Does Construction Take Too Long to Complete in This City?

[innsertnamehere]

really puts north american public works work ethic to shame
I guarantee that even if we had twice the people we would still be wasting over half of them
walking around in circles. Mind you they did replace the CN diamond as part of he georgetown upgrades in 1 night
but this is a whole different level. even in the timelapse you can see that everyone is working efficiently with little downtime and smoke breaks. these were
also the people who after the 2011 tsunami completely rebuilt 500ft of road that was completely broken and flipped in under a week.

*ahem*

[video=youtube;7wzTPpSxhNc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wzTPpSxhNc[/video]

 

[nfitz]

See link, when Toronto replaced the track at the King, Queen, Roncesvalles in five hours, in 1923.

It's a different construction standard though, isn't it. How long until they had to do it the next time?

They didn't set the ties in concrete. And they didn't need time to cure.

 

[drum118]

It's a different construction standard though, isn't it. How long until they had to do it the next time?

They didn't sent the ties in concrete. And they didn't need time to cure.

Even if the base concrete was pour first, TTC would never do this work in one day using the panel system and allowing for no concrete being pour.

One only has to watch the next intersection to be done to see how slow things take today as well who is really working.

Labour was cheap in the 20's to the point you were gone the next day if you couldn't do the work fast enough, as there was someone waiting for that person position. Today, a totally different picture and harder to find people to do the work in the first place, regardless how much the job pays.

People don't want to get their hands dirty and want the white collar jobs these days.

 

[nfitz]

Even if the base concrete was pour first, TTC would never do this work in one day using the panel system and allowing for no concrete being pour.

One only has to watch the next intersection to be done to see how slow things take today as well who is really working.

Labour was cheap in the 20's to the point you were gone the next day if you couldn't do the work fast enough, as there was someone waiting for that person position. Today, a totally different picture and harder to find people to do the work in the first place, regardless how much the job pays.

People don't want to get their hands dirty and want the white collar jobs these days.

Turning the labour situation back 100 years would change little. It's not the price and quality of the labourers that controls the speed of a project.

 

[ksun]

Labour was cheap in the 20's to the point you were gone the next day if you couldn't do the work fast enough, as there was someone waiting for that person position. Today, a totally different picture and harder to find people to do the work in the first place, regardless how much the job pays.

People don't want to get their hands dirty and want the white collar jobs these days.

I don't agree with that.
Plenty of people want to do the job for half what costs the TTC, but the unions won't allow it to happen (so that market based wage prevails), will them?
People should be gone if they can't get things done fast enough.

 

[ksun]

Turning the labour situation back 100 years would change little. It's not the price and quality of the labourers that controls the speed of a project.

you talk as if there is no massive efficiency issue with our infrastructure projects, as if the slow speed is fully explained away by higher quality and higher labour cost.
Projects are slow mostly because workers are lazier and less hardworking than before, simply because they CAN without the fear of losing their job. And that's not exactly positive progress.

 

[typezed]

I appreciate it when people so obsessed with the work ethic of others make themselves available to comment on an Internet forum weekdays during normal work hours. It must tear at them given their high standards of behaviour.

 

[wopchop]

you talk as if there is no massive efficiency issue with our infrastructure projects, as if the slow speed is fully explained away by higher quality and higher labour cost.
Projects are slow mostly because workers are lazier and less hardworking than before, simply because they CAN without the fear of losing their job. And that's not exactly positive progress.

And what experience lends you to make this expert conclusion? Walking by construction sites?

There is no one more useless than the armchair critic.

 

[muller877]

Even if the base concrete was pour first, TTC would never do this work in one day using the panel system and allowing for no concrete being pour.

One only has to watch the next intersection to be done to see how slow things take today as well who is really working.

Labour was cheap in the 20's to the point you were gone the next day if you couldn't do the work fast enough, as there was someone waiting for that person position. Today, a totally different picture and harder to find people to do the work in the first place, regardless how much the job pays.

