I don’t even care about their supposed dislike for LRT. Not because I would have liked to see a short subway expansion on Sheppard. But rather because I think a regional approach to transportation should be prioritized. We can’t say we care about transportation in the GTA and not support the regionalization of transportation management.

Yes, the TTC has lots of experience. They can put that to use by helping Metrolinx find their legs.

“Steve: Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario want to tender things in big packages, and what’s ready to go now isn’t big enough for their liking.”

That seems really bad. New York City and LA have both found in recent years that breaking projects up into smaller tenders gives better results.

Steve: It appears that IO is rather stubborn on this. Whether they will learn in time by seeing the difficulty of packaging it all in one tender remains to be seen.

“2. Note that TTC has been program managing the delivery of the LRT program in Toronto since 2008 and now that responsibility will transfer to Metrolinx. The TTC intends to continue to assist in the development of the design, build, operate, and/or maintain functions”

I guess that the commission has approved the transfer of project management responsibility of also Sheppard and Finch to Metrolinx (or to IO, in effect). However, I don’t believe that this is an endorsement of Metrolinx’s proposed timelines for these lines.

Is the commission trying to let Metrolinx take the projects, but trying to convince them to tweak their timelines? If so, agreeing to transfer all LRT projects away from the TTC may just make it more difficult.

Just to be clear, will the public be able to at least view the general requirements and demands of the design-build contracts? When you said that the terms are confidential, I couldn’t help but think that whoever is crafting the contract can slip the words “underground all the way to Kennedy”, but then I’d be surprised if this would be allowed to slip by without anyone noticing.

Steve:

As for the design, a lot of this depends on the good will of Metrolinx and their claim that preliminary design work leading to a contract will be open to the public view. However, the fine details won’t be visible until after a project has been awarded, and based on material released recently for the 407 East project, those details will be rather scanty. It is not clear what documents are in the public realm for easy review, or how much information would be considered part of a confidential arrangement between the Province and a bidder. The suspicious among us might view this as an opportunity for a bait-and-switch design, and it will only be with actual experience that we will learn whether Metrolinx can be trusted. It is worth noting that the TTC has made changes to approved projects after the fact without going through a formal public review. Suspicion is valid regarless of who “owns” the process.

“Staff claim that Sheppard could be started next year, although Metrolinx does not agree claiming that some utility and property acquisition work that should already have been completed was stopped when Ford changed course on the project.”

Are utility relocations generally packaged into the same construction contract? Perhaps what’s confusing is the language: I would say Metrolinx is correct that they can’t start laying rails immediately, but I can’t see what’s stopping them from relocating the utilities (if a utility-relocation contract has already been crafted). Maybe utility-relocations is what the TTC means when they say that construction can restart immediately.

Steve: Part of this has to do with how Metrolinx wants to bundle the work, and part is a plain old turf war. The TTC could have done a much better job of presenting an inventory of where various components of the project stood and how soon work might get underway. Instead, they spent a lot of time whining about the perceived inability of Metrolinx to carry out the contracts even though the same consultants would be working on the job, and the TTC would still be involved in the design process. Too much innuendo and not enough hard details did not help TTC staff’s credibility.

(1) York Region and Metrolinx have agreed upon a Master Agreement for the VIVA rapidways. Metrolinx owns the fixed assets – stations, rapidway pavement, fare-collection media, intelligent transportation system components – and is responsible for maintenance. The Region maintains operating responsibility at intersections and for fare collection. The Region will be the route operator, which makes sense, because the rapidways are just segments in between normal mixed-traffic operation. The Region continues to own the vehicles and is responsible for maintenance of the vehicles. The region is responsible for operating subsidies. Because of the requirements of The Metrolinx Act, 2006, a bylaw has to be passed empowering VIVA to be operator, and specifying service levels, schedules and fares on this provincially-owned asset.

(2) The Canada Line is another model. This was a DBFOM contract. For operations, the concessionaire has a 35 year contract to operate and maintain. They are compensated basically on % availability (ie % of trains requested by Translink that actually run) as well as other measurable parameters like train cleanliness and elevator availability. A small percentage of compensation is tied to passenger load. The contract has mechanisms to negotiate new performance targets and compensation if Translink asks for more service.

