ehlow
Senior Member
Agreed, I was just attempting to be tongue in cheek. Although, some people might get a more direct answer to whatever questions straight from Metrolinx if they go.
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Agreed, I was just attempting to be tongue in cheek. Although, some people might get a more direct answer to whatever questions straight from Metrolinx if they go.
Palma
Senior Member
You have got to be joking. Is this what it really means? I wonder if the ECLRT office is contacted, would they admit thats what happened.
BurlOak
Senior Member
Who really cares about the EA. The tunnelling is the critical path on the whole line anyway. There would still be time to do a full EA on a bridge widening to accommodate a south side LRT and elevated track, and construct the bridge and elevated portion - and it would have no effect on the schedule. The problem is that the Contractor has already been hired for the tunnelling and extra would have to be paid to switch to the simpler plan.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
They don't reply... ever. Don't bother calling them either. They'll just make up some bs
Your post terrified me. For a second I thought this was a cave in on the ECLRT and that the TBM tracker that we initially thought was wrong was actually correct.
Hiring you is absolutely critical for the success of ECLRT. I can’t believe they haven’t hired you. Metrolinx is full of idiots.
Really? We couldn’t tell... *my tongue is firmly embedded in my cheek*
Johnny Au
Superstar
They should. They chose the wrong people to update the TBM tracker.
salsa
Senior Member
Noticed that. And turned south at Keele. Start of the western DRL instead
You should know by now that transit plans in this city change on a monthly basis.
BurlOak
Senior Member
It is always changeable. If it becomes an election issue, maybe they would change their minds. Similar thing as the when the SRT was changed to the B-D extension. Its a little later in the game, but as long as construction has not started (or progressed much), it can still be changed and the change cost would be significantly less than the extra paid (planned) for the B-D extension.
Lets say its $50M extra to move the portal 10 m south. That is just the cost of doing business with the current government that always seems to do the wrong thing. It is actually a good deal compared to what was wasted on e-Health, Gas Plants, Green Energy, S/LRT cancellation, etc.
Monarch Butterfly
Superstar
Noticed that. And turned south at Keele. Start of the western DRL instead
Finally, fixing the Keele Street missing link between St. Clair Avenue West and Rogers Road? But going the DRL direction was a surprise to me.
Little bit different of a circumstance compared to Eglinton though. Eglinton is using TBMs, which add the tunnel liners right afterwards. Ottawa is using mining equipment to dig a single, larger tunnel. Most of the tunnel length in Ottawa is through rock that is excellent for this type of excavation (over 10% of the tunnel length is dug already). It should be no surprise that the small length of tunnel that goes through an area known as "Sandy Hill" would cause some problems. The massive rain amounts we go overnight coupled with the recently dug tunnel were the likely culprit. If it had rained a week later, the tunnel would have been re-inforced, and this likely wouldn't have happened.
nfitz
Superstar
Good points.
This is also a downside with letting the lowest bidder to the engineering design of how the tunnel will be constructed, rather than designing it, and then letting the lowest bidder construct to a design. You increase the odds of a company doing a cheaper, but riskier, shortcut.
BurlOak
Senior Member
I would say the opposite. Unless they are incompetent, the lowest bidder for design will simply make a bunch of super expensive assumptions that drive up constructions costs. A engineering firm does not want the liability, they would much rather have the owner pay a huge amount extra to limit their own liability.
It is probably the Contractor (constructor) who will take the cheaper and riskier options since the money comes from (or savings go to) their own pockets. And if something does go wrong, they still have the ability to blame an ambiguous design so they may not be blamed for any mishap.
nfitz
Superstar
You assume the engineer is ethical and competent. The engineer is SNC-Lavalin, who time-and-time again, in countries around the world, especially in Canada, have been caught bribing officials, among other things.
In some cases, yes you're right. I don't think that was the case here though. I honestly just think it was less than ideal soil conditions + a vulnerable stage of the tunnelling + bad weather that exaggerated the bad soil conditions. The point where the sinkhole occurred is only a few metres away from where the tunnel portal is, so the tunnel is still very shallow at that point.
They did know that there were going to be soil problems though. The original design for the tunnel had an underground station at UOttawa, but the portal was pushed back to Laurier (with a surface station at UOttawa instead) because the geotechnical report said that the area around UOttawa was unsuitable for tunnelling. Despite pushing the portal back, they still had about 100m of "Sandy Hill" to dig through before they hit the more favourable rock that's present under the rest of downtown.
howl
Active Member
I suspect the problem with the TBM tacker is that they can't use an automatic GIS signal or anything to know where the machines are. Only the contractor underground knows exactly where they are, and they might not want to report the exact locations too regularly. I suspect Metrolinx gets a weekly or bi-weekly update from the contractor which is then used to update the tracker.
TheTigerMaster
Superstar
Why wouldn't the contractor want to update the locations?