People don't want to get their hands dirty and want the white collar jobs these days.

There are 5 things that have slowed down infrastructure development in this city. All can be fixed...just needs the political will.

1. EA process. The EA process was first conceived to ensure there was no environmental risk (think of oil spill). The process has been hijacked by NIMBY's and consultants to over-study projects which causes delay and engineering costs. Some estimate that the overall EA process is about 10% of a budget (which can be reduced to 2-5% if there were less road-blocks)

2. Goverment surcharge. The government puts up so many road blocks to private contractors that they sometimes charge a 25% nuisance fee. For example, to move a fire hydrant they will charge a resident $25,000....this includes the cost of a $500,000 fund in case of a problem. If the city reduced this or permitted a surety bond the fee would be reduced. And if they made the bidding process open (and not to "preferred vendors") it would reduce the cost.

3. Built in overrun percentage. For all major projects the government adds a 10-15% buffer. Then they use the gross number to see if they are on target. This is incorrect. They should be targeting the base number. Large construction companies target the base number on private deals and if the project is run efficently they can be under budget.

4. Union contacts. The closed shop creates a disinentive to quickly complete a job. This is due to the overtime surcharges and the lack of manual labourers. On most non-union deals workers are quite happy with overtime even at time or time and a half. Depending on the union contract it could be time and a half or double time which makes it uneconomical to run longer shifts. As well, a labourer costs $18/hr including WSIB in a non-union shop. They will carry stuff around, clean and make it easy for the specialists to work quicker. This cost could be easily double in a union shop.

5. Architecture. In the '50's when we wanted to build a school or subway the province did one architectural drawing. This is seen throughout Ontario is our schools. I can be in Ottawa, Toronto or Thunder Bay and have the same design for a school. This created reduced architectural fees, engineering fees and even construction fees. If I'm a contractor and I recently completed building a school I could build the second school quicker because it's the same thing I did last time. Same rational that in subdividisions there are a limited number of designs for houses. Trying to be unique is great but causes significant cost overages (it takes longer the first time you do things than the second).

Even though I talked about building the same rationale can apply to transit, roads and any infrastructure. I'm guessing the cost and time if government could figure out all of the above we could save 25% to 50% for both (cost and time).

 

[wopchop]

4. Union contacts. The closed shop creates a disinentive to quickly complete a job. This is due to the overtime surcharges and the lack of manual labourers. On most non-union deals workers are quite happy with overtime even at time or time and a half. Depending on the union contract it could be time and a half or double time which makes it uneconomical to run longer shifts.

Working longer shifts is one thing, but there is nothing stopping companies from running more than one shift, aside from manpower and obviously money. For most collective agreements, you don't need to pay time and a half or double time for a shift just because it runs in the evening or at night, as long as that is the designated regular shift. You would still have to pay a night premium, but that is a drop in the bucket compared to paying 1.5x or 2.0x regular wages.

A lot of projects actually do have more than one shift working. It depends on the economics of the project. Humber River Hospital, for example, has run more than one shift for almost the entire project. The recladding of First Canadian Place was done in two shifts. A lot of office building construction is actually multi-shift. On very congested sites, many projects have day-time working shifts and night-time shifts for delivery/staging of materials.

Manpower is a huge issue with running multiple shifts, as finding that many skilled workers can be quite difficult.

There is no disincentive to quickly complete a job because companies are not-unionized and don't get paid more for not completing work and missing schedule milestones. In fact, they tend to get paid less when that happens, and there are huge disincentives for those situations. Liquidated damages on some projects are upwards of $50,000 / day. You might say that regular workers don't care about things like that, but you can be sure that their general foreman and managers do, and if they're not working, it isn't very hard to lay off a unionized construction worker.

 

[Electrify]

Elevator opens at Lawrence West station... 8 years later!

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tra...lift_with_new_elevator_eight_years_later.html

:facepalm: