ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[Canard]

As I indicated earlier it turns out this is temporary (at Quiet Place) and will be fixed up.

[tomh009]

I think the suggestion is that the structure of a P3 increases the odds of certain details being missed and the resolution potentially being unsatisfactory. Does the contractor go back to the Region and point these out, or do they just build to spec?

You build to spec. Usually, that's where the quickest, easiest money is. And then if they want it changed, it's a change order that needs to happen, and that's a lot more money than trying to bring it up with the Region and only getting paid to build the right thing, instead of the wrong thing, then take it down, then do the right thing. My experience with this comes from a relative who manages some of the big construction companies in the GGHA, and the money is always available because government contract writers never know all the details or their impacts, but if you're party to conversations with the builders, they'll be able to tell you months or years in advance of a shovel hitting the ground just what is wrong with what they're too happy to be paid to do, and how much it will cost to undo and redo it after the fact, and the profits it gives them. This is not to suggest that they are a bunch of bad people, just that they are in the business of making money, and any dollar you leave on the table to be taken, they will do their best to get it, whatever the optics of the means to that end might be.

However, this is exactly the same scenario for, say, SIXO or Charlie West as well: they will contract out the construction, and the company will build it to spec.  Unless you have your own construction company, or you're willing to do it on a time-and-materials basis, you need to spec out the work that needs to be done.  There is no inherent reason why the city or the region should not be able to manage this as well as Momentum or Zevest does.

[danbrotherston]

@tom009. To play devils advocate this project is at least an order of magnitude greater complexity and speciality (lots of firms build buildings few build LRTs). It is not unreasonable for this to lead to an order of magnitude more flaws in the spec.

Further we don't know how many or how few flaws a private firm ends up dealing with. Even for the LRT we only know the particularly public ones.

[timc]

I went past Northfield station today and saw that the tactile edge has been installed. It does indeed have contrasting colour to line up with the doors. I didn't have my phone or I would have taken a picture.

[Canard]

Woo-hoo for tactile edges!  The next step is to see what the final platform finish actually looks and feels like!  Then the shelters can go up, too.

More super-safe barriers going up in weird locations.  We were driving home and went down Courtland to see what was up.  Got to Courtland and Shelley... and while stopped at the red light we realized there was a barrier... on our right.  Blocking what, at first, I thought was traffic on Shelley.  Turns out it just blocks the pedestrians!  This is so weird!  I mean, I know why - there's no refuge between the road (Courtland) and the tracks, so technically you'd want to stop/block anyone from potentially crossing if a train is coming.  But can you imagine the optics if you're driving down Shelley, have a green light, and then suddenly this barrier starts going off and blocks only the sidewalk??

Crude map below:

   

Blue: ion Rapidway/Tracks
Yellow: Pedestrian Crosswalk/Path
Red: Arm locations

Some quick shots of the Anchor Wall at Fairway:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Some photos of the Anchor Wall at Fairway terminus. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wrLRT?src=hash">#wrLRT</a> <a href="https://t.co/Ey47G7c3tn">pic.twitter.com/Ey47G7c3tn</a></p>&mdash; iain (@Canardiain) <a href="https://twitter.com/Canardiain/status/860982825352400897">May 6, 2017</a></blockquote>

Also, the entire centre portion of the rapidway, from Kitchener Market station all the way South to Eby St., has been completely torn up!  It looks horrible!  I wonder what they forgot to add??  Again, benefit of P3 is this makes no difference to us... but the optics of it look terrible.

[timc]

Also, the entire centre portion of the rapidway, from Kitchener Market station all the way South to Eby St., has been completely torn up!  It looks horrible!  I wonder what they forgot to add??  Again, benefit of P3 is this makes no difference to us... but the optics of it look terrible.

That's where the redditor was commenting about $2 million, right?

[Canard]

I'm afraid I don't know what that is in reference to...

[timc]

It was mentioned in this thread a few pages back. The reddit post is here (warning: may cause increased blood pressure):

https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comme...s_cameron/

[Viewfromthe42]

I went past Northfield station today and saw that the tactile edge has been installed. It does indeed have contrasting colour to line up with the doors. I didn't have my phone or I would have taken a picture.

So a tactile edge...to help the visually impaired...helps guide you to the doors with...colour differentiation? 

[danbrotherston]

I went past Northfield station today and saw that the tactile edge has been installed. It does indeed have contrasting colour to line up with the doors. I didn't have my phone or I would have taken a picture.

So a tactile edge...to help the visually impaired...helps guide you to the doors with...colour differentiation? 

Many people who are visually impaired can still see if given sufficiently high contrast and low resolution things to see.  

[Viewfromthe42]

It's true that there is a majority of visually impaired people who are not fully without sight, but why wouldn't you go the extra mile to cover them too by having one texture for edge of platform (bumps), and another for door locations (raised grooves which extended a bit farther from the edge than the bumps)?

[KevinL]

I wouldn't be surprised if the strip has both contrasting colour AND texture. We'll have to wait on a close-up look, though.

[PhilippAchtel]

From the Toronto Star article linked above:

An inability to co-ordinate a global production line.

Car parts are supposed to be mass produced to a standard so they can be fit together easily, but so many pieces have been delivered in non-standard sizes and shapes that a TTC engineer characterized the assembly of vehicles in Thunder Bay as being “hand-built.” A factory worker characterized it more bluntly: “They take f---ing hammers and they smash the steel into shape, like it’s a f---ing dwarves’ forge.”

[Canard]

Relax - only one of our trains was built in Thunder Bay. The rest come from Millhaven, which is quite capable of putting together complex, precision equipment. Thunder Bay does well with the giant heavy clunky stuff.

Worst comes to worst, they'll send 501 up to Millhaven once we get the other 13 to have them strip it down and rebuild it properly. Not unheard of in the industry.

[KevinL]

The comment was stated in Thunder Bay, yes, but it was describing how they had to rework parts from Mexico.

Are our large welded metal parts also coming from Mexico?