Eglinton Crosstown line

[Shaun]

12 hours ago, Mike said:

1582m + 865m = 2445m or almost 2.5km not too bad.   Total tunnel length for each tunnel is 5.4km so they are done almost 25% of the tunnel.  If this pace continues tunnels will be done by the end of 2024.

That's about 10m per day. Really? That's considered good?

[smallspy]

37 minutes ago, Shaun said:

That's about 10m per day. Really? That's considered good?

Have you ever thought to do the very slightest bit of research before vomiting out another of your hot takes?

 

15m/day is considered good progress. TBMs generally start out slow, and then improve as everyone gets uses to their operation, meaning that the average speed starts out slow, and then builds up as they complete their work. So to have an average of 10m/day so early on is quite good, yes.

 

Dan

[Wayside Observer]

There's no 'credible plan' to complete the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, confidential documents say

Well, I guess that does explain why Metrolinx hasn't been forthcoming with a revised opening date.  If they themselves don't have one, they can't provide one.

[GTAmissions1]

41 minutes ago, Wayside Observer said:

There's no 'credible plan' to complete the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, confidential documents say

Well, I guess that does explain why Metrolinx hasn't been forthcoming with a revised opening date.  If they themselves don't have one, they can't provide one.

Especially when it has gone over budget by $1 billion dollars so far. To a total of $12.81 billion dollars and counting.

Along with one of the companies in the consortium in financial trouble. It is going to be an uphill battle to maintain progress and budget without more issues. Metrolinx really handling the situation poorly and trying to avoid the true state of the situation. 

[MK78]

Yeah I read that earlier, that just leaves me speechless... What a fustercluck.

[T3G]

Phew, I'm glad the fate of our upcoming transit expansion projects doesn't also lay in the hands of these bozos.

Oh...

[Xtrazsteve]

What you mean they are clueless. They were on their high horse silently calling the TTC stupid and they have a better way to deliver these projects. They took the LRT planning off the TTC engineer's hands cause they knew better. Look the the Relief became Ontario Line. ML is the "expert" with no actual experience of opening a subway line.

Cities who have subways already don't take 12+ years to build one line. 

[Wayside Observer]

Maybe a year ago or so, one of my friends asked if Metrolinx has ever opened a new line.

I almost said no, that what they're operating now is all inherited from Go Transit, but then I remembered UP Express.  Even that's a bunch of station renovations plus a short stub off an existing railway line plus an order of DMU cars to run the service with, so how much of a new line is it really?  And despite that, it's still been a debacle that Steve Munro's covered extensively.

[MK78]

12 hours ago, T3G said:

Phew, I'm glad the fate of our upcoming transit expansion projects doesn't also lay in the hands of these bozos.

Oh...

I'm dreading the time when the Eglinton east LRT extension starts, east of Kennedy, then on Kingston and Morningside. But with the Ontario Line and Scarborough Subway extension that probably won't start for a decade. I honestly may have to move out of here by then.

[lip]

50 minutes ago, MK78 said:

I'm dreading the time when the Eglinton east LRT extension starts, east of Kennedy, then on Kingston and Morningside. But with the Ontario Line and Scarborough Subway extension that probably won't start for a decade. I honestly may have to move out of here by then.

Dont worry, it's not happening anytime soon. The city has no funding for it, and as long as John Tory is mayor nothing will change on that front.

The Waterfront East LRT is ahead of it in priority, so it's supposed to get built first. So as long as you dont see construction on the Waterfront line, you'll never have to worry about the Eglinton East line.

[MRD10]

4 hours ago, MK78 said:

I'm dreading the time when the Eglinton east LRT extension starts, east of Kennedy, then on Kingston and Morningside. But with the Ontario Line and Scarborough Subway extension that probably won't start for a decade. I honestly may have to move out of here by then.

Eglinton East LRT will never be built, the BRT Lite they have going on is mildly superior as concluded by the TTC in a report.

[MK78]

52 minutes ago, MRD10 said:

Eglinton East LRT will never be built, the BRT Lite they have going on is mildly superior as concluded by the TTC in a report.

Good to hear. The bus lane priority is a little bit of a pain in the ass at times, but still better than enduring 10 years of construction.

[CLRV4094]

19 hours ago, Wayside Observer said:

There's no 'credible plan' to complete the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, confidential documents say

Well, I guess that does explain why Metrolinx hasn't been forthcoming with a revised opening date.  If they themselves don't have one, they can't provide one.

What a joke. Here we are, parts of the line looking near completion after over a decade of construction, and still, no end in sight. Well, it's no wonder why nobody takes Metrolinx seriously...

[T3G]

3 hours ago, MK78 said:

Good to hear. The bus lane priority is a little bit of a pain in the ass at times, but still better than enduring 10 years of construction.

I know Metrolinx is a textbook example of incompetence, but surely even in their wildest dreams an overground tram line should not take 10 years to build.

Substantial construction work on Finch West began only in quarter 2 of 2019. That being said, utilities relocation began in 2016, and the contract to build the line itself wasn't awarded for another 2 years afterwards, so take away from that what you will.

[MRD10]

1 hour ago, T3G said:

Substantial construction work on Finch West began only in quarter 2 of 2019. That being said, utilities relocation began in 2016, and the contract to build the line itself wasn't awarded for another 2 years afterwards, so take away from that what you will.

It is so surprising how Finch West LRT is progressing so rapidly and efficiently! I know Metrolinx would never allow this, but Finch West could very well be ready and open before Crosstown!

[Articulated]

25 minutes ago, MRD10 said:

It is so surprising how Finch West LRT is progressing so rapidly and efficiently! I know Metrolinx would never allow this, but Finch West could very well be ready and open before Crosstown!

