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Transit City: Sheppard East Debate

If something is budgeted for 9500 person-years, most people would think that's equivalent to, say, 950 people working a regular schedule for 10 years.. not 950 people working 24/7... it's not a useful measure.
Either way, I'm sure the actual project manager budgets in hours worked because that's how things are charged. And 9500 person years still seems much too high.
 
You know, I've been critical of the whole LRT scheme from the beginning but I think I've changed my mind. If someone is pushing the initiative go for it. None of these transit improvements no matter what they are will have any impact on my quality of life. Funding, while it may seem to be a zero sum game is not. Money just flows to the squeeky wheel. If funding was not being allocated to this project it wouldn't go elsewhere, it would simply just not exist. So I wish anyone who stands to benefit from the initiative well and if it turns out to be a boondoggle, well it won't be our first and it won't be our last. Human civilization was built on boondoggles.
 
I would challenge that kind of laissez faire thinking, Tdot. For one, it will have an impact on your life, however indirect or small. If the subway were logically extended past its current point, the whole subway network, whether you live at Lansdowne station or Glencairn, would have gained in accessibility value.

You are right about funding, though. It's all about the squeaky wheel and then money magically appears. Why not spend more money, then, on a subway?

Finally, the problem with planning a project for the future is that we will never know how things might have played out if we would have done the alternative. We're going to build that streetcar now, and the corridor and its surrounding area will grow and develop according to what a streetcar allows. We won't think of what kind of city we might have in a parallel universe where a subway was constructed; we won't think about what could have happened.
 
Hipster Duck said:
You are right about funding, though. It's all about the squeaky wheel and then money magically appears. Why not spend more money, then, on a subway?
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Money doesn't appear magically. The government needs to determine how messed up they are willing to make their budget. Revenues are falling and they need to figure out how much of a deficit they are willing to create. Squeaky wheels may set priorities but, unless the finance minister doesn't care less about debt management, it will not set the value of the total value of the federal or provincial budget. I'm not sure the provincial government or federal government is willing to go to the polls on a "no balanced budget in the foreseeable future but hey we got a subway" platform, a "taxes are going up for a subway" platform, or a "no {insert project name} projects in {insert list of ridings here} because we spent it on a subway" platform. There is a limited amount of money if the government is managing its finances properly.
 
Swarley said:
If something is budgeted for 9500 person-years, most people would think that's equivalent to, say, 950 people working a regular schedule for 10 years.. not 950 people working 24/7... it's not a useful measure.
Either way, I'm sure the actual project manager budgets in hours worked because that's how things are charged. And 9500 person years still seems much too high.
Click to expand...

If 9500 years of salaries are paid on this budget, then each person is making $105,263 a year :cool:
 
EnviroTO said:
Money doesn't appear magically. The government needs to determine how messed up they are willing to make their budget. Revenues are falling and they need to figure out how much of a deficit they are willing to create. Squeaky wheels may set priorities but, unless the finance minister doesn't care less about debt management, it will not set the value of the total value of the federal or provincial budget. I'm not sure the provincial government or federal government is willing to go to the polls on a "no balanced budget in the foreseeable future but hey we got a subway" platform, a "taxes are going up for a subway" platform, or a "no {insert project name} projects in {insert list of ridings here} because we spent it on a subway" platform. There is a limited amount of money if the government is managing its finances properly.
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This project may have a pricetag less than a subway project, but what are we even getting for a billion dollars here? No predicted ridership increases of any note, no real travel time improvements for much of the corridor compared to what existing buses can do, no frequency improvements...who gains other than people who want to see the bus replaced with something else? It's still an entire billion dollars that 'could have been spent elsewhere.'
 
EnviroTO said:
It should be continuous for it to be valuable. It makes it easier to estimate the affects of throwing more or less human resources at a project and the impacts of holidays, vacations, overtime, etc.
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EnviroTO said:
I guess some organizations are using "person years" to indicate one full time equivalent. Of course with some people having more holidays than others that becomes an even less valuable unit.
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they should just use hours (job X will create Y hours of work to build). it seems that all these figures thrown around are not really that accurate because they depend on what the person actually means when they say them. too many variables.



you can create 9500 person years of work (jobs) but it doesn't mean that 9500 people are gonna be employed in a job.

figures can be deceiving. saying 9500 jobs will be created can mean alot of different thing.
 
Prometheus The Supremo said:
they should just use hours (job X will create Y hours of work to build). it seems that all these figures thrown around are not really that accurate because they depend on what the person actually means when they say them. too many variables.
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Agreed. Units above hours add too many variables (hours worked per day, breaks, length of work week, holiday, vacation, sick, etc.)
 
kettal said:
It always is. The order of the day was let's start construction on something ready to go now. And for a make-work project, it's not half bad :)
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It isn't always...many transit projects are not silly wastes. This is a complete waste of a billion dollars that solves no problems and improves nothing. The only component that isn't a stupid waste of money is the grade separation of the Sheppard-Stouffville GO crossing. Every other dollar spent on the project might as well have been used to light cigars.
 
W. K. Lis said:
Harper had announced in the news conference for the Sheppard East LRT that the vehicles for the LRT's will be from Bombardier. The TTC had earlier last month said that the LRV’s for Transit City is an option if Bombardier gets the streetcar order.

Chicken or egg? Why announce that the federal government will help buy the option order first before the initial order?
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Aren't the Transit City streetcars an option in the current unfunded Bombardier order?

Presumably then, they all know that someone the Bombardier LRT project will be funded somehow by end of June. But no point announcing it yet, as they'll get another photo-op out of it at another location; which may be in the Feds best interest, if an election is coming.

Hopefully the federal government doesn't fall before then ...
 
Prometheus The Supremo said:
but does person years factor in holidays, weekends, sleep time, breaks, etc. or does it mean continuous work without stop until project completion?
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Yes it takes those breaks into account. And quite often those breaks are exaggerated (to save enough time to 'create' another job) and the probability of overtime minimized resulting in inflation of the estimates of jobs created.

kettal said:
If 9500 years of salaries are paid on this budget, then each person is making $105,263 a year :cool:
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Your estimate includes the cost of raw materiel, land acquisition, and other costs that do not necessarily create or sustain employment. Nevertheless, jobs derived from infrastructure spending are expensive. Just think of how much construction workers, engineers, LRV assembly plant workers get paid. Skilled labour is expensive.
 
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