TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Any thoughts on the reasons for the increase?
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Any thoughts on the reasons for the increase?
Anonymous2000
New Member
I'm well of that. The province owns it through Hydro One.
I admit I wasn't clear in my previous post. What I should have said in my post was we should have encourage the province to transfer the lands within the hydro corridor to the city then have the city to encourage developement mixed use office, residential, retail, etc around them with the goal of subway-worthy ridership.
Here is another article encouraging this route option.
http://worldwidewickens.com/?p=610
I'm also aware that the province this past November sold 13.6% of Hydro One with the goal of selling 60%. This may a hindrance now, but I still think that we can get the province to stop with the sale or at least get them to have Hydro One transfer a portion of the Gatineau Corridor between Kennedy and Mc Cowan Rd to City of Toronto. We can use this portion for mixed use R+P development. I want this subway extension to be successful as possible. I am not talking about reinventing the wheel here. As I mentioned in my previous post, other cities around the world such as Hong Kong and other cities in East Asia do this, why can't we.
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kEiThZ
Superstar
That made sense when commodity prices were high and there was an oil boom in Alberta sucking away construction workers. I would think prices would be lower now.
It was something like $100M/km to tunnel and $150M per station for Sheppard. I highly doubt that moderately higher building codes and tighter safety regs took it to $470M/km. Also note that $400M plus for this SSE means that it's mostly for tunneling. Not for the 1.5 stations to be built. Even if we're generous with station costs, we're talking $250M/km for the tunnel. If that's the case, anybody should be seriously be worried about the DRL. This is not to slam the DRL. This is to point out that either costs on this line are inflated or we're doing something so wrong that it might be jeopardizing a good deal of transit building in this city. I hope to see a revised lower estimate on the SSE. It'll bolster confidence for building the DRL down the line.
bobbob911
Active Member
How do you guess what construction prices might be in 5-8 years when this construction would truly get underway? There's still a housing boom in Toronto and Vancouver.
ILuvTO
Active Member
Once we get the Scarborough subway built we can hopefully shift our focus from political transit planning to one based on density and demand. This one subway has been the most contested and debated. It needs to be built for the good of the city so we can all move onto other projects.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
If this isn't a problem for the SSE, I don't see why it would be a problem for the RL. Both will be moving forward at about the same time.
drum118
Superstar
Labour cost increase at 3% yearly if not more.
Cost of items bought outside of Canada due to our shrinking dollar.
The amount of work out there that see less bidders and the ability to seek higher profit.
Construction and Safety Standards.
How things are over design in the first place or lack of them.
The only subway that needs to be built is the extension to Cloverdale and building the DRL to Steeles. Then it will be building the 2nd Yonge Line from Steeles to Queens Quay that will be more an express line and use Bay St south of St Clair.
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Filip
Senior Member
There must be solutions to this problem though...
Most Western European cities are building transit at a much lower cost, sometimes through labour and construction companies sourced from China. If the domestic marketplace is pricing itself out of the running, then we shouldn't have a problem sourcing labour elsewhere. Free market rules, right? Or not.
Most Western European cities are building transit at a much lower cost, sometimes through labour and construction companies sourced from China. If the domestic marketplace is pricing itself out of the running, then we shouldn't have a problem sourcing labour elsewhere. Free market rules, right? Or not.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Because if a ~7km line with one stop is $2.6 billion, then we're probably woefully underestimating the cost of DRL phase one. Let alone the whole DRL (West and East).
robmausser
Senior Member
kEiThZ
Superstar
Or look at continuous phased construction. For example, we'd consider slow annual expansion of the DRL, maybe 1-2 stations a year....
Filip
Senior Member
I can't wait to ride the full DRL on my deathbed! I wonder if they'd allow my gurney on the train?
I don't trust this city to ever be able to keep a continuous subway building regiment.
The answer to this should be simple, get the government to approve offshore labour for major public works, and watch the costs of transit building drop like a rock throughout the country. If the domestic market is too expensive, then we should be able to source from abroad. It's the basis of our current economy anyway. The TTC's fair wage policy doesn't help matters either... It's like a big sign saying 'charge us as much as you want, if you're local and unionized, we'll buy'.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
In the past three years, we've had independent two price estimates for the Relief Line cost that were within $300 million of each other; that's a 9% margin of error. I'm not going to say you're wrong, but I'll stick to believing the experts who seem to agree the cost is about $3.5 Billion.
With these large scale engineering projects, I'm positive there are factors that we haven't considered that have not allowed for greater cost savings with SSE. Maybe they estimation includes designing the station in such a way that future stations can easily be added; that is something that could add significantly onto the cost.
ILuvTO
Active Member
This is the way to go once the SSE and phase 1 of the DRL are implemented. These two biggies need to get in and then the rest can be done over a phased approach by adding 1-2 stops per year as you said. Sounds so simple, yet in Toronto something like this is anything but.
smallspy
Senior Member
Well, for one, this isn't western Europe.
Second, to the best of my knowledge, the only North American city currently engaged in constructing a subway line anywhere near what would be considered "downtown" would be New York. The vast majority of the other lines seem to be being built in the suburbs (much like the B-D extension to Scarborough Town Centre), and thus that will change the economics and costing of the line.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.