It shouldn't be too surprising. The above-ground portion of the Eglinton Crosstown line seems to be fully complete (and has been for a while) despite starting construction well after the tunnelling started, despite both sections being built by the same (apparently incompetent) companies.

Surface operation is so much less complicated to construct compared to underground or even elevated structures; therefore, it's both faster and cheaper to build. That's the whole reason why the Eglinton West extension was supposed to be above-ground, where there was room to accommodate it within the existing corridor.

[Turtle]

Just to let you guys know...line5 eglinton LRT is scheduled to open in July 2023, training of operators is scheduled to start for Jan 2023, but there hasn't been any notices of such. They have 150 ops on the transfer list, but some of them have retired or are retiring before then. They want 55 more ops for the line. Vacation sign up for the line has already occurred. Basically it's a big cluster fuck right now.

 

TTC rail instructors have already gotten their training for the most part, but they didn't have full access to the line since Metrolinx didn't allow them in the central section (still considered a mining/construction operation).

[smallspy]

5 hours ago, Turtle said:

Just to let you guys know...line5 eglinton LRT is scheduled to open in July 2023, training of operators is scheduled to start for Jan 2023, but there hasn't been any notices of such.

There's absolutely been notices. I have two friends who have received notices about their impending training in January.

 

Of course, they also received the first notices back in August or so for the first round of training, and look where that got them.

Dan

[Turtle]

1 hour ago, smallspy said:

There's absolutely been notices. I have two friends who have received notices about their impending training in January.

 

Of course, they also received the first notices back in August or so for the first round of training, and look where that got them.

Dan

Notices of what? They did pretests back in May 2022. How could your friends get notices of training in August when ttc OTC rail wasn't even started their training then? OTC just recently finished up their training for it, which started at the end of Sept 2022.

 

ttc OTC rail wasn't even allowed to operate in the central portion either, Metrolinx didn't allow them there.

[Turtle]

I might as well break it to you guys right now...they are adopting some operating rules from streetcar to the lrt(s). Specifically the ones I know of have to do with speeds through intersections, speeds passing a stopped lrv, and platform bypass speeds...all "less than 25km/h"

 

Sorry

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, Turtle said:

I might as well break it to you guys right now...they are adopting some operating rules from streetcar to the lrt(s). Specifically the ones I know of have to do with speeds through intersections, speeds passing a stopped lrv, and platform bypass speeds...all "less than 25km/h"

 

Sorry

So much for having a fast European style LRT and take advantage of all that infrastructure and private right of way to blow by the road traffic.  The idea was nice while it lasted.

[T3G]

Honestly, the more of this lunacy we see, the more I sympathize, if not agree, with the folk pushing for subways deep into suburbia. When you see a system that's as slow and scared of its own shadow as the TTC's streetcar network is is, why in your right mind would you advocate to have that in your neighbourhood? Especially a line like Eglinton, we've spent how many billions on tunneling it and the eastern fringes are going to be as slow and unpleasant as the legacy streetcar network?

We are spending billions on subways to Scarborough because the TTC does an intolerably awful job of promoting streetcars as a viable form of travel. If we had a streetcar network like untold cities in Europe, with private lanes and transit priority, maybe people wouldn't have been so taken in by the Ford nation subways subways subways kool-aid.

[Wayside Observer]

1 hour ago, T3G said:

Honestly, the more of this lunacy we see, the more I sympathize, if not agree, with the folk pushing for subways deep into suburbia. When you see a system that's as slow and scared of its own shadow as the TTC's streetcar network is is, why in your right mind would you advocate to have that in your neighbourhood? Especially a line like Eglinton, we've spent how many billions on tunneling it and the eastern fringes are going to be as slow and unpleasant as the legacy streetcar network?

We are spending billions on subways to Scarborough because the TTC does an intolerably awful job of promoting streetcars as a viable form of travel. If we had a streetcar network like untold cities in Europe, with private lanes and transit priority, maybe people wouldn't have been so taken in by the Ford nation subways subways subways kool-aid.

The Toronto Star had an op-ed to that effect yesterday:

Queen and King streetcars show Toronto why the subway is the better way: it works  (cached version)

The first line:  "It’s tough being a supporter of public transit right now."  That pretty much captures the current situation with the TTC in a nutshell.

I was thinking about the Eglinton Crosstown line importing practices from streetcar operations when I stepped outside a little bit ago and got blasted with the cold.  Are they going to be opening all doors at every stop on the surface as well?  And let all the heat/air conditioning out every time the way they do on the streetcars?

[Xtrazsteve]

I really don't get this rule. They could slow down a bit when proceed through an intersection but once the cab is in the intersection, it wouldn't be as unsafe to speed up. They better not have the entire 60m (or 90m) train to crawl through the intersection would be dreadful. Time for ML to revoke TTC's operating agreement!

I don't know if I support TTC operating these LRT anymore, management have gone downhill enough I don't care if they privatize it. It might actually get better knowing they have an obligations to meet certain quotas to get their contracts renewed. The TTC however can do what they want and have all the vehicles at one end cause the managers aren't getting fired and TTC will still operate them tomorrow.

[T3G]

Why would they need to slow down at all through an intersection? Other traffic doesn't, including the TTC's own buses! If you painted bus lanes on Eglinton East you'd get a faster riding experience for much less than what we ended up spending on the Crosstown.

The TTC is deeply incompetent, but don't go taking the idea too far the other way either. Stupidity, laziness, lack of accountability, corruption, etc. are all hallmarks of many private sector institutions too. Remember that this whole boondoggle (*gestures vaguely at everything*) happened under the watch of a P3 consortium. There is a lot of blame to go around.