn well!

 

[backmarkerducati]

Correct me if I am wrong... I was under the impression that these new LRTs are owned by Metrolinx but will be operated by the TTC and maintenance is contracted out to a third party by Metrolinx... So WHEN the TTC has a maintenance issue they need to go through Metrolinx that then goes to their contractor?

As I said I could be misunderstanding the situation....

 

[nobbie48]

I see this mistake happening across Canada - Kitchener, Ottawa, and now Hamilton is signing up for some of this abuse.

70% of the cars in Ottawa are inoperative. Who are the clowns writing these performance contracts?

I was briefly involved in the Ottawa fiasco last spring, coming away shaking my head.

It's like ten carpenters showing up to build a house and someone asks: "Anyone got a tape measure?"

The replies: "Nope, no, not me, Uh-uh, nada, forgot, lost mine, nah, sorry, nobody told me.

Is it too late to start over?

 

[GreyGhost]

Is it too late to start over?

Not only are they not starting over, they are using that as the template for others going forward. Same contractor that was an epic fail on Phase 1 was given contract for Phase 2. Same switches that cause unending problems in Ottawa were installed on Finch LRT where they also don't work.

 

[nobbie48]

Not only are they not starting over, they are using that as the template for others going forward. Same contractor that was an epic fail on Phase 1 was given contract for Phase 2. Same switches that cause unending problems in Ottawa were installed on Finch LRT where they also don't work.

BS baffles brains.

 

[mimico_polak]

Correct me if I am wrong... I was under the impression that these new LRTs are owned by Metrolinx but will be operated by the TTC and maintenance is contracted out to a third party by Metrolinx... So WHEN the TTC has a maintenance issue they need to go through Metrolinx that then goes to their contractor?

As I said I could be misunderstanding the situation....

That’s Bout right.

ECLRT is a new line so they can do basically whatever.

Owned by MX, operated by TTC, and maintained by TTC/Third Party depending on what needs maintaining.

MX is the asset holder.

SSE/ECWE/YNSE are all similar but as they’re tying into existing TTC lines they need to ensure all systems, components, rails, regs, etc need to meet or exceed (so long as they don’t conflict) with TTC Design Manual.

Many started off as DBFM (Design Build Finance Maintain) but transitioned to DBM due to the huge costs of financing it oneself for a duration of X decades.

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