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well we are now getting it, so stop complaining. you should be happy that it is coming, not complaining that it took so long. NYC is still lacking cell service on the vast majority of it's network, Montreal is in the process of getting it, Boston only got it last year, and Los angeles is still only considering it. The only North American system's I could find with full cell coverage were Vancouver and Chicago, but Chicago is only fully covered because the network is entirely above ground, and vancouver only has it because it's main underground line is 3 years old, not 59 like ours.

back to E condos.
 
innsertnamehere said:
too bad our dream system would cost 100 billion dollars. which in case you haven't noticed, isn't exactly lying around in people's pockets. Yes, in a dream world we would get a DRL, Queen Line, Sheppard line, and Eglinton line, as well as fast, frequent urban rail (think: S-Bahn), but in reality we can't do that without spending ourselves to death. Toronto's GDP is currently around $260 billion, and that is for the entire region. If you were to build a subway network that reached every end of the city, you could easily spend 100% of that. The current plan is for $2 billion a year to be put towards transit, about 0.7% of the GDP. We would get some new subway lines, where the ridership numbers don't allow for anything else (Yonge Extension, DRL) and LRT in other spots. (Hurontario, Hamilton) then we would get S-Bahn style service on the lakeshore GO corridor, with all day 2 way service like currently on the lakeshore corridor brought to the Stouffville, Barrie, and Kitchener lines. We would also receive 86km of BRT.

Put simply, as nice as it would be to have a subway to your front door, it is simply not realistic to expect that when they cost 350 million dollars a km to construct.
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seems the problem lies in costs, a significant part of which is labour.

How about this: instead of hiring the expensive union workers who work 4 hours a day with 5 coffee breaks, we hire cheaper labour from China and India, who actually work 8-10 hours a day to do the work. In this way the project can be done for 1/3 of the cost within half the time.

RBC did just that. Don't see why Metrolinx can't.
Yeah, people will stream "Canadian jobs", but if it saves $50 billion and 10 years of time, it is worth it.
 
too bad subways still cost $250 million a km even with that sort of near-slave labour... the majority of subway costs go into engineering, which you can't cheap out on, and sheer material costs. it takes a lot of money to ship away enough dirt to fill the ACC to the height of the CN tower, and to build subways stops while traffic still runs above them.
 
innsertnamehere said:
too bad subways still cost $250 million a km even with that sort of near-slave labour... the majority of subway costs go into engineering, which you can't cheap out on, and sheer material costs. it takes a lot of money to ship away enough dirt to fill the ACC to the height of the CN tower, and to build subways stops while traffic still runs above them.
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I don't know why you call that near-slave labour. Apparently anything less than what our union workers enjoy is slave labour. It is a catch phraseI hear too often which usually means little.
Our union workers make more money than some assistant professors, who hold Phd degrees, not because they have high skills, but because they belong to a union. Unions are like monopolis such as Rogers and Air Canada. They exist for the sheer reason of charging higher prices than they deserve.

I agree with you much of the cost comes from engineering. I was involved in quite a few major infrastructure projects in Ontario, and it is amazing how much tax payers money is wasted on a daily basis in all those "engineering work" - the government hire all sorts of "experts" and "consultants" for $300 an hour talking and producing reports going nowhere. So let's not pretend that just because the cost relates to "engineering", it is good money spent. The invisible corruption here is shocking.

Building subways is supposed to be expensive and time-consuming, but not this expensive and time consuming. There is some major systematic flaw and inefficiency that is burning our money every minute.
 
when you say to bring over people from china, I expect that you want to pay them just as much as they were paid in china, or around 35 cents an hour. that is near slave labour..

and completely agreed AlbertC
 
AlbertC said:
It's becoming quite cliche and nostalgic isn't it, Chinese people > building railways? lol
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I was in no intention of reincarnating that kind of slave labour.
Theoretically, hire some foreign labour who will be more than happy to earn half of what our union construction workers do, and they will work twice as efficiently.