It seems to be working well, and the contractor is achieving 98% performance requirements.

Steve: From my talks with Metrolinx staff, the operating model for the Toronto lines is not yet finalized, but the Province has already announced that it wants the TTC to operate the lines. I suspect they are looking at the VIVA model. I do not believe that responsibility for the lines should be split off from TTC, but there is a question of the additional operating costs for an improved level of service on these routes. We have seen the same thing on the Spadina and Sheppard subways — a new line increases operating subsidy requirements, and the City (or whoever is funding transit operations) has to go into this with their eyes open. What is missing in this whole discussion is the subject of new revenue tools and what proportion of the new revenues will flow to the GTA operators as additional operating subsidy to support new and improved services. This is a much bigger issue than just our LRT lines as it affects the buildout of the GO network and local collection/distribution roles.

Steve said:
At the Allen Road, the situation is different in that the tunnel boring machine cannot go under the existing subway structure. The reason for this is that the Eglinton tunnel will be immediately below the Spadina structure and there would not be enough soil above the new tunnel to support the old one as the TBM moved through the site. This will require considerable disruption on Eglinton to remove the TBMs on the west side of the existing line and place them in a new launch area east of the station.

With Harris’ cancellation of the Eglinton subway back in the 90s, I remember tunnels being filled in at Eglinton West station. I’ve always assumed that these were right under the existing station.

If so, shouldn’t the YUS portion of the station already be supported well enough thanks to the earlier work?

If not, do you have any idea where the filled-in tunnels run and whether their existence will make the new boring easier or more difficult? I assume they’re not of a large enough diameter for the LRT, but am still curious.

Unrelatedly, the TTC staff report recommended starting work on Sheppard now but the Commission’s motions don’t specifically mention it. Did the Commission decide against making this request, or am I misreading it?

Steve: I believe that the partial construction at Eglinton West was not under the existing station but adjacent to it. I’m sure whatever structure was abandoned underground will be one more problem for the new project to deal with.

As for Sheppard, the TTC did not discuss that much one way or another. All of the “air in the room” was taken up with the debate about whether Metrolinx and IO were competent to do the work and challenges to staff’s report that had a “sky is falling” character to parts of it. Staff claim that Sheppard could be started next year, although Metrolinx does not agree claiming that some utility and property acquisition work that should already have been completed was stopped when Ford changed course on the project.

This could also be used as an experiment to see if through running the Scarborough LRT would be a good idea. If a lot of people who board the SLRT continue along the line across Eglinton, we would be able to see that there is demand from eastern Scarborough to points along Eglinton, rather than fearing that everyone on board would simply overcrowd the Yonge line.

Steve: Metrolinx, for reasons of their own, want to open the whole line as a “big bang” rather than staging the opening. I think they are making a big mistake politically by missing a chance for an earlier demonstration of what this project will bring Toronto, but their mind seems to be made up. Part of this has to do with the sequencing of various sub-projects and the way the work is being bundled in the AFP procurement process.

The issue about who runs the service is interesting. Combined with the Bombardier prototype Transit City LRV showing up in town in Metrolinx green, rather than TTC red, does this imply that Metrolinx has already made a decision?

“How many more elections can the Liberals win with the same promises?”

You’d be surprised. I would be confident to start betting right now that the Liberals will be pointing to their public transit “track record” (pun intended) when it comes to the election campaign, and doing their best to raise fears that the PC party (if elected) will gut public transit projects, while the NDP will overbuild public transit and raise the defecit & the provincial debt.

It will be interesting to see if the provincial Liberals can avoid the spectre of Bob Rae (then NDP Premier and now Federal Liberal “interim” leader but always a Liberal at heart) when it comes to the election.

By the way … just a thought … wouldn’t the Liberals have more political capital in the GTA (just in time for an upcoming election) if they started talking about (not building, but talking seriously about) LRT projects in, say, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo & Mississauga+Brampton? I have to wonder if we will start hearing more about those projects in, say, late 2013.

Cheers, Moaz

Steve: I suspect that this will all be bound up in discussions about new revenue tools. Once there is some commitment to raising more capital and operating support for transit, then any talk of further projects can be more than empty election rhetoric.

Nevertheless a private sector partner would be valuable when doing the design work. The TTC needs private sector expertise to design the above ground light rail sections properly so that they are similar to other high capacity LRT lines in the world like Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, etc. This means that there needs to be an effective signal prioritization system (not the ineffective ones on St. Clair/Spadina) and there should be proper platforms with high capacity rather than the tiny islands seen on St. Clair (which many of the newer American LRT systems have).

Steve: Metrolinx plans a construction technique at stations that is based on the scheme used in Los Angeles whereby a temporary roof is built over the station site so that work can be done below it while at least part of the street above continues to operate. The roof is built of cast sections, in effect large tiles, that can be removed as need be for access and material deliveries, but just as easily put back in place. This is much different from the decking many will remember from the construction of Sheppard-Yonge Station.

Stations for the surface sections are already designed with considerable capacity, and these locations are not constrained by street width as the St. Clair project was. The traffic signals bring up the long-standing debate that Toronto’s traffic engineers do not confer as much “priority” to transit as some plans and the experience of other cities would suggest is possible and preferable. Part of this relates to the frequency of TTC surface routes (if there is always a transit vehicle nearby, the transit route is always getting priority), and part to a lack of policy direction from Council that signals should clearly favour transit and the rest of the traffic can take second place. That is not the prevailing mood of Council for whom “congestion” and related issues takes precedence over transit.

I assume this is relating to recommendation 3 “Request Metrolinx/Infrastructure Ontario to respond to the issues and concerns around project finance, cost, schedule and delivery model raised in this paper”

Steve, do you know how this was modified? Or how the other recommendations were modified?

It’s a shame that it take a month for TTC to issue the minutes of the meeting. It’s near instantaneous for city committees these days.

Steve: I have updated the article with the official text of the motions approved by the Commission including the differences between them and the original staff recommendation. Interim versions of minutes are always available on request from the General Secretary’s OFfice.

I have to second ‘A Hopeless TTC Rider’s’ great appreciation for your highly-skilled and in-depth analyses here, and the effort you put in to make them understandable to laypeople like myself. Thank you!

As for his despairing over your concern that, between Metrolynx and the TTC, Transit City appears becalmed, out of fuel and captainless far out to sea with a dead radio and no help within reach. I cannot but think that this is delighting your mayor, his brother and all their cohorts who, I suspect, may be doing everything in their power (sub-rosa, of course!) to ensure that Transit City gets exactly nowhere.

I would not be the least surprised to eventually learn that Metrolinx is and was deeply in their pockets and not about to undertake any actual Transit City construction – and will obfuscate and blather on endlessly until HMS Transit City founders and slips beneath the waves, never again to be seen.

What you are describing in your “Who’s In Charge Here” essay sounds to me like the perfect storm of your mayor and his cohorts working their influence on Metrolinx. I hope Chairperson Karen Stintz and City Council as well as TTC chief Byford are on top of this possible scenario, if there’s credible reason to think it’s taking place backstage.

What happens in the event of one (or more) contractors going belly-up while the Eglinton line is under construction? Who steps in? What if there is no-one left to sue for breach of contract? Why on earth should the TTC get all the flak for a situation it has zero control over?

Success has a thousand fathers. Failure is an orphan. The province and Metrolinx will run away from this if things go south.

Steve: It’s not a question of the TTC’s insistence — that part of the project was already far enough along and very prominently advertised as work “finally” underway that to delay it to go through another procurement process would not be a politically acceptable delay. We already own two tunnel boring machines and the stations are designed with the idea that the tunnel is a long way underground. The alignment as designed could not be done cut-and-cover because it’s too deep and there’s a lot of stuff in the way closer to the surface.

