04-22-2023, 09:58 PM
So...I'm just thinking up how much of a waste of money this may all be. I mean everything: the Kitchener-Waterloo line and the Cambridge line. Obviously we could not have predicted the pandemic which threw the world economy into chaos, but that doesn't matter now since it happened and construction costs have gone up. But anyway, I got thinking about Toronto.
Our first LRT line cost just under 1 billion dollars. Take that and add it to the 4.5 billion for the Cambridge line. That's 5.5 billion. There'd obviously be overruns on the final cost, however, but I doubt it'd exceed 6 billion though who knows with the people we have running things...
We probably could have built an entire damn full fledged metro system for that price. To save money it could have even been something like a premetro system that could have utilized underground and surface level tracks, but using the same old LRT rolling stock we have now as we do not require full fledged heavy rail subway/metro cars.
I mean look at recent TTC projects for comparison. The Line 1 Yonge-Unversity subway was extended to add 6 stations, with construction concluding in 2017. That was in a heavily dense section of the city, requiring very deep tunnels and immense amount of engineering and construction. In total it cost only 3.2 billion dollars. The entire Line 4 Sheppard subway - 5 stations - was built for less than 1 billion! Less than 1 billion dollars for a subway that even used tunnel boring machines, the first time in Canadian history, no less. So Toronto/TTC managed to extend one of Canada's busiest and oldest subway lines and construct a new one for less money that what an LRT line to Cambridge will cost us. Apparently it's cheaper to build underground subway tunnels in Canada's biggest and most expensive city than it is to build a couple concrete and steel bridges (which is extremely damn easy to do) here in Waterloo Region. What gives?
Now let's imagine we fast forward to 2040 by the time the Cambridge line opens. We'll have spent no less than about 6 billion dollars. And what will we have to show for it by then? A crappy, slow LRT that only has enough capacity to run 2 coupled LRVs maximum and headways (someone correct me if I'm wrong here) no better than something like 4.5 minutes. We'll have outgrown it by then, since by 2040 we're statistically projected to have 1 million people living here. Can you imagine if Toronto spent 5 to 6 billion dollars on a rapid transit system that wasn't even underground or at least fully grade separated in some way, could only run 2 pieces of rolling stock together, had a headway of 5ish minutes at best and crawled along its city streets, getting stuck at red lights? The public would be livid.
I want an LRT to Cambridge. I think the opinions of the citizens there are not seeing the value in it, though many do and kudos to them. I want to see it evolve the city and connect it to the rest of the region. But for 4.5 billon dollars...I don't know. I think we're basically getting ripped off by a million different contracted companies with these construction estimates. Maybe construction costs will come down at some point, but I don't think it'll be for many years as we figure out a post-pandemic world. Maybe we just need to wait a while, but who knows. The leadership here is some of the absolute worst I've experienced in my life and I've lived in many different cities/countries and have been able to enjoy the bureaucracy elsewhere. But here...the way both so many citizens and politicians think here makes it feel like I'm in some hillbilly town rather than one of the G7's most prosperous nations in one of its most rapidly growing and important cities.
Our first LRT line cost just under 1 billion dollars. Take that and add it to the 4.5 billion for the Cambridge line. That's 5.5 billion. There'd obviously be overruns on the final cost, however, but I doubt it'd exceed 6 billion though who knows with the people we have running things...
We probably could have built an entire damn full fledged metro system for that price. To save money it could have even been something like a premetro system that could have utilized underground and surface level tracks, but using the same old LRT rolling stock we have now as we do not require full fledged heavy rail subway/metro cars.
I mean look at recent TTC projects for comparison. The Line 1 Yonge-Unversity subway was extended to add 6 stations, with construction concluding in 2017. That was in a heavily dense section of the city, requiring very deep tunnels and immense amount of engineering and construction. In total it cost only 3.2 billion dollars. The entire Line 4 Sheppard subway - 5 stations - was built for less than 1 billion! Less than 1 billion dollars for a subway that even used tunnel boring machines, the first time in Canadian history, no less. So Toronto/TTC managed to extend one of Canada's busiest and oldest subway lines and construct a new one for less money that what an LRT line to Cambridge will cost us. Apparently it's cheaper to build underground subway tunnels in Canada's biggest and most expensive city than it is to build a couple concrete and steel bridges (which is extremely damn easy to do) here in Waterloo Region. What gives?
Now let's imagine we fast forward to 2040 by the time the Cambridge line opens. We'll have spent no less than about 6 billion dollars. And what will we have to show for it by then? A crappy, slow LRT that only has enough capacity to run 2 coupled LRVs maximum and headways (someone correct me if I'm wrong here) no better than something like 4.5 minutes. We'll have outgrown it by then, since by 2040 we're statistically projected to have 1 million people living here. Can you imagine if Toronto spent 5 to 6 billion dollars on a rapid transit system that wasn't even underground or at least fully grade separated in some way, could only run 2 pieces of rolling stock together, had a headway of 5ish minutes at best and crawled along its city streets, getting stuck at red lights? The public would be livid.
I want an LRT to Cambridge. I think the opinions of the citizens there are not seeing the value in it, though many do and kudos to them. I want to see it evolve the city and connect it to the rest of the region. But for 4.5 billon dollars...I don't know. I think we're basically getting ripped off by a million different contracted companies with these construction estimates. Maybe construction costs will come down at some point, but I don't think it'll be for many years as we figure out a post-pandemic world. Maybe we just need to wait a while, but who knows. The leadership here is some of the absolute worst I've experienced in my life and I've lived in many different cities/countries and have been able to enjoy the bureaucracy elsewhere. But here...the way both so many citizens and politicians think here makes it feel like I'm in some hillbilly town rather than one of the G7's most prosperous nations in one of its most rapidly growing and important cities.