I normally wouldn't propose that as it takes local jobs. However, it is not some call centers of banks. Toronto's future depends on such projects, and we all know we can't do it only because of the cost. If there is a way to do it for half the price for a much shorter time, why not? So it comes at the cost of union jobs, but the benefits for the city clearly outweighs it.
 
junior43 said:
So you have to walk 3 or 5 mintues to walk to the subway, yet you want residents in Scarborough to run to a center median in the midddle of Eglinton Road in winter to deal with splashing slush and outdoor temps - and you expect this to get anyone out of their car??????

On top of that, you want a DRL, because the two or three subways at minimum that people have access to in the core, isn't enough. And yet you wonder why the suburbs vote for Ford?????
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First there is only one subway line that goes in to "the core", and the downtown does have a dense and similar population to the entirety of scarborough. There is another that bypassess the core. The reason why scarberians vote for ford is because he promises tax relief with no strings attached and represents a small town mentality that many seem to be able to relate too if their main concern in life is their current pocketbook with little regard for the future or wellbeing of the city as a whole. Second, I don't think anyone wants scarborough residents to walk to a median in the middle of a road if they don't have too, this isn't an us vs them situation, and thinking that way I believe very strongly, is counter-productive. The costs of putting in heavy rail underground in a sparsely built up area, with a small population to support something that intense, will be a major major loss for that subway line for decades to come, espcially with the low rise nature (maybe preferred low rise mind set too?) of the area that won't likely be changing for a good couple decades regardless of the type of public transit that is put in in many areas of scarborough. With the frequency and timing the LRT's will be on, doubtful that anyone will be standing out in the cold for all that long, plus hey, dress warmly and its not soo bad. Personally I love it when its -20, layering can work out well. Anyway sorry totally off topic I know.

In regards to this build, in the end 58 or 64 makes no real difference, we will have a few more 50+ storey towers going in the area Im sure in the years to come as well as I hope, many many midrises along the major roads. TTC lands being a prime spot I would think for the taller towers.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
when you say to bring over people from china, I expect that you want to pay them just as much as they were paid in china, or around 35 cents an hour. that is near slave labour..

and completely agreed AlbertC
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Construction workers in China don't make 35 cents an hour. You just pull that number out of your feet because it is China it must be dirt cheap when you have absolutely no idea about that country. Construction workers for major projects in Shanghai for example make $1000-1200 a month, for your information. Group leaders may make $1500 a month.

It is clearly NOT "slave labour" as you arragantly suggested.

Honestly, do you really think Chinese cities are dirt cheap? Try to visit Shanghai and you will be surprised how expensive it is and how much money people actually make. China's wage increased by double digits every year for more than a decade, and much of your stereotype about it no longer holds a long time ago. For example, a cleaning lady makes $1 an hour in 2004. Now it is more like $2.5-3 an hour.
 
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bleu said:
Do we really expect people to wait for a streetcar or bus for 15 minutes in the winter?
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But they do. You'd think on a very snow day, you'd have less users on transit - but I often find that it's busier, with people who seldom taking transit, not driving those days.

And on those cold snowy, minus -20 mornings - why spend 5 minutes clearing and scraping the car, rather than just walking to a stop.

And why WOULD most wait 15 minutes outside in the winter anymore? With Nextbus, etc., you know exactly when the bus will get to your stop, so you don't need to leave the house if it's not coming.
 
bleu said:
How about this: instead of hiring the expensive union workers who work 4 hours a day with 5 coffee breaks, we hire cheaper labour from China and India, who actually work 8-10 hours a day to do the work. In this way the project can be done for 1/3 of the cost within half the time.
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Given the history of Chinese railroad workers in Canada, I would advise you to be very careful with that suggestion. I know you weren't trying to suggest anything racist, but still.
 
I do agree that labor costs need to be reduced. Bringing in some American workers to compete with Canadian unions would be a good idea. Don't know how viable it would be politically though.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I do agree that labor costs need to be reduced. Bringing in some American workers to compete with Canadian unions would be a good idea. Don't know how viable it would be politically though.
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Hmmm. Considering the blowback RBC just got on bringing in temporaray foreign workers, I think the optics of a government funded project being done by foreign workers would be a very tough sell.

Maybe a workfare type thing, where unemployed people are given priority on hiring would work, but I can't see any foreigners being brought in to do the work.
 
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