More generally, a change in construction techniques is a matter of good or bad contract language. The Canada Line’s proponents were either gullible fools (and left a gaping hole in their specification), or they fully intended the builder to look at and possibly change the construction from deep bore to cut-and-cover. It is Metrolinx’ job to write a tight enough contract that this sort of thing does not happen.

It would be interesting to see a chart showing the steady creep in planned expenditures for TC. Call it a ‘$ Creep Chart’.

Having scuttled half of the original TC with funding cuts, the provincial government seems to to be doing its best to scuttle the other half with delays.

On the Georgetown GO line they have omitted one track for now, which delays both all day service and the expenditure for 6+ years.

How many more elections can the Liberals win with the same promises?

Second question: Why won’t Metrolinx consider the feasibility of converting/extending the Sheppard line to LRT?

Steve: Because from their point of view, this option is not on the table.

Last question: Why aren’t shovels in the ground yet??? It makes absolutely no sense!!

Steve: Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario want to tender things in big packages, and what’s ready to go now isn’t big enough for their liking.

“How come the only connecting to Durham Transit from Toronto (or from DT to Toronto) is a rush hour only route to Rouge Hill GO Station?”

It’s not … local service along Highway 2 is provided by GO’s route 94 for historic reasons. That provides a connection between Durham and Toronto. That route will (one day) be off-loaded onto DRT. Further, come July, DRT is extending an all-day route from Bayly St to UofT Scarborough.

Steve: According to the TTC, enough on part of the line that it could be tendered next year. According to Metrolinx that would cover half of the line, but there’s still the tunnel at the DVP as a major piece of design work plus the western half of the surface right-of-way.

Steve: TTC.

Transit City is dead. Transit City has 7 lines. Finch went from Humber river to Yonge, Sheppard as today, Eglinton from Malvern to Airport via Kennedy. Both Current Finch/Eggie planned lines are bastardized short versions. Just so you know. Please stop using Transit City. What David Miller gave and what plan we have now are not the same.

Just had to get that out of my system.

Steve: I hope you feel better. What we have today is a fragment of Transit City, but it’s still LRT with hopes that more will follow. I will continue to use the name. (After all, I invented it.)

Now for my real comment:

I honestly think all the GTHA transit systems should merge. Hamilton to Oshawa, Toronto to Barrie.

We have to think regional. Many people who use TTC come from outside 416/647.

Imagine if Metrolinx absorbed GTHA transit systems, in a way extending GO Transit.

Toronto would get fare zones/# of stops based system/distance based fares/etc…whatever you want to call it.

I think it is on Burnhamthorpe that when Missisauga Transit buses come, they can’t pick up passengers in Toronto when they go to Islington. VERY STUPID.

With fare based system…there could be more money…even buy swan boats for a new route.

That new route would start at Bayview and Steeles along the Don River and go all the way down to lake Ontario to the Portlands area. Making a lot of the stops locally.

The vehicles would be the Steve Swan Boats.

How come the only connecting to Durham Transit from Toronto (or from DT to Toronto) is a rush hour only route to Rouge Hill GO Station?

Steve: Durham Transit is not exactly the TTC, and transit anywhere east of the 416 is not as high a political priority as it is in Toronto. You may want to merge all of the systems to sort out fare issues, but do you really want service standards for the entire region to be unified too? Everyone talks a good line about the importance of transit, but local systems cut service all over the place because they are underfunded.

“Extend the Eglinton line’s opening date to 2022-23″

That little quote seems to me to allow the cost of the project to be spread out over an extra two or three years. Less overtime, more time for inspections and safety, and more time for designing.

Of course, they can do it the Chinese way, and just bulldoze away, ignore safety concerns, and pay minimum wages (or else).

“For DBFM it is not yet clear what level of specifications will be completed before the design work moves from the buyer (IO) to a bidding consortium, or how that consortium would interact with various municipal agencies or the public.”

Based on the information in the report, we know that the TTC will be involved somewhat in the design (30% detailed) if DB is chosen for stations. So I guess my confusion comes from whether DBFM necessarily involves the TTC in the design phase at all or not?

In other words, I had thought that both DB and DBFM would allow the TTC to be involved in the design, up to 30% detailed. So would it therefore be correct to say that DBFM would entail even less involvement with the TTC than DB (less than 30% before the contract leaves the TTC to the consortium)?

If the TTC is so concerned about community and traffic disruption during station construction, I still remain confused as to why they’re settling for DB rather than the traditional DBB for the in-line stations (despite your previous replies). Is this some sort of compromise with Metrolinx’s advocacy for AFP?

Steve: Partly it’s a compromise, partly it’s bad report writing. The TTC does a poor job of contrasting what happens under each scenario and, in the process, makes the distinction between what they and Metrolinx want to do much more difficult to understand.

Metrolinx wants TTC involvement, but only up to a point, mainly for some of the messier public-facing sides of the projects. Rather than being the project builders, TTC could wind up as a glorified facilitator, a consultant running public meetings for another agency. That’s not what the TTC had in mind.

I wonder if the problems on St. Clair may not play a significant part in the TTC’s position.

As I understand it, the TTC’s work was pretty much on budget and most of the delay was caused by external interference like the court case and City Hall interference. On the other hand other departments like Hydro refused to cooperate fully, keeping the street in construction mode for far longer than necessary. Yet all we hear is that the TTC was the one that fouled everything up.

As I read the revised plan, Metrolinx will be the one who will hold the contractors to the contract (or not), but TTC is to be the public face of the project, explaining why things aren’t proceeding as promised, eve though they have no control.

I certainly would not want to be in this position.

Actually, when I first read this I immediately recalled a bit of doggerel that was quoted a lot a few decades ago:

I’m not allowed to run the train
The whistle I can’t blow
I’m not the one who designates
How far the train will go
I’m not allowed to blow the steam
Or even ring the bell
But let the damn thing jump the track
And see who catches hell.

Your readers cannot possibly thank you enough for all the hard work you do, analyzing reams of data and taking the time to put things into technical and historical context. Your writing is clear, concise, and informative. I’m sure I speak for all your readers when I say that we truly, truly, appreciate what you are doing here.

It does get depressing, though, reading about all the things that have gone wrong,. are going wrong, or could go wrong. Is there anything that the TTC does right that you can tell us about? I ask that question not because I’m trying to take a jab at what you do here (and elsewhere), and not because I think negatives should be glossed over (not at all), but in the hopes that maybe there’s a little bit a silver lining amongst all these clouds. Sometimes transit in Toronto seems so hopeless. Is there anything going right?

Steve: The “new” TTC both at the Commission and management level has promise of better days ahead, although I am not yet convinced. There are two challenges: completely seizing control of the transit agenda (including budget) at Council, and getting Metrolinx/GO to stop thinking of local transit as something somebody else does. Part of this is advocacy, part of it is having the political will to vote down the Ford faction and provide a credible alternative to their policies.

Steve: Which TTC projects do you have in mind, and why?

I agree that the structure of any P3 contract is essential, and it’s easy to get hosed by the argument that the private sector can’t live with a restrictive, demanding contract. This usually means “we can’t game the system to make more money off of you”.

“There is an undercurrent in the TTC’s remarks that implies the construction process will not be as sensitive to communities if it is just handed off to a separate agency rather than staying under the TTC’s control”

Which would be fine if TTC had a reputation for being sensitive to communities, I suppose… they are definitely improving on this front but old grievances die hard.

Steve: And oddly enough, nobody mentions GO Transit and the West Toronto Grade Separation Project.

“Steve: There is an undercurrent in the TTC’s remarks that implies the construction process will not be as sensitive to communities if it is just handed off to a separate agency rather than staying under the TTC’s control. Each contractor for a set of stations will be have a primary goal of optimizing their work and minimizing their costs. This may not fit with being good neighbours to affected communities. A related problem is that any rules/guidelines that are concocted after the contracts are signed (for example a requirement to keep road lanes open) could be the basis for a claim of extra costs.”

