Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

AlvinofDiaspar said:
An article pointing to issues with our procurement philosophy:

http://www.thestar.com/news/city_ha...t_lowest_bids_should_get_government_work.html

That said, I do think we need to insert penalty clauses into contracts - recall how the York U station was left as a hole in the ground until it hit the news?

AoD
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I agree the policies do need to change but penalty clauses may not be the way to go. The primary issue with a penalty clause is that Canadian contract law makes it hard to enforce such a clause without an equal bonus clause. x days late = $x penalty, x days early = $x bonus. The other issue is it is hard for a public company not to select the low price, as it may appear biased or that some other back door dealing may be happening.

In working with government contracts (primarily with SNC/City of Toronto), the pre-qualification and design phases need to change. There are too many holes in the documents when they go to the Contractors or they go to Contractors which are simply not capable to complete the work (in terms of schedule or performance). A lot of the work is moving to PPP and to design-build now. I know there are other issues this type of work brings up, but an important factor is Owners (Government), designers and Contractors are all on the same team working together. While I am not trying to excuse the poor performance on the Spadina Extension - I am hopeful that future work will have less issues.
 
ksun said:
you honestly compare subway construction in Manhattan with Finch/Steeles west and Vaughan?
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The fact that building in Manhattan is more difficult/complicated/expensive than building at Finch/Steeles should have virtually no impact on the reliability of forecasts in terms of cost and timing. The things that make it more difficult are known to the planners/bidders/builders in advance of the budget and timelines being set.
 
TransitPolicyChanger said:
I agree the policies do need to change but penalty clauses may not be the way to go. The primary issue with a penalty clause is that Canadian contract law makes it hard to enforce such a clause without an equal bonus clause. x days late = $x penalty, x days early = $x bonus. The other issue is it is hard for a public company not to select the low price, as it may appear biased or that some other back door dealing may be happening.
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Bonus clause might not be a bad thing if it incentivize early completion to spec (there is a PR aspect we need to consider - it might make the additional budgeted cost easier to swallow on the part of the public; and conversely, the public would also feel better clawing back on a job behind schedule - it appeals to the sense of fairness). As to the latter - perhaps some kind of a scaled rating system should be used on contractors based on their previous work and factored into the ranking (instead of a straight up yes/no).

AoD
 
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TOareaFan said:
The fact that building in Manhattan is more difficult/complicated/expensive than building at Finch/Steeles should have virtually no impact on the reliability of forecasts in terms of cost and timing. The things that make it more difficult are known to the planners/bidders/builders in advance of the budget and timelines being set.
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but I am sure if delay occurs in a downtown subway, the same people will say "because the project is complicated and difficult in downtown due to the utilities/path/underground shops and of course we will run into more unknown problems as there are more uncertainties compared to the middle of nowhere".

by any account, 6 suburban stations taking 6 years is pretty pathetic. As a taxpayer, I don't care about who (ttc/contractor) is responsible. The fact is this project is badly managed and executed.

by the way, isn't the extension supposed to serve the Pam Am games? Guess it won't open for that after all.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
That said, I do think we need to insert penalty clauses into contracts - recall how the York U station was left as a hole in the ground until it hit the news?
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All IO contracts do in fact have a penalty clause. The Contractors are liable for liquidated damages (generally calculated on a daily basis from the contracted date of substantial completion) to be paid to the Owner, in the event that the delay is not a legitimate one. Certain delays can be legally seen as legitimate (ie. if fault cannot be assigned to the contractor for the delay), and a schedule extension would be provided for those.
 
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wopchop said:
All IO contracts do in fact have a penalty clause. The Contractors are liable for liquidated damages (generally calculated on a daily basis from the contracted date of substantial completion) to be paid to the Owner, in the event that the delay is not a legitimate one.
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Sadly I don't think Spadina is an IO project.

AoD
 
wopchop said:
All IO contracts do in fact have a penalty clause. The Contractors are liable for liquidated damages (generally calculated on a daily basis from the contracted date of substantial completion) to be paid to the Owner, in the event that the delay is not a legitimate one.
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whether that amount is actually realized is another matter.
For example, the Bruce Power refurbishment project was late by 4 years. Bruce didn't pay a cent of liquidated damage to Ontario. We ratepayers ended up paying a huge amount to compensate for their cost overrun.
 
Sadly I don't think Spadina is an IO project.
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Ah, right. Could be that this project doesn't have such a clause, although they are fairly common nowadays.

ksun said:
whether that amount is actually realized is another matter.
For example, the Bruce Power refurbishment project was late by 4 years. Bruce didn't pay a cent of liquidated damage to Ontario. We ratepayers ended up paying a huge amount to compensate for their cost overrun.
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I don't know the specifics of that project, but what happens at the end is that the delays are itemized and fault is assigned. If the contractor is not at fault, then the contractor can hardly be expected to pay liquidated damages to the Owner for the delay. It's possible that the cause of that delay was the fault of OPG itself and that is why no one paid anything, except taxpayers. It's also possible that no one is at fault for the delay (ie. unknowable conditions within the refurbishment arose). A good example of this on other projects is unknown soil conditions, which are often a cause of excusable delays.
 
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I think the TTC need to look at revamping their model completely - their track record has been abysmal (think Dufferin, Broadview, etc) and it eats into the credibility of the organization.

And I would be slightly more lenient with nukes, just because of the stakes and the risk of cutting corners.
 
wopchop said:
I don't know the specifics of that project, but what happens at the end is that the delays are itemized and fault is assigned. If the contractor is not at fault, then the contractor can hardly be expected to pay liquidated damages to the Owner for the delay.
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what happened was Bruce managed to convince the OPA to amend the agreement so that they no long need to pay for LD (and they receive more payment). As to fault, of course it is their fault - poor project management.
We do a lot of bad deals.
 
Edward Skira said:
New York City is a great example. Every major project (East Side Access, 2nd Avenue Subway, 7 Extension, WTC Path Station etc) are late and extremely over budget (some are double the cost). I'm sure we could find other examples.
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I can appreciate the difficulties and high costs of building subways in Manhattan, but how hard is it build a six stop extension in suburbia, where every station is surrounded by nothing? Heck, I think the subway probably could have went above ground north of Steeles. But I guess I'd might as well ask, why does it take so many years to finish the Dufferin station renovations, or for elevators to be installed at Lawrence West station, or for Presto to be implemented? I wouldn't be surprised if it takes half my life to build the DRL, assuming that we finally get around to building it in the first place.
 
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salsa said:
I can appreciate the difficulties and high costs of building subways in Manhattan, but how hard is it build a six stop extension in suburbia, where every station is surrounded by nothing? Heck, I think the subway probably could have went above ground north of Steeles. But I guess I'd might as well ask, why does it take so many years to finish the Dufferin station renovations, or for elevators to be installed at Lawrence West station, or for Presto to be implemented? I wouldn't be surprised if it takes half my life to build the DRL, assuming that we finally get around to building it in the first place.
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if you are over 50, you probably won't live to see that happening. 40, maybe.
 
ksun said:
Can you find anywhere else where it is as slow (and cost more)?
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New York City. London. Montreal. Bangkok. Seoul. Just off the top of my head ...

The big issue for Spadina is that contractors are behind schedule. The contractors blame their subcontractors. The subcontractors could try and work more hours and catch-up, but they want more money. TTC won't pay contractor more money. Contractor is better off taking penalties than paying subcontractor more money.

This kind of stuff pretty much happens everywhere, unless you make the penalties being put in a prison-camp in a military dictatorship, rather than just cash penalties!
 
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