So the budget went up from some $7 billion to $9 billion. Okay, it’s an increase, and CDPQi very likely lowballed the initial budget, and delayed by 2 years due to pandemic (and YUL / ADM funding issues for the terminal station at YUL).
Listen, we all get that you're a member of the REM and CPPQI fan club, and I am not.
We can have different takes, to a point.
But you come very close to being outright misleading with yours.
Lets start with timeline. The base project, with CPPQ involvement was announced in January....2015. By the time it wraps...........it will have been at least 11.5 years.
If you measure from the initially announced construction date, it began December 2017, so 8.5 years.
if you measure from the actual start of construction, that was April 2018, which would see it about 8 years, if there are no further delays.
Finally, the initial opening date was July 31st, 2023.
Measured from the actual ground breaking date, construction was supposed to have lasted 5 years, 3 months.
If the line completes in April '26 it will be 2 years and 9 months late; which is an increase of 2 years 9 months which is a 49% overrun/delay.
****
On budget. The final version of the project, from 2017 was publicly announced at 5.9B in cost.
By groundbreaking in April '18, 10 months later, pre-pandemic, the cost had risen to 6.5B
The current estimated budget is 9.4B an increase from the Jun 2017 date of 3.5B an increase of 59%!
But let’s be realistic, it’s still a far cry from the traditional P3 project where the budget would likely be something like $10 billion (with a very large contingency fund that likely gets all used up), ends up being $16 billion, and then 5 years + delayed, just because why not. We have a very real case of this playing out in front of our eyes in the form of Eglinton where it blew past original budget of $5.3 billion (which is already a mind boggling budget on a per km basis compared to global standards for a glorified streetcar line) to now some $12-13 billion, and 5+ years delayed and counting.
REM re-used existing rail corridor for the most part, including an existing tunnel, only a small amount of net new ROW was required. But you must consider the impact to existing or then existing commuter rail service to be removed.
The net gain is not as large as you would make it out to be, in any event a comparison to a line
I'm more than happy to rip the province and Metrolinx over Eglinton Crosstown. But just to point this out.
Assuming (big if)
it opens by year end, the project will completed ~ 5 years late; on a construction schedule of ~ 9 years (broke ground October '2011) or 55% overrun.
On budget,
the Crosstown construction tender was 9.1B the current estimated budget which I will be the first to put a big asterisk beside) is 12.8B that's an overage of 238B that's an overage of 40.6%
Overall comparison as follows:
Project Name: Percent delayed Percent over budget
REM 49% 59%
Crosstown 55% 40.6%
Maybe CDPQi never meant to keep the original budget, but in the end, I’d take a $9 billion project that covers an entire 67 km transit NETWORK anyday of the week over a $13-$17 billion single line at grade LRT that is still going to end up being late regardless.
The optics may not look pretty to our media - but REM by all accounts is still (even if over budget) one of the “cheapest” rapid transit projects on a per KM basis in North America ($118-$140 mil / km VS. $670 mil / km for Eglinton VS. god knows how much for Ontario Line).
Not a legitimate comparison in either case
Crosstown was an entirely new corridor, there was no existing commuter line to reuse it has 10km of brand new tunnel. Building the line elevated was never an option through the tunneled stretch.
The Ontario Line had no existing tunnel to re-use either, its 9km of new tunnel, there is only about 3km shared with the existing GO Lines with an elevated guideway and 3 bridges, 2 significant making up the balance