Isn’t this a problem for both DB and DBFM methods? My understanding is that both methods would involve handing off the construction contract directly from the designers/consultants to the in-house contractors, with limited input from the TTC. If so, why would DB be any more preferable than DBFM?

Steve: Yes, the real issue is making sure that the constraints are all identified up front and taking responsibility for whatever changes come down the pipeline afterwards. Those of us who have watched TTC projects and change orders (those big enough to come through the Commission for approval) know that lots of things happen after the fact thanks to errors in the design stage (even though that work is often done by outside contractors now). Some of this reflects bad or changed specs from the client, and some is an “oops” by the designer. For example, it’s amazing that a lot of the underground infrastructure near Ashbridges Bay Carhouse was not discovered until the project was way past approval because, it is claimed, that sort of detailed investigation is done during detailed design. That’s almost like buying land in Florida without first checking for swamps and alligators.

The challenge for Metrolinx and IO will be to avoid this sort of “gotcha” in their design stage. They are lucky that a lot of the detailed work has already been done for the Eglinton tunnel alignment, and much of the rest of Transit City is on the surface.

If anything, I would have thought all in-line stations make more sense as Design-Bid-Build.

Steve: There is an undercurrent in the TTC’s remarks that implies the construction process will not be as sensitive to communities if it is just handed off to a separate agency rather than staying under the TTC’s control. Each contractor for a set of stations will be have a primary goal of optimizing their work and minimizing their costs. This may not fit with being good neighbours to affected communities. A related problem is that any rules/guidelines that are concocted after the contracts are signed (for example a requirement to keep road lanes open) could be the basis for a claim of extra costs. Because these are “commercial” contracts, their terms will be hidden under confidentiality rules.

The real issue here is with how the contracts are written, and what provision for community protection is included in them.

As for the subway performance KPI, the current standard is very low. At least they’re tracking it. When the old 2 minute headway was in effect on the Yonge line, the bean counters at the TTC actually didn’t know what was going on until they analyzed all of the data from the system’s pen records. The afternoon rush hour *never* finished on time because of the turnaround constraints at Finch. I’d like to see how ATO solves this.

It’s also interesting to note that the current subway KPI allows for a cumulative delay of close to 23 hours per month, with a passing grade. When the Y was in operation, and subway schedule adherence was at its absolute worst historically, the cumulative delay from the system’s timetable was approx. 25 hours per month … and that was considered unacceptable at the time. Now, it would be considered acceptable.

“The Metrolinx schedule delays construction start of the Sheppard East LRT to 2014 to accommodate the timelines for the AFP process.
The TTC, supported by the independent APTA Peer Review Panel, recommend:

• A realistic target in-service date of 2022-2023 for the Eglinton Crosstown LRT.
• Construction should be staged to address community impacts and operational constraints.
• Sufficient time for commissioning the line should be provided in the schedule.
• Continue to complete the Crosstown station designs and proceed immediately to DB to stagger the construction and major disruptions on Eglinton.
• Start construction of the Sheppard East LRT immediately.
• Start the Finch West LRT construction in 2015 consistent with Provincial cash flow requirements.
• Start the Scarborough RT construction in 2015 immediately after the Pan/Parapan American Games.
TTC staff recommend that Metrolinx be asked to comment on this alternative schedule, given the concerns expressed above and as noted by the APTA Peer Review Panel.”

It seems to add 2 to 3 years for delivery of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. As if Rob Ford delaying of the project is not enough.

Steve: The TTC has always felt that Metrolinx’ schedule for Eglinton was aggressive, while Metrolinx thinks the TTC is dragging its feet. The addition of IO’s machinations for the way the work will be tendered just adds to the mix. The funniest part is the idea that Metrolinx would independently comment on anything without an OK from the Premier’s and Minister’s offices.

I despair that these lines will be built even vaguely on time, whatever that will mean in a few years.

Seems they are not agreeable about Metrolinx’s decision to remove the project management from TTC.

Steve: I will write up my thoughts on this report tomorrow (May 29). The TTC seems to be saying “you want it, you take it … ALL of it” while warning that Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario probably will screw things up through inexperience and their ham-fisted attitude to